by Eric Helm
“I know. That’s why I can’t let you go. Because of Hong Kong.” Gerber found himself mildly surprised at what he had just said, but he realized belatedly that it was true. What had happened in Hong Kong was the real reason he couldn’t let her go.
“I see,” she said. “I’m not made of glass, you know. I didn’t break then. I’m not going to break now or in the future.”
“I know that. That’s not the problem. The problem is whether I could live with myself if I let you be placed in that kind of position again.”
Morrow’s voice, when she spoke, had grown very cool.
“Mack, I understand your concern for my safety. I guess I’d be kind of disappointed if you weren’t. How do you think I feel every time I watch you go out the gate with a rifle in your hands? But we both have our own job to do. I don’t tell you how to do yours, but you seem to want to tell me how I ought to do mine.”
“I’m sorry,” said Gerber. “That’s just the way it is right now. I know it’s something we’re going to have to talk about, but right now this isn’t the place, and there just isn’t time.”
Morrow was silent.
“Well?” prodded Gerber. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. Right now I think maybe I ought to go up to An Khe and see how the First Air Cavalry Division is doing. I think I need to get out of here for a while.”
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“I know. But I don’t want you running my life. I love you, Mack, but I’m not your property. I’m not just something you can put up safe on a shelf until you want to take it down and play with it. I’m not made that way.”
“I never thought you were. I just don’t want to lose you, that’s all.”
“Then don’t strangle me,” said Morrow, sighing.
Gerber nodded. Just the slightest movement of the head. He felt a tightness in his chest, a tightness that he hadn’t thought possible.
“All right, Robin. You do what you have to do. I’ll have Lieutenant Novak put in a request for transport. It’ll probably take a couple of days to go through right now. I imagine you can get a lift on the supply chopper tomorrow morning when it brings in the mail if you don’t want to wait. I just can’t let you go with us. If I did, I’d spend all my time worrying about you instead of getting the job done. That wouldn’t be fair to the men. It might even get some of them killed. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.”
“I’m sorry, too, Mack. For both of us.”
Gerber watched her walk away across the dusty camp in the direction of the Vietnamese compound. He found he was having a hard time breathing, and his heart felt as if it wanted to rip itself from his chest and go running after her. He knew his eyes were moist, and somehow he felt curiously ashamed. She didn’t look back.
Gerber broke the news to his men. They would proceed to the area of last known contact with the downed aircraft and split into four patrols of approximately fifty men each. Sully Smith and Staff Sergeant Thomas Jefferson Washington, the team’s medical specialist, would advise one patrol. Sam Anderson, the team’s junior demolitions specialist, and Derek Kepler, the Intelligence sergeant, would have the second. Master Sergeant Fetterman and Sergeant First Class Justin Tyme, the light weapons man, would have the third. Bocker and Gerber would take the fourth, which would serve as the command element. Each team would have a specific area of responsibility to search, yet each would be reasonably close to the other units to provide reinforcements in case of contact with the enemy.
Because of the First Air Cav’s commitments with the major operation now under way in Binh Dinh Province, airlift support was not available, so they would have to walk. A single Cessna O-1 Bird Dog with a U.S. Air Force pilot had been scrounged from Bien Hoa to fly observation for them and direct fire support from the ARVN battery at Dinh Dien Phuoc Xuyen, and a gun team from the Hornets at Cu Chi would provide aerial fire support if not otherwise occupied.
It wasn’t much in the way of help, but there was still a war going on out there in the countryside, and just now it had grown very big and very hot, especially in Binh Dinh Province, and it couldn’t stop just to look for one airplane. Not even if that airplane contained one very important general. Gerber’s troops, however, were available, unoccupied and in the appropriate area, so it was up to them.
Gerber did not tell his men that the initiating authority for the mission had come from Brigadier General Crinshaw or that he had been unable to reach Colonel Bates or Major General Hull for confirmation of the order. Even Major Pratt, Bates’s executive officer, hadn’t any idea what the hell Gerber was talking about when he’d called him, but the XO had promised to do what he could to clarify the situation and to arrange airlift support when they were ready to come back in. The men did not need to know any of this, Gerber decided, and it had no real bearing on the execution of the mission. He did, however, tell Novak to expect written confirmation of the order in tomorrow morning’s mail pouch and to contact him immediately by radio in the event any additional information became available.
Gerber concluded the briefing with a few remarks to the men to remind the Tai of the need for noise discipline in the field. The Tai strikers were good fighters, but they did tend to get a bit loud at times.
“Captain, will our representative of the press be accompanying us?” Fetterman wanted to know.
“No,” said Gerber stiffly. “I felt it best for a number of reasons not to permit Miss Morrow to accompany us.”
“I understand, sir,” said Fetterman. Which, being Fetterman, he did. Perfectly.
CHAPTER 3
EIGHTY-FIFTH EVACUATION HOSPITAL (SEMIMOBILE),
QUI NHON, RVN
Lieutenant Colonel Alan Bates couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the place somehow reminded him of a college campus. Not one of the Eastern Ivy League schools quietly crumbling with snobbery, but one of the big ten Midwestern universities, like the ones in Madison or Iowa City. In those places they were always tearing down some fine old building to erect a modern, sterile structure that in ten or twenty years’ time would be converted into administrative offices because it had grown too small to handle all the students, and another more modern, more sterile structure would replace it.
