Guns Up! (16 page)

Everyone in the tent looked ready to do anything he said. Just then two MPs and a frail-looking man wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and brand-new jungle boots burst into the tent in a rage. Boxer Shorts looked like he’d been mugged by a bear. He glared at every face in the tent, which wasn’t easy considering one eye was a throbbing purple plum and the other swollen shut, with the eyebrow covering the eyelid. He evidently didn’t see what he wanted and stormed out, cursing, raging in a frenzy toward the next tent, with the MPs glued to his rear end.

A grin tried its best to crack through the stonelike face of Swift Eagle. All eyes riveted to the chief. I personally had yet to see him actually smile, though some of his expressions seemed more pleased than others.

He took a quick glance outside the tent, then reached inside his shirt and proudly pulled out a brand-new set of camouflage utilities. The tent erupted in a gut-busting, sorely needed belly laugh. I laughed until I cried. Then I
saw it. A confirmed, documented grin broke across the stone face of the Indian.

Twenty minutes later the company stood at attention in front of the top sergeant for full inspection. Beside the top stood the frail office pogue sporting another new set of starched camouflage utilities. A fine pair they made, camouflaged from head to toe, and with a Marine Corps shine glistening off their new jungle boots. Corporal Boxer Shorts now had eyes as black as his boots. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. The top sergeant breathed in heavily and stuck out his lower lip.

“No man will enter the chow line without a Marine Corps cover on his Marine Corps head. There will be another inspection before chow. Any man with unshined boots and improper Marine dress will not enter the chow line.” The top rambled on with his insanity. Men began shuffling their feet. Others started spitting and kicking at the dirt like angry children being scolded. It felt like any positive gains we may have acquired by getting a day’s rest had just been negated.

Chan looked at me with a blank stare. “Ghastly timing. He is obviously uninformed.” Chan sounded almost sad. He turned his stare back to the top sergeant, who was beginning to shout through his list of commands.

“Every man will have a haircut and shave.…”

By the end of the inspection the mood was complete. Completely hostile. We got one piece of good news. We’d be staying in An Hoa overnight.

At midnight I was awakened by the explosion of two grenades.

“Did that sound close?” Swift Eagle asked the question for me. No one answered.

Outgoing artillery serenaded us the rest of the night. The next morning in formation the lieutenant informed us that the top sergeant had been fragged. He wasn’t dead but had lost both legs. I knew there would be an
investigation, but even Sherlock Holmes couldn’t find fingerprints on a grenade.

It sure wasn’t the first time a Marine got murdered by another Marine, but in this case it left a bad taste in my mouth. It would have been better if he had died. The whole incident had the smell of pettiness.

Talking was at a minimum on the way out of An Hoa. If anyone knew who fragged the top, they were keeping it to themselves. Whoever it was had to be worried. Justice could be swift and cruel in Vietnam. If the identity of the person or persons was discovered, their next firefight would probably be their last.

The top sergeant wasn’t exactly popular, but he was still a Marine. He had been through World War II and Korea.

Ten miles out we found ourselves sloshing through seemingly endless fields of rice paddies. It looked like a treeless desert of knee-deep mud and blood-sucking leeches. We tightroped along the paddy dikes of an especially wide paddy, trying hopelessly to keep our feet dry. Halfway across, a sniper started taking potshots at us. The distant sound of his AK47 told me he was too far away to hit anything. No one paid any attention except the new boot, Private Simmons. Simmons dove into the mud face first. I laughed until my eyes watered.

An eternity later we came upon a small oasis of solid ground with trees, bushes, and overgrown hedgerows.

Chan nudged me from behind with his M16. “This farmer must have truly appreciated his solitude,” he said.

“I don’t blame the little hermit. If I lived in this hole, I’d want to be as far away from people as possible.” I slung the M60 machine gun off my shoulder as we neared the oasis. “That shade sure looks good. It has to be a hundred twenty today.”

“At least that,” Chan said. “My brain feels like an overbaked potato. I hate this helmet. We should be wearing soft covers instead of these ten-pound pots.”

Chan rambled on, uncharacteristically, about the intense heat.

“My, my, PFC Chan,” I taunted. “Feeling a bit feisty today, are we? Maybe you thought you were joining the Navy.”

Chan gave a response that sounded Chinese, though he swore he couldn’t speak the language.

