Sand in the Wind

by Robert Roth

  The sergeant glanced up, and answered gruffly, “It’s about fucking time you got back.” As he stared at Harmon he began to smile and his eyes took on a slightly Asiatic cast.

  Harmon reached down and started playing with the sergeant’s light brown hair. “Did you really miss me that much, Hunky?”

  The sergeant looked up sneering, “If I can’t fuck it, I don’t miss it. But I’ll tell you right now, if you don’t get your goddamn paw off my head, you’ll be beating-off left-handed for the rest of your life.”

  Harmon snickered as he sat down. “What’s been going on since I left?”

  “Nothing much. We’ve still got the same fucked-up captain, the same fucked-up gunny, and the word is we’re gonna get a new lieutenant; and chances are he’ll be just as fucked-up as the rest of them.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. How was Japan?”

  “Great. If I hadn’t run outa coins, I woulda went AWOL and stayed another week.”

  “Yeah, I was gonna go there on my second R and R — went to Australia on my first — but I’m getting so short now I don’t wanna waste the money. Anything I don’t spend on whores, I’ll spend on a car when I get back to the world.”

  “I know what you mean. The first day I was there I went ape-shit trying to fuck everything in sight — blew about two hundred dollars. But I finally found one I dug, so I stayed with her the rest of the time. Did a lot of sightseeing.”

  “Catch the siff?”

  “Don’t know yet. We’ll see in a couple of days.” Harmon rose to his feet. “I’m gonna ditch this pack and crash for a while. Don’t let anybody wake me up.”

  “Yeah. . . . Hey listen, if you don’t have lines tonight, I know where we can hear some records and drink a few beers.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll see you later.”

  The sergeant started to put his rifle back together when he saw two pairs of new boots walking towards the steps. Not looking up, he thought, ‘Here comes some more boot motherfuckers wantin’ a chance to get their heads blown off.’

  The two new men stopped in front of him and Graham asked, “Do you know where we can find Sergeant Hunky?”

  “Sergeant Hunky, my ass, you dumb cocksueker.” Graham took a step backward and started to speak. Before he could get a word out, the sergeant asked through a set of tightly clenched teeth, “Who told you to say that, that sonofabitch Martin?”

  “The company gunnery sergeant, sir,” Graham stammered.

  “That’s Martin, stupid. Let me tell you something right off the bat, pal. Anytime you do something that bastard tells you, you got a damn good chance of getting your ass blown away; and around here your chances of going home in a box are pretty good regardless.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Since when do you say ‘sir’ to a sergeant? You’re not in boot camp any more. My name is Kovacs, Sergeant Kovacs. . . . You both grunts, riflemen?”

  Chalice nodded his head and Graham answered, “Yes, sir.”

  “You aren’t too bright, are you? What’s your name?”

  “Private Graham.”

  “And yours?”

  “Lance Corporal Chalice.”

  “Chalice, you’ll be in Alpha Squad. Find Corporal Harmon, but don’t wake him up if he’s asleep. Graham, you’ll be in Bravo. Sugar Bear’s your squad leader. He’s around somewhere. You can drop your gear in the hootch. It belongs to our platoon. I guess that wino told you you’re in Second Platoon.”

  Chalice and Graham walked up the steps and into the hootch. A narrow aisle ran down its center. The rest of the room was taken up by two rows of cots covered with packs, rifles, and other equipment. As Graham stopped to take his pack off, he said, “That guy’s a real bastard. I’m staying away from him.”

  Chalice kept walking towards the far end of the hootch where Harmon was sitting. “I’m in your squad.”

  “Glad to have you. Make room on one of the racks to drop your shit.” Chalice hesitated, saying, “I don’t want anybody to get pissed off because I’ve got my gear on their rack. Where can I get my own?”

  An amused look ran across Harmon’s face. “Nobody sleeps on these racks. We’ve got to sleep in the bunkers where we stand watch. . . . How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “How’d you keep out of the service so long?”

  “I was in college.”

  “That’s what I thought. Where’d you go?”

  “Duke.”

  “Good school. You didn’t graduate, did you?”

  “Yeah, I managed to.”