The Eighty-Fifth Evac Hospital had that curious, half-finished air of any major institution still undergoing construction. It was a combination of concrete and brick buildings mixed with Quonset huts, containerized operating theaters and a sprinkling of big, open-sided canvas hospital tents scattered with raw two-by-four lumber and an occasional idle cement mixer. It might have been anything — a new shopping mall or a hotel complex and convention center — had it not been for the frenzied activity of all the people in combination uniforms of olive-drab fatigues and hospital whites.
And, of course, there were the wounded and the dead. Today there were a lot of wounded and a lot of dead. An awful lot of dead. They’d finally run out of body bags, something Bates didn’t think was possible in the U.S. Army. Sheets were being used for the wounded, so the remaining dead lay wrapped in ponchos, just as they had come in from the field. There were a lot of bundled-up ponchos arrayed in neat rows along the far edge of the triage area. The bodies were turning ripe in the hot sun because the coolers in the morgue designed to hold them until they could be shipped to Saigon for embalming were full.
“This way, Bob,” said Bates, skirting a group of medics and nurses clustered about a patient with a sucking chest wound. “That fellow seems to be in charge. At least he’s giving the orders.”
They crossed over to where the extended open-air morgue had been set up and consulted a haggard-looking young captain who barely seemed old enough to be a lieutenant.
“Captain Fischlander? I’m Lieutenant Colonel Bates. This is Sergeant Major Taylor.”
“No, not those six. Those six over there,” the captain shouted at a couple of orderlies attempting to load some of the poncho-wrapped corpses into the back of an ambulance which would
take them out to the flight line for the trip to Saigon.
He turned then and faced the two men, having noticed them finally. One was a solidly built officer of medium height who looked as though he might have played running back at a small college once, the other was a tall, rawboned NCO. Both wore green berets and had jump wings and combat infantry badges pinned to their camouflaged jungle jackets.
“I’m Fischlander,” he said, directing his answer to the colonel. “Is there something I can help you with? As you can see, we’re kind of busy.”
“We appreciate that, Captain,” said Bates. “We’ll take as little of your time as possible. We’re looking for a body.”
“Take your pick, sir. We’ve got plenty of them.”
“We’re looking for a particular one. Private First Class Eugene Michael Taylor. This is Private Taylor’s uncle. He’s to accompany the private home for burial.”
The captain looked pained. “Colonel, I’m afraid you’re a bit early. All bodies have to go through the mortuary at Tan Son Nhut for embalming before being sent back to the States. That normally takes three or four days, but right now I’d guess a week to ten days would be more like it. If the sergeant major wants to accompany the body home, you need to talk to Saigon, not me.”
“I’ve already talked to Saigon and to your administrator here, and I’ve got the necessary authorizations,” said Bates, handing the captain a thick sheaf of forms and typewritten orders. “We’ll take Private Taylor’s remains back to Saigon with us for burial preparation.”
“I don’t know about this, sir,” said the captain hesitantly. “It’s pretty irregular.”
“We’re aware of that. We’ll be glad to wait while you find a phone and confirm those orders.”
The captain looked at the papers, then at the rows of poncho-wrapped bodies, and shouted instructions to a second ambulance that had pulled up.
“Ah, what the hell,” he said, scribbling his signature on one of the forms with his pen. “Sign here, sir, and he’s all yours. Second row, over there.”
It took them a few minutes to find the right one.
Sergeant Taylor read the identification tag carefully, then reached for the corner of the poncho. Bates gently laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Are you sure you want to do that, Bob? It’s not going to change anything, and it might not be something you really want to look at.”
“I’ve seen dead men before, sir.”
“Yes. I know that. But this one is family.”
Taylor nodded. “I appreciate the concern. I have to, sir. His family will want to know.”
Bates didn’t remove his hand. He left it resting lightly on Taylor’s shoulder while the sergeant major pulled back the poncho.
Someone had taped a large bandage to Private Taylor’s forehead. It might have been covering a scratch. But there was a much larger bandage on the back of his head, and it had a funny shape. Otherwise, the boy looked calm, at rest. It wasn’t at all the contorted death-face grimace Bates had feared. There was surprisingly little dried blood.
Sergeant Taylor stared at the young-old face for a long minute, fixing it in his mind, remembering. Abruptly he reached forward and extracted an object from his nephew’s left breast pocket. It was a small copy of The Holy Bible with two foil gum wrappers marking places in it. Sergeant Taylor opened the book and read aloud short passages that had been circled in pencil.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. My times are in Thy hands.”
Bates gripped Sergeant Taylor’s shoulder. It was all he could think of to do under the circumstances.
“I reckon that’ll give his family some comfort, sir, to know he read the Bible. He was a good boy but a bit on the wild side, if you understand me. Never mean or anything, but he liked a drink when he could get one, liked to raise a little hell now and then. Never was much of one for going to church.”
