One to Count Cadence

by James Crumley

  Men milled everywhere, like cattle in a lightning storm, two and three men throwing themselves at one slit trench, men slitting the sides of burning squad tents to get their footlockers out, men running still clutched in mosquito netting, and mortars falling steadily now, throwing men in long looping dives along the ground. Rifle rounds snapped past, usually overhead, but an occasional red explosion or black hole stung among us; sparks trailed above our mortar pits, now, answering, and the rifle fire slowed. I hit and pushed my way through the flying naked arms and legs, screaming Alert Positions! but it seemed that no one heard me, no one felt my blows, not one returned them. I stopped by my tent for the shotgun and two bandoliers of ammo, slung them, then ran for the CP Bunker. Fifteen feet from the bunker, our M-60 began to wink at me from the mortar pit behind the eastern emplacement. I dove and rolled into the communication trench, falling among five or six crouched troops holding smoke grenades. I shook them, shouted at them, then kicked them, but they refused to move. I threw the grenades for them, so we had a bit of smoke cover about thirty-five yards out, and the M-60 slowed its rate of fire. As I turned to go back to the CP, the troops were beginning to throw grenades on their own, smoke and fragmentation, but they were mostly short, and the M-60 began to answer with waspish vehemence. Two troops were hit with a single burst directly in front of me. One’s right arm came back mangled from a throw, forearm hanging at an oblique angle; another’s brains and bits of skull rained upon my back. I threw the dead one out of the trench before he stopped kicking, and dragged the other to the CP. An aid station had been set up in the guard section, so I left him with the white-faced medic.

  Saunders, wearing fatigues he had obviously slept in, was on the other side, screaming on the wire to the mortar pits, “Illumination, goddammit! Illumination! Alternate! Illumination!” Then he would shout at the guard in the spotting tower to get off his ass and direct fire, goddammit. Tetrick ran in behind me, dressed in underwear and combat boots. He rubbed the side of my face, my shoulder, and my ribs, then drew back a bloody hand.

  “Just scrapes,” he said. “You’re all right.”

  I had been, as long as I didn’t know I was bleeding, but the sight of his red hand hit me behind the knees, and they shook so badly, I staggered as I followed Tetrick over to Saunders.

  “Get some men in the com trench,” Saunders said. “Need cover so the men in the vans can get over here.”

  “Already done,” Tetrick said. “I got Barnes and Garcia kicking ‘em outta the slit trenches,” he continued, but Saunders was listening to the phones.

  “Coming down the trenches. Both sides,” he yelled. “Stop them. Spotter says demo teams.”

  Tetrick waved me toward the right, then pushed me as he went to the left. Behind us, Saunders screamed for illumination, the radioman screamed for a flare ship and an air strike, and the wounded screamed for mercy. Saunders was getting some illumination, but no one else got anything.

  In the trench, by the pale ghostly light from drifting flares, I could see men leaping and running out of the vans, trying to get to the trench. My old Trick had been working mids. Cagle and Novotny flew directly at me, but a mortar explosion threw Cagle ten feet to the right. He landed still running, but now as if he were being pushed from behind, three or four quick shoves, and bursts of black blood exploding across his chest, and I knew he must be dead, but I didn’t think about it. Novotny slid into the trench like a man stealing second, his rifle held high, but I grabbed him before he hit bottom, jerked him down the trench behind me, then up to the wall around the nearest van where we crouched, trembling, mouths sucking for air, until three VC in jockstraps carrying satchel charges crept down the trench below us. As they passed us, I elbowed Novotny, set the Armalite down in favor of the shotgun, then stepped behind. Three quick rounds of 00 buckshot smashed them to the ground. Two more, directed at the two that still had heads, saved me the trouble of checking them out. When I turned, Novotny still sat there, looking up at me like a whipped pup. With a double handful of fatigue jacket, I pulled him to the trench.

  “Shoot, you bastard, shoot.”

  He fired a tentative round into the trench. I slapped him. He turned, angry, then back, and he fired into the bodies until I slapped him again. He followed when I turned and ran, leaped the trench, and rolled over the protective wall into the mortar pit.

