“It’s OK,” someone whispered. “Just the guards.”
Relaxing, he let go his rifle and finished lacing up his boots. Across the perimeter an icy blue flame flickered, hesitated a moment, and then catching, burnt cheerlessly against the firm grayness of the fire base. A second one caught near it and then a third. Figures like ghosts floated back and forth in front of the flames.
By the time James reached the mess area all the gas burners had been lit and the Sergeant was already stacking empty crates for the food line. A few strips of corrugated aluminum siding stretched over the open burners were being heated for a grill. Two troopers, barely visible in the dim light, were filling the 55-gallon cans with water for coffee.
“James,” the Sergeant said, “we’ve got three dozen fresh eggs over there by the ammunition. Mix ’em with the powder.”
“Where?”
“There, dammit,” the Sergeant said, pointing. “Over there near the 50’s. Kolstein!” he yelled, “get some more water into those cans.”
“Toast?” James asked.
“Toast what?”
“Are we going to have toast?”
“Maybe you want some caviar,” the Sergeant said.
“It would be a nice morning for toast.... OK, forget it.”
It was getting lighter. He took a few steps out over the uneven ground, stopped, and turned around.
“Any bacon?”
“You getting wise again,” the Sergeant said angrily. “I’ve warned you.”
James shrugged and continued on his way. The eggs were piled behind the 50-caliber ammunition. He never found them. The first round hit in the middle of the ammunition.
It was the same all over Nam. During Tet and the following seven weeks 4114 Americans were killed, 19,285 were wounded, and 604 were lost. But on that morning, it was the cooks and the perimeter guards who died first. At the 101st base camp near Bien Hoa there is still hanging over the rifle range a great enameled screaming eagle and above it, in twelve-inch block letters, the motto: “WE AIM TO KILL.” Beneath it is this proud little commemoration:
THE ONLY U.S. RIFLE RANGE OCCUPIED BY ENEMY TROOPS DURING THE TET OFFENSIVE. FORTY-EIGHT KILLED DOWN RANGE—AIRBORNE.
“Don’t let the news media fool you. These
kids may be eighteen or nineteen,
but they’re beautiful killers—just beautiful.”
Major, 25th Division
Medical Ward
U.S. Army Hospital, Zama, Japan
8
No Fucken Cornflakes
THERE WERE NO MORE heavily armed night patrols setting up outside the perimeter of the fire base and shooting up anything that came near. The gooks would fix their position, set up an ambush, and get them coming back in the morning. Then Brigade had tried roving patrols, but the troopers, untrained for night action, got themselves caught and murdered out in the open. There was talk about giving up the whole idea and leaving Charlie everything outside the NPD, but the Old Man wouldn’t have it. So they asked for volunteers—eighteen-and nineteen-year-olds—two-man ambush teams who would crawl out at night and bring down anything they could. No guns, no webb gear or helmet or even a canteen—nothing that could make any noise and give them away. The thing was to go out clean, with only a knife or a bayonet—and maybe a bicycle chain.
“Ready?” Cram asked.
Johnson held the mirror closer as he blackened the last exposed patch of his right cheek. It was almost dusk; the perimeter guards were already moving out toward the wire.
“Come on, come on,” Cram said, nervously tapping his hunting knife against his thigh, while Johnson tilted the mirror to take advantage of the fading light for a final check on his face.
“Jesus, man, come on, will you?”
“OK, OK,” Johnson said, dropping the mirror into his rucksack. Two of the guards, their M-60’s casually slung behind their shoulders, stared at them as they passed. Johnson waved to them.
“For Christ’s sake,” Cram said, “you can wave at the crowd when we get back.”
Johnson walked over to one of the scattered ammunition crates and, resting his foot on it, tightened the bayonet sheath strapped to his leg. Straightening up, he shook his foot and stamped on the ground to make sure the bayonet was securely clipped in its scabbard.
“The wire,” he said. “Whose idea was it?”
