Under Fire

by Eric Meyer

  I wandered, with no idea of where I was going, no idea of direction other than to just walk around the camp and try to work off some of the rage and frustration that consumed me. Danny Goff saw me and called a greeting, but I turned away and took a different direction. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I felt let down, betrayed, stabbed in the back. I couldn't trust anyone, although I knew it was Butcher who'd caused my difficulties.

  Eventually, Morgan and Goff cornered me between two huts. The Sergeant gave me a quizzical look. "Yeager, what happened?"

  "I was fucked over by a reporter is what happened."

  He grimaced. "Butcher.”

  “Who else?”

  “Sounds painful. Tell me what’s going down.”

  I explained about the complaint. "You were there, and you guys saw what happened. He said I shot and killed an innocent man who was trying to surrender. Did you see that VC trying to surrender, or was he about to fire on us?”

  The Sergeant didn't reply at first, and I could see he was thinking back, trying to picture what happened. When he replied, it wasn't what I wanted to hear.

  "He may have been trying to surrender, or he may have been about to fire on us." He held up a hand as I was about to snarl a response, "No, hold it. We were in the field, in enemy territory, and it was a life or death decision. In my opinion, any soldier in his right mind would have done the same thing, and if anyone asks, that's what I’ll tell them."

  Goff nodded. "I agree. That's what happened. On balance, I believe he was about to fire on us, and like the Sarge says, I’d have done the same."

  It was better than nothing, and they persuaded me to go for coffee in the makeshift cafeteria. It was chaotic, men shouting in excited voices, helicopter pilots warning of enemy held positions where they were likely to encounter VC machine gun fire. Mickey Ellis and his door gunner had died that way. Soldiers swapped yarns as they came in from missions, their eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion, and the consensus was it wasn't going well.

  "We need to bomb the motherfuckers," I heard someone say, "Not pussyfoot around with shells. Shit, we know where they are, hiding in the tunnels. We should dump a few thousand tons of bombs on top of them and finish them once and for all."

  It sounded like a good idea, but right then I was thinking about anything other than Operation Cedar Falls. Thinking of what I’d like to do to Mark Butcher, and I had an image of me dragging him into a tunnel and have him meet up with Commissar Trinh. That’d be something for him to report to his readers back home. Morgan finished his coffee and got to his feet.

  “Yeager, they’re sending us out again.” He grimaced, “Another patrol, looking for the enemy.”

  “Bong Trang?”

  “No, this time we’ll be further west.”

  “Any word on how things are going?”

  He grimaced. “With any luck this artillery fire and aerial bombardment will have hit the enemy hard. That’s what they say, anyway.”

  “You believe that?”

  He chuckled. “Not on your life. They’re safe and cozy down in their tunnels. Why would they walk onto the muzzles of our guns or stand out in the open and wait for bombs to drop on their heads?”

  “I heard someone say we needed the B-52s to pulverize them with heavy bombing.”

  He nodded. “There’s been a couple of B-52 raids, but not enough. It’s a big area, and I agree, we need to carpet bomb them.”

  “Why don’t they do it?”

  He grimaced. “Ask the generals who’re running this war. There’s something I haven’t told you. You won’t be coming with us. The Colonel said you’re confined to base.”

  I didn’t argue. Butcher had dropped me in the shit, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. They left me, and I was seated in a corner, away from the worst of the chaos and noise, when Tam slipped into the seat next to me.

  "I spoke to Sergeant Morgan. He said you’re ordered to remain on base."

  I nodded. "It’s just Mark Butcher doing what he does best, trying to fit me up to make a good story. I guess he’ll slant it to look like a soldier has gone on the rampage in Vietnam gunning down prisoners. I’ve no doubt he'll come up with some civilians I’m supposed to have murdered as well."

  "Is there anything I can do?"

  "Nothing."

  She nodded and went to fetch some coffee. While she was away, a new voice intruded. “Hey, buddy, how're you doing?”

