O’Keefe started counting down from ten. At eight the exploding mortar shells shook the ground beneath him, off to the right but much closer now. At five O’Keefe started to push his way up the edge of the hole, still holding the handset. At three he stuck his head out over the top. At one the white phosphorous round impacted, right on time. It was about fifty yards short of the treeline and some seventy to eighty yards to the left of where O’Keefe had seen muzzle flashes from VC small arms. An instant after it landed he ducked back into the hole to protect his night vision, and his head.
He spat words into the handset as fast as he could without being misunderstood. “Azimuth seventy-five right, elevation plus fifty. Fire for effect! Over!” He could no longer hear the launching mortars over the cacophony of small arms fire, but he knew that the third salvo was on its way or soon would be.
Holland’s voice again spoke from the handset, repeating “Splash! Over.” O’Keefe held his helmet tightly to his head as he counted down the seconds. At two he peered up over the edge of the fighting hole and watched as the first rounds impacted directly in the midst of the treeline, just to the left of where the VC were dug in. In the garish light of the explosions great gouts of earth, splinters of trees, and parts of whatever or whoever happened to be in there were hurled into the air where each of the hundred and five millimeter rounds exploded.
O’Keefe yelled back to Holland, “You’re right on top of ’em. Walk ’em to the right and they’re all toast. Over.” Seconds later he watched as the explosions did exactly that, marching down the treeline to the right and destroying everything in their path.
Baker, forgetting himself, slapped O’Keefe on the back. “Good shootin’ Lieutenant,” he yelled in O’Keefe’s face; his own damp countenance lit preternaturally by the flashes of the explosions. Then into the night and the rain he screamed, “Get some, Arty. Get some!”
The mortars were silenced, as was the small arms fire. His own men fired sporadically but that too slowly tailed off as the sarge calmed them down. Holland’s howitzers were still firing at O’Keefe’s behest, now walking back down to the left through the tree line; destroying, hopefully, anything they might have missed with their first salvos. O’Keefe handed the handset back to Baker.
“Where’s the sarge? You know?” he yelled over the booming detonations.
“He was over by Handjob’s hole last I saw him. But that was before the gooners lit us up. He could be anywhere now.” Baker shrugged in the darkness.
“Okay,” O’Keefe nearly screamed, “I’m gonna go find him. You stay put and tell Big Joe to keep layin’ it on ’em.”
He scrambled over the edge of the fighting hole and half ran, half crawled toward the spot where he remembered Handjob to be dug in. Flashes of shellfire gave him a glimpse of the hole through the rain. He dropped to his belly at the edge of the Marine’s excavation. “Handjob,” he spat into the darkness, “you seen the sarge?”
Gunnery Sergeant Robert G. Wilson, his voice as deep and hard as quarried stone, answered for the private. “Here, sir. You better get down here too, with all the shit kicking up out there.” Before O’Keefe could respond he felt the strong hands of the sergeant grab his flak jacket through his poncho and pull him head first into the hole. He struggled to right himself until Wilson got him by the chest and pushed him upright against the muddy wall. “It’s a lot safer down here, sir,” Wilson said in a patronizing tone that clearly demonstrated the old fighter’s concern for his lieutenant. O’Keefe felt a wave of fraternal affection for the gruff, older man pour into his psyche. He leaned toward him, and with his arm wrapped around the sergeant’s helmet, pulled his head close to his own.
“Everybody okay?” O’Keefe asked, his mouth next to the man’s ear.
“Yes, sir, as far as I know,” was Wilson’s reply, “but nobody’s seen the LP. They should’ve been back by now. And by the way sir, good job with the arty.”
“Thanks, Gunney,” O’Keefe mumbled, probably unheard because of the thunderous barrage still raking the treeline, but his mind was suddenly too preoccupied with the LP’s absence to engage in any conversation. Thor and Teejay most definitely should have been back inside the perimeter by now. There had been plenty of time even if they had been forced to crawl back. Could they be lost? That wasn’t likely. Thor always knew where he was. Even in this rain, with shellfire coming down, it was impossible for O’Keefe to believe that the Kentucky farm boy, who had taken to the bush like a native, could not find his way back to the platoon. Something was wrong.
