by Peter Colt
I was still working through The Raymond Chandler Omnibus but wanted something else to read. I went out and walked the many blocks to the Brattle Book Shop. I have been known to spend almost as much time in there as I do in bars. It is dark and quiet and has books floor to ceiling on two floors. The Brattle Book Shop is the closest thing that I have to a church.
I started in History and made my way to Political Science, strolled through Literature, and made a brief tour through Poetry. I picked up a copy of The War with Hannibal by Livy and a translation of Jean Lartéguy’s excellent The Centurions. By the time I left the store, I had the book about Hannibal, The Centurions, and two detective stories by James Crumley.
I started the walk back with my bag of books and was enjoying the nice afternoon weather. Once I thought I caught sight of honey-colored hair, but that must have been my wishful thinking. I stopped into Brigham’s for a cheeseburger and coffee milkshake, as much to rest and have a bite as to look at my new purchases. I sat at the counter. The lunchtime crowd was back at work, and my company was comprised of a couple of senior citizens, a junkie sleeping in a booth for two that no one wanted to go near to wake up and kick out, and a whore and her pimp.
The junkie slept in his booth, moaning and stinking and generally being a mess. The pimp and whore were talking about catching a bus back to Providence, Rhode Island. The old people ignored us all in favor of their sepia-tinted memories. The waitress brought my food, took my plate, and took my money, all in that order. This was life in Brigham’s on the edge of the Combat Zone, not far from the bus station.
I walked back home, mentally making and rejecting the list of things that I had to pack for my trip. I made lists of people I would try to see and questions I would try to ask. I was pretty sure that nothing would actually work out the way I planned in my head. At least I had some good books to take with me.
Chapter 13
The Ghia was gliding down the highway in what was now an all-too-familiar trip to the Cape. I had the engine opened up wide, and it felt like we were flying down the road. I was listening to Steely Dan on the radio and tapping my fingers on the steering wheel with the beat. The sun was playing tag with the clouds, but for New England in the fall, it was as good as you could hope for weather-wise. The Ghia shuddered as it bumped its way over the occasional pothole, frost heave, or expansion joint in the highway. It reminded me of being on a jump as the plane would shudder over turbulence. The Ghia clung to the curves and ate up the highway.
I pulled into the ferry parking lot with a good half an hour to spare. At the office, they took my money and told me where to park and wait. I, like a good troop, did what I was told. Anyone who has ever been in the army knows about waiting. While parked, I could see the sign for the restaurant I had eaten at a couple of nights before, poking over the roof of the ferry office.
I watched the ferry as it disgorged foot passengers from the large, gaping maw of its car deck. After the people walked off, the cars and trucks leaving the island trickled out. In the summer, the process was long and tedious to watch. Now, sitting in the parking lot watching, it didn’t take nearly as long. In no time, it was my turn to start the car and ease it up the metal ramp into the car deck of the ship. I wedged the Ghia between a Scout and the bulkhead of the ship.
I rummaged in my bag for a Jim Crumley novel and put it in the pocket of my jacket. I locked the Ghia and headed up the stairs to the passenger deck. This boat was named for the island to which it sailed and was large enough to carry cars and trucks. There was passenger seating in two bays along the port and starboard sides. The snack bar was centered on the top deck, with a stairwell on each side leading down to the passenger decks and then down to the car deck. The bridge was above the snack bar, but you never saw any of that. There were plenty of seats up in the snack bar, and that is where I headed with my Crumley novel. On an impulse, I went outside to look at the view and watch the world around the ferry as it bustled.
I could see people rushing to catch the ferry and cars driving by on the roads nearby. In the harbor, the occasional fishing boat steamed in one direction or another. At the appointed time, they cast off, and the ferry eased out of its slip. I could smell salt air and diesel fumes, and lit up a Lucky as my offering to the stew. We slid slowly past the docks and the boats tied up in their slips. At this time of year, there weren’t that many moored in the harbor. We picked up speed, and the land started to widen and fall away on both sides. The wind picked up, and we slid farther out, and I decided that I would be happier in the snack bar.
The snack bar had coffee—it was too early for beer— and chili, which was pretty good if you broke up some Saltines into it. I sat in the snack bar eating my chili, drinking my coffee, and reading my Crumley novel. It was about a private detective with a past, and I liked it. Once in a while, I would go out for a cigarette as the mood struck me. As we moved farther from land, the swells picked up, and the ferry rocked noticeably. It wasn’t bad, but it was enough to remind you that you were well out of the harbor and away from land. We had pulled away from the mainland and were at the point where you couldn’t see the mainland, and you couldn’t see the island, either. It was the midway point that offered just a brief glimpse of what it must be like to be a sailor. I knew it wasn’t any sort of life for me.
I went outside when the Nantucket headlands hove into view. It was a sight to see, as the sun set over the headlands. I could make out the lights of the TV towers and the faint outline of the water tower. Smoking a Lucky up on the deck and watching the island come into view, I felt like Bogart in some movie where he is jaded, romantic, cynical, and, overall, decent. I was thankful for the nylon parka from L.L. Bean. It was a faded blue with a thin plaid wool liner and had big, roomy pockets. It reminded me of a lighter, better version of the old M-65 field jacket that every vet seemed to wear in order to let the world know who they were.
