Fields of Fire

by James Webb

  And even, not more than a second or two having passed, being able to observe with a sort of haunted, detached objectivity, his own frantic effort to retreat behind the mounds again, as if the two feet he had to run were a hundred-yard dash, a cross-country mile. And almost laughing at himself when he did not make it, when the tremendous explosion occurred in one leg, as if the inside of the leg itself was self-destructing from its effort to make the stride that it failed to accomplish. Then rolling in the wet grass in front of the mounds, thinking almost humorously that he would die like a duck on a shooting-gallery pond, squirming in front of the ambush only to give them a bit more challenge before they made mincemeat of his body.

  But suddenly feeling the wondrous, welcome muck, the slant of slope, and literally swimming inside it. Bomb crater. Oh, you beautiful mudhole. He crawled inside the crater, lying at the bottom of it, inside a pool of water. The rounds passed fiercely over him, a relentless attack on Rodeo and JoJo, who did not yet fire back. He wondered numbly at his own luck, discounting the fact that he was still outside the cemetery, across an unreachable, two-foot plain of meadow. He looked up the mud slope of the crater and noticed slivers of red along the trail where he had slid down the bank. And in the grass where the mud groove began, lying motionless, was a dead part of Will Goodrich. The boot was blonded by months of misery, scuffs of dirt and wet stream crossings. The calf was mildly athletic, perfectly formed but for angry tears at its top, from the explosion.

  He looked down at his left leg. Most of it was gone.

  37

  They were still digging their fighting holes when the cemetery erupted. They lay down flat behind the traveled dike, thinking they were being hit. They peered tensely at each other, trying to find a target to shoot back at.

  Snake listened attentively. Rounds were high, mostly. Hundred meters out, maybe more. He shouted. “They ain't hitting us! That's Senator's team!”

  Down the dike, Cat Man nodded affirmatively, his ears antennas. “They ain't in the treeline, man! That's the cemetery. It comes from over here, too!”

  Snake screamed again. “They're getting their asses kicked. We better get out there, man!”

  He chided them. He mothered them. He helped them. He scolded them. In moments they were creeping under stray rounds, fierce even at that distance, toward the cemetery. They worked in two teams, using fire and movement to get across the waste of grass into the mounds. Cat Man's team laid down a base of fire, and Cannonball's team rushed into the mounds. Cannonball's team shot into both treelines and Cat Man's team bolted. They crept through the mounds toward the end of the cemetery, under merciless fire now, but protected by the chest-high hills from direct fire. They moved quickly, sucked along as if in a vacuum, aware that this was periphery, that for all the talk of dangling bait, they now were consciously setting the hook on themselves.

  Halfway to the stranded team the cemetery bottle-necked, its thinness reduced to one mound. They groped, staring at the far side. Rodeo and JoJo were visible fifty meters to their front, cowering inside the mounds, occasionally lifting a rifle and firing an unaimed burst.

  Bagger huddled behind a mound, staring at the single grave in front of them. No cover. He screamed to Snake, his voice filtered by rain and rifle fire. “We can't! They know we have to cross that! Let's wait here for the React! We can cover Senator's team from here.”

  Snake stared at the mound. “We can go over the top. One man at a time. Now. Put out rounds!” Cannonball fired blooper rounds steadily into both tree-lines, alternating his shots. They made flat booms in distant, wet earth. Termite and Cat Man put out LAAWs, standing quickly and shoulder-firing them. Snake ran at the mound and took a flying leap, sailing over it, bouncing just on the other side and rolling into the sanctum of more graves. He huddled against a mound and called to the squad.

  “Come on! Let's go!”

  The remainder of the squad stared at each other, waiting to see who would be next. Finally Cannonball shrugged, set up like a halfback, and ran for the mound. He made to leap and slipped in the wet earth, the weight of his blooper bag having caused him to slip. He fell belly-first onto the mound, his powerful legs still churning, moving him only inches at a time.

