Bayonet Skies

by John F. Mullins

  And sooner or later that hate will spill over. You’ll start to blame her. If it just hadn’t been for her and the baby, you’ll start to say, I would have done it. It’s all their fault. And that will be worse, far worse, than having her leave you right now. As much pain as there is, it is nothing compared to what could be.

  She turned her back to him, and he thought she was going to sleep. It would be a long night. Ah well, you can always sleep when you die.

  He felt her little bottom pressing into his groin, at first so softly he thought he was imagining it, then with more and more insistence. He kissed her hair, ran his hand down her flank, softly pulled up her nightgown. The feel of her bare flesh against him was heady, erotic. She pressed against him, harder, reaching down between her legs and touching his hardness.

  He cupped her breast as he entered her warm softness, felt the groan as it rose like a prayer from her chest. Was glad that her head was turned, so she could not see his tears.

  “Jesus, Captain, you look like shit,” Jerry Hauck said.

  Jim looked at the NCO, whose face was bruised and battered. Apparently Jerry had figured that all bets were off, had gone to the club and made up for all the time he had been off the bottle. And he’s telling me I look like shit. Must be the truth.

  Sergeant Dickerson wisely kept his silence. The captain didn’t look like he would welcome a hell of a lot of conversation. He wondered, briefly, why the captain’s lady had not come to see him off, then dismissed it, thinking it was none of his business. For himself, he was just as glad no one had come to say good-bye to him. Likelihood was that they would have been accompanied by a husband or father, and that the escort would have been armed. What a waste that would be! Getting killed before the NVA got another shot at it.

  It was barely dawn when they left. The heavy fall mist cloaked everything, making the old Kaserne seem insubstantial, as if it was made of clouds instead of stone. Each man wondered if he would see it again. They did not fool themselves. This was a mission that stood an excellent chance of getting one or all of them killed. They had understood that from the start.

  The headlights of the staff car bored through the fog, carrying them from the life they had known for the last couple of years toward an earlier, more harsh existence. An existence more primitive, depending upon reflexes, skill, and most of all, luck.

  And within each man’s soul, no matter what else they might have felt, was the sharp quick joy of life reduced to its most elemental parts; a life as primitive as the cave, and as old as man’s first urge to kill his fellow man.

  God, it was great to be alive.

  Chapter 6

  Bentley Sloane was headed back to Southeast Asia. Last time it had been aboard a chartered jet, surrounded by sweating, farting young men like himself. Young men whose bravado couldn’t mask the fear that coursed through them, the fear of heading off into the unknown, where every man’s hand would be turned against you. The fear of coming back in sealed metal coffins, like the ones they’d seen being offloaded from a cargo plane at Travis Air Force Base. Endless rows of them, moving down rollers in a long line, as they moved in their own long line to board the plane.

  Now it was first class on Air France. The very pretty stewardess offered him yet another glass of champagne, insisted he try the foie gras, promised him a meal to remember, and hinted at something even more memorable, if he was but in the mood.

  He kept his expression remote, noncommittal. It added, he thought, to the air of mystery with which he liked to surround himself. And when, slightly disappointed, she retreated, he smiled at her trim little rump. She’d be back. And perhaps there would be a little free time in Bangkok…

  After all, look at what else she had to choose from. Middle-aged businessmen, the occasional diplomat, a faded film star on his way to a week’s worth of debauchery in the fleshpots of Patpong Street. He was younger than any of them by a twenty-year margin. He was fit, handsome, and best of all, wore the blue rosette of the medal in the lapel of his well-cut suit. Ah, the medal! It had done so much for him. And would do a great deal more.

  He fetched his briefcase from beneath the seat in front of him, opened it, and took out the folder the top cover of which bore the words TOP SECRET—LIMDIS. He ostentatiously folded the cover back, studied the first page. The man sitting two seats over was, he was sure, suitably impressed. He’d tried to engage Sloane in conversation shortly after takeoff, asking him if he was perhaps a student, and Sloane had rudely cut him off. Not hardly, he had said, and had refused to talk more.