“They’re not done yet,” O’Keefe suddenly blurted out into the darkness. “They’re gonna hit us again. There’s sappers out there right now, creeping up on us. Probably with a whole battalion of VC right behind ‘em, lying in the weeds, just waiting for the signal. All we got with the arty was their mortars and some support personnel. I’d betcha anything. That’s why the LP is layin’ chilly. They’re probably stuck right in the middle of ‘em. Damn! Make sure everybody’s ready, Sarge. I gotta get back to the radio.”
“You got it, sir,” the sergeant answered as O’Keefe climbed back up into the night. His boots tugged at his feet, sticking in the mud as he ran hard for his own hole. When he reached it he careened into it over his radioman and landed with a squishy thud beside him.
“I don’t think Charlie’s done for the night, Romy,” O’Keefe shouted. Romy, short for Romeo, was Baker’s platoon name, bestowed on him by his mates for his penchant of regaling them with longwinded tales of his assignations with the prostitutes he frequented whenever the opportunity presented itself. “Teejay and Thor aren’t back yet. There must be somebody between them and us. And there’s nobody out here but us and the VC. So stay alert, okay. You gotten anything from them? A break squelch? Anything?”
“No sir,” Baker answered, “I ain’t heard nothin’.” Both men lay with their chests against the side of the muddy hole, their eyes only inches above ground level, peering out into the rainy darkness for any hint of movement silhouetted against the artillery barrage.
The last of the shells slammed into the tree line and silence settled over the Marine’s position. Their night vision temporarily ruined, both men strained to hear the lightest footfall or whisper that would indicate the approach of the enemy. But the only sound came from the still falling droplets of rain. The radio squawked, and Baker moved to answer it. His voice drifted up to O’Keefe a few seconds later. “It’s Arty, Lieutenant. You want him?”
“No,” O’Keefe replied in a husky whisper, “tell him we’re cool, thanks, and good shooting.” Very big thanks, he thought to himself. Whatever VC had been in that tree line with the mortars had either bugged out or were dead. Holland had done his job with his usual efficiency.
Nevertheless two of O’Keefe’s Marines were still unaccounted for, and considering there were no wretched cries for help piercing the night, he was certain they had not been wounded. They might have both been killed, but O’Keefe would not accept that unless and until their bodies were recovered. And both Teejay and Thor were well aware of the VC’s predilection for torturing prisoners in the night, hoping their screams would draw the rest of the platoon into an ambush. They would not have let themselves be captured without calling for help and putting up a fierce fight. There was still only one reason to explain why they were not back. They were stranded out there, silently hugging the ground, while the enemy lurked between them and the perimeter.
But knowing the VC were up to something wasn’t the same thing as knowing what it was. Exactly what did they plan to do, O’Keefe wondered? He tried to put himself in the enemy commander’s place. After mulling the possibilities, he decided that the man, whoever he was, would wait. They were very patient, the VC; and they had until almost dawn to do their work. So they would delay for as long as possible, hoping the platoon would fall into a false sense of security, thinking the fire mission had forced their enemy to withdraw. Right now they would be sending their sappers out ahead; creeping, listen
ing, and scouting; until they were sure of the exact position of the platoon and knew as much as possible about the disposition of the fighting holes.
O’Keefe mentally congratulated himself for having instructed his men to set their Claymores almost directly in front of their holes; if they had been placed further out it would have been a simple matter, with the noise of the rain to cover the sound of their movements, for the VC to find and rotate them without being detected. Then when the attack came the Marines would be blowing shrapnel back into their own positions.
The only remaining question was what form would the attack take? Their commander would have seen and noted the platoon’s proficiency in calling in indirect fire, while his only excuse for supporting arms, the mortars, were almost certainly all destroyed. He might have some grenades or B-40s, but otherwise he would be relegated to using only small arms. Therefore any officer worth his salt would not engage in another straight up firefight. No, O’Keefe thought, this attack will be a charge, a Banzai assault, an all-or-nothing gamble designed to swamp the platoon’s position and overwhelm them with numbers before the Marines could commit their faraway firepower to the fray. The VC were probably out there at that very moment shooting up whatever courage enhancing drugs they had in their meager inventory.
