by Gil Hogg
I managed to survive our first day in action, which included exchanging fire with the Viet Cong, because I was preoccupied with my role. I had to get my platoon forward in company with those platoons on either side, through a defoliated forest. I had to manage the search through two villages, where thankfully we found nobody alive. We, with the rest of the Regiment, theoretically ‘cleared’ an area of about two miles by three miles before other troops dug in on our line, and we were scuttling through the dust to get aboard the Hueys and back to camp. There was no satisfaction amongst the soldiers in the Huey that a good job had been done; rather there was cynicism that anything useful had been done at all, and a sense of relief that we had all come through it, whole.
This was the first of many advances and patrols which went on for two tours of duty over two years. I endured them, like most of the other soldiers, silently questioning the wisdom behind them but resigning the judgment to those above me. I was scared whenever we were in combat, not so much for my life, as for the integrity of my body; dying wasn’t going to be difficult, but living in a wheelchair was. None of this weakness, which equally affected my comrades in arms, subverted our determination to fight when called upon. I fought with desperation and so did my men.
I didn’t watch over my men as closely as I should have; of the men in the three different platoons I commanded over the period, one died in a booby-trapped village hut, three in firefights, and a fourth committed suicide. When I saw Pfc Cotton, twenty-two years old, sitting on the muddy floor of the jungle with his lunch ration around him, uneaten, staring into space, I should have realised that he was ill, but my reaction was to kick him into action; and he ended his own life that night with his M16.
I was able to see Gail occasionally when she flew north with an ANC inspection team, and when I was on leave in Saigon or when I could hitch a ride down there. Our relationship was stretched out very thinly in these meetings, and in correspondence, but it was a lifeline for us both. When I say lifeline, I mean it helped me having this woman whose agony about whether I was going to get through my duty and finish whole was as acute as mine. It was in a sense selfish, but her need to have a decent home-town boy while she bloodied her hands in the operating theatre was also selfish. Did I love her? I really never had an opportunity up to this time to get to know her well enough, but I did love everything I knew about her. We were dependent on each other.
6
West Quang Tri Province, June. Dawn. I was seated on my pack, my back resting against a sapling. My poncho was around my neck and enclosing me like a tent. I was unsure whether I had slept at all. A vapour like rotting fish wafted up inside the poncho. I suppressed a painful sense of absurdity. The members of my patrol were around me, wraiths in the foliage. I levered myself stiffly to my feet.
“How long do you reckon, sir?” Sergeant Lucas moaned.
Lucas was asking for the benefit of the men near him. Nothing was as warming as the anticipation of re-entering our lines.
“Four hours, maybe six,” I said.
“Make that ten. Or fifteen,” Trask said.
I wiped the palm of my hand over my bristling chin and met his impudent eyes. “We’ll make it soon enough.”
Moore stood over the PRC 77 scrambler. “Waterlogged. Dead.”
“If it’s dead, bury it,” I said.
“Yeah, we’ll have a funeral, ‘Rest in peace communication with the outside world… ’” Schuyler said.
“Shut it,” Lucas replied. And to Moore, he said, “You’ll be thirty pounds lighter. Take these M70 rounds.”
“Hey, Sergeant… ”
We eventually started moving, stumbling through slime, fending off the embrace of entwined branches, breathing the hot breath of the rainforest, watching patterns in the trees, straining to hear, massaging the steel of our rifles.
The dawn darkened. Bulging clouds disgorged a torrent. The rain beat on the leaves, an orchestrated roar obliterating other sounds. We groped and choked and splashed forward.
The rain stopped suddenly. In the new silence, above the tapping of the dripping leaves and the sluicing of water at our feet, another noise: the distant moan of an aircraft.
“Light plane. Spotter,” Sergeant Lucas said.
“Whassa time?” somebody asked.
“Seven,” Lucas said. “Time for chow, sir?”
