“The Fat Lady? I’ve heard of you guys. You were part of the company that survived that shitstorm outside Kon Tum. The story I heard had you outnumbered eight to one.”
“More like four to one, and we didn’t all survive. We lost three men that day,” Rogan fired back. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
Travis moved quickly to defuse the moment. “This, as you might’ve already guessed, is our lieutenant, the charismatic Rogan Brock. The man sitting next to you is probably the third best sniper within a hundred yards from here, Fletcher Carson.”
“Definitely top ten.” Fletcher nodded.
“Radioman Gunther Pearson … squad leader Wayville Rex … weapons specialist Kingston Lane … infantryman Arnold Keens … medic Edgar Green … and infantryman Craig Fallow.”
More handshakes and nods.
“And this,” Travis continued, “is the madman who dragged you down the embankment. The finest point man in all of Vietnam: Mitchell Lord.”
Mitchell stepped right up to Will’s face so that their noses almost touched. His eyes were open wide, unnaturally so. “Please call me Mitch. Only the ladies call me Lord … or Jesus Christ, if the feeling grabs them,” he said, winking one eye then the other.
“Well, thank you … Mitch, that was some brave shit you pulled there.”
Mitchell frowned, as if he didn’t understand the comment, and turned away.
“All right, ladies, now that we’ve exchanged phone numbers, we need to get moving,” Rogan cut in. “There’s still a fucking war going on here.”
They picked up their gear while Fletcher and Travis helped Will to his feet. As they moved out, Kingston Lane began to hum a tune. A few of the men joined in.
“What’s this?”
“Every time we make it through a firefight, Kingston hums this hymn,” Fletcher replied.
“Like some sort of victory song?”
“It’s really just to give thanks that we didn’t lose anyone and to let off some steam.”
“It sounds familiar.”
“It’s an old Christian hymn called ‘By His Hand.’ ”
“I like it.”
Fletcher smiled, but chose not to reply. Instead, he allowed the tune into his heart. It couldn’t cure their ills, he knew, but it sometimes helped dull the pain.
“Tell me,” Will asked as the hymn ended, “why do you call yourselves the Fat Lady?”
“Wayville, why do we call ourselves the Fat Lady?” Fletcher called out.
“Because Vietnam ain’t over, baby … till the Fat Lady sings! Hoohah!”
They all laughed until Rogan spun around. “We having fun, platoon? Should we light a few flares to make the VC’s job a little easier? Carson, I don’t want to hear another goddamn word from you until we hit the LZ. Do you understand me?”
Fletcher tipped the brim of his helmet, sarcastically so.
Rogan had a habit of singling him out for abuse whenever he was unhappy with the platoon. The reason, Fletcher suspected, was because a mild dilution of Asian blood flowed through his veins and because he bore some, albeit fleeting, resemblance to the Vietcong. In the outside world, his good looks opened doors for him. But this was Vietnam, and given the side he was fighting on, occasionally his olive skin and coal black hair incensed his countrymen.
After a while, Fletcher whispered ahead to Gunther Pearson, who was radioing through news of the ambush and subsequent rescue. “How much farther to the landing zone?”
“Around two clicks.”
“How far?” Will asked quietly.
“Two kilometers. Do you think you can make it?” Travis asked.
“Make it? I’ll fucking race you there.”
Three
Using entrenching tools, the platoon had soon dug several foxholes and rigged the surrounding area with trip wires linked to mines and flares. Fortunately they were in a clearing on top of a small hillock and didn’t need to remove any trees. Most of the soldiers constructed hooches above their foxholes—makeshift tents created by zipping two ponchos together. Once all the work was done and their coordinates radioed in to base for the morning pickup, Rogan called the platoon together for a short debriefing. Afterwards, he turned his attention to guard duty. “Fallow and Green, you’re on watch until 2200. Carson and Tucker till 0300. Rex and Lane, you relieve them till sunrise.”
Travis raised his hands to his head. “C’mon, that’s two nights in a row.”
“On second thought, Rex and Lane, you’re only to relieve Mrs. Tucker and Mrs. Carson at 0330.” He waited for a response and, when there was none forthcoming, rubbed salt into the wound. “You should be more selective of the company you keep, Tucker. The people you side with can really bring you down.”
“Then may I share a foxhole with you, lieutenant?” Travis asked.
Rogan had already turned and was walking away.
“Please, sir, can’t I sleep with you tonight? I’ll give you a back rub. A foot massage. We can even share my sleeping bag! Let’s see where it takes us.”
Rogan raised his middle finger and kept walking.
“Shit,” Travis sighed. “I’d like to shoot him in the ass.”
Fletcher shook his head. “Fucking graveyard again.”
Mitchell Lord stood up and ran his fingers through his long black hair. How he was allowed to keep it that length was something of a mystery. “I’ll take over for you guys.”
“Thanks, Mitch, but if Rogan finds out you’re covering for us, he’ll piss himself,” Fletcher said.
Mitchell was hardly ever assigned to guard duty, not because Rogan necessarily favored him, but because they couldn’t afford to have him tired in his position as point man. Running point required an inordinate amount of skill and concentration. It entailed going ahead of the patrol, checking for traps, ambushes, enemy patrols, animal tracks, and even searching for secure pathways. It was also physically taxing, as he had to navigate and hack his way through long stretches of dense jungle with a machete. To have him up on watch was not only unfair, but also risky for the platoon. One of the reasons they had suffered relatively so few casualties was because of Mitchell’s ability to sniff out danger.
