Sand in the Wind (84 page)

Other voices seconded this request until Boyd began to sing:
“
I’m a young man so you know. My age is twenty-one./ I just returned from southern Colorado./ Just out of the service and I’m lookin’ for my fun./ Some day soon, goin’ with her, some day soon./ Her parents cannot stand me ’cause I ride the rodeo./ Her father says that I will leave her cryin’./ She would follow me right down the toughest road I go./ Some day soon, goin’ with her, some day soon.
”

As Boyd sang, joints were continually passed from hand to hand, and merely breathing the air of the hootch would have been enough to stone everybody. Chalice lost all sense of place, overcome by absurd memories of Parris Island that seemed more real than anything that had happened since then. The hum of voices became gradually quieter as one by one the men fell asleep. Boyd continued to sing, watching the hootch darken as each succeeding candle burned itself to the floor. When the last flame disappeared, he placed the guitar down, knowing that he was the only man awake in the room.

“Fall out with packs on!” a harsh voice yelled. This cry was repeated again and again. Blurred, just-opened eyes slowly adjusted to the blue gray light of dawn. Men moved wearily to their feet. In minutes the hootch was empty.

As Cowen walked towards his place in the formation, he looked over at Chalice and said, “You know I had this weird dream about Parris Island last night. Green was running around choking and jumping on people, and we were all laughing
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
even some of the guys that are dead now.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard about too many of them,” Chalice said somberly.

“So have I
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
but let’s save that for another time.”

“Write me a letter from Khe Sanh so I’ll know what it’s like before I get there.”

“I will.”

“Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

As Cowen’s platoon started to move out, he turned back towards Chalice and said, “Hey man, see you at Khe Sanh.”

“See you at Khe Sanh,”

Kramer entered Echo Company’s officers’ hootch. Colonel Nash, Major Lucas, and most of the battalion’s platoon commanders were already seated. Kramer had heard rumors that the charges against Trippitt had been dropped for lack of evidence, and he wasn’t surprised to see him there. In a few minutes everyone had arrived, and Nash began speaking:

“I guess we’ve all been expecting some news for a long time. We finally got it, but it’s a lot different from what we expected. Practically every major city is under attack. Khe Sanh was nothing but a bloody cover-up. They just wanted to get enough of us in one place and keep us there while they tore the rest of this country apart. If we had the helicopters, we’d be out of here in two hours. As is, we’ll pull out at dawn.
At dawn!
That means I want every man at the LZ before first light. We’re gonna be fighting house to house, just like those World War II movies you all love so well. Things are pretty bad all over, but I think we drew the wildest card in the deck — Hue city.
  
.
 
.
 
. Are there any questions?”

Hardly believing what he had heard, Kramer asked, “Sir, are they bombing it?”

This question surprised the other platoon commanders, and most of them turned towards Kramer. Nash was also surprised, but for another reason. As he answered the question, Nash wondered why Kramer had asked it. “I hope not, Lieutenant. It’s the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen.”

Kramer walked back to his company area in a daze. Luck, something he had always thought of in terms of curses, now seemed to be promising what he could never have really hoped for — too much to be doubted. It all seemed no more than a matter of time, while time rushed him towards it. The impossibility of what was happening prevented him from doubting its culmination in that final impossibility. ‘I’ll find her!’ he thought to himself, not even considering the difficulties. It would happen. It had to happen. ‘I’ll find her and she won’t be able to say no.’

There was little time before his men would go on watch. Kramer knew he had to tell them to get ready. “Ramirez!” he shouted, and somebody answered that they would get him. The rain had stopped. Roads lay atop some ammo boxes playing with his dog. Kramer started to walk towards Roads to tell him to leave the dog behind with somebody, knowing that this probably wasn’t necessary. Suddenly he stopped short. Roads was smiling as he playfully teased the dog with a rag. He then picked up the dog and held it high above him. Kramer couldn’t believe the expression on Roads’s face, couldn’t believe the affection he was showing for such a pathetic little mutt, and he thought to himself, ‘You build a wall, shut off everything, feel safe; but then, for just a second, you let someone or something get through, and it all comes down.’

