Perfume River Nights

by Michael P. Maurer

  No matter, the Bronze Star for valor was there on his chest and would be part of his record. He was officially brave. No longer a boy. But it didn’t really change anything, as he had once thought it might. He was still just eighteen, with months of more A Shaus ahead of him and the prospects of seeing his nineteenth birthday very slim.

  Singer waited for the ceremony to be over, barely listening to the other awards, not caring. The dark pools of shadows at everyone’s feet had grown smaller and some uniforms were marked with expanding lines of sweat. A helicopter came in and then departed quickly, for a moment drowning out the ceremony. A cloud of red dust drifted across the base. Empty-handed, at the front of the formation, Singer felt exposed and defenseless. He had to get his rifle back in his hands and get off this firebase. Maybe that was the point of such ceremonies.

  The general closed things with some generic praise he had probably said a hundred times to a hundred similar formations, then he left with his staff, looking pleased. The formation was dismissed and Singer fled back to the bunker and his rifle. Surviving, he was starting to believe, might be much harder than dying.

  California had his shirt off and was up in his position on the bunker top before Singer could climb under the poncho liner next to his ruck.

  “I thought this place had beaches,” California said.

  “You’re in the wrong service to see any of them.”

  “Fuck, I got to see about a transfer.”

  “I’m sure if you ask they’ll make you a beach guard somewhere.”

  “My talents are wasted in the infantry. Now you, that’s another thing.” California folded over the page on the newspaper. “We made Stars and Stripes.”

  “Who did?”

  “Says right here, C Company, 2/504 of the 82nd Airborne Division, that’s us, right? We killed 219 NVA in a three-week action in the A Shau.” California flipped the page and then flipped back.

  “You see that many bodies?”

  “More fiction.”

  “You’ll be relieved to know our casualties were minimal.”

  “Tell that to the dead guys. Can you scrounge more beer tonight?”

  “Anything is possible.”

  “Except you being a beach guard.”

  California put the paper aside, leaned back on his ruck, and closed his eyes. “Wake me when the tide comes in.”

  * * * * *

  Singer pulled the trigger hard, burning through another magazine. He had to kill them all before they breached the wire. “Fire! Goddamn it, fire!” A flare burst above the base camp, illuminating NVA bodies tangled in the wire, hanging on the coils, and strewn across the ground. A few had breached the gap, but died just inside it. NVA were still trying to climb over the bodies, but slowed by the piles, they were easy targets. He fired into them without pause, making the mounds of dead men grow, grinning at his progress.

  He sat up, blinked to clear his vision and swiped at the sweat that burned his eyes. Everything was quiet, the blackness impenetrable. A hard lump of fear sat in his gut like a bad meal. Was he looking out at the night or looking in? Both were equally dark and scary. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them to the same darkness. Beside him he felt for empty magazines, but there were none. He checked his ammo pouches and bandolier and found them full. A soft glow of moonlight suddenly illuminated naked, intact wire beyond the bunker. Not a single NVA body. He held perfectly still, straining to listen for any movement. The only sound was a slow rhythmic breathing from California’s curled form beside him. Singer closed his eyes against the starkness of the wire reflected in the moonlight and his relief mixed with disappointment. When he opened his eyes, the darkness had returned. He felt the edge of self-hatred that nothing would relieve.

  The dawn brought another morning of dull routine. Singer told California nothing of his dream. Had Rhymes still been there, he might have sought his counsel.

  The company stayed on Firebase Bastogne longer than normal as a flood of replacements came in to restore the unit’s numbers after losses in the A Shau and the May fifth ambush. Even with replacements, the company was barely at half strength, less than one hundred men. New soldiers arrived by convoy with fresh uniforms and unmarred boots and no sense of the unit’s past days or the men who had gone before them. Cherries with young, animated faces, who asked questions about rumors of the company’s bad luck and what things were like in the field.