“Sure,” I said, looking up through the branches at a grey rag of sky. I checked my watch. My white wrist looked vulnerable, like the whiteness of the throats of my troops; we were soft white bugs in shells.
Lucas posted sentries. We slid out of our packs, squatting amongst the vines and fallen trunks, retreating into the rain-dark of our flak jackets and ponchos. Dirty, tense faces slackened as we eased our patrol harnesses, draped with grenades and spare magazines, and settled our M16s near us.
“Beef?” Lucas said, squinting at a packet of C-rations.
“My ass. Dog meat,” Schuyler said.
“Keep quiet,” I said.
I listened, turning away from them to concentrate. The trees were beginning to thin out; but the infinitely shaded green of the supple trunks around us was still the ever-enfolding bars of a cage. “Hear anything, Sergeant?”
“Nah. I smell bacon and eggs.” Lucas was a first generation Greek-American, a man with a lust for food. His full lips curled as he juggled packets of rations.
“Now, your VC is reclining in his black pyjamas eating boiled rice,” Trask said.
The men shared out the packets, bantering feebly. I searched their faces unsuccessfully for signs of resolution which would infuse strength into me. I moved away, flakes of biscuit pricking my dry tongue. I gulped warm water from my bottle. Was that gunfire? An aircraft? We had to move. We were blundering forward. I could imagine the phantoms encircling us, almost see the black snouts prying toward us through the undergrowth.
Around my boots was a pool of water; it reflected a creased face with stained eye sockets. The man who had volunteered to look into this puddle in this place at this moment. I could be stretching between dry sheets, hearing the milkman rattle the bottles at the gate, flicking on the bedside radio for the news. US fighter-bombers made ten strikes yesterday at railway yards and ammunition storage areas near Hanoi… Units supporting the US 21st Infantry Division reported no casualties after a light engagement… A patrol on routine reconnaissance duty in the western provinces is overdue and reported missing, bringing the month’s total of troops killed or missing to…
“My wife’s birthday today,” Moore said, and frowned. “Or was it yesterday?”
“What day is it?” Schuyler asked.
“What does it matter?” Trask said, fingering a small snapshot of the birthday wife in a plastic envelope which Moore had handed around.
“You guys been told Charlie will use the crap in your pockets. You shouldn’t have it. Put it away,” Lucas said.
“Moore’s an optimist. He thinks Charlie won’t get us,” Trask said.
The words snapped me back to the shrunken limits of our world: the jungle. Existence before, and existence after, increasingly unbelievable.
“Can we verify our exact position, sir?” Lucas asked.
I pretended I was still listening to the sounds around us. The theory of map reading was easy but the practice wasn’t. When you march day and night across a hilly trackless wilderness, where every stream and every hill and every paddy look the same, where rain and mists reduce visibility and your radio fails, you lose your reference points. “I’m going to plot our exact position in a moment,” I said calmly.
My bowels wrenched. I sweated and clenched my fists. At any moment a feather of smoke could come from the vines.
“I’ll tell you where we are,” Trask said. “We’re fuckin’ well up shit creek without a paddle!”
“Not so much mouth, soldier,” Lucas said.
I wiped the mud from my hands on my jacket and unrolled an oilcloth mapcase. The map, a veiny yellow cadaver, I spread on the ground b
etween my knees. I placed my compass on the map and orientated it; blurring spots of water dripped on to the surface.
“Are we here to prove we can survive like swamp birds?” Shuyler asked.
“Can it!” Lucas said.
“We’ve gathered useful info,” I said, keeping my eyes on the map, not wanting to see the rightly incredulous looks on the faces of my men.
“Can you pinpoint where we are, sir?” Lucas pressed.
I observed Lucas as I considered my reply; the pale, oily face under the vizor of his helmet, matted black hair sticking to his forehead, insubordinate eyes weighing the competence of his leader.
“Sure, Sergeant.”
