Baptism

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  Barnett shook his head and leaned back against the soft sandbags.

  A small head popped up in the dark hole that occupied the center of the bunker roof. “What are you doing up this late, Trung?” The little girl hurried over to Sinclair and cuddled up against his chest. He was sitting on the bunker roof with his legs stretched out and crossed on the sandbags. The little girl straddled his legs and laid her head against his chest. Sinclair wrapped his poncho liner over the child, and within seconds she was sleeping soundly again.

  “It must’ve been a bad dream.” Barnett pointed back at the roof exit. “You’ve got more company.” He smiled in the dark. Jean-Paul moved slowly, half asleep, and found Sinclair. He slid up next to the soldier and reached under the liner until he could touch his sister before falling asleep, leaning against the man.

  “I hope we don’t get attacked tonight!” Barnett shook his head. “You wouldn’t be much good!”

  “Yeah.” Sinclair was enjoying the love that was coming from the sleeping children.

  A machine gun firing broke the stillness of the late night. Barnett and Sinclair looked in the direction from which the tracers were flying through the air. One of the guards was either jumpy or bored. A single 105-mm howitzer fired an H&I round out into the dark jungle.

  “What are you going to do with them when we leave here?” Barnett left his seat and slid closer to Sinclair so they could talk softly.

  “I don’t know. I wrote my dad and told him about Trung and Jean-Paul.” Sinclair placed his hands under the girl’s small rear end and pushed her up higher on his chest so that he could breathe better. “Dad’s a good man and has been in the Army for twenty-six years. He should be able to find out if I can ship them back to the States.”

  “You’re going to raise them?” Barnett was surprised. Sinclair was only two years older than himself.

  “I’ll be responsible, but I’ve got some good parents; they’ll help out.” Sinclair’s voice lowered. “I know that I can’t leave them here.”

  “Can’t you find a good orphanage for them?”

  Sinclair turned a little so that he could see Barnett. “Man, you don’t understand how they treat half-breeds in Asia! Blacks think they have it bad in the States! Shit! You haven’t seen prejudice until you’ve been around these Orientals! I mean, they hate Oriental mixes like half-Korean and half-Chinese. You’ve got to be pure or you’re nothing at all. I think it’s because there’s so much competition because of overpopulation that they won’t accept anything that’s flawed, and half-breeds are flawed!”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  “Well, believe me, these kids have nothing to look forward to living here.” Sinclair’s jaws tightened, but Spencer couldn’t see the anger in the dark. “You’d think their father or fathers would have known better than to have left them over here after they went back to France!”

  “You probably have a better understanding about it than most people.” Barnett stood up and walked over to the edge of the bunker and looked down to check close in.

  “Yeah, I’m Amerasian, but if we’d stayed in Korea, my mother would have been treated very badly and my life would have been pure shit.”

  “Your dad’s a career man?”

  “Yes, and so was his father. They go all the way back to the Civil War.”

  “What’s his rank?”

  “Colonel. He hopes to be on the brigadier general list this year.”

  “Hot shit!” Barnett thought his father was a sergeant.

  “He works hard at being the best.” Sinclair felt Trung wiggle and tried adjusting her legs to make her more comfortable. “He wanted me to go to West Point, but I felt I should serve in the war first. In four years it will be over and I’d have missed it.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that.” Barnett threw his poncho liner over his weapon. He could feel the early-morning dew rolling in to leave a light coat of moisture on everything.

  “I have my application in already through the enlisted program, and as soon as my tour is up here, I’ll go.”

  “A West Pointer!” Barnett was teasing his fellow soldier.

  “You should think about going.”

  “Me?” Barnett chuckled. “I’m from poor people. Shit, man, I’ve spent my whole life in foster homes and the juve!”

  “The Army doesn’t care. The enlisted West Point program judges you on what you’re worth, and not your parents or how much political pull your dad has.” Sinclair’s voice was serious. “You’re undervaluing yourself. I don’t think you realize, Spencer, you’re one of the most decorated men in the division, and even though you act dumb, you’re smart!”