  Even worse, they were all Legs. Not a paratrooper among them. There weren’t enough jump-qualified soldiers coming in-country, so the army sent what it had. Legs. Fucking Legs. They were no longer a unit of paratroopers. Singer wasn’t sure what they were anymore. Some kind of bastard, misfit unit. They still wore the patch, had the name, but the spirit of the unit was destroyed. The spirit of the airborne, of Rhymes, Doc Odum, Bear, Red, and Trip was lost.

  Things were so bad that the new CO, who came in with the replacements, had the new guys training on weapons and the whole unit practicing fire-and-maneuver in the hills below Bastogne as if they were all in AIT again. This wasn’t Fort Bragg or Fort Sill. This was the fucking Nam. They were supposed to be a fighting unit, not a fucking training outfit. Singer needed to get away from this chickenshit base and back in the field, where they had some hope of killing NVA.

  Singer hated the new guys for all of it. Their clean uniforms, their fresh faces, their Leg status, their stupid questions, the training games, and for not knowing Rhymes, Doc Odum, Bear, Red, Trip and the others and for not caring. Mostly for not knowing or caring. Singer avoided them, sitting alone under his poncho liner. He didn’t want to hang around new guys, some who weren’t really new, but that was how he thought of them. He stopped talking even with California because there were always new guys around. He didn’t want to listen to new guys’ questions or see the light in their eyes, know their names or faces. He didn’t want any more friends.

  Sometimes he thought about her, though he tried not to. Fuck her and fuck her asshole boyfriend. He didn’t care. They could sit around at the drug store drinking their Cokes and spend their nights at the drive-in. Fuck them. What did they know? They could never understand the Nam or how things were different here or how he was different. Fuck them and their boring little lives. None of it mattered.

  He wiped his rifle down, not caring that he’d done it three or four times already today. He’d be ready, even if the unit wasn’t. Everything was different now. He had to look after himself. The second-tour guys were gone. There might have been a few who reached the end of their service time and rotated home, but he couldn’t name one. Maybe Trip had made it. Only Top stayed, the last remnant of the unit that had come from Fort Bragg. Top would stay until the last of them had made it out or the war was over. Sergeant Milner disappeared, which was the only good thing. Singer heard he went to Saigon to work for a supply unit, to be a clerk again. Others thought he went home. Either way, it was good to be rid of him. The Cherry NCO who took his place couldn’t be any worse, though how a staff sergeant had avoided Nam service until now raised questions. No matter, he could take care of himself. And in a pinch, maybe Top would have his back.

  With a click, the round seated in the magazine. Singer wiped down another round, then carefully pushed it into the magazine. He was loading more than just rounds. Each round was a measure of payback. He placed the loaded magazine next to him, them took another from his web gear and started the process over again. When the time came, he’d make it count. Next time there wouldn’t be a Cherry lieutenant around yelling for him to cease fire. No one could stop him. There would be payback. He was the only one left to do it. No one else remembered or cared.

  The night offered solitude, and for that reason alone he’d grown to like it. He sat up on the bunker with his rifle while the others slept and didn’t have to talk with anyone. He waited for the NVA to come, but they came only in his sleep, when the killing was easy and endless. That he could no longer remember who he was before sometimes scared him. Only the killing would keep
Rhymes and the others alive. Yet he knew in some way it also meant the end of him.

  On clear nights he leaned back and looked at the sky, the pinpricks of light so far away, removed from everything, and imagined what it might be like to be up there away from this place, to lose himself in the vastness of the sky. There was no way to get to the stars, just like there was no way back to what he’d been before.

  Only his rifle mattered. And the gunfire that would fill the emptiness.

  23

  June 18-19, 1968

  Vietnam

  The order for Singer to report to the Cherry Lieutenant at the platoon CP came unexpectedly in the evening, delivered by a Cherry he didn’t know. A bad feeling spread from Singer’s gut as he strolled toward the CP. When Singer arrived, he found the New Platoon Sergeant, an older, scrawny guy with a weathered kind of toughness and a big moustache that emphasized the smallness of his face, there as well. As soon as he saw the two of them sitting there exchanging conspiratorial looks he knew something was up and braced himself.

