Guns Up! (35 page)

“Aye-aye, Lieutenant,” Sam answered in Marine Corps fashion.

“How bad was the chief?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, John. Go get yourself an A-gunner. We need Chan to take over the other gun.”

“What?”

“Yeah. We lost a gunner.”

“Who was on the other gun?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Hurry up! Get movin’! We’re going up that hill again!” He turned away.

“I’ve already been up it,” I snapped. “Where was everybody else?” My terse remark stopped him from walking away. He turned around quickly.

“I called you back, but you didn’t hear me. We lost seven men before you got halfway across. Now saddle up, Marine!”

The tank fired at the hill. The big steel creature rocked from the recoil. A moment later a popping explosion followed by a white mushroom cloud rose over the hill. I turned back to the lieutenant. He was gone.

“I heard.” I turned to find Chan standing behind me. “I believe you have acquired Doyle again,” he said.

“Who’s your A-gunner?”

“I don’t know. Probably the pig farmer.” Chan turned, looked up, and followed the flight of two Phantoms roaring overhead. A moment later the top of the hill exploded into fire. Before the flames of the first napalm bomb dimmed, the second Phantom repeated the bombing. Soon dark black smoke hid the top of the hill from view.

“The gunny got it.” Chan spoke without taking his eyes off the smoking hill.

“Gunny?”

“Yeah.”

“How bad?”

“Shrapnel in the thigh. Doc said it looked like a million-dollar wound.”

“All right, let’s get saddled up!” Corporal James walked by us, shouting the order.

“Hey, James,” I said.

“Yeah,” he answered. He stopped and pulled out his canteen. He took a long swig.

“I need Doyle for an A-gunner again.”

“Okay, I’ll tell him. Get ready to go up that hill.”

He put his canteen away and started shouting again. “Saddle up! Second Platoon, Alpha! Saddle up!”

“Johnnie,” Chan said. “Look.” He paused like he wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted. “This looks bad. Make sure you ask Jesus to ‘cut you a huss.’ “

I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t. “You too, buddy. Twenty-round bursts.” I gave him the thumbs up. He returned it and walked away. “Hey, Chan.” He looked back. “Though I walk through the valley of death?”

He smiled. “ ‘Cause I’m the meanest mother in the valley.”

“Hope God’s got a sense of humor,” I said.

“He has to. He made you.” Chan gave another thumbs up and walked away.

Someone behind me spoke. “I don’t believe we gotta go back up that hill!”

I turned. Doyle stood behind me trying to clear his glasses.

“I don’t think we should have …” A Huey gunship fired three rockets into another hill to the right of the clearing, three hundred meters to the right of Hill 52. “Green Berets, my rear end!” Doyle said, disgusted, then spit. “Don’t you have an E-tool?”

“No,” I answered.

“All those guys back there in Seventh Marines said they already had hand-to-hand. They’re all sharpening up their E-tools!”

I wished for a small million-dollar piece of shrapnel. That’s all it would take, I thought. “One more Heart.”

“What?”

“One more Purple Heart and I’m on my way home,” I said.

The lead tank started rumbling into the clearing.

“Form up over here! Guns up!” Lieutenant Lampe shouted over noisy diesels.

“Let’s go, Doyle.”

I threw the heavy machine gun over my shoulder. The hot sun was just beginning to dry my clothes, but my boots squished with each step toward the lieutenant.

“Same procedure!” Lieutenant Lampe shouted. “When the first tank gets halfway across, I want second squad to beat feet to the base of the hill. When second squad gets halfway across, third squad take off.”

“What about Chief’s squad?” Striker asked from behind me.

“What’s left of Chief’s squad split up into Corporal James’s and Murph’s squads.” The lieutenant spoke quickly. He looked flustered by the question. Then I realized why. He was on his own. The chief was gone, and so were the gunny and Staff Sergeant Morey. He looked scared, but I couldn’t help thinking it was fear of making a mistake more than fear of dying. “Elbon up!” he shouted. Joe ran forward. The shoulder straps of his huge radio had pulled his flak jacket apart in the front, revealing a small bulge under his shirt. A tiny wet black nose poked comfortably between two buttons.

“You stay on my butt, Corporal! Keep Sudsy informed on what you call in, got it?”

“Aye-aye, sir.” Joe’s answer sounded tight-lipped. His dark eyes seemed in a constant state of intense thought.
He didn’t look like the kind of person who’d go to so much trouble for a little dog.

