Sand in the Wind

by Robert Roth

  “We’re gonna invade Red China.”

  “— So he challenged us to a basketball game. There’s five cases of beer on this, and you men can help me drink the winnings —”

  “I only drink with friends.”

  “He’s a lifer. He’ll never pay.”

  “— You can see behind you that there’s about half a foot of mud on the basketball court —”

  “You call that vacant lot a basketball court?”

  “— That means we’ll have to scrape it off first —”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “Why don’t we just have a swimming meet?”

  “I’ll bet he lost his cigarette lighter or something.”

  “— I’ve got some twelve-inch planks here that’ll do the job in no time —”

  “Good. Call me when you’re done.”

  “Why don’t you and Forest do it then?”

  “— I know we’ll be doing more work than Echo Company, but at least we’ll have the home court advantage —”

  “Great. I hate road games.”

  “You don’t know what the word home means.”

  “— We’ve each got a platoon on patrol, so we’ll play one platoon at a time, two out of three wins the beer, twenty point games.”

  “That’s so none of the lifers’ll run out of fingers and toes.”

  Though the men griped about the master sergeant’s idea, they only did so because playing basketball was something they were told they had to do. Most of them were anxious to compete with another company. They had been thoroughly trained to identify with their various units. This created competitive attitudes between squads, platoons, and companies. On the company level, this competitiveness was less than good natured.

  No one was too enthusiastic about clearing the mud from the basketball court, but the sloppiness of the job turned it into a joke. Three or four men handled each plank — placing it down on its edge, then slowly pushing it and the foamlike mud before it from the court. When the job was finished, there were piles of mud at the edges of the court and thick coats of it on anyone who had helped pile it there. The boards were left upright to keep the mud from sliding back. A thin layer remained; but if the ball was smashed instead of dribbled, it bounced fairly well.

  Second Platoon was assigned the first game because First Platoon was still on patrol. Nobody had to tell Sugar Bear to take charge. Echo Company hadn’t arrived yet, and he ordered anyone interested to get out on the court for some practice. Kramer merely watched until he saw that Sugar Bear didn’t know much about basketball, then he took over. A dozen men volunteered to play. Kramer divided them into forwards and guards. There wasn’t much difference in height among them. When Sugar Bear realized this, he immediately yelled for Roads who showed little enthusiasm as he stepped out on to the court.

  The basketball was quickly coated with mud, and the backboard (the side of a large crate) was at an angle to the hoop. This made it almost impossible for Kramer to tell who was any good. He finally decided on Sugar Bear as the center because as long as he was under the basket no one else could get near it; Roads and Sinclaire as the forwards; and Hamilton, Pablo, Hemrick, and Chalice to alternate as guards.

  Echo Company marched towards the court in formation, and was immediately met by derisive whistles and shouts. As soon as they broke formation, they arranged themselves along one side of the court. Those men from Hotel Company that had been standing there quickly joined the rest of the company on the opposite side. The two master sergeants shook hands and started making the rules. Both of them appeared to have had a good taste of the stakes already. Because there was no one either impartial enough or willing to act as referee, the master sergeants decided that when a player fouled he should call it on himself. The men were anxious to start, so this was the only rule agreed upon.

  A platoon from Echo Company took the court to get some practice. They immediately began complaining about the mud as if it were a Hotel Company plot. The men from Second Platoon watched eagerly. They could never have been convinced that they had looked equally inept a few minutes earlier. Soon the shouts of the spectators forced the game to get under way.

  Echo Company took the ball in from behind the backboard. The men on the sidelines began yelling and acting as if they’d already drunk the beer. A player from Echo Company tried to dribble in the wrong spot, and when the ball stuck in the mud he ran by it. Pablo grabbed it up and tossed it under the basket to Sugar Bear who immediately tried a shot. After missing, he got the rebound and shot again, then four more times. By the sixth try, all ten players were shoulder to shoulder underneath the basket waiting for the rebound. Roads suddenly sprang up from within this shoving, groveling mass and tipped the ball in.

