Perfume River Nights

by Michael P. Maurer

  Trip turned his back and picked up his machine gun as though just holding it would save him.

  There was nothing to say. They were going out alone. Singer let the man depart without a question. Nothing he could ask would change things, and the Shake and Bake would know little else about the mission. They were all mostly the same, anyway: walk until you find something bad or it finds you. Someone was always telling them to be ready, but how could you ever prepare for what was coming? He pulled out a letter from his helmet, reading the same words, unable to concentrate.

  Giving up, Singer hoisted on his ruck and waited beside Trip, ready to move out. Neither of them spoke. Singer worried that anything he said might give life to his fears. This place held the promise of death. It offered none of the potential for payback of a line of targets on open ground. Here they were the hunted, despite any illusions they might cling to otherwise. The ache, deep in his bones, was unrelenting. He doubted Trip would leave before things exploded. None of them would make it out.

  Men trailed past, pausing to space themselves, using the easier slope near Singer’s position to start their descent for the day’s patrol. One after another, the jungle swallowed nameless figures, leaving little trace they had ever been there. Singer’s turn was coming.

  He stared, unable to look away even though he knew he should. Men moved by like a procession of convicted men being led toward the chamber where their lives would end. Watching revealed some flaw in him. Still, he had to see. He counted each rifle as it moved past, held by a faceless body hung with ammo and grenades, and he felt his own strength seeping away. How many of them would come back?

  Singer turned toward Trip, who was examining his hand. “Platoon-sized patrols is nuts. Doesn’t the CO know where we are?”

  “He’s casting a wide net to try to find his lost honor.”

  “Slim chance of that. Any idiot could tell him what we’ll find.”

  Fourth platoon was the last to leave, taking a different line. The Cherry Lieutenant, his pale face shining ghost-like in the gloom, moved out behind the point squad, balancing his map in one hand and his M16 in the other, his RTO on his heels. Sergeant Milner followed, looking like an old desk jockey who’d never grown comfortable with the field. The Shake and Bake waited to bring up the rear. Singer felt too weak to stand, knowing he would have to follow them and his life was in their hands. They would be lucky if they didn’t become hopelessly lost. Years later, he imagined, people would still be wondering what happened to the platoon that never came out of the A Shau. Or maybe no one would care. What he wouldn’t give for Sergeant Edwards’s leadership and confidence under fire. But that was all over.

  “This is fucked,” Trip said. “Why can’t the 101st take care of their own AO?”

  None of it made sense to Singer, either. Pulled from their home AO and dropped off alone in strange terrain outside the range of their own support elements. And now, breaking up into platoon-sized patrols. It was feeling more and more like they were bait in some scheme they would never be let in on, and, like bait, they would be sacrificed for some larger prize.

  The New Guy eased over from wherever he’d spent the night, looking fresher than Singer felt, and he hated him for it. Maybe the guy could sleep without nightmares.

  “I’m supposed to stay with you guys in the day,” the New Guy said.

  “Who said that?” Singer asked.

  “That Negro sergeant.”

  “Christ, where are you from?” Singer asked.

  “I thought we were rid of you,” Trip said.

  “He said I was—”

  “Just shut up and follow Singer.”

  “Fucking great,” Singer said.

  There were only a few men waiting when Trip fell in line. “Watch my back.”

  “Got it,” Singer said, bothered that Trip would ask, then laughed at the prospect of asking the New Guy to cover his. At least they were in the rear of the platoon, away from the point as well as Sergeant Milner and the New Lieutenant. Still, he knew when the point hit something he and Trip would be expected to move forward under fire to bring up the gun.

  Singer followed Trip, staying close enough to get to Trip and the gun, closer than he would have otherwise. He turned to be sure the New Guy followed. The New Guy was looking down, fussing with his web gear, and hadn’t started. Even with more than two weeks in the field the guy still hadn’t caught on. He might never. Singer was about to yell when the New Guy lifted his face, showed something near panic, then ran forward clutching awkwardly at his web gear.

