Who Shot the Water Buffalo?

by Ken Babbs

  “False alarm,” he says. “Back to bed.”

  I peer out the window. “Clearing up, compadre. Today we fly.”

  The ready room is the usual mix of pilots strapping on their pistols, writing on their kneepads, folding their maps, the routes in and out; low voices assessing the terrains, the loads they’ll be carrying, the murmuring preparations interrupted by Ben-San crashing through the door.

  “We were too late with the Tiger Flight, as usual,” he says. “The VC hit a train coming around the mountain on the Hai Van Peninsula, right at dawn when there was barely enough light to see.”

  “I thought that area had pillboxes to cover the level stretches,” Emmett says. “How did it happen?”

  “It was right where the tracks go around a curve and down a grade where it croses a gully. The VC blew the bridge when the train was crossing. The ARVN guards were in the last car and it went down in the gulley, putting them out of the picture. The engine kept going but the back cars were off the rails and they dragged the whole shebang to a stop.”

  Ben-San sheds his flak vest and flops down on a chair.

  “By the time we got there the VC were long gone. But not before they lined everyone up, gave them a lecture: look how well your government protects you, they can’t stop us from wrecking the train, best to join up with the VC. Or else. Then they shot a woman. The ARVNs we carried in did a halfhearted search and their platoon commander told the passengers not to worry, they will get to Da Nang safely. The government will destroy the political criminals who blew up the train. After that we packed up and got out of there.”

  “Hmm, both sides well represented, stating their useless cases,” Cothran says.

  Grousing and grumbling all around. Scratching of stubbly chins and shakes of wondering heads. Ben-San goes in search of a Coca-Cola and the rest of us continue prepping for our flights.

  Cochran and I are flying wing on the Hammer. A platoon of Viet Cong has infiltrated Tien Phuoc, a village twenty kilometers south. They are conducting propaganda lectures in the school and village square. A government agent snuck away and alerted the nearest outpost which radioed Da Nang for help.

  The regular forces are in the field, so the SDC, Self Defense Corps troops, irregulars from the villages, are the only ones available. They carry four different colored scarves in their pockets and every few hours, following a pre-established plan, change scarves. Anyone not wearing the right color is shot on the spot, for the Viet Cong also wear black silk outfits and the secret scarf change can put the finger on an infiltrator.

  We brief, preflight and load the troops. They are dressed in black shirts and trousers and carry bandoleers of ammunition across their chests. They wear bright-red scarves and are armed with M1s and BARs. They have no boots or helmets, instead they wear cloth caps and sandals.

  After a short flight to the village we orbit overhead and wait for air cover. The Hammer establishes radio contact and we rendezvous with two T-28 fighter-bombers.

  “Slowing it up,” the Hammer calls, and we flare, drop the power and settle onto a cultivated field. The T-28’s fly race-track dummy firing patterns on both flanks. The Hammer will call them on the radio if we start to take ground fire and then the dummy runs will go live.

  We’re on the ground for only a few minutes. The troopers jump out and run toward the village, the red scarves a gaudy contrast to their black shirts.

  “All clear,” Soonto calls over the intercom.

  We lift off and bank into a right turn.

  “I’m ready for that G and T,” Cochran says, the stick light in his right hand, left fist squeezing the throttle and holding the collective steady.

  Fifty feet off the deck, Soonto calls, “We’re taking fire, Lieutenant.”

  Cochran looks at me. “Grab your gatling gun, Tomas, see if you can spot them.”

  “We’re getting a lot of oil, down here,” Soonto says. Then, “Oh shit, I think I got hit.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “No blood showing but it hurts like hell.”

  “Hang in there.”

  “Transmission oil pressure dropping,” I say. “Temperature gauge rising.”

  “Yankee Victor Two under fire,” Cochran reports over the radio. “We’ve got a bad transmission leak.”

  “Roger that, you going to try for home?” The Hammer answers.

  “Negsville, I’m setting down as far away as I can get from those shooters.”

  “I’ll cover you.”

  Cochran lowers the collective and drops the nose. We angle toward a bare spot. “How’s it looking down there, Soonto?”

