Into the Treeline

by John F. Mullins

  The noise was deafening. He wondered why he had not been killed. No one could live through this firestorm. Realizing that he had not yet fired his rifle, he cursed himself and let off a burst. He could see nothing at which to aim. No matter. The bucking of the little black gun was reassuring. He quickly ran through one magazine and dropped it, loaded another and fired.

  Think, you asshole! he told himself furiously while loading the next magazine. This is doing absolutely no good. Got to do something. Okay. What?

  The firing showed no signs of slackening. But to his right and left he heard the sounds of others returning fire and this heartened him. At least everybody wasn’t dead.

  Looking closer at the pattern of bullet strikes around him, he saw that all were either hitting in front of him or passing just inches above his back. Through some great stroke of luck he had thrown himself down into a slight depression, perhaps a ditch from some long-ago field. The enemy fire had chopped down enough grass that he could see thirty or forty feet. He picked out individuals and clumps of people scattered along the depression. Some of them were using their dead comrades as cover.

  The radio! He wondered if it worked, hoped it had not been shot to pieces. He grasped the handset and put it to his ear. Tears of relief jumped to his eyes as he heard the familiar hiss.

  “Sharkfin, this is Skipjack, over.” Silence. “Sharkfin, this is Skipjack, come in please.” Again silence. “Goddamn asshole, when I don’t want you, you’re on the radio all the fucking time!”

  “What was that, Skipjack?” came the familiar voice.

  “Sharkfin, this is Skipjack. We’ve got a bad situation down here. We are under heavy, repeat heavy, fire from the objective. We need help and need it bad. Over.”

  “Roger, understand heavy fire. Do you have casualties? Over.”

  “That’s affirmative. Do not know at this time how many. We are pinned down and cannot move. Can you get us some support? Over.”

  “Roger, what exactly is your position?”

  “We are approximately one zero zero meters from the treeline. It appears that most of the fire is coming from that location. We need some relief. Over.”

  “Roger, the FAC is calling in a fire mission. We have eight inchers and one seven fives on call. Skipjack, as soon as we get the fire suppressed, I want you to move on that treeline. Do you understand me?”

  “Roger, Sharkfin, I read you.” Jim said, reflecting that he had little choice anyway. If he retreated, the enemy would shoot him in the back. If he stayed where he was, sooner or later a bullet would find him. If he assaulted, he would probably be shot too, but perhaps he could take a few of them with him. Once more into the treeline. Seemed like he had assaulted so many, all of them looking substantially the same. None of them, however, had been this bad.

  He listened as the FAC in the tiny plane circling above called in the fire mission, hoped the artillerymen had the coordinates right, hoped the gunners had laid their pieces in properly, hoped that the 175, which was not really a precision weapon, erred on the side of being farther away rather than being too close. From the fire mission he understood that the first round was going to be willy-peter; white phosphorus, used as a marking round. He heard the FAC say “shot,” repeating the transmission of the faraway artillery battery commander indicating the first round was on the way. He hunkered down, covering his head with his hands, knowing as he did how futile the action was.

  Seconds later he heard the sound of an express train rushing overhead, heard, barely, the FAC saying “splash” as the round impacted fifty yards into the treeline. A great umbrella of white smoke and fiercely burning pieces of phosphorus erupted. None of it penetrated even the first layer of canopy.

  As the FAC called in a fire-for-effect, he inched his way to the nearest group of people to his left, hoping to find Captain Buon. The firing had scarcely slackened with the impact of the artillery round, and now resumed full force. Again and again the rounds plucked at his pack, struck the ground both in front and behind him, missing him almost as if he were in a protective bubble. The constant snap as they passed overhead sounded like the sharp-pitched crackling of pine boughs in a bonfire, a hundred times amplified.

