Baptism

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  “The CID office is by the docks, way inside the perimeter.”

  “Who says that he didn’t go downtown?”

  “Where did they find his body?” Woods was very curious. Arnason listened to the conversation. He sensed Woods knew something about Masters that he wasn’t sharing with the officer.

  The lieutenant started walking away from the bunker but paused long enough to answer Woods’s question. “He was found on the beach with his throat cut. Sharks had eaten half of his body. They think a whore might have done it.” The lieutenant left the bunker.

  “But, sir!” Woods started after him.

  “Let him go.” Arnason caught Woods by his shoulder. “He would rather look at dead VC.”

  Sinclair sat with his back against the wall and dozed off in an exhausted sleep, jerking awake whenever he heard someone approaching. Trung had fallen asleep in his lap.

  “Soldier?”

  The voice woke Sinclair, and he struggled to get on his feet.

  “Soldier, relax.” It was the nurse who had told him to wait in the reception area. “He’s doing fine.” She smiled. “Just fine.”

  “Oh, man!” Sinclair felt the tears well up in his eyes and blinked hard to keep them there.

  “He’s going to have to stay in a hospital for a couple of weeks. We’ll transfer him to the ARVN hospital as soon as he can be moved.”

  “No!” Sinclair set his jaw. “You can’t do that!”

  “He’s Vietnamese. He has to go there.”

  “No, he’s not! He’s my… he’s my son!” Sinclair blurted out the words.

  The nurse looked at the small girl he was holding. “And I suppose she’s your daughter too?”

  “Yes. Yes, she is….”

  The nurse looked at Sinclair and almost started laughing; she could see the soldier wasn’t older than nineteen, maybe twenty at the oldest. “You started having a family awfully young, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I was over here with my family. My dad is a colonel, and he was with a MAAG mission.”

  “I’d say you must’ve been ten… maybe eleven years old?” She couldn’t help grinning at the attempt.

  “Yeah. Us Orientals mature early.” Sinclair realized he was making a fool out of himself.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. The boy is going to need some good therapy when he comes out of post-op. It might be good if he saw his sister.”

  “Thanks!”

  “And seeing that they are Americans, he can stay in our hospital, but only until we check his birth certificate.”

  Sinclair’s face dropped.

  “That should take a month or so.” She smiled. “And I’ll tell you what, young man: I’ve got a big room in the BOQ nurses quarters, and the girl can stay with me until the boy is ready to get discharged. How’s that?”

  “Oh, ma’am, thanks! You really are a lifesaver! I’ve got to get back to my unit or—”

  “I figured that much out on my own.” She wrote down her name and address on a card and handed it to Sinclair. “Here’s where to contact me.”

  “I owe you a lot.”

  “You could write down your name and unit so I can find you, and you could tell me a little about your kids… like their names?”

  Sinclair laughed and briefed the nurse on what was really going on. She listened intently, and when he had finished, she spoke again. “I liked your original story better. You being their father. Once you leave here, no one will know how young you are, and they won’t dare ship the kids out knowing that they’re Americans. Being Eurasians makes it even easier to believe….”

  “Believe me, this is the first time in their lives that being a Eurasian has been something good.”

  SIX

  The A Shau Reconnaissance

  She was in constant pain and had been ever since she had mated with the smaller male the month before. He’d had a very difficult time mounting her because of the injury to her hip that had been caused by the bomb blast two years earlier. The male had been persistent and had bred frequently with her during her first season. She had mauled him so badly during their lovemaking that he had died a week later, and she had fed off his carcass for three days before she left their love nest and followed the sounds of the explosions for her next meals.

  Lieutenant Reed sat in front of the large briefing map with Fitzpatrick and Arnason and watched the captain’s wooden pointer tap the battle map almost where the South Vietnam border touched Laos and North Vietnam.

