Into the Treeline

by John F. Mullins

  An ambulance was waiting for him at the landing strip of the 95th Evac Hospital in Danang. They took him to the surgery clinic where, after administering local anesthetic, they removed the Claymore pellets from his legs and stomach. He had been even luckier than he had thought. None of the fragments had penetrated the stomach wall, all being stopped in the muscle. He would be sore, but that was a lot better than the effects that could have been expected from steel balls ripping through his intestines. Some of the fragments in his legs were deeper, and he was gray with pain before they dug the last ones out.

  He heard a muffled exclamation from the surgeon, who probed with the forceps, pulled something out that was white and jagged. “Bone,” the doctor said tersely. “Not yours.”

  “Must have come from one of the guys in front of me, Doc. They were pretty well torn up.”

  “You doing okay?”

  “Real good, Doc,” Jim lied. “You about finished? I’d like to get back to Hue tonight.”

  The doctor stared over his surgical mask in disbelief. Then he laughed, a short, barking sound. “You won’t make it back to Hue tonight,” he said. “Or anytime soon. We’re going to keep you here for at least a week. Some of these wounds are pretty deep, and from the scars I see, I know that you know how easy it is to get infected over here. We’ll leave them open for drainage right now, close them up later. For now lots of antibiotics, plenty of rest, and a chance to get out in the sun. Looks like you could use it. You spend all your time indoors? Only man I’ve seen over here without a tan.”

  Jim started to protest. The doctor cut him off by probing more deeply in one of the wounds. “You sound just like that other asshole who came in from Hoi An. Had a hole in his leg big enough to put a fist into. Told me he couldn’t stay in the hospital, he had an operation running and they couldn’t do without him. They’re doing without him.”

  “That fella wouldn’t happen to look like a fireplug, would he?” Jim asked, grinning through the pain.

  “You obviously know each other. Might have known. You want a bed next to him?”

  “Please, if you could arrange it.”

  “Hell, I insist. Might keep from contaminating the rest of the ward. I’m sure you’ll have plenty to talk about. Now lie still! One more piece and we’re done.”

  “Thought I told you I didn’t want company,” Al growled as the corpsman backed through the door pulling the gurney. “You getting that crowded here in this fucking butcher shop?”

  “They thought you needed some company, Al,” Jim said as he sat up on the gurney, enjoying the look of surprise on his friend’s face. “Said you looked like you were getting lonely. And God knows no nurses are going to come anywhere close to you.”

  “That’s a goddamned lie. They all love me too much. How you doing, Jimmy? You look like shit.”

  “That’s the second time today I’ve been told that. Must be the truth. Even if it does come from two notorious liars. What happened to you, anyway?”

  Al grimaced. “Turned a jeep over,” he said. “Sonofabitch rolled over my leg. Tore open the old hole from last time I was shot.”

  “Been telling you for years that you were a shitty driver.”

  “You would have been too if someone had been shooting at your sorry ass.”

  “Somebody trying to plug you, were they?”

  “Real hard. Might’ve done it if I hadn’t been driving so fast. One of the advantages of being such a shitty driver. Bullets tore the hell out of the backseat. I kept on going, floored the sonofabitch. Found out that an M-151 doesn’t take a corner too well at about a hundred. What happened to you?”

  “They ’bushed us. Tell you about it tomorrow. It’s been a long couple of days, and I’m going to get some sleep. Try to keep the noise down, will you? Act like an officer and gentleman, for a change.”

  “Fuck you, Jimmy. Nighty-night! Want me to wake you up when Sally Suckemsilly comes by to give me my nightly blowjob?”

  “Nah. I’m too tired even for that. Just don’t groan too loud.”

  “I do believe you are worn out! Mr. Gonad himself turning down a woman. How the mighty have fallen!”

  He woke the next day to the sound of Al arguing with the doctor. “You don’t understand,” he was saying. “We’ve got a joint op running with the 101st, and I’m the only English speaker in the PRU. They can’t do it without me.”