  The first high-explosive rounds hit the treeline at about the same time he reached Captain Buon, who was smiling his gold-toothed smile at the sky. A fly was crawling in his exposed eyeball. Suddenly the ground shook and the high-pitched whine of metal fragments filled the air. He cautiously raised his head and watched as the dirty black explosions obscured the treeline, some hitting in the trees, others impacting just in front. He thanked God this bunch of artillerymen seemed at least to be able to hit the target. To either side the surviving Montagnards were watching this display of power in awe, some even getting onto hands and knees for a better look. He shouted for them to get down, knowing as he did it they could not hear him.

  When the first fire-for-effect ended the enemy fire began again and chopped several of them to pieces. One fell next to him, the reflex action of his legs drumming the ground as nerve synapses fired in mad abandon in the final expenditure of energy.

  The handset crackled. “What’s your situation now, Skipjack?” it asked.

  “Simple enough. God, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, and Mickey Mouse, along with at least half the fucking North Vietnamese Army, is shooting at me. What the fuck do you think my situation is!” he screamed. “Goddamn artillery didn’t do a goddamn bit of good. They are obviously dug in. We need delay, I repeat delay, fuse. Most of the shit didn’t even get through the trees, much less to them.”

  He heard the major direct the FAC to specify delay fuses for the next volley. The command net was jammed with demands for clarification of the situation. Walters ignored them. Soon the sky would be filled with helicopters, as every senior officer in the area came to get their two cents in. The longer the major could hold them off, the more likely it was that he would be able to put himself in for a decoration for controlling the action.

  Jim heard the next rounds crash through the trees on their way to the ground. The first encounter with a tree branch, however small, began the delay mechanism. It generally gave the shells time to bury themselves in the ground before exploding, though some went off scant inches aboveground. The effect was far more efficient than the point-detonating rounds they had used before. Great gouts of earth erupted all along the treeline.

  “Six, this is Skipjack. Much, much better. Give me another twenty minutes of the same, then walk it back from the treeline a couple of hundred yards, over.”

  He received a curt “Roger” and, since the enemy fire had slackened to a few stray rounds cracking overhead, decided to chance a rush along the deadspace. His heart sank. After a quick tour he saw that little more than half the original force was able to function. The Montagnard soldiers he passed, those still alive, grinned almost apologetically at him; sorry they hadn’t done more, but encouraged that he was still well and able to lead them. They trusted in only two things: the Americans who helped them and the Buddha. When ready to assault they took the medallions of Buddha hanging from leather thongs around their necks and clamped them firmly between their teeth, secure in the knowledge that should they die they were assured of being reunited with the godhead.

  Back at his original position he assessed the situation. The artillery was suppressing the enemy but he held no illusions they had been destroyed. The best to be hoped for was that the enemy would pull out. He hoped so. It was a very long hundred meters to the treeline.

  No use delaying. The artillery had started working its way back into the trees. Now or never, he thought. No guts, no glory. Fuck it. Nobody lives forever.

  The psyching wasn’t working. He was seized with lethargy. How easy it would be! Just to lie here and let someone else worry about it. Nobody could blame him. Nobody else would subject themselves or their troops to that killing zone. Major Walters would raise hell, maybe relieve him. But fuck him anyway! Let him come down here and do it, if he wa
nts it done so badly. I’m tired. I’ve had enough. No mortal man should have to go through this. It’s just too much.

  He checked his rifle. Half a magazine left. He ejected it, inserted a fresh one, put the partly depleted one into the side pocket of his pants. Grenades, yes. None broken loose in movement. He felt the blood rushing through his veins, knew he was going to do it. Couldn’t, if asked, have explained why. He just had to, that was all. And perhaps that was good enough.

  He jumped up, shooting into the treeline, running forward and hoping someone was following. In a ragged line they were, the well and the walking wounded, their shot-up comrades providing covering fire. Fleeting thoughts struck him as he ran forward. How easy it was to get through the elephant grass, since most of it had been neatly mowed by bullet scythes. How little noise there was except the blood rushing in his ears. How the specks of fire in front of him looked almost beautiful even though he knew them to be muzzle flashes. How his legs seemed to carry him impossible distances with each stride, and yet how far away the treeline continued to be. How could the Montagnards run faster than he? Yet here they were, surrounding him, firing as they ran, their faces contorted with effort. In front of him went two, grinning back at him when he shouted at them to get out of his way. One stumbled, coughed a great gout of bright red blood. The other took his place.

