365 Days (21 page)

Joan went on two more med caps; there was nothing noble in her going. It takes an idiot to think you can win a war or even help a country with bottles of aspirin and cough medicine. She went just to get away from the 312th. Just to do something different.

After six months in country she had her R and R in Hong Kong. She met a naval aviator on leave from Thailand. He might have been married, or he might not have been; she never asked, and it bothered her not a bit that she didn’t. Before she left for Nam, she sent home over six hundred dollars worth of dresses, perfumes, and wigs.

The hardest thing to get used to when she got back was the heat. She’d forgotten. The rats and bugs didn’t bother her, but the heat.... She was just getting used to it once more when the bombing halt began and the Kellys and Justices started coming in again.

Joan had finished her evening rounds about 8:30 and sat down at the nurses’ station to do her paper work. The nurses’ station was in the center of the ward, and from her desk she could see down all four radiating wings. After she’d been at her work for about ten minutes the phone rang. It was the nursing supervisor telling her they were getting in two more chopper loads that night.

It had been like that for days. Whereas before the halt, the VC and NVA seemed to be picking their targets, saving their stuff like RPG’s for squads and platoons, now they were using it on individual troopers. She must have heard the same story Justice had told her ten or twelve times since she’d gotten back.

The two Dust Offs came in half an hour later. The 45th surg was being hit again, so the Dust Offs had to overfly it and go the fifteen minutes farther on to the 312th. Two frag wounds, a head injury, and a cord transection came into her ward. Two abdominal wounds and three traumatic amputations went right up to the OR. Two troopers died on the chopper during the extra fifteen minutes it took to get to the 312th.

It was almost midnight when she was able to sit down at her desk again. Except for the small lamp coming down over the top of her desk, the ward was completely dark. Sighing, she took out her flashlight and laid it on the desk beside the lamp and began again on the charts. She had been working for some time when Justice shuffled up to her desk in his slippers.

“Hi,” she said, laying down her pen. “Cigarette?” She pushed her pack across the desk.

“Thanks,” he said, sinking into a chair. “Go on with your work. I’m having a little trouble sleeping.”

“I don’t want to sound nursy,” Joan said, “but would you like another sleeping pill?”

“No, thanks,” Justice settled himself more comfortably into his chair. “They make me groggy.”

“How about some milk, then? It’s fresh.”

He struck a match to his cigarette. In the harsh light of the flame, she was shocked to see how much older he looked than he had before. She got up and walked into the kitchen directly behind the nurses’ station. Justice followed her with his eyes.

“Do you like it here?” he asked when she handed him the cool carton of milk.

“No, I want to go home just like everyone else.”

“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.

“Thirty-five. No,” she said, laughing at the look on his face. “I was only kidding. I’m twenty-two. My God, do I look thirty-five?”

“No, ma’am,” he said quickly. “It’s just that you sort of surprised me.” Lowering his eyes, embarrassed, he busied himself with the milk.

“Well, don’t let it bother you,” she said. “No make-up, fatigues, combat boots, and pigtails can surprise anybody. Tell me, what are you going to do when you get out?”

He thought for a moment as he ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. “School, I guess.”

“Where?”

“University of Idaho, probably. I don’t want to get too far from home, not for a while, anyway. I did pretty well in high school. Some things I did pretty well in...like history,” he said proudly. “Guess I won’t have any trouble getting in. I mean, being from the state and everything; besides, I’ll have the GI Bill.”

He was reaching for another cigarette when they both heard it—a dull, ominous thud—far away, but carrying heavily through the night air. The match suspended in his hand, he stared blankly at Joan. Then the windows along the whole north side of the ward lit up, and a tremendous explosion crashed in over the building.

“Get under the desk,” Joan said, switching off the desk lamp. “Under the desk!” Even as Justice was moving, a second explosion seared over them, followed by the confused rattling of automatic fire. She was switching on the flashlight as the first corpsman came running into the ward. The sky lit up again, and there was another explosion, close enough this time to rattle the desk. Other corpsmen came running in.

Some IV bottles crashed. In the shadowy light the corpsmen were hustling patients onto the floor. Five more explosions went off; the last one shattered the door and blew it in across the room. The corpsmen threw themselves down with the patients.

