Black Market (2 page)

The young Marine obeyed his gunnery sergeant without questioning his motivation.

“Now…” He directed his attention back to the Marine standing by the skull. “You take your time and sweep the area surrounding
the skull … I want you to listen hard for even the slightest sound of metal. We’re looking for a wire … a very
thin
wire that should be only an inch or less under the sand…”

The young Marine started moving the square-shaped sensor head on the wand he was holding slowly over the sand around the skull.
He reached behind him and adjusted the sensitivity of the battery-operated detector to its maximum level.

The gunnery sergeant removed his chicken-plate armored vest and gently laid it on the sand behind him. He wanted to have as
much flexibility as he could when he lowered himself down on his hands and knees in front of the grinning skull.

The Marine engineer lying on the warm sand fifty meters away from them pulled his steel helmet down low over his eyes and
watched the sergeant stretch out on the sand. He could see that the senior NCO had removed his K-Bar knife from its sheath
and was gently probing the loose sand around the skull.

“What do you think … Sergeant?” The Marine holding the functioning mine detector could feel the sweat dripping off his chin.
He looked down and saw the wet spot growing larger on the sand in front of him. “This is some shit … not like it was back
in training…”

“You’re wrong there,
Marine
!” The gunny spoke as he probed the sand. “It’s
exactly
like it was back in training … Watch me and you might learn something!” The NCO pushed the blade into the loose sand under
the edge of the skull that would have been the side containing the person’s right ear. He stopped. “Found it…” The voice revealed
only the slightest hint of nervousness. He knew that he could not panic even a little bit, especially with the lives of his
men at stake. He removed the knife and used the blade to carefully shove the sand aside layer by layer until he could see
the dark green color of the antipersonnel mine.

“Is that it?” The young Marine’s eyes grew larger as more and more of the round canister was revealed.

“Yup … basic commie shit … I defused hundreds of these in Korea…” Confidence filled the old NCO’s voice. He located the firing
mechanism and, using only the sharp tip of his knife, he cleaned away the fine grains of sand until he located the tiny hole
where the safety pin had been. The NCO reached back into his rear pocket, removed a small piece of stiff wire, and slipped
it through the hole, disarming the mine. “See … easy … just like back in training…”

“Yeah … easy shit!” The young Marine let out his breath before he even realized he had been holding it.

“Here…” The gunnery sergeant rolled over on his side and tossed the skull up to the engineer. “Your souvenir!”

The engineer caught the skull with his free hand and took a half-step backward to maintain his balance. The NCO remained lying
on the sand and dropped his cheek down against the fine grains; they stuck to the side of his face with his sweat acting like
a temporary glue. He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath before opening them again. He focused on the small, almost
indistinguishable metal prong under the tip of the engineer’s boot. He knew instantly what he was looking at: a bouncing betty
antipersonnel mine. The mine was designed to pop about two feet in the air when it was tripped and explode about nuts high.
He blinked, trying to clear his vision, but the prong was still there. He looked up and saw the young Marine admiring the
blazing white skull.

“Don’t move … not an inch!” The command presence in the sergeant’s voice froze the Marine. “You are standing on a mine.”

“Oh shit!” Fear sprang instantly over the man’s face. “Oh shit, Sarge!”

“What in the fuck is your problem, kid!” The NCO remained lying on his side and scanned the sand as far as he could see for
any more of the tiny, three-pronged heads. He knew that he would have to risk detonating a hidden mine to reach the Marine.
“You just saw me deactivate one mine. The one you’re standing on is a pressure-release type … remember those from your training?”

The youth nodded his head.

“Good! This is easy stuff … just don’t move, and keep the pressure on your toes.” The NCO raised himself to his hands and
knees and then stood up slowly to take the single step over to where the Marine stood. He lowered himself down again and used
his K-Bar as he had done earlier until he reached the safety-pin hole. The bouncing betty was a small tin-can-sized mine with
a six-inch shaft on top that had a three-pronged firing device. The mine was buried down in the sand with only the tips of
the prongs showing.

