Nam-A-Rama

by Phillip Jennings

  Gearheardt keyed his mike as soon as I finished. “Captain Armstrong has a tendency under pressure to speak in sarcastic tones, Gunny. I don’t think our situation is quite so, so—”

  “Fucked up?” I suggested.

  “You really are getting negative, Jack. It’s not becoming for an officer in the Marine Corps. And you seem to be wanting to take your anxietal anger out on me. Your best friend and the one that saved your career from going down the tubes on that excessive masturbation charge.”

  “YOU WERE THE ONE THAT MADE UP THE DAMN CHARGE, GEARHEARDT. YOU SILLY BAS—”

  “Captains! Could you stop the bickering for a minute and discuss what we might do? I assume that turning around and heading back to Danang is out of the question?”

  Gearheardt was calm, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Probably not a good idea, Gunny. There were two or three dozen fighters trying to shoot us down when we left.”

  Mr. Voice of Reason. I hated him.

  “Sounds like we’re headed for Hanoi then, Captain. Well, if it’s any help, I speak Vietnamese.”

  Tears came to my eyes at hearing any good news. “That’s great, Gunny! I didn’t realize you’d been to language school.”

  “Haven’t, Captain Armstrong. But I’ve lived outside of Danang in a whorehouse for the last couple of years. You pick it up.”

  “Well then, okay. I mean that’s great. Look, gents, I need to think this through. Give me a minute here.” Having an interpreter was a definite advantage, but I needed to think through a plan. Gearheardt’s idea was to always just push ahead and see what happened.

  “Well, at least we have an interpreter, Jack.” Gearheardt was happy again. It didn’t take much.

  “Yep. Now when they have us upside down and they’re starting to pour hot lead down our assholes, we’ll be able to understand that they’re saying ‘Now this may hurt.’”

  “You’re a pessimist, Jack. I never knew that about you.”

  “Please, Gearheardt. Let me think for a moment. Let’s have at least some plan of action.”

  “I’ll go for that, Captain Armstrong,” Gunny Buckles said.

  I read and reread the remains of the package that had contained our instructions. The addresses of contacts, their names, their affiliations. I had a French map of Hanoi, and I plotted the addresses on the map, using code in case the map fell into communist hands. For example, if the name was ‘Lars,’ the address was marked four blocks away from the actual location. It wasn’t a brilliant plan, but in a helicopter offshore from North Vietnam with a couple of hours of fuel remaining, you did what you could.

  “Gearheardt, you need to angle over nearer to the shore. I have to try to spot some kind of a landmark to get us situated on the map. We’ll need to skirt Haiphong. And forget your goofy plan to fly over the ships in the harbor and harass them with the loudspeakers. No, don’t give me that shit, I know that you wanted to do that. Anyway, if my calculations are right, we should be getting close to the time we need to go ‘feet dry.’ You set, Gunny?”

  “If you mean am I set to head overland into North Vietnam, assuming that’s what ‘feet dry’ means, I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Do you want me manning this M-60 down here, Captain?”

  “Absolutely,” said Gearheardt.

  “Not,” I added. “Gunny, we don’t have a high probability of pulling this off, and we don’t have the firepower to take on the North Vietnamese. I can’t see any benefit to pissing off any more folks by shooting at them as we fly over.” Gearheardt was pouting. “You understand, Gearheardt?”

  He clicked his mike twice.

  We were nearing the shoreline. Rain was making it fade in and out of our vision, but I saw a village on the north bank of a small river and was pretty sure I knew where we were. “Head in north of that village, Gearheardt.” He adjusted the turn and angled toward the shore, dropping down to five hundred feet above the water.

  “Gents, here’s the plan as I see it. I’m going to take us up this area here, all the way to this spot south of Hanoi. That way, we don’t get near any large towns, any major roads, anything that the North Vietnamese should feel they have to defend heavily. Then we land in this area wherever we can find a clearing and hide out until dark. It’s only about three miles from there to the neighborhood where Gon Norea lives. He’s noted as one of the most reliable of our agents. From there I’m not sure what we’ll do, but at least we can hole up, and maybe he can help us get to Ho Chi Minh. How does that sound?”

