Perfume River Nights

by Michael P. Maurer

  “Thanks, Top.”

  After talking with Top, Singer laid low and kept quiet, waiting for what would come. He watched his back more carefully and avoided the Cherry Lieutenant and New Platoon Sergeant. But California was less cautious, openly threatening to solve the problem, especially after a few beers, when he didn’t seem to care who heard him. Whether Top intervened or the New Captain reined in the Cherry Lieutenant or the Cherry Lieutenant heard loose talk and realized the danger, an uneasy truce developed.

  In the days following the ambush, the Cherry Lieutenant, as well as the New Platoon Sergeant, gave Singer a wide berth. Singer was given only the usual assignments, with any orders always coming through the Shake and Bake. There was no more direct contact with Singer or talk of giving him a squad. There were no more last-minute, late-night ambushes or split-squad positions. When listening posts were assigned, they went to other squads. If anything, Singer and even the squad seemed to be catching a break. Someone or something had warned off the Cherry Lieutenant. Still, Singer felt the underlying tension and a sense that a fuse was burning.

  Weeks passed without a run-in, but Singer didn’t expect it to stay quiet forever. He remained on his guard.

  * * * * *

  Rivulets of sweat rolled down Singer’s face and bare arms, and his soaked fatigues clung to his flesh. He squinted against the brightness, happy to be free of the jungle, even if only for a day. The company was patrolling southeast of the firebase across rolling grassland, with a scorching sun suspended in a cloudless sky. They were following a weak trail that drifted from one hilltop to the next, but in the open grassland, even on a trail, the danger of being ambushed was small. The openness diffused the dread and the tension Singer carried. Grasslands offered distance and a reaction time different from jungle trails, where when trouble came it was on top of you before you ever knew it was there. From his position on a high mound near the rear of their formation, he could see the men of the company snaked out ahead of him, a rare perspective the jungle never offered. He lingered for a moment, enjoying the prominence of his position and the oven-like breeze that caused the grass to sway. He turned his face upward to the sun and studied it as though seeing it for the first time. Or maybe the last and was trying to hold an image of it. Below him the line of men, laden with rucks and weapons, meandered toward the horizon, disappearing in swales and reappearing on the next hilltop looking smaller and more obscure, until it became impossible to make out the next man in the line.

  On the plateau, a hundred meters below his position, he watched a man stop and study the ground before backing up a careful step and going around. The man turned and looked at the man behind him and pointed at the ground. If words were passed, Singer couldn’t tell. Then the next man did the same, sidestepping the spot, hesitating, turning as he pointed, and saying something as the first man may have done. Likely every man since the point man had done the same, but Singer had been gazing at the most distant figures and then the sun. Now the scene captivated him, though he’d seen and done the same thing countless times before, carefully moving past all nature of booby traps, making sure the man who followed had it marked. The next man approaching it was obviously the platoon leader, marked by a trailing RTO just two steps behind with a handset to his ear, an antenna waving invitingly with each step. First platoon, Singer guessed, though he didn’t know the men. The lieutenant stopped, his gaze held to the ground. The RTO extended the handset toward the lieutenant, but the lieutenant was already bending over, stretching a hand out toward the earth. Then they both disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dirt. Within the roar, Singer was sure he heard the bodies absorbing the explosion, an instant of muffled sound before the noise spread out from the hill across their ranks, each of them rocked by it, taking it in, impacted in some immeasurable way.

  The explosion put Singer on the ground with contact-reflex to which only the newest Cherries were immune. Quickly he had his head up, peering through the grass, his rifle ready. The smoky residue of the explosion was already drifting off, dissipating in the breeze. Men were shouting and a medic, with his first-aid pack, sprinted back toward the spot where the two men had stood. From his angle above them, Singer could see the two twisted forms where they’d been tossed by the force of the blast. Neither moved or showed any signs of life. Had he not known they were men, he might not have guessed. Ten meters back another man sat, helmet off, clutching his left arm in front of him and staring at a bloody, mangled hand. Ahead of the blast, maybe six meters, a man sprawled facedown, arms spread, hands empty, his right leg pushing back and forth in a slow, repetitive movement as if with the one leg the man was trying to crawl away. Only the leg moved. The medic ran past to the two forms nearest the blast, spending only a moment before moving back to the sprawled man with the active leg, where one man already worked to remove the man’s shattered ruck while another examined the unmoving leg. Someone came forward and knelt beside the man with the mangled hand.

