13th Valley (31 page)

“Hey, Jax,” Silvers said, “that makes me think.”

“Oh shee-it.”

“You see that land out there.”

Jax rolled over, looked at Leon then squinted into the sun. “Where?”

“Way down there. By the sea. That strip's known as the ‘Street Without Joy.' You know that?”

“Do now.”

“I got an idea. The way I see it is first we kick out the VC and then the NVA. We get the ARVNs to get the rest of the Vietnamese into refugee camps south of Hue. See? Then we resettle the place with Jews. See? We get an ally and you know the New York money won't never let this place go then. Shit, Man. We'll call it the ‘Street Without Goy.' Get it?” Silvers laughed.

“I thought yo said it a'ready called that.”

“No Man, without goy, not without joy. Don't you get it?”

“Yo brain gettin fried like spareribs, Leon. Either yo been smokin too much dew or yo got somethin from las night's screw.”

“Goy, Man, goy.” Silvers shook his head. “It means gentiles. A Jewish Street Without Gentiles.”

“Oh come on na, Bro,” Jax teased. “I knows Jews got gentiles. How else could they like pro-create?”

Silvers returned to the Newsweek. He read about the positive effects of the Cambodian incursion within South Vietnam and the negative effects within Cambodia, turned the page and found an article saying Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird was aiming to reduce overall US military strength from 20 divisions to 15 by mid-1972. “I know it, Jax,” Silvers said waking Jax again.

“Now what?”

“I'm up for a 180-day drop. They cuttin back the size of the armed forces. They're goina let me out same day as you. You can ride on my lap all the way to the World if they don't have enough room for ya on my Freedom Bird.”

“Get serious, Man. I knows what comin down. Got the word from The Man himself. Sho did. Right from the head honcho. No Leons ever leave. They jest fade away.”

“No way, Jax. If them fuckin REMF clerkjerks mess with this kid's drop I'm callin in TAC Air on their AOs.”

Jax sat up, picked up the C-rat can and drank half the syrup. He passed the can to Silvers. Silvers drained the remainder of the juice, crushed the thin can in his hand and threw the tin into the jungle.

At the center of the defensive ring the company's command post had regrouped and the men were now sitting, discussing the exact details of the move. “Where do you think the little people are, Danny?” Brooks asked Egan. He had asked the same question of each soldier and the consensus had been the NVA were most likely deep in the valley.

“I think they're right on the next ridge,” Egan said clearly, pointing west.

“I think we oughta get our asses outa here,” Tim Cahalan, a company CP RTO, injected. “This place is goina be an asskicker. Look how steep that fucker is.”

“The jungle is a neutral adversary,” Lt. Caldwell quipped.

“Blow it out yer ass,” Cahalan whispered behind his back.

“Hey!” Brooks said grabbing control. “Okay. It's time now to get down to business. We've had a week of slack, now it's time to move. Cahalan, have you called higher yet with the report on those two KIAs?”

“Yes Sir. Roger that.”

“Okay. Call Red Rover and let him know our Rover Two element is moving out in two-five. Danny, you and Bill have your platoon ready to move. We're going to work west down that ridge. Stay in column just below the ridge down to the saddle then spread out and sweep up to that peak. We want to be there by 1300. You have two and a half hours. Second Platoon, Frank, you and Pop, you be ready to move right after 1st leaves. 3d will be back up here before you move out. They'll follow you, lag by one hour. Bill, Danny, tell your men to eat now if they haven't eaten yet and tell them to secure their rucks. We're not making any noise once we leave here. Frank, you and Pop, you make lots of noise up here while we're moving out and tell 3d to make it look like the whole company's still here until we reach that peak. CP will follow Rover Two. Where's Hoyden?”

“Right here, L-T,” Lieutenant William Hoyden said from behind Brooks. Hoyden was the artillery forward observer attached to Alpha.

“FO, I want preset coordinates for that peak. I want coordinates registered for the peak, the draw and that canyon there to the November Whiskey. If I were a dink honcho I'd set up in the canyon. Let's go. I want to hear some chatter. What's everybody think?”