We acted like sailors who’d been at sea too long, each man stomping the firm ground of the oasis, shaking off the mud, and feeling for the weight of huge clinging leeches. I headed for the best shade I could find. Chan pointed to a small group of banana trees with giant, long green leaves just on the other side of what was once a well-kept hedgerow.

The hedgerow surrounded a narrow, overgrown graveyard. Creeping tentacles of brown and yellow vines seemed to be feeding off the oval grave mounds. It looked ghoulish, but it was a perfect position for covering the right flank.

Just as we reached an opening in the hedgerow someone shouted from behind us, “I want your gun team over here, John!” I knew the owner of the voice without looking.

“What possible difference can it make?”

“Just move it, Marine.”

Chan and I looked at each other in disbelief. I wanted to tell the lieutenant that he sounded like a ten-year-old but didn’t.

“Sanchez! I want your team over there with John.”

Sanchez gave the lieutenant a quick thumbs up and headed toward us, with Simmons and the rest of his gun team close behind.

Sanchez mumbled a tired “Semper fi” as we passed each other. Chan and Simmons exchanged the customary thumbs up.

“Now aren’t you glad you came over?” Chan said as Simmons shuffled along behind Sanchez.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Simmons replied enthusiastically.

The rest of the gun team were too tired to take their eyes off their feet.

By the time Sanchez reached the opening in the hedgerow, Chan and I had gone twenty meters in the opposite direction. A popping explosion threw me to my stomach. I blinked my eyes clear and quickly looked behind me. Chan lay motionless, flattened to the ground. Blood trickled down the top of his camouflaged helmet, dripping over the greens and browns. I couldn’t speak. He looked dead.

The helmet moved. He pulled his face out of the dirt, spitting a healthy portion of it at me.

“You jerk! I thought you were dead!”

“You don’t have to sound so disappointed. I thought so too!”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes, how about you?”

“I’m fine, but somebody ain’t.” I motioned toward the hedgerow. Part of it was now a large crater.

Chan turned to look. Pieces of bloody flesh hung from the back of his flak jacket. I stood up, nudging Chan with my foot.

“You got blood all over you,” I said.

“
I
do?” Chan retorted. “You should see
your
back. You look like you’ve been sprayed with red paint.”

I felt something on the back of my neck. I reached to slap it off, thinking it was a bug. It stuck to my hand. I held it out to see what it was. An unrecognizable fragment of a man dangled from my fingertips. Vomit came into my mouth. I spit it out quickly, hoping no one would see. No one did.

Chan stood up. We started slowly toward the hedgerow. I saw Sanchez lying ten feet from the crater. The crater was exactly where I had stopped to argue with the lieutenant. I felt cold. Goose bumps swarmed over me.

Chan looked down and shook his head. “Had to be a 155.”

I walked over to Sanchez. He lay face down. I rolled him over. His eyes opened; he looked fully conscious. I turned to Chan. “He’s alive!”

“Praise God,” Chan said quietly, then shouted, “Corpsman up!”

Doc reached us quickly, with the lieutenant close behind.

Sanchez looked up alertly. “I’m okay, Doc. Help the others. I’m okay. I’m okay. Simmons! Go check Simmons!”

Doc began sobbing uncontrollably. He tried to remove bandages from his pack. Chan took the pack from the shaking corpsman and removed bandages and morphine. As he leaned over Sanchez to administer the morphine, my heart fell into my stomach. His legs were gone. Severed six inches below the waist. I hadn’t even noticed. Strangely enough the bleeding didn’t look too bad.

Sanchez kept insisting he was okay. No one told him he wasn’t. He grabbed Chan’s arm with more strength than I thought possible from a man in his condition. “Find Simmons!”

I couldn’t hold back the tears. I turned and headed for the crater to find Simmons. Arms and legs lay about the crater. “Four men missing,” a voice behind me said. I found a hand hanging from the branch of a small tree by the threads of what was once a forearm. A flak jacket held the upper torso of one man together, but the legs, head, and dog tags were gone. No one could be identified.

We gathered the pieces together and placed them in a poncho. By the time the medevac chopper arrived, Sanchez was numbed with morphine. The rest of us were numb with hate.