  The firing increased. Bagger screamed incoherently and rushed for Cannonball, trying to push him over the mound. The blooper bag erupted with tear gas, a bullet having pierced a gas-crystal projectile, exploding it. Bagger took the brunt of the explosion in his face, which was positioned near the blooper bag. Snake had reached for Cannonball from the other side. He also was covered with the crystals. The projectile, which was designed to saturate an area and make it unlivable for six months, covered the whole squad with the powder. Bagger persisted, however, and pulled Cannonball off the mound, back to the starting side. Then he collapsed in the grass, holding his face.

  The squad vomited. It ceased its covering fire. Cannonball groaned inside the mounds, shot through the leg, tear gas scorching the inside of his wound. The men huddled against the mounds as the rounds became more intense, punctuated with B-40 rockets.

  Snake was alone on the other side of the single mound. He vomited twice. He cried blearily, finally clearing his eyes. All parts of his skin burned. The crystals had melted into his clothing and now sought his pores. They raged along his crotch. They filled the inside of his nose and mouth.

  He made his way to the end of the cemetery, crawling along the bottom of the mounds. Rodeo and JoJo were huddled together, terrified. He crawled to them, noticed New Mac's body lying on the foremost mound, and did not see Goodrich. He screamed to the two men.

  “Where's Senator?”

  Rodeo screamed back, pointing to the front. “Out there!”

  “Is he dead?”

  “He's in a crater. He was alive a minute ago. I was talking to him. I think he's hit. I couldn't understand him.”

  “Where's the crater?”

  JoJo elbowed the mound he was against. “On the other side of this, man. I doan’ know how far. Senator was standin’ next to Mac.” Mac lay dead on top of the mound.

  Snake crawled to the mound. Rodeo sensed his intent and sought to change his mind. “React's on the way.” He tapped the radio. “I just talked to 'em. Where's the rest of the squad? What happened?”

  Snake was on top of the mound, snuggled next to Mac's body. From there he could see the far edge of the crater. It was just beyond the mound, no more than three feet away at its near edge.

  “Put out rounds, man. Boo-coo rounds.”

  He climbed off the mound, moved to one side of it, and made a running dive in front of it. Bandoleers sailed, hanging in the air as his body fell. The treelines erupted more fiercely. He bounced once in the grass, just at the edge of the crater, then slid down its mud embankment, bumping into Goodrich. There was a pool of water at the bottom of the crater. The water was chalky brown with mud, and streaked deeply with large amounts of blood.

  Snake examined Goodrich's leg, which Goodrich had managed to tie off with a belt in one of his more lucid moments. Snake pulled the belt tighter, cutting off most of the blood flow, lacking a stick or bayonet with which to make a proper tourniquet. He lay next to Goodrich and slapped him in the face.

  Goodrich turned to Snake, smiling just a bit, coming out of shock again. He had drifted on the fringes of consciousness since tying himself off. Snake turned him around, placing his head at the bottom of the crater, near the pool of water, to lessen the bleeding and bring Goodrich out of shock.

  Goodrich noticed the blood streak and the deep stains in the water. He smiled again to Snake, somewhat drowsily. A B-40 rocket exploded above them. Rodeo and JoJo fired back. “Blood and water mix. It doesn't matter.”

  Snake lit a cigarette, waiting for the React patrol. He huddled next to Goodrich. The cigarette was wet. Another B-40 ripped the earth above them. More small arms rounds to and from the cemetery.

  “Want a smoke, Senator?”

  “No. It's all the same.”

  Snake pu
ffed on his cigarette, almost languidly. “Hold on, Senator. You're gonna be O.K., man. React's almost here.”

  Goodrich shook his head from side to side, his helmet gone, each wave of his head scraping off more mud in his hair like a mop. “No no no it's clear now. Blood and water mix it's all the same like paddies empty without rain and when it rains you think it's always wet but when the rain stops it's gone and you never even know. It's like blood. I know now. They mix.”

  Snake took another drag from his smoke. “You hit anywhere else? How'd that happen? Did you fuck something up, Senator? I'll bet you did.”

  “It doesn't matter.” Goodrich came out of shock briefly, the blood having returned to his head as he lay upside down in the crater. “It isn't far. They could run out here and kill us.” He rolled his head in the mud again. “We're going to die.”

  “Nah. They'd have to cross the paddy twice. React's coming, hear it? They won't do that. Besides. We're the bait, Senator. They want us here.”

