Napalm Dreams

by John F. Mullins

  He glanced over at the box that contained the claymore firing device, smiled. How unsporting!

  He heard the gunners in the bunker that formed the vee of the star on his right open up, watched the stream of tracers hose into the oncoming troops. It scarcely slowed them down, the living stepping over the bodies of the dead. Like some terrible khaki machine they marched, straight toward him.

  He realized that he was probably a little mad. Crazy as a shithouse rat, he could almost hear Billy Joe Turner say. But great warriors were always a little mad. Berserk Vikings, Hun warriors howling in fury, perhaps even cavemen clubbing everything that stood in their way.

  Now or never. He grabbed the M60 machine gun, coiling the belt over his supporting arm and up over his shoulder, where it dragged on the ground behind him. Too bad nobody’s here to take a picture of me, he thought.

  The picture will be in their minds. Forever.

  He left the bunker.

  I was right. Goddamn it to hell, I was right.

  Finn had been busily hosing down the front ranks of the oncoming enemy when the bangalores went off to his right. The fire that erupted from that direction made that coming his way pale in comparison.

  There was the main attack. I knew it and did what they wanted me to do, anyway. Now his reserve was pinned down, barely holding its own against the troops who, he now realized, intended exactly that.

  He’d stripped the west wall of all the troops he dared take, and obviously taking something away from the beleaguered north was out of the question. That left only one choice.

  An army of one, hero, he told himself. You.

  “Gotta go, Walter,” he told Washington.

  The big sergeant nodded. “We’ll hold ’em down here,” he said. “Keep ’em out of your rear, anyway.”

  Finn stuffed grenades in the cargo pockets of his fatigues, replaced the two magazines he’d fired into the ranks of the force opposing them, took a couple of deep breaths, and tried to go to a zone he’d been in before. Where his mind closed to everything but the task at hand. Where there was no time, no fear, no awareness of danger.

  And when that zone didn’t come, said screw it, and launched himself over the back of the trench anyway.

  The rounds reached for him, tugging at his fatigues, snapping by his ears, hitting the ground and whining crazily away. He ran as fast as his tired legs and heavy load would let him, which, he realized, wasn’t very fast. It seemed to take forever to reach his first objective, the pile of sandbags that was all that remained of one of the ammunition bunkers hit during the earlier artillery barrage. He didn’t bother to zigzag, feeling that it was largely a waste of time and energy. The bullets would find him as well on this course or that.

  He was almost surprised when he made it to cover without being hit, flopping down behind the sandbags and gasping for great gulps of air. His chest heaved and his heart felt as if it were in his throat. He lay there for a moment, listening to the bullets snapping right over his head, thumping into the sandbags behind which he took cover.

  Halfway there. And running into a lot more firing than he was running from.

  Well, hell, Finn, did you expect to live forever?

  He heard the rush of a heavy mortar round coming in, had barely enough time to throw himself flat, arms crossed over his head, legs crossed at the ankles to protect his gonads. Whomp!

  A huge chunk of shrapnel, so big the sound cutting through the air was a low buzz rather than the high whine one ordinarily heard, sliced across his back so close it severed his web gear. He could actually feel the momentary flash of heat as the scorched metal passed perhaps a fraction of an inch from his flesh. Then actual burning as other chunks fell from their high arc and landed on his back. Shit! Goddamn. He got up quickly, shaking his shoulders to dislodge the pieces of metal burning their way into his flesh.

  And saw something that chilled his blood. Troops, lots of troops, and the lead elements had already passed the moat and were breaching the remaining barrier that kept them from the interior of the camp. Claymores! Where were the goddamn claymores?

  The assault troops were cutting the wire with as much sangfroid as one could muster, considering that the Montagnard defenders in the trenches were pouring as much fire as possible into their ranks. The NVA security elements were returning fire at a steady rate, keeping the defenders’ heads down and degrading the effectiveness of their aim.