  Jamie Erskine was grinning down at me, holding a mug of steaming java in one hand and a plate of what would be best described as mush in the other.

  “You mind if I sit here?"

  "Knock yourself out."

  He seated himself and gave me a long, penetrating glance. "You look like they’ve transferred you to an engineer unit to retrain as a tunnel rat.”

  “It’s worse.”

  I told him about Mark Butcher and the possibility of a war crimes charge, and he grimaced. "You should learn to fly a helicopter. It's more fun, and if you give a ride to one of these reporters, you can make sure they’re seated next to the open door when you're flying at five thousand feet. Accidents happen.”

  I looked at him in surprise. "I don't believe it."

  He chuckled. "As far as I know it's never happened. But I can tell you sometimes the guys are sorely tempted."

  He went on to tell me about his Huey. "They patched up the holes, and we're flying a new mission later in the day, dropping some Rangers into the Triangle for a night operation. That's when Charlie comes out to play, and with any luck, they'll see them exiting their hidey holes and fill them full of holes before they have a chance to get back underground."

  "They gave you replacement crewmen?"

  He nodded. "I’m flying PIC, pilot in command, so I have a new co-pilot and door gunner. I intend to make sure we don't have a repeat of what happened before. It shouldn't have happened. I should have seen that heavy machine gun," he continued, his forehead wrinkled in thought.

  “We should hit them before they have a chance to fire on us,” I suggested, “That means more boots on the ground, more troops to shake out the enemy and destroy them. And destroy those guns. How in hell did they manage to hide a heavy caliber anti-aircraft gun inside the Triangle? I thought we had that place under a microscope.”

  “I’ve heard people say they have heavy artillery in there, but no one knows where they are.”

  “How come our reconnaissance hasn’t spotted them? They must be hiding the stuff somewhere.”

  “The tunnels, maybe?”

  He frowned. “You’ve been in a tunnel?”

  “I have.”

  “Those places are barely big enough to hide a man and a rifle. Anti-aircraft guns and artillery you can forget.”

  I didn’t disagree. We chatted for a while longer, and he left me to prepare their bird for the mission later that day. With nothing else to do, I mooched around the Base, a lost soul in a sea of men. Very likely before Cedar Falls ended there'd be more lost souls. Many more, lost forever.

  I needed to stretch my legs, and I walked out to the flight stand. I found Erskine’s Huey, and they were working around it. With nothing else to do, I decided to take a closer look. Erskine grinned when he saw me approach. "Did you decide to take another pleasure flight? No charge, the Army will pick up the check."

  "Some other time, I’ll take a rain check.”

  They'd patched up the holes in the fuselage with fresh aluminum, painted in a different shade so the battle damage was visible even from a distance. I sat in the sun and watched them, and I felt like I'd like to take that helicopter and fly away from this place. Away from this war, and more especially away from shits like Mark Butcher. But I couldn't. I couldn’t even leave the Base.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Trinh. A man I'd vowed to kill, no matter what it took, and sitting around this place wouldn’t make it happen. Lieutenant Tam found me again. She grinned. "I thought I'd find you here. You’re not thinking about deserting, are you?"
/>   "Now there's a thought. But no, I'm not thinking about deserting."

  "What then?"

  I want the same as you. Justice."

  She grimaced. "We’ll get him."

  I didn’t reply. At that moment Erskine climbed into the cockpit, and the engine burst into life. A bunch of men appeared, and they looked mean. Faces smeared with camo paint and their uniforms festooned with a variety of weapons. Grenades, handguns, and big wicked-looking combat knives. That was apart from the rifles, and they looked more modern than our M-14s.

  They looked at me with interest, and one said, “Say, are you coming with us on this crazy jaunt?"

  "Where’re you headed?"

  “A night patrol to catch Charlie with his black pajama pants down."

  I smiled. “Anywhere near Bong Trang?”

  “Maybe. It’s inside the patrol area, but who knows what we’ll find?”