  38

  Snake had told Hodges about the listening post, and they had discussed Kersey's attempt to move the squad positions away from the protection of the dike. Now Hodges was sitting against a wet dike in the middle of the paddy. He scraped out the bottom of a C-ration tin of Beef and Potatoes, moodily contemplating the impotence of the tank that had anchored them in such an indefensible perimeter. When the ambush had erupted he listened absently to its distance, wondering if one of the sweep companies to the west had been hit, then decided it was too close for them. Perhaps, he mused numbly, another platoon in the company had a patrol out. Then Warner, now his radioman, had run to him, his arms flailing, the spacious face in a panic.

  “It's the OP, Lieutenant! They've been blown away!”

  Then gathering the platoon, finding that Snake's squad had already bolted to the cemetery (not being surprised, and in fact having expected that), so pushing the remainder of the platoon and some volunteers from company headquarters across the perimeter to the dike where the squad's defensive positions had been. And finally past the hootch, that held the battalion staff, moving toward the cemetery under relentless fire even from that distance.

  As he passed the hootch, receiving an embittering shock, again not surprising or unexpected, but made acrid by the expression on Kersey's face. The staff hugged tightly to the dirt floor of the family hootch, dry under its thatch, and watched the platoon inch past them. And Kersey peered out to him, his face set in tight aloofness, but the message was more than aloofness. I got mine already, the scowl was saying. I already proved I'm a hero and that mess out there is your war.

  Watching Kersey stare at him and remembering Sergeant Gilliland's cynicism and finally understanding it, realizing what he meant when he said that Vietnam had done something to us all, even to the Corps. That there was no great effort for anything anymore, only thousands, no, millions, of isolated, individual wars. That it broke down even here. If They Die It's Not My Problem. They're Yours.

  They pressed hurriedly across open grass like moths toward a roaring flame, losing two new dudes whose names he did not remember at the edge of the mounds. The rest of Snake's squad lay paralyzed by the tear gas, littered like live carcasses inside the mounds.

  He looked at them. Cannonball was in agony. Rabbit tended to him. Bagger appeared blind. He bled out of one eye, rubbed the other, then both, absently, as if the pressure on them would be enough to bring back sight.

  Hodges had people throw smoke grenades on both sides of the single mound that had caused the bottleneck, creating a screen. Then he rushed the React through in groups of three and four, anxious to be away from the lingering tear gas. He left one fire team and his new corps-man with the casualties. The others reached the end of the cemetery and Hodges set the platoon in along the mounds in a half-circle.

  Rodeo called to Hodges: “Snake and Senator are out there!”

  Hodges crept to Rodeo. “Are they alive?” “Yes, sir. I think. There's a crater out there.” Hodges called to Snake: “Snake. Are you all right?” A voice filtered through the rain. “Senator's all fucked up.”

  “Do you need help?” “Wait a minute.”

  SNAKE slapped Goodrich again. “Senator. Wake up, man. Come on. Listen to me. Can you lay on top of me? Can you get on your hands and knees?”

  Goodrich rolled his head in the mud, half-conscious. “I wish I knew I wish I knew. It doesn't matter. All the same. Blood and water mix. I'm going to die. It makes sense.”

  Snake grabbed Goodrich by one arm and rolled him over on top of him, then tested the weight. No sweat. He called to Hodges. “Lieutenant! I'm coming round the mound on your left! When I yell at you, have somebody catch Senator! I got him on my back!”

  There was a pause. Finally Hodges called back. “All right. We're ready.”

  The platoon put out a steady rate of covering fire. Snake dug his boots into the mud of the crater, tested the weight again, and rushed up the side. Goodrich was large, heavier. He draped Snake's form.

  “Here I come!”

  Snake crawled the mud bank, stepping over Goodrich's former leg, pallid in the weeds. The treeline erupted with concentrated fire. A machine gun had a bead. Mathis, from Pierson's squad, stepped out from the mound to receive Goodrich and was shot. He crumpled.

