Guns Up! (17 page)

Boredom returned a few miles later. The sun felt closer. My helmet made an excellent frying pan, and my brain was reaching over-easy. The mind escapes boiling by fantasizing. We called it “world dreaming.” Sometimes it was air conditioning or driving a car again. Sometimes strawberry shortcake and ice cream. My fantasies usually had long legs; chocolate ice cream was always optional.

Fantasies had to be tempered with caution. It was wise
to always be aware of where your foot was about to land or of the dark spot in the tree fifty meters ahead.

With dusk the mountains came closer and closer. They finally swallowed the sun from view. We stopped as we reached the last rice paddy at the foot of the ominous, haze-covered mountains. An arm up ahead motioned us forward and into a circle. A peculiar and dangerous procedure. We gathered around the lieutenant. It felt like a huddle. A rifle butt stuck me in the ribs as we crowded in closer to hear him.

“All right, listen up. Intelligence says we got a major group of VC and NVA comin’ between those two mountains and possibly across this coordinate tonight. I know these things are usually screwed up, but this one looks legit.”

The lieutenant’s tone induced enthusiasm. I went quickly from excited to scared and back to excited again.

Sam mumbled. “We’re takin’ names.” The old gunny joined in with a subdued “Semper fi.” Suddenly I felt a different kind of fear—the fear that they wouldn’t come our way.

“All right, listen up.” The lieutenant knelt on one knee and began drawing a primitive map in the dirt. “We’re going to use an L-shaped ambush, with the gun on the left flank.” He looked around the huddle of faces until he found the chief’s. “Swift Eagle, I want the gun team and two riflemen set up over there.” He pointed to a small tree and shrubs on the left of the rice paddy directly in front of us. “We can’t lose the gun. It’s the only heavy fire we got left, so let’s keep the heat off the gun. I want the rest of the men behind this tree line with five meters between each position, two men to a position. Any questions?” No one spoke.

We waited until the sun disappeared before moving into ambush position. The dark, menacing mountains, blanketed with lush jungle foliage thick enough to hide the entire North Vietnamese Army, watched every move
we made. The riflemen positioned themselves behind the tree line two hundred meters from where the bottom of the mountains melted into the flat paddy fields. We set the gun up one hundred and fifty meters from the mountains and to the left of the riflemen.

It would be a textbook L-shaped ambush, just like we practiced in North Carolina. Looked great on paper. Just one small problem. If the gooks came from the wrong direction, we might get turned into fertilizer. I started saying my prayers. Explaining to God all the wonderful contributions to society I could make if I weren’t fertilizer took imagination and a lot of gall. My prayer had plenty of both. God must not have been impressed.

Swift Eagle appeared from somewhere, cutting the prayer short. “Murph and McQueen are gonna be on your left for cover fire. Don’t open up until we get ’em in the middle of the paddy.” The chief turned away, vanishing into the darkness as silently as he came.

Murph and McQueen acted nervous. It was considered a “crap detail” to get stuck near the gun. They moved a few feet away and settled in without a word. A few minutes later they moved a little farther away. We didn’t take it personally. It was common knowledge: The gun would be the first target, because its tracers would make it the only visible target.

“Chan,” I whispered. “I hate these tracers!”

He looked into my face and tilted his head. “But why, John?” He then proceeded comically with his memorized version of the Marine Corps handbook. “Tracer rounds are a necessary evil. They pinpoint enemy targets for riflemen and point out enemy positions to fighter pilots or helicopters viewing a battle from above.”

“Oh. I feel much better now. If only the tracers didn’t form a bright golden arrow pointing right at lovable little me.”

The night grew black. I couldn’t see my hand in front
of my face. The air felt thick. I hated not being able to see.

A rare, pleasant breeze bounced off my sweaty face. Suddenly the moon popped out of a cloud, lighting the landscape. I could see all the way to the mountains. I’m ready, I thought.

Chan started linking up ammunition and stacking it on my pack to keep it out of the dirt. He gave his M16 the once-over, put his magazines within arm’s reach, and began straightening grenade pins. It reminded me to do the same.

The first two hours of the beautiful moonlit night went by as monotonously as always. Ants and mosquitoes were using me as a midnight snack. The quarter moon drifted through small transparent clouds, illuminating the vast flat paddy. The mountain peaks looked black, sinister against the dark blue sky.