  “No shit, you’ll be the only guy in the platoon with a degree. I’ve got three years at the University of Texas. We’ve got quite a few guys with some college in the platoon, a lot more than most platoons. What was your major?”

  “English. What was yours?”

  “Engineering.”

  “How come you didn’t finish?” Chalice asked.

  “I dunno — got bored, had some girl trouble, a lotta reasons. I guess I’ll go back when I get out. . . . Did they ask you to be an officer?”

  “Yeah, a couple a times. That’s not for me.”

  “Same here.”

  “They asked you too, eh? It meant another year on my hitch, one more year of bullshit, giving dumb orders instead of taking them.”

  “That’s the same fucking reason I didn’t go. Hamilton had a chance to be an officer, too. He didn’t want the bullshit either. You’ll meet him later.”

  “They kept on telling me I’d be sorry I didn’t go to OCS. Is it true?”

  “Naw, you go through a lot more bullshit as an enlisted man; but when you’re a civilian, the Marine Corps will still be fucking with them. I guess you’ve got a better chance of getting killed though.”

  “What’s the story on Sergeant Kovacs?”

  “He’s damn straight. If he tells you to do something, do it. He don’t fuck with you unless he has to. A lot of guys around here’d be dead if it wasn’t for him. . . . He’s roughstreet. You can tell by looking at him. If him and ten other guys went out on a patrol and only one came back, he’d be the one. . . . You know you’re lucky to be in my squad. By some miracle, we’ve got the most intelligent squad in the company. You’d go batshit in some of the other squads just looking for someone to talk to. Our platoon ain’t bad either.”

  “Do the lifers fuck with you much?”

  “Yeah. I guess as long as you’re in the Marine Corps you’re gonna get fucked with. It’s a little better here than stateside, but not as much as everybody expects. They can’t harass you too much, it’s too easy to get even. The company commander, Captain Trippitt, and Martin, the gunnery sergeant, are both bastards. You’ll find out. . . . What rank are you?”

  “Lance Corporal.”

  “How’d you make lance?”

  “At language school.”

  “Monterey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No shit, I was supposed to go there, but they fucked up my orders. How was it?”

  “Man, it was a beautiful scene. I couldn’t believe the Marine Corps had anything to do with it. On weekends we used to go to San Francisco, or Big Sur, or Carmel.”

  “Yeah, I was really pissed off I didn’t get to go. . . . I’m putting you in Tony 5’s fire team. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, pay attention. It might save your life. He knows what he’s doing, and besides he’s got a bad temper. You don’t wanna piss him off.”

  While they were talking, four men walked in the front door and sat down on the first few cots. They were getting up a card game when Harmon called out, “Hamilton, come here a minute.”

  Hamilton got up and walked towards them. “Hey man, how was your R and R?”

  “Great. . . . I want you to meet Chalice, here. He’s gonna be in our squad. I’m putting him in Tony 5’s fire team.”

  “Glad to meet you. I’m Harmon’s other fire team leader, Doug Hamilton.”

  “I’m Mark Chalice.”

&nb
sp; As they were shaking hands, another person walked over. He was short and slight, with straight black hair hanging over his dark forehead. “Harmon, you motherfucker, when’d you get back?” he asked in a fast talking, high pitched voice.

  “A few minutes ago. This is a new guy in our squad, Mark Chalice. Chalice, this is A1 Payne. He’ll tell you anything you want to know. The sooner you forget what he tells you, the better off you’ll be.”

  “Hey man, what kinda thing is that to say?”

  “The truth, that’s what. . . . Chalice here is a regular professor, a college graduate.”

  Payne looked at Chalice with a sly grin on his face. “A college degree ain’t worth much if it can’t keep you out of Nam, Professor. I’ll — ” Harmon broke in, “You guys seen Tony 5 around?”

  “I saw him walking towards the LZ a few minutes ago,” Hamilton answered.

  “Why don’t you take Chalice down there and see if you can find him.”

  “Okay. C’mon, let’s go.” They went out the front door and started back down the road. “The LZ’s all the way on the other end of the hill. Where you from?”

  “Silver Springs, Maryland. Where you from?”