  “I know of absolutely no indispensable people, Captain. This war can go on without you for a little while. Because you’re not getting out of here.”

  “We’ll see about that shit. Did you call the Embassy House like I asked?”

  “Yes, and a Mr. McMurdock will be visiting you later today. I’m sure he will tell you the same thing. He sounded like a very reasonable man over the phone.”

  “You’ve got a new experience in store for you, Doc,” said Jim. “Roger McMurdock may be a lot of things, but reasonable isn’t one of them.”

  “Captain Carmichael! Glad you’re awake. I need to look at those wounds. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Go ahead,” Jim said, resigning himself to more pain. “Al, if he gets too eager, kill the asshole, will you?”

  Al started on the ROIC before he could even say hello. “You’ve got to get me out of here,” he insisted. “You know as well as I do how badly wrong a joint op can go when the two units can’t talk to one another. Hell, they go badly enough when they can. I promise I won’t go on the ground with the unit, I’ll stay back with the command group. After it’s over they can send me back here and be damned.”

  “Glad to see you too, Al, Jim,” Roger said drily. “Looks to me like my tigers got into too much of a cat fight. I suppose you want to get out of here too, Jim?”

  “Not particularly. Nice and restful here. With the exception of Al stirring up the staff all the time. Why don’t you let him go so I can get some sleep?”

  “A reasonable man! I didn’t think you had it in you. Al, there will be an Air America chopper on the pad tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. It will take you to the operation. You’ll coordinate from the air, you will not go on the ground at all. Is that understood? Because if that isn’t good enough I’ll let you rot here in this place. Agreed?”

  Al, reluctantly, agreed that it was better than nothing.

  “And you’ll come back here once a day to let them change bandages. You get infected and you’ll be out of action for a long time. We can’t afford that. Jim, how are you feeling?”

  “Like shit.”

  “You look like it too.”

  “That seems to be the consensus.”

  “You feel up to briefing me?”

  Over the next hour he did so, omitting nothing. Even the part about the district chief. They’ll probably put my ass in jail for that, he thought, as he described how they had set it up. He took full responsibility for the idea, hoping in that way to avoid causing problems for Captain Vanh.

  “You’ve been a busy young man,” was Roger’s only comment. “Looks like someone was letting you run out your string, get all the people you had on the list before deciding to get rid of you. Like you, I think that the ambush was just a little too coincidental. Damn shame to lose those people.”

  “How is Vanh?” he asked.

  “Pretty sick. I had him put in the hospital. He wanted to go back to Hue, of course. Damn near had to pull a gun on him to convince him otherwise. He’ll pull through, but it will be at least a month before he’ll be back.”

  “And the other wounded? Did they put them in that shithole Vietnamese hospital?” All the indigenous soldiers dreaded wounds. The Vietnamese hospitals were vastly overcrowded, care was minimal, and sanitary conditions were atrocious. This despite the money and medicine poured into the system by the Americans. The money was pocketed by officials all down the line, and the medicine was stolen. Often the soldiers were forced to pay if they wanted any drugs other than aspirin. Death tolls were high.

  “No way!” Roger looked horrified at the thought.
“I pulled a few strings and got them put aboard the German hospital ship. Vanh too. The Krauts do a good job.”

  “That they do,” said Al. The ship was anchored just offshore at Hoi An and he had spent quite a lot of time with the doctors and nurses when they came ashore. His ambush of the VC squad who had raped and killed their people had made him popular with them. “Got some good-looking nurses, too. Not that you’d worry about that, Jim, what with you deciding to enter the priesthood and all. They get you in the dick again or what?”

  “Just missed it this time. Couple of holes through the sac, but nothing important in the way.”

  “So, Jim, what next?” asked Roger. “You planning to do any more government officials? You might let me know ahead of time, next time. Lot easier to cover your ass that way.”

