13th Valley (81 page)

My Dad got a new car. It's white. I already don't like it because the first time I got into it I hit my head. I'll probably hold this grudge against it until I smash it up. Dad wants me to get one of my own but I say I don't need a car. There's always one available here if I want it.

Oh, what else has happened? I made it to Boston last month and I love it there. If things work out as I hope they will, next January I may take an apartment up there with a friend who goes to college in Boston. I'll work. I really love Boston. The people are very friendly.

If my money situation works out I'll have enough for a car and an apartment. My parents won't say too much. What can they say? If they say no, I'll go anyway and they know it. I know they wouldn't hold me back from doing anything. I made it to NYC a few days since you left. I've a friend at Columbia, so I stay there for freesies. I don't really like New York too much, but for a lack of anything else better to do, I go there.

Time out to eat. I'm still a skinny little bitch! One night I went for a ride because I was bored. I stopped at a gas station and asked where I was just out of curiosity. Massachusetts. Nice little ride I had.

Well, Jim, have a happy. I'll be thinking about you.

Love,

Linda

*  *  *

“God, Mista. Oh God!” Doc was sobbing.

“What's the matter, Doc?” Egan asked. They were at the CP. The radio message had arrived just before Egan came up to talk to Brooks about their move back into the valley. “What is it?” Egan asked perplexed. He could not imagine anything that had happened to Alpha or to any of the battalion units that would cause Doc to cry now.

“It's Whiteboy; Eg. Aw Eg. They got Whiteboy. They got his bird wid a .51 cal, Mista, they done got his mothafucken bird comin outa Barnett. In the chest, Eg. A .51 cal in the chest.”

Egan stopped. Everything in him stopped. He looked at Doc then turned without saying a word and walked away.

Whiteboy had boarded a helicopter on the firebase which would take him to Camp Eagle. The forward supply crew had razzed him about his minor eye wound and he had laughed with them. Then as the bird left the peak and sped down the mountainside an NVA fire team had opened up with a .51 caliber machine gun. Several rounds impacted in the bird doing minor damage. One round hit Whiteboy in the lower left abdomen. The round smashed upward at an angle moving through his diaphragm and stomach, shattering ribs and exiting through his right front chest. It took the helicopter sixteen minutes to have him at the 326th Medical Detachment at Camp Evans. He received immediate aid and was flown to Phu Bai and operated on. He was then evacuated to Da Nang. The next day Clayton Janoff would be evacuated farther, this time to Zama, Japan, where he would die seventeen days after having been wounded.

In late afternoon the back bird arrived to take out the kitchen staff and mermite cans, all the unclaimed food and weapons and anything else Alpha wanted to DX but did not want to fall into enemy hands. The sun was still hot like a white fever blister in the sky. Alpha was packed and ready to move. The LZ was spotless. Brooks had screamed at every troop within range after the GreenMan had left and after the shock of Whiteboy's wounding had jolted him. “Clean this site,” he had snapped. “I don't want to see an uncrushed can, a usable piece of cardboard or a usable fighting position. Don't leave a fucking thing the dinks can use. And if I hear a sound from a soul, every man here's going to pay.”

And Alpha had cleaned. They cleaned their weapons and themselves and they cleaned the LZ. Even in their filthy ragged fatigues every troop looked sharp. Everything was tightened, trimmed. Ammunition was cleaned, almost polished. Alpha knew it was going to fight. Alpha wanted a fight. And in their fight the last thing they wanted was a weapon jammed with mud-caked ammo. They cleaned with hate, prepared with hatred. Fuck up Whiteboy, huh? Have the colonel yell at our L-T, huh? Well, fuck em. We'll show em.

Then the back bird arrived. Alpha had received almost no clean fatigues from the company clothes fund during resupply but now they received one-hundred-fifty pair of clean dry boot socks. They had received seventy-five tiny bottles of insect repellent. Now they received two-hundred-fifty bottles more. Doc hustled around distributing the goods and Alpha sat, changed socks and cooled down.