  “Who says I act dumb!” Barnett was joking with Sinclair. He knew what he had meant.

  “I’m not talking book smarts. We all know you’ve got your shit together in one tight bundle in the field, and you can’t be dumb and make it out there.”

  “I’ll talk to Sergeant Arnason about it. West Point?” Barnett was beginning to like the idea.

  “If you decide to try, I can help you with the paperwork, and my dad knows everyone in the Pentagon who can help—”

  “Hold it! If I decide to go, I want to make it on my own!”

  “Hey, asshole! I’m not talking about pulling strings to get someone in who’s not qualified, I’m talking about friends helping to speed up the process!”

  “Oh.”

  Trung wiggled and opened her eyes. She whispered in Sinclair’s ear.

  “She has to go to the bathroom… just great!” Sinclair shook Jean-Paul gently to wake him up. “Jean-Paul? Would you take your sister over to the latrine?”

  The boy nodded, half asleep.

  “Wake up.” Sinclair smiled and wiped the boy’s eyes, gently using his thumbs. “I don’t want you wandering into the barbed wire.”

  Jean-Paul took his sister’s hand and led her toward the nearest latrine, fifty meters away near the tin-and-plywood barracks. The moon had come up and was giving off enough light to see by.

  Spencer twisted open his canteen and took a long sip of the lukewarm water to lubricate his dry throat. “Do you really think I could make it to West Point?”

  “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t think so.” Sinclair looked at the face of his watch. “It’s ten minutes till two, time to wake up Woods and Sarge.”

  “I’ll do it, you watch the kids.” Barnett dropped down into the dark interior of the fighting bunker.

  Sinclair sat on the edge of the sandbags and watched for the children. They had been gone long enough and should be leaving the latrine. He squinted his eyes to see better in the partial light and looked off-center for their shapes on the path. They weren’t there, and he started wondering if Trung was sick; both of the kids suffered from frequent diarrhea. Jean-Paul had a tapeworm when he first arrived, and the company medic now had the twenty-foot-long white worm in a glass jar on his desk.

  The series of rapid, soft pops drew Sinclair’s attention back to the perimeter. He caught the quick flash of what looked like shooting stars in the sky and realized shooting stars rarely appeared a dozen at a time. He recognized the threat and yelled out loud, “Rockets! Incoming rockets!”

  Barnett poked his head out of the roof opening.

  “Get back down there!” Sinclair used his boot to push Barnett back inside, and then he remembered the children.

  Sinclair rushed to the side of the bunker and screamed. “Trung! Jean-Paul! Get in a bunker!”

  The rockets landed in the base area almost in unison; over fifty explosions shattered the quiet of the night. Men began yelling to each other and running around in all stages of undress carrying rifles. The artillery started firing counter-battery fires, and the perimeter opened fire to clear the barbed wire of any Sappers who might be following up the rockets. Mortars that had been placed around the perimeter began firing illumination rounds, and the whole An Khe base area became an instant war arena.

  Sinclair could see clearly all
the way back to the barracks but couldn’t locate the children. He saw the latrine and it was still intact. The sound of helicopters warming up and taking off filled the night sky. One after another of the gunships peeled off their helipads and flew to their assigned sectors to search for the enemy positions and also to protect the Hueys from additional damage in case the Vietcong decided to follow up the rocket attack with a ground assault. The sky was filled with blinking lights and roaring choppers. It looked to Sinclair like a hornet’s nest that had been disturbed.

  Arnason and Barnett came up through the roof. Woods remained inside to man the M-60 in case of a ground attack.

  “What’s going on?” Arnason listened as Sinclair briefed him on where the rockets had come from, and then used the land line to call the information back to brigade headquarters. Arnason had just hung up the telephone when he saw Trung and Jean-Paul leave one of the personnel bunkers behind the troop billets and start running toward the perimeter bunker. He grabbed Sinclair by the shoulder and pointed at the kids.