  It was hopeless. Time to call a retreat, get back to the inner perimeter, hole up, and try to last until daylight. Although what good the sun was going to do was problematic. He glanced up, more in desperation than in any real hope of seeing the looming clouds break. Or maybe he was just looking for God.

  What good could one man do?

  Got you now, Sloane said as he rose up from the shell crater like, he fancied, some avenging angel. Or a demon from hell, called to take you back there with him.

  He triggered a long burst from the M60, the heavy gun bucking in his hands like something live. Center of mass, traverse left, finger off the trigger, center of mass, traverse right. At this range the heavy bullets cut through the tight-packed mass of men, each round nearly exploding the first man in line, continuing on with scarce a drop in velocity into the man behind him, tumbling now and producing mangled flesh wherever it touched, heart and lungs and arteries and nerves and bone—made no difference. By the time it finally stopped it had killed or wounded three or four.

  The expressions on their faces are wonderful to see! Stunned surprise, replaced with a grimace of pain, the dull sheen of death already overtaking them as they fall to the ground, and still the bullets come, chattering through the smoking gun, links falling to the ground to join the hot pile of brass—a hundred, two hundred rounds, belts prelinked together—die you bastards die!

  Security force now recovering from their stunned surprise, those still living, in any case, and returning fire. Bullets snapping by, plucking at his clothes, so close to the head that they ruffle the hair, they can’t hit you!

  The last round slips through the gun, drop the useless weapon, the barrel so hot it glows red, drop down in the crater, grab the first grenade you’ve lined up, pull the pin, throw, pulling the pin on the second as the first one is still in the air, now the third and fourth—the explosions so close they sound like a mortar barrage.

  Out of the hole, scurry to the rear before they can respond, grab the weapon you’ve secreted there, up again and fire! Their only surprise now is your new location, and that doesn’t last long. Survivors now through the wire, trying to assault, close with you and kill you just as if they’ve been taught, but they can’t—you know they can’t because this is the way it was supposed to be and nothing, no nothing, can stop you.

  Who the fuck does he think he is? John Wayne? Those Japs in Sands of Iwo Jima were shooting blanks, you silly asshole, Finn wanted to shout.

  But it was working! The assault troops faltered, some of them starting to fall back. Sloane kept shooting, as happily mowing down the ones who retreated as he did the ones who tried to keep fighting.

  As Sloane’s belt ran out, an NVA soldier who had wisely been crawling toward the lieutenant leaped up and assaulted, his tripointed bayonet in the thrust position. Almost as an afterthought, it seemed to Finn, Sloane parried the thrust with the barrel of the machine gun, then slammed the butt of the weapon into his head. Then all Finn could see was the lieutenant methodically slamming the weapon down on the fallen man, until it was covered in blood and brains and still he slammed it down.

  Gone completely nuts, Finn thought.

  At least a platoon of enemy troops came storming through the breach, heedlessly trampling over the dead and wounded, aiming directly for Sloane’s position. But he’d somehow moved—even Finn couldn’t see how he’d managed it, and when he came up with yet another machine gun, he was on their flank.

  Better troops than the ones he’d already engaged—probably the exploitation force, Finn surmised—they didn’t just stand
there and let him kill them. They scurried toward cover of their own, the survivors of the first burst of fire, in any case, and quickly unlimbered a barrage of small-arms fire at the lieutenant. Finn saw him step back as if he’d been punched, swaying for a moment, then steadying and triggering the machine gun.

  Asshole’s gonna need some help. Finn scurried ten or so meters to the left, which brought him in line with their flank. Perfect position. He took careful aim at a head silhouetted over the top of a shell hole, put one round through it. Then a second, and a third. By the time they realized their danger, he’d killed six. Finn heard a shouted order in Vietnamese, and the survivors clambered out of their holes and tried to run for the wire.

  It was an opportunity too good to pass up. Finn flipped the selector switch to automatic, emptied the rest of his magazine into their ranks, reloaded, and was ready to kill again when Sloane once again opened up, at least a hundred rounds, scything down what had once been the cream of the North Vietnamese assault force.

