Sand in the Wind (37 page)

“No, we were too busy trying to get the body.
  
.
 
.
 
. We’d have made it down by ourselves.”

“It took you another hour.”

“Yes sir, we caught up with it two more times only to have it get away just before we reached it.”

“I don’t have to tell you there was no excuse for only taking one radio.”

“No, sir.”

“You still should have made contact with Trippitt at the rendezvous point.”

“We couldn’t get there until the day after.”

“Trippitt says he waited.”

“I
know
we were there. We couldn’t have missed the whole company.”

“By the time you got there, he’d sent one platoon down to the edge of the canopy to get the resupplies, and another one back up to look for you.”

“If there was anybody —”

A corporal entered the hootch. “Sir, your chopper’s ready.” Nash stood up.

“If
anybody
was there, we would have seen them.”

“Well, either you or Trippitt can’t read a map.”

“That’s what
I
think.”

“As it turned out, the extra day didn’t make any difference anyway.” A wry smile appeared on Kramer’s face as Nash continued, “C’mon, let’s get to the LZ.”

Neither Kramer nor Nash spoke as they walked to the landing zone. A four-man helicopter was waiting on the pad, its engine running. The corporal jumped into the back seat and Kramer followed him. Nash sat in front. As the helicopter left the pad, Kramer took a quick glance out the window, then stared straight ahead.

He walked along the edge of the road, not to or from anywhere, just walking, making no progress, merely moving the distance between two points he neither knew nor was concerned about. Pablo walked towards him on the opposite side of the road — the person he wanted most to avoid. Pablo looked up, right through him. “Where you skatin’ to, Professor?”

Chalice merely shook his head and kept walking, avoiding Pablo’s eyes, thinking, ‘Where
am
I going? Not skating,’ and he wasn’t. The one time he had actually anticipated going on a working party, hoping that the meaningless drudgery would dull his mind to blankness, this one time it had been canceled. Now he would have to remember, to think things out, to write them down.

He actually didn’t know where he was going, at least not consciously. He knew he wanted to find a place where he could sit down, stop walking, where Pablo, where no one would be looking at him — to be alone. There was no conscious thought involved when he turned off the road, moved slowly between the ammo bunkers, found himself standing in front of the Buddhist shrine. “Yeah, I’ll go inside it,” he mumbled, as if chance had led him there.

Chalice sat down against one of the inner walls, hidden, alone — the physical state helping to make the mental state more bearable. His eyes scanned the geometric designs painted upon the walls. He liked the shrine. It was something apart and insulated from the rest of the hill. He felt calmer, glad he had come upon it.

Again his thoughts redrew the scene under the canopy. Comments that had been made repeated themselves randomly in his mind. They were funny, some of them; and for an instant a faint smile appeared on his lips. He saw himself sitting with the others around the burnt corpse. It all seemed less grotesque than before. But suddenly, a figure appeared, madly laughing, waving a rifle with a charred skull atop it: himself. Yes, this seemed, was grotesque.

The scene became less vivid, and Chalice’s mind began to function rationally, as if the matter that concerned it was being absorbed by and carried along the very grooves of his brain. At first he made no attempt to penetrate the actions of the others, only his own actions. ‘Why — What caused me to become a part, a willing part?’ He tried to remember if he had been hungry. He recalled the dull pangs in his stomach as they stood outside the cave, his desire for a drag from the cigarette to stave them off. He was hungry then, undeniably; but that was the last time. There had been no thoughts about hunger as they rushed down the slope, no resentment about having to carry the stretcher, no sense that he was becoming weaker.

Childs’s face appeared before him, looking up, the unseen knife in his hand. ‘Why did he look at
me?
Why was I the first one to know his thoughts?’ Chalice was sure that it never would have happened if Childs hadn’t been there. But it had happened. He saw Kramer’s impotent stare, waited for him to stop Childs, to say, “Are you crazy?” Instead he heard, “It’s up to you. Help yourselves if you want.” Yes, Chalice was sure Kramer could have stopped it. But he hadn’t. It was up to somebody else. Kovacs demanded the flesh. They all respected him. Tony 5, he could have stopped it. He tried, protested — “Just two days.” Chalice knew Tony was right. They all knew it — ‘two days, could have made it even without a copter’ — but Tony had stepped back, horrified, as he had said this. It was already too late. Pablo knew it — his eyes. He could see into their minds. It was too late. Still, Chalice remembered waiting for someone to stop it, to take the knife away from Childs. Instead there were only hands, reaching out greedily, begging for flesh.

