Perhaps, she pondered with terrible dread, her Hector was not the one intended in those equivocal words. And perhaps Troy’s fate would be more fearful than she had imagined.…
5
Black Gods of R’lyeh
If Andromache and Priam lamented the slain Hector, Achilles was by no means without mourners of his own. The rites begun when the Achaeans thought the slain Patroclus to be Achilles were now resumed. His armor was made the prize in the contest of champions. Ajax the Greater won it, and in centuries to follow it would come into the possession of Goliath of Gath and of Roland of the Franks, and others still. But wailing for Achilles was not confined to the world of poor mortals, for, deep beneath the ocean caverns, no unblinking eye but her own beholding her, Thetis, the mother of the godling Achilles, floated motionless in place before a great pylon encrusted with barnacles. She had often come here over the centuries to pay homage to Great Kronos who dreamt and tossed and turned within, stirring up the waters to a churning boil on the surface of the Great Sea. But now she had come for a different purpose in the wake of her son’s cowardly murder. In the forgotten tongue of Galiyeh, which is also R’lyeh, she bubbled forth the primordial summons which, being interpreted, is “Release the Kraken!”
The Achaeans had gotten what they came for. Menelaus’ honor was restored, though men still whispered jests at his expense, and Agamemnon decided it was time to go home again. He left a contingent of troops in the city and laid down terms for tribute to be paid by the Trojans by way of war reparations. But none would ever be paid, for Troy was soon in no position to pay them. As the last of the remaining Achaean ships (many had been burned or else dismantled for the wood to build the Horse) sailed safely away, Agamemnon thought his fleet had entered the shadow of a mighty cloudbank. This he could not fathom, as the skies had been brilliant blue and mercilessly sunny only moments earlier. Then he raised his eyes aloft, as did many of his men. None of them spoke thereafter of what they thought they saw swiftly sailing through the heavens above them, toward defeated Troy. It was vaguely human in outline, suggesting an elephant on its hind legs, but with wings spread like sails to the wind currents. But the worst was the mammoth squid atop its shoulders, with hooded orbs like liquid black jewels.
Across the waters, a single man out in the fields, a man named Aeneas, saw the vast cloud-like shape approaching Troy and took off running.
THE BOONIEMAN
BY EDWARD M. ERDELAC
Firebase William stood on a bare hill shorn clean of the emerald jungle that covered the remote Chý Prông District. Five years ago in ’66, Sikorsky CH-54s had played the barber with ten-thousand-pound daisy-cutters. Buzzing Chinooks had dropped in the men, trenchers, and bulldozers that had finished the job, adorning the hill with a ring of sandbags, berms, and barbed wire. The whole shebang had been capped off with six 105mm Howitzers arranged in the standard star pattern, one in the center to fire illumination rounds during night attacks, five at the points. Designed as a temporary fire support base for special missions near and occasionally over the Cambodian border, William had for some reason remained when its garrison had changed from marines to Army Special Forces. Now it was home to an element of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, or would be, once the A-Team of American MACV-SOG advisors officially turned the place over to Captain Dat Quách next month.
Lt. Jatczak wondered how long the ARVN would hold out before the North Vietnamese Army overran William. Nixon was pulling the plug on Vietnam, and the NVA was wondering how committed the US was to withdrawal. They’d been dropping sporadic, harassing mortar fire on William for the past two weeks; nothing serious, just trying to goad their jumpy southern cousins into expending the precious ammunition Major Dyer was writing off as ‘field lost’.
The major had been at William longer than anybody. He claimed to have suggested the name of the place to the original CO after his uncle, who’d been a geologist and explorer. Nobody knew if it was Bravo Sierra or not. Dyer had served with the 1st Marines in Korea and done five combat tours in ’Nam: two as an Airborne Ranger, and three in the 10th Special Forces Group attached to various units, including a stint in the A Shau valley. He looked it, too, with his odd shock of white beard crisscrossed by wandering scars like old wagon trails, and eyes that looked as if they’d never found anything funny, ever. He was a real boonie rat and didn’t bullshit.
Intelligence anticipated a big push by the NVA on the ARVN II Corps here in the central highlands. General Abrams was telling everybody and anybody he could about it, but it was being dismissed as the wailing of a brat who was having his war toys taken away.