  Novotny fell directly on top of me, and what little wind I had left fled into the stream of incredible noise wailing about my head. Vaguely, I wondered if he had broken any of my ribs. It felt as if the right ribs were sticking into my lung, and when I vomited up my supper, I ran my fingers through it to see if there was any blood. I didn’t find any. I wasn’t quite tired enough yet to sleep in my own vomit, so I got to hands and knees, and as I did, the sergeant in charge of the mortar pit stepped on my hand. I stood up quickly, knocking him down.

  “Get off my fucking hand,” I screamed.

  “Get out of my fucking pit,” he shouted.

  “I’m trying to get some cover for your fucking pit.”

  “Well, do it. Don’t stand there with your finger up your ass.” Sick, tired, bloody, surely dying, I tugged Novotny along behind me among the burning squad tents, shaking kids out of their holes. Somehow, no, not somehow, but with punches, kicks, and horrible threats, we wrestled ten frightened kids to their rifles and to the protective wall in front of the mortar pit, stood them there with a boot in their butts each time they tried to sit, and made them fire down the trench. We would have had eleven, but I hit one recalcitrant too hard, and left him unconscious in his slit trench. He took a direct hit from a mortar as I herded my group away. One of the herd accused me of murder until I threatened to murder him. But I got ten of them there, and left Novotny in charge.

  I went back down the trench to the CP, down and over bodies of the dead and the frightened. The smoke cover was gone, and the burning squad tents made lovely silhouettes of their heads. The automatic fire from the M-60 came at them like a plague of locusts, and they lay in their holes, those alive, firing into the night air. Popping up once, I saw a VC with dynamite grenades blowing the radio vans. Those who hadn’t made it back already, wouldn’t now. I threw five or six rounds at the VC, but he ducked behind a van, so I moved on to the CP.

  Things seemed more ordered there. The air strike and the flare ship were on their merry way, the Vietnamese troops had rallied and sealed their perimeter with heavy and heroic losses, but the Vietcong had breached the western gate again, and would have poured in but for our 81mm mortars, which kept them from massing for a charge. The fire from the edge of the trees and the VC mortars slackened, probably because of a lack of ammo. All we had to do was hold what we had, but there were many VC still in the perimeter contesting what ground we were holding.

  “But we have to have that machine gun,” Saunders said to me as Tetrick handed me three phosphorus grenades.

  “You’re both out of your fucking minds,” I said, trying to hand the grenades back to Tetrick.

  Before either could answer, Lt. Dottlinger stood up in the corner where he had been sitting, saying, “See here, Krummel, that’s an order, and you damn well better obey.” He had taken time to dress in clean starched fatigues before coming to the CP, and he had walked through the fire like a mad general, and tried to talk to Saunders about leading a charge, but Saunders made him sit in the corner. He was very chipper and clean, but only willing to lead a charge or sit in the corner. Saunders looked as if he had just come off a three-day drunk; Tetrick looked like a dirty old man in his underwear and a dressing around his bald head where a ricochet had peeled a patch of scalp away; surely I resembled death warmed over.

  “If he opens his mouth again,” Saunders said to me, “kill him. And that is an order.” Dottlinger sank back to his corner. “That machine gun is hurting us, Krummel. Take as many men as you want. I’ll get you some smoke.”

  “Get me a fucking tank, will you? Sure. Shit, yes, old crazy Krummel will.” I put the Armalit
e and the shotgun down and walked out of the CP. A burst hit the metal legs of the spotting tower as I stepped out, and lead buzzed about me, plucked at my pants, but missed. Or maybe bounced off. I don’t know; I just kept walking.

  I arranged with Novotny for some covering fire over the trench, then I slipped into it, hoping they wouldn’t shoot me, crawling, cursing under my breath, though no one could have possibly heard me if I had cursed aloud, crawling years just to reach the three bodies of the VC demo men, scrambling months over their slick naked back as noise and light pounded at my head, clubbing my ears, abrading my eyes, pounding, incoming, outgoing, mortars trailing sparks up the sky, flares like flash bulbs hanging fire, fires leaping wild behind me, tracers splitting, screaming the dark shadows above, and as I crept past the latrine, burning canvas fluttered into the earth with me, slow, turning like a red-gold autumn leaf, peaceful. My mind, my body said the attack had already lasted out time itself, but my watch lied in less than an hour. I threw it away, then myself as rounds from the covering fire laced the sides of the trench, scattering dirt and solid fright against my face. Head on bloody arm, I slept, no more than an instant, but surely sleep, for I dreamed of an old hawk-faced maiden aunt of my father’s who told him that Americans were bad soldiers because they were afraid. Afraid not of dying, but of getting dirty, and they died because they wouldn’t crawl on their bellies, not pride but cleanliness next to godliness, and then I squirmed on under the fire, belly, boots, and chin trailing wakes in the filth under me, and I lived.