  “So far so good, Jack. But what about the folks looking for the chopper that is buzzing around the countryside? You think somebody might bother to report us? And then have a shitpot full of soldiers looking for us? What about that?”

  “You’re a pessimist, Gearheardt. I never knew that about you.”

  “Go to hell.” But he smiled. “But, seriously—”

  “I’m pretty sure that there will be an air strike scheduled for this afternoon. One more chopper buzzing around the countryside won’t be cause for extra searching. It isn’t a chance that we can avoid anyway.”

  “How about ditching it in the river?”

  “And fishing it out so that we could escape in it if we have to?”

  “Sounds dumb when you say it like that. It was the gunny’s idea, anyway.”

  “Leave me out of this, sirs. I’m down here pretending I’m not in the belly of a chopper about to head unarmed into North Vietnam and piloted by the Battling Bickersons.”

  “The Battling—?”

  “Never mind, Gearheardt. Remember, after the air strike we have the famous—”

  “The Parachuting Pussy! I had almost forgotten.”

  “The what?”

  “Never mind, Gunny. We’ll explain it later. Right now we’re about thirty seconds from ‘feet dry’ and the beginning of my plan to get us into Hanoi undetected.”

  And about thirty-five seconds before they shot us down.

  17 • North Vietnam in Your Undies

  “Well, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into, Gearheardt!”

  “Hold on, boys. I’m putting her down in the rice paddies. YeeeeeHaaw!”

  We had seen the tracers at the same time we heard a loud thunk up and behind us in the transmission area and multiple clangs in the engine compartment in front of us. You can screw around with engine trouble for quite a while, but we both knew that if you took damage in the transmission you were flying a Volkswagen. The instrument panel lit up and I smelled burning fluid. The engine coughed and the nose began to swing to the right and I knew that we were ground bound. Gearheardt almost did his usual masterful job of guiding us to a gentle landing. At the last minute the engine coughed and quit. The chopper lurched and threw my head against the radio panel. I must have blacked out for an instant, then I heard the M-60 crank off a long stream and knew the gunny didn’t need instructions from us.

  “Hey, Mom, I’m home!” was the last thing I heard from Gearheardt before we tore off our helmets and headed out the cockpit windows. Squatting in the rice paddy I saw a group of folks running along a paddy dike carrying weapons.

  “Okay, this doesn’t look good,” I said. I had my PPK in my hand, but it gave little comfort. I remembered my mother’s caution—never squat in a rice paddy in North Vietnam.

  The Vietnamese hit the deck as the gunny searched for them with. another burst from the M-60. Then it was quiet.

  “What now, pal?” I asked my squat-mate.

  “We rush them,” Gearheardt replied, as if answering an annoying child.

  I grabbed his arm as he duck-walked by me, heading to the other side of the chopper.

  “We what?”

  “You got a better idea? We need to take the offensive. It pisses me off that these little bastards shot us down and now run out here like they owned the joint.”

  I wouldn’t let go of his arm. “Gearheardt, we just flew an armed chopper …” But then I realized that it wouldn’t do any good to point out the obv
ious to Gearheardt. He was in his “We’re American Marines” mode.

  “Jack, if these guys had jack-shit they’d be all over us by now. I think they’re just poorly armed villagers, probably as scared as we are.”

  “They’re all pissing their pants then.”

  Gearheardt smiled and patted my hand before he pried it off his arm.

  “You’ll never make Almost Captain with that attitude, Jack.”

  He stood up and told the gunny to fire a long burst in the direction of the men crouching behind the paddy dike.

  “Let’s go, Jack.” He began running toward the dike, shouting and firing his pistol. I followed, as always, shouting and firing, thinking briefly for the hundredth time how much safer my life would be if I shot Gearheardt instead. Naturally, Gearheardt tripped and fell, leaving me running, shouting and shooting wildly all by myself, now almost more embarrassed than scared.

