Jim peeked back around. Dust and smoke obscured his view, but not so badly that he could not see the man rushing the last few feet toward them. Before he could fire Al’s M-16 spoke, sending the man backward in a flurry of blood and shattered flesh.
That was the sacrifice, he thought. Now they know exactly were we are. As if in answer the firing grew much more heavy and exact. The rounds thunked into the table, exited whining in a burst of wood from the other side. They were still for some reason firing a little high. They’d correct that in a moment, he knew. The machinegun was getting the range, the gunner walking the rounds ever nearer.
In the other hut Tu belatedly remembered that there was an M-66 light antitank weapon (LAW) in the jeep. “Cover me!” he yelled to the others as he scurried back to get it. The VC fired a few rounds at him, but they went wild. Tu did not even bother to duck. He grabbed the fat tube, trying to remember the exact firing sequence. Press the indents, pull both ends, the launcher extending to almost twice its original length. The sights popped up, cheap clear plastic with stadia lines meant for estimating distances. Pull out the safety, ready to fire. Automatically he looked behind him to see that the backblast area was clear. He sighted directly at the hut from which the machinegun fire was coming, gently squeezed the rubber pad with the trigger underneath. The rocket was away with a great whoosh, coughing up a giant dust cloud around him. Straight and true it flew, exploding just as it hit the barrel of the gun. The resulting shaped charge, thin as a pencil, thousands of degrees hot, needled straight through the gun, carrying the molten metal with it as it struck the man behind. Intended for use against tanks, though as the Special Forces soldiers at Lang Vei found out it wasn’t particularly good against them, it was extremely effective against unprotected targets such as this. The man became fused to his gun, pieces of it sticking out of him at odd angles, so that you could not tell where man stopped and gun began. Tu wished he had another to fire at the man who was keeping them from going and helping the Americans. If they did not get there soon, he was afraid it would do no good to get there at all. He used the jeep to shield himself as he crawled around to the side. Perhaps he could get a better angle of fire from there.
As the hut with the machinegunner blew up, Jim saw his chance. Hoping that it had distracted his opponents for just a couple of seconds, he rolled away from the table, scurrying to the back side of the hut. Al gave him an ironic little salute, then started firing burst after burst into the spot where he had last seen a man disappear. “Come on, motherfuckers,” he was yelling, “show yourselves!”
Jim looked back one last time at his friend, the bullets striking all around him, said good-bye in his mind. He burst from the hut, sprinted to the next one, smashing through the flimsy door and rolling. No firing had followed him. For the first time he allowed himself a little hope. Took the chance and peered up over the windowsill. They were still pouring the bullets into the hut he had left. As he watched, another grenade arched over a mound of dirt and exploded in almost the same place as the last. He ran out of the hut, into another, finger tightening on the trigger as he saw life. No, not enemy, don’t shoot. The family cowered together in a corner, looking at him in terror, seeing death only a couple of pounds of trigger pressure away. “Stay!” he commanded in Vietnamese, again looking out the window. There the sonofabitch was, the one who was throwing the grenades. He was just now pulling the fuse on another. Snap shot, just like they taught in the Quick Kill course, stock of the CAR-15 just kissing his cheek, both eyes open, no time to take a sight picture, pull the trigger. Watch the man’s head dissolve in a spray of blood, the grenade falling at his feet. Away again, in another hut before he heard it go off. Where were the rest of them? They had to be within a few meters of Al, but he couldn’t even see the muzzle flashes from here. Wait a minute! Was that a foot? He sighted very carefully, aligning the front post directly in the center of the rear peep sight. Take a deep breath, let it halfway out, squeeeeeze the trigger. The weapon bucked in his hand, and he was rewarded with a howl of anguish clear even over the gunfire. There was a bloody spot where the foot had been. He moved again, trying to get another clear shot.
The VC commander was having serious second thoughts about the wisdom of his action. The target was almost within grasp, but he was losing too many people. His practiced ear told him that the men on the other side of the hut were fighting a losing battle. The machinegunner was gone, the hut he had been in blazing fiercely. And now his right flank man had apparently blown himself up. Why couldn’t their socialist brethren in China make decent grenades? All too many of them went off in the hands of the people trying to use them. All or nothing now. He signaled the two remaining men to get ready to rush. Heard the cry of anguish from one, saw him cradling a shattered foot. Enough! He knew when it was time to break off. The mission was a failure, but it would be a worse failure if he were killed. It was a strange feeling, defeat. But there would be other chances. Other hunts, other ambushes. He leaned over the wounded man. “Comrade,” he whispered, “we must go. Can you hold them?”