“Sappers!” someone yelled. The phone rang and went dead.

“The guns, dammit! Where are the guns!” All over the ward, patients were running for cover. A burst of automatic fire cut through the wall above the bag line.

Joan stumbled through the dark, toward the traction patients. A mortar round, exploding with terrifying noise, took away the north end of one of the wings, sending fragments down the rest of the ward. People were screaming; fires seemed to be burning everywhere. She tripped, and was getting to her feet when a second round went off.

The blast came in through the window and, searing past her, lifted her up and threw her against one of the striker frames. The ward was a shambles. Bodies were sprawled all over the floor. Bed frames, twisted and broken, lay in the smoke and dirt. Corpsmen, coughing, on their bellies, were passing out M-16’s, sliding them along the floor, while right outside the wing a series of smaller, less powerful explosions were going off.

“Grenades...get your head up...shoot, dammit! Those are grenades, dammit, those aren’t satchel charges. They’re through the wire. Idiots...shoot! Grenades...grenades!” The sergeant in traction was still yelling commands when the first AK rounds cracked through the ward, killing the ward master and a patient near him. A moment later a grenade came through one of the windows, bounced once on the floor, and exploded. A second burst enfilated down the center aisle. Shadows moving against the flames ran back and forth outside the ward. Over the explosions was the sudden high-pitched cracking of M-16’s and M-60’s.

In the confusion and smoke the surviving corpsmen were sliding ammunition along the floor to the patients near windows and doors. A corpsman had just slammed a clip into his M-16 when a figure passed in front of the hole that had been blasted through the wall; he emptied the clip into the figure. In the dust and smoke, hardly able to breathe, two corpsmen, along with a patient, were crawling up to one of the walls when an exploding RPG blew it in and killed them. Stunned by the explosions, those who had weapons rolled over on the floor and began firing into the dust where the wall had been. Two figures came tumbling through the smoke, their AK’s bouncing along the concrete floor.

Suddenly the whole night was lit up by the blinding metallic flash of a star shell. It flooded in through what was left of the place. Then the gunships came in. They swung in above the ward, hovering protectively over its smoking ruins, firing in one long continuous roar.

A few minutes later, the camp’s reactionary force managed to secure the ward and the perimeter. When they found Joan, she was lying where she’d been thrown, crying, her left leg folded grotesquely under her.

“A lot of people are getting fat out of this,

the correspondents, the engineers, the

so-called consultants. They don’t have

to be there, Man, they ask for it, and

I hope to fuck every one of ’em dies.”

Trooper, 9th Division

Intensive Care Unit

U.S. Army Hospital, Zama, Japan

LET ME TELL YOU
about that defoliation program. It don’t work. No, I mean it. It ain’t done a damn thing it was supposed to do. I’ll give ’em there are a lot of dead people out there because of it, but not theirs—ours. The whole idea was to prevent ambushes, to clear the area. Some idiot somewhere sold somebody the idea that if the gooks couldn’t hide, then they couldn’t ambush you, and they bought the idea, I mean really bought it. The trouble with the whole thing is that the VC and NVA use guns in their ambushes instead of bows and arrows. Nobody mentioned that. They don’t have to be sitting on top of you to pull off an ambush. An AK-47 round is effective up to 1500 meters and accurate up to 600. So we’ll hit an area, like along a busy road, billions of gallons of the stuff, and pretty soon there’s nothing except some dead bushes for fifty or even 300 meters on both sides of where the road or track used to be. So the gooks will start shooting at you from 300 meters away instead of five, only now you’re the one that ain’t got no place to hide. Ever try running 100 meters or 200? It takes time, and they’re firing at you the whole way. And I mean the whole way.”

Thirty billion dollars a year, three million dollars an hour, and God only knows how much for a project that doesn’t work. Chemicals from Ohio, factories in Georgia, hundreds of trucks, a freighter a month, steel cylinders, diluents, cargo helicopters, squadrons of specially equipped duster aircraft, gauges and valves, contracts and subcontracts—it’s part of the other Nam, the ninety-million-dollar-a-day Nam.

“I’m sorry.”