“I’ll have you out of here in a minute!” The NCO reached back in his pocket and removed another piece of hard wire. He disarmed
the mine and smiled. “You’re free to step back … but step in one of your own footprints!”

The engineer closed his eyes and raised his foot, expecting to be blown to pieces. Nothing happened.

A gull screamed.

“Fuck! I damn near pissed my pants!” The Marine looked up at the circling gull.

The gunnery sergeant stood up and slipped his arm over the Marine private’s shoulder. “If you won’t tell them, neither will
I … but that damn gull nearly got me to piss my pants too!”

The infantry squad leader called out to his men to return to the AMTRACK when he saw the gunnery sergeant returning with his
two engineers. He waited until the trio was close enough to the fighting vehicle so he wouldn’t have to yell before speaking.
“What’s going on out there?”

“The VC must have slipped into shore last night and booby-trapped a skull.” He nodded his head at the skull the Marine engineer
held in his hand.

“Fucking nice!” The infantry sergeant smiled. “That would look good on my AMTRACK.”

The engineer looked over at his gunny and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t care.”

“We’ll give it to you for three cases of
cold
beer.” The engineer NCO wasn’t about to give the trophy away for nothing.

“Come on! Two cases … one cold and one warm.” The infantry sergeant knew as well as the engineer did that cold beer was very
hard to come by.

“Why not … By the way, would you like these?” The gunnery sergeant held up the defused mines.

“Fuck you! Take them back and
give
them to one of your officers!”

“Now now, Sergeant … That could be taken the wrong way very easily.”

The infantry squad leader shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Take it any way you want to.” He signaled for his men to load
up on the AMTRACK and then looked back at the engineer team. “Are you coming?”

The three engineers climbed up on top of the AMTRACK and stacked their gear in the center on the hot steel plates, while the
infantry sergeant tied the skull to one of the headlight guards with commo wire.

“Gunny?” the young Marine asked.

“Yeah?”

“You know when we were back at Camp Lejeune … I … I…” The Marine looked over at his sergeant.” I used to make a lot of fun
about you carrying those little pieces of metal around all the time, especially when you would use them for toothpicks … I’d
like to apologize…”

The gunnery sergeant gave his Marine a curt nod and closed the matter. He had known all along how much the young Marines had
joked behind his back about his numerous idiosyncrasies—and he had a lot of them—that had never left him since Korea. He turned
around on the case of ammo he was using for a seat and faced out over the South China Sea. Here he was in another fucking
war, but this time
he
was the gunnery sergeant and he planned on bringing
all
of his Marines back home alive. There would be no dumb fucking mistakes … none.

The Marine battalion had received their orders to move out the next day. Only a few of the large AMTRACKs would be taken up
to Hue by ship and then driven to Quang Tri, where they would pick up an Army tank escort to take them out to the Marine base
at Vandergrift. There they would be assigned to keep Highway 9 cleared of mines out to the new base camp at Khe Sanh.

The gunnery sergeant felt good about the assignment. The AMTRACKs had recently been overhauled and given new engines and transmissions.
The Marine infantry assigned to guard the engineer detail was top-notch and drug free, something that was starting to really
bother the old Marine NCOs; they could handle a drunk Marine, but this new breed of drug users were causing the Corps new
problems. He smiled to himself. This assignment out in the middle of nowhere would be a good place to cement his engineer
platoon into a Marine combat unit.

The detachment of old AMTRACKs arrived at the Vandergrift base area just as it was beginning to get dark and were assigned
positions along the perimeter of the large base for the night, along with the Army tank platoon. The commander of the base
area wasn’t going to waste any of his firepower by leaving it parked in a motor pool, which was smart considering the area
they were occupying was North Vietnamese and had been since the beginning of the Vietnam War.

The night was uneventful, and most of the men had taken advantage of it to get at least four hours of sleep. Marines learned
to sense when they had a chance to sleep and took it when it came, knowing full well that they could spend the next two or
three days awake.

