Singer froze and stood there, unable to look away. Rhymes ran past him and knelt beside Shooter.
“Medic! Medic!” Rhymes yelled.
Others took up the call in the distance. Singer wondered how far away Doc Odum might be and if there was any chance he’d hear them and come. He watched Rhymes roll Shooter over, his arms flopping, exposing his bloodsoaked chest.
“Jesus,” Singer said. “Is he dead?”
He felt so tired now, as if his own life were seeping into the dirt. The excitement of the game was lost. His legs were weak.
Something slapped his shoulder.
“Let’s go, Singer. Come on.”
Singer looked to see Trip loping by. Ghost sped past, nearly tripping on Shooter’s machine gun, crossing himself repeatedly and mumbling as he ran.
Trip bent beside Rhymes, grabbed two belts of M60 ammo, then picked up the machine gun, leaving his M16, and took off.
“Goddamn it, Singer, come on.”
Even though he started jogging, Singer couldn’t stop looking back at Shooter, his empty face, the bravado gone, and his blood-soaked fatigue jacket.
“Bring him. Let’s go.” Sergeant Edwards said, pausing near Shooter, looking around as if seeking people to help, but everyone else was past and Sergeant Milner didn’t stop.
Singer slowed, thought about going back to help.
Before he could decide, Rhymes slung his M79 and threw Shooter over his shoulder, running in short, choppy steps that reminded Singer of the Vietnamese woman he seen in Hue bearing a yoke, each end slung with a basket piled high with large, spiky green fruit. Even bearing Shooter, Rhymes was nearly keeping up with Sergeant Edwards and Stick at the rear of the platoon.
Singer started sprinting again, trying to catch Bear and the others or to distance himself from Shooter. How could that happen? Shooter was indestructible and yet he saw him. Saw the blood.
After passing through the explosions’ thinning smoke, Singer saw Bear, still in the lead, turn and dive to the roadside, firing even before he hit the ground. Everyone behind him followed suit as if on some hidden cue. With the acrid smell still clinging in his nostrils and the vision of Shooter still in his mind, Singer threw himself to the ground, firing at the trees fifty meters away across open ground and slightly uphill. He’d made it this far and was still alive. They were all lying at the road edge firing now: Bear, Red, Jammer, Sergeant Royce, and the others. Trip had the machine gun working. Only Ghost wasn’t firing, but instead covered his head with one arm as though that might save him. Singer slammed the trigger back in a frantic pulse. The pressure of his hand around his rifle while it recoiled in quick succession still brought a tingle that started in his chest and coursed through his body, but something had started to change.
“Charge the trees! Get up! Get up! Charge the trees!”
He had barely fired twenty rounds when the order came. It was Sergeant Edwards’s voice screaming from behind them, still somewhere back down the road. Singer never turned to look, but took up the call, “Charge the trees,” like many of the others as he jumped to his feet. He saw or sensed the men around him rise and surge forward. It seemed they nearly all stood at once, though he guessed Bear was probably first up and moving. Even Ghost was up and running, perhaps driven more by the rounds impacting around them than by the command to charge. He may have even been firing. Singer could hear him screaming above the gunfire, “Sweet Jesus, save me. Sweet Jesus, save me,” as he ran as though the words offered more protection than his rifle. The throaty bark of the M60 assured him Trip was still okay. Where Rhymes was and what he might have done with Shooter Singer wasn’t sure and hadn’t the luxury to ponder. He could only think of what he had to do to stay alive. Fire and charge. Fire and charge.
The trees loomed, forbidding and inviting; death and salvation. Cover and the waiting enemy. Yet, if he could only make the trees he’d have a chance. The flash of muzzles from amidst the dark foliage made him want to look away. Instead he ran toward them, firing from his hip, sacrificing speed to fire and have some hope.
He looked when he heard a sound like a hurt animal and saw Jammer crumpled in a heap, but he didn’t break stride. Nor did anyone else. Jammer would lie alone. Singer knew they had to make the trees or they’d all die in the open. How could it be so far? He dropped a magazine and pushed another in, cursing himself for his clumsiness, expecting to die at any moment.