“How the hell should I know?” Cram said.
“It ain’t a good idea. It wouldn’t keep ’em out, and if they hit us, it’s gonna keep us in.”
“Well, Mr. Strategist, since we ain’t gonna be inside, we don’t have to worry about that now, do we?”
“It’s still a piss-poor idea.”
“Tell the Old Man tomorrow, will you?”
Johnson shrugged as he squinted into the last bit of the sun. “What we got?” he asked.
“Northwest, 180 to 270 degrees. The C and C chopper saw a few of ’em moving in late this afternoon. They lit up a couple. Figured the rest got away.”
“Want one?” Johnson pointed toward the ammunition crate. “Still some grenades in there.”
“Look, man, you know we’re not supposed to,” Cram said.
Johnson reached into the crate anyway. “Sure?”
“Listen, wise guy, just because this is your second time...”
“OK,” Johnson said, dropping the grenade back into the box.
“Got your chain?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go.”
As they walked across the uneven ground toward the perimeter, Cram scanned the tree line bordering the wire.
“Hold it,” he said, pulling up short.
“What the hell’s burning your ass now?” Johnson said.
“That.” Cram pointed to his companion’s shoulder patch.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. They can’t see it in the dark.”
“It’s yellow.”
“So’s the fucken leaves.”
“Leaves don’t move.”
“You win,” Johnson said, tearing the patch off his tiger stripes. “Just wanted ’em to know who the hell we were.”
“They know, man,” Cram said. “Just cool it a while, huh?”
They walked on past the last of the tents, toward where the guards were digging in behind the wire. About fifty meters from the perimeter they stopped and in the dim light carefully checked each other’s clothing to make sure nothing could catch or was loose enough to jingle.
“Got it taped?” Cram said.
“Sure.”
“Let’s see it.”
“I told you, it’s taped.”
“Let’s just see it, huh?”
Johnson took out his bicycle chain and held it up for Cram to see. Each steel link was covered with strips of black heavy-duty mechanic’s tape.
“Satisfied? It’s tough, man, don’t worry.”
It was almost dark by the time they reached the wire. The weapons were already set up, and the guards were trying to make themselves comfortable.
Cram got down on his belly and crawled under the wire. Johnson followed. The ground was still soft from the rains. With the last bit of daylight fading, they crawled single file through the claymores, out past the trip flares and the phosphorous grenades, and into the high grass. About 150 meters beyond the last claymore, Cram paused to wait for Johnson, then rolled over on his side, took a ball of twine from his pocket, and looped one end of the twine around his wrist and the other around Johnson’s. Tying the last knot, he tapped Johnson playfully on his bush hat, rolled back on his stomach, and began crawling again. Fifteen minutes later they came to a burned-over second growth of low bushes and grass.
“Here?” Johnson whispered.
“OK.”
They sat up back to back, each taking the 180 degrees in front of him. Resting quietly against each other, their legs drawn up in front of them, they sat listening as they scanned the tips of the barely visible grass and bushes that hid them, adjusting their breathing to the night
sounds around them, quieting with every sudden noise, and holding their breath with each unexpected silence. A mortar thudded in the distance; a bird screeched; a mosquito hummed close by. Far away they could hear the sound of automatic fire.
Cram turned his head. Johnson tensed; he had heard it at the same time, off to the right and a little in front of them. It was followed by a second noise, a sharp snapping, then another.
“Buffalo?” Johnson whispered nervously.
Cram was straining to hear. “No. Let’s go.”
Crawling on their stomachs again, they moved off the rise, parallel to the direction of the noise. Side by side, they snaked their way back into the tangle on their hands and knees, stopping every three or four meters to listen. The sounds were getting louder, the crunching, soft, measured beat of men pushing through the jungle. Cram tugged on the twine and Johnson moved off with him, perpendicular to the way they’d been going, until suddenly it was ominously quiet.