  Sinclair went over to the edge of the bunker smiling; they had used their heads and had found shelter during the attack. He waved for the kids to run faster, and they obeyed. The flares being dropped by an Air Force flare ship lit up the area better than daylight.

  Sinclair heard the sound at the same time Arnason saw the telltale flashes in the distance. He waved with both arms to the running kids. “Get back! Get back!”

  It was too late. The second volley of rockets detonated on impact.

  The ear-shattering explosion knocked Sinclair flat on his back, and Arnason was pushed down against an ammo box that cracked two of his ribs.

  Trung’s screams were the only thing Sinclair could hear above the roar of gunfire and counter rocket explosions from the attacking gunships on the exposed VC positions. The second volley had been both smart and dumb on the part of the VC; no one had been expecting the second volley at the base area, and if the VC would have set the second volley off by remote, then they would have survived the attacking gunships.

  Sinclair struggled to his feet and jumped over the sandbags lining the fighting bunker. He ran toward the little girl’s screams and found her sitting next to her brother. A foot-long gash exposed Jean-Paul’s right lung and ribs.

  Sinclair heard his own voice screaming, “Medic! Medic!” He could see the exposed lung moving in and out and realized that the boy was still alive. He comforted the crying girl and watched the medical team work on the boy.

  Arnason watched from the bunker. He could spare Sinclair, but the rest of the team had to stay and defend the perimeter in case of an attack.

  Sinclair followed the stretcher bearers to the medical station with Trung, who refused to leave her brother.

  “He dead?” Barnett’s voice was a whisper.

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t see from here.” Arnason blinked. “I hope not. Sinclair will be a basket case.”

  “So will I.” Barnett didn’t hold back his feelings.

  The doctor had started working on the boy as soon as he reached the blacked-out surgical bunker. There were a half dozen injured men on the cots in the outer room, but none of them had been hurt seriously, and medics were dressing their wounds. Most of the injuries were from pieces of flying debris because the men had been sleeping in prone positions.

  Sinclair and Trung waited while the doctors worked on the boy to stabilize his condition before having him flown to a hospital on the coast.

  A large fighting bunker a hundred meters down from Arnason’s opened fire with their .50-calibers and the two M-60s that were mounted inside. A squad of NVA Sappers tried escaping from the intense barrage and were cut to pieces. Arnason and Barnett dropped down inside of the bunker and scanned the area in front of their bunker for any of the enemy elite infiltrators. The barbed wire in front of them was clear. A number of claymores were detonated to the right side of Arnason’s bunker, and the chatter of small arms followed. It seemed as though the NVA knew better than to try to infiltrate past Arnason and Barnett’s fighting position. The lack of activity made Barnett nervous.

  Sinclair stood when he saw the doctor approaching; blood covered the front of the surgeon’s light green gown, and a portion of the mask he had hanging around his neck had a bright red spot of blood on it.

  “Did you bring the boy here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He’s stable for now. I’m having him shipped to the ARVN Hospital in Pleiku.” The doctor turned to leave.

  “Sir, you can’t do that!”

  “Why not?” The anger in the doctor’s voice came from a mixture of fear that was normal during an attack, and from the soldier questioning his decision.

  “He’ll die in an ARVN hospital! Can’t you see he’s a half-breed!” Sinclair took a step toward the doctor. “Send him to our hospital in Qui Nhon.”

  “I can’t do that. He’s Vietnamese, and he has to go to a Vietnamese facility!” The doctor left Sinclair and the girl in the entrance of the bunker and returned to his operating table.

  Sinclair grabbed Trung by her hand, and in the confusion he removed one of the M16s from the weapons rack by the door. The medical evacuation helipad with the large white circle and red cross painted on it was located near the rear entrance of the medical bunker. A couple of walking wounded were waiting to load up on an arriving MEDEVAC helicopter. Sinclair took up a position near them and waited for the chopper to land. He could see Jean-Paul on a stretcher just inside the bunker. He had been placed there with an IV in his arm, waiting for an ARVN chopper to come and pick him up.

  Sinclair tapped one of the wounded men on his shoulder and pointed to the stretcher with the boy on it. “Can you help me load him up?”