  By the second van from the end, I pulled the pin, released the handle, then lofted the grenade toward the mortar pit and machine gun. The second I held longer, and the third burst in the air over the compound like a fourth of July nightmare. I couldn’t smell the flesh burning, nor the screams of the burned, but the M-60 died with a rattling coughing burst.

  A head popped over the protective wall up by the first van, stayed long enough to see me, then disappeared. I crawled forward, then ran in a crouch, and when he rolled over the wall into the trench, I was behind him, thrusting back the slide of the .45. He heard, turned, I fired twice, once wide, the second round into the action of his rifle. His hand jerked away from the butt, but he flipped the rifle and ran at me, screaming, mouth a black cavern in his head, his weapon raised above his head like a sword. I fired again. His left leg flew behind him as if attached to a rope, but even as he fell, he kept crawling. I shot him in the hip and shoulder, and he stopped. I thought that enough (noise, not compassion), so I tried to run past him, but his good hand grabbed my ankle with a grip like a bear trap. I jerked, fired twice at his head, missed, then twice into his back. He grunted, but held. I kicked, tripped, sat heavily on his back. He grunted, but held again. The muzzle blast of my last round, fired directly against his flesh, kicked the .45 out of my hand, but he held what he had, and he had the most frightened man in the world. I sunk the bayonet into the back of his neck. He released my ankle, but the damned bayonet wouldn’t come out of his neck. Idiot-like, I jerked at the handle, ran away, came back, jerked again, then ran again as two more heads peeped over the wall. A grenade exploded in the trench one curve behind me, but the concussion only gave me speed, and in less than a moment, I stood in the CP, shouting, “Shit, yes. Fuck yes. Damn right!” at Saunders and Tetrick. They merely nodded, then told me to get as many men in the communication trench as I could find.

  The VC commander had about sixty men inside the perimeter, pinched off once more by the militia. He couldn’t go back, and probably never thought of retreating, but if he could take the inner triangle, he wouldn’t have to. He moved his men out of our wire and behind the vans on the right and the generators and repair shack on the left. The flare ship and the air strike had arrived, and the fire from the trees had nearly stopped, so the M-60s at the north- and south-east points could cover the outside trenches, which meant that the VC had to come right up the middle without even the covering fire of the captured M-60. We had tried to set up another M-60 in the center of the com trench, but three suicide grenadiers had put it out of action. We would either hold with the thirty or so men in the trench who would stand and fire, or we wouldn’t hold at all. We had the firepower, but they had the guts.

  I went for Novotny and his detail, but found them huddled against the wall, four dead, six wounded, and Novotny hung over the wall, a gutter wound laced black up the side of his head. The sergeant who had stepped on my hand said, “Dead. Direct hit.” His left ear was gone and that side of his head covered with blood, but he seemed intact. I herded the mobile members of Novotny’s detail into the trench thinking of nothing but staying alive. I didn’t even care.

  I set up to the right of the CP, the Armalite and the shotgun ready. The VC had fair cover now, Chinese grenades — more bark than bite — coming from behind the nearer generators, some men firing from behind the sandbags on top of the further vans. But we had grenades going out too, the 81mm mortars were beginning to walk in from the outer perimeter west gate. They had to come now.

  Twenty or so men spilled out into the open from either side, some crawling, some charging, some kneeling for covering fire. Black pajamas and Jesus-boots flapping, the little men came like hounds of hell, like a forest fire, a crown fire leaping from tree to tree in a mad race of destruction. Those of us who were going to fight were up now, saying at least that we weren’t going to die in our holes. At least ten VC fell in the first burst from the trench, but others kept coming.