“Ready!” Lieutenant Lampe shouted as the first tank neared the halfway point, with the second twenty meters back. I took the gun off my shoulder and held it on my hip. “Second squad! Go!”

We ran, jogging at first. The smoke from the big diesels mixing with sulphurous gunpowder clogged in my lungs. Then the first AK cracked from the hills to our right. An old .30 caliber opened up from the far side of the wide river. We started sprinting. A Huey gunship strafed the hill to our front while a sleek Cobra ripped low along the edge of the river on the other side, firing machine guns, then rockets. The mortars, I thought. Where are the mortars? I zigzagged as I ran. I could tell the fire wasn’t as heavy this time. Not nearly as many bullets whizzing by my ears. I could see Striker ahead of me taking long-distance strides by the lead tank, then by the crippled tank, and finally to the edge of the rushing water. He took one long running jump, landing halfway across the tributary and ten meters left of the blown wooden bridge. He sank in over his head at first, with only his M16 and his forearms staying above the surface. Then his head popped up. He struggled for the other side. Short, stocky Corporal James jumped in behind him. James sank from view. Even his rifle went under. He popped up, threw his rifle to the other side like a spear, and started dog-paddling for it. I held the M60 over my head as I reached the edge of the tributary and jumped as far as I could. Cold water rushed up my nose. I came up choking. A bullet splashed water into my eyes. Another Marine jumped in beside me.

“Corpsman up! Corpsman up!” someone started shouting behind me. Striker pulled James up and out of the water in front of me. James grabbed his rifle and held it out, butt first, for me to grab. He stretched as far as he could. Striker held on to his feet. I reached for it, but my
hands were too wet to grasp the plastic butt. An automatic burst splashed water into my face, followed by a loud crack. James’s rifle butt smacked into the water. He pulled it out and reached it toward me again. The butt end of the stock was splintered away. I grabbed what was left. He pulled me to the edge of the water. I handed him the M60 and rolled out onto dry land.

“Put some fire up that hill!” James shouted and stuck his rifle out for the next man.

“Doyle, feed me!” I shouted back. He struggled toward James’s rifle. His thick glasses were so smudged with water that he groped for James’s rifle with one hand, as if he were blind. I aimed at a muzzle flash at the top of the hill and started firing. Another stream of orange tracers zeroed in on the same flash until both streams of tracers converged. A piece of clothing or pack flew into the air. The flash ceased. I took a quick glance back across the tributary. Chan lay prone beside the crippled tank still firing at the hill. Suddenly both remaining tanks opened up with their big guns. Rocks, smoke, and dirt blew into the air with each shot, like small volcanoes erupting.

“Let’s go! Move it!” I shouted back at Doyle as he rolled out of the water. I ran across the dirt road and flattened out against the hillside until Doyle caught up.

“Are you ready?”

“For what?” Doyle gasped for breath. He pulled off his Coke-bottle lenses and tried to blow off some of the water.

“We’re going up the hill!”

Doyle looked left as two more Marines flattened nearby. He took a deep breath and sighed, “Yeah.”

“Give us cover!” I yelled at the Marines on Doyle’s left. “We’re going up!” Fear and excitement shot through me with the rhythm of a jackhammer.

“Gung-ho, maniac!” I heard Doyle shout as I ran and
stumbled and crawled. Twenty meters up we took cover under a large sharp-edged rock.

“Give us cover! We’re coming up!” a voice shouted from below.

I moved to the right of the rock and laid down a fifty-round burst across the top of the hill. There was no return fire. I fired again. Still no return fire. We leapfrogged up. Twenty meters up I could see a pile of fresh dirt ringing the charred, blunt hilltop. The burnt scent of napalm covered the ground. Everything smelled like burning hair.

For the first time in the assault I felt too scared to go on. I knew there was a trench on the other side of that fresh dirt. I wondered why they hadn’t hit us with grenades. I can’t just sit here, I thought.

“Doyle! How many frags you got?” I asked impatiently. He slapped his chest, then felt his cartridge belt.

“Four!”

“I have three, and I ain’t going over that dirt till they’re all gone.”

“I’m with you.”

“Let’s make it up to that bomb crater before we throw em.”

“Which one?” he asked.

I pointed to a small crater about ten yards away. It looked about three feet deep.