  “St. Louis. I went to the University of Nebraska for a year and a half. Where’d you get your degree?”

  “Duke.” — ‘Looks like a jock.’ — “Play any sports?”

  “Yeah, I played football for two years, but I stopped growing so they red shirted me and I quit.”

  “You look big enough.”

  “Nah. I’m five eleven now, but I grew two inches right after I joined the Crotch, really pissed me off. I was stupid to go there in the first place. You gotta be an elephant before they even look at you. . . . You know Harmon was right about Payne. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s a real shit-bird. Don’t pay much attention to what he tells you. . . . Did they fuck with you much in An Hoa?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “They seemed friendly because you’re new in-country. When you go back there from the bush, they really give you the business. I’d rather be on Hill 65 than in An Hoa any day.”

  “I thought you guys were always trying to get back to the rear.”

  “An Hoa ain’t much of a rear. It gets hit by ground troops just as often as 65, and they get hit by rockets a lot more. See there’s three kinds of bush. Hill 65 is the regular bush. The lowlands around here are the bad bush. And the Arizona is the big bad bush.”

  “That’s all anybody talks about, the Arizona. Is it really that bad?”

  “It’s worse. No matter how bad you think it’s going to be, it’s always worse. Remember all those guys you’ve met that kept on telling you they couldn’t wait to get to Nam and see some action. Well you never hear anybody say he wants to go back to the Arizona. It’s just like fighting your way out of Red China.”

  Chalice and Hamilton passed the place where the six-by had unloaded the replacements. Walking along the same and only road, they approached a large tower with a tank on top of it. “What’s that?”

  “It’s supposed to be a water tower, but since there’s no well up here it’s never had anything in it but air. Childs says some half-assed colonel must have decided he wanted a water tower because some other half-assed colonel he went to Annapolis with had one on his hill. He says he won’t be surprised if one of these days they line up our whole company from the tower to the river and have us pass canteens up to fill it. It only holds about a hundred thousand gallons, so it wouldn’t take more than a week.”

  “Who’s Childs?”

  “Just the skatingest motherfucker in the Marine Corps. He spends more time in the rear than the office poags. You’ll meet him later. Come to think of it, maybe you won’t. I haven’t seen him in two months myself.” The road started a gradual upward grade; and now there were ammunition and supply bunkers lining both sides of it. When Chalice and Hamilton reached the top of the grade, they could see the helicopter landing zone below them. Set in a place where the top of the hill widened into a bubble, the LZ was just a square of corrugated steel plates, thirty yards across, with a bunker beside it. When they reached the bunker, Hamilton leaned over its wall and asked someone lying on the floor if he’d seen Tony 5. A Marine wearing a yellow T-shirt identifying him as a member of the ground crew sat up and told them Tony might be over at 106’s. “You mean we’ve got to go all the way back to the other end of the hill?” Chalice asked.

  “No, he meant the guns on the point. Those were 105’s.”

  They followed the road to its end at the very edge of the hill. A large tower stood between two low bunkers with 106-millimeter guns mounted on top of them. The soldier in the tower was looking across the valley through a small telescope. Hamilton called up to him, “Have you seen Tony 5?”

  “Yeah. He left for chow ten minutes ago.”

  “That’s fucking great,” Hamilton mumbled as he started to leave.

  Chalice continued to stare across the valley. “Wait a minute. Let me get a good look at this.”

  “Sure. . . . Hey, you wanna go up in the tower?”

  “Yeah.”

  When they reached the top, Hamilton told the lookout that Chalice was new, so they both started pointing things out to him. Chalice could see the entire An Hoa Valley, and no more. Dark green mountains defined the horizon on all sides. The road to An Hoa touched the base of Hill 65 at an angle. It paralleled a broad, smooth river. Both river and road ran the length of the valley. A half mile from the base of the hill, the orange road bisected a cluster of thatched roofed huts — the village. An isolated part of the village lay within the hollow of the kidney-shaped base of the hill. The cool, dark green color of the shade trees interspersed among the hootches stood out against the light green glare emanating from the surrounding rice paddies. At the far edge of the village, the river forked and the right branch passed under a large wooden bridge. The road was just as wide on the other side of the bridge, but the few buildings that lined it appeared deserted. Almost all the land on the near side of the river was either covered with huts or squared off into rice paddies. The far side was also squared off, but much of the land lay fallow and orange bomb craters dotted the entire area. Hamilton pointed towards it. “See that? That’s the Arizona Territory.”