  As they swept past the third van on the right, half a dozen grenades went off among them. They faltered and in that hesitation another ten fell, though not all hit, for they kept firing from their bellies, or tried to crawl to the shelter of the vans. Those left charging were cut down quickly.

  I hit a bunch of three on the left at about fifteen yards with the shotgun; they washed into five more, and the mass was ripped apart. Then another one on the right at five yards as he killed the man next to me, then another out of the air as he leapt over the trench. That was the last of the charge. I traded the shotgun for the Armalite, then went down the right after those who had fled to the spare safety of the vans. One in the foot as he knelt, another in a shower of sparks as he poked head and rifle around a van, and a third in the back as he climbed into a van.

  Then Joe Morning stepped out of the door of the third van, shot a kneeling man in the back of the head. Then he ran into the midst of them, firing from the hip like a hero, but he hit at least three more before he folded at the waist like a waiter giving a surly bow, folded, fell, lay still.

  After Joe Morning, we mopped up. The VC were beat, but not a single one surrendered. It was over. Oh, the planes chased the VC through the jungle, and the troops stayed on full alert, but it was over.

  We collected our wounded, leaving the dead to sleep until daylight. Casualties were high; the 721st ceased to be operational. So many dead, so many ways to die. The mortars had done the worst damage. Dottlinger was the only one I saw without a shrapnel wound of some sort. (I don’t mean to imply that he stayed in the CP; he was up firing during the charge, after the charge, after it was over.) Haddad had a black hole in the very center of his bald head, but not another mark on him, the round disappearing as surely as if it had been fired into the sky, and it is buried with him. A nickel-sized piece of shrapnel had torn through Quinn’s cheek — in one side and out the other with about fifteen teeth, but not his bad one — and when he was hit, he fell on a tent peg and lost an eye. Peterson had his heel shot or blown off, but other than that he was all right. Cagle, Novotny, Morning, Haddad, Franklin, dead. (Though you know, as I do, that I was mistaken. Cagle wasn’t dead, but was on the back side of the aid station, and I didn’t see him. He lost two ribs and his right arm, but they saved his lung after it had collapsed. Novotny wasn’t dead either, but deaf now.) All the new members of the Trick were still in the vans, dead in the vans where they had stayed. It was over.

  I was supposed to be checking the dead VC, but I wandered past Morning�
��s body being dragged away (I knew he was dead), and into the van he had come out of. Eight jumbled positions, four bodies present and accounted for, three new guys whose names I didn’t want to know, but the fourth was a VC, a small terribly old man sitting in the corner. He looked like the one with the dynamite grenades that I had missed, but I couldn’t tell.

  Suddenly I had to pee so badly that tears welled in my eyes. Holding my crotch, I ran out the side door, slipping in blood or coffee at the door, but not falling, then rushed to the still smoldering latrine. All the canvas had burned away and the wooden seat still smoked. I couldn’t imagine why I had come to the open latrine to pee, and then I couldn’t stop giggling. A paperback collection of Huxley essays and a flashlight also smoked on the seat. I peed on them. Goddamned Joe Morning caught in the can reading by flashlight while the VC shot the hell out of the place. Shit. But he’d fallen too… I finished, then wandered back to the van, feeling his loss, feeling the guilt creep in on tiny but sharp-clawed feet.

  Lost, tired, afraid, I can’t go on. I sit next to the old, the skinny old man, reach for a cigarette in a shirt I no longer wore, or, no, I had quit, hadn’t I; I don’t know. One of the dead new guys had some in his shirt. How can a new guy be dead? No, no. How can a dead guy be new? I take his package. He’s quit smoking for his health. The old man doesn’t want one for his health either. Smoking fouls his sense of smell, and he can smell an American five hundred yards away; Americans don’t smell like the earth but stink to high heaven. I shove a butt in his mouth anyway. Universal peace offering between men of war, but it won’t stay lit. any more.

  “There you go, pops,” I say. His short flat nose was all mangled and bloody, his eyes were silent as his voice. “No place to get shot, pops, right in the snoot. And in the chest too. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and one in the snoot for eight. Somebody had a grudge on you, old man. Say, what’s an old fart like you doing mixed up in this shit, anyway? …