Take Back the Night: A Novel of Vietnam (The Jim Hollister Trilogy Book 3)

by Dennis Foley

  “Hollister here, sir,” he said into the receiver.

  “Jim. I already know what you were calling about. General Valentine already called General Quinn,” Michaelson said, his voice breaking over the light static on the line.

  “Sir, I don’t want to get General Quinn’s shorts in a knot, but I’m tired of this guy nosing around in my business. Can’t he just be satisfied with his new stars and his new job?”

  “Jim, you and I agree. But we aren’t running this man’s army.”

  “Am I on General Quinn’s shit list?”

  “No. But you have to eat a little crow.”

  “Oh, oh. I feel this coming.”

  “Not that bad. Might be a little chink out of your ego, but other than that, it’s painless.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “General Quinn was able to strike a compromise. He convinced General Valentine the nature of your operations was far too sensitive to provide full copies of your plans to his headquarters.”

  “So where’s the compromise?”

  “Invite Valentine and his American staff over.”

  “And?”

  “And give him a full briefing of the operation and any progress you are making. No paperwork, no maps, no overlays, no classified documents leave the CP with his folks.”

  “You think that will satisfy him, sir?”

  “Don’t sweat it. General Quinn wants to sit in on the briefing, too. He wants it to look like the briefing is for him and as a courtesy Valentine is invited.”

  “That General Quinn’s a good man.”

  “You’re right. So, set it up.”

  “Yes, sir. What’s a good time for General Quinn?”

  “He said make it convenient for your operational needs.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “My infallible senior-NCO network tells me Valentine is supposed to be headed to Saigon for the weekend. He even has dinner plans with a classmate at the top of the Rex Hotel tomorrow evening. S’posed to be a pretty classy setup at the Rex—tablecloths and pretty V’namese waitresses,” Easy said, a devilish look on his face.

  Hollister looked at the handwritten schedule on his desktop. “Damn, Top. Looks like that’s the only time we can hold that briefing. I sure hate to take the general away from his steak, martinis, and hot shower in Saigon. But we all have to sacrifice. Don’t we?”

  “Oh, I’m sure the good general would agree with you. Nothing should interfere with the real war effort.”

  “Would you be kind enough to extend our invitation to General Valentine for—let’s say 1800 hours tomorrow afternoon, First Sergeant?”

  “It would be my pleasure, sir.” Easy couldn’t conceal his smile. “Damn shame he won’t be able to make this briefing and still fly to Saigon.”

  “Yeah. It’s a shame,” Hollister said.

  During the night the three teams moved closer to their objective areas. Hollister had been concerned from the beginning that using boats was much like posting a sign of their intentions. On normal patrols, the teams would zigzag to their objectives in order not to telegraph their exact direction. With few streams, it wasn’t hard for a trail or LZ watcher to guess the direction of a team carrying a boat.

  Hollister spent most of the evening in operations, monitoring their progress.

  “What’s harder?” Sergeant Caulter asked.

  Hollister looked at the expression on his face. “You mean, ‘What’s harder: leading a patrol, being operations officer, or being the CO?’”

  “Exactly.”

  “This is hardest. At least I had more control over things as a patrol leader and operations officer.”

  The radio broke squelch and DeSantis’s RTO reported, “Alabama. Papa Lima Brown. Over.”

  Caulter picked up the pork-chop mike and keyed it. “This is Three Alpha. Roger Papa Lima Brown. Out.”

  Hollister stepped over to the situation map and erased the grease-pencil box marking Alabama’s old position and drew a new one just below phase line Brown. “That puts them less than two hours from their pullout point.”

  “How long a hump do they have after that?” Caulter asked, entering the radio message into the log.

  “Near as I can guess—about three more hours.”

  Caulter groaned. “Jesus. What a long-ass night. I’m glad my days of humping rucks are behind me.”

  Hollister smiled at Caulter. “Don’t bet on it. The shit hits the fan around here, I’m putting all my warhorses on the ground.”

