13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  She shook her head without hearing.

  He dove deeper.

  She stopped him. “Brooks,” Lila said, “you’re an ass. Can’t you stop thinking of war and politics and race? Can’t you be normal?” She looked at him and she saw he was shaking. “Please be normal,” she said. “Please be here. Please,” Lila pleaded. She began to cry. “Be here with me. There’s a world here that is not just your words.”

  “I don’t understand you anymore,” he said. “What happened to that lady that I knew that really cared for us. That wanted so many things for us. The same things that I wanted for the two of us together. You used to believe in me. You didn’t want to be only you.”

  “I still want those things, Rufus. It’s you who’s changed. I still want happiness and joy for us. I still want kids for us. I want to be much more than I am now for us. And I know it’s for us because I don’t care about any of that just for me. I want to share it with you. Oh, Rufus.” Her tears were running wild. He was like a total stranger.

  Brooks lay back thinking, dreaming. He watched that couple that he was certain he knew yet that he did not know at all. He watched them at night on the beach or in bed not touching. Brooks watched the woman talk to the man. She was very upset. “Love doesn’t have to hurt,” she cried. “Don’t you see? Can’t you see? You don’t have to hurt me. I’ll love you without the hurt. Can’t you see that, Rufus?”

  Brooks rolled over and shivered against Brown. “It doesn’t have to hurt,” he muttered. Lila’s crying dried up and she turned hard.

  “Not tonight,” she said when they were in their room. “Hell, you’re so drunk, you couldn’t if I wanted you to.”

  Brooks sat up. His armpit was burning. He reached into his shirt and felt the leech and retched empty stomach acid, hot and bitter at the back of his mouth. He swallowed. He wanted to chase all thoughts from his head. He needed sleep. Perhaps Thomaston was right, he told himself. Perhaps if he told the GreenMan he wanted out, wanted to DEROS and cancel his extension, perhaps he would be out of the boonies come next resupply. He could do that much for Thomaston. Let him have the company. Not for himself. Not for Lila. He was tired, so tired. So tense. Cahalan was asleep next to him. Brooks could feel his rhythmic breathing. On the other side Brown was awake with the radios, noiselessly adjusting the frequencies, monitoring other companies and Alpha’s platoons. Twice he called a security check to each LP, to each platoon CP. Twice each one responded with negative keying. I’ve slept with these guys more than I have with my wife, Brooks thought. A pang of self-pity hit him. A single sharp arrow of pain driving down from between his eyes, down to his throat, down his chest and out his gut. It was as if he had been skewered with a giant fishhook. He clenched his fists and said to himself, “Anxiety must be converted to achievement not to frustration or depression.” He said the words very formally, very evenly. “One must burn stress out of one’s system,” he continued. “Convert anxiety. Do not believe in failure. Analyze every situation to maximize the benefits and minimize the detriments.” Ah. It was working. He was successful in talking away the pain, the anxiety. Now, he said to himself, if only I could decide what to do.

  SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES

  THE FOLLOWING RESULTS FOR OPERATIONS IN THE O’REILLY/ BARNETT/JEROME AREA WERE REPORTED FOR THE 24-HOUR PERIOD ENDING 2359 17 AUGUST 70:

  INCLEMENT WEATHER LIMITED AIRMOBILE OPERATIONS ON THE 17TH. OPERATIONS BY THE 2D SQDN 17TH CAVALRY (AMBL) IN SUPPORT OF THE 1ST INF DIV (ARVN) IN THE VICINITY OF FIREBASES O’REILLY, RIPCORD AND JEROME WERE DELAYED OR CANCELLED, AND ONE COMPANY-SIZE ASSAULT WAS CANCELLED.

  CONTACT IN THE BARNETT AREA WAS HEAVY THROUGHOUT THE DAY WITH CO B, 7/402 CLEARING AN ENEMY COMPANY FROM THE SAME RIDGELINE WHERE IT HAD FOUGHT SEVERAL DAYS EARLIER (YD 173329). THE UNIT, SUPPORTED BY ARTILLERY, ASSAULTED THE POSITION THREE TIMES AND SECURED THE HILL MASS AT 1530 HOURS. SEVEN US SOLDIERS WERE WOUNDED IN THE ACTION. 11 ENEMY WERE KILLED BY SMALL ARMS FIRE AND FIVE WERE KILLED BY ARTILLERY. CAPTURED WEAPONS INCLUDED ONE RPD MACHINE GUN, TWO B-40 ROCKET LAUNCHERS, TEN AK-47S, ONE 82MM MORTAR TUBE AND ONE 9MM PISTOL. IN OTHER ACTION, CO A, 7/402 SUSTAINED ONE KILLED AND ONE WOUNDED.