As far as Jatczak was concerned, they were welcome to this miserable country. North, South, he didn’t really care who won anymore. He had grown to hate the fucking bush, the stink of it, the summer heat, the punji sticks dipped in shit, and the way you couldn’t even trust a little kid without getting your ass blown to hell. The ’Nam didn’t scare him anymore. He was bored with it. His only fear was of not being able to leave it behind. He didn’t wanna wind up one of those jumpy Section 8 saps shrieking into his pillow in the middle of the night. He wished he was back home in Calumet City, eating a drippy Schoop’s burger and sucking down a milkshake. He was sick of C-rats for breakfast and cigarettes for dinner.
Jatczak was smoking in the TOC bunker watching Major Dyer, Chief Beems, and Captain Quách iron out details for the turnover when Albarada came in with a harried-looking man leaning on his shoulder.
Jatczak recognized him straight off as Beo, a Montagnard native from the little village on hill 231 in the boonies west of William.
He gave up his bench for Beo. Jatczak was the liaison officer, and had worked with ’yards for much of his tour. He knew the people, knew their lingo. They were good men, these highlanders. There’d always been some around the base, hired on as laborers. A few like Beo went out on missions with SOG, since they knew the terrain best. If you did them a kindness they’d step in front of a tank for you. They’d tripped a minefield once over the Cambodian border and Jatczak had gone back for Beo, guiding him out. Later, when he’d been on a fire mission over in Ratankiri Province and had caught a round through the calf, three ’yards he didn’t even know had jumped on his body to shield him from getting hit again. He liked the ’yards, almost as much as he hated the gooks.
Case in point, Captain Quách. The sweaty little REMF in the aviator sunglasses was everything that was wrong with Vietnam. More of a politician than a soldier, always on the lookout for a bribe or an easy out. Who had Quách pissed off back in Pleiku to get this detail, and what the hell had MACV-SOG done to deserve him?
Beo looked like hell in a hand basket. His green t-shirt was sweaty and torn, and his loincloth was filthy. His rangy, muscled legs were slashed by elephant grass. He looked exhausted.
“He came up the hill out of the jungle,” said Albarada. “’Asked for you, Major.”
“He shouldn’t be in here,” Quách said testily, lighting a Black Lotus cigarette. “This is no place for him.”
Jatczak unscrewed his canteen and passed it to Beo. De oppresso liber, my ass, he thought. The hippie that he might have been, the one that smoked grass and read Dee Brown behind the communications bunker, got testy, and the Green Beret he was itched to punch Quách in the trachea. The Vietnamese did the ’yards the same way the US had done their Indians, pushed them to land they didn’t want until they realized they really wanted it after all, then caused them all kinds of grief trying to get them to move. Hell, the hill tribes didn’t even call themselves Montagnards. That was a French word. The local tribe was Gia Rai. They didn’t know what a ‘monatagnard’ was any more than a Lakota could tell you what ‘Sioux’ meant.
“It’s still a place for him while we’re here, Captain,” rumbled Dyer, in that John Wayne way he had of putting an amen on things.
“What’s the matter, Beo?” Jatczak asked him in his own language, when he’d finished drinking.
“NVA. I don’t know
how many. ’Couple companies.”
Beo was no simple rice farmer given to exaggeration. Like Dyer, he was an old soldier, and had fought with the French back when they’d tried to run the country. But there was real fear in his eyes, and ’yards didn’t fear for themselves.
“They were headed for my village,” he gasped.
Jatczak relayed the information, mostly for Beems’ benefit, as he knew Dyer spoke Gia Rai.
“Could be intel’s big offensive,” said Beems.
Dyer rubbed his scarred chin, frowning.
“Get on the horn to Pleiku, Chief.”
Beems left, making a beeline for the communications bunker.
Quách looked as if he were about to shit a brick.
“We should pull out.”
“No time. That ville isn’t that far away,” said Dyer. “We hold here.”
“Sir, case in point,” Jatczak piped up, standing, “permission to take a bird and check the ville.”
“We can’t spare a helicopter. We need every available man,” Quách blurted.
Jatczak looked over Quách’s head at Dyer and raised his eyebrows.
Dyer nodded. “All right, Lieutenant. Go tell Wurlitz to warm up his ship. Have Sgt. Hale pick two volunteers from the ARVN.”