  “The 5th Special Forces Group has an A-team working out of the A Shau… here.” He went up close to the map, located the camp, and then stepped back and tapped the overlay. “In Thua Thien province. The A-camp’s mission is border surveillance and the interdiction of NVA infiltration routes into South Vietnam from the Ho Chi Minh Trail that the NVA are building along the borders of Laos and Cambodia… here.” The recon company commander tapped the map along the suspected route for the trail.

  Fitzpatrick glanced over at Arnason; they both knew that if the North Vietnamese Army was building a main infiltration route to the south, it would be guarded by a large force of regulars.

  The captain was looking at Fitzpatrick when the sergeant returned his attention back to the map. He had read the NCO’s mind. “Your mission will not concern the trail across the border. That is directly…”

  Arnason thought, Here comes the hook.

  “You’re going to be inserting seismic intrusion devices.”

  “What?” Fitzpatrick scowled.

  The captain walked over to a field table that had been set up near the map and lifted up a device that looked like a land mine with a bamboo shoot attached to the top of it. “This is a new piece of equipment that has been designed to monitor enemy movement through ground vibrations.”

  Arnason became very interested and leaned forward in his seat.

  “Your mission is going to be to bury these devices along selected trails in the mountains to the west of the A Shau Special Forces Camp.” The captain looked up at the group of recon leaders. “Come over here so that you can see.” He used the sensor to wave them over to the table. “These devices go in the ground up to here….” He showed with his fingers about an inch of dirt on top of the round device. “You have to make sure the camouflaged antenna isn’t covered up so that a signal can be sent back to this black box.” He patted the receiver, which looked like it was the base of a PRC-25 radio.

  The captain tilted the box so that the team leaders could see the digital display. “Each one of the sensors has been coded to send a signal that will register a number here on the dial. It’s important that the sensors are implanted in the right order and that good direction has been recorded; for example, let’s use these three sensors. I’ve lined them up east and west. Let’s say the trail is running in that direction. I place this sensor to the west and twenty meters away, this one and, twenty more meters away, the last one.” He looked up to see if the men were paying attention, then continued. “Let’s say the NVA are moving down the trail from the west headed east. The first sensor will send back its signal number, which is twenty-four. The number twenty-four will appear on the receiver, and then the number forty-four, which is the center sensor. So that’s how we know what direction they’re moving in. The last sensor will report its number last, of course… fifty-four.”

  “What happens if number fifty-four never comes on?” Fitzpatrick didn’t trust devices; he was a recon man from way back and believed that only people could report accurate information.

  “One of two things: the device isn’t functioning properly; or the NVA took a break and stopped before they reached the last device. These devices have been tested and they work. If we can get them in the ground around the Special Forces camp, a lot of friendly lives are going to be saved, and the camp will have an early warning system.”

  “If the Green Berets are so damn good, why don’t they bury these things themselves?” Fitzpatrick was trying to be sarcastic, but it was a good question.


  “Because they don’t want the Strikers or the Vietnamese Special Forces to know about the seismic detectors… not right now. They think they have an NVA informer in their camp and they’re trying to uncover him.”

  “Great! Fucking great! A VC spy in the A-camp and they know we’re coming, right?” Fitzpatrick didn’t like that idea at all.

  “They think we’re just training with the Special Forces. Each one of our recon teams will have one of the Special Forces men attached from the team as an instructor, but actually they’ll act as guides to show us where they want these things.” The captain looked hard at Fitzpatrick before continuing. “This mission is very important for the Cav! I want all of you to gather as much information as you can about that place. There’re rumors that the 1st Brigade is going to be sent there soon, and these devices can end up saving some of our asses!”

  Arnason spoke seriously. “I’ve heard that the A Shau is a real tough place to patrol; steep mountains and valleys that are so overgrown with bamboo and vines that you can spend hours hacking your way a couple of meters. Is that true?”

  “Yes, and add to that the heavy fog… every morning and every night.” The captain shook his head and looked back at the map. “The A Shau Valley runs basically north and south, and the winds go west to east mostly. The valley holds in the moisture and fog. The mountainsides are almost constantly wet, and the air is hot during the day and freezing at night. Things grow so damn fast there that you had better not fall asleep on the ground!” He tried making a joke, but it never left the floor.