Alpha moved out, up around down, back onto the valley floor. They leap-frogged down and west. 3d Plt led then 2d with the Co CP and finally 1st. As the others left the high ground, 1st Plt dug and chopped pretending to be digging in for the night. 3d Plt moved slowly, in column, through the discontinuous brush and on into thickets of bamboo. They halted and formed a tiny perimeter. 2d Plt followed 3d by twenty minutes. They reached 3d's position and worked through and beyond by 200 meters. Then they too halted. 1st Plt left the LZ and followed. They moved through 3d, then through 2d and finally beyond, west 200 meters.

During the descent to the valley floor Brooks was plagued with doubt. “Step by step,” he whispered to himself trying to dispel the uncertainty. “Step by step. Down into a tiny hell I struggle to go. May the gods pardon me for leading seventy-five men into this inferno.” Then he stopped whispering and just thought. Why do I do this bidding for others? Why do I ask these soldiers to do bidding for me? Stop it. Don't question it. Not now. Step by step. Down. One step at a time. One thought at a time. One tree, one blade of elephant grass. An endless progression of life goes before me. One by one. Steps, trees, thoughts, lives.

Twenty minutes after 1st Plt had stopped, 3d rose. 3d leap-frogged 2d then 1st and moved 200 meters beyond. At each set-up Alpha hoped to catch the NVA moving. They spotted no movement. They slipped back under the valley's mistblanket and the mist sapped the sun's residual warmth from their bodies. The trail was thickslick mud. The valley stench clogged their throats like sputum in the throat of a derelict. Old fears surrounded them like the mist, dampening their hatred and bravado. They fought the fears.

“Hey, Cherry,” Egan whispered, “aint we about on the 18th hole of yer golf course.”

“Yeah,” Cherry laughed, fidgeted. “I'm goina put the green right under yer ass.”

“You leave my ass alone,” Egan winked. “Play with yer own putter.”

Beneath the mist it had become dark. The platoons continued leapfrogging. Now west, now north. One klick. Two klicks. They were in it deep, in thick vegetation, in enemy territory. The knoll would be only 500 meters north of them. Brooks called a halt. No one made a sound. No one ate. FO radioed in DT and H & I coordinates so quietly that Brown next to him couldn't hear. And Alpha sat. It became darker.

“Hey, Cherry.” It was Thomaston. “Company's staying here tonight,” he whispered. “You got LP. Go out—to the north about fifty meters. Take Willis with you.”

“With Numbnuts?!” Cherry blurted.

“Ssshhh. Yeah.”

“No way, Sir.”

“What?”

“No fucken way, Sir.”

“It's your turn,” Thomaston said.

“I'll go,” Cherry said, “but if Numbnuts is goin, I aint. No way.”

“What do you mean you're not going?”

“Hey, that noisy fucker falls asleep every night,” Cherry whispered.

“I do not,” Numbnuts' voice came from behind Thomaston.

“I aint goin with him,” Cherry said firmly but quietly.

“I didn't fall asleep that night …” Numbnuts began then his voice muffled and Cherry could hear Egan on top of Numbnuts whispering shutup and cursing.

“Me en Cherry'll go,” Egan whispered to Thomaston. Numbnuts disappeared in the darkness.

Cherry crawled behind Egan, crawled, duck-walked, slithered, down a narrow path and then into a thicket. They moved very little yet managed to open a tiny two-man cave in the growth. Then Egan left. He set out two claymore mines beside the path then returned to the cave. They positioned the radio between them, their rifles across their legs, frags spread before them, they sat for a long time without speaking. Both were awake, alert, listening.

Egan broke the silence after two hours. “How's your lady?” he asked very quietly.

Cherry paused before answering, taking time to listen to the darkness. “Okay,” he answered. Then, “She's a spoiled bitch.”

They spoke now very quietly, leaving long gaps between phrases to listen. “Good lookin?” Egan asked.

“Beautiful,” Cherry whispered.

“I'm a fucken fool when it comes to beautiful women,” Egan confessed.

“I've done some pretty dumb things myself,” Cherry admitted.