  CHAPTER 25

  18 AUGUST 1970

  First light broke upon the valley as ugly gray mist. The drizzle had not ceased during the night. Alpha was awakened by a horrible roar as if they lay beneath a speeding freight train, then a boom, then the explosion. Jax jolted up. It was still dark on the ground. The top of the grass was just distinguishable from the moist sky. SSSSSEEEECKK-boom-BOOOOMM split the air above him. “Motha! They firin dat thing too mothafucken close.” The roar split the sky again. “Shee-it.” Jax lay back down and tried to sleep. Another round passed over. An eight-inch howitzer from Firebase Jack far to the south had begun the road mission. Alpha was on the GTL, gun-target line, a straight line from the gun to the target. They heard two explosions for each projectile, the small sonic boom of the shell traveling faster than the speed of sound, then the explosion of the round. As each round passed over Jax could feel his back trying to grab the ground, trying to mix his molecules with those of the dirt. The howitzer fired twelve rounds over a half-hour period and then ceased.

  Jax pulled his poncho and poncho liner tighter over his head. The drizzle became rain. Grayness penetrated into the grass. A single large drop of water worked its way under Jax’ poncho and onto the skin of his back. A chill ran up his neck and down his arms and legs to his fingers and toes. Quietly Jax rolled over and went back to sleep. A minute later another drop squeezed past the poncho and fell into his ear.

  “Okay, okay,” he muttered. “I’s gettin up.” Jax threw off his poncho. His fatigues were soggy and his skin felt as gray as the sky. Jax removed packets of cocoa, sugar and cream, and a piece of C-4 from his ruck. He grasped his canteen cup which had filled with clean rainwater during the night and put it on his C-rat can stove. He lit the C-4, it flared white hot and died out. The water boiled. Jax mixed the packets and sipped the steaming brew. His breath formed a cloud before him as he blew the cocoa to cool it. Around him no one else was stirring. Jax scrounged in his ruck for a clean pair of socks and the foot powder Doc had given him. He sat down and removed his boots and socks. The skin of his feet was clammy gray and swollen. The constant moisture was causing the surface tissue to peel. Jax looked at his feet for a moment then said, “Hello, feet. Remember me? I’s the dude got yo dowin all the dancin. I jest want ta let yo know Jax ree-lee a-preciates the job yo ol boys down der dowin fo me up here. Guess whut? I brought yo somethin. Got yo dudes some powder an a pair a socks that like new. There”—Jax sprinkled the powder on his feet and rubbed it in—” how dat feel? Fix yo dudes right up. Yo jest take it easy now. Yo hear da news? Yo pappy’s a squad leader. How bout dat? Hey, hey. L-T say we gowin sit here today. Gowin take it easy. First thing I gowin do, feet, is get yo back in yo stinkin home. Then we gowin clear this AO a leeches, then we gowin rest.”

  The fog cloak over the valley floor rose with the dawn. It now lay ten to twelve feet above Alpha. Visibility below the fog would have been perhaps an eighth mile had the thick grass permitted it. Boonierats woke cautiously, quietly. Egan was up, sitting on his ruck, writing. Cherry was awake though he had not yet moved. He looked at Egan. Egan’s face was swollen and his right eye was swollen half-shut from the leech bite. Cherry lay motionless. It had not been a good night. He had lain awake long after the conversation had ceased and when he did finally sleep, he dreamed.

  Cherry had had first radio watch. During the watch he had thought about Silvers, about how he died. He analyzed every detail and he thought about alternative ways to carry his radio so it would not announce to snipers or trail watchers his important communication function. During his vigil he did not close his eyes. He lay back. His body tense. It was as if all his nerves were one long thin filament stretched taut. And it was in motion, vibrating, like a piano wire. It was as if someone had started a wave action in the wire and the waves oscillated and moved up the w
ire quickly, hit the end and bounded back through new waves zinging up. He had lain there jangled and taut, not in fear of death or of being hit, but in fear of not acting, not knowing how to act. His face burned as if all his energies were being forced into his head.