The lie itself was easy; a level, faintly irritated voice to rebuke a noncom who should know better. I tapped the map definitively.
The official orders were so damn simple. Reconnoiter and report on enemy units, and possible observation posts to enable field artillery fire to be directed… Return and report. By the time Command HQ had considered our report with all the others, and with aerial photos, what we said would be submerged, confused. Our mistakes wouldn’t even be verifiable.
“We proceed here,” I said, tracing a river artery south and east. I moved the map so the route was unclear to the watchers. I brought firmness to hollow faces. My leadership, at least at that moment was immutable, a metal albatross locked around my neck. If I failed, we’d all perish. “By tonight you’ll be on your bunks having a smoke.”
“Oh yeah? Cleaning shithouses… ”
“Yeah, any time.”
I confidently circled a proposed observation post on the map and pointed to a hill in front of us. “I’m going up to take a look. About an hour. I’ll take Moore with me.”
Moore ditched grenades, M70 rounds, a Claymore mine, entrenching tool, and one plastic canteen. He settled his M16 at the ready in the crook of his arm. I swung my machete while I waited. Sergeant Lucas moved closer to me, shutting the others out.
“We could get our asses shot off here,” he said.
“Get on with it, Sergeant.”
“What happens if you’re not back in an hour?”
I narrowed my eyes in exasperation. “Call a cab and put it on my expenses.”
Moore and I climbed using animal tracks, bending double to get through dense branches. I dodged across the slope seeing easy paths and avoided hacking a noisy trail. The growth began to thin. I moved faster, stopping every few moments to listen. I heard only my pounding arteries and the tack-tack of water dripping on leaves.
We came into a pearly light. A hawk was poised far above us on a stream of air.
I found a knoll and climbed a lone tree which gave me a limited vision across the hills. With my field glasses focused I couldn’t find any feature that I could relate to the map. I slid down to the ground. “We’re on the right track. It’s cool,” I said.
We rejoined the patrol within the hour, and in another hour I had led them over a ridge to a view of a disused plantation. I couldn’t place the plantation on my map, but I said I could. I was desperate. I was insanely leading my patrol into the jaws of the enemy! We picked our way goat-like down slippery open slopes, our movement hopefully obscured by clouds of mist and rain. About three hundred feet above the plantation the ground began to fall more gently, and we entered thick trees tangled with vines and undergrowth. We rested.
“That’s a hell of a way we’ve come,” Lucas said.
“There’s no fuckin’ going back,” Trask said.
“We’ll get closer to the plantation and decide whether we go through or around,” I said.
The patrol, with me leading and Lucas at the rear, felt its way downward like a caterpillar seeking the way of least resistance, nerves taut. A lightness overhead, the surprise finger of the sun on my forehead, drew my attention from the descent. Above the head-high bush, I could see two thatched sheds surrounded by a bamboo fence.
I scanned the huts with field glasses. “Deserted.”
“There’s somebody there,” Schuyler said.
Steam quivering in the heat rose from the foliage blurring our vision.
I swung the glasses across the scene again. “Yes, there is somebody.”
“Oh shit,” Trask said.
A soldier in camouflage kit was standing motionless at the edge of the thicket.
“A guard,” I said.
“Trouble,” Lucas said.
“We’ll watch for a while,” I said.
Lucas gave me a reproachful look. We were pinned to the foot of the hillside we had descended. The paralysing question was whether we should flee back up the slope, and possibly be seen.
7
Decide. Go forward. Go around. Do the impossible, go back. A few moments for me to make a decision which would save or kill us. It had to be an arbitrary decision; it was too late for reasons and plans.
“We’ll go around.”
“Why don’t we charge with fixed bayonets?” Schuyler asked.
I turned round to the petrified faces. “We’ll go down and round. We can be past in an hour. Another two, and we’re behind our lines.”
It was the absurd over-simplification which the men all wanted to hear and it served to rouse them. We crept for twenty minutes on all fours. The huts came into view more clearly beyond the trees. We gathered to watch.