  “What is the team breakdown?” Arnason was wondering how many of their recon teams were being used for the mission.

  “Two heavy teams of five men each.” The captain went over to the chalkboard and wrote out the names

  FITZPATRICK REED

  JAMES ARNASON

  FILLMORE BARNETT

  KIRKPATRICK WOODS

  BROWN SINCLAIR

  “Plus you’ll be assigned one of the Special Forces sergeants when you fly into the camp.” The captain was waiting for Arnason’s reaction to the assignment. Lieutenant Reed was detailed to go along to set up the receiver system and to command the joint teams. Arnason had never been second-in-command of a recon team, and the captain was expecting to receive some flack from him. “Any questions?”

  Arnason remained sitting quietly in his seat. Lieutenant Reed avoided looking over in his direction. He was the one who recommended that he lead Arnason’s team instead of Fitzpatrick’s. The captain had originally assigned him to the senior NCO’s team so that Fitzpatrick could keep an eye on the junior lieutenant, but Reed had requested the change; he knew that Arnason had the better team.

  “No question?” The captain was thankful that Arnason hadn’t made a scene. “Have your teams ready to load up tomorrow morning at 0630 for their flight to Da Nang and then to A Shau.” The captain left the team leaders and went back to his office. Arnason went over and picked up the sensor; he hefted it in one hand to judge its weight and was satisfied that they could easily carry it.

  “I think this was a great idea.” Reed held up the antenna. “It looks exactly like a new bamboo shoot.” He waited until Fitzpatrick left before continuing. “I hope you’re not mad over my taking over your team for this mission, Sergeant.”

  Arnason looked the officer directly in the eyes and held his stare for a good minute before answering. “My men are soldiers and will obey orders. Just don’t get them killed, Lieutenant.” Arnason left the officer standing in front of the table alone.

  Barnett didn’t hold his feeling back. He didn’t like the idea of a new lieutenant taking over the team, and the only thing that kept him from telling the lieutenant what he thought was that Sergeant Arnason was still going along on the mission as second-in-command of the team and third in the chain for the mission.

  The two teams waited on the helipad while the captain and the lieutenant talked in private near the command bunker and tactical operations center. Woods watched and wondered what they were talking about that was taking so long. The sun was beginning to warm up as it climbed over the buildings. The captain poked the young ROTC lieutenant in the chest with his finger, and Woods could see that the older officer was lecturing him. Woods shook his head and tapped Barnett, getting him to observe the pair of officers.

  “Fuck this shit!” Barnett grabbed his backpack and started walking over to their assigned CH-47 for the ride to Da Nang where they were going to load up some supplies for the A-camp and go in with it. Barnett’s pack was heavy with the additional weight of the seismic detector.

  “Let’s load up!” Arnason was getting impatient. The captain had been talking to the lieutenant for almost an hour. None of them knew that the brigade commander had called the recon leader into his office late the night before and had briefed him on the message he had received almost two weeks earlier concerning James’s activities at the Recondo School in Nha Trang. The captain had been very angry that it had taken so long to get to him, and now James was on a very important mission and the captain was trying to instruct his lieutenant on what he wanted done.

  “Do you understand, Lieutenant Reed?” The captain’s voice bordered on panicking. “I don’t want either of the NCOs to know about what we suspect James is doing on patrol in the field! It’s too late to switch you over to Fitzpatrick’s team without causing a lot of suspicion, but I want you to watch James as much as you can, and if we lose anybody to enemy fire, I want you to investigate the kind of weapon that killed them.” The captain patted Reed’s shoulder like a football coach would do to one of his players in whom he had little confidence but was being forced to rely on. “When you get back, I’ll confront James and we’ll take it from there.”