  “Sorry, sir. Didn’t want to involve any more people than necessary, in case it went wrong. Isn’t that what the Agency likes, deniability?”

  “What the Agency likes and what I like don’t necessarily coincide. Now, obviously you’re in danger. If they tried to get you once, they’ll do it again. Vanh is well out of it on the hospital ship, so no worry there. I think you’ll be okay as long as you’re here, but just in case you’ll find a pistol in the bag I brought along. Along with some medicine. Problem will be when you get out. You want to be transferred? You’ve set them back a hell of a long way in Thua Thien. Might be better to go somewhere else now and start over.”

  “I’d rather not. Like you said, they’ve been set back. But they’ll recover. We keep pushing them and they won’t. Besides, I don’t know that I’m up to starting over again. All in all, I think I’d be safer if I just concentrate on getting them before they get me.”

  “Probably right,” Roger admitted. “I’ll find out all I can while you’re in here so you won’t be walking back into it blind. Big thing that worries me is the children. What the hell were they doing there? And who were they? Again, just a little too coincidental for my taste.”

  “I haven’t thought of much else. The thought that somebody put those children there so they’d be hit drives me crazy. Bad as we are, we’re not that bad.”

  “Not yet,” Roger said. “This war goes on much longer we may get that way. The longer you fight, and the more you see, the easier it gets to do things you wouldn’t ever have thought about.”

  “Shit, Boss!” Al interjected, “I hope you’re wrong. I’d hate to think it would come to that.”

  “Me, too. So let’s try to win this sonofabitch before it does. Or if we don’t want to win it, get the hell out of it. I’ll leave you guys to the tender mercies of the medical staff now. That doctor is just going to be real pleased when he finds out that you’re getting on a chopper tomorrow, Al. If he’s too hard on you, I think what you’ll find in the bag will help.”

  “I don’t know how you did it,” the doctor fumed. “But you’re out of here tomorrow. Your boss went right over my head to the hospital commander. Guess I can’t stop you if you want to do this, but I think you’re making a mistake.”

  “I promise to take real good care of myself and come back and visit you each and every day, Doc,” Al said. “Hell, I don’t want to get screwed up any more than you want me to. They’d send my ass back to the States and this war might be over by the time I could get back here.”

  “Typical of you guys,” the doctor said. “Most of the people I get in here would give their right nut to go back to the States. What did they call it in World War II, the ‘Million Dollar Wound’? How long have you guys been here, anyway?”

  “Which trip, Doc?” Jim asked.

  “How many trips have you made?”

  “Three for me. I think Al got in one more TDY trip than I did, so he has four. Getting tired of all this goddamned back and forth, so I think I’m going to just hang around this time.”

  “Well, I think you guys are nuts. You can bet that once my year is up I’m getting the hell out of this wonderful country. Leave it to maniacs like you.” He swept up his instruments and stormed out of the room.

  “I think he’s a little pissed, Al.”

  “Seems like it. I probably would be too if someone went over my head like that.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Ever occur to you that we may not be exactly the best army officers in existence? What with both of us not eager to take orders from anybody.”

  “That thought has run through my mind. Ever thought of what you’re gonna do if, perish the thought, this war ends and you survive it?”

  “Stay in the army, I guess. But we’ll sure as hell have to clean up our act. Go to all the little officer parties, try to avoid pinching the colonel’s wife on the ass, even when she wants it, don’t get drunk, follow orders, get a nice staff job counting pencils, shit! I’m getting depressed. See if Roger brought us anything good.”

  Al opened the bag, looked in. A broad smile creased his face. “Get us a couple of glasses, Jimmy,” he said. “Unless you don’t want any of this Chivas?”

  “What if the doc comes back in?” Jim asked. He assumed his best official voice. “Now, you men know that painkillers and alcohol don’t mix.”

  “Yeah, well, joke him if he can’t take a fuck!”