“L-T, I think Recon's hit the shit,” Bill Brown said. Brown was the third RTO of the company CP. “They're callin for a Dust Off.” Brown turned up the volume of his radio which was set on Command Net. The group paused to listen to the dialogue of metallic voices as Echo's Recon Platoon requested an urgent medical evacuation helicopter. El Paso changed the frequency of his PRC-25 radio from Alpha's internal to Recon's internal and the group monitored their sister unit's movement in the firefight. Egan rose to his knees and looked toward Recon's position. Red tracers could be seen floating down from a point on the west side of the peak. Occasionally enemy green tracers floated up toward Recon's insertion LZ. No soldiers, friendly or enemy, could be seen. There was no movement. The sound of the firefight was mostly lost in the sound of helicopter traffic and the booming of artillery batteries already laid and registered on Firebase Barnett. There was no indication of the fighting except the infrequent fireflies of red and green crossing and the crackling voices being monitored on the radio.

“That's enough of that,” Brooks said shortly. “El Paso, get that radio back on our internal. Let's break it up. Get back to your people. Egan, Bill, get your men ready to move.”

“Quiet Rover Four, this is Rover Two, commo check,” Cherry said squeezing the transmit bar on the handset of his radio. There was no response. Cherry checked the frequency setting then repeated his call to El Paso. Again there was no response. “Quiet Rover Four, this is Rover Two. Do you read? Over.”

“Two, this is Four,” El Paso's voice rasped. “I got you lumpy chicken. Hotel Mike? Over,” El Paso said meaning Loud and Clear. How me?

“Four, Two. Say again.” There was no response. Cherry repeated his call. Again nothing.

“Two,” El Paso's voice squawked in Cherry's ear. “Do you know what Mike Foxtrot Alpha is? Over.”

“Four. Negative,” Cherry answered.

“Two,” El Paso's voice came in calm lecture-form, “it's a Romeo Tango Oscar who forgets to say ‘Over' when he's completed his transmission. Mother Fuckin Asshole. Over.”

“Uggh.” Cherry groaned before squeezing the transmit bar. “Four. Sorry. Roger that and Wilco. Over and out.” For a moment longer Cherry sat where he had been sitting all morning. Then he rose and walked toward Jax and Silvers, and Doc and Minh who had joined them. All four were eating and talking loudly.

“If they repealed the mothafuckin Gulf a Tonkin Resolution how come we still here?” Doc shouted. “Huh, Mista? Tell me that. That was the legal basis fo us bein in this bad mothafucka, woant it?”

“Not necessarily,” Silvers said. “Says here ‘Nixon contends that the President's power to wage war doesn't come from any particular resolution but is based on his constitutional powers as Commander-in-Chief.'”

“That crazy shee-it,” Jax snapped. “They dee-cap-i-tate dick-tators, doan they? The people aint gowin stand fo it. We gowin tear him down.”

“Amen, Bro. Amen,” Doc said and raised a power fist salute.

“Amen,” Silvers added. “But I got a problem. See, the situation here is connected to the situation in the Middle East. If we show a weak face here …” Silvers paused and looked up. Cherry was standing above them, looking and listening. “What are you staring at?” Silvers asked accusingly.

“I, ah …” Cherry cleared his throat. He did not know what to say. He blurted out, “I was looking for Egan.”

“What?” Silvers shouted.

“Hey, Man,” Doc laughed. “You kin make noise now. No tellin how long we gonna have ta be quiet.”

“Oh,” Cherry said, a silly grin came to his face. “I ah,” he wanted to join them but he was uninvited, “I, ah,” his voice became louder, “ah, gotta find Egan.”

Men of the 1st Plt and the company CP finished their lunches and secured their packs. Lieutenant Thomaston had told them to remain where they were until called individually. One at a time they were to circle to the north side of 848, slide into the vegetation then circle to the west ridge beneath the cover of vines and trees and begin the descent. If Alpha was being observed by NVA trailwatchers, as Brooks suspected, the tactic was designed to keep the enemy from detecting the company's movement into the canopy or at least the direction of the movement. As the first soldiers began to move unobtrusively, an unexpected helicopter approached 848, landed, released two men in fatigues, lifted off and flew away. Thomaston motioned for the first seven men to slip into the canopy under the diversion of the bird and as it left, he motioned for the men to sit and wait.

At the top of the LZ the two men were met by Lamonte. Lamonte seemed to have an almost frantic enthusiasm as he greeted the lieutenant from the 3rd Brigade Public Information Detachment and the civilian correspondent he was escorting. Cherry could not hear anything that was being said but he knew Lamonte was speaking eagerly and quickly. Man, Cherry thought. That's one cool job. I wonder what you have to do to work for Lamonte.

Sitting behind Cherry in ready order of march was Numbnuts. He threw a small stone at Cherry to get his attention. “That's Craig Caribski,” Numbnuts said. “He's the guy responsible for uncovering My Lai.”