  It sounded like a good idea, and I wished I could go with them, especially if it meant going to the area where Trinh could be holed up. I realized Tam was staring at me with a strange expression. Like me, she wanted Trinh dead. Unlike me, she wasn't confined to base, but that was beside the point. The best she could hope for was to find an ARVN unit and persuade them to hunt him down. With what I knew of the ARVN, I doubted it would happen. They boarded the helicopter, and Erskine glanced out from the right-hand seat. "Last chance, you want to take that pleasure flight or not?"

  I didn’t have a weapon, but Tam had her M1 carbine. I didn't need to ask what she thought about tagging along. "Bong Trang is inside the patrol area. How about it?"

  She gave me a slight nod, and I looked back at Erskine. "The Lieutenant here, can he come along?"

  "Sure, why not? There's always room for a few more. If you want, you can bring your wives and girlfriends, they’re all welcome."

  We climbed into the cabin and squeezed next to the starboard door gunner. The revolutions picked up until with a thunderous roar Erskine adjusted the collective. The rotor blades gripped the air, and we were climbing into the sky, away from Cu Chi Base Camp, heading for the Iron Triangle.

  I knew I’d be in for some serious shit when I got back, but I didn’t care that I was racking up enemies. The Vietcong, the North Vietnamese Army, Mark Butcher, Commissar Trinh Tac, and our own officers I tended to avoid. For some reason, they’d put me on the shitlist. All of them, friend and foe, it didn’t make much difference. Probably there were a few more I had yet to put names to.

  What the hell, if I’m going to die, I may as well die doing something useful, although I doubt the brass will see it that way. Chances are I'll spend a few years in the stockade, but if we manage to nail Trinh it'll be worth it.

  We were flying over dense jungle, and the Rangers looked relaxed, like they were on their way to a baseball game. I looked at Tam, and I had to shout to make myself heard.

  "You know the chances of finding him are close to zero?"

  "I know, but it’s worth a shot. What else can we do?"

  A good point, and right then the guy in charge of the patrol, Army Ranger Master Sergeant LeBlanc, moved next to me. "What exactly are you planning? You're not assigned to this mission."

  He stared at me with hard eyes, dark, like his crew-cut hair, and he had an expression on his weather-beaten face that was difficult to fathom. A guy who’d done most things in this godforsaken country, and fought and won countless battles. He was of medium height and medium build, like most Special Forces, but his every movement was graceful and economical, and there was no doubt inside the ODs were slabs of solid muscle. The scar on his face demonstrated he hadn’t escaped every action completely unscathed, and at some stage a bullet had ploughed a furrow across his left cheek.

  He was waiting for an answer, and I thought quickly. "Lieutenant Tam here knows a lot about the tunnels. He's even been down them, and he can give you a lead on what to look for."

  "We know what to look for," a man growled. I hadn't seen him until now, and he was thin and scrawny. He reminded me of Jesse, so I guessed he could be a tunnel rat.

  "The Lieutenant here was brought up in the area of Bong Trang, and he knows the area like the back of his hand. He can identify changes made since he lived there, which could give us leads on locating the entrances."

  He looked interested and glanced at Tam. "Is that true?"

  Tam told him about seeing wheat and other crops growing where they hadn’t grown before. How it could indicate they’d dug a tunnel and created a base in that area.

  He looked impressed. "Okay, then, do your stuff and maybe we’ll get lucky. He looked me up and down. "You ever been in a tunnel?"

  I thought back to that terrible, terrifying experience. "I’ve been in a tunnel."

  "And?"

  "It's the scariest thing in the world.”

  "You got that right. If you worked that out, you’ve been in a tunnel."

  The helicopter thundered over the jungle canopy, and Erskine brought the craft in for a landing three kilometers from Bong Trang.

  "We don't want to scare away the natives," he grinned. He looked at LeBlanc. "When do you plan to be back?"

  "As soon as we're done. First light, if we're still alive."

  "First light it is. Call me on the radio, and if the radio doesn't work, pop smoke. I'll be waiting."