They sat silent again for a long time then Egan told Cherry an anecdote from his high school days. Because of the pauses the story took an hour. “I had a crush on this one lady,” Egan said. “She was captain of the cheerleaders and, Man, she had the greatest legs in the world … and I was a shy mothafucker … One time I take one of the other cheerleaders to a dance and we go parking afterward and I play all sorts of games so I can grab her tits and stick my hand on her pussy … feel her all over … had a great time. Word gets out I'm fast … shy me, fast. I aint never been a fast dude in my life but I don't give a shit about this one so I grab her all over. Annie with the great legs lets it be known that she wants to go out with me and the next dance is after our last football game … I work up the nerve to ask her. I could talk to her but I couldn't ask her out … finally I ask her … she's let everyone know she wants to go with me so of course she accepts. I'm trippin. I don't know if this is gettin across to ya. I had a crush on her … she was the prettiest girl in my school and I was a funny lookin Irish kid who tripped over his tongue. Annie says she'd go. I almost cream my fatigues on the spot.” Egan paused for a long time. He was not sure if Cherry was listening or if he could even hear him. He was not really sure he was speaking at all. “I take her to the dance and she's got to sit up on some podium because she's Queen of the Victory Parade … somethin like that. I'm gettin frustrated … can't say anything cause I'm shy. After the dance we go out … we're doublin with this dude who's our star tailback. We go out to the bluffs … that's where we always go parkin. He and his honey are gettin it on in the front seat while this lady and I, I'm terrified, we're talkin in the back seat and I don't know what to do. Then Annie leans over and begins kissin me and Man, I'm in number-ten shock. Like I can't respond … Fucked up, huh?”

Cherry laughed very quietly, so quietly Egan did not hear. He said nothing for perhaps twenty minutes. Then he said, “I did that once too.” Long pause. “Once I had a crush on this chick. I useta walk by her house late at night … shit like that.”

“I useta do that with Annie,” Egan whispered.

Ten-minute pause. “One time I'm out cleanin the yard,” Cherry said. “She walked by … she said hi and I turned red. She walked on. Man, I waited til she was outa sight then I ran behind the stores, circled back up the block and came walkin down the sidewalk toward her … like three blocks away. All I could do was smile … she laughs and we walk by each other … Then I circle the buildings again. I think I gotta say somethin to her. I run up the backstreet to her street … sit against a tree and wait for her and she comes walkin up and she looks scared and runs by. I never talked to her once and I was always ashamed when I saw her after that.”

“Fucked up, huh?” Egan laughed.

“Yeah,” Cherry said.

Doc and Minh had gone to sleep on a tiny mound on the valley floor. It was not much of a mound but it had felt drier and softer than the surrounding mud and they had covered it with one poncho, covered themselves with the other and had gone to sleep. Suddenly they both woke and both were burning all over. They felt as if someone were lighting matches on their skin. Doc jumped and jerked. Minh rubbed himself all over. They both jumped up. They were on top an anthill and both of them were covered with ants. The ants bit their legs and backs and stomachs and scalps. The bites burned. There were ants in their boots. It was almost as if the ants had covered them cautiously then on command all began biting at once. It was pitch black. Doc and Minh tried to be silent but the ants were eating them. They pulled their gear away from the mound and stumbled on bushes in the dark. “Au, au,” Minh squealed quietly. “Mothafucka,” Doc cried grabbing his armpits and falling to his knees. They shook out their ponchos. Cahalan and Brooks rose and questioned them and helped them but they couldn't get away from the ants. Doc sprayed a full bottle of insect repellent on himself. He covered his face. There were ants hiding in the kinks of his hair. He ripped at his scalp. He rubbed repellent into his hair and got it in his eyes and it stung. Minh splashed the repellent on his clothes but that did no good. They could not see the ants to brush them off. They stripped and washed themselves in repellent.

Sporadically through the night a single ant would sting one or the other.

The talk of their ladies had set Egan consciously to thinking of Stephanie. He would write her one more time, he decided. One short letter. He would write her in the morning, he decided, but he would think now about what he would say. Relaxing now, he penned in his mind. Can't get enthusiastic about this war or this country anymore, he imagined writing. It isn't a good war to stay at or to watch for very long. I've been here too long. Shit. I can't write her that. He closed his eyes and tried to make her appear. He could feel her burning within him. Deep inside all good things burn, he told himself. All things of enough good for one to recognize their existence. Any feeling, if it is strong enough, if it works its way from the mind down to the viscera, is good. That's where you are, Steph. You are strong enough in me to exist, to move me, to obsess me. Saying those words, saying her name, made him feel very clear-headed and peaceful.