  The days after Al departed were, indeed, restful. He slept as much as he could, raided the hospital library and caught up on his reading, ate the bland hospital food with gusto, and slowly died of boredom. He talked little with the hospital staff. A couple of the nurses had shown interest, but when he ignored them they gave him up to work more fertile fields.

  Most of the time he spent trying to figure out what to do once he got out. Who had betrayed them? How was he going to find out? The orders had to have come from someone higher. Who was that? Would it be some high-level VC or NVA officer, someone they didn’t have information on, someone so high that even the former district chief did not know about him? Or had it been someone on the government side? Someone they had information on, who knew that they had the information, and wanted them silenced? He didn’t have a clue how to find out, and it was driving him crazy.

  He kept the Browning under his pillow, and carried it with him wherever he went, even if it was to the latrine. Hospital staff learned to knock on the door before entering, after a couple of them found themselves staring over the barrel into the eyes of a sweating, very perturbed patient.

  On the fourth day he was again visited by Roger McMurdock. “Brought some mail for you,” he said. “And another bag of supplies. You’re not taking any of the painkillers, are you? Those things don’t react so good to alcohol.”

  Jim assured him that he was not. Only one piece of mail interested him; a letter from Lisa. “You find anything out?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” Roger admitted. “But we do have a problem. The province chief has reported to Saigon that your PRU unit exceeded orders, that you were going on unauthorized operations, and as a result some innocent people got killed. The kids, of course.”

  “How did he find out about that?”

  Roger looked at him pityingly. “Someone in your unit is reporting to him, of course. Did you seriously think he wouldn’t have an informant?”

  “Guess not. But that makes him a pretty good candidate for the setup, doesn’t it?”

  “Not too bad. He certainly could have done it. And from what you tell me about the things you have on him he would have the motive. What did you do with that tape, by the way?”

  Jim grinned. “It’s in a safe place,” he said.

  “Don’t trust me?”

  “You’re the one who told me to trust no one,” he said. “I can get you a copy, but the original stays with me. Along with copies of all the arrest orders so far. Including the ones for the last operation. Which the colonel signed himself, by the way. So much for ‘unauthorized operations.’ ”

  “You’re learning,” Roger said, smiling. “We’ll keep on trying to get some information by the time you get out of here. Which the doctor tells me should be in about a week. You heal fast.�
��

  “All the clean living I do,” Jim replied. “Share a drink?”

  “Love to, but I’ve got to get back. Eliot Danforth is coming back into town tomorrow. With Moira, I suspect. You want me to tell her where you are?” He laughed knowingly.

  Anything you don’t know, you asshole? Jim thought furiously. “About as much as I want you to throw a rattlesnake in bed with me,” he answered. “That woman scares me, and everybody knows I’m fearless.”

  “Then be a good boy, and quit scaring the staff, and maybe I won’t. You’re right about her. New breed there. I don’t think old Eliot really knows what he has hold of. She’ll have his job one of these days, along with his nutsack. Then it’ll be time to really be scared. Might be okay for you, though. She seems to like you. Wouldn’t want to be you when she decided she didn’t anymore. She’d probably be wearing that scarred-up pecker of yours for a pendant. With that cheerful thought, I’ll leave. Try to be good. I know it’s hard for you.”

  Dear Jim,

  Your letter and package took a long time in getting to me. I had almost given up hope hearing from you. I am very glad that, at least as of the writing, you were well.

  Of course I will do as you ask. You didn’t have to worry about that. Whatever you need, just ask.

  I have missed you. More than I thought I would. Perhaps I am not quite as tough as I had thought. I welcomed your letter, and the knowledge that you think about me.

  The hospital grows worse. More and more young men shipped in, bodies shattered, minds worse. It seems such a waste. I know that you are a believer in this thing, but I find myself questioning it more and more.

  I try to not get emotionally involved anymore. Don’t think I could take growing to care for someone again, only to see him go away. Perhaps that will change someday, I don’t know. For now I live alone, with my thoughts and memories.