O’Keefe spent the next few minutes making sure of the platoon’s exact coordinates and giving them to Baker for transmission back to the firebase. No commander ever wanted to call in a strike on his own position, but there would be no alternative if the Viet Cong were successful in overrunning them, and there would be no time for calculating then, the call would have to go out in an instant. After O’Keefe completed his computations, he crawled out to help Wilson prepare the men for the inevitable.
It was not until he was back in the hole with his RTO that the dread gurgled up from his gut. It was the same thing that always happened when he thought the platoon was about to be hit. The waiting was the worst part of it. It let a man’s mind wander where it shouldn’t go. When he was busy worrying over the men, their preparedness, the platoon’s position, or the artillery; he had no time for fear. Now suddenly he had plenty. He noticed the sandpaper dryness of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and the constriction that gripped his chest. It felt as if his ribs were trying to crush his lungs. His hands involuntarily rose to his cheeks, rubbing the stubble there convulsively in an effort to abrade away the fear. He swallowed hard as he did so, trying to mentally push the feverish anxiety from his mind.
He was, of course, afraid of dying, but that was not what frightened him the most. The prospect of possible capture and torture, or wounds that would mutilate his body without killing him, were more horrible to him than death itself. Even more fearsome was the possibility that he would be unable to resist the undeniable and potent pull of self-preservation, that he would fall victim to cowardice, and fail those whose lives had been entrusted to his care.
He took a long deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then he closed his eyes and prayed. It was an inaudible and, for the most part, incoherent prayer, a general beseechment from a man to his Maker to protect him from the evils and dangers that surrounded him, to provide him the courage he would need before the night was over, and to take him to a better life if a divine shield could not be somehow fashioned for his protection. It was the kind of prayer that O’Keefe had repeated often, in one form or another, since his first night in the bush. And it helped. The all-consuming terror that had rendered him momentarily debilitated began to recede. The fear never left him, but it became manageable. He hugged his weapon close to his chest, clenched his teeth, and hunkered down to wait.
A short time later a shadowy figure slipped almost soundlessly into the hole with him and Baker, arriving more like a jungle predator than a man loaded with equipment. O’Keefe flinched, but knew in a heartbeat who the intruder was. He had been in the field with the sarge long enough to know Wilson’s movements as if they were his own. Had he been wholly invisible, O’Keefe would have recognized him merely by the soft cadence of his respiration. “What’s up, Gunney?” he whispered in an as off-hand a manner as he was able.
“Everybody’s ready to rock, sir,” Wilson announced softly, in a voice devoid of doubt or fear. No angst of any kind crept from his aura. O’Keefe could sense only anticipation, perhaps even eagerness. The sarge was to combat as Unitas was to football; regardless of the situation he was certain that he and his team would emerge victorious. Wilson steadied O’Keefe’s restless mind and jangled nerves merely by his presence.
“Good,” he replied, in a tone suffused with the confidence the sarge had roused in him. “But Thor and Teejay are still out there. We need to be sure of our targets. I don’t want any friendly fire KIAs.”
“I told ’em, sir,” Wilson answered, a hint of wounded pride in his voice.
“I figured you did, Sarge,” O’Keefe said, almost smiling in fondness for the man. “But it’s my job, you know?”
“My job, too, sir.”
“Yeah,” O’Keefe replied. There was silence for a moment in the hole. O’Keefe fidgeted, alternately caressing his rifle and then checking the grenades on his belt. “I’d damn near kill for a smoke right now,” he finally whispered, not because he had any intention of lighting the cigarette he so badly craved; he only wanted to hear Wilson’s voice again.
“Me, too,” chimed in a hopeful Baker.
“They’d smell it,” warned the sarge.
“I know,” O’Keefe said, not oblivious to Baker’s sigh of disappointment from across the hole. Not that it would really make any difference, he thought. The gooks know exactly where we are anyway, but smoking would be a bad example to set for the men.