These same thoughts repeated themselves in Chalice’s mind, but their force gradually lessened. He still asked himself, ‘Why?’ And while his own guilt continued to scare and bewilder him, a single question fought against this guilt. ‘Could I have stopped them?’ He derived both absolution and degradation from his answer — ‘No!’ It was true, undeniably; but what about himself? No one had made him reach for the flesh. Pablo — of course — refused. Tony 5 also. Even Payne hesitated. Chalice searched for an answer, never believing he would find one. Had he done it from fear — scared his refusal would isolate him? No, he was sure this wasn’t the reason. He tried to recapture his thoughts, to see behind the wildly laughing jester he had been. ‘Laughter? Why was I laughing?’ Maybe the answer to this question would explain everything. He tried to picture himself madly waving the skull. It seemed even more pathetic now. Suddenly, the mad figure fused with the one now huddled against the wall of the temple. By trying to understand that figure, Chalice realized he had become him. Without consciously searching for a description, the word despair seemed to fix upon both of them. Chalice felt himself to be close to the truth. ‘But despair over what?’

Searching for the cause, he felt a revulsion for the state itself. For the first time he realized that only he had waved the skull, only he now sat alone and brooding in the shrine. His own ‘weakness’ disgusted him. He refused to think about it anymore. Even now, when he had finally derived at least a scantling of sense from it, perhaps been on the verge of understanding, he willfully cast these thoughts from his mind, forced himself to stop.

He took the small, red notebook from his pocket. In an unsure hand he began to write, refusing to delve for meaning, telling himself he was still too close to it and now wasn’t the time. He nervously thumbed through some earlier pages, remembering forgotten incidents, glad he had written them down, saying to himself, ‘It’s all here.’ There had to be a pattern. Only by putting everything together into a book would he understand this pattern. He came to the pages he had just written, again seeing Childs with the knife. Chalice shook his head as he got to his feet and put the notebook back into his pocket. ‘Who’d believe it? God, who the hell would believe it?’

Hamilton was walking towards the LZ when he spotted Childs leaning against an ammo bunker. Childs had his head down as he massaged the lump on his arm. He heard Hamilton’s footsteps and looked up. “What have you got your fighting gear on for?”

“I’m going in to An Hoa.”

“How’d you manage that?” Childs asked with disgust.

“I got a letter from my parents saying they haven’t gotten my allotment for two months. Kramer’s sending me to the paymaster to straighten things out.”

“I don’t wanna bring you down, but guess what I heard?”

“We’re going into the Arizona,” Hamilton said calmly.

A surprised look crossed Childs’s face. “How’d you know?”

It was now Hamilton’s turn to be surprised. “We are? Sonofabitch! I just said the worst thing I could think of. Are you sure?”

“One of the Gook chicks that works in the officers’ mess told me.”

“Maybe it’s just a rumor,” Hamilton said with relief.

“No chance. Remember how I found out a week ahead the last time?” Hamilton nodded. “Well she was the one that told me.”

“It still might be a rumor.”

“What difference does it make? The bad rumors always turn out right, and the good rumors always get forgotten.”

“Well, at least I get to go to An Hoa for a day.”

“Wish I was going with you. These fucked-up working parties are gonna drive me nuts.
  
.
 
.
 
. Wait a minute! What do you say we go to Da Nang for some R and R?”

“How the fuck can we manage that?”

“Let’s see.” Childs paused as he began thinking to himself. “I got it! Don’t check in at An Hoa. Go straight to the paymaster and get it taken care of right away. When we get back, you can say you had to stay over an extra day, and by the time you got through you couldn’t get a chopper out. That’ll give us tonight and tomorrow in Da Nang.”

“Sounds good, but what if I do have to stay over in An Hoa?”

“We’ll worry about that if it happens.”

“Okay, but how are
you
gonna swing it?”