“Let’s get cleaned up and fed!” The gunnery sergeant was already dressed and clean shaven. He had been up since the last guards
and had checked all of the platoon’s gear and AMTRACKs, knowing that they would receive an assignment as soon as the staff
officers of the day arrived for work at the command bunker.

“Where do we eat, Gunny?”

“They’ve got an enlisted mess tent set up over there by the showers.” He pointed.

“Do you know what’s being served?”

“Hot C-rations.”

“Fuck it … I can heat my own.” The Marine opened his pack and removed a can of ham and eggs. He took up a seat on the top
of his AMTRACK and crossed his legs. The fresh smell of the early morning actually caused his spirits to rise. He was a farm
boy and had always enjoyed the early morning smells coming from the earth. He looked down the slope from where they were parked
on the perimeter and could see that there were Marines lined up in front of the enlisted mess tent and that about a dozen
Marines were taking early morning showers before they went to their operations bunkers for the rest of the day and probably
late into the night. The men taking showers in the open-air shower facility looked out of place in the olive drab base area,
where everything was camouflaged. The Marine eating his can of ham and eggs on top of his AMTRACK smiled as he thought about
what an NVA with a sniper rifle could do down there from his position. The sound coming from his rear outside the perimeter
blended in with the early morning sounds coming from the base camp. The young Marine heard the noise but didn’t have anything
to compare it to; he hadn’t been in-country long enough to recognize the sound of 122mm rockets being ignited.

He sat with his back to the perimeter and a spoonful of dull yellow eggs halfway to his mouth when the barrage of rockets
hit in unison. He could see the men bounce against the green tarp surrounding the showers and the bright red slashes appear
on their naked bodies. He could see the line of men waiting to enter the mess tent ripple near the end and the rest of the
men dive for cover. He could see the large mushrooms of red clay dust erupt all over the base area. There must have been a
hundred of the ground bubbles appearing all at the same time. He had finished moving the spoonful of food to his mouth and
started chewing when the sounds reached him. Three seconds had passed and twenty-seven Marines had died.

“What the fuck is going on down there in the base camp?” The gunnery sergeant was yelling up to the Marine private sitting
on top of the AMTRACK.

“Looks like some bombs are going off, Gunny…” The private spoke around his food.

“Well get the fuck off there and take cover!”

The perimeter broke into a fury of activity. Machine guns began firing, and the artillery battery inside the base area started
firing counter-rocket barrages.

The Marine gunnery sergeant had been through all of this before and knew that the damage had already been done. “Take your
fighting positions, but hold your fire until you
see
a target … It looks like a rocket attack. They might follow up with a ground assault during the confusion.”

Fifty minutes had passed since the rockets had landed, and the perimeter was beginning to relax. The NVA would be foolish
to assault the line units now that they had all been alerted and were waiting for them. The gunny knew that it was going to
be limited to rockets this morning.

“I want you men to rotate leaving your positions and get your gear ready to leave. We should be receiving some orders soon.”
The senior sergeant looked down at his watch. It was exactly one minute to seven. He heard the sound and instantly identified
it. “ROCKETS! INCOMING ROCKETS!” His voice had been trained over the years, and when he wanted to be heard, his voice carried
for what seemed to be miles. The Marine down in the base camp instantly dove for cover, seconds before the second barrage
of 122mm rockets landed.

“Those smart motherfuckers! Exactly one hour apart!” The NCO grinned and a new respect for his enemy started growing in him.

A Marine second lieutenant sprinted up the side of the slope to where the AMTRACKs were parked on the perimeter. He slipped
around a night trench one of the Marines had dug for emergency shits and approached the gunny. “You the platoon sergeant?”

“For the engineers.” The gunny nodded.

“Good, you’re the Marine I’m looking for.” He returned the gunnery sergeant’s salute. “Have your men ready to begin sweeping
down Highway 9 toward Khe Sanh within the hour. We’re going to be sending a battalion out there and kick some NVA ass!” The
lieutenant’s voice sounded tougher than he felt.