  A student! Look at this, he silently told the man. Would a student be carrying top secret documents around with him? Sit there and wonder, you turd!

  Inside the folder was the file on Captain James NMI Carmichael. Sloane smiled. An inspired choice. It was he who had suggested Carmichael to General Miller after finding out that the captain and one of the POWs had a long relationship. They’d been together in Special Forces training company, then branch training, and even the first tour in Vietnam. That, in itself, might not have been enough to recommend Carmichael for the job. After all, there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Special Forces men who would have jumped at the chance for the mission. They’d had to leave far too many of their comrades behind to pass up a chance at rescuing two of them.

  Sloane turned the page and reread the accounts of Carmichael’s last tour in Vietnam. There were telegrams from someone named Eliot Danforth, an official in the CIA, who was demanding Carmichael’s immediate withdrawal. Letters of commendation from Carmichael’s immediate boss, who scoffed at Danforth’s concerns and stated that the captain was the most efficient Provincial Reconnaissance Unit officer he had ever known, that his actions were directly responsible for the decimation of the Viet Cong infrastructure in Thua Thien Province.

  Sloane turned to the page that described the investigation into the death of the province chief of Thua Thien, a man long suspected of Viet Cong sympathizing, who might have himself been an agent of the Communists. He had been found with an eight inch spike jammed through his face into the brain. Captain Carmichael had been known to use just such an instrument.

  A psychiatric report on the captain. The shrink had obviously been fascinated and repelled by the man. He was described as “a coldly efficient killer who has no compunction about his actions.”

  And that was, in the final analysis, why he had been chosen. They needed a killer. Carmichael was one. He would do what was necessary, if it ever came to that. The mission might require it.

  And the mission could not be allowed to fail. His plans depended upon it.

  Lieutenant Sloane had returned to the States after a long shuttle through evacuation hospitals. His wounds had been serious, but not regarded as life-threatening, so he hadn’t gotten the priority of evacuation that other soldiers had.

  That had been fine with him. It gave him time to think about what was to come next. How to arrange his thoughts, his actions, his appearance for the next stage.

  He’d already been told that he was being recommended for the Medal of Honor. An Army investigator, a lieutenant colonel, had caught up with him in the hospital in Japan, had taken his statement to add to the growing file, had allowed him to see the recommendation made by the man who’d initiated the whole process in the first place.

  That man had been Finn McCulloden.

  It had surprised him. From the moment Captain McCulloden had arrived with his Mike Force company to reinforce the beleaguered A camp, he had shown Lieutenant Sloane only barely disguised contempt.

  Not that he hadn’t deserved it, he had to admit. He had allowed the camp defenses to deteriorate to an alarming degree, had stopped all patrolling outside the wire, had made it easy for the North Vietnamese to stage their attack. To an outside eye, it must have appeared the height of incompetence.

  Of course neither McCulloden nor anyone else had been privy to the plan.

  He had decided well before being deployed to the war zone that achieving
decorations for valor was largely a matter of luck. Every man had it within him to be a hero or a coward, and he suspected he had the capacity to be the former in full measure. But to be a hero, you had to have a fight. You could go for a full year in Vietnam and never get into a fight big enough to get you a Bronze Star with V device, much less the Medal of Honor.

  Ergo, you sought out the fight. He’d volunteered for Special Forces in the first place because the conventional units, by the time he’d finished West Point and the officers’ course at Fort Benning, were already beginning to stand down. He’d simply been born too late to get in on the big fights, the ones that were going down in the history books. But the A camps, especially along the border, still had plenty going.

  Once in the camp, it had simply been a matter of luck that the team commander had been killed, leaving the inexperienced Lieutenant Sloane in charge. A matter of very good luck. Not that he had anything against the captain—he was simply in the way of the plan.