  “Here he comes!” Woods was glad that they could get under way. The hardest part of running recon was the flight to the infiltration site. This mission would be easy in that respect because they were going to fly directly into a Special Forces A-camp and sneak out during the night. That was a hell of a lot better than going into a hot LZ.

  Reed dropped his backpack down next to Barnett’s seat and waved to the crew chief of the large twin-rotor helicopter that they were ready to leave. The machine shook and started lifting off the pad. Barnett pushed his pack across the aisle and took a seat away from the lieutenant. He made no bones about how he felt and wasn’t about to give the officer any slack until the man had proven himself worthy of Arnason’s command.

  The Chinooks cruised at about a hundred and forty kilometers an hour and made excellent time to Da Nang. The Special Forces C-team supply people loaded up ammunition and hand flares, along with three live cows and a dozen crates of live chickens and ducks. Woods grinned and didn’t complain after he saw the load Fitzpatrick’s chopper got: a dozen large pigs that stunk up the whole chopper because they needed to fly with the rear tailgate up.

  Barnett had joined the side door gunner on the flight out to the A Shau and leaned out of the window to watch the terrain below them. He could see where Marines and ARVN forces had carved fire-support bases out of the jungle. The hilltops they occupied were brown and red clay that contrasted with the dark green jungle surrounding them. As they neared the Laotian border, Air Force B-52 arc-light missions had left the jungle scarred for stretches that were over two miles long and a half mile wide. The arc-light missions were terrifying to troops on the ground. The two-thousand-pound bombs would shake the ground as far away from the bombing site as five thousand meters.

  The lead Chinook made a large circle around the small A-camp, and once it had located the helipad and saw the friendly smoke, it dropped down through the low-hanging clouds and made a good landing. Barnett went over to the other side of the chopper and checked to see if the ground fog was as thick over there as it was on the other side and saw that the whole valley seemed coated in the heavy gray cloud. It was almost noon, and the fog was still there. Barnett didn’t like it; the drifting fog gave an ominous signal to the alert recon ma
n.

  A group of men left the protection of the lean-to that acted as a supply tent and kitchen for the two hundred commandos living in the enclosure. Barnett noticed that the Americans were wearing wet-weather gear and the commandos who were helping unload the animals were wearing indigenous ponchos that were designed for their smaller stature. It wasn’t raining, but everything was damp and mildewed.

  Arnason unloaded his team and took them over to a CONEX bunker the Special Forces NCO had pointed out to him before he joined the other SF men unloading the choppers. Arnason noticed that even the team officers helped in the task.

  She lay on the large wet rock that jutted out from the side of the mountain and licked her paws. The loud noise of the Chinooks had made her nervous, but she enjoyed the slight warmth coming from the rock and growled a warning to the machines to keep their distance. She watched the helicopters land in the valley below, and a faint odor of good-smelling meat reached her on the strong breeze after a few minutes. The cows smelled almost like the deer she used to eat, and the pigs were a very familiar smell. She licked her nose and then yawned. She wasn’t hungry; the night before she had found plenty of food after the bright little flashes had appeared in the jungle outside of the human enclosure.

  Barnett looked up at the mountainside and shuddered. He knew that a great danger was waiting out there, and he couldn’t identify it, which made it even worse.

  Woods saw the look on his teammate’s face and looked at the spot at which Barnett was staring; neither of them could see the large female tiger on the ledge. “Something wrong, Spence?” Woods squinted his eyes and still couldn’t see the perfectly camouflaged animal.

  Barnett kept looking at the spot on the mountainside. “Naw, just a little nervous, is all.” He reached down and picked up his pack.

  Arnason smelled the heavy air. He didn’t like the place, either. He had heard a lot of stories about the A Shau Valley and now he believed them. The valley had been the Vietcong’s and the property of the Viet Minh, who had fought against the French. The extremely bad weather made it almost impossible to hold the valley against a ground force. Artillery worked poorly, and support aircraft could only fly in less than four days out of the month, and that was during the dry season!