“Look, it’s on your way—two, three minutes.”

“I’m sorry,” the pilot said indifferently.

Herman shifted the box to make it easier to carry. “There’s three hundred dollars in it for you.”

Amused, the chopper pilot stared up at Herman and then, ignoring him, picked his 45 out from under his pillow and slipped it quickly into his shoulder holster.

“Listen, kid,” Herman said, “that’s a hundred dollars a minute.”

He waited, while the pilot bent down and began lacing up his boots.

“Then you won’t do it?” Herman said. The kid didn’t bother to answer. “Look, it’s no skin off your nose. Just take the chopper there, hand it through the window. Ten seconds. No one even has to get out. I radioed; they’re expecting it. I mean, it’s important. Tell you what, I’ll make it four hundred.”

The pilot straightened up, picked up his helmet off the bedpost, and tucked it up under his arm. “Three hundred a man,” he said. “Three hundred for me; three hundred for the co-pilot; three hundred for the crew chief; three hundred for the door gunner.”

Herman looked at him as if he were crazy.

“That’s four hundred a minute,” the pilot offered helpfully. “Your company can afford it.”

“We’re a construction firm,” Herman said angrily. “Not diamond makers.”

“You could fool me,” the pilot said, ignoring him again while he fished for his flight glasses.

“Someone else will do it.”

“Then find him,” the pilot said. He left the engineer standing there in front of his cot and walked out of the hutch.

“Fucken kids,” Herman mumbled under his breath as he picked up the box and walked out of the empty room into the sunlight. The 115-degree heat of Nam swirled suffocatingly around him. For a moment he closed his eyes. God, it gets hot, he thought. Walking across the company area, he paid no attention to the choppers starting up all around him. By the time he reached the gate, he was puffing and his white shirt was soaked.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” Herman asked, walking around the front of the company jeep.

“They wouldn’t do it?”

“What the hell does it look like?” Herman said, dropping the box heavily onto the back seat.

Thompson moved the M-16 off the front seat to make room. “We told ’em we’d get it up to them.”

Herman, giving Thompson a disgusted look, climbed in as the first gunship, turbine roaring, cleared the wire a few meters in front of them. Thompson waited until Herman could hear him.

“So,” he said, leaning forward against the steering wheel, “what do we do now?”

“What?” Herman asked as a second gunship came whining out over them.

“What do we do now?” Thompson said louder. Herman waited until the chopper was gone.

“I offered him three hundred bucks and he so much as told me to get screwed. Three hundred,
three hundred
!”

“Maybe you should have offered him more,” Thompson said, reaching for the starter.

Herman gave him a quick, angry look. “I didn’t have to,” he said, wiping the sweat off the back of his sunburned neck. “He told me he’d do it for twelve hundred dollars.”

Thompson pursed his lips. “Hmmm,” he said, tilting his head as he started the engine. “Bit steep, even for Nam.” He was just putting the jeep into gear, when Herman stopped him.

“An idea?” Thompson asked, sitting back.

Herman picked up the box and climbed out of the jeep.

“Hey,” Thompson said, “this time pick a kid that’s just got over here, will you?”

Herman walked across the broken, dusty ground back into the compound. It was getting time to go, he thought. A third gunship careened out over his head. He held his breath against the noise and sudden down-draft, and then it was gone. Maybe if he’d go out in the field a few weeks and get back into some kind of shape, he’d be able to hack it better. The air conditioner was what was screwing him up. He had to do something, though. Thompson was getting on his nerves, and even his moose was beginning to annoy him. He walked right into the headquarters building. None of the guards challenged him or even asked what he was carrying. Nobody checked anything. It was almost as hot inside the building as out; all the windows were open. He walked up to the first desk.

“Can I help you?” The kid looked no older than the chopper pilot.

“I’d like to see Sergeant Kowlow. He was here last time I came by.”

“Sergeant Kowlow?” The Corporal looked thoughtful for a moment. “Sorry, I don’t think he’s here; I mean, I’ve never heard of him.”

“There might be a few sergeants around you haven’t...” Herman was about to remind him again that maybe he didn’t know everybody in the Army, when someone yelled from the back of the room.