“Major, I protest,” said Quách. “The village is of no strategic importance and has probably already been …”
“You’re wrong there, Captain. That ville’s more important than you know. Lieutenant?”
“Sir?”
He took Jatczak by the shoulder like an old college buddy and led him to the doorway, speaking low in his ear.
“Keep me apprised of the situation. I want to know the condition of the village as soon as you get there. Report anything out of the ordinary.”
Jatczak nodded, though he didn’t know what Dyer expected him to find aside from bodies.
Beo got up.
“I go too.”
“You’ll need a guide, el-tee,” Dyer assented.
“Thank you, sir,” Beo gasped.
As Jatczak turned to go, Dyer pushed something into his hand.
“Take this for luck.”
Jatczak looked down at the trinket. He had seen it on Dyer’s desk before and had always taken it for a paperweight. It was about the size of his palm and shaped like a starfish, made out of some dark, polished mineral.
Jatczak half-grinned, but the major’s expression was, as usual, totally serious.
“Yes, sir.”
Funny to think that Dyer, after all the shit he’d been in, put any stock in boonie voodoo. Jatczak supposed everybody had their Bravo Sierra, after all.
Twenty minutes later Jatczak, who had cross-trained as a Huey pilot, was dressed in chicken plate and riding Peter P next to Lt. Wurlitz, the team’s flyboy. Wurlitz had once nearly killed Jatczak trying to prove he could loop a Huey. After stalling out at 3,000 feet and recovering at the last second, he’d tersely attributed his failure to the ‘extra weight.’
They were flat-hatting the tree tops, bearing straight for a faint, discouraging plume of inky smoke curling over the jungle. Hale was on one of the door guns, singing Barry Sadler with a complete lack of irony. He was Alabama-born, fourth-generation Army. He bled O.D. green. Beo was in the back, looking as if he’d jump out and flap his arms if the Huey went much slower. Two green-as-grass ARVNs, Thu and Phom, rode along. Phom leaned forward and puked over the barrel of his M60 the first time the Huey tilted at a cross wind and righted itself.
“Jesus Christ!” Hale snarled, slapping his helmet on over his green beret.
But it wasn’t the cherry’s cookie popping that had inspired him to blaspheme.
The rotor wash blew a gap in the forest canopy below and the sinking sun shown down on a mass of brown clad bodies flowing like a muddy river in the opposite direction.
“NVA regulars!” Hale shouted.
More than a couple companies. Maybe a battalion.
Jatczak keyed the radio to call in the position back to William. A half a second later the M-60s were chattering, spitting 7.62 mm rounds earthward, raking the long line of marching troops as Wurlitz pulled back on the stick.
Something came streaking up from between the trees, trailing smoke.
Jatczak yelled ‘incoming’ just as it struck the tail rotor like a sledgehammer, tilting the ship so badly Phom nearly tumbled out, straining against the monkey harness as Beo hauled him back in.
Wurlitz cursed and fought the stick, opening up the throttle to escape the barrage of small arms fire that lit up from the columns, rattling like gravel on the underside of the ship and punching holes in the cabin floor. The central pedestal took a round and exploded in the cockpit.
Jatczak looked back and saw white smoke streaming behind them.
“How bad?” Wurlitz hollered.
“I can’t tell,” Jatczak said, glancing down at the ruined instruments between them. “Radio and the transponder are shot, anyway. How’s she handling?”
“Like a fuckin’ dump truck on a wet road! I gotta bring her in. I can’t stay up here.”
“We’re past the midpoint to the village,” Jatczak said.
“I know it.”
It meant bringing the chopper down on the hill and maybe having to hump it back to base if they couldn’t get it in the air again. And if there were more NVA coming …
The Huey bucked and dipped like a roller coaster, the RPM alarm wailing like a breakout at Alcatraz, indicators across the top of the panel flashing.
The village loomed. It was situated much like William on a bare bit of hill upthrust from the jungle proper. The NVA had done a number on it. The tranh grass roofs were burning, the communal longhouse billowing black smoke. The hootches, the animals in the pens, even the ground looked scorched.