  “Not so close,” Singer said.

  The New Guy nodded and held up a second but next time Singer looked back the New Guy was right on top of him, looking like he wanted to walk right next to him if he could. After the third time Singer gave up at getting the New Guy to stay back, but never stopped worrying that the New Guy might get him killed.

  They moved slowly, the point leading them through a maze of trees far older than any of them. The heat built quickly, radiating down through the canopy and up from the earth, cooking like a covered pot. Sweat clung to Singer’s body and soaked his fatigues with nowhere to go in the already saturated air. Fatigue came as quickly as the heat and Singer sagged under his ruck, at times carrying his rifle one-handed at his side. The familiar pain in his shoulders grew, screaming for relief that was months away. He reached up and pulled at a strap, momentarily relieving some of the pressure, and bounced the pack slightly, trying to resettle it in a new position, but it bit back into his shoulders in the same place.

  In the absence of the sun, orientation was nearly impossible without a compass, but Singer thought they were heading mostly west. He wondered if they might have crossed into Laos already or if anyone would know if they had. The jungle took on a monotony of dull greens, deep shadows, and vertical lines that challenged his vigilance already diminished by heat and fatigue. At times he found himself gazing unfocused as though he just woken up, and he wondered how long he’d been walking without thinking or looking. Stay alert, he reminded himself.

  Through the hours he watched Trip’s hesitant steps, each saying seven days and a wake-up, and he felt the weight of responsibility made nearly unbearable by his failure to save the others. If he could save Trip, there might be a small measure of redemption. Trip kept shifting the gun from his arms to his shoulders and back again as though he couldn’t get comfortable with the weight or was anxious to be rid of it. Seven days and a wake-up. He looked back at Singer only once, nodding in the kind of tight-lipped gesture made between men standing on the gallows, resigned to their fate with nothing left to say.

  A few times Singer looked behind him to see the New Guy still there, though slipping farther back, but he didn’t hold up or wave him forward. He couldn’t see the other men of the platoon. Maybe they weren’t even there and Trip, he, and the New Guy were just a three-man patrol.

  They slogged on, at times climbing, but mostly going down as if they were looking for the bottom. Progress was slow, and after four hours they had barely gone two klicks.

  Trip stopped abruptly in mid-step, his head turned looking down at his gun barrel, which was pointed at the ground next to his feet. Singer took a step back. Somewhere in the distance came the short, shrill call of a lizard or a bird. Trip brought his head up in slow motion, following the tangle of vines next to him, then lowered it on the same path. He took a half step back and Singer turned his face. The vines that had snared the barrel of his M60 refused to release it and Trip pulled at them repeatedly, grumbling, “Fucking jungle.” The barrel finally came free after he twisted the gun and pulled again, but still he stood there.

  The movement behind Singer caused him to turn, rifle waist-high. The New Guy was there, just a few feet away, his helmet cockeyed, nearly covering one eye. “We taking a break?”

  “No. Stay back and watch where you step,” Singer said.

  The New Guy looked down at his feet, “When will we stop?”

  “Not ’til tonight.�
��

  “Couldn’t we use a trail?”

  “You want to walk into an ambush?”

  The New Guy wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then glanced at his feet again. “A trail would be easier.”

  “Easier to die.”

  Singer turned back to follow Trip, who had started moving again. One by one they slid down a steep slope into a dry creek bed that held rocks, some boulder-sized, worn smooth by ages of rainy-season flows. Singer worked his way carefully down, planting each foot sideways and grabbing what he could to stop him if his feet slipped. As he sized up his next step, he saw Trip’s feet fly out from under him and Trip slide the length on his back, slamming into a small boulder at the edge of the creekbed with a soft thud. Apparently uninjured by the fall, Trip was up and moving when Singer safely reached the bottom. The New Guy sat down at the top of the slope and inched his way down.