“I guess it’s true what they say. There aren’t any atheists in foxholes,” said Bates.
“No, sir. And I don’t reckon there’s any God in war.”
Bates patted Sergeant Taylor’s shoulders. “You going to be all right, Bob? I’ll get the jeep. We can’t keep that helicopter waiting all day.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be fine. I’d like to stay here with him if you don’t mind, sir.”
“I understand,” said Bates. “I’ll get the jeep.”
As Bates walked away, he glanced back. The big sergeant major knelt unmoving next to the body of his brother’s son, holding one of the boy’s lifeless hands in both his own, as a tear rolled slowly down his cheek. Bates felt mildly ashamed, as though he was intruding on a very private personal thing merely by his witnessing it.
Around them, the graves registration captain continued to shout orders at the orderlies loading bodies, and the medics, nurses and doctors continued to shout instructions back and forth over the wounded.
The two thousandth American serviceman to die in Vietnam was on his way home, watched over by his uncle, and the war bled on.
CHAPTER 4
THE JUNGLE NORTHWEST OF CAMP A-555
The heat rose off the jungle floor and clawed at the men like the hand of some insidious invisible monster. It was one of the hottest days Gerber could remember in the land of eternal summer, where all days were oppressively hot, but depending on your elevation, or proximity to the seacoast, the nights could leave you shivering.
They had crossed the reeded swamp that morning, struggling along beneath the weight of their equipment and trying desperately, at times vainly, to keep the radios dry, but their uniforms were soaked long before that by the combination of heat and humidity. When they had finally reached firm footing, they broke for rest and lunch but spent most of the time in a state of numbed exhaustion, burning off the swollen leeches from each other’s bodies — when they could get a damp match and a limp cigarette lit, which wasn’t often.
Now they were in a tangled mass of low jungle, where the possibility of booby traps and the thick, leafy shrubs pushing in close along both sides of the packed mud pathways, inviting ambush, made it dangerous to stay on the network of established trails. But the entangling creepers and vines made passage through the jungle itself an agonizingly slow process.
At 1400 hours Gerber decided to call a halt and ordered a ten-minute rest. He was dog tired from the route they’d had to take, covering some of the most difficult terrain in their AO, and from lack of sleep because of last night’s unsuccessful ambush patrol. He collapsed on the trail and pulled out his map, trying to figure out how much farther they had to go to the search area. He silently cursed the Air Force pilot who was supposed to be flying aerial scout for them but who hadn’t shown up yet. Without that observation plane, finding the downed Otter was going to be damned near an impossibility. In this kind of cover, they’d just about have to trip over it.
Gerber’s mouth felt as if someone had stuffed it full of steel wool. He wanted a drink but didn’t touch the canteen on his belt or the other three in his pack. They were going to be out for two or three days unless Crinshaw could kick loose some airlift support for them, which didn’t seem very likely with the big operation going on up north. Crinshaw had never been generous with airlift support, anyway. He seemed to enjoy going out of his way to make life miserable for the troops in the field. Especially if they were Green Berets, and most especially if they were Gerber’s Green Berets. The man just did not like soldiers who wore funny green hats.
Anyway, three days was a long time to go on four quarts of water. There was no guarantee of resupply: they were moving away from the river and canal network, and the swamp they’d had to cross notwithstanding, it was the middle of the dry season. True, the map showed a few small creeks and streams in the area they would be searching, but the map had been made by the French military cartographic service and was over twenty years old. It frequently didn’t agree with the terrain, and the streams, if they could be found, were sea
sonal runoffs. This time of year they were likely to be as dry as the dusty, packed-mud trail beneath his feet.
While Gerber was vainly trying to make a small rocky outcropping on their left — the only reference point of any significance in sight — agree with where the map said it was supposed to be in relation to the trail, which was on their right, Fetterman came back from near the front of the column and squatted next to him.
“Captain, looks like we could have some trouble.”
Gerber was instantly alert. “Such as?”
“Scouts report a big cross trail up ahead about half a klick. It’s seen some heavy foot traffic late yesterday or last night.”
Gerber glanced at the map. “There’s not any cross trail indicated for some distance, and certainly not a big one.”
Fetterman shrugged. “Well, there’s one there now.”
“You said heavy traffic. Could the scouts get any estimate of numbers?”
“All they’ll say is beaucoup, beaucoup, many, many. There’s something else, too. Carts. At least three of them. The scouts say they were heavily loaded, judging from the depth of the tracks.”
“Damn. Supply wagons, you think?” asked Gerber.
“I think it’s unlikely that three farmers picked last night to haul manure to their fields with the help of a few hundred of their closest friends along a trail that nobody knew was here.”
“Wonderful. That’s all we need, to run into a VC battalion that just happens to be passing through our area. Or have them stumble over that airplane before we do. Okay, pass the word to the strikers to be ready for anything, then send the scouts down the cross trail for five hundred meters in either direction. If they don’t run into anything, we’ll proceed with caution.”
“We’re not going to follow up?” Fetterman looked puzzled. “Just bypass and leave a large body of VC troops in our rear?”