  The villagers dropped their weapons and stood on the paddy dike, even more embarrassed than I was as I stopped in front of them. They were the original motley crew. Six of them—four pre-teens and two with prostate trouble—stared at me and the approaching Gearheardt with hateful faces. Their discarded weapons lay at their feet, an AK-47 with a broken stock and bent clip, a flintlock rifle last seen in the hands of a Pilgrim, a club, a pistol, two spears, and a baseballsized rock still in the hands of the oldest warrior. He threw it and hit Gearheardt in the chest.

  “Ouch.” Gearheardt rubbed the spot and kicked the rock away. It rolled near the ancient one, who picked it up and threw it at Gearheardt again, hitting him in the arm.

  “Damn it. Knock it off,” Gearheardt said. He pointed his finger at the old man, who promptly pointed his finger at Gearheardt.

  “That guy is pissing me off, Jack.”

  “He’s an old man, Gearheardt. And we’ve just invaded his village. Give him a break. What do we do now?”

  “First we find the weapon in the village they must have used to knock us down. It wasn’t any of this crap,” he said, motioning toward the hardware on the ground.

  The gunny arrived carrying the M-60.

  “Ask them if there are regular troops in the area, Gunny,” I said.

  I felt vulnerable in the rice paddy. Five hundred yards away, I saw what appeared to be the huts of the village. The quiet was as suffocating as the smell. In the distance I saw misty hills.

  “Nggh, noying luga luga nihg nygeegoegg?” the gunny asked.

  The old man began a rhapsody of Vietnamese, spittle and gibberish flying in all directions as he waved his arms and made every gesture but the peace sign.

  “He says that the Army left last night to go fight the Marines down south, and as soon as they return they’ll pulverize us and then sew our tongues to our assholes.”

  Gearheardt laughed. “No shit? Did he say that? Boy, how’d you like to eat your own—”

  “Shut up, Gearheardt,” I said. “Gunny, we get the point, whether that’s an accurate translation or not. We need to vamoose. Got any ideas?”

  Gearheardt stopped his pantomiming of the old man’s torture description and became serious.

  “These boys are going to drive us to Hanoi, Jack. We can’t make it on our own, and I think we can control this crew. Surely they have an old truck or something around here.”

  They did.

  In the village, under the stunned and angry eyes of the women and even older men and younger boys, we uncovered an ancient Russian truck, rusted and dusty. It had a covered wagon arrangement on the flatbed. In the cab were upturned barrel halves for seats.

  “Hey, this is nice,” Gearheardt said to the scowling ancient. “Gunny, get the crew rounded up. Don’t take any kids, but try to find the chief of the village and maybe one or two old guys with sons in the army.”

  “You got it, Captain. And the chief is right there by you—the rock thrower. It sounds like his son is off fighting the Marines.” He began talking to the villagers who stood in a half-circle around us, murmuring and spitting on the ground. They were mostly older women and a few teenagers.

  Within minutes the gunny returned. I didn’t like the look on his face. With him were three elderly men, a young Vietnamese woman, and two Chinese midgets.

  “Holy shit, Gunny. What’s with the little people?”

  “The best that I can make out, Captain, is that they are with a psy-ops troupe who were performing in the village when the word came for the soldiers to get their asses down to Quang Tri to fight the Marines. They’re stuck here, and this young lady is the manager of the troupe. The only thing she would tell me is that we’re taking her back to Hanoi.” He shrugged and threw the responsibility to Gearheardt and me.

  The midget male in the Uncle Sam suit was pretty obvious. I was still trying to figure out who the female midget was supposed to be. I decided that she was Queen Elizabeth—a pink hat, pearls, and small black purse my clues.

  “Captain,” said the gunny, “I don’t think we have as much time as we thought. This girl seems to think that the soldiers are already on their way back. Maybe we’d better di-di out of here.”

  The young Vietnamese woman stood in front of me, defiant. I couldn’t help but notice that she was one of the most attractive Vietnamese women I had seen. The top buttons on her shirt were undone and I saw the gentle rising slope of her breasts. Déjà vu was around me like the aura of a migraine. This was the other thing my mother had warned me about.

  “Wake up, Jack,” Gearheardt said. “We’re loading up these villagers and heading for Hanoi. Right now.”