  And what was this? A tree? It took a moment to realize that he was out of the open. All round him were scenes of carnage, pieces of corpses draped in abandon half in and half out of collapsed bunkers, steam rising from torsos ripped apart by the blasts. And people were still shooting at him. The artillery hadn’t killed them all. Not nearly.

  There! A foxhole he had run completely by. A rifle muzzle was protruding from it, firing at his people. He pulled an M-26 grenade from its keeper, yanked the pin, and let the spoon fly. Training now took over. Let it cook off, count one–one thousand, two–one thousand. Pop it down the hole, take cover. In two seconds, not enough time for a man in the hole to find it and throw it out, it goes off, blowing the camouflage cover off the hole and filling the air with the black smoke of high explosive. Nobody can live through that, but better make sure. Jump up, point the M-16 down at the hole, look into the muzzle of an AK-47 being held by a very much alive, if somewhat explosion-addled NVA soldier. Jesus! Finger locks down on the trigger, twenty rounds of 5.56 into him, rendering a human into a pile of bloody rags.

  Away, break away! Fire coming from a bunker farther up the hill. Shield behind the bole of a tree, machine gun bullets kicking off bark on both sides. Toss a grenade at the bunker. It bounces off and rolls back toward him, explodes just to the front and fills his calf with tiny wire fragments. It is more painful than incapacitating. Another grenade at them, this one thrown with more force. It goes off behind them, temporarily stilling the fire. Two Montagnards assault, one cut in two from another bunker, the other making it to the first, where he very carefully shoots the occupants in the head.

  It becomes a pattern: Toss grenades at the bunkers until close enough to wound or daze the occupants, then assault. When he runs out of grenades he uses those tossed to him by the ’Yards, who know they cannot throw them as far and as accurately as he can.

  The bunkers are tied in with interlocking fields of fire. It is bloody work. He realizes that his assault force is getting smaller and smaller. The bodies of most are scattered down the hill behind them. Still, nobody falters.

  He tosses a grenade, watches in pleasure as it hits behind a hole, then rolls neatly downhill into it. No worry about live ones here; the RPD machinegun that had been firing at them is blown completely out and comes to rest a couple of meters away. Pieces of flesh still cling to it.

  His ears are ringing from the shooting and the explosions, but he begins to realize that the firing has died down to a few reports on the flank. He rushes forward to the last bunker, sees that it is placed just below the crest of the hill. He also sees that the hill he has just assaulted at such cost is only a bump on the finger, rather like a raised knuckle, and that after a small dip another hill rises to at least double the height of the one on which he is standing. He can see people moving around up there, many more.

  He slumps behind a tree, aware for the first time of his exhaustion. The trembling takes over, as he knew it would. The surviving tribesmen watch in silence as he shakes, most of them too tired to care.

  After a moment he roused himself, aware that if he did not do something everybody would stay just as they were, and he very much feared a counterattack. He searched for a leader who was still alive, found the first platoon leader, ordered him in broken Rhade to position his people to defend themselves, then went to search for Lally and the reserve platoon.

  The smell was overpowering as he stumbled back down the hill. An unholy mixture of blood, TNT, shit, and smokeless powder. A sweet smell, full of rottenness. The tiger-striped bodies of his troops and the khaki-clad of their foes lay together in fraternal intimacy. Here and there the Montagnard medics moved, attempting to save whom they could. Smoke and mist hung close to the ground, drifting gently around his ankles. The uncaring trees were already sealing their wounds off with congealing sap.

  Just into the treeline he found Lally and the fourth platoon moving carefully forward. The sergeant’s face blanched when he saw him.

  “Jesus Christ, you’re hit!”