“It’s better than nothing,” I said apologetically.

Doyle went for it first as I laid down fire. Then he covered me as I dove beside him. We laid our weapons down. I pulled a grenade off my cartridge belt. Doyle did the same. We straightened the pins and pulled them.

“Maybe we better pop the spoon and hold them for a two count?” I said.

“You’ve seen too many John Wayne movies!”

“Yeah, sucker! If these frags come flying back in your face, you’ll wish you’d seen a couple!”

“I’m throwing!” he said. Doyle brought the grenade
back behind his ear with his right hand and let fly. He threw the grenade straight up the hill and over the fresh dirt.

I let the spoon fly, brought the grenade back like a football and counted, “One-thousand-one, one—”

“Throw it!” Doyle shouted as he stuck his face in the dirt and covered his head with his hands. I threw. I aimed left of where Doyle threw his. Doyle’s grenade exploded, showering us with dirt and tiny rocks. My grenade exploded immediately after, with the same effect. Still no return fire. We repeated the procedure minus me holding for a two count.

“I think they pulled out!” Striker shouted from the far right. I couldn’t see him but I knew that voice.

“I’m throwing another frag!” I shouted toward Striker.

“Ready!” Doyle said, his grenade already pulled off his belt and finger in the safety-pin ring.

“Outgoing!” I shouted and ducked down. Doyle let fly. The explosions were the same. No screams, no return fire. “Let’s go in!”

We moved up the hill cautiously. Finally we waited just below the fresh dirt mound until most of the platoon caught up. Striker stood to a crouch ten meters to my right and gave me a thumbs up. Everyone around me returned it. Someone screamed, “Go!” Ten of us rushed forward. My trigger felt slippery with sweat. I took a deep breath, jumped over the dirt mound, and down into a waist-deep trench that ringed the top of the hill. I landed with a crunch on the charred corpse of an NVA soldier and stumbled against the inner wall of the trench. An unburned body lay face down five feet away, his back covered with dried blood. I stomped the man’s head, then kicked him in the groin. No groan. Felt stiff. The heavy firing had stopped. Except for an occasional sniper round or quick burst of M16 fire, the battle sounded over.

“Hey, napalm got this sucker!” someone shouted from my left.

“Got fried gook over here!” another Marine shouted from the right.

“Why didn’t somebody bring a flag? We could raise the flag for the TV guys!” Striker sounded oddly enthusiastic.

A few minutes later Elbon climbed over the top with Lieutenant Lampe beside him, hanging on to the field phone attached to the radio on Elbon’s back. I walked to the other side of the trench. There was another hill just in back of this one and to the right. It looked heavily wooded and covered with brush. I could see the helmets of Marines moving up a narrow twisting trail. The small blue tributary went by the wooded hill and hooked around the far side. Beyond stood more green hilltops stretching to the gray mountains four miles away. From here I could see the wide Vu Gia River bending sharply right and turning sapphire as it snaked off into the mountains with the dusty beige road tagging along beside it like a puny brother.

“That’s where America’s Green Berets are sitting on their rear ends and screaming for help,” Corporal James said, measuring his pauses carefully. “The chief sure called it, didn’t he?” He spoke to me, but his eyes glared at the gray mountains.

“Yeah,” I answered, but we both knew those soldiers were good. Not Marines, but good.

“We’re moving over there for the night.” He nodded at the wooded hill with the Marine helmets crawling through breaks in the canopy of trees and brush. I wanted to ask why, but it didn’t matter. One hill was as comfortable as another.

We piled the five dead gooks in a small stretch of the trench and pushed dirt over them. It was supposed to make the flies go away, but it didn’t. An hour later we filed down the hill as a company of Seventh Marines marched up. They were lean, unsmiling, hard-Corps
faces. We gave each other curious gazes as the columns passed. No one spoke. We marched down the hill and along the tributary until we reached our new hill. The column stopped at a small rocky clearing at the base of the wooded hill. Another column of Marines filed down the twisting clay path.

“Okay, saddle up!” Lieutenant Lampe shouted. His words came to him a bit awkwardly, as if he were waiting for the chief or Gunny or the staff to shout the men into movement. Doyle muttered something behind me. I turned.

“What?” I asked.

“We lost a lot of men.” His voice was on the point of complete dejection.

“I don’t think any of ’em were KIAs, though,” I said, trying hard to find something positive to think about.