3.
The Ancient City

Sheets of water cast prismed patterns against the glass. Kramer continued to stare at the helicopter window, unable to see beyond its translucence, knowing that soon it would hide the Imperial City. The helicopter landed with a settling motion upon a muddy field on the outskirts of Hue. The heavy monsoon rains and the clouds that were their source deadened the sun’s light to a dull glare and hid all but a faint outline of what Kramer longed to see. He stood staring at this outline, not even bothering to arrange his platoon, saying to himself, ‘I’ll find her.’

Orders were being shouted, but by Ramirez. Kramer turned to see him swaggering among the men — using more words, possessing less self-assurance, but with as much pride as Tony 5 had ever displayed. Kramer glanced over his platoon. They stood with their backs towards the LZ, avoiding the stinging drops of water being whipped at them by the copter blades. They were his men. No longer did he try to belittle the sense of responsibility he felt towards them, or even the feeling of power they gave him. Now he could understand the risks men before him had taken, the desire of these men to command, to lead others in battle, so often with no other purpose than to kill and destroy, looking upon such opportunities as God-given privileges. Now, neither coveting nor shunning this privilege, Kramer understood. He stared at the hard faces of his men, again with pride; but for the first time with compassion, thinking, ‘If only they had a cause
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
if not one to live for.’

The helicopters continued to arrive, leaving more and more Marines to surround the LZ. The men stood quietly in the rain, exhibiting no feelings of restlessness, faces blank and remarkably similar. If Chaplain Hindman had been there, he would have seen in these faces an unmistakable faith in God’s will. General Westmoreland would have described them as evidence of the American soldier’s unflinching willingness to fight for his country’s honor. A politician would later have been able to stand before microphones and assure his constituents that he himself had witnessed the grim determination of their sons to protect the homes and families that were constantly on their minds. If the men themselves had been asked what they were thinking, few would have been able to answer, would have been capable of expressing the confusion of their various thoughts, their sense of wonder at this awesome process that continued to sweep them along with it like so many twigs caught in a stretch of rapids — the sense of inevitability about all that had happened and would happen.

Colonel Nash ordered his men to move out as soon as the last chopper landed. He watched the battalion snake along the winding road in two columns. They were to meet up with some Arvins, a Black Panther battalion. Nash had been told by people who should know that they were the equal of any NVA battalion in South Vietnam. While continuously struggling to lift his boots from the deep layer of mud that covered the road, he became anxious to meet these Arvins; to see for himself.

Nash halted his men as soon as contact with the Arvins was made. He, Major Lucas, and a small party from Headquarters and Supply Company advanced between the two columns until they reached the edge of the city. A party of Arvins stood waiting for them. Nash had brought along Binh, one of the battalion’s Kit Carson Scouts, to act as an interpreter. This proved unnecessary. The Arvin captain in charge of the party addressed the Marines in fluent English. His bearing, and also that of his men, impressed Nash. He became even more impressed as he was led to the battalion commander. The Arvins they passed along the way seemed far more disciplined and serious than any he had ever seen.

Two soldiers stood in front of the battalion commander’s headquarters. Rain poured off their ponchos as they guarded five blindfolded Viet Cong prisoners who sat unprotected in the mud. As Nash entered the headquarters, an Arvin colonel greeted him in a cordial but dignified manner. He also spoke fluent English, and with the help of a map immediately began to brief Nash on what was happening within the city.

Soon another Arvin officer entered, followed by two enlisted men. The colonel explained to Nash that they were replacements. He then withdrew two rusty bayonets from a desk drawer and handed them to the officer. The colonel resumed the briefing as the two replacements were led out the door. Just as he finished, the replacements again entered — each of them holding in his outstretched hand a severed and still bleeding head. One of the heads had its eyes wide open and its mouth twisted as if caught in a scream. The face on the other head had a calm, stoic expression, this in perverse contrast to the sickened expression of the Arvin holding it by the hair. While the other replacement beamed proudly, the Arvin colonel looked coldly at the sickened replacement. Obviously embarrassed by him, he grabbed the bayonets away and ordered both men from his office.