The two boys froze. To their right they heard the sharp metallic click of a round being chambered. Johnson, his heart pounding through his head, closed his eyes, straining to hear beyond his own breathing.
The first gook broke out a little to Cram’s left—a dark shape silhouetted against the darker night—and as abruptly faded from view. Only the shadowy, swaying bushes showed someone had been there. Then silence again, and the night closing in on them again.
Suddenly another form appeared. The figure seemed to hesitate and was about to turn back when Cram leaped up and got him. For a moment, as Cram worked in his knife, it looked as if they were embracing, then quietly Cram lowered the body to the ground.
Johnson was still crouched when the grass next to him parted. He saw a foot, and twisting up, swung his bicycle chain in a long vicious arc. The gook was just bringing up his AK when the chain caught him across the face. Even as he fell backwards Johnson was on him, his fingers digging into what was left of the man’s face. As they thudded to the ground, Johnson reached frantically for his bayonet and plunged it into the man’s neck, knifing again and again until he could feel the head coming loose in his other hand—until, exhausted, he collapsed beside his victim, gasping for air with his mouth wide open to smother the sound of his labored breathing.
Terrified, he looked around. No one was coming. He sat up and felt along the ground for his chain. His hand brushed against a rifle. Picking up the AK he held it in one hand while he searched for the chain with the other, then went back to the body. He pulled his bayonet from the dead man’s neck and a gush of blood flowed out with it. Johnson stared at his stained fingers; in the dim moonlight the blood looked like quicksilver. The tug at his wrist brought him back, and in another moment Cram was beside him.
“Come on,” Cram whispered. “They might be coming back.... Hey! Leave it.”
“Huh?” Johnson slipped the bayonet back into its scabbard.
“Leave it. The rifle, man. Leave it.”
“Nothing doing,” Johnson shook his head. “This one I’m keeping.”
“Why the hell don’t you just cut off an ear? Anyway, don’t use it, or you’ll have the gooks and our whole goddamn division trying to light us up.”
Johnson slung the weapon across his back and, tightening the cinch to hold it firm, followed Cram. They crawled for almost a hundred meters before they stopped to rest again and wait for daylight—or more victims.
Toward morning a gunship circled over them. They could hear it crisscrossing above them.
“Think they’ve seen us?” Cram asked nervously. “I mean, maybe they’ll think we’re VC.”
“Could be,” Johnson said quietly, rubbing the wooden stock of the AK.
Cram grunted. “Must be how the gooks feel.”
There was nothing to do but wait out what was left of the night until the mists burned off. When it was light enough to see clearly, they started moving back to the base.
The perimeter guards were dismantling their night positions. They looked curiously at the two boys coming through the high grass. They reached the wire a little after five. The sun had only been up an hour, but already they were soaked with sweat. Nam is at best a nervous place; there’s no time for the foolishness of passwords or cricket clicks, so you wait until you can be seen. Following Cram, Johnson crawled in under the wire, the same way they had gone out the night before.
“Where’s your souvenir?” someone yelled.
“Left him out there,” Cram called back good-naturedly.
The base was already on the move. All around them troopers were getting ready for their morning sweeps. A few stood by their tents. Some were filling their canteens, others fixing their webb gear, hooking on grenades and smoke bombs or adjusting belts of machine-gun ammunition.
Cram put his fingers to his lips and let out a long piercing whistle. Everyone around them jumped.
“Crazy fuckers,” a trooper said disgustedly, slamming a clip into his grenade launcher. “All these ambushers are fucken crazy.”
Ahead of them, two troopers in tiger suits, one Negro and one black-faced, had turned around at the sound of the whistle. They waited for Cram and Johnson to catch up with them.
“Got one, huh?” the Negro said, looking at Johnson’s AK.
“One apiece,” Cram said.
“Come on, I’m hungry,” the white guy said. “Let’s go eat.”