  The footing in the creek bed was good, though uneven. In the wet season the creekbed would have been a nightmare, even now they had to be careful not to wedge a foot in one of the crevices and twist or break an ankle. Singer looked up at the closed canopy. A medical extraction would be difficult.

  The rock-strewn corridor was tunnel-like, an open passage enclosed in gloom. For the first time, though, since starting out that morning, Singer could see men ahead of Trip as the patrol followed the creek bed’s gradual grade down. Stepping from rock to rock, he tested each stone before shifting his weight, careful not to slip or send loose rocks clattering down.

  It was a lot like walking along railroad ties, and Singer thought of when he was twelve and had crossed the long trestle that ran high over Rabbit Creek. Before starting out on the trestle, he’d never realized how long or high it was as it crossed the valley, running nearly parallel to the creek before finally gaining solid ground again on the opposite hill. Partway across, looking down through spaces between ties at the valley floor two hundred feet below, he had been nearly paralyzed by fear. Solid ground was so far away in each direction that going back or forward seemed impossible. He couldn’t recall now why it had been so compelling to cross, only that he had done it, forcing himself to step from one tie to the next looking only at the ties, not the empty spaces and open air that made him dizzy. He heard it coming just as he reached the other side, and he turned and watched the freight train barrel onto the trestle. He watched the cars race pass in a blur, accompanied by the hypnotic clatter of the wheels on the rails. Afterward he sat there for a long time staring back over the trestle, wondering what might have happened if he’d been a little slower. There was no escape that he could see. Every choice was just a matter of the way he would die. When he finally gathered his strength, he walked back home the long way around, avoiding the tracks and the trestle and once home went straight to his room. He never told anyone how he might have died that day. In the creek bed now, balancing from one rock to the next, he could feel the freight train barreling down on him.

  A flat rock offered secure footing, and he looked up from his feet first at Trip, who hugged the big gun with his right arm and had his left arm outstretched trying to keep his balance, and then the men beyond him, and finally up into the canopy, wanting to imagine the sun.

  He snapped his rifle to his shoulder, flipping the safety to full auto in one smooth movement, but held his fire, waiting for a face to appear. His heart drummed in his chest. The structure was about thirty feet up in the limbs of a giant tree at the creek’s edge and offered a commanding view of the creekbed and surrounding terrain that would have allowed the NVA to observe the patrol’s approach for some time already. Despite its large size, it was protected from detection by camouflage that blended nearly perfectly with the vegetation and the tendency of men not to look up. The point element and those who followed, including the Cherry Lieutenant, must have missed it, or they would have stopped and passed the word down the line. They had walked under it unaware, toward whatever it guarded.

  It was only the lines of the long observation and shooting slot, a dark horizontal slash across the jungle canopy, that gave it away for what it was. This structure was bigger than any treehouse Singer had ever seen and would have comfortably accommodated a couple men, but still he wouldn’t have seen if he hadn’t paused and looked up. Had they camouflaged the slot, he might have missed it altogether. The whole box-like shape took form as he brought his rifle to bear on the opening. Still no enemy looked out. Ahead of him, Trip kept moving, tightroping across the sea of rocks, the M60 clutched at his right side, his left arm extended, gripping air.

  It was hard to keep his aim as his whole body shook, knowing what an observation post of this size would mean. This was no small, temporary camp. He was part of a platoon of less than twenty men walking into a large, permanent base the enemy would surely fight to defend.

  It was just a few seconds, but he couldn’t wait any longer for the enemy to show himself. While he waited, the men ahead of him were moving unknowingly toward disaster. He scrambled across the rocks toward Trip, moving quickly, no longer conscious of the weight he carried or the fatigue that just moments before had been so numbing. Even the persistent ache in his bones had disappeared. The storm had arrived.

  “I got to warn the lieutenant,” Singer said, pausing just long enough to point out the structure to Trip.

  “Oh, fuck,” Trip said.

  Singer hurried past men, searching ahead for the radio antenna of the RTO that would indicate the lieutenant’s position. No one said anything, not even Sergeant Milner, as he ran forward. The Cherry Lieutenant was stopped, studying something further on, and Singer touched his arm to get his attention.