  Singer hadn’t liked the Cherry Lieutenant since he’d stood over him in the A Shau screaming, “Cease fire,” without having any sense of the threat. In the days following, in their repeated assault on the base camp, the Cherry Lieutenant was all but absent and Singer never saw him fire his weapon or affect any kind of leadership. Yet since they made it back he’d taken to telling anyone who would listen, especially the Cherries, that “this killing was more fun than sex.” Bravado bullshit that Singer figured the guy used to cover his fear and incompetence. The guys he’d seen who were good at it, the guys he wanted with him in a firefight, were the quiet ones. The talkers usually hadn’t seen any real action and would cut and run whenever things got hot. Singer wasn’t impressed.

  The New Platoon Sergeant, Sergeant Milner’s replacement, was proving to be little better and equally dangerous in a different kind of way, taking stupid risks, believing he knew what was going on or, like the dead CO, was out to prove something. The guy was a Cherry and a Leg, but he acted like he was some kind of third-tour ranger, strutting around as though he was due admiration and awe. He’d done nothing to earn Singer’s trust or respect. Singer doubted the man ever would. Since arriving in the company, the New Platoon Sergeant was in constant company of the Cherry Lieutenant, the two having formed some weird alliance that seemed to feed their shared illusions. Singer didn’t like the look or feel of things.

  After Singer sat down, it was the Cherry Lieutenant who spoke, but Singer couldn’t help thinking the New Platoon Sergeant was somehow behind it and there were hidden agendas. An ambush loomed somewhere ahead. He could feel it.

  “We’re—” The Cherry Lieutenant caught himself and started over. “I’m going to make you a squad leader. With all your experience in-country, you should be leading a squad.”

  There was something insincere about the way the Cherry Lieutenant said it. Mocking, even. The New Platoon Sergeant sat there grinning and playing with his moustache.

  “I don’t want it, sir,” Singer said.

  “What do you mean you don’t want it?”

  “Didn’t I tell you,” the New Platoon Sergeant said.

  “Be quiet,” the Cherry Lieutenant said, turning quickly back to Singer.

  “I don’t want it. I don’t want to lead a squad.”

  “It’s not about what you want. This is the Army. This is not your choice.”

  “Sir, I respectfully decline any appointment to a leadership position. I am fine just carrying my M16,” Singer said, patting the rifle on his lap.

  “You think your medal gives you some kind of special status?”

  “No, sir, but I believe I’m most effective where I am.”

  “You’re a lone wolf and you’re dangerous. I won’t have that in my platoon. You’ll do what you’re told. You’ll fire when I say to fire and you’ll cease fire when I tell you to. If I want you to lead a squad, you’ll damn well lead a squad.”

  “If I wanted to lead, I would have gone to OCS.”

  “You couldn’t make it in OCS, Singer.”

  “Anyone can make it through OCS, sir. It’s making it here that’s the test.”

  The New Platoon Sergeant leaned in toward the Cherry Lieutenant. “If he doesn’t want a squad, we should send him out alone.”

  “How has an E-7 avoided Nam duty until now?” Singer asked, glaring at the New Platoon Sergeant.

  “You think a few months in Nam and a medal make you something special, don’t you, Singer,” the New Platoon Sergeant said, pulling at his moustache. He turned toward the lieutenant. “Send the fucker out alone and see how he likes that.”

  The Cherry Lieutenant was silent.

  Singer smiled. The New Platoon Sergeant probably thought his moustache made him look tough, but it only made him look ridiculous. There might have been a time when Singer would have been intimidated, but not anymore. He had killed men and had men nearly kill him, countless times. What was there to be afraid of anymore? The platoon sergeant was a Leg and a Cherry. A phony. His rank and age meant nothing to Singer.