  As this went on, crouched men ran along the line, organizing a defense. Singer looked out over the grassy slopes to his left and right, watching the grass swirl, stirred by the breeze or an army crawling in it. He imagined men rising from the earth, assaulting their line, and he welcomed the prospect rather than feared it. He ached to fire. Four men were down, two certainly dead, and maybe the third man would die. He didn’t know them, but still he wanted a chance. But it was only the breeze that stirred the grass. No attack came. Singer’s M16 was silent, as were all their guns. There were no NVA. No one to absorb their anger. Just the explosion and four casualties.

  When no attack followed the explosion, the tension flagged, leaving a residue of unspent anger. Men rose slowly and stood restlessly, waiting.

  California edged up closer to Singer. “Want one?”

  Singer looked at the cigarette and shook his head, then turned back to the scene below him.

  “Too bad,” California said, watching as the bodies were rolled into ponchos.

  “Shit, he tried to pick up the fucking booby trap.” The scene replayed through Singer’s mind. “What the hell could he have been thinking?”

  “I mean too bad it wasn’t a different lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, too bad,” Singer said.

  “Some days there’s just no luck.” California blew out a long stream of smoke. “His time is coming, I can feel it.”

  A helicopter came in from the west unchallenged and the bodies of the lieutenant and RTO were loaded next to the unconscious form of the man whose leg no longer moved. The fourth man walked to the chopper clutching his heavily bandaged hand to his chest and climbed on board with the help of others. Remnants of rucks and weapons were quickly loaded, and the men hurriedly backed away. The chopper engine revved and the bird lifted off, wind buffeting men and flattening the grass, before gaining altitude and swinging back west. Singer watched the bird climb and speed away, its rotors slapping air in a haunting rhythm. The sound caused a tingle through his body, as it did each time he heard it. Desire and dread. He turned away, thankful that it had been others again and not him, though he would never express that gratitude out loud. The sound of the rotors faded and was replaced with a silence heavy with frustration and despair. Singer opened the chamber of his rifle, checked the round, then reseated the bolt and fingered the grenades that hung from his belt and web gear. Before the bird was even out of sight, a distant dot in an otherwise unmarked sky, the company started off again, continuing on as though nothing had happened. The grass stirred in the breeze as before and the sun still shone, but the day was different in some indiscernible way than only moments before. Maybe they all were.

  Singer followed the trail down through a swale and up again past the shallow crater and the matted grass still wet with blood. After wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he squeezed his rifle and squinted against the harsh brightness of the day, glancing left and then right at green slopes and adjacent hills that looked deceptively innocent. He wasn’t fooled.

&nbs
p; Five days later, without having found any NVA, helicopters picked them up from the grasslands not far from where the booby trap killed the lieutenant and RTO and dumped them out in a jungle clearing on a nameless mountain between Hue and Laos. Their insertion was unopposed. After leaving the LZ, they slipped into the jungle to begin more days of struggling up mountains in jungle dimness, searching for the NVA.

  The column stopped moving, which had been the pattern during the steep, late-afternoon climb.

  “Jesus, not again,” Singer said.

  A few meters above him, California stood silently, his mouth hanging open, sweat running down his face. California either hadn’t heard him or was too tired to comment. Before, California would have always had a smart remark, but in the last month he’d grown more quiet, sullen, really. Maybe it was just a reaction to Singer’s own brooding. In the weeks since the A Shau, he’d been increasingly less interested in talking to California or anyone else. What was the point? He said what was needed to do the job. That was enough.