“Ya Phai, Dai Uy,” he said. Yes. A look of resolution was set on his face. The commander gave him two of his own magazines, and one of the two pistols he carried. They would not take this one alive.
He signaled the direction he wished the other man to go, gave him a nudge. The man took off, staying low and zigzagging. The captain waited until he had drawn the fire of the man still in the hut and took off in the other direction. They would meet later at the rally point, if both were still alive.
Jesus! was all Jim had time to think as the man burst from cover and ran almost directly past him. He fired a short burst, cursed as he saw the bullets strike behind the running figure. Lead him, you asshole! he thought furiously. He aimed again, this time a foot in front of where he judged the man’s belt buckle to be, fired a longer burst. The man ran into them, the little lead pellets cutting him almost in two. He flopped down, then started trying to crawl, his lower body dragging uselessly behind him. Jim took very careful aim and shot him through the head. No more suffering, not even for you.
He saw the other one running away in the opposite direction. No, you sonofabitch, it’s not going to be that easy, not now, not ever. You’ll never stand over me again in my dreams, you’ll never look at me with those dead eyes as you pull the trigger, no way.
He was out of the house and running, paying no attention to the bullets that followed him, striking all around his feet, snapping through the air, hitting the ground and whining off with angry moans. Nothing could hit him, not now. He was invincible! The bullets would not kill him: He could not be killed, not by anyone except the man he was chasing into the faraway treeline.
The motherfucker’s gone crazy, Al thought as he saw Jim running. He concentrated his fire at the man who was shooting at his friend, ignoring the pain eating its way through his bowels, was rewarded when the firing again came at him. You and me, motherfucker, he told his unseen antagonist, just you and me. Leave those other two alone, this is just between us.
Running on, neither gaining nor losing. Jim thought about stopping for a few seconds, trying to get a clear shot. No. It needs to be closer. I need to see his face. Each step is agony. Can’t stop, he must be as tired as I am, staggering now, but still running. The treeline, a thin stand of coconut palms, not so far away now. That’s where it will be. Ignore the pain in your chest, the great heaving breaths, the legs that feel like pig iron. Keep running, not too far now.
He saw the man reach the poor cover of the trees, flop down, jam a fresh magazine into the AK. He became aware that he was laughing. The bullets whined around him once again, missing him by fractions, but missing. They could not hit him, not yet. He fired a burst at the muzzle flashes, saw the bullets stir up dust all around, knew that just as the man could not hit him, neither would his bullets find their mark. But the gun felt good, bucking in his hands; no need to run now, load another magazine and fire again, keep walking forward, I want to see his
face.
The man threw down his obviously empty rifle, stood up. He pulled a shiny pistol from his belt. “Yes!” Jim yelled, dropping the empty CAR-15. He pulled out the Browning.
They faced each other from little more than twenty paces: a duel, he thought. It had to come to this. They looked each other in the eyes, the big Vietnamese’s mouth finally curling into a smile, his gold tooth shining in the sunlight. Jim’s smile disappeared as he felt his arm jerk as if of its own volition, the expended brass flipping end over end in the sunlight. Saw the smoke coming from the muzzle of the other gun, heard its heavy bark, wondered why the round had not hit him; it was so close, how could he miss? Again and again they fired, the rounds passing in the air, some plucking at clothing, others missing cleanly. A hail of death all around on this bright summer day, and it was passing them by.
Who was this maniac? The VC felt fear like tiny rats eating at his guts. The last rounds rattled out of his rifle; too late he wished he had kept the two magazines he had given to the man who stayed behind. He pulled the pistol from his belt, his favorite one, the one that had served him so well, had killed so many of the vanquished enemy since the time he had acquired it so long ago. The heavy weight of it was a comfort in his hand. He stood up, facing his tormentor. He sighted carefully, the shiny pistol glinting in the sun. Saw the smoke coming from the barrel, obscuring the paddies, the peasants watching from a distance, the beautiful green of his homeland, the weapon bucking again and again. He heard the hammer click on an empty chamber, found himself still pulling the trigger uselessly. Relentlessly the American came on. He dropped the revolver, pulled the knife from its sheath, stood there waiting, his opponent only feet away. Gave himself over to death.
Six rounds to fourteen, Jim thought inanely. Automatic against revolver. Doesn’t seem fair somehow. Too bad. You lose. No more of your face in my dreams. No more struggling to get away. Die now.
