13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  “Don’t start that shit,” Egan snarled. “I don’t gotta hear that shit tonight.”

  “Talkin bout shit,” Jax said slyly, “what stink?”

  Cherry stifled a chuckle.

  “Fuck it,” Egan said steamed. “I don’t know any other way to do what we’re doin. If you can think up somethin else …”

  “How bout we jest call this whole thing off. It dumb, Man. Dumb.”

  “If you can figure how,” Egan challenged, “I’m willin.”

  “Ah, fuck it,” Jax snapped. He stood, picked up his rifle and circled down toward Whiteboy who was cleaning and checking his M-60 ammo belts.

  “I’d like to see this place in twenty years,” Cherry said to Egan after Jackson left. “I bet there’ll be a six-lane interstate coming out here.”

  “Yeah, and every car’ll have to have an armed escort cause this war aint never gointa stop.”

  “I bet there’ll be a small city out here in twenty years,” Cherry said. “There’ll be a golf course and hotels, a whole resort.”

  “A big tourist trap,” Egan spat. “Come and search for the legs and eyes of your father.”

  “Ya know,” Cherry said staring at Egan, feeling in this instance stronger than Egan, “you are really morbid, Man. Yer the one said we’re winning.”

  “Cherry,” Egan said cynically, “I’m a lot sicker than you’ll ever know.” He paused. His agreement disarmed Cherry’s argument. Then he said, “But I’m a jot healthier than any mothafucker out here.”

  Lieutenant Brooks walked quietly from one end of the NDP to the other. He checked the perimeter and discussed likely routes of enemy approach, probe or attack with each platoon leader and each squad leader. They discussed fields of fire, interlocking fire and camouflage. The discussions were quick and laconic and often the words uttered had nothing to do with the situation. A squad leader would lead the company commander behind his positions. Both men could see the network of defense. It did not require words. Brooks asked every third or fourth man about his back or feet or how he felt or about what he was doing when the mortars began falling. He offered no sympathy. He expressed concern instead. He very sincerely questioned his men about their premonitions, about enemy signs they had seen, about their interpretation of the tactical situation. Brooks never stopped seeking information and feedback from his men and he gave as much information as he could to anyone sincerely interested. Tonight, though, he found he had to force himself to listen. When he discovered he was forcing himself to concentrate on the operation he thought, that bitch. That bitch. That bitch.

  Brooks continued his rounds. At the forward defensive point he found Andrews nursing a bruised rib. “Hey, L-T, can I get a purple heart for this?” Andrews laughed.

  “What do you have?” Brooks said, kneeling. He inspected the nasty bruise and laceration on Andrew’s right side and questioned him about it. Whiteboy and Jackson broke into guffaws at hearing it again. Andrews had been defecating when the F-4s had screamed over and dropped their bombs. He had been hit by a piece of shrapnel from a bomb after the jagged piece of metal had cut in half the tree Andrews was holding to balance himself. Brooks giggled as Whiteboy re-enacted Egan’s dash to help Andrews and his crawl through Andrews’ shit. Brooks stopped laughing when Jackson held up a razor-sharp plate of steel eight inches across and an inch thick.

  After the foxholes were dug and the weapons and ammunition were readied for the night, it was time to eat. The atmosphere at the various CPs was like that of a Boy Scout jamboree except that it was quiet.

  “Hey, Man,” Dave McCarthy chided Lt. Thomaston, “aint you got someplace to go? This aint no place for officers.”

  “Oh I thought I’d see how the war was going,” Thomaston chuckled back.

  “We don’t have no officer’s club out here. Aint no band. No donut dollies to fuck. What’re you checkin us out for? Cherry ain’t going ta bend over for ya.”

  “You got any smokes?” Thomaston said to Cherry.

  To Cherry it seemed they were baiting each other strictly for his entertainment. He rummaged in his ruck for a pack but McCarthy beat him, pulling a box of Marlboros from a fatigue pocket. McCarthy passed the cigarettes around. He struck a match, lit his and Thomaston’s then put the match out. He struck another match and lit Cherry’s cigarette. It was darker now in the jungle, gray dark but not black dark and they did not yet worry about light discipline. The sky above the canopy had turned red and the sun was enveloped by the mountains beyond the valley.