  He glanced at me and Tam as we slipped out behind the Rangers. "You take it easy. It's dangerous out there."

  "We'll be careful."

  They had weapons to spare, and they loaned me a Colt, which made me feel a bit better. Especially after we made the first kilometer and we ran into trouble. It shouldn't have happened, just one of those things when you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. So was the enemy, and we were as much a shock to them as them to us, a bunch of VCs dragging something out of a tunnel to the surface. The night wasn't entirely dark, and they saw us coming at the same time as we saw them. LeBlanc's unit opened fire, and the night echoed to the roar of gunfire that tore into the VC. But they returned fire fast, lighting up the night with muzzle flashes. We flung ourselves down on the jungle floor, firing at the muzzle flashes. LeBlanc was throwing out orders, keeping his voice low so as not to make himself an inviting target.

  "I want a man to sneak forward and see what we’re up against. If there're too many of them, we’ll call for air support."

  A Ranger nodded and started crawling forward, working his way around the flank. We waited on the ground, invisible in the darkness as bullets hissed and whined over our heads. There was something strange. They were mounting a strong defense of something important to them, and I pointed it out to LeBlanc. He'd seen plenty of action, and he understood what I was saying.

  “You’re right. It’s curious. Normally, they attack or just melt away, but not this time. They’re staying put. If they're defending something, what is it? One of their big shots?"

  I didn't think so. "If it was a senior cadre from the North, why wouldn't he slip away? No, they've got something to hide, something they don’t want us to see."

  "Only way to find out is to take a look-see."

  I pointed out there could be a hundred of them hiding up ahead.

  “Or a half-dozen.” He glanced around at his men. “We’ll split into two squads. I want four men to take the left flank, and my squad takes the right. Yeager, you stay here. It’s not your fight."

  I wasn't sure if that was true. I was there to kill VCs, and one VC in particular. Before I could reply, they slid away into the darkness, moving like ghosts through the jungle. I looked at Tam. " Could he be here?"

  She looked unsure. "I don't know. There's nothing to suggest he is. But there's something strange going on. They’re hiding something."

  "A tunnel entrance?"

  She shook her head. "No, I don't think so. The tunnels are skillfully camouflaged, and the moment bullets started to fly, they'd have disappeared into the tunnel and they’d be gone for good. I just don't know."

  Up ahead the firing increa
sed, and the bullets spurted out from inside the dense, dark jungle. We waited for almost an hour until LeBlanc came crawling back with the rest of his men. "We can't get near them. They're fighting like tigers, so we’ll have to play this differently. I'm going to try to spoof them. Make it look like we're retreating, but we’ll stick around until it gets light, and maybe we’ll see what they're up to."

  "By then they could be long gone."

  He gave me a long look. "If you have any better ideas, I’m listening."

  I had an idea, and I regretted the moment I’d suggested it. “Lieutenant Tam was brought up in the area, so he has an eye for the ground. We could sneak forward and take a look.”

  He shrugged. "If you have a death wish, go ahead."

  I was thinking of the man I'd vowed to kill, and if there was the slightest chance he was up ahead, I had to know, had to put a bullet in him before he had a chance to get away. On the other hand, most folks would say I had a death wish.

  "One thing," LeBlanc murmured, "The Huey comes back at dawn, and I intend to be on it. If you're not back, you're stuck here, at least for the duration. I don’t know when we’ll be able to get back with more men, but in the meantime, you’ll be on your own."

  I looked at Tam and she shrugged. I said, "Fine."

  "Good luck."

  We crawled away, and Tam guided us in a wide semi-circle a kilometer further to the east. She crept through the jungle like she’d spent most of her life in these parts, which of course she had. I estimated we were no more than two hundred meters from where the enemy fire had come from, and we dropped to a crawl. If the enemy were here, they had to be close. We didn’t find them. Whoever had been shooting at us earlier had vanished. There were just a few hummocks on the ground, probably created by the local wildlife. We searched for almost two hours before I suggested we gave up.