The four walked together the rest of the way to the mess tent. It was almost in the center of the fire base, close to the C and C. Two other ambush teams were already there, waiting in line. One trooper had a steel-tipped blackjack hanging down from a lanyard tied to his wrist. Another, a big rawboned southern boy, was playing with a barber’s razor, mechanically opening and shutting the blade. They were all filthy.
“Hey, Thompson, where’s Zim?” Cram asked.
“The gooks got him,” the southerner said. “We’re going out after breakfast to get him. The Old Man said it would be OK.”
“And Cockrane?”
“He got back, but he took a round through his shoulder.”
Johnson put his AK down against one of the tent supports and got in line behind the Negro.
“How did it go, Williams?”
“A bit heavy.”
“Yeah,” Johnson said, “for us too.”
The first few guys in line began moving into the tent, and a trooper with a soiled blue bandana wrapped around his head got into line next to Johnson.
“How did you get it, man?” he said, nodding toward the AK.
“Bicycle chain.”
“Worked, huh?”
“I swear, Truex,” Johnson said, “he would have had me. I mean I couldn’t have got to him without it. You know, I mean he would have blasted me.”
“That you?” Truex asked, pointing down at Johnson’s bloody hand.
Johnson looked thoughtfully at his hand. He seemed suddenly subdued, almost awed. “No,” he said, “that’s him.”
“Yeah, I know. I got some of mine on me, too,” Truex said. “Took him down from behind. Must have got an artery right off. Jesus! I mean I even got some in my mouth.”
“Hey, Truex,” a passing soldier yelled. “There’s a letter for you in your tent.”
“From who?” the trooper yelled back.
“Miss America—who the fuck else do you think?”
“Wise ass,” Truex muttered to himself as he moved into the tent. Johnson followed him.
The tent sheltered them from the sun, but afforded little comfort. Hot, suffocating breezes blew unhindered straight through the open slats. Sweating, the men picked up their trays. Ahead of them, Cram stopped to pour himself some hot coffee.
“You crazy!” Williams said.
Cram looked over his shoulder at the Negro trooper. “You’re supposed to drink hot things in hot weather.”
“Who the fuck told you that?”
“Our family doctor, and he’s a lot smarter than you are.”
The Negro turned his head to watch a squad of troopers
walking past the tent.
“Hey, Thompson,” Truex said, “why don’t they ever let us capture some prisoners?”
The southerner ignored him.
“No man, I mean it.”
“What the fuck you gonna do with ’em?” Thompson asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What, I said. What the hell are you gonna do with ’em? Watch ’em all night?”
“You don’t have to kill ’em to keep ’em quiet. I mean, you can tie ’em up, or keep hitting ’em on the head.”
“You keep hitting them on the head,” Thompson said disgustedly.
Truex shrugged. “I gotta take a piss,” he announced, and left the line.
Thompson watched him duck under the tent beam and walk out into the sunlight. “That fucker’s gonna kill me,” he said angrily.
“How you figure that?” Williams said.
“He’s gonna kill himself and me with him. We went out last night really far; I mean it was really far. He killed one going out—some kid—no weapons, nothing. Probably just from one of the villages. Anyway, the crum got pissed. He wanted an NVA. Stupid fucker.”
“Why?”
“Motherfucker wants enough NVA belt buckles for a chain. Ever since he killed that NVA three days ago he’s been goofy about it. That’s all he talks about, getting that fucken chain. Anyway, that kid he lit up must have been something special to somebody. They were out looking for him all night. Must have been a goddamn company out hunting for him. We laid low. About midnight they were moving back past us. Every fucken one of them had gone by when I swear to god that son of a bitch Truex coughed. I swear to god, that son of a bitch coughed to get some of ’em to come back.”
“Did they?” Johnson asked.
“Fucken A they did, right at us. At least they started. I had some grenades and I just threw ’em as far as I could and got the hell out in a hurry.”
“And Truex?”
“He sat there like he had a string of claymores. I just cut out on him.”
“Maybe you ought to tell the Old Man,” Williams said.
365 Days Page 9