  “Didn’t think I smoked,” Cherry said inhaling deeply, holding the fumes, feeling the nicotine rush.

  Egan returned from his constant wandering and checking of the perimeter. He also was smoking. He was very quiet. Without saying a word he removed several cans of C-rations from his rucksack. He removed a blackened, smashed, dented tin can stove and two heat tabs.

  “What’s for dinner?” Thomaston asked.

  “Vichyssoise. Beef Bearnaise. Mocha. And, ah, pound cake with peaches. How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds fine to me,” Thomaston said rummaging in his ruck for his can stove and canteen cup and food.

  McCarthy also opened his ruck and removed various items. “Here,” he said handing Egan a can of Beef Slices and Potatoes with Gravy. Mc-Carthy also removed a one-pound stick of C-4 plastic explosive. The three clustered closer while Cherry watched. Cherry thought it was all a joke but he wasn’t sure.

  Egan turned back to his ruck and produced several spice bottles then turned to Cherry. “You eating?”

  “Yes. I guess.”

  “You need a fuckin invitation?”

  “No.”

  “I need your canteen cup. A B-2 unit. Two cans a beef slices if you got two. One beef and one ham or pork’s good enough. And I need all the cream substitute you can spare.”

  Egan worked in a very methodical manner. He collected the cans of meat and of meat with potatoes and opened them. In a canteen cup he separated the potatoes from the beef, pouring the gravy grease in with the meat. He washed the potato chunks with a few capfuls of water and added the water to the meat. Then with the tip of his bayonet he cut and mashed the potatoes, added three packets of dried cream substitute and filled the cup with water. This he stirred and set aside. McCarthy set up two stoves and filled two canteen cups almost to the brim with water. The stoves were small C-ration cans opened on one end and with holes punched in the sides all around. Beneath the tins he placed tiny chunks of plastic explosive he had broken from the pound stick. McCarthy placed the canteen cups on the stoves and lit the explosive which ignited slowly then flared quickly to a foot-high sizzling white-hot flame and went out. The water was boiling. To the water McCarthy added four packets of instant coffee, four packets of Cocoa Beverage Powder, three cream substitutes and three sugars. He mixed first in one cup then in the other, then he poured the mix into a third and poured the three back and forth.

  The Bearnaise sauce for the beef was a mixture of two cream substitutes, four powdered crackers from a B-2 unit substituting for flour, two packets of salt, one melted tin of cheddar cheese and half a dozen shakes of tarragon leaves and onion chips from Egan’s private stock.

  The sauce and the meat were heated slowly over heat tabs as the mocha cups passed back and forth. Then the canteen cup of cool potato muck Egan delighted in calling Vichyssoise was handed around.

  “Wow!” Cherry exclaimed quietly after Egan handed him his can of Beef Bearnaise. “This is unreal.”

  “What’s unreal?” Egan said.

  “Your food, Man,” Cherry said almost giddily. He should have stopped there and he knew it immediately after he added, “Your food, this place and all the Nam.”

  “You dumb shit,” Egan sneered. “It’s only unreal if your eyes are closed. It’s real, asshole. Stick yer finger inta the ground and feel it. Real. Solid. You fuckin airhead assholes give me a case of the ass.”

  “Hey wait, huh,” Cherry said hurt. No one said anything in his defense. Cherry
got up quietly, stepped the four feet to where he and Egan had smoothed the earth from the foxhole into a sleeping position and sat down. He wanted to cry. It had been a very long day. He was exhausted. His thoughts ranged wildly beyond all his earlier experiences yet produced no understanding. He loved these guys, he despised them. He had thought they were crazy, brilliant, ignorant, more sane than any people he had ever met. What did he have to do to be accepted by them?

  A breeze had begun rising from the valley with the approaching darkness and now it became a wind. Soon the meeting at the company CP would commence. The Platoon RTOs had reported to El Paso that all squads were set for the night. LPs, listening posts manned by two infantrymen each, had been deployed, one 75 meters down the trail toward the draw, one on the ridge where the NVA mortars had landed and one in the canyon below the company. The LPs had waited until dark to move off from the company and into their positions. Each team had a PRC-25, their weapons, ammo, a watch and little else.