  He was tired. Shit, they were all exhausted the way they’d been pushing, moving all day with full gear. If there was any point in it, no one was letting him in on it. Sometimes Singer wished they could just dig in and wait and let the NVA come to them instead of the relentless patrolling, climbing, and struggles against the jungle vegetation. If he never saw another mountain again, he’d be happy. When he got out of here, he’d spend his days in the desert, where the sun was always shining and most of the vegetation was little higher than a person’s knees. Sometimes these days he imagined he might make it. He already made it longer than he expected and outlived so many others, many better soldiers than himself. Another month and he would be halfway through his tour. Four more months and he would be nineteen. Four more months. An eternity when a few minutes under fire could be a lifetime to survive. Still, some days, the quiet ones, he allowed himself to think he just might live long enough to be nineteen. Nineteen. He felt so much older than that already.

  With some effort balancing on the slope he turned to face left, bracing his feet to keep from slipping back onto the man below him, and leaned forward, shifting the weight of his ruck onto his back and giving his sore shoulders a rest. He didn’t look at the man who he knew was below him, one of the Cherries who had survived the last month but still remained a faceless, nameless body beside him. He didn’t need to know him to fight next to him. He knew how the Cherry reacted under fire. That was enough. Sooner rather than later, one or the other of them would be gone, either killed or wounded. More nameless Cherries in clean fatigues with oiled rifles and fresh, youthful faces would step off helicopters to replace them and start their own death lottery. What was the point?

  Singer pulled the operating rod back and looked just to be sure he had a live round chambered, though he’d checked it last time they stopped not ten minutes ago. He reached back and lifted the bottom of his ruck to gain a moment of relief. The ache in his shoulders was spreading to his back. His whole body hurt, and he thought about being able to drop this weight and lie down or at least sit for a while. Maybe he could get some aspirin or Darvon from Doc when they finally dug in. A beer would be better, but here there was no hope of that. The company had been moving since dawn with full rucks, much of it uphill, the last hour the most brutal as they seemed to be going straight up as they headed for what promised to be their night camp. The canopy was thinner now on the steep slope and from the amount of diffused light, Singer guessed they had another hour of daylight left. He took a drink of warm water, swishing it in his mouth before swallowing, leaving his mouth moist but his thirst unsatisfied. A week of patrolling in full gear and they’d done nothing but wear themselves out. It had been a couple of weeks since they’d killed any NVA, and Singer was starting to wonder when he’d get a chance again.

  He still dreamt of easy, limitless killing, when he would kill enough NVA to fill the hole left by the deaths of Rhymes and the others and quiet the relentless rage that ate at him. An endless line of NVA moving along a trail who would make no effort to fight or hide as he dropped their comrades beside them. It was the only hope for comfort. But any killing had come with costs, adding to his rage. The emptiness only grew, as did his self-loathing. Sometimes he saw himself sinking down into a dark underworld of evil. He felt powerless to stop it.

  It was his job to make them pay. He was the only one left, the only one who remembered. He wondered if Rhymes, Doc Odum, Bear, or Trip had felt the same way during their first tours and if that had made it any easier coming back. If they had, they’d never spoke of it or given any indication. They’d seemed more motivated by survival than revenge. But who of them would admit to such things? It was difficult enough to acknowledge it even to himself.

  Singer wiped his palm along his brow, trying to clear the sweat away from his eyes. But he only managed to irritate his eyes more. He bounced his ruck once more, shifting the weight without relief. His fatigues, wet with sweat, were plastered to his back. With the company stopped and strung out on the slope, he stood waiting with no promise of moving again. This far back in the column it was impossible to know what was causing the repeated holdups. It could be signs of the enemy that had the point moving cautiously or it might just be difficult stretches in the climb.