  And no one thought it strange that he had neglected the defenses. After all, he’s just a wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant! What the hell does he know?

  But McCulloden had to know now. Had to know that Sloane had deliberately neglected to set off a bank of claymore mines that would have stopped a North Vietnamese assault in its tracks. After all, he had been there, had seen Lieutenant Sloane rise up from his hole like some fire-breathing dragon, slaying all those who dared to stand before him. Had watched while the heroic lieutenant expended hundreds, perhaps thousands of machine-gun bullets into the ranks of the hapless troops, stalling their rush, bunching them up where they could be defeated in detail. Who had, moreover, repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire as he moved from one position to another.

  At which positions he had earlier stashed spare weapons, ammunition, grenades; all in preparation for exactly the thing that was happening. Heroic he was, but not stupid. Wouldn’t have done much good to have stood up there waving nothing more than his pecker at the onrushing troops.

  So McCulloden had to know, and had recommended him for the medal anyway.

  He owed the captain. It would be nice to pay him back. After all, he didn’t want to get the reputation of being ungrateful.

  But that was for the future. Right now the mission was all that mattered. The mission that would enhance his career just as surely as had the medal. The mission that would once and for all set him on the path for rapid advancement. He would advance. Oh, yes he would. To the highest possible rank.

  He just hoped his father—the old bastard!—would live long enough to see it.

  They were in one of the cocktail lounges in John F. Kennedy International Airport when news came of the fall of Saigon. At Jerry Hauck’s behest the bartender turned the television to a station that was covering it, earning scowls and a few comments from the other patrons, who were far more interested in watching a football game.

  When Jerry told one of the larger ones that he was going to rip his head off and shit down his neck if he didn’t shut up, the rest of them quieted down as well. Most of them got up and left, leaving the bar to the three ex-soldiers, who were obviously suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and who were probably very dangerous. People like that should be locked up, some of them said. They said it, of course, out of earshot of the three men.

  “You ever think you’d see this day?” Jerry asked of no one in particular as they watched, spellbound, the tanks roaring down the familiar roads.

  “No,” Jim admitted. “Not even when I knew we were going to give it up. I guess I wouldn’t let myself believe it.”

  “Guess it shoots the shit out of option two,” Sergeant Dickerson observed. They had been making plans during the long journey, drafting up the broad outline of the operation. Option two had involved, if everything went to hell, getting to Saigon, turning themselves in at the Embassy, and being evacuated. Now there was no Embassy. What was left was climbing onto helicopters from the roof.

  “Poor bastards,” Jerry whispered as they saw thousands of Vietnamese civilians desperately trying to escape. “Christ, they should have evacuated those people weeks ago. You can’t tell me they didn’t know this was coming. Hell, we could tell that, and we’re half a world away.”

  “You think our people give a shit?” Jim asked, his cynicism even deeper than usual. “Hell, those guys only worked for us. Believed us when we told them we’d take care of them. Their own damned fault for listening.” He slugged down the last of his drink, ordered another round.

  “Damn fools,” he added.

  He looked over at Jerry, saw the tears gathering in his eyes. Goddamn, he thought, trying to stifle his own. Dick Dickerson was noisily blowing his nose into a napkin.

  “Don’t mean nothin’, nohow,” he said, raising his glass in a toast to all those who had given their lives in preparation for this moment.

  “Don’t mean nothin’, nohow,” they agreed. The clink of glasses drowned out the droning of the announcer, at least for a second.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said to Dickerson, more to take their minds off the events on the television than from any real interest, “where you got your nickname.”

  Dickerson scowled. It was not something he liked to talk about. Rather embarrassing, he thought.

  Jerry Hauck saved him the trouble of answering. “Hell, Dai Uy, you didn’t know? Christ, I thought everyone in SF did.” Jerry was very glad for the interruption. A little humor. That’s what we need here, he thought. Else I’m gonna start blubberin’, and then somebody is gonna say somethin’, and I’m gonna have to rearrange his face.