  “Sir, there’s a large observation post in the trees behind us,” Singer said, working hard to keep his voice calm.

  “There’re hooches up ahead, take the right.”

  The Cherry Lieutenant immediately returned his attention to the left, which must have been where the point element was moving.

  It was not the time nor Singer’s place to ask if the lieutenant saw the structure and why no word was passed back, or why they hadn’t stopped to consider things. Did he really think it wise to amble into a major enemy base camp with just twenty men? Perhaps all the Cherry Lieutenant could see were the congratulations and awards he might receive for such a discovery. Or maybe he had something to prove that compelled him to try to go it alone with an under-strength platoon. But still, he’d have to survive to tell the story, and from what Singer could see, that was becoming more and more doubtful for any of them.

  Sergeant Edwards never would have taken the platoon into an enemy base camp. He would have called in heavy artillery and jets and only gone forward after the place was leveled. If he were only still here.

  The Cherry Lieutenant didn’t get it. These weren’t some flatland hooches marking the edge of a village that was more likely to be occupied by rice farmers than anyone that posed a threat to them. These were NVA lodgings in the A Shau Valley.

  But going back was not an option anymore. The Cherry Lieutenant had already moved off to the left, apparently following the point toward the hooches they’d spotted, leaving Singer with the orders to “Take the right.” Singer could feel the undertow pulling at him.

  This wasn’t something to do alone, and he didn’t want to get separated from Trip as he had from Rhymes. To his relief he saw Trip had followed him forward, covering his back as he sought to warn the lieutenant. Surprisingly, the New Guy stood just a few feet from Trip, struggling to put his canteen back in his web gear while looking up repeatedly as if checking to see that Trip and Singer were still there. Or maybe he was starting to get it, that a fire-team had to stick together. Either way, it didn’t matter. He was there and they didn’t have to look for him or worry about his whereabouts.

  “There’re hooches, we’re supposed to take the right,” Singer said after waving Trip over.

  “Fuck, I knew it,” Trip said.

  The right bank of the creek was low and gradual. Singer climbed it eas
ily and continued up the slight grade, stepping slowly and as silently as possible, his rifle ready at his hip. The jungle was still, as though every creature was holding its breath. Even the buzzing of insects stopped.

  Singer looked back up the creek, but he couldn’t see the elevated observation post anymore. Still no shot or raised alarm. It had to be a trap, and they were already deep into it.

  Only the three of them had come this way. The point element and the Cherry Lieutenant were somewhere behind them, moving away toward other structures. How the rest of the platoon was deployed Singer wasn’t sure. All he knew was he was with a short-timer and a new guy walking around in an enemy base camp in the A Shau Valley a very long way from any other 82nd company or support elements.

  He edged forward, his heart in his throat, his palms sweating on his rifle. He blinked against the sting of the sweat that ran down his face, trying to clear his vision.

  A few meters beyond the creekbed, Singer pushed carefully through a thin wall of brush and came upon a major trail. He stopped and checked to see that his M16 was on auto. The trail was bare dirt, hard-packed and worn down by years of use so that it was depressed slightly into the earth. Visibility was less than it had been in the creekbed, but he could see down the trail a short way in each direction. It looked empty. To the right it dropped down toward the creek in the direction they’d come, and to the left it ran away from the creekbed, continuing to climb before disappearing over a slight rise.

  He leaned back toward Trip and whispered, “Trail. Make sure the New Guy watches behind us.”

  Trip nodded acknowledgement.

  Singer tensed his grip on his M16, took a deep breath of rancid air, and stepped onto the trail. He edged his way up, going even more slowly now, stopping once to look back to be certain he wasn’t alone, relieved to see Trip right behind him and the New Guy behind him, all of them staying close. He had enough to worry about what was in front of them, but he hoped the New Guy was watching their back trail so some NVA didn’t come up the trail behind them and shoot them in the back before they knew he was there.