  “Even those horses with advanced cases of arthritis?”

  “They never seem to slow you down when you’re headed for happy hour.”

  “That’s because happy hour is an anesthetic, sir,” Caulter said.

  The radio squawked again. “Three. This is Colorado. Papa Lima Greenback. Over.”

  Caulter answered and copied down the message into the log. Hollister updated the map, and they both sat back down to wait for Team Georgia to report in.

  CHAPTER 27

  RAT WAS THE FIRST to wake up. The pounding pain in his arm hadn’t allowed him much sleep, and the poultice he had put on his wound had dried and needed replacement. He sat up and realized his chest also hurt from breathing the black smoke that filled the tunnel. The oil lamps gave out little light and made the air heavy. He coughed and felt the need to relieve his bladder.

  The tin can in the corner was nearly filled with urine from the night, and the ground around it was muddy from those who had not cared to take aim.

  Rat tried to avoid the repulsive smell rising from the can as he relieved himself. He felt awkward standing over the tin urinating into it while he held his broken arm above his head to relieve the pressure that brought the pain. He watched the urine splash into the bucket.

  He knew within the hour he would have to take the bucket to the surface and empty it. Avoiding the smell was going to be nearly impossible. He hated it all.

  Hollister entered operations and found Captain Thomas reading the radio log at the situation map.

  “Mornin’, boss.”

  “Morning. How goes it out in the AO?”

  “They’re in and buttoned up for the day. Georgia is a little worried about concealment. Lieutenant Deming’s not happy with what the area has to offer,” Thomas said.

  “Can we move him to thicker stuff?”

  “He opted to stay rather than move during the daylight.”

  “It’s his call. Let’s just hope he can hide his ass.”

  “I’ve got a lot of confidence in him,” Thomas said. “Me, too. Wouldn’t have sent him out there if I didn’t.”

  Rat crawled out into the sunlight and let it warm him for a moment before reaching back into the tunnel for the waste buckets. The morning air was wet and felt sticky against his dirty skin. He dragged his fingernails along the ragged edge of his arm injury. The dirt rolled off in small balls.

  He wiped the corner of the wound with the hem of his threadbare shirt. The pressure caused pus to ooze from the break in the skin. Rat knew his mountain medicine wasn’t working, and if he didn’t get some real medication, he would be looking at more pain and more infection. And because he was a Montagnard, there was little chance he would be able to get any of the drugs first reserved for the soldiers and then for the laborers.

  He stepped over to the small streambed and gathered enough water to remoisten the dried-out poultice. He would try to find more healing plants to make a new poultice later. But until then, he had to make do with what he had.

  The bucket of urine needed emptying.

  With the injury to his arm, Rat was unable to carry the two cans of human waste in each hand. He walked over to the area where they routinely hid the tools used to repair the roads. Among the hoes and the picks, he found a carry pole they used to spread the load across their shoulders.

  The load was a little shaky when it first came off the ground. Rat realized the wound to his arm had drained his energy. He walked slowly. As a boy he had
learned he could avoid spilling containers of liquid by not locking his knees out when he walked. He turned up a section of the trail that led to an area he had not yet used to dispose of the waste. On one side of the trail, the small drainage ditch fed into the stream northeast of the underground hideout they slept in. The trail separated the stream from the tree line. He remembered a place they had passed weeks before that was a break in the trees where he could find some soft earth to empty the cans.

  After only a few dozen yards, Rat stopped to rest his load. Not wanting to lose his center on the carry pole, he simply bent at the waist until the cans rested on the trail. His arm throbbed, and he felt feverish. He gave up the notion of finding the clearing, estimating it was a hundred more yards beyond the point where he rested.

  As he balanced the bar his eyes traveled up the trail, where he spotted a track in the loose surface. The imprint of the toe of a single jungle boot showed the cleated pattern. He could tell it was left by someone running across the trail and into the trees that paralleled it.