  Snake felt Goodrich being pulled forward at the shoulder as a round worked its way through his upper chest. Goodrich's body tugged at him. He tripped. Goodrich fell next to a mound. Snake moved to his elbows in a low crawl and was ripped by half-dozen machine-gun bullets. They split his middle parts, killing him.

  Hodges stared in horror. Cat Man grabbed Goodrich, who still breathed shallowly, and pulled him behind the mound. Snake lay dead, touching Mathis. That close. He stared into wet grass with bored eyes, his face expressionless. Hodges examined the face, and noted the holes that filled the weather-beaten flak jacket, and for the first time his own death seemed logical.

  The treeline saturated them with fire. It poured in from three sides, immobilizing their retreat. Behind them, the company perimeter was now being hit also. Two more casualties from Pierson's squad. Only one thing to do, decided Hodges.

  He called to Sadler. “Sarge! Put 'em all low, inside the mounds. Make sure everybody has some kind of cover.”

  He called an artillery mission. Too close for even “Danger Close.” He explained it to the forward observer, and called the mission on himself. The treeline was thirty yards away on both sides, perhaps fifty to the front. Finally the guns were up. The radio hissed. “Stand by for a Willie Peter. Shot Out.”

  He heard the puff, could not see it from behind the mounds. He lifted his head quickly to view it. It was not to his front. Where the fuck—

  He saw it to the left, two hundred meters off, a breath of white cloud beyond the trees. At the same time his face erupted, driving him to the grass. Sadler ran over to him, his eyes unbelieving.

  “Lieutenant! I never—”

  “Right two hundred, Sarge. Fire for effect. Tell 'em.” He could feel himself mumbling. No motion from jaw.

  “You doan’ understand!” Sadler yelled. “Doc!”

  “Right two hundred, Sarge. Hurry up.” The radio handset was calling him, five feet away.

  “You got a golden ass, Lieutenant.” Sadler was in awe.

  “I feel like I got a broken jaw. Like somebody hit me with a baseball bat. Sarge.” He gestured weakly to the radio. “Hurry. Right two hundred.”

  “You doan’ understand, sir. You been shot right through your face!” Sadler grasped the handset and adjusted.

  AN eternity of eruptions, rain on face like washing, spitting blood that gathered like saliva in his mouth. Visions racing past, screaming to each other. Sadler calling more artillery. It screamed like quick, violent rockets, dug the earth around him. Numbly, lying almost pleasant after two hits of morphine, he felt a jag of metal rip into his side like a hot knife slicing butter, cleanly through. Felt his new leak and attempted to call but morphine made him lazy and his ja
w was shattered and his words rolled limply down his chin with the ooze of blood. More racing figures, even taut words of encouragement and he tried to talk but couldn't and no one could see the low deep wound that stole his blood and drained him.

  A last faint vision, seeing helicopter settle toward mounds, almost feeling the rotorwash inside his numbness. But a sudden rush of fire that he did not comprehend and the helicopter settled abruptly next to the mounds, failing him in the moment he had earned the privilege of escaping on it. He did not see its crewmen rushing from it to join the already trapped.

  Finally another helicopter. They came to load him on it and after one step noticed the limpness, the nerveless muscles of a dead man. They loaded him nonetheless, next to all the others, the Emergencies who could now escape from hell. He lay drained of life on the floor of the helicopter next to Bagger and Goodrich. Goodrich himself seemed almost dead, legless and shoulder-shot, pallid from loss of blood. Cannonball was just down from him, with three others.

  Cat Man and a new dude who never knew him dropped him on the bird, finally accepting that he was indeed dead, and sprinted down the rear door, back into the cemetery. The helicopter escaped. Rounds sought it as it lifted off.

  Cat Man was crying. His face held the confused pain of an abandoned child. He knelt in the wet grass, enemy bullets passing over his head toward the helicopter. A B-40 rocket impacted just behind him. He ignored it.

  The new dude grabbed him by the back of his flak jacket and tried to push him toward the cemetery mounds, where the remnant of the platoon fought on under Sadler's guidance. The new dude screamed, terrified.

  “Cat Man! For Christ sake, man. Do you want to die?”

  Cat Man shuddered in the wet grass, holding his face, then bolted toward the mounds.

  “No.”