The Doc and Chan lifted Sanchez into the chopper. He was pale but still awake and still asking for Simmons. The chopper lifted off grudgingly, its engine straining with the weight. As it floated out of sight Chan sat beside
me and pressed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. He slumped forward. He looked the way I felt. I handed him a canteen.

“No thank you,” he said without looking up.

“Go ahead. It’s that Kool-Aid sent in the last care package.”

“No thanks.”

“It’s grape.”

He peered at me with one frosty Chinese eye, then broke into his Snoopy-like grin. He dropped his chin to his chest and stuck out his hand palm up. “Give me the canteen.” He snatched it and took a big swig.

“Will he make it?” I asked.

“I think so. The hot shrapnel cauterized the vessels, causing minimal blood loss.” Chan looked up, his eyes fighting back tears. “I feel so frustrated I can’t stand it.”

“So do I, but we’ll catch ’em, Chan. When we do, it’ll be pay-back time.”

“Pay back is a medevac.” Chan’s tone was low and serious.

“That’s right, buddy, and they’re in a world of it when we find ’em.”

Chan held out his hand and gave the M60 two pats like it was a pet dog, then turned his hand palm up.

“Give me five on it, bro.”

I slapped his hand like a black man and it felt good. The threats gave us momentary relief, but not enough.

Corporal Swift Eagle walked by with harder steps than usual. He looked more Indian, more intense. His face was darker red than normal. He halted a few feet from us and shouted, “Saddle up!”

“Wonderful! Just wonderful. Let’s go see how many booby traps we can find today.”

I didn’t see who said it but found out by following the chief’s glare. It was Private Doyle. His M16 sat in front of him disassembled for cleaning.

“Shut up and get that rifle together! We’re moving out. Now!” Swift Eagle sounded like he looked—mad.

“This Marine—” Doyle tried to file one last complaint. It ended abruptly. The big Indian glided several feet and with one hand lifted Doyle by the lapel from a sitting to a standing position. Then he released him and walked away. There were no more comments.

I spent the next four hours enjoying the scenic beauty of the armpit of the world. No one talked. Every ounce of energy became vital as the day grew hotter. Just before I decided to faint, the column stopped. The man in front of me turned and said, “Five minutes,” then collapsed to the ground with the rest of the platoon.

I passed the word to Chan and stumbled forward to get some salt tablets from Doc. Sudsy sat next to the doc, fondling his radio as usual and listening to another platoon’s transmission.

“That’s a roger, Alpha One, single medevac, over.”

“Who got hit, Suds?” I asked.

He looked up with a frown. “Lieutenant Hawthorn, Third Platoon. He got ticked at the point man when he refused to go into an area that looked booby-trapped. Sounded like he took the point himself. Tripped a 155. Cut him clean in half.”

I took the salt tablets and the bad news back to Chan. A couple of swigs of water and someone said, “Saddle up!” I didn’t know where we were heading, but for the first time all day I started caring.

At dusk we set up an ambush in a dried-up area known as the Arizona Territory, four miles northwest of the An Hoa combat base. The night drifted by to the customary serenade of distant artillery fire, but still no contact with the enemy. The next day started like the day before.

“Saddle up! We got fifteen klicks to go today!” Swift Eagle’s command started my feet talking to me. Obscenity after obscenity.

Chan handed me the rest of his coffee. “You emit the odor of a rice paddy,” he snickered.

“You ain’t no bloody rose yourself,” I replied.

Chan gave my boot a nudge with his. “How’s the foot doing?”

“It’s killing me.”

“You’re going to lose that foot to jungle rot if you don’t stop the infection.”

“Why don’t you write me a prescription, young Dr. Chan, and I’ll drive on down to the drugstore and get it filled. Maybe I better call in sick today.”

Chan looked at me, rolled his eyes toward heaven, and raised one hand. “Lord, help me communicate with the mentally ill.”

On most days we could have had a good chuckle. Some said we laughed an inordinate amount. Others thought a Section 8 was in order. Laughing kept me from panicking. The mood was different this time. I couldn’t fake a laugh. A quiet storm raged inside the platoon, with no way out. The faces around me were slowly turning to granite.

We marched all day, stopping for one meal. I spent that time burning off leeches. The pace quickened in the afternoon. The Vietnamese called us elephants because we hacked through the bush making a lot of noise, but I thought we looked more like a caterpillar. Today the caterpillar shifted into fourth gear. No one talked. I felt an odd hint of excitement.