  “Transmission oil is spraying me like a race horse pissing blood. Hot, too.”

  Cochran eases up the collective, pulls back on the stick and sets us down. He disengages the rotors and applies the brake, keeping the engine running. Soonto jumps out of the belly and climbs up on the roof. He opens the transmission inspection hatch and peers in, rubbing his bottom.

  “Keep an eye out for the bad guys,” Cochran tells me. He switches to the radio. “We’re checking out the tranny, Yankee Victor One. Keep us covered.”

  “Roger that. Everything looks clear from up here.”

  “What’s going on with Soonto?” Cochran says.

  “He’s stoppering the hole with pieces of his jacket.”

  Soonto gives a thumbs up, closes the inspection hatch, jumps down and hops in the belly.

  “Winding her up.” Cochran engages the rotor. “Keep an eye on those gauges,” he tells me. Then he calls on the radio, “We’re coming out, going to try for home.”

  He lifts off and heads north, gauges on the redline. “What’s it looking like down there, Soonto?”

  “Normal seepage, sir. Maybe a little on the heavy side.”

  We slap down at Da Nang on the roll and don’t stop till we reach the maintenance shack.

  “Good work, Soonto,” Cochran says, after we’re shut down and standing on the ground. “What the hell did you say about being hit?”

  Soonto grins sheepishly. “Got me in the ass, sir, knocked me off the seat.”

  “You okay? Let me see.”

  Exposing his left buttock, Soonto reveals a bulge the size of a tennis ball, brilliant as a star going nova, red and purple and emitting a shitload of heat.

  “That’s significant,” Cochran says. “Where are your bulletproof panties?”

  “I was sitting on them.” He holds up fingers. “Two pairs.”

  “Saved your ass.”

  No one wears the flak pants any more. Scrunches your nuts into mashed potatoes. We put the pants on the seats and sit on them.

  “Go see Doc Hollenden,” Cochran says. “I’ll put a note in the after-action report. Maybe you’ll get a purple heart out of this.”

  “Yeah,” I chime in. “The purple of the medal on your chest will match the purple of the welt on your ass.”

  Soonto gives me his Samoan look, deadpan, eyes dark pools.

  “How poetic,” Cochran says. “At least we were spared your stupid purple heart on joke.”

  “Cállate tu boca. Oh, what’s this?”

  The cur is peering intently at Soonto, eyes probing, one ear cocked. Soonto makes a small gesture with his hand. An almost imperceptible wag of a tail, and the cur sits and nestles its muzzle in Soonto’s hand. The dog has filled out. His legs are still too long for his body. He’ll only let Soonto touch him unless Soonto gives the okay—then the cur will deign to be patted on the head.

  “He’s not a cur,” Cochran says. “He’s a curmudgeon.”

  We go in the line shack and fill out the after-action report, then write up the transmission leak—one round, one hole, no apparent gear damage.

  “Walked away from another one,” Cochran says. “Knock on wood.”

  “I’ll drink to that. Bottoms up.”

  18. Neatness Matters Most

  Put it to me straight, Doc … no gilding the lily now … I had a little gelding on the ranch … when I got o
lder I rode the horses we kept in the remuda, just like the rest of the cowhands … later on I was able to put my equine knowledge to good use … I had the weekend off from flying one Saturday during our desert deployment in Yuma, and went down to the stables to check out a horse for an overnight camping expedition … I figured something was up when the Gunny Sergeant in charge of the stables led out a big brown gelding all saddled and ready to go for a check ride around the inside of the corral to make sure I wasn’t some greenhorn who didn’t know a cinch from a stirrup, and all the enlisted men who worked in the stables had hoisted themselves up on the top rails of the corral for a gander at the upcoming show …