  He put down the carry pole and looked around for any sign of the boot’s owner. He looked in the direction the toe print pointed and saw the vegetation had been disturbed. Americans. No South Vietnamese soldiers wore boots that size or stood that tall. Americans were nearby.

  His pulse raced as he realized he could be dropped where he stood by a well-aimed shot. He turned to look back toward the tunnels. Did the Americans know the tunnels were there?

  He couldn’t risk going back to the tunnels. If they didn’t know, they would follow him. He couldn’t run away. Where would he go? He was hurt, and he was tired.

  Rat stood up straight, pulled down on the hem of his shirt, and stepped off the trail in the direction of the visitors. He tried to hold his hands in view to show he carried no weapons.

  Private First Class Keith finished replacing the brick-shaped battery in his radio and stuffed the used one into the side pocket of his rucksack. Out of habit, he raised the handset to his ear and listened for the rushing noise it produced when the squelch was turned off. That only told him there was enough power inside the radio to power the noise. He looked at his watch and saw he was scheduled for a routine sitrep in less than four minutes. He decided to wait.

  Keith propped up his radio against his rucksack and then turned around to lean back against his load and wait. He pressed his shoulders against the soft part of his ruck. As he reached up to tilt the visor of his floppy boonie hat down over his eyes, he spotted something through the branches of the trees. For a fraction of a second, he thought he saw a face. He passed it off as his imagination, some weird trick the leaves were playing on his eyes.

  He made one more adjustment to get more comfortable and saw the face again. He was sure. There was someone standing outside the perimeter looking in. The man was not more than twenty meters away.

  Should he cry out? Should he just shoot? If he sat up and showed alarm, would it spook the face? He froze and tried not to show the face that he saw him. Instead, he let his fingers search the ground for a pea-sized pebble. He found one and got it into a marble-shooter’s grip.

  From the corner of his eye he could see Lieutenant Deming’s back; he was crouched over the map with Sergeant Iverson. He waited until Deming was still and fired the stone at him.

  Deming turned without a start and looked at Keith.

  Keith wiggled his fingers—below the eyeline of the visitor—and got Deming’s attention. He then closed his hand into a fist and pointed his index finger in the direction of the face.

  Deming’s field instincts kicked in, and he dropped down slowly as if he were looking for something near the map. Hidden by the nearby bushes, he looked in the direction Keith had pointed.

  The face stepped forward slowly and raised his arms above his shoulders in a sign of surrender. The damage to his forearm was clear to the Rangers, even at a distance. He was unarmed, wounded, and passive.

  Loomis burst through the door of the officers’ hootch and found Hollister’s bunk. It was empty. He turned to head back out the door to the mess hall and almost ran over Hollister, who came through the door, his shaving kit and towel in hand. “Whoa! What’s up?”

  “Sir, Deming’s team just grabbed somebody.”

  “What? Are they compromised? Any shooting?”

  Loomis shook his head. “No, sir. The guy just walked into their perimeter and gave himself up.”

  “And?” Hollister asked. He threw his gear onto his cot and grabbed the fatigue shirt draped over the back of a nearby chair. Not waiting for Loomis’s answer, Hollister headed out the door.

  Team medic, PFC Jimmy Ray Smith, finished cleaning the mountain medicine from the wound on the Montagnard’s arm and squeezed a large strip of antibiotic ointment from a tube into the break in his flesh.

  Rat watched the boy carefully dressing his wound and looked back up to Deming, who was squatting next to the two. Deming whispered to Rat that they were going to immobilize his arm with a wire splint to allow the bones to knit. He held up the strange-looking, ladderlike wire splint he pulled from Smith’s aid bag.

  Rat nodded, accepting the help.

  Deming looked over Rat’s head at the sun, then checked his watch. He dropped to both knees and scraped the surface of the ground to create a soft layer of dirt. With his finger he drew the rough diagram of the two converging streams and then poked his finger into the ground at a spot approximating their location.

  In simple French he said, “We are here. Can you show me where we must go to find the others?”