  He looked upslope but was unable to determine how much farther it was to the top. Beyond California, the slope was a dark tangle of rocks and trees, formless shapes merging into blackness. Somewhere ahead of California were the Cherry Lieutenant and the New Platoon Sergeant. He wasn’t sure where and didn’t care, just as long as they stayed away from him. But he was happier when they were in front of him. He didn’t trust their leadership and he sure didn’t trust them behind him. It was hard to always have to watch his back while still worrying about what was up ahead.

  A month later, he was still pissed about the late-night ambush, which he was sure the Cherry Lieutenant had ordered with the New Platoon Sergeant’s urgings.

  So much had changed from the early days, when he was surrounded by guys from Bragg on their second tours and confidently led by Sergeant Edwards, who would never needlessly endanger any of them. His only worry then had been the enemy, whom he really didn’t understand. Few, if any of them, did. He had been innocent and naïve then, younger and less angry.

  Now he was angry all the time. Angry at the deaths, the stupidity of it all, and at incompetent leaders who saw their men as pawns toward obtaining body counts and their next promotion. Angry at the things he’d done and at the knowledge that he would do more. How different might it be for the NVA? They were probably angry and frustrated, too. Sometimes it seemed like none of it mattered. They fought and died over a piece of ground only to abandon it the next day. Hadn’t they just walked away from the A Shau? It made no difference which of them died. What did either’s death gain? The war would go on regardless. There would always be politicians and generals to manage the wars and young men to fight them. Maybe they were all just pawns.

  Christ, he was making himself crazy. He had to stop chewing on things. He switched his foot position, shifting his weight, and leaning to put the weight of his ruck on one shoulder. If they didn’t start moving and get to the top soon, he was going to sit down right here. He had to sit down and get this fucking ruck off his back. He glanced upward and again tried to see where the slope might end, but the top was no more visible than it was before. God, he was tired. The days of patrolling, struggling against the terrain and vegetation that impeded every step, the need to be always alert, the nights of sleep deprivation, and the constant tension were taking a toll. Tomorrow would bring more of the same. And the day after that, and the day after that. Tired men made mistakes. Singer checked the chamber of his rifle again.

  Finally, they were climbing again. Dusk was gaining on them, and they would be rushed to dig in and put out defenses once they reached the top. Singer carefully placed his foot, then pushed or pulled himself up another meter with agonizing effort, sometimes freeing a hand f
rom his rifle to grab a tree to assist him. It was a brutal climb at the end of the day that sucked away the soldiers’ last bit of strength and challenged a person’s will to go on. In just a few steps, Singer was struggling for each breath again. It was as if the whole jungle was sucking away the air, threatening to suffocate him.

  How much farther could it be? Above him, California slipped, thrust a leg back to stop his slide, and teetered there motionless, his final direction uncertain.

  “Keep moving. It’s just a few more meters to the top,” a resonant voice with a command presence called from the shadows beyond California.

  California dug the toes of his boots in and crawled forward, using one hand for balance before finally gaining his feet. As Singer moved up, struggling through the same stretch, he saw the man beside the trail with his RTO a few steps behind him. The New Captain was a mystery though he had been leading the company for a few weeks, showing up in the wake of the company’s fight in the A Shau and Lieutenant Creely’s death. No rumors swirled around him as they did with Lieutenant Creely, but then, he wasn’t dating the general’s daughter. A 173rd Airborne Brigade combat patch, which reminded Singer of Rhymes, was the only clue to his past. The New Captain was old, maybe twenty-eight; an old man in an army of nineteen-year-olds. Despite his age and the difficult climb, the man showed no signs of weariness. While his fatigue shirt was blotched with sweat, he stood unbent on pillar-like legs and his breath was even and unhurried. He had the build of a power linebacker and Singer could imagine him a football star in his college years. The New Captain watched the line of men crawl their way up the mountain, gazing down the slope repeatedly as if waiting to be certain the last man would make it. When Singer came up alongside the New Captain he expected the man might say something, but the New Captain watched Singer pass, unsmiling and wordless. If the New Captain recognized Singer from his run-in with the Cherry Lieutenant or the award ceremony after the A Shau, he gave no sign. Singer was both relieved and disappointed.