Here and there lights twinkled in the houses near shore, and headlights slid over the island in different directions. As we moved closer, I could hear the bells on the buoys and make out the faint outline of the jetties, which reached out like a lover’s welcoming arms to the ships seeking shelter in the harbor. Far off on the port side, I could make out Great Point Light, to my front I could just see the rotating spotlight from the airport playing along the low clouds, and to starboard we passed Brant Point Light. We rounded the point and made a hard-starboard turn. The harbor lay before us. A few older sailboats, their days as the pride of the fleet went on their way with the Kennedy administration, were now berthed in slips that they couldn’t afford in summer. Fishing boats now had the best spots in the marina, and the expensive yachts had moved to warmer, gentler waters for the winter. It wasn’t only the birds that migrated seasonally around here.
In front of us I could see two different white clapboard churches, their steeples lit by ground lights pointing up to heaven. The terminal was made up of two buildings, both were gray shingled with battleship gray painted trim. They looked battered and in need of relief. One was a small ticket office with some lockers, and the other was a long gray shed that was designed to shelter people and steamer trunks from the island’s often cruel weather. Now it just served to protect some cargo and passengers from the rain and snow. I made my way down to the car as we slid in between the first set of wooden bumpers. They resembled giant Lincoln Logs, bound together, forming some sort of wooden teepee.
After a few minutes, cars started to turn over their engines, and I did the same with the Ghia. Cars started to ease off of the ferry, and eventually it was my turn. I pulled off the ferry and drove through the parking lot. My hotel was literally three blocks away up Broad Street. The hotel was a three-story brick building that was built before the Civil War. When Leslie and I had come out to the island before, it was summer and we couldn’t afford to stay there, much less get a reservation. However, this was the off-season, and a reservation was not a problem. Mrs. Swift’s generosity meant that cost wasn’t a problem. I par
ked out front and walked up the stone steps and into the hotel. I had my canvas postman’s bag with me and must have looked a little bit like a bum. The woman at the counter looked as though she thought I had walked into the wrong establishment.
I explained that I had a reservation and paid the deposit on the room with Mrs. Swift’s crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. The nice lady reluctantly gave me a key and told me I could park the Ghia in the lot behind the hotel. She seemed relieved when I told her I didn’t need the porter’s services. I took my bag up to the room and was pleased to find a small, neat, comfortable room with a bed, desk, TV, and bathroom. The room was furnished with elegant colonial pieces that made me think I was on the set of a Masterpiece Theatre production. I went to move the Ghia and get my L.L. Bean canvas duffel bag, which I had bought with the parka in a flush moment after an insurance fraud case. I can only afford stuff from Bean’s when I clear a big case. Fortunately, their stuff lasts forever.
I took a minute to call Danny’s office. Danny was still in at six o’clock at night, and that made me wonder, the way detectives always do, why he wasn’t on his way home to his wife. Was there trouble at home, or something better at the office? He was probably just working late. He sounded irritated on the phone when I told him where I was. He told me that her bank had advanced me another thousand dollars, which didn’t bother me at all. I told him my room number and gave him the number of the hotel so he could reach me.
“Andy, don’t turn this into a late vacation.” Danny was using the tone that I was sure he used on the girls when they were about to do something he didn’t like.
“Danny, what are you talking about?” It wasn’t like him to get pissy with me.
“Andy, she is a big client, and I would like to keep her. I would rather turn up no results than waste her money. I don’t want to piss her off.”
“Danny, we agreed that this was the next logical step. What is the problem?”
“Nothing. This one could be my shot, you know? Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s just one of those days in the office. You go out and find something.”
“Sure, that is the plan, man.” With that, he said good night, and that was it.
I decided that a meal and a drink might do me some good. The hotel information guide told me that they had something called the Taproom. I looked over the menu, and other than Welsh rarebit, I was not overly impressed. I decided that I would take a quick walk around town and see what there was. I picked up my parka and headed for the door. I walked down the stairs and through the tastefully furnished lobby with its sitting room off to one side. I pulled the parka on and went out and down the granite steps to the sidewalk.
To my right was a dark street that headed uphill and toward the church. I turned away from it and started toward the island’s cobblestone Main Street. I passed a store that sold gourmet cookware and accessories. Everyone knows that everything tastes better cooked in Le Creuset. I passed a bunch of stores selling all sorts of clothes that I was sure I didn’t want or couldn’t afford. The top of Main Street was dominated by the brick Pacific National Bank, which was founded by money from the whaling trade and was now filled with real-estate money.
To call the town picturesque was an understatement. The center of town had two drugstores and was filled with shops with names like Buttner’s, the Emporium, and the Ship Chandlery. The town was dripping with antique charm and architecture that hadn’t changed in two hundred years. I walked past restaurants that had interesting names and signs in the windows that let me know they were closed for the season.