  Cherry reviewed everything he could recall about jungle warfare. He recalled basic training and AIT, RVN training and SERTS. There had been night-fire classes, quick-fire drills, first aid and ambush classes. Cherry wanted to be good, had to be good, he decided, if he was to survive. In his mind he rehearsed what he should do if he were in column and they were ambushed from the left. He imagined his body reacting left. Then to the right. Front, rear. If someone near him were hit he placed himself mentally in the situation. Then he thought about calling in artillery support. He could do it—if he had to. Of that he was certain. He said to himself, if you think about a situation happening and you think about the proper response, when it happens you will respond properly without having to think. What did Silvers do? How does El Paso sound? Egan. How does Egan move so quietly? What does he do? How does he look? see? smell? feel? Cherry tried to assimilate all their lessons.

  Then Cherry had passed the radio to Egan and had lain back and closed his eyes. A picture of Leon Silvers burned on his mind. Wrapped about Cherry, his water-soaked poncho liner became a blanket of sticky warm blood. He opened his eyes. He thought of turning to Egan, of offering to allow Egan to sleep while he took another watch. He decided against it. When the single shot felled Leon on the road Cherry had not jumped from the noise. His mind had been wandering and though the AK pop had startled him, it was the sight of others diving into the grass which brought the awareness of danger to him. I was probably the last fuckin guy off the road, he said to himself.

  Cherry quivered. His insides pounded hot, pulsed painfully. His brain ached. He could barely breathe. He forced himself to allow the nightmare to begin. He forced himself to observe his mind in terror.

  Half of him was on the enemy road. Everybody had scattered. Leon lay crumpled in a massive bloody heap at Cherry’s feet. The sweet smell of blood rushed to Cherry’s nose. The image was entirely still except for Cherry’s own motion as if Cherry stood in a color photograph. He screamed. “That bullet. That was mine. That was meant for me. For my neck.”

  From out of the trail, rising ghost-like from the earth, through the vehicle marred road, rose a figure. The figure wavered as though seen through heat. It was dressed in US jungle fatigues and it was soaked in blood. The image of Cherry’s body beneath its ruck shook. Its chest tightened as Cherry’s chest tightened on the ground where he lay. Breathing became difficult. Cherry allowed the image to run. He realized he had control over it, could stop it now, whenever he wished. He watched his image watch the horror of the sordid scene on the road. In the photo Cherry froze now as the figure on the trail continued to rise and once at full height the rippling mirage solidified. It was that face again, a firm face, tight yellow-tan skin stretched over delicate bones, deep brown eyes laughing. The figure took one step forward and the face burst in deep red gush splatter. Cherry laughed.

  The picture shifted. It came alive. The bloody Silvers at Cherry’s feet became an angered, wounded, filthy rat clawing toward the grass shrieking and dragging its shattered gory abdomen. In the grass a hundred foul creatures scurried aimlessly in interlocking circles. Then the ghost figure before Cherry dropped. The head became a skull and glowed iridescent green. It approached. It came closer. It became larger and larger and winds swirled about the green glow until they whisked Cherry’s weapon from his hand and blew his helmet from his head. Cherry spun and fled and laughed madly. He ran with every atom of energy in his being. The glowing skull became larger. The frozen wind lashed at Cherry’s back. “You’re not God,” Cherry’s image teased, tormented the spirit. “You’re not God. You’re Satan. Fuck you. You can’t touch me. I’m God.”

  “Hey,” Egan woke Cherry. “What the fuck you laughing at?”

  Cherry did not fall back to sleep or to dream. He thought about Leon. Hadn’t he and Leon exchanged addresses only a few days before? Didn’t Cherry agree to write to Leon’s sister and brother-in-law? Yes, now he recalled that clearly. How could he write? What could he say? He still did not know what he had done with the address. Tears welled up in Cherry’s eyes. He just got blown away. Just like that. Oh God, I can hardly believe it. Thinking about Silvers made Cherry feel very alone and very vulnerable. Them mothafuckers. Them mothafuckin dinks. I’m goina kill every mothafuckin gook slope I see. For you, Leon, you poor bastard.