  I climbed aboard the gelding, the Gunny let go of the bridle, I nudged the horse with my heels, he turned and glared at me with a wild red eye, then bolted for the fence, figuring to scrape me off before we even started around the corral. . I pulled the reins and yanked his head alongside my boot, holding him in a tight turn … he spun around a time or two then saw it was no use, and stopped, his head pressed against his flank … I leaned over and grabbed his ear with my teeth and chomped down … the horse let out a wail, the enlisted men broke into shouts and laughter, I turned loose the ear and whispered in a soothing voice, “You and I are going to get along just fine, aren’t we” … he whinnied, shook himself and walked, trotted, cantered and galloped though his paces and, with the check ride successfully completed, we spent a companionable two days wandering around Mexico, camping under the stars …

  Another rainy afternoon. I write letters, filling the empty pages with my wide tracked, webfooted trail. Study “shy man shitting in the woods,” the wood carving Cochran traded from the Montagnards, an ape squatting on his heels, legs crossed, arms and hands covering his face. The wood is green and unfinished and Cochran sands and stains the carving, rubbing its ass and flanks.

  I check out my crop of crabs. The little devils are in a pilgrimmage around the Frog House, visiting every man in turn, delivering an itchy message, much like the religious zealots back home who pass out fear-mongering pamphlets: Are you AWAKE? Read the WATCHTOWER. WHAT DOES GOD HAVE IN STORE FOR YOU? CRABS?

  They are “little friends” to the Japanese, come to visit and mooch but the Nipponese are too hairless for the crabs to hide and they are soon spotted and dispatched, migrating to the furry jungles of a visiting American.

  Now a new visitor. A blister bug on my elbow. No one has ever seen a blister bug. They light on your skin and a water blister pops up and breaks, leaving a goopy rash. The worst is to squash a blister bug at night, blisters spread wherever it is mashed. Looks like your shoulders and chest have been burned after you roll around atop a blister bug all night. Head for the shower, and, if the water is on, you hose the blister bug down the all-consuming drain.

  If we can’t fly we have ground training. We muster in the ready room at 0800. Ben-San, back from five days R and R in Japan, plunks down next to me. His eyes are puffed and red rimmed. Back bowed. Hands shaking. Brain tremored. I pass him my notebook with a question written on the open page: You look all fucked up. Feel okay?

  He fires it back. “Jo-to Ichi-ban. Daijoubu,” and adds a poem:

  Now I lay me down to sleep

  With a Jo-San by my side.

  If I should die before I wake

  She fucked me to death.

  Ben-San was not going to have anything more to do with Yoshika, the Japanese girl he fell in love with and asked to marry, not after being called into the squadron office and have Pappy Lurnt tell him, “You marry that bar girl and take her home, by the time you get there you’re married to a nigger.”

  “But she’s Japanese.”

  “Same difference. You’re as horny as an Arkansas milk snake.”

  Pappy Lurnt sails the marriage request form across the desk. “Deep six this piece of trash. The skipper won’t sign it. Get out of here.”

  Ben-San left the office and jumped on the R and R flight to Japan.

  “First thing off the plane,” he whispers, “I picked up two Jo-Sans and took them to a hotel. One was a fatso, the other a slim-hipped beauty. I humped the beauty and didn’t find out until afterwards that she was a he and I’d been compromised by a sister-boy. She had tits. That’s what fooled me.”

  “How’d you like that, making out with a boy?”

  “Blah. I didn’t do that. I never make out with whores. First off, I was drunk. If it weren’t for that I probably wouldn’t have been in the room.”

  “Wasn’t she naked?”

  “She had on a half slip hiked around her hips, hiding her cock, which she had taped to her crotch in some weird way to make it look like he didn’t have one.”

  “How do you know he did?”

  “Old fat mama-san told me.”

  “God, forgot about her. What was she doing all this time?”

  “She was lying on my back, the top slice of a Chinese sandwich.”

  “But how did you do it?”

  “I couldn’t figure that out. Fatso explained it to me. Showed me rather. The sister-boy reached around under his ass and cupped his hand to make a cunt out of it.”

  “Sounds like an old Mexican trick.”

  “He sure fooled me.”

  “Must have left a bitter taste.”

  “Blah. Not until I found out. Pretty good screwing up to then. Old Fatso was laughing her jugs off so I bugged her to find out what the joke was. I found out all right. The thing that pissed me off was I paid for that piece of ass. Can you imagine that? Paying ass price for a hand job?”