  “Spec-4 Ezekiel Dickerson was on White Star,” he continued, referring to the Special Forces effort in Laos in the early 1960s. “Weren’t many black men in SF in those days, as you’ll remember. Dick was on one of the teams that went to work with the Meos. You know how those guys are, a lot like the Montagnards. Same ethnic group, anyway. They were way the hell up in the hills above Tchepone, with a group that had seen very damn few white men, and no blacks, before. Dick, here, was quite a novelty.”

  “Don’t know why I should have been,” Dickerson interjected, getting into the spirit of the tale. There is nothing a Special Forces man likes quite as well as a good story. Even when he’s the butt of it.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “they were always touchin’ me, feelin’ my hair, rubbin’ to see if the color would come off.”

  “And, if I understand right, wanting to see if it went underneath your clothes?” Jerry asked, already knowing the answer.

  If Dickerson could have blushed, he would have. “Yeah,” he said. “Spied on me, they did! I was takin’ a bath down at the stream, thought I was by myself. Next thing I know, I look up and there’s about a hundred of ’em—men, women, and kids too—all around me. Chatterin’ about a thousand miles an hour. I say, fuck it, and go on washin’. Later on, I ask the interpreter what they were sayin’.”

  “What they were saying,” Jerry said triumphantly, “is that he obviously needed to wash very carefully, because his genitals were even more black than the rest of him. And the team, because they didn’t want to hurt his feelings just because he was black, explained that, yes, his genitals were very dirty. That was why he was called Dirty Dick Dickerson.”

  Those remaining in the bar wondered why the men who had just a few minutes ago been so hostile were now laughing uproariously, despite the news on the TV getting worse and worse. Just went to show how disturbed they were, one of them, a psychiatrist, thought. Mood swings like that were obviously indicative of severe mental problems. He wisely kept that thought to himself.

  Last time I made this trip, Jim thought as the jetliner took off from California, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Course, I was a lot younger then, and considerably more stupid. Gonna save the world, I was. He laughed inwardly at the thought. It felt like bile.

  I could do it then, though. No responsibilities, no hope for anything other than continued wa
r, a quick death, and an end to it all. Who cared? Nobody. Not even me.

  Two things changed that. I met Alix, and I made thirty. Of the two events, one had been joyous, and the other traumatic.

  I never expected to live to be thirty years old. It was sort of a talisman; why worry about the rest of your life when you knew you wouldn’t live very long anyway? It allowed you to do all sorts of silly things. Piss away your youth on one lost cause or another. Pass the days you weren’t in combat in a haze of alcohol. Pop amphetamines to chase away the dark until you become so jangled you hallucinated. Go through women like a damned herd bull going through the cows, carefully avoiding the entanglements.

  Then the thirtieth birthday came and went, and I was still here. Alix made a lot of it, calling me old man, telling me that I could no longer be trusted. Throwing a party at the club, the decorations all in black. Being toasted by friends and acquaintances, all of them laughing and joking, only one knowing that the morbid jokes had a basis in reality. Only one knowing how long and terrifyingly empty the years stretched ahead. Al Dougherty knew. Al had gone through it himself, only a year before.

  Is that really why I’m here? Have I fooled myself yet again? Yeah, the answer came, you probably did, Jim. Oh, you justify it by saying you have to go in there and bring those guys out. How could you live with yourself if you didn’t? Knowing that you were responsible for yet two more deaths?

  Is that the real reason? Or is this just one more escape, a running away? From responsibility, from being a husband, a father, from the long boring years stretching out before you?

  I don’t know. I do know that if I keep thinking about it I’m going to go crazy. Best to try to get some sleep, like Jerry and Dick are doing. It’s going to be a long, boring flight. No sense in hoping for a breakdown in Honolulu this time. Mark Petrillo isn’t aboard to arrange it. Strange how that man keeps popping up. And why, when I think about it, I get this foreboding feeling.