  Jim looked at him as if he were speaking in an unknown tongue, then, as the meaning soaked in, looked down at himself and realized he was covered in blood. Some of it, he knew, was not his. Part of it, especially that which was still leaking through his fatigues, obviously was. He didn’t remember being hit, other than by the grenade fragments. Stretching his mind he could remember being struck with a sledgehammer blow to the leg, but he had dismissed it with the thought that he had run into something.

  Lally insisted that he sit down; tore open his pants leg to expose a nasty-looking hole in his upper thigh. The edges were puffed out and blue. It leaked blood at a slow but steady rate. Obviously didn’t hit an artery, he thought. I’d be dead by now.

  “No time for that now,” he said, grabbing the sergeant by the collar. “Get the platoon forward. The cocksuckers are gonna come back at us and we’ve got at the most fifteen effectives up there. They’ll shove it right up our asses, you don’t get somebody there. I don’t know where the hell Zack is with the others. You’re what we have right now. Now!” he screamed, when Lally looked as if he were going to object. “Go! I can take care of this. I used to be a medic, remember?”

  Lally shouted commands at the platoon and they moved off at a trot. “At least let me help you put a bandage on it,” he asked.

  “We fuck around here much longer and we’re all going to be dead, and I won’t need a bandage. Do us all a favor and get the hell up this hill!” Lally moved off to catch up with the platoon.

  He tore his pants leg further, dreading what he would see on the back side. The bullet had passed through, and none too cleanly. The hole was much larger and more ragged. A large chunk of meat hung down, held to his leg only by the skin. Still, it didn’t appear that anything vital had been hit, and there was still no real pain. He knew the pain would come later. He removed the field dressing from the pouch on his shoulder strap and opened it, placing the main pad on the worst part of the wound and winding the tails around his leg as tightly as he dared without cutting off blood circulation. Debated giving himself an ampoule of morphine, decided that at this point the pain would be preferable to the further addling of his brain. The grenade wounds he decided to ignore. The fragments would not be easy to dig out. He might not survive long enough to worry about that anyway.

  After resting for a moment he became aware of a nagging voice at his shoulder. He grabbed the mike, answered with his callsign, listened for a moment as the voice on the other end shouted in his ear, keyed the mike to shut it off, and waited until he figured the tirade might be over, then released the push-to-talk switch.

  Satisfied, he again ke
yed the mike. “Sharkfin, this is Skipjack. Sitrep. Over.”

  “Send the sitrep, over.”

  He was amused to hear the suppressed anger in the voice. Supposed that his next Officer Efficiency Report was going to look like dogshit. Couldn’t bring himself to worry about it.

  “Have taken the objective. Suffered heavy casualties in first and recon platoons. Approximately one five effectives left. Fourth platoon moving forward to reinforce. Have negative contact with second and third. There are a hell of a lot of people on the hill above the objective and we are at this time getting ready for a counterattack. Over.”

  “Roger, Skipjack. How many KIA, over?”

  He grimaced. The all-important body count! Didn’t matter how many people you lost. But you needed that body count to put up on the general’s briefing charts. Otherwise how could you get your attaboys?

  “Haven’t had time to go around and count toes,” he replied, “but I estimate three to four zero. Listen, we need some more heavy stuff on the hill above the objective. Estimate there is at least one reinforced company, possibly more, up there. We don’t have the people to stand them off. Also need reinforcements, over.”

  “Affirmative on the heavy stuff, negative on the reinforcements at this time. We’ll see what it looks like after the artillery get through, over.”

  “Goddamn it, we were supposed to find and fix them, and if they ain’t found I’ll kiss your ass. I don’t know how much longer the company can hold out. I need the Cav in here, over.”

  There was a silence on the radio, and the answer, when it came, was almost apologetic. “There’s a Cav company in trouble on LZ Monkey and all available are going there. I don’t even know how much arty we can give you, but we are attempting to get air. You’re gonna have to hold out there, Skipjack, until we can get something to you. Out.”