  The slightly wounded soldier nodded his head and grabbed one end of the stretcher while Sinclair took the other. They slid the boy on the American MEDEVAC, along with the other American wounded. Sinclair lifted Trung up beside her brother and then hopped on the aircraft behind the pilot. He waved for the ship to lift off. The pilot gave him the thumbs-up sign, and the chopper banked away, headed toward Qui Nhon.

  The surgeon stepped out from the bunker waving his hand at the chopper; he was a couple of seconds too late.

  Sinclair comforted Trung and held Jean-Paul’s hand during the short flight to the large American hospital. Medics and nurses were waiting on the helipad for the arriving wounded and immediately began separating the serious cases from the walking wounded. One of the nurses rushed over to the boy’s stretcher and started issuing orders to the medics. She read the tag attached to the boy and called out, “Take him into surgery. He’s been prepped already, and he needs a lung-and-heart surgeon fast!” She looked over and saw Trung holding Sinclair and quickly put the whole picture together; she had been in Vietnam for two straight years and knew instantly what was going on. “Soldier! Take the girl and wait for me in the main reception area! Move!”

  Sinclair obeyed.

  Arnason and his team left the bunker and watched as the gunships made passes at the jungle surrounding the base camp. It was almost noon, and the mopping-up action was still going on. A battalion from the brigade had been flown back from the field to sweep the area. Forty-six dead NVA Sappers had been found in the barbed wire at different locations around the base camp, and a small number of the NVA unit was trapped in the hills to the east of An Khe.

  “They sure waste a lot of ammo.” Woods shook his head.

  “It keeps them fucking busy… and off our asses.” Arnason opened a breakfast can of C-rations. He hadn’t eaten since the night before and felt like having eggs and ham.

  “Who, the NVA?” Barnett frowned.

  “Naw, the brass.”

  Woods pointed out over the open area behind the bunker to a cluster of buildings. “Here comes the lieutenant.”

  “Shit!” Arnason set his can of food down on one of the sandbags and looked over toward the medical bunker. “If he asks about Sinclair, I’m going to tell him that I sent hi
m back to supply to get some hand grenades.”

  The lieutenant approached the bunker wearing a grin on his face. The officer’s cheeks were tinged with red from the excitement of the early-morning attack. “How are you men doing, Sergeant?”

  “Fine, Lieutenant, just fine.” Arnason answered for the group.

  “Lots of action this morning!” The lieutenant was still suffering from the excitement of the rocket attack. “One of those 122-mm rockets landed in the hootch next to mine!”

  “Really?” Arnason tried not to show his lack of concern.

  “Those damn things are bigger than an artillery round!”

  “Yes, they’re the size of the soviet 122-mm howitzers… and they do make a big bang!” Arnason tried smiling at the junior officer. “Now you know how Charlie feels when we drop artillery in on him.”

  “There were nine killed up at brigade headquarters. We had a couple of wounded but no serious injuries.” The officer climbed on top of the bunker and looked out over the perimeter fence. “Nothing happened here?”

  “No, sir… on both sides of us but nothing here.”

  “Oh.” The lieutenant sounded disappointed. “What’s that down there in the wire?” He pointed with his finger.

  “A couple of dead Sappers.” Arnason acted nonchalant.

  “Sappers?”

  “Yep, dead ones.”

  “I think I’ll go down there and check it out.” The lieutenant started leaving the bunker and paused. “Oh, by the way, we got a radio message in last night from Qui Nhon. Private First Class Daryl Masters was killed by the VC last night.”

  “By the VC?” Woods said from his seat on the sandbags. “He was in the supply complex.”

  “Yes.” The lieutenant glanced over at Woods. “The VC seem to be able to go anywhere in this damn country!”

  “But, sir! He was with the CID when we left him.” Woods was having a hard time believing the Vietcong could infiltrate the major complex and kill soldiers.

  “What has that got to do with it?” The lieutenant wanted to go look at the dead VC, and Woods was keeping him from it.