Cars moved slowly by, but they were rare. I was the only person walking through the quiet town. When I had been there with Leslie during the summer, the uneven brick sidewalks of Main Street were packed with strolling tourists until ten or eleven at night. Everything had been open and the place was humming with activity. Now I was walking through a windy ghost town. All that was missing were the tumbleweeds.
I began to notice the breeze, which had picked up as it got darker, and I had turned into it. I could smell rain. I kept walking, listening to the sounds of my feet on the pavement. If this was a thriller movie on the Movie Loft, I would hear footsteps and someone would be following me. That was only in the movies.
When I had been in Vietnam, men were following me. They were trying very hard to kill me. There had been no footsteps in the dark or suspenseful music. Just tension, wound so tight in my chest that I felt like a long, coiled spring.
Every part of recon work was dangerous. The most dangerous part of a very dangerous job was the insertion. We picked our landing zones with care; we studied the area for days prior, reading intelligence reports, looking at maps and photographs. The helicopters would put us down in areas that the NVA couldn’t imagine we would be in. Then they would rise up and loiter, waiting for us to tell them it was all clear. If not, they would swoop in and snatch us from harm. The time leading up to takeoff, my stomach would tighten. Once the bird was in the air, I would be going through all the stuff that had to happen in the first minutes on the ground.
Then we were on the ground. We radioed that we were all clear, and the choppers left. Then the great hunt began in earnest. We were hunting the NVA and the Viet Cong, trying to gather intelligence and call in ordinance on them. Kill them. They were hunting us. They had special units of men who would track us. They would fire single shots in the air as a signal if they were close to you.
One time as we were moving away from them, trying to avoid contact, I realized they were intentionally herding us toward a specific location. We could hear the herders; then we could hear more and more men moving. They were bringing in large numbers of men. They were pushing us toward a rock face, looking to envelop us and trap us against the rock face. If we were pushed up against it, we would be crushed under the sheer weight of their numbers.
Off to our left, I could hear trucks moving. There was a road that the NVA were using to push supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Roads were dangerous because there were so many enemy soldiers on them. We avoided roads at all costs, and when we had to cross them, we did so very quickly and carefully. Moving on a road, even a deserted one, was suicidal. Now we were going to run down one to get away from our pursuers. We were leaping out of the frying pan and into the bonfire. We had no choice.
We paused long enough to call the Covey Rider circling in the plane above, and we declared a “Prairie Fire.” Prairie Fire was the code for troops in trouble, an emergency, life or death. We moved to the road, and when I saw a khaki pith helmet in front of me, I hosed the man wearing it with the K gun. 9mm rounds slammed into him and then the man behind him and then I turned to the man next to him. We threw grenades onto the road and into passing trucks.
I listened to the sound of the grenade spoons as they made their whip-o-whirl noise as they flew off. It was an oddly pleasant noise that did not convey accurately what was to follow it. A few seconds later, it felt like everything on the road was exploding. The heat from the exploding trucks singed us, and oily flames reached out toward us. The smoke was thick, and the air was filled with screaming. The NVA routinely handcuffed their drivers to the steering wheels of the trucks to prevent them from abandoning them during air strikes. It was a hell of a way to fight a war.
We stepped onto the road, literally running for our lives. We fired at anything that moved, reloading as we ran, throwing more grenades and running a race where second place meant death. The heat was so intense that for a few seconds it was as if there was no humidity in the jungle. Our pursuers were momentarily shocked. No sane man would run down an NVA supply road, much less a whole team. It was enough of a pause to save us.
Rounds started whipping and whizzing by us. Dirt kicked up at our feet, and branches were snapping off of trees. When the road took a hard left, we kept going into the jungle. We stopped only long enough to throw grenades up and down the trail. Each man moving with an economy of motion.
Everybody except the man with the radio dropped
their rucksacks on the go. One of the Yards smiled at me as he carefully put a hand grenade under one with the pin out. A curious NVA would lift the rucksack and get blown up. The Yard knew that, hence his brown-toothed smile.
I stopped and put in place two Claymore mines to discourage anyone following us. Then we ran more. We picked up a trail. Then the two loud booms of the Claymores and the screams of the NVA and the sound of shrapnel whizzing through the bush. They were close, very close. We kept moving down the trail. We stopped by a giant boulder, we put our last Claymores in front of it, and we got behind it in a file. In a few seconds, there were more booms and more screams. We stepped out and fired off a magazine each at the enemy; then we turned and ran.
The enemy slowed down enough that we were able to make it to an emergency LZ. We lay down in a circle, feet touching inside of it, a wagon wheel. We could still hear them, moving out in the jungle somewhere. They were picking up speed again. We could hear their cadre yelling at them to move faster.
We were in no shape to run or fight anymore. We were down to our last two magazines, and there were no more fragmentation grenades. Just one white phosphorous to signal the bird with. Our Team Leader was wounded, and one of the Yards had taken a round in his stomach. We heard them coming. When they were close, we popped the Willy Pete and watched its thick white column reach up to let the pilot know we were there.
Then we were on the birds heading back to the launch sight. That was what it was like when someone was following you trying to kill you. It was a frantic dash for your life.