  The game continued in a frenzy, the players accepting without thought the reality that no one would ever call a foul on himself. This meant there were no fouls, and therefore no rules save one: If the ball went through the hoop, it was two points for the last team that touched it. This also simplified the skills required. Rarely did anyone bother to dribble except for show. While tackling was frowned upon, especially by the spectators, it nevertheless became an often-used tactic. The game had very little resemblance to basketball; but both teams were at the same disadvantage, and this satisfied the players if not the spectators.

  The score was 16 to 12 in favor of Echo Company when Pablo decided to drive in for a lay-up. He got within six feet of the basket before being knocked flat on his back. Only by grabbing the ball away was Kramer able to stop the game long enough for Pablo to be helped off the court, too groggy to notice the three distinct footprints on his chest. Hemrick went into the game to replace him. His first shot sailed over the backboard, enabling Echo Company to score two more points. Kramer repeatedly called time-out only to be ignored. Luckily, the next attempt at the basket went right into his hands. By holding the ball he was finally able to stop the game.

  Kramer led his men to their side of the court. “All right, we’ve got one man who can dribble, one who can pass, and one who can shoot. This should be enough, but unfortunately it’s the same man. All they need is two more points. Let’s see if we can get the ball to Roads.”

  As the rest of Second Platoon’s team dashed out onto the court, Hemrick told Chalice to go in for him. The first time Chalice got the ball, somebody jerked his head back from behind and he was barely able to pass it to Roads. While sitting in the mud, he saw Roads loft the ball through the hoop.

  “Eighteen to fourteen, get serious,” somebody yelled.

  Hamilton intercepted the ball as it was brought in, too excited to notice that he had sent the man it was intended for sliding ten feet on his stomach. Hamilton’s quick lay-up made the score 18 to 16. A basket by Roads after a pass from Hamilton tied the game. Again a man from Echo Company tried to dribble the ball. It hit his foot and Chalice retrieved it. He looked for Roads and found him lying on the ground underneath a man from Echo Company. Hearing quick, sloshing steps behind him, Chalice knew he better get rid of the ball fast. In desperation, he aimed it at the basket, and with a man from Echo Company hanging on his neck, watched it float through the hoop.

  Sugar Bear yelled excitedly, “What book you read that in, Professor?”

  Echo Company took the ball in, but the men on Hotel’s side of the court immediately began shouting that the game was over. The yelling got so loud that the master sergeants were scared into stopping the game. They finally decided that it was necessary to win by four points. Again Hamilton intercepted the inbound pass. Unable to spot Roads, he tucked the ball under his arm and took three steps towards the basket before being tackled around the legs and falling, the ball still clutched tightly beneath his chest. A few men dived for it, and the ball disappeared. Everyone on the court joined the pile. The cursing increased until somebody lost their temper and took a swing. Sinclaire crawled away from the pile, blood gushing from his face. Within seconds, most of the men on the court were swinging wildly at each other.
Before Chalice could decide what to do, a fist smashed into his jaw sending him sliding backwards in the mud.

  The crowds on the edges of the court stampeded towards its center at a dead run. They merged into a brawling mass of two hundred men swinging wildly at each other. Few of them had time to figure out who they were fighting, but most didn’t care. Hotel Company’s master sergeant tried to get to the center of the melee to stop it, and was flattened almost immediately. The brawl did more than continue, it became wilder. Men staggered and crawled away from it, blood pouring from their faces. Finally, a lieutenant fired a burst from his pistol. Most of the men dropped to the ground, thinking that someone was firing into the crowd. The officers were then able to separate the few who continued fighting.

  Chalice was helped back to the platoon tent in a daze. As he came to his senses, he looked around and saw the tent was alive with excitement — men slapping each other on the back, laughing, shadowboxing, and demonstrating how they had knocked this or that person to the ground. Hamilton’s chin was stained with blood and he had a gash on his lip; but this didn’t prevent him from smiling as he slapped Chalice on the back and asked, “Wasn’t that great?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Sure it was. That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

  “Did we win?”