  After the LPs went out MAs were set on the LZ on 848. The MAs, or mechanical ambushes, were booby traps assembled of claymore mines, detonation or det cord, blasting caps, a battery and a triggering mechanism attached to a trip wire. Two MAs were set by Don White and Don Nahele of the 3d Plt before they withdrew to the rear security position of the NDP.

  Command detonated claymores were now being set in front of each fighting position. Lt. Hoyden, the forward observer whom everyone called FO (foe), completed calling in a long series of DTs and H & Is. The DTs, or defensive targets, were likely enemy approach routes or locations if they were attacking the company. FO registered the predetermined range and azimuth settings with the FDCs of the firing batteries to assure rapid and accurate delivery of artillery fire. H & I fire, harassment and interdiction, were targets of suspected or possible enemy locations or paths of movement. Artillery projectiles that screamed overhead and fell into the valley far below at seemingly random intervals were H & I. They were fired day and night but mostly at night. Their rumbling blasts remained in the hills at Khe Ta Laou, reverberating until a new explosion eradicated the lingering echo, for the entire operation.

  Wind coming from the valley caused leaves high in the canopy to scrape against one another and chatter and dry palms to clash. Brooks sat with his back to the wind, purposely, so his voice would carry to those who would be before him. He sat on the ground, cross-legged, still, silent, like a distinguished Indian chieftain awaiting his war council.

  Brooks had been able to produce and preserve racial harmony in his unit, in an army troubled with racial turmoil. He had heard the story of the brawl at the Phoc Roc and he had heard about Jackson and Egan quibbling during the day. There had been other incidents. Greer in the 2d Plt had refused to obey an order from Pop Randalph until Woodrow Hayes interceded. Brooks knew the racial polarization of his troops had increased during the stand-down and it was now time to put an end to it. He planned to address that situation after the business part of the meeting.

  This was a difficult situation for a black lieutenant. Often when authority came from a black NCO or officer the black foot soldier felt soldout, bitter, Uncle Tommed. “When theys E-l to E-4,” Jackson had once said, “they Bro Black. When theys E-5, they Sergeant Black. When they’s E-6 or higher then they jest Sergeant and then theys lifers and it don’t matter none what color a lifer is. They all OD.”

  Rufus Brooks was lucky. All his troops liked him. He was one of them, a boonierat. They would do almost anything for him because he would do almost anything for them. He always had, ever since he had become company commander.

  The men were now assembling. It was still and dark though not completely black for the moon was full behind a partial cloud cover and not completely still for the wind was in the canopy and artillery rounds were bursting in the valley. Pop Randalph came up and sat beside Brooks. “The gooks probably moved out fer the night,” Pop said handing the L-T a hot canteen cup of coffee. “Bet,” he added, “they move right back in fore we get theah tomorra.”

  El Paso was to the L-T’s other side and beside him was Cahalan, then FO, Bill Brown, Minh and Doc. These eight made a tight 180° arc. The three platoon leaders, Lts. Thomaston, De Barti and Caldwell, sat together across from Brooks. Ezra Jones came down from 3d Plt, Garbageman from 2d and Egan and Jackson from 1st. They were now fully assembled in a tight circle, knees touching. Some had poncho liners, thin nylon quilted blankets the size of a poncho, wrapped around their shoulders and over the backs of their necks or even over their heads, to keep them warm. Pop handed his coffee to Jackson and started it around. Jax sipped, handed the cup to Egan and finished their earlier conversation by whispering, “Yaassir, Bro me. Like Pappy’d say, ‘When I aint near the girl I love, I loves the girl I’s near.’” Egan chuckled, sipped, passed the cup to Garbageman who passed it to Jones then on to Caldwell who did not drink. He handed the cup to De Barti saying, “The euphemism I like best, I mean I really like it, is ‘Armed Propaganda.’” The coffee continued around to Doc who drank and passed it to Minh whispering, “They all say that. They all say, ‘if I doan see another dink the rest a my tour, I’ll be happy,’ but you just let somebody else get a body count, Mista, en you watch em scream, ‘Why Bravo Company? Why …’” The coffee came full circle through the FO and the RTOs and back to the L-T who passed it back to Pop. Pop looked at him and said, “Hey, Sir, did you know today is Friday the thirteenth?” Egan overheard him and said, “Today’s Thursday.”