Chan rolled toward me with his canteen out. “How about some Halazone Kool-Aid?” he whispered.

Before I managed a reply Chan stiffened like a dog ready to bite. His eyes opened wide. Tension sliced through the boredom like a silent alarm. The backache I was going to complain about dissolved. The mosquitoes that were sucking me dry vanished. My body tightened.

I strained to see what Chan was now aiming at in the direction of the mountains. A barely discernible piece of darkness began to move. Another shape appeared from the trees just behind the first. They looked to be one hundred twenty meters to our left and twenty to our front.

A third shadowy figure emerged. Then a fourth. My stomach churned. A muscle cramp hit me in the rear end. I rolled over to straighten my leg.

“Chan, check the ammo, quick.” He lowered his rifle and made sure there were no kinks in the ammo belts.

Drops of sweat trickled from my forehead to my chin faster than I could wipe them away. Chan’s face glittered with tiny moon balls of perspiration. He started piling
the grenades in front of us. He covered his mouth and whispered.

“Still see ’em?”

“Yes. Hope those jerks beside us see ’em.” I shielded my mouth on the side facing the rice paddy, leaned toward the riflemen on our left, and called as quietly as possible, “Psst, you see ’em?” A few seconds passed. No reply. “Chan, those morons are asleep!”

A few more seconds passed. Silence. Not even a snore.

“Yeah, we see ’em now!”

I sighed. Chan looked at me, rolled his eyes, and exhaled heavily.

“No screaming-eagle crap.”

Sweat dripped off my palms. I tried unbuttoning the holster of my .45-caliber pistol. My hands felt shaky, almost spastic.

Chan nudged me and squinted. “You don’t think they’re getting that close?”

“I sure hope not. I don’t think this sucker works.”

We gave each other a quick hard look. The realization of what we just said sank in. I said a quick, open-eyed prayer.

The four shadows turned into four men fifty meters away and closing. I followed the lead man with my gun sights, making sure my finger stayed off the trigger. One early finger could get us all killed.

From the corner of my eye more movement. More shadows. Stinging salt sweat penetrated my eyes. The line of shadows grew longer. My bladder felt like exploding. The column of shadows grew longer and closer. Ain’t no way I’m wetting my pants, I thought.

Twenty meters in front, crouching and looking in all directions, the four gooks walking point crept by like they were stepping on unbroken eggs. The moon silhouetted their safari helmets. NVA regulars. As they crept by us I couldn’t breathe. I started gasping for air. I stuck my face into my arm to suffocate quietly. I’ve been holding
my breath, God how stupid. Chan nudged me without speaking. I let him know I was all right with a thumbs up, but I wanted to admit being stupid.

More shadows. The moon bathed the landscape in an eerie blue light. I felt hot and cold and sweaty all at the same time. Chan held the first fifteen inches of the ammo belt in his left hand with his M16 rammed into his right shoulder. His forearm started twitching like a muscle spasm was getting him. I didn’t like it. An early round could get us overrun.

The four NVA walking point were within twenty meters of our line of riflemen, and the column was still filing out of the brush at the foot of the mountains. The usual chatter of the jungle insects vanished. I could hear my heart trying to push blood out of my ears.

Chan released his rifle and reached into one of his huge trouser pockets, producing a small can of oil. He began squeezing it onto the barrel of the M60 as he whispered so low I only heard two words: “…   whole company.”

I was afraid to answer, afraid the whisper wouldn’t work. A cough or a sneeze would get us all killed. Memories of being tortured in boot camp for slapping a sand flea fluttered through my mind. The DI had said the entire platoon was dead because of that noise. God, even Parris Island was beginning to make sense. I knew I was in trouble.

Shadows kept multiplying from the foot of the mountains. Every other man in the column was bent over to the waist, lumbering under the weight of huge packs. The men in between the carriers walked more upright, with smaller packs, and carried rifles. I had a human supply train in front of me. This would be pay back, long-awaited pay back.

My stomach still churned. In a few seconds I’d kill a lot of people. My stomach bellowed loudly, then rumbled with more than enough noise to carry to Hanoi. A
brackish taste filled my mouth. I wanted to spit, but there wasn’t any saliva.

Doubt strangled me. Fifteen of us were about to ambush a column of gooks I couldn’t see the end of. A quick violent shiver shot from my neck to the base of my spine.