  “Hell yeah! I flattened three of them myself.”

  “I mean the game.”

  “Oh, the game . . . yeah . . . well, we didn’t get to finish it. . . . That was a hell of a shot you made.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah . . . that was a lot of fun.”

  Alpha had the ambush that night. Hamilton returned to the tent with its coordinates and gathered his men together. “It ain’t too long, just under a klick. We’ve got to set-in by the little bridge on the other side of the ville.”

  “Which one is that?” Forsythe asked.

  “You know, the whorehouse is right next to it.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember.”

  “Chalice, you’ll walk the point.”

  It hadn’t rained all day, but as Alpha left the platoon tent it began coming down in torrents. Chalice led his squad along the road that skirted the battalion perimeter. The heavy traffic had churned the mud into a foam, in some places almost three feet deep. Chalice couldn’t see more than a few yards through the rain; and he knew the first sign of a Viet Cong ambush would be the muzzle flashes of their rifles.

  He halted the column at the edge of the bridge. Hamilton walked forward to pick a site. The stream was overflowing its banks, and he had no choice but to place his men in the weeds at one end of the bridge. For an hour they sat shivering in the mud as the rain poured down upon them.

  Finally, Forsythe got up and walked towards Hamilton. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

  “I know. We’re sitting ducks down here.”

  “Ducks sure is the right word,” Forsythe agreed.

  “I wish we would of sandbagged. I’m freezing my ass off. . . . This shit is gonna last all night.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “To where?”

  “Somewhere back in the — the whorehouse!”

  If the rain hadn’t been enough to convince Hamilton, the bravado of Forsythe’s idea would have been. The whorehouse was only thirty yards away, and within minutes they were there. The four young girls inside were almost out the back door before they realized they had some paying customers. Forsythe was the first man to get his clothes off, and the prettiest girl led him to her crib. Before entering it, he turned toward the rest of his squad and recited, “ ‘I been wrong, so long,/ But tonight, I’m right!’ ”

  Most of the men began arguing over the remaining three prostitutes. Hamilton quieted them by giving priority to the men with the most time in-country. Roads let it be known right away that he wasn’t interested. After an hour, everyone had taken a turn. Hamilton then ordered his men to keep their clothes on.

  Chalice had first watch. At nine o’clock he took the radio and stationed himself by the door. Every fifteen minutes he would hear the company giving situation reports. Someone in charge of the CP radio would say, “If all secure, click your handset twice, otherwise, three times.” This same voice would then call off the various units. As Chalice pressed the button on the handset, the humorous irony of what he was doing overwhelmed him, and he felt more at ease than at any time in months. He began thinking about how having Forsythe around made being in Vietnam so much easier, and also about the affection he had for Hamilton and Childs, telling himself that as long as they were with him he could endure anything.

  Hamilton didn’t bother to divide the men into the normal two watches. Instead, each man had only to stand a single hour. Forsythe took over at eleven o’clock. The excitement of the basketball game, the ensuing riot, and now this extraordinary ambush had combined to put him into an even lighter mood than usual. He sat holding the handset, anticipating the time when he could click it twice to let those in the rear know that the ambush was going according to plan — ‘I been wrong so long,/ But tonight I’m right.’ A broad smile on his face, he stared out the door and watched the rain stream down from the thatch and tin roof, thinking about how he and the rest of the men could still be shivering in the rain. Finally, it was his turn to click the situation report. He pressed the button once, then again, gaining immense satisfaction from this act. In an instant the smile left his face.