  “Have your people ready and saddled up by oh-four-thirty,” Brooks said to the group very quietly, the wind carrying his voice across to Thomaston but not outside the circle. “We’re going to move back down that trail and spread out across the draw before first light. At first light we’ll sweep up the hill. The opposition may be planning a similar move against us. I want two gun teams at point. From the draw spread south around the hill and we’ll sweep up from there and from this side. Order of movement same as today. If we meet no opposition 2d Plt will recon off the peak north and northwest. 3d will recon along the ridge running southwest. 1st will rest.”

  “Are we going to be able to get air support at that hour, Ruf?” Caldwell asked.

  “They might be socked in in the rear,” Garbageman added.

  “We might be socked in here,” someone said.

  “I’d prefer to move under cover of fog,” Brooks said and added, “if we can get it. I want to get into that bunker complex undetected. No noise. We don’t have to take it at once. Let’s move slowly and probe it. We’ve got time. It doesn’t have to be rushed, and we can always withdraw.” Brooks let his gentle voice seep from his throat. He sounded like a cross between schoolteacher and gang leader. “Danny,” Brooks addressed Egan, “you want to let us in on your contact this afternoon?”

  Egan gulped. He had not been prepared for this.

  “What did your pointman fire up?” Brooks pressed.

  “There wasn’t nothin down there,” Egan said lowly. He paused. No one said anything. “My point just freaked out,” Egan admitted. “He didn’t see anything.”

  “Oh shit,” Thomaston groaned. “I thought … I don’t believe you guys.”

  “Who’d you have at point?” Caldwell directed the question to Thomaston.

  Brooks cut them off. “It doesn’t make any difference now,” he said. “I’ve spoken with the man. We were within 30 meters of the saddle. It would probably have been better to move through there today but one man stopped us. There’s no other way to go.”

  “Fuck it,” Jones said. “Goddamnfuckit.”

  “That’s enough,” Brooks said. “Let’s review what we’ve got. Cahalan.”

  “We know from the helicopter sightings,” Cahalan said sounding like he was reading the minutes from the last meeting, “that there’s a bunker complex over there. The fast movers destroyed five of thirty bunkers this afternoon. Earlier, there had been movement spotted and fired upon with unknown results. The opposition knows our location and direction. Recon was period
ically in contact from time of insertion to 1440 hours resulting in four NVA killed by small arms fire. The NVA appeared clean, well fed and all were equipped with AKs. One US was killed and three wounded. Two of the wounded were medevacked. The C & C bird reported spotting movement a klick (kilometer) west of Firebase Barnett and on the ridge below where the Delta Darlings were inserted.” Cahalan stopped.

  “Oh fuck this shee-it,” Jax said his eyes becoming wider and wider as Cahalan recited the day’s intelligence.

  “We’ve got to get to that next peak,” Brooks said quietly. “Without it, our back’s to a wall. That peak will give us room to maneuver. Questions?”

  No one spoke. The business meeting came to a quick end. Everyone sat for the next few minutes in complete silence. Then Caldwell rose quietly and left. The other platoon leaders also rose and returned to their platoons. FO and Brown rolled to their sleeping position only a few feet away. The circle tightened.

  “Boy, Egan,” Cahalan chided him, “that cherry of yours is a real asshole.”

  Egan did not answer. He had been brooding and angry about Cherry ever since the CA. The damn cherry was a know-it-all, a stubborn, uncomprehending ass but no one wanted others to think his field partner was an asshole. It was a bad reflection upon himself.

  Brooks took control, beginning very quietly. “I’ve been watching you guys. I’m very concerned about the racial conflict I see growing in this unit.”

  “Conflict,” Jackson jumped on the opportunity to speak, “is caused by some white mothafucka feedin lies to the people. The people, they see one thing, they told another. They told not to believe what they see. They sees land and they sees starvation and they sees some white mothafuckas sayin we can’t feed them people. Fuckas say, ‘See here. I own that land. I got a deed says I can do what I want with that land. Says black boys gowin kill yellow boys to protect my deed. We …”

  “How do you feel about that, Danny?” Brooks interrupted Jackson.