“Charge the trees,” he screamed, encouraged by the screams and rifle fire of the others. He raced toward the muzzle blasts, closing on them, more amazed in each step to find himself alive and empowered by it. “Kill these fuckers.” His rifle kicked and his legs ate up ground. He was coming to them. How close the AK fire was to hitting him he didn’t know, as he had no awareness of it as he ran through it. He was aware only of the force of his rifle and the growing strength of his strides and the tremendous power he felt that he’d never felt before. He was beating death. Charging into heavy enemy fire, he was still alive. He’d never been so alive. He could run forever, screaming and firing. He would run right through them. Whatever he was feeling now, he wanted to feel forever. “Kill ’em,” he screamed again, pressing the trigger much harder than was needed.
It would all end in a few more steps at the trees.
9
May 5, 1968
0851 Hours
Vietnam
Before Singer reached the trees, he saw others slightly ahead on both sides of him tumbling into the treeline, diving or falling wounded. He collapsed into the trees and lay there. The elation of the charge bled away. The weight of what was happening and what they were facing dawned on him. They had charged the north half of the ambush, but even in the face of their assault the enemy fire never ebbed. That was when he heard the screams for help that might have been going on all along. He envisioned the people dying all around him. His imagined glory of war was lost. He lay there briefly, not firing, unable to see through his tears.
“Singer, pull yourself together,” Sergeant Royce said.
“Everyone’s dying. My friends—”
“More will die if you don’t get with it.” Sergeant Royce crawled off on his hands and knees the way he’d come, flattening out with each heightened flurry of gunfire, leaving Singer lying in the tree edge alone.
When Singer pulled the trigger, his M16 popped ceaselessly, sending out a stream of bullets, but it brought none of the thrill of just moments before. Singer stopped and wiped the tears, trying to clear his vision. Then he fired again. Around him he could hear the cries of “Medic!” Some were near but others faint and distant, barely discernible within the wail of AK, M16, and machine gun fire and explosions. Even the faintest petitions were raw and painful. It was obvious to Singer that many of them weren’t going to make it.
With a new magazine seated, he fired, spraying rounds to the front. The enemy remained invisible, but AK fire was everywhere. He knew he had to fight, to kill the enemy. Survival was in question. The first side that broke would be overwhelmed by the other. His hand shook as he pried another magazine from his web gear and fed it into his M16. Real fear escaped from some dark recess of his mind and settled over him. His stomach fell, his mouth went dry, and he had to piss. But still he fired at the enemy positions.
In the run back down the road and the charge into the trees, he’d lost track of everyone. An M60 still fired, far to his right. He guessed it was Trip and was heartened by it. He figured Sergeant Royce hadn’t crawled far and might be the closest M16 firing. Otherwise, he was alone.
Empty magazines and shell casings were strewn about beside him. He’d fallen into a trance-like routine of firing and reloading that brought a new determination. Once he stopped to count his remaining full magazines. Though he was in danger of running out of ammo he kept up the pace, it was his fire keeping the enemy off him and holding off the fear that was a budding thickness in his throat. His rifle shuddered with each burst, and he took comfort from it.
AK-47 and enemy mach
ine gun fire pounded his senses, and he wondered if they would ever stop. Waves of concussions rocked him. Even though the enemy was just meters away, he couldn’t see them so he fired at the boom of enemy guns and the rush of heated air that he thought might be muzzle blasts. But still the enemy fire didn’t slacken. The whole jungle vibrated until he feared the trees might collapse and bury them all.
“Medic! Medic! Medic!”
The cries persisted. When one voice went silent, another somewhere else took its place. Someone screamed for ammo. Other yelling, perhaps someone shouting directions, was mostly unintelligible within the noise of the battle. But the pleading shrillness of the calls for a medic stood out.