  Cherry’s thoughts wandered aimlessly through the darkest night hours. He thought of Linda. He masturbated, quietly shooting his juices into the cold muck outside his poncho. He thought about food, about eating. Eating is a very social behavior, he said to himself as if he were reading a study for a psychology class. It’s very important to boonierats. It’s the only time we kinda socialize. It’s the only time we talk. Man, there aint no social life here in the boonies except that twice or three times a day when we eat. Cherry felt a flash of guilt from his first days in the army, from his very first KP. He had not yet even been assigned to a basic training brigade. He was in the transfer center at Ft. Dix. They had awakened him at 0330 that morning to pull KP. All day he washed dishes and pots and pans and washed the dining hall floor between meals and at four in the afternoon he and three other KPs were ordered to cut up carrots and celery for the evening soup. Tiredly they chopped and sliced, carelessly cutting the vegetables, dropping them on the floor, stepping on them, picking up squished pieces and dropping them into the giant pots, laughing and joking.

  Later he had been inserted into the serving line and he had ladled out the soup and had felt nauseous and guilty watching the other recruits and he felt even sicker when he thought about what others might do to the food he ate. Since that time he had always held a rigid standard about teamwork of army units, the communal eating, living, the communal everything, the total communistic society, the societal ideal so opposed by the military minds. And here in the army, he thought, who is the most vehement opposition to authoritarian communalism? It is the same political left draftee who comes very close, some indeed go beyond, proposing that all society should be communal. Not militaristic but communal just the same, communal but for the strongest advocates who would replace the old order with the new, and who would be at the top of the new order. And who would be exempt from the common communal life which they see everyone else living happily. The Great White Father in Washington looking after his boys wherever they are, wherever he sends them. What wonderful control, what complete authority. “Fuck it,” Cherry laughed. “Just say fuck it. Don’t mean nothin. Drive on.”

  It was now light. Cherry watched Egan writing for several more minutes, then he got up. He sat on his ruck and brushed his hands through his hair and pushed out pieces of vegetation. His scalp was crusted with sweat and dirt. He had never been so dirty. Cherry felt his forehead, his nose. They were covered with pimples. On his cheeks his beard was a splotchy stubble which itched. His arm sores had become worse. He pressed about them. The wet scabs broke easily and oozed pus. His crotch rot was worse. The skin of his scrotum and inner thighs was red sore and white sore.

  Cherry watched Egan. They did not speak. Egan carefully put his writing tablet and pens in the waterproof can at the base of his ruck. He removed a razor and soap and toothpaste. Cherry watched Egan shave in a puddle, watched how attentive Egan was to his cleanliness, even in the boonies. Cherry decided to emulate the platoon sergeant. He washed. With the corner of his towel he scrubbed his face and torso. He borrowed Egan’s razor and shaved. He shaved in his own puddle, leaving on only the sprouts of a moustache. Cherry scrubbed his arms. The scabs broke and the soap stung in the open sores. He brushed his teeth. He tightened his boots. He repacked his ruck leaving out coffee, cocoa, pound cake and fruit cocktail for breakfast. Instead of repacking his toothbrush he placed it in his fatigue shirt pocket so that the bristled end stuck t
hrough the pen slit in the pocket flap. Egan kept his toothbrush in his shirt pocket like that. Cherry wanted to emulate everything.

  Now Cherry was eager to move out. He did not want to lie in the muck any longer. He fidgeted and adjusted his ruck straps again. He looked around. No one else was up. Cherry, you en your cherry ass, he assured himself, you’re getting it down.

  He decided to write a letter. He rose, then squatted by his ruck. He extracted a plastic bag containing pens and writing paper. The paper was damp. Cherry sat back on the ruck. I should write to Silvers’ sister, he thought. I should. Cherry stared at the blank paper. He thumbed the edge of the page then began, “Dear Vic,” he wrote. I’ll write to the Silverses next, he told himself. “There must be a few things in the world more boring than sitting with an infantry company when they have nothing to do.” How can you write that? he asked himself. Twelve hours of quiet and you’re bored. Something is fuckin with my mind. He began again. “Don’t believe anything you read in the papers about Nam. In twenty days I know more about this place than in four years of concern back in the World.”

  Cherry stopped again. Now how can I say that? Before I knew exactly where the government stood and I knew just what was happening. Now I don’t have any idea what we’re doing and everything the government said seems either to mean nothing or to be a lie.