Bloop
. Sam’s blooper gun! I pulled the trigger. Orange tracers spiraled away from me. My first target exploded backward, arms and legs flailing. I laid on the trigger for what seemed like eternity. Frantic screams screeched from the rice paddy, piercing even the explosions. I could feel the screams more than I could hear them. The NVA scrambled for cover that wasn’t there. Some ran from the machine-gun fire and directly into the row of M16s, while those at the front of the column retreated into a shower of lead from the M60. The crossfire was a human lawn mower.

I swept the machine gun from one end of the column to the bottom of the mountains. The phosphorous ends of the tracer rounds broke off the bullets and sizzled like miniature sparklers as they found their mark.

Chan changed clips in his rifle as fast as he could. The barrel of the M60 glowed red, then white. Adrenaline and fear pushed me, while my whole body vibrated to the rhythm of the gun; I became one with my weapon, and we were killing. The barrel became transparent from the heat of continuous fire as I poured another hundred rounds into the rice paddy.

A fluorescent lamp couldn’t have pinpointed my position any better than that glowing barrel. I knew the barrel might melt and jam, but I couldn’t stop. I felt like I did in my first fistfight, scared to stop swinging for fear of getting hit.

Chan dropped his rifle and started frantically feeding ammo into the gun with both hands. Sam’s M79 blooper-round explosions sounded consistent, almost automatic. His loading speed was phenomenal.

Louder, more powerful explosions of grenades and
ChiComs sporadically thundered above the blooper rounds. The speedy bursts of M16 fire mingled with the slower, more powerful cracking of AK fire in a chorus of insane chaos.

Total confusion engulfed the rice paddy. A few NVA fired back. Others dragged dead and wounded toward the safety of the mountains. A flare sizzled into the dark sky, arcing over the paddy, then popping into a tiny sun and drifting down. The lights were on. The miniature red sun added a 3-D effect to an already bloody picture.

Chan screamed and reached for his rifle. Three gooks were running at us, bobbing and weaving in a suicidal charge to knock out the gun. They fired full automatic, spraying bullets all around us. They were screaming. I swept the stream of tracers from left to right, bearing down on them like a sputtering laser beam. A ChiCom blew up ten feet in front of us, stealing my night vision with a white explosion. Incoming bullets kicked dirt into my eyes and mouth. The barrel melted. The gun jammed. The sweeping laser stopped along with my breathing.

I fumbled for my pistol like a drunk in a shoot-out. My vision turned spotty. I heard Chan firing. The grunts on my left opened up full automatic. Blurred images of two men ten meters away came through the spots in my eyes. Their heads jerked back like poorly manned puppets, legs crumbling last, not knowing the upper half was lifeless.

Silence. The loudest silence of my life. My heart pounded the breath out of me faster than I could bring it in. The bloodlust evaporated into the gunpowder air. Pay back. The frustration turned into fatigue … Chan …“Are you hit?”

“No. Are you?” he asked.

“No. I’ll be okay when I see the sun.”

“Praise the Lord,” whispered Chan.

The night became deathly still. The moon slid behind thick, dark rain clouds. The sting of ants and mosquitoes returned. I felt like talking to Chan, but I knew better
than to relax now. I leaned against my pack and stared into the rice paddy.

I felt tired and dull and years older than eighteen. My energy and emotion dripped out of me along with the sweat. My mind escaped to home for an instant. Soft images flowed peacefully through my mind with a harmony of happy scenes. My mom, my stepdad, Paul, and Christmas and Pass-a-Grille Beach and Nancy in a bikini. I’ll go to college, I thought. I’ll get an apartment with Sid or Ben or Joe. Maybe I could still play football at a little college somewhere. The happy images vanished as the last groans of a dying man drifted through the dank night air. I opened my eyes and waited for the sun and wondered if I would hate the night when I got home.

Dawn finally came, lifting pressure from me with each inch of the yellow sun peeking up behind us. The first movement came from the chief. He moved smoothly from position to position until he made his way to us. He looked to be always in perfect balance.

“We’re going out for a body count. Keep us covered.” He turned to the tree line and gave a wave. As the chief started into the paddy, Doyle and Striker came out of the tree line with their rifles on their hips. Swift Eagle stopped. He looked over his shoulder at Chan and me. He gave a nod and a thumbs up.