“How’s Washington?” O’Keefe asked, just to distract himself from the thought of tobacco. Washington was their latest FNG, too much of a fucking new guy to even have been christened with a nickname. This was his first time out.
“I think he’s okay,” the sergeant replied earnestly. “I’ve got him over in Cochise’s hole. Chief didn’t like it too much, but he’s the best one to keep the boy straight. I checked with him after the mortars came in, and he said the guy didn’t freak or nothing. He seems to be a pretty cool cat for a cherry.”
“Good,” O’Keefe said again, but in a noncommittal tone this time. After that there was no more conversation. The three men crouched in the mud, leaning against the sloppy wall and taking turns peering into the darkness, waiting. Two hours came and went. The rain increased and then slackened, then stopped entirely. The Marines all waited uneasily in their fighting holes, watching and listening; but there was no discernable sign of anything save vegetation beyond their perimeter.
Suddenly a Claymore, forward of O’Keefe and to his left, belched its lethal innards out into the night. The screams of stricken guerillas were drowned out at once by small arms fire. O’Keefe, Wilson, and Baker were shoulder to shoulder in an instant, bringing their weapons to the ready immediately, all three M-16s synchronously brought butt to shoulder and eye to sight in an ominous ballet of impending destruction. They began firing in short bursts almost as one as targets appeared out of the darkness. More Claymores detonated. Phantom figures clad in black pajamas sprinted toward the perimeter, many falling. Some fell to make smaller targets and return fire but many more fell in heaps, dying.
Another figure appeared, running straight at O’Keefe. As if it were mounted on a pintle, O’Keefe smoothly swiveled his weapon, bringing the M-16 to bear. He began to squeeze the trigger, but something familiar in the stride of the oncoming shadow froze his finger half way to the firing point. A muzzle flash from another hole reflected against the wet, ebony skin of the figure’s neck and revealed, for a half second, the silhouette of a seemingly too large helmet atop a small man’s head. Teejay!
Even as the realization struck O’Keefe, the running soldier’s arms went all akimbo as he fell face forward to the muddy earth, his weapon and helmet flying off to either side. Get up, Teejay, O’Keefe urged soun
dlessly. Get up man; you’re too close to cover to die now. The Marine’s head lay a mere six feet from the edge of the hole.
Rage mounted in O’Keefe, increasing geometrically with each moment Teejay lay unmoving before him. In seconds he was mindless of fear and filled with the strength of wild anger. He screamed obscenities into the darkness and put out accurate, measured bursts of gunfire at every target that came into view. When a clip was spent, he discarded it and slapped in another with machine-like precision before rejoining the battle and continuing to spew lead and death into the night. In the blink of an eye instinct had taken over where rationality ended; he became a scythe of annihilation, an autonomic master of the battlefield. The transformation from frightened man to mighty implement of war was the apogee of a sharpening that had begun on his first day at the academy. All his training had been geared toward the attainment of this puissant state of mind and inculcating into his consciousness the acceptance of it. Now that training paid its dividends.
Around the perimeter, some few men, most notably Washington, alternated between cowering next to the wall of their fighting holes and popping up for a moment to launch a few ill-aimed rounds into the darkness. But the lion’s share of the platoon was gripped by the same rapacious fever that possessed O’Keefe, and they were obliterating the enemy that ran toward them as fast as they came into sight. Gunfire screamed out in every direction. Claymores launched more deadly shards into the faces of the charging enemy. Grenades sent shrapnel flying in all directions, striking down any man in their range not dug in or hugging the ground. Well aimed bullets shredded men’s bodies in an instant. And the Viet Cong died in droves.
Soon there were no more black clad figures running toward, through, or even near the platoon’s position. Enemy gunfire began to abate as every muzzle flash was answered with a withering fusillade of fire from within the Marines’ perimeter. The enemy was withdrawing. O’Keefe could wait no longer. His man wasn’t going to die out there because he had hesitated. He propped his weapon against the side of the hole and grabbed Wilson by the shoulder.
The Empty Warrior Page 5