Sand in the Wind (85 page)

“Professor, cover that window.” It was Roads’s voice. From across the street, Kramer had radioed him to set-in for a while. Second Platoon was too far ahead of the rest of the battalion. They would have to wait for them to catch up. Chalice heard Roads placing his men in different parts of the house. It was very large and had once been elegant. They had found a Vietnamese family inside — a father, mother, grandmother, and three young daughters. Extremely nervous, the family had obsequiously offered the Marines what little food they had. In return, a few of the Marines had toyed with them. Roads stopped this immediately, then placed the family in one of the inner rooms for its own protection.

Supposedly watching for Viet Cong, Chalice instead stared at the body of a civilian only a few yards from the window. There was no odor, the cool monsoon rains still staving off decay. It was the body of a man, obviously having died while on his side. The corpse had somehow been turned on its back. Now both head and legs were off the ground in a grotesque attempt to roll itself into a ball. Chalice stared at the corpse as if it were an illusion. It seemed impossible that life, human life, could be reduced to something so absurd.

Finally, to avoid the sight of this corpse, Chalice raised his eyes to the rubble across the street. This too was disturbing. He wanted to explain it to himself, not as the result of some action, but rather of some process. To him, a paradox was not an explanation. Yet this was as far as his logic would take him — to the paradox of the human fear of change and the insatiability of human desires — both traits rooted in the struggle for survival, separately working towards it, yet combining to force conflict and destruction. This made sense. It explained things. But to Chalice, a paradox was a question, not an answer.

The sound of some furniture being scraped across the floor distracted him. The noise had come from the room where the Vietnamese family was being kept. At first nervous that they might be doing something, he realized from the muffled cries of one of the girls that it was they who were in danger. Chalice ran towards the room and burst through its door only to freeze, stunned beyond action. Four Marines, two of them from his own fire team, glanced back at him. While one of them kept the rest of the terrified family at gunpoint, two others held down the twelve-year-old girl, naked below the waist, for the remaining man as he tried to rape her.

“Get off!” Chalice thought he yelled, not realizing the words never passed his lips.

The men ignored Chalice as they continued trying to rape the girl. He lunged forward and smashed the stock of his blooker into the neck of the Marine on top of her. The man collapsed, but one of the others grabbed Chalice around the shoulders and threw him to the ground. Roads burst through the door and viciously kicked the man off Chalice. The Marine Chalice had hit lay dazed on the floor while the other three dashed out of the room. Roads made no attempt to help the hysterically crying girl as she crawled over to her parents. He was too ashamed to look at anyone but Chalice.

“Professor, you all right?”

Chalice nodded his head, stunned far more by what he had seen than by what had happened to him.

Roads yelled for the man on the floor to get up. But he was still too groggy to move. Roads began kicking him until he finally managed to crawl out of the room. Chalice walked in a daze back to his window. One of the girl’s attackers was casually sitting against the wall smoking a cigarette.

More in disbelief than anger, Chalice looked down at him and said, “You
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
worthless
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
sonofabitch.”

“Take it easy, Sandman. She’s just a Gook.” In an instant, Chalice kicked him in the face. The Marine dived for Chalice’s legs and pulled him to the ground. Again Roads appeared, quickly kicking the Marine senseless.

Roads walked away too enraged even to curse, while Chalice pulled himself up by the windowsill. As soon as the Marine gained his senses, he looked up at Chalice with hatred. Again Chalice saw the little girl and remembered the word “Sandman.” He spit down at the Marine’s face. The Marine struggled to get to his feet. Chalice pointed his blooker at him, saying calmly, “Go ahead. Give me an excuse.” The Marine turned away, and Chalice again stared out the window, seeing nothing but his own thoughts, thinking about what had and could have happened, about what must be happening somewhere at that moment, about dreams and illusions and the costs of defending them.