  “What about her?” I said, motioning with my head.

  “She only has one eye, Jack. In case you hadn’t noticed. Besides, I’m not hauling a freak show around the countryside. Invading Hanoi in this rust bucket of a Russian shit-truck is bad enough. If we wait, the soldiers may be on our butt. If we go in the daylight, a flight of A-4s will probably blast us off the highway. I prefer being killed by my own, so let’s head out.”

  “She seems pretty damn insistent. Gunny says she has lots of pull in the village. She’s the propaganda officer or the political officer or something like that. The villagers, even the chief, are afraid of her.”

  “Jack, I don’t care if she’s the one-eyed Queen of Sheba. There is no fucking way I am taking that crew to Hanoi.”

  We left about fifteen minutes later, compromising by having the Chinese midget in the Uncle Sam suit ride on top of the cab. Gearheardt wasn’t happy, but at least he had a reason to back down.

  “Saber Lead, this is Saber Three. I’ve got a Russian truck in sight. Request permission to fire my rockets.”

  “Wait one, Saber Three. Isn’t that a Chinese midget in an Uncle Sam suit on top of the cab? We’d better get permission from wing HQ before we take the truck out.”

  Across the sea, Oval Office.

  “Sir, the Air Force requests permission to fire on a Russian truck in southern North Vietnam. There is a Chinese midget in an Uncle Sam suit involved.”

  “Well, son, how ’bout checkin’ the record? Did I declare war on Chinese midgets? Tell the damn Air Force to hold their fire and lay off the local beer for God’s sake.”

  “Heh, heh, heh,” he said to himself. “Sounds like Gearheardt’s made it to North Veetnam.”

  After his hat blew off in the first five minutes, the midget took off his blue waistcoat and looked just like any other Chinese midget in striped pants, and we were strafed repeatedly by Air Force jets. They missed, causing Gearheardt to jeer and shake his fist at the rotten marksmanship of the Air Force.

  The road was a series of potholes tied together by small strips of dirt, gravel, or, very rarely, asphalt. Conversation in the cab of the truck was mostly “umphs.” The barrel top was biting into my butt with a vengeance, not helped by thirty-five pounds of Chinese midget riding on my knee. Beside me the Vietnamese troupe manager sat stoically, not even umphing at the most breathtaking of the potholes. I was in love with her.

  On her other side, the gunny
rode shotgun, cradling the M-60 in his lap. The driver, next to me, appeared to be either severely retarded or a large eleven-year-old. Maybe both. He grinned foolishly at all times, particularly when a pothole dropped us into butt-hell and bounced us back to the roof of the cab when we came out the other side of the hole.

  Gearheardt sat in the back with the five prisoners. By the end of the first ten butt-busting, gear-screeching miles, he had his “prisoners” laughing at his card tricks. Before late afternoon they were singing “Wings Over Mexico” until I shouted back for them to knock it off. A truck full of Vietnamese singing fraternity songs might just arouse suspicion, I argued successfully to Gearheardt.

  The plan was to reverse roles and act as if we were the prisoners if stopped by anyone. We were being taken to Hanoi to be turned over to the authorities. I was pretty certain that the villagers would behave; the gunny looked menacing with the M-60. I wasn’t so sure about my one-eyed girlfriend, but Gunny assured me that he had informed her that if she gave us away, I would shoot the midget.

  “I’m not-umph-usually-umph, damn-the kind-whoa, umph-guyholy shit-that shoo-umphf-oots midgets-ouch, whooooa, umph,” I tried to explain to her.

  She had to turn her head toward me completely to see me with her good eye. Her left eye was mainly whitish with a blue-gray swirl.

  “You shoot midget, I cut off balls, GI.”

  I was amazed that she was able to talk without umphing with the bumps, and that she spoke passable English. This was a woman that I could take home to mom.

  Gearheardt stuck his head through the canvas flap behind the cab and gave me the thumbs up. “Jack, we’re golden. These guys don’t care for Ho Cheese any more than we do. They heard that speech about losing ten men for every one of ours and said “Fuck that shit” or the equivalent in slope talk. No offense intended,” he said over his shoulder.