Wurlitz set the chopper down roughly on the east side of the village, just past the barbed wire wall. The first thing Jatczak saw was the little guardian totem carved out of pine, a squat, grimacing figure with an approximation of a beret atop its head and a white painted beard, just like Major Dyer’s. He cringed inwardly. It wasn’t just the ARVN that were getting left holding the bag once they pulled out. The ’yards had fought under the Americans against the VC and NVA for years. What would happen to them when Uncle Sam pulled up stakes? Was that why he’d volunteered for this detail so readily, to salve his own conscience? How would his burger taste back in the world, knowing Beo and his people were still here, dealing with the consequences of having collaborated with Americans?
Drive on.
As the engine wound down, Jatczak took off his helmet and unbuckled, jumping out of the cockpit to inspect the damage.
Beo bounded out of the back and collided with him. His eyes were wild, his cheeks streaked with tears. He had a wife and daughter. He pushed away from Jatczak and ran pell-mell up the slope.
Behind him, Hale and the ARVNs clambered out. Hale had his XM177 and tossed one to Jatczak. The ARVNs were armed with Special Ks and looked terrified.
Beo was almost to the top.
“Lock ’n’ load!” Hale said to the ARVNs and covered the jungle. “Watch that treeline!”
“Where the fuck’s your buddy going, Mike?” Wurlitz yelled as he marched to the rotor.
“Guy’s got family up there. I’m going too.”
“What about the goddamned rotor?” Wurlitz called.
“Xin loi, man!” Jatczak called, huffing up the hillside after Beo.
The sun was orange. The jungle was alive with the calls of birds and terrified insects. Mosquitoes buzzed in his ears and he saw the little bastards swarming in clouds around the edge of the smoke.
“Beo!” he called.
The ’yard paused at the entrance to the village.
Jatczak caught up with him. He took out his .45, chambered a round, and gave it to Beo.
“Easy, dude,” he said.
Easy. What the hell did Beo have to be easy about? It looked like the NVA had marched through with flamethrowe
rs, like the VC had done at Dak Son in ’67. Every hootch was burned. Black bodies lay contorted everywhere in the dirt, the cooked flesh dripping off their charred bones. The smell was of barbequed meat. He remembered the first time he’d come to this village. Beo had killed a pig and cooked up some chocon for them.
His belly rumbled.
Christ. He needed a smoke. He reached in his pocket and found the stone Dyer had given him. He ran his thumb over it. There was a design on there, invisible because of the dark color. A circle with a warped star in the center, and an intricate little burning eye or branching column or something in the middle. Weird shit. He put it back in his pocket and got out his Lucky Strikes.
The storehouse was still blazing. It looked like they hadn’t even taken the goddamned rice. Even the yang pri, the sacred stand of five precious sua trees in the center of the village, was burned.
He thought about Dyer’s orders to radio him about the condition of the village ASAP. The ship radio was fucked, but there was an RT secured in the back.
He lit his cigarette.
They trudged through the ruins, kicking up ash. They passed the tombs, the little totem-surrounded huts packed with offerings and the belongings of the deceased. These abodes of the spirits were untouched, and he could imagine the dinks rubbing that stinking tiger balm on the backs of their necks and refusing to desecrate them, while not hesitating to immolate anything with a pulse. They had burned children alive with no concerns about angering any ghosts or demons.
Report anything out of the ordinary, Dyer had said. Nothing out of the ordinary here, Major. Just the ’Nam. Bravo Sierra.
Jatczak followed Beo to the ruins of his hut. The walls and ceiling had fallen in and were nothing more than a heap of firewood now.
“You too late,” came a guttural voice.
Three men stepped out from among the tombs like ashen ghosts. They were ’yards, and Jatczak knew the one who had spoken, a squat man in a red head wrap and loincloth, with a black VC shirt and a necklace of weird silver spirals. His name was Rin, and he was the village be gio, or sorcerer. A tough bastard, more than a little dinky dau. He’d once seen Rin cut a VC’s heart out and slip it still beating into a bag for God only knew what purpose. The Gia Rai grew their hair long, because cutting the hair damaged a man’s soul. Rin kept his head shaved. Beo had told Jatczak once Rin’s grandmother had been a Tcho-Tcho, but he didn’t know what that meant, and Dyer had said only that the Tcho-Tchos were Cambodians and ‘bad news.’
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