Roads told Chalice to get his fire team ready to move out. Chalice did this immediately, glad to be leaving the house, knowing that soon he would be worrying about bullets instead of what he had just seen. Ramirez gathered his half of the platoon together. They stood watching from within the house as Kramer’s half began their dash down the opposite side of the street. When Ramirez saw them finally take cover, he ordered his men to move out.

It was over fifty yards to the next standing building. As Chalice ran towards it, he, as well as the other men, felt helplessly vulnerable and longed to dive behind every piece of rubble along the way. Running breathlessly, the weight of his pack pushing him into the ground, Chalice waited for that inevitable burst of rifle fire that would send the men in the column sprawling. This time it never came.

Chalice sat with his back against the wall of the building, still trying to catch his breath. The men on Kramer’s side of the street were now doing the running. Chalice watched the last of them rush by. Soon it would again be his group’s turn to run, to do the same thing they had been doing for over a week. The repetition did not bother them. It was good. Their fear was of the breaks in this repetition when a burst of rifle fire would catch them in the open, a burst like what they now heard as they rested.

Ramirez looked around the corner of the building and saw Kramer’s men hopelessly strung out and pinned down by the continuing machine gun fire. Hearing Ramirez’s description, Chalice knew exactly what would have to be done. Ramirez ordered Roads to circle his squad behind the Viet Cong machine gun.

Chalice’s fire team went first, Rabbit at the point. Keeping low, the men moved quickly through the rubble, all the while hearing bursts from the Viet Cong machine gun. In a few minutes they were behind the building. Chalice looked back at Roads and was motioned towards the nearest wall. He took it upon himself to go first. The distance was a mere twenty yards, but as Chalice rushed towards the wall it seemed miles away and an inescapable burst of rifle fire a certainty. His legs refused to move fast enough. ‘My pack!’ he cursed to himself, suddenly realizing he’d forgotten to take it off. ‘What am I
thinking. Run!
RUN!’

Finally reaching the wall, he collapsed against it, barely able to signal the rest of his fire team to join him. Chalice watched the faces of the men rushing towards him, reminded of what his own fear had been like. When his men reached the wall, they grouped dangerously close. He motioned for one of them to guard the corner and the other two to spread out. Roads’s fire team had remained behind to cover them.

Chalice knew that whatever they were to do would have to be done fast. He and his men were at a disadvantage, and every second they remained where they were made their deaths more likely. Of the two windows on that side of the building, the nearest was closed and intact. The firing from inside continued in short bursts, causing Chalice and his men to flinch with each round. He motioned for the man in front of him to crawl under the open window and lob a grenade into the building. This man was the newest member of the squad and obviously nervous. Forgetting the nearest window was closed, he placed himself beneath it and pulled the pin on his grenade. Chalice scrambled frantically towards him, afraid of yelling and warning the Viet Cong inside, knowing that the grenade would probably bounce off the window, killing the Marine beneath it and himself. The man saw Chalice coming and became more nervous. Without knowing why, he handed the live grenade to Chalice who took it with both hands and an extreme sense of relief.

Chalice felt like waiting a few seconds just to calm himself. But a quick glance at Roads reminded him he had better hurry. He crawled cautiously towards the open window, the live grenade held tightly in his hand. He flinched each time the machine gun fired, but it was a chicom thrown from the window that he feared most. There was nowhere to run. Finally reaching the window, Chalice lay beneath it listening for sounds. Hearing none, he cautiously rose to his knees. His pack seemed trying to keep him off balance, but there was no time to remove it.

He raised the grenade, ready to release it, when he was stunned by a baby’s cry from inside. So unexpected a sound left him both startled and confused. He almost rose to his feet before realizing the stupidity in doing so. Thoughts of what could have happened sickened him; but again the machine gun fired, reminding Chalice of the men pinned down by it and the urgency of what he was doing. Fearing for his own life, he raised his eye to the corner of the window, saw nothing but a bare wall. The sound of the machine gun was making him increasingly nervous. He had to do
something
 
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.
 