The man jerked, but kept his feet as the bullet hit him squarely in the chest. Jim fired again and again, the body soaking up the bullets, Good God, is this a dream again, will he never drop, why isn’t he falling, you’ve got to die, you’ve got to die!
Slowly crumpling now, sliding down the tree that had propped him up, life leaving his eyes forever. He picked up the revolver where the man had dropped it. The shiny chrome had worn away in years of hard use, but the inscription was still clear.
Presented to Captain James Mosely, December 1962.
He started the long walk back.
“You okay?” Al asked as he was loaded on the stretcher.
“Very much so. Looks like your war is over too.”
“Could be,” said Al. He grimaced in pain. “These assholes won’t give me any morphine, either. What does a guy have to do to get some good drugs around here? You gave that crazy Mexican some,” he said accusingly.
The corpsman, who had been taking Al’s blood pressure, said to Jim, “Looks good. Don’t see how a bullet that keyholed like that and went all the way through could have missed all the major blood vessels, but it did. Course, he has a lot more belly than most, so it had more room.”
“Fuckin’ comedians everywhere,” groaned Al. “You plannin’ on playin’ Vegas next?”
“How is Billy?” Jim asked.
“He’ll make it. Lost a lot of blood, and his arm isn’t going to be much good, but he’ll make it.”
They loaded Al on the ambulance. “See you in Benning,” he was saying as they closed the door.
Yeah, he thought, I guess you will.
Chapter XVIII
The tall, thin captain sat in the waiting area at San Francisco International Airport, staring sightlessly at nothing at all. People came and went, some of them staring at the rows of ribbons pinned to his chest, the jaunty green beret tipped over his forehead. Others pointedly ignored him. Still others scowled, angry to see one of the baby-killing warmongers sitting so brazenly here in the open.
Dennis Fulbright was one of the latter. A full-time student at Berkeley for over six years now, he felt no shame at using his parents’ meager funds to stay out of a war that he felt to be immoral, illegal, and downright dangerous to your health. He’d changed majors a number of times, was now working on Physical Education. It suited him. His body was of the makeup to respond well to the hours of weight training, increasing the girth of biceps and chest by several inches each. He was young enough that the nights of debauchery with the free-loving girls and the drugs in the Haight didn’t have much effect on him. The few fights he had been in with people generally much smaller and weaker than he had convinced him that he was invincible.
He approached the pig, thinking that it would be amusing to roust him. Inflated his chest, tensed his back, making the deltoid muscles atop his shoulders form a vee. He fondly liked to think it made him look like a cobra. Stood directly in front of the man, who continued to stare straight ahead.
“Hey,” he husked from deep in his chest, deepening his voice to mask the fact that it was still, to him, annoyingly and unexplainably high. “Green Beret!”
Still no reaction from the man. He wondered if he were drunk. So much the better. “Big, bad-ass Green Beret,” he tried again. “You ain’t shit. Supposed to know a hundred and one ways to kill a guy. Bullshit! Baby-killer, warmonger, murderer! A hundred and one ways to kill a man, my ass!”
Slowly the man looked up at him, his eyes focusing at last. Stared him directly in the face. There was something there, something in those eyes that chilled him to the bone. Ghosts, perhaps, the souls of hundreds, thousands, staring at him from the light blue eyes, sucking him in, beckoning him to join them.
The man stood up, smiled slightly, finally spoke. “Pick a number, motherfucker,” he said.
He turned away quickly, moving through the crowd and hoping that no one he knew had seen him. Resolving that if that bitch he was seeing from the sociology class gave him any more crap tonight, he was going to beat the shit out of her.
Behind him Jim Carmichael sat back down, resumed his vacant-eyed stare. Hours yet before the flight to Atlanta. He’d debated going and seeing Lisa, decided that it would have been too painful for both of them. Thought about going to the airport bar, decided that he couldn’t be bothered. So he sat in the hard plastic seat and let the world move around him.
It gave him time to think. To try to decide what he was going to do now. It was a novel feeling. He had never expected to live this long. Now it looked as if, barring accidents, he had a lot longer to go. Was astonished to realize how much he had depended on the war to keep him from having to make decisions. Now that particular war was no longer available to him, never would be. He would never be going back. He was suffused with a strange sense of loss.
What you gonna do now, Jimmy Boy? he mused, somewhat amused in spite of himself. What are you going to do with the rest of your life?
Into the Treeline Page 30