“What?” Cherry whispered back.

“Yeah. I was talkin to Mister PIO. He said Caribski was comin out with us. Said he's workin for Dispatch News now. Wants ta get a story on the Ripcord fiasco.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Numbnuts said importantly. “Some of the dudes think we oughta blow him away.”

“Yer kidding.”

“Aw, it's just chatter. Maybe he'll take a picture of us an we'll be in all the papers.”

“Hey, yeah,” Cherry smiled.

“Hey, Cherry,” Numbnuts said. “Did you know today's Friday the Thirteenth?” Cherry shook his head. “You superstitious?” Numbnuts asked.

“No,” Cherry said. “Not really. I don't think. Are you?”

“Naw,” Numbnuts said scratching at his waist then his right thigh. “Me neither. Except about some things.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You know. Like this hat.” Numbnuts had an Australian bush hat with one side turned up.

“What about yer hat?” Cherry asked glad to be talking to someone. “Is it a good talisman?”

“Huh? Yeah. That's just it,” Numbnuts said. “I aint real sure. Last time I wore it I got shot at but I didn't get hit. Does that mean it's good luck cause I didn't get hit or bad luck cause I got shot at?”

“I see what ya mean,” Cherry said. His anxieties were easing with the conversation. “It may require a statistical analysis,” he joked. “How many times you been out with it?”

“I only wore it once,” Numbnuts said not smiling.

“A case of one is useless in statistics,” Cherry tried joking again.

Numbnuts paused. He looked at Cherry, curled his upper lip and turned away.

Cherry knew that the situation he was in had changed. The men about him were different today from the way they had been last night. But he did not know why. His mind had not shifted. He did not yet possess the boonierat mentality. It was frustrating, maddening. He did not know what was happening, what was wrong with him. He felt he was no longer accepted. He was sitting in a bush, waiting, waiting again. Now he was dirty. He had been getting dirtier by the day but at least at Phu Bai, Evans and Eagle there had been places to wash. Cherry removed a canteen from his rucksack, poured some water on his OD handkerchief and wiped his face and arms. Red-brown mud smeared on his skin. He wiped and added water and washed and wiped. The mountain air had heated up and the sun beat very harshly.

I'm losing my marbles, Cherry thought. I'm losing my ability to speak. This waiting's driving me nuts. What in the hell am I doing here? I thought Silvers was going to be my friend … should have told him to fuck himself. I used to have a mind. Six months ago I remember being able to gross out Phil in the pizza shop and today I can't even converse with an idiot without sayin something wrong.

Daniel Egan was alone again, sitting above the northeast corner of the LZ on Hill 848 feeling very much like a platoon sergeant. He sat and stared disgustedly at Cherry who was fifty feet to his left and at the L-T who was above on the LZ talking to Lt. De Barti, Garbageman and El Paso. Egan looked east, stared into the jungle before him and beyond that jungle at the jungle on the next ridge and still beyond. Across his lap was his M-16 and around his waist was the pistol belt with two canteen pouches filled each with six magazines of ammunition. Four fragmentation grenades hung from his belt. Strapped to his left calf was a bayonet. Before him ridges fell east with the gorge of the Rach M
Ó¯
Ch
ā
nh cutting across and through the ridgelines. Beyond the fourth ridge was a fifth where the Rach M
Ó¯
Ch
ā
nh flowed northeastward into the Sông Thác Ma and another ridge was beyond that and then yet another.

With his left hand Egan kneaded the earth. He moved his right hand to his lap and stroked the pistol grip of his rifle. He massaged the steel of the rifle's bolt housing with his thumb, fingered the plastic pistol grip and the trigger-guard and the trigger, thumbed the safety selector, now staring east down toward the lowlands and beyond toward the sea. In his aloneness and disgust there was a sadness in vague memories that tried to force themselves to the surface of his consciousness, thoughts which he kept fully suppressed, thoughts which he supplanted with the disgust feeling and which accentuated the aloneness, which if he conjured them up would be dangerous in a bad AO. Egan hid in his disgust and loathing for what he was, for what was about him. He glared at the sun now risen high. He glared at the ridges and the valleys before him. In his mind an old sergeant was chattering. The old sergeant was saying something about the ridges which Egan did not even know he had heard the old sergeant say. Egan counted. There were four ridges down the Rach M
Ó¯
Ch
ā
nh and two down the Sông Ô Lau. They were clear though the distance made the trees blur. He stopped counting. He put the thought out of his mind, chased it from his mind with thoughts of the gypsy girl in Australia.