Childs paused for a few seconds, then said, “I just saw Kramer get on a chopper. That means Kovacs is in charge. I’ll tell him the doc’s sending me to Da Nang to get my leg X-rayed to see if there’s any shrapnel in it.”

“Kovacs knows it was just a scratch. Besides, he’ll want to see your orders.”

“Naw, even if he thinks I’m trying to skate, he’ll let me go. He’s only got a few more days in-country and he don’t give a shit.” Hamilton’s expression indicated that he was having second thoughts. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.
  
.
 
.
 
. We’re taking a big chance.”

“Chance about what? Da Nang, baby, Da Nang — it’ll be worth it.”

“Okay, let’s hurry up.”

When Childs told him his story, Kovacs immediately became suspicious; and after staring at him for a few seconds, he was sure it was a lie. About to ask to see the orders, Kovacs realized that there wasn’t much point in keeping Childs around just for the working parties. “You better be back as soon as you can. Now get the fuck out of here.”

Hamilton and Childs reached An Hoa in less than an hour. They went directly to the paymaster without checking in at the company office. Within another hour they were on a helicopter headed for Da Nang. As soon as it landed, Hamilton became nervous. “What if the MP’s ask for our orders?”

“Listen man, you keep walking around with that look on your face, and they sure as hell will.”

“What look?”

“Man, you gotta walk around like you own this place. As long as you do, nobody’ll bug you, I don’t care if you’re in VC pajamas with an AK slung across your shoulder.”

Childs and Hamilton stashed their packs and other equipment in one of the barracks at the Ninth Motor Division, then hitched a ride into Da Nang on a supply truck. As they got closer to the center of town, the streets became clogged with old cars, motorcycles, and bicycles. The truck was hardly making any progress when Hamilton noticed young girls standing in practically every doorway. He flung open the door and started to jump out just as the truck lurched forward. Childs was barely able to grab him before he could fall to the street. “What the fuck you doing?”

Hamilton answered in an excited voice, “This place is loaded with syclo girls.”

“Well,
no
shit. What did you expect?”

“C’mon, let’s get out.”

Childs turned to the driver. “You better let us out before my partner comes in his pants.”

The truck stopped, and Hamilton was halfway out when he found himself staring at two sets of MP armbands. He casually spat on the street and slammed the door shut. The driver also saw the MP’s and quickly accelerated the truck. “Man, that was close,” Hamilton commented.

Childs said irritably, “If you can’t keep that paranoid look off your face, we’ll get picked up in two minutes.”

The driver went another few blocks before letting them off right in front of a whorehouse. A young girl was standing in the doorway, and Hamilton almost knocked her over on the way inside. “Will you please take it easy?” Childs begged him.

“I am, I am,” Hamilton answered as he stared at the prostitute, his tongue running over his upper lip.

“You want boom-boom?” she asked with a smile.

“Yeah, yeah, boom-boom.”

The prostitute coyly stuck out her hand. “Five dollar.”

Hamilton fumbled in his pocket for the money as another prostitute came from the rear of the room and stood smiling in front of Childs. The shack was a crude combination of bamboo, cardboard, and thatch. A few carelessly placed candles provided the only light.

The girls led them to the rear of the shack where two cribs were separated from the rest of the room by cardboard partitions. As soon as she and Childs were alone, the girl began undressing, giggling as she did so. The musty smell of the crib nauseated Childs. He nervously began to undress as the girl slipped off the last of her clothing and sat down upon a thin mattress lying on the floor. She coyly motioned for him to finish undressing, and he became more nervous as she watched.

Childs hesitated as he stood naked staring down at her. Then, in one self-conscious motion, he practically dived on top of her. She gasped and tried to support him with her hands until she could catch her breath. For the first time, he became aware of the laughter and strenuous breathing coming from the other side of the partition. He lay motionless on top of the girl until he noticed her peering questioningly through his glasses.

Childs cleared his throat and started shifting his body around trying to enter her. She waited patiently for a few seconds before reaching down and helping him. He nodded his head to thank her, and she began to giggle. Now even more self-conscious, he again became aware of the laughter and heavy breathing coming from Hamilton’s side of the partition.