He was still alive and still firing after what already seemed like hours. The little piece of ground he lay on was starting to feel like his own. A place he might hold. Then Sergeant Milner came.
“Sergeant Royce. Sergeant Royce. There is no fire from our positions on the far left,” Sergeant Milner yelled, speaking too fast, running the words together while struggling to breathe. “Take Singer and one other man and check it out.”
“Singer. Get over here.”
Singer crawled right a few meters. Sergeant Milner was sitting, crouched down, his arms extended, supporting his upper body. His body heaved, his mouth agape. It was his eyes that caused Singer’s breath to catch in his throat, two large headlights in the dark. Sergeant Royce was lying on the ground, his knees pulled in and upper body raised up on one elbow.
“Red. Get over here.” Sergeant Royce yelled.
“Where’s Rhymes?” Singer asked.
“Goddamn it. There’s no time. Shooter’s dead,” Sergeant Royce said.
A white hand and then Red’s shiny face materialized, pushing past leaves. “Sarge?”
“We’re going west.” Sergeant Royce pointed. “Red. Go.” The man took off.
“Singer. Go. Go.”
Singer ran past Red, who had advanced, then crouched and was firing. A few meters past Red, Singer crouched and fired. Sergeant Royce ran up to Red and Red rose and advanced past Singer and went down. Then Sergeant Royce was next to Singer.
“Go. Go.”
So, Singer ran west again. It was something like a maneuver they had practiced at Fort Bragg. Never under anything even close to these conditions, though. He ran along the edge of the jungle, across the ambush, trying not to think of the enemy fire. Only by blocking it out was he able to move.
They bunched together about thirty meters away from it. Singer stopped when he saw the body, and Sergeant Royce and Red came up next to him. Even from here he knew who it was, and trembled at the knowledge that it should be him. Before guilt took seed, Sergeant Royce ordered him forward.
“Singer, cover the front.”
Without hesitation he was up running toward the crater. Enemy gunfire screamed around him and he was sure they were all shooting at him. He ran harder, thinking his speed might save him. The ghostly face waited for him without recognition, eyes as still as the hands. The radio was caught under Stick’s body, its antenna lying along the ground. Maybe Stick had just been too slow.
“Medic! Medic!”
The image cut through him, the details searing into his mind. Stick lay on the right rear edge of the crater with his head downslope back toward the road, as if bullets had bowled him over or the weight of the PRC25 had pulled him backwards despite his forward charge. Or perhaps he had stopped his advance to respond to a call. His left leg hung over the edge, dangling into the crater. His right leg was bent back underneath him as if he had collapsed back on it, so it appeared that he had no leg below the knee. The platoon radio he carried for just less than two hours lay under him, canting his trunk at an angle and making it look like he was trying to roll onto his side. His right arm was sprawled out away from his side, his fingers tight around the radio handset, the cord trailing back under his body. Beside his head his helmet sat upside down, with the picture Stick had once shown him of his parents, his father in an army officer’s uniform, his mother a plump, unsmiling woman in an unbecoming print dress, looking out through the helmet liner’s webbing. Stick’s head was turned to the side, away from the crater. His eyes held a frozen, startled look, as if he’d been surprised. His hair was wet and matted and a thick stream of blood ran across his forehead and down the bridge of his nose, pooling in a dark stain around his head. There was a ghostly pallor to his flesh, more fitting to a wax figure than any human being.
The crumpled form didn’t resemble the man Singer talked with that morning, Stick thanking him for the radio as if it were a gift. Without the radio on his back and the handset in his hand, he might not have even recognized the man as Stick.
It should be him lying there. Yet rather than remorse he felt a thrill of being up and running. The exhilaration of so fortuitously dodging death.
He looked away, past Stick, to the hole, hoping to make it, driving his legs despite their weakness.