  “She had nice tits.”

  He scowls and scribbles in my notebook:

  I’m the sheik of Koza BC.

  My love say she belong to me.

  At night when she at work,

  Butterflying with some Air Force jerk,

  I’ll sneak to her pad and sleep,

  Across the habu grass she’ll creep,

  Someday she’ll be my love for free,

  I’m the sheik of Koza BC.

  “That’s when I went back to Yoshika,” Ben-San whispers. “She was working nights at the Temple Bar caging drinks and making appointments, but while I was there, she remained true. She was taking a course in hair care during the day, hoping to get a job in a beauty parlor. When things got too hectic, she told me, she’d slip into the head at work and snort some powder from the bartender, kept the girls chipper and hustling.

  “The last night there I told her that the Marine Corps wouldn’t let us get married and we’d have to split up for good. I had already paid her month’s rent, plus food and drinks and I convinced myself there’s only so much a man can do.

  “‘Get another job. Get away from the Temple Bar before you burn yourself out,’ I told her. ‘Find a nice Japanese boy and get married.’”

  “‘Yeah, sure,’ she said. ‘And maybe you find nice roundeye girl and get married. I once had good job working at Staff NCO club at Kadena Air Base and Sergeant set me up in a snake ranch, promised he’d get a divorce and marry me, allatime keep me busy with laundry and cleaning and he never did get divorce, instead he go back to the States. He write me letter, say when he come back, he knows Yoshika waiting for him. He in for big surprise. I no big fish. I fish him.’

  “The next morning I flew back here,” Ben-San says.

  He bends over my notebook and writes with a shaky hand:

  Four o’clock comes slowly

  Ever so slowly

  I sit in silent solitude

  Awaiting my Jo-San

  And curse the coming day.

  Four o’clock comes

  Along with my Jo-San.

  I turn to her with a scowl

  I mention the rack

  She turns her back

  Say she love only me.

  ‘Then why you butterfly?’ I ask.

  ‘I no butterfly,’ she say

  ‘Just checko-checko’

  ‘But Jo-San,’ I say.

  ‘I pay your rent

  Buy yo
u food

  Buy you booze

  Why you checko-checko?’

  ‘Someday you go home,’ she say

  ‘Your Jo-San left all alone

  No man to share the rent

  No money for abortion in case of accident.

  I checko-checko for the day to come,

  When you pack bags and stateside run.’

  “What traits identify the successful leader?” Captain Beamus intones. “To whom in history can we look for great examples of leadership? Catherine the Great. Moses. Genghis Khan, the man who led the hordes to the edges of civilized Europe. And what about one of the greatest leaders of all time?”

  He pauses but no one answers him.

  “Rommel. Rommel is the only officer I know of who was a Captain longer than me. For eleven years he was frozen in rank but he didn’t waste his time. He read, wrote and studied. Prepared himself for the day when he would be promoted, when he would take command. And we all know what happened. He became one of the greatest armored cavalry tacticians the world has ever known.”

  Ben-San is gripped by the emotion of the talk. Or in the grips of something else, for he is sagging and moaning. Viewed from the lectern he appears interested in the talk, so interested he is taking notes.

  Listen me buckoes

  And you shall hear

  How to be a lead-eer.

  Notice my poise

  My dress, my manners,

  Especially the

  Front of my trousers.

  The open fly

  The gaping void

  And the lack

  Of a man-sized peter.

  “An officer is a gentleman,” Captain Beamus lectures, “and that means he exhibits all the qualities of a gentleman. Dress, manners, wit, intelligence and savoir faire—the ineluctable tidbits that no one can define but everyone can recognize.”

  “What’s that mean? He can’t run for office?” Rob Jacobs yells out.

  “As you were, Lieutenant. Consult your dictionary and expand your vocabulary. Your word is your bond.”

  I take the notebook from Ben-San.

  Your Word Is Your Bond

  I am a laughing hypocrite

  That is to say I’m full of shit