  “I’ve killed better men than you,” Singer said, moving his hand to his rifle and smiling again.

  The New Platoon Sergeant laughed, a small, strangled laugh from high in his throat. “You’re crazy.”

  “You have to be crazy to charge an ambush. I’ve been nose to nose with NVA more times than I can count and I’m here and they’re not. So you do what you want,” Singer said, “but I’ll refuse any promotion or any squad leader position. I’ll go out alone before I’ll sit back and send men to their deaths.” Singer stood up. “Are we done, sir?”

  “No, we’re not done. You’ll do what I tell you,” the Cherry Lieutenant said. “Next time I order you to cease fire, you’ll cease, or you’ll be getting a court-martial instead of a medal.”

  “Airborne, sir.” Singer gave a mocking salute then quickly turned and walked out, not waiting for anything else to be said or to be formally released. They were done as far as he was concerned. As he walked away, he heard the New Platoon Sergeant’s voice.

  “We need to get rid of that guy.”

  Singer smiled to himself. Let them try.

  On the way back to his position, he wondered what the repercussions might be. If the guys were here things would be okay, but he reminded himself that with Trip gone now, no one had his back anymore and he had to be careful. Maybe California would back him if he got in a jam, and the Shake and Bake seemed solid, but he doubted either would stand with him if it came to that. Top was still here, though he seemed deflated by the ambush and the A Shau or the changes in the company, or perhaps by both, and less willing to take on the command structure. There wasn’t anyone he could count on for sure. Still, he didn’t regret it. He was tired of the inept leaders and stupid orders. They were the ones who got people needlessly killed. He wanted them to let him do what he was trained to do and leave him alone.

  The issues with the Cherry Lieutenant seem to have roots in the events in the A Shau. For the New Platoon Sergeant as well, even though he wasn’t there. Fuck them. He’d only done what the situations required. Next time he’d do the same. He hadn’t asked for any medal. If they wanted a medal so badly let them get one the way Lieutenant Creely had, posthumously. In the A Shau, the NVA had quickly eliminated Singer’s problems with Lieutenant Creely’s RTO. Maybe they would solve this situation, too. The way things had been going, there was a good chance they would.

  The day after his meeting with the Cherry Lieutenant and the New Platoon Sergeant was quiet, with no mention of the conversation. Singer stayed at his position and didn’t see either of them. No word came down and he wasn’t given a squad. That night with California on watch he lay down on the bunker top, thinking it might all blow over.

  “Singer,” the Shake and Bake whispered.

  Before Singer opened his eyes he closed his hand on his M16. In the blackness he could barely make out the face of the Shake and Bake, who leaned in so close
he could smell his sour breath.

  “Get up. Our squad’s been ordered out on ambush.”

  “Now? All the ambushes went out hours ago.”

  “We move out in five minutes.”

  “That’s crazy. It’s too dark to be moving around in the middle of the night, especially with a bunch of Cherries.” He was sitting up and fully awake. Beside him, he could sense California straining to hear. “Is there any real intel or is this something hatched over late-night beers?”

  “I was just given the location and told to be off the firebase in five minutes.”

  “Do you know the site?”

  “It’s in a new area southeast of here.”

  “Fuck, this is insane. Without a daytime recon we won’t have a clue where to set up. Even if we can find it, trying to set an ambush without knowing terrain is just asking for trouble.”

  “We’ve got our orders.”

  “I can guess whose harebrained idea this was.” He expected they might come after him, but he never thought the whole squad would have to pay.

  “You know the chain of command. Let’s get going.”

  I’ll take the point, then,” Singer said as he stood and strapped on his web gear.

  “No. I want you in the middle.”

  “You can’t put a Cherry on point. I’ve got the most experience. And we need someone dependable on drag.”

  “California can handle drag. In the middle you can keep an eye on the Cherries so they don’t get lost or accidently shoot each other.”