  Rat took his free hand and scooped up small pebbles near his leg. He dropped four of them in an oblong pattern and replied, “Tunnel entrances.”

  “All? No more?” Deming asked.

  Rat shook his head. No more.

  “Good. That’s very good.”

  Rat turned, reacting to Sergeant George holding a camera to his face, snapping and winding, and snapping photos of the mountain man.

  Inside operations, Captain Thomas held the ear cups of a headset tight to his ears to listen to an incoming radio transmission.

  Hollister and Loomis entered, and Thomas waved for them to stop so he could hear the whispered message.

  “Roger. We’ll be standing by. Out,” Thomas said. He slipped off the headset and picked up his notes. “Here’s the deal. Wait ’til you get this one.”

  Hollister walked over to the map to look at Deming’s position while he listened. “Go ahead.”

  “Deming says a Montagnard forced laborer just showed up. He’s been injured, but they have splinted his arm and fired him up with some antibiotics the doc had in his trick bag.

  “Seems the guy has been on a work crew for some time and is fed up with the VC busting his balls. The guy told Deming he’d lead them back to the tunnels after dark.” Thomas looked up from his note and shot a big grin to Hollister.

  “How the hell did Deming get all this from him? When did Deming learn how to speak Montagnard?”

  “Sir, the Yard speaks French.”

  “And Deming’s Cajun French worked?”

  “Apparently,” Thomas said.

  Hollister shook his head. “Glad we didn’t have someone with German as a second language out there.”

  “You want to jerk him out of the bush now? He could have lots of good G-2,” Thomas asked.

  “No. No, not now,” Hollister said. He looked at his watch and thought for a moment.

  “Listen, we’ve got that briefing for General Valentine this afternoon. I don’t want to bring up the laborer while he is here. Got it?”

  Loomis nodded.

  Thomas mumbled, “Okay.”

  Hollister tapped the map. “Make sure nothing around here says we’ve got someone bagged. I’ll call Michaelson to let him know. If the rest of that headquarters finds out, they’ll be screaming to get him out and drain his brain. He can do us more good out there for a day. And I don’t want to compromise this whole thing to fly out one laborer who just migh
t not have much more to offer.”

  Hollister looked at the situation map again.

  “Get Lieutenant Deming on the horn at the next scheduled sitrep and tell him to find a time convenient to him to call me and tell me what he knows and what changes he needs to make to the plan.

  “Make sure he understands I only want the highlights. I don’t expect him to include all the details or spend a second longer on the radio than he has to.”

  Hollister tried to whittle down the pile of paperwork that waited for him on one side of his desk. He worried about the team being discovered by a Montagnard and tried to convince himself it took a special man to find the team. He hoped it was not an indication that their whereabouts was general knowledge in the area.

  He read and signed a routine classified-document inventory report due to field force every month. He dropped it into his out-box and reached for his coffee.

  Raising the cup to his lip, he found it almost empty and room temperature. “First Sergeant?” He raised his voice to be heard over the divider.

  Hollister flipped the cover sheet on the next document. He became more irritated at having to read a change in policy on MFC scrip exchange procedure. It was a waste of his time.

  “Shit! This is pure crap,” he said to himself.

  “Yes, Captain. Sergeant Easy is not here.”

  He looked up and found Jrae standing a few feet from his desk. She wore one of her two sets of starched and fitted camouflage fatigue uniforms, her long hair up and tied behind her head. For him, she was a beautiful interruption.

  “Can I do something?’

  “Oh, Jrae …” He picked up his coffee cup. “There any more out there?”

  She raised her hand and gestured toward the mess hall. “The first sergeant went to get more coffee,” she said, making a face.

  “You don’t like coffee?”

  “No, sir. I think it is bad to taste.”

  “Tea?” he asked.

  “Not American tea. It is not real tea.”

  “Well, I’m sorry there isn’t more of our foods and beverages you like.”

  Jrae smiled broadly. “Oh, no. I like Coca-Cola.”