.
 
fast. Chalice squeezed his hand white around the grenade — it would be so easy. The arm holding the grenade dropped to his side.

Silently, he laid the barrel of his blooker upon the sill, then slowly moved his head inside the window. A group of civilians huddled in one corner stared terrified at him. Thinking about what could have happened, Chalice turned towards the other corner — but far too slowly. An exploding rifle muzzle kept him from ever seeing it. Fired from two feet away, the bullet entered just behind Chalice’s ear, sending a large chunk of his forehead in the direction of the civilians. His body staggered back spastically and fell face down outside the window.

Roads ordered his men to open fire. Rabbit crawled under the window, a grenade in each hand. Roads halted the firing long enough for Rabbit to heave them inside. After throwing in two more grenades, Rabbit dived through the window. Roads fired a law through the closed window, then sprang through after it firing his rifle on automatic. Two Viet Cong lay dead beneath their machine gun. Without stopping, he rushed into the other room and found Rabbit standing over the body of another Viet Cong soldier. A child’s cry caused them both to turn to the corner where some civilians lay in a pile, motionless and bleeding. The adults on top were dead, riddled with shrapnel. Beneath them lay a half-dozen children, gasping for breath but none seriously wounded. Roads called for a corpsman, and was then told what he already knew: Chalice was dead.

For some reason his men scattered when Roads walked towards the body, one of them mumbling, “I guess that’s it for the Sandman.”

Chalice lay face down, legs apart and arms folded awkwardly beneath him. It was Roads who took off his pack and carried him into the building — leaving behind a crude death mask in the mud.

A small arc of the sun had already inched above the horizon. Though it was still dark within the building, Roads could see a dull gray light filtering through the rain. He was tired, the only man awake because he had last watch. In a few minutes he’d have to rouse his men, knowing they hadn’t gotten much sleep either. He’d heard their whispers all night, along with constant scurrying sounds. Roads was glad to know he wasn’t the only man in Vietnam who hadn’t got used to the rats.

Alpha Squad had spent the night inside a heavily damaged building. The walls were thick; and if Roads had been able to read the Vietnamese words above what was left of the door, he would have known the building had formerly been a bank. What remained was too small to protect half a platoon from the rain, so Ramirez and the rest of the men had spent the night in a small building behind the bank. It was Ramirez that now walked towards him, ordering the men to put on their packs. Roads watched them sit up, their drowsy expressions turning to surly scowls. Most of them began fumbling with their packs only to delay having to put them on. Realizing he’d have to put on his own pack first, Roads did so and staggered to his feet.

“C’mon, get ready to move-out.”

The men gathered at the door, already hunching their shoulders and complaining about their pack straps digging into them. They stared out at the cold rain, chilled by the thought of spending another day in it. Ramirez shouted the order, and with gasps and curses the men began dashing into the street.

Roads was at first relieved by the cold sensation of the rain. It woke his senses, made him feel like running. This feeling lasted only a few seconds, long enough for his mind to admit that he was not running to avoid the rain, but only through it. The men in front of him were not moving as fast as usual. Knowing that the tactic they were using made resting a matter of distance not time, Roads felt frustrated by the slower pace. He ordered it speeded up, but without effect. Roads was no more nervous than anyone else, but the first advance of the day was always the worst, there being too much time between it and the previous dusk to sit and worry. Once the first mad dash was finished, the rest no longer took courage. The fear was still there, but repetition gave each man the illusion of proving it could be done, at least by him.

But it
wasn’t
being done. The pace became even slower, begging the Viet Cong to spring an ambush. Now Ramirez also shouted for the pace to be increased. This order wasn’t even relayed up to Roads. He himself had to yell it to the point man. Roads could see that they were approaching the intended cover. Now fairly sure they would make it, he relaxed slightly. By the time they did reach their cover, the column was practically at a walk. His men immediately dropped down behind pieces of rubble, and Roads himself desired to do the same thing. Instead, he ran forward, eyes searching furiously for Rabbit, his point man.