Motion caught his attention and he almost fired. Hands flailing the sky. A prone form the other side and to the rear of the crater. Black hands, fingers splayed, wet with blood, fluttering above glistening coils that spewed from the gut. Repeatedly the hands pressed against the protruding cords. Sergeant Edwards attempted to raise his head, perhaps in an effort to get up or to look down at his wounds, then appeared to give up, his head falling back heavily. His mouth moved ceaselessly in what Singer imagined to be a prayer, though he’d never thought Sergeant Edwards to be a praying man.
“Medic! Medic!” Singer yelled.
Close enough, he launched himself at the hole. That was when he saw him down in the crater. In that moment’s glimpse, Rhymes never blinked, but Singer refused to believe what the fixed stare meant.
“Medic!”
The groan that came with the hard impact left Singer without breath. The world rolled, started to spin, stopped, then righted itself. His M16 was caught under him, biting into his ribs. The ground was hard and gravelly. He gasped for a breath and tasted the dirt along with the sour taste of panic.
Christ, they’re all down. This place is a trap.
He tugged his M16 out from under him and checked the muzzle for dirt. When he kicked out to push himself higher his boot touched Rhymes’s and he lay still, their boots touching. He wanted to go to him. To at least turn and look, but he was afraid. He already knew.
Without turning, he could see the image of Rhymes lying on his back against the rear wall of the crater, as if he might have leaned back to rest. His eyes were open, staring off at the sky. His lips were parted, not quite a smile. His teeth were clenched, smeared with blood, and a thin finger of blood trickled from the right corner of his mouth, but didn’t reach his chin. Blood smeared the right shoulder of his fatigues where Singer saw him hoist and carry Shooter, though he must have laid Shooter down somewhere because Shooter’s body wasn’t here. His arms were rigid at his side. He made no move to wipe his mouth. His hands were empty, fingers of his right hand loosely curled. His M79, with the action open, lay just beyond his reach.
“Medic! Medic!”
Doc would know what to do.
Stick being down was devastating enough, but he never anticipated the worst. Now he wished he hadn’t found them.
He rested his face on the front crater wall, the lip of his helmet digging into the dirt. The smell of ground back home. The mosaic texture of the red clay. He wished he could be anywhere else. But what he’d seen coming to the crater wouldn’t leave him.
Bullets cut through the air just above his head and when one hit the crater edge he pulled his head lower and sucked in a breath. Then an explosion took away the air and for a second it was still, until rifle fire filled the world again.
When he ran to the crater he expected Sergeant Royce and Red would quickly follow, crashing in beside him, bringing firepower and company. He needed them. But, minutes later, he was still alone.
He brought this on them. How had he ever thought there was glamor in this? He would die a
lone beside the others. Proving nothing. Winning nothing.
Still keeping contact with Rhymes’s boot, he raised his M16 over his head and fired. Brass rained down until the last round was fired and the chamber locked open.
The running footsteps behind him had to be Sergeant Royce and Red. He waited. This was his first flash of hope since coming to the crater. But first one, then the other went past. He saw Red disappear near where Sergeant Edwards lay.
Christ, they were leaving him alone to hold the crater.
Shortly after the footfalls ended, he heard the tortured whisper, rising out of a moment of slackened fire.
“Kill me. Please kill me. Don’t leave . . .”
An explosion drowned out further words. Though the voice was distorted, as if coming from a great underwater depth, he knew it was Sergeant Edwards. The desperation mingled with his own.
“Goddamn you, Doc, where are you?” Singer yelled.
Sergeant Royce and Red said nothing, nor did either of them fire. They might both be helping Sergeant Edwards, but it made no sense at all when the position was so tenuous. Maybe they were dead.
Maybe everyone was gone. He’d be dead, too, lying beside the crater, if he hadn’t traded places just a couple of hours ago. Likely he still would be.
His hand searched his web gear but all his grenades were gone, already thrown or lost on the run.
Just the grass, thick blades at the crater edge, and beyond a tangled wall of darker greens was all he saw in the few seconds it took to empty the magazine. With the volume of incoming rounds, muzzle flashes should be obvious, but he didn’t see them. He dropped below the lip to reload.
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