Nash was more outraged than sickened by what he had seen. When the Arvin colonel turned to him for approval, he was met by Nash’s seething glare. Only fazed for an instant, the Arvin colonel quickly returned this glare, saying neither as an apology nor an explanation, “It is better my men know what war is like before the shooting starts. They must be
hard!
”

This statement further enraged Nash, at the same time reminding him of his impotency to do anything about what had happened. Words tried to force their way between his lips, but the realization of their worthlessness caused him to do nothing more than turn his back abruptly upon the Arvin colonel and leave.

Outside, Nash saw the blood-stained trails in the mud where the two bodies had been dragged away. Now speaking for the first time, he expelled his rage on his own men, harshly ordering them to take the three remaining prisoners from the Arvins.

For seven days both the monsoon rains and the advance continued unceasingly. Through the poorer outskirts of the city, progress had been slow and costly, the fighting from house to house. Now all that had changed. In Saigon it was decided that Hue would not be recaptured by the blood of the advancing troops, but rather by the destruction of the city itself. Artillery and bombers were called in indiscriminately. The cold monsoon rains fell upon the bodies of Viet Cong soldiers and civilians that lay abandoned in the streets and beneath the rubble. The thrust northward quickened, still paid for in blood, but now mostly that of civilians who could neither flee nor find safety. The Marines no longer advanced upon a city, but instead upon its ruins.

It was a few minutes before dusk. Kramer stared cautiously out the window of what had once been a small store. Half of his platoon was across the street, as it had been all day. They could have advanced a little further; but now that his men on both sides of the street were protected from the rain, he ordered them to halt and set-in. The day, as those before it, had been long and exhausting.

Kramer looked towards the north. The buildings just ahead were little more than rubble. He could barely make out those behind them, still untouched. Kramer knew that by the time he reached these buildings, they too would be rubble. Since entering the city, his men had advanced constantly along the same street — sometimes behind the cover of tanks; more often without them. One half of the platoon at a time would dash through the ruins, then set-in and cover the advance of the other half as they passed them. Often, and not unexpectedly, a burst of machine gun or rifle fire would send them sprawling for cover while dragging their dead and wounded with them. The firing would continue. If too intense, they called in artillery. If light enough, the firing would encourage them to charge and lose more men. Sometimes these charges would end with the Marines standing over the bodies of a few Viet Cong soldiers, but more often they would find nothing. In slow retreat, the Viet Cong knew when to abandon their positions. They’d set up again a few houses to the north. It was easy for the Marines to find out where. All they had to do was continue moving from building to building until another burst of rifle fire sent them sprawling to the ground.

Kramer stared out the window, trying to guess where the Viet Cong would place their first ambush of the next day. When the view before him blackened, he lay down, exhausted and hoping sleep would soon release his mind from the thoughts that now troubled him. For it was during these first few minutes of darkness that he always thought about Tuyen, realizing again the impossibility of ever finding her, wanting to look at her picture as he had done the night before they had arrived at Hue, glad he was able to keep himself from doing this. His coming to Hue, which had once seemed a chance for gaining the only thing he could ever remember wanting, had turned into an absurd joke. He wondered how he had ever deluded himself into thinking that he would find her. Hue, a city that had once seemed mystical, had now lost all of its mystery. He was there, yet Hue no longer existed. It was hard for Kramer to make himself believe that the ruins surrounding him could ever have been more than just rubble. His lips pursed into a grim smile. Hue too had become a joke. But he remembered with pain Tuyen’s description of it, and finally the myth that it had arisen from the ground as a lotus flower. ‘A lotus,’ he thought, ‘a lotus magically transformed into rubble.’ With little sense of guilt, Kramer realized that he had helped transform it into rubble. The bitterness of his thoughts did not prevent him from appreciating the irony of what had happened. ‘Why should Hue be any different?’ he asked himself, realizing now that it was merely a city, and that no matter how beautiful it had once been, never was it anything more than the work of a destructive, brutal species that found it impossible to exist without destroying everything left behind by former generations, a species condemned to walk through the ruins of its ancestors. “The Ancient City,” he repeated to himself, half laughing.