  Finn ran toward him, seeing him once again sway, almost sit down, steadying only at the last moment. Sloane saw him, swung the gun in his direction.

  Finn saw the look in his eyes, the one that spoke of a great emptiness, of whatever made a man having fled the body, and realized that he would soon be dead. He could almost feel the lieutenant’s finger tightening on the trigger.

  “Ben,” he said softly, as he would have talked to a child.

  “Ben. It’s me. It’s okay now. They’re gone. Put down the gun, Ben. Rest.”

  Sloane looked at him with eyes that did not comprehend. He raised the gun, pointing it directly at Finn’s chest. Then he smiled, and there was nothing remotely human in the grimace. He pulled the trigger.

  The bolt slammed home on an empty chamber.

  Ought to beat his fucking brains out myself, Finn thought as he gently pulled the gun away.

  He pushed the now-unresisting officer down into the bottom of the crater, out of the line of fire that was still coming their way from at least two different directions. Sloane’s face was spattered with blood and bone and brain from the man he’d beaten to death. But there was more blood, and it wasn’t from the enemy.

  Finn pulled back Sloane’s shirt, saw the neat, round hole just above his navel, the edges blackened, the blood streaming out. He ran his hand around to the rear, feeling for an exit hole, didn’t find one. It meant the bullet had tumbled around in there, as the 7.62-by-39 rounds fired from an AK-47 tended to do, and was still resting somewhere in the body. Having done no end of damage, he was sure.

  He took Sloane’s field dressing, pressing the sterile side into the wound and using the tails to tie around the lieutenant’s body. It wasn’t going to do anything for the bleeding, obviously internal. Morphine?

  “How bad are you hurting, Ben?”

  Sloane’s eyes focused on him for the first time, something like true consciousness finally returning. “Am I hit?” he asked, his voice almost childlike. “Didn’t feel it.”

  “Not bad,” Finn lied. “We’ll get you back to the dispensary, let Andy Inger take a look at it. Two Purple Hearts in one day! Not too bad, LT.”

  Sloane smiled. “Gotta stay here. They’ll be back.”

  All too true, Finn thought. “What happened? How come you didn’t stay in the bunker, fire the FPLs, blow the claymores?”

  “Not right,” Sloane said, grimacing as his guts went into spasm.

  Not right my ass, Finn thought. This son of a bitch is stone crazy.

  He looked up over the edge of the crater, seeing the bodies lying everywhere. Maybe we all are, he thought.

  Have to be. He saw movement out toward the edge of the perimeter. The second wave, he surmised, getting ready to come on in. With damned little standing in their way.

  He searched around in the crater, finding several ammo cans filled with belted 7.62. He delinked the last round from a belt, lined up the empty link with the link connector of the next belt, pushed the round home to secure it, did the same with the next. He opened the bolt of the M60, flipped open the cover, laid the first round in the tray, closed the cover on it. He opened the bipods, set the weapon up at the edge of the hole, sighted it. Perfect. He had clear fields of fire out to at least a hundred yards.

  “Ben,” he said. “I need you to hold this position. Think you can do that?”

  Sloane’s shoulders squared. He crawled up next to Finn, grasped the pistol grip of the machine gun, placed his finger on the trigger. “Forever,” he said.

  That’s what it might take, Finn thought.

  “Keep your ass down,” he instructed. “No more of this John Wayne shit. We’re all depending on you.”

  Sloane turned to look at him, but he was already gone, scrambling over the edge of the crater and scurrying toward the unoccupied bunker.

  This was what it was all about, he thought.

  He settled down to wait.

  Finn made the bunker with no more trouble than having the shit scared out of him from the mortar explosions that all seemed now to be directed at his sector of the line. Gratefully he slipped in the door, to find the interior largely untouched. The machine guns locked into their fixed positions gleamed in the light coming through the embrasures, the neatly stacked linked ammunition waiting in oiled readiness.

  The bunks against the back walls were untouched, no head marks on the pillows, the blankets tucked beneath the mattresses in hospital folds.