  With less than horror and more than surprise, in amazed disbelief, he saw before him a soaked, astonished figure standing motionless in the doorway, the black Viet Cong uniform sticking to his skin. Frightened eyes locked upon each other, both men seeing what they had least expected; one thinking, ‘Marine,’ not having to remember the fear and hatred connoted by that single word; the other thinking, ‘Too late.’ But for Forsythe there was time; time to squeeze the handset in fear; to remember another black clad form running from him, he unable to pull the trigger of his M-16; to wonder if he would now have the same luck as that figure; to feel the weight of his M-16 resting across his lap; to know and decide without thinking or doing either that this time he would use it; time to flinch as the AK-47’S muzzle flashed in his face shattering the silent tableau with a sound so deafening as to be beyond the range of hearing.

  The threshold stood deserted even before Forsythe slumped forward. Hamilton dived towards it, in the same motion pointing his rifle where there was now nothing but darkness and rain. With Chalice’s help, he yanked Forsythe’s lifeless body away from the door. Their faces stared down in dread, not thinking, ‘Is he dead?’ but rather, ‘He’s not dead. He’s not dead! He’s not dead!’ collapsing with relief as Forsythe moaned, “Stomach, in the stomach.”

  Stoker pulled up Forsythe’s shirt and checked for an exit wound. There was none. Even before he had finished bandaging Forsythe, the other members of the platoon were ready to dash out the door. The cardboard walls offered no protection.

  “To the bridge!” Hamilton ordered. “Gotta get out!”

  “Hurry,” Forsythe moaned as Hamilton and Roads gently placed him on a straw mat.

  Chalice began running even before Hamilton finished saying, “Professor, get going.”

  The rain somewhat slackened as they waited nervously for the medivac chopper. Chalice and Hamilton had taken off their shirts which were now being held across the upper part of Forsythe’s body to protect him from the rain.

  “It burns,” he said, not as if he were talking about himself, the bullet, but about a piece of plastic or wood somebody had set on fire, as if he were watching it take the flame from the match, watching the flame consume it, saying with no emotion, “It burns.” His words became alternately calm and anguished. “I feel a little sick. Maybe I’m gonna . . . puke. . . . Water . . . I’d like some water. . . . Know I shouldn’t drink any, not with a stomach wound. Won’t ask. . . . It’d taste good though. . . . Professor.”

  “Yeah man, right here,” Chalice not yet crying because not yet believing. �
��Professor.”

  “Yeah. Right next to you.”

  “What day is it?” saying the words with great effort, in pain.

  “Day is it! ‘What day is it?’ I never know the day. Hamilton!”

  “I don’t know either. Somebody, somebody, what day is it?”

  Roads, softly, “Monday man. It’s Monday.”

  “No! Number?”

  “January fifteenth.”

  As if he were dating a letter, “You sure?”

  Hamilton, excited, saying with certainty, “Yeah! He’s right. I know he’s right. Take it easy.”

  “I believe you. I believe you guys.” Then drowsily, “Thirty days has September, April —”

  Chalice, pleading, “Relax, Forsythe. The chopper’ll be here in a minute. Just relax.”

  “Am relaxed. Don’t worry. But it’s . . . important. Can’t get it straight. How, how many days past July eighth?”

  Chalice, soaked and shuddering, “July eighth?”

  “My birthday. Hurry! Tell me . . . how old . . . I am. Important.” Hamilton, nervously, “Hold on. We’ll tell you. Just wait.”

  Chalice, to himself but out loud, “Monday, no, January fifteenth, January fifteenth!”

  Roads finally saying, guessing, “One hundred and sixty days.”

  Chalice, thinking, How did he do it so fast?

  Forsythe, calmer, “Nineteen years one hundred and sixty days. . . . I’m nineteen years one hundred and sixty days old. . . . Important. . . . Thanks. . . . Wait! What about Leap Year?”

  Chalice, “Don’t worry. Doesn’t matter. One year is three hundred sixty-five and a quarter days. The sun, it goes around. Doesn’t come out even. Leap Year doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter! The sun —” finally quieted by Roads’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Okay. . . . You’re right — nineteen years one hundred and sixty days. Leap Year don’t matter. . . . Thanks. . . . Wanted to know.”

  Hamilton, more calmly, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be all right. The chopper’ll be here any minute. I think I can hear it, maybe.”