“Wait,” Sergeant Lucas whispered.
A figure was crossing the yard, walking close to the fence, which was as tall as his head. I pressed my eyes to the field glasses. The furry image of the man jigged up and down. “Steam on the bloody lenses!” I wiped them with my forefinger.
“Let me look, sir,” Lucas said, taking the glasses from me.
Lucas fingered the adjustment. “Jesus and Mary!”
I reached for the glasses. Lucas held on.
“That’s not Charlie. It’s one of ours, by God! Wait. He’s talking to the sentry, helmet off, wiping his face. Fair skin and hair. I can see it.”
I was able to see enough when I had the glasses back to convince myself it was true. A feeling of silent joy overcame and relaxed us all. We really smiled for the first time that day.
“It’s no use trying to attract their attention from here. They’ll only start shooting. We need to get within earshot so that they can hear us unmistakably,” I said.
A half an hour later the patrol had worked itself into a position on level ground, fifty yards from the huts, which were clearly visible through a thin patch of saplings. I had been speaking in whispers for days. Could my dry throat produce a full voice? I stood up, my men on the ground behind. Light glittered in the leafy void around me. I cupped my hands around my mouth.
Before I could shout, a blast of automatic rifle fire sprayed the trees. I had a sensation of whirling fragments of branches and chips of wood. I flung myself to the ground, breathing the reeking leaves.
I put my head up. “You fucking assholes!” I shouted.
Silence.
“Suppose we were wrong?” Trask said.
“Screw this,” Lucas said, up on his knees. “Hey, US Army patrol here you asswipes!” The words came out in a roar from Lucas’ corded throat.
The rifle squirted again.
“Damn fools!” he shouted.
We heard a laugh.
“Come out with your hands up,” a loud American voice said calmly.
“Do as they say,” I said.
We got to our feet and moved silently through the thinning bushes to a clearing in front of the fence, our arms sagging down like broken wings. Through a gap in the fence we faced a trio of armed GIs. The air was bright and unbreathably hot.
“Well, Bob McDade and his posse.” Jim Blake sauntered toward me and put an arm round my shoulders. “Great to see you, buddy.”
Blake’s men were amused.
“Bloody swine!” Lucas declared.
“You look like shit-scared Boy Scouts, lost on a Sunday ramble,” Blake said. “Go in the hut and take a break.”
I
followed Blake to the hut where his men who weren’t on lookout rested in the shadows. We stood outside under the wide eaves.
“We’ve had a bit of luck,” Blake said. “Rounded up a bunch of VC and sympathisers. How about you guys?”
“We’re heading back. Overdue, but it’s been worth it.” I tried to sound confident.
“Show,” Blake said, pointing at a map which he unrolled.
I slipped my own map out of my pack and spread it out on the ground. My mind stalled. I had nothing to contribute. Blake pointed to the markings on my map and looked into my eyes, shaking his head negatively. We were both conscious that our men were within earshot.
“Yes, I’m sure… ” I began trying to think of an excuse for being lost.
“This is where we are.” Blake pointed to another quarter of the map. “We’ll go together, OK, Bob?”
I was grateful for Blake’s gentle, uncritical tone. “Sure,” I said. At least I wasn’t going to be revealed as incompetent in front of my men.
Blake had always maintained a certain distance in camp as befitted his pedigree and seniority, but he wasn’t shy about his special connection with me. There had been occasional brief threesomes with Gail for a meal when she visited our various camps. She wrote frequently to each of us telling me about her brother, and her brother about me. But my view of Blake started to diverge from Gail’s portrait from the first night that we met in the mess at Hoi An. Blake had a nickname more applicable to a general than a captain, ‘Iron Jim’, won from his men for an unyielding attitude to hardship and adversity. He had begun to stand out as a man who had a voracious appetite for war.
“When do you plan to move?” I asked him.