  Like something came in and sucked out the humans, leaving only inanimate machines, he thought, shuddering slightly.

  Most important thing first. He opened the box containing the claymore firing circuits, found the ohm meter, ran a continuity check on the wiring. Intact. Thank God.

  Gonna be some real surprised folks out there in a minute. He waited.

  More of them. Even more than before. His stomach twisted, Sloane grunted with the pain. All for nothing?

  No. No matter what happened now, men would remember this. They would tell the tales that would be a part of the history of this place, and of his part in it, from now on. It was enough.

  If any of them survive to tell of it, he corrected himself. His stomach twisted again.

  They will. They’ve got to.

  He pulled the trigger.

  Finn heard the roar of Sloane’s machine gun, watched the tracers as they reached out for the front ranks of the oncoming soldiers, inwardly cheered as they started to fall. My turn, he thought.

  He triggered his own long burst from the gun mounted in the center embrasure, ran over to the left-hand gun, fired; back to the center; now to the right. Enough to make them think the bunker was fully manned? He could only hope so. He wanted them headed directly for it, rather than the breach in the inner wire.

  Like water seeking a new channel, they changed direction, coming right toward him. Long bursts from the guns now, killing many, but not nearly enough. Sloane’s gun was now at their flank, cutting them to pieces but still not enough.

  Bullets whacking into the bunker, passing through the embrasures and embedding in the sandbag walls. The flash of a B-40 rocket, the gunner obviously not taking the time to aim it properly because the missile flashed over the bunker and impacted somewhere inside the camp.

  Smoke filling the bunker from the hot gun oil, the burnt powder. Fear sweat so profound it soaks your fatigues, eyes burning and wincing but not daring to blink. No sense in changing guns now, they’re coming directly this way. Through the first barrier, now in tatters. On to the second, some of them stumbling in the tanglefoot but most high-stepping right across. A chunk of razor-wire concertina that hadn’t been blown away by the bangalores slows them only slightly, the front rank soldiers throwing themselves full length on it and the ones behind trampling over their backs. Impossibly brave, completely mad, it doesn’t matter. They will come, and they will not be stopped.

  B-40 flash again, the gunner having reloaded his launcher, and this time he’s taken the time to kneel, taken a proper sight
picture, held steady as the heavy missile has left the launcher in a burst of light, a cloud of smoke, a pall of dust. Finn can see it coming, his eyes now so focused that he thinks he can see the bullets, and he can certainly watch the relatively lazy trajectory of the missile.

  Down! As it hits just below the embrasure, the jet of pure energy produced by the shaped charge inside the warhead punches through sandbags and timber, bouncing the gun just above it halfway out of the bunker.

  No matter. He is already scrambling for the box, the lovely box. He flips open the cover, toggles the safety, grabs the flat piece of copper attached to the one terminal of the battery, the other terminal being connected to the pins that stand like little soldiers in one long rank. How many? Does it matter?

  Run the copper connector across the pins, like running a stick along a picket fence when you were a kid, achieving the shouts of the enraged homeowner just as you intended, teach him to yell at you for stealing peaches!

  No shouts. No curses. Just the world ripping apart as each mine blasts one after another in a ripple that spreads across the front ranks of the oncoming enemy, from one end of the assault to the other.

  A stunned silence after the thunder.

  Where once men stood there is nothing but the charnel house.

  About exhausts that bag of tricks, Finn thought. Time to get the hell out of here.

  Chapter 15

  Finn tested the command radio still in the bunker, was happy to see it was still working. His transmission to the other elements was simple—withdraw. Get yourself and your troops to the inner perimeter.

  He figured he had only a few minutes until the NVA sent in the next assault force. That they were coming he had no doubt. They’d been hurt, but not enough. The Vietnamese commander had almost unlimited assets outside the wire, could afford to lose a few hundred or even a thousand. Whereas the forces he had at his command were being whittled down past the point where they could maintain defenses on the extensive bunker system that marked the outer perimeter.