  Hamilton led Chalice back up the road. When they reached the center of the hill, he turned off into a maze of plywood buildings that sloped down its side. A long line of Marines ran along the valley side of the largest building. The air around it smelled of food and garbage. Payne stood in the middle of the line, talking in a loud voice to some men in back of him. As Hamilton and Chalice approached from his rear, he happened to glance back and spot them. “Hamilton, over here.” They walked towards him, and Payne asked, “Professor, how you doing?”

  “All right.”

  Payne started to say something else, but Hamilton interrupted him by addressing the dark, broad-shouldered Marine in back of Payne. “It’s about time we caught up with you. We’ve been following you all over the fucking hill. I got a new man for your fire team.” He turned his head back towards Chalice. “Professor, Tony 5; Tony 5, Professor.”

  As they shook hands, Tony 5 said indifferently, “Glad to have you in Alpha Squad.” He turned away immediately and began talking to Hamilton.

  Payne tried for a while to regain his audience, but finally turned to Chalice. Backing up, he motioned for him to get in line. Chalice looked at the long line in back of them and hesitated. Not catching this, Payne motioned again. Chalice saw that nobody was paying much attention, so he stepped into the line. Payne looked him over as if he were seeing him for the first time. “You’re lucky to be in Alpha, you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Payne glanced around before whispering, “We’ve only got one nigger.” Chalice made no reply and Payne added, “You may not hate ’em now, but you will after you’ve been here awhile. Look up there.” He pointed to the front of the line. “Those cocksuckers are too good to wait like everybod
y else.”

  A few yards from the mess hall door, the line diffused into a large group of blacks. Chalice looked at the faces of the men standing behind him, only a few of them black. As other blacks approached, they joined the group at the door instead of going to the end of the line. Each new man was greeted with extended hands before melting into the crowd. Disgusted by the thought of having to wait in line for an hour, Chalice watched the black power handshakes that greeted the newcomers. Each man received extended hands and a phrase like, “Gimme some of that black power, brother.” The type of handshake being used started like a regular one, then the two men would open their hands and grasp each other’s thumbs to shake again. This was followed by each in turn adding another hand to the one extended, leaning down, and blowing into the three hands. They’d then grasp each other’s wrists. The ceremony ended with each man at the same time tapping the other on both sides of the chest with a clenched fist. Chalice stood thinking, ‘If that’s what it takes to give them self-respect, it’s all right with me.’

  As he continued to watch, he heard a series of four distant but loud explosions, then the scream of a jet engine. A few of the Marines standing in line yelled, “Get some!”

  Hamilton tapped Chalice on the shoulder and pointed out four clouds of smoke rising from the valley floor on the Arizona side of the river. “Phantom jets. Look, there’s two of them coming in from the left.” Chalice’s eyes caught a small silver speck as it dived towards the ground, then leveled off. When it reached the place where the first bombs had fallen, it banked sharply and four more clouds of smoke rose beneath it. The sound of exploding bombs was again followed by numerous cries of, “Get some!”

  “How come some of the smoke’s black and some of it’s white?” Chalice asked Hamilton.

  Hamilton started to answer, but Payne cut in, his voice jokingly diabolical. “Dark gray is from the HE, high intensity regular bombs. When they hit, arms and legs start flying all over the place. The white’s from willie peter, white phosphorous. When a hunk of it lands on a Gook, his body temperature starts it burning. It bubbles and burns right down to the bone. Even if Charlie knows enough to pack it with mud, he has to walk around looking for somebody to cut the phosphorous out before the mud dries.” At first amused, Chalice now found little humor in Payne’s graphic descriptions. “The real black clouds are napalm. If Charlie’s lucky he gets caught right in the middle of it and suffocates, otherwise he runs around in circles with that hot jelly sticking to him. When we find him he looks like a burnt turkey.”