At their foxhole, Travis removed his boots and sat down next to Fletcher, settling into as comfortable a position as he could find. He pushed his glasses onto the top of his head, which apart from a light sprinkling of wispy brown hair, was largely bald. Although not a particularly handsome man, he was blessed with piercingly blue eyes and a kind and open face that people responded to. For a while they spoke about Will Peterson and the firefight, but gradually their conversation meandered away from the day’s events.
“Fletcher, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while now. I know I’ve got no right to ask it, and I’ll understand if you tell me to shut up and mind my own business, but … I—”
“You want to know about the crash?’
Travis nodded hesitantly, with the care of a man prodding a sleeping lion with a stick.
Fletcher propped up his rifle against the side of the hole and stared out over the jungle. “The Odyssey was billed as a revolution in air travel. Do you know that it took ten years to design and was capable of holding almost six hundred passengers?”
“I remember,” Travis replied softly. “It was all over the press.”
“You should’ve seen her, Trav. She was as big as a ship. Almost three hundred and fifty feet nose to tail, with a wingspan as wide as a football field. She had six engines and weighed just over five hundred and fifty tons. She was designed to fly supersonic at a range of ten thousand miles. Although,” he said, trailing off, “they never did prove that…”
“What brought her down?”
“A design flaw in the fuel system was the last I heard, but it doesn’t matter. All that counts is that she came down. There were three hundred and twenty-seven passengers on board its maiden flight, and only nine of us survived.”
Fletcher paused, steeling himself. When he spoke again
, his voice seemed to flatten out and his eyes fixed on a faraway place, well beyond the jungle. “As one of the journalists invited to the launch, I was allowed to bring my family along for the ride. We had just reached our cruising altitude when the pilot invited all the children to the flight deck. Kelly was about to step into the cockpit when the door was slammed in her face and the children were all rushed back to their seats. The cabin crew told us to put on our safety belts and refused to say anything more. About a minute later, an engine on the right wing seemed to stutter—it felt like a cough—and then exploded. Another two on the left wing followed moments later. I remember trying to hold on to Abby and Kelly as the plane fell … telling them that everything was going to be okay … that the plane had backup systems, but I knew we were in serious trouble. And then … and then there was nothing. I woke up still strapped to my seat, lying in someone’s backyard. I remember the grass was freshly mowed; I can still smell it. A section of the plane’s wing and one of its engines had landed no more than fifty yards away from me. The burning jet fuel had lit up a large oak tree in the corner of the property. Beyond it, through a collapsed section of wall, I could see what was left of the plane’s fuselage. It was lying in an open field about a mile away. The flames were as high as church steeples … I knew then that my girls were gone.”
“Jesus,” Travis whispered, taking a minute to process the story. “And that’s why you decided to enlist?”
“Not right away. The day after the funeral, I decided to kill myself,” he offered matter-of-factly. “I threw myself off the sixth floor of the hospital where I was being treated. A passing truck broke my fall and I survived, but a few weeks later, I was back on the same balcony, determined to finish the job. But then a strange thing happened. As I was standing there, preparing to jump—actually waiting for a break in the traffic—a news broadcast came on the radio about Vietnam and how hundreds of American GIs were now being killed every week. A mother who had lost both her sons in the space of a weekend spoke of their deaths. I’ll never forget her voice. She talked as if her skin was on fire. The report said the average age of the dead now hovered at around nineteen. Still teenagers, still boys. Many were too young to have a damn beer, but old enough to die for their country. It suddenly occurred to me that suicide seemed like such an extravagant waste when young soldiers were being summarily wiped out in a country halfway across the world. That’s when I decided to enlist.”
“Well, considering the alternative, I’m glad you made it here.”
Fletcher smiled and massaged the small of his back. “Try to get some rest, Trav.”
“You, too,” he said, then yawned like a man who hadn’t truly slept in a very long time.
“Thanks, Fletch. I know how hard that must’ve been to talk about.”
“That’s the first time I’ve told anyone the story.”
“I’m privileged, then.”
Within a few minutes, Travis was fast asleep, most likely to dream about his own dead wife, Fletcher thought. Travis had lost his wife a year before coming to Vietnam. She was driving to work early one morning when a car skipped a traffic light and plowed into her. She was in a coma for over a month, but died the day after their wedding anniversary. Blood tests revealed that she was nine weeks pregnant—it would have been their first child. The driver of the other car wasn’t drunk or driving recklessly, but had simply fallen asleep at the wheel after returning home from working night shift. The man had been pulling two jobs to keep his family from financial ruin. One night after a few beers, Travis spoke of how difficult it was to mourn the loss of his wife when he couldn’t direct his anger at anyone. The man who took her from him seemed a good husband and father who was simply pushing himself into an early grave for his family. Travis never filed any charges and, over time, was even able to forgive the man.
While Travis slept, Fletcher removed his friend’s glasses and placed them in his top pocket. He leaned forward and folded his arms on the edge of the foxhole. The sun was a harsh red, a fiery mirage on the horizon. In a short while, it would be dark. Vietnam sunsets were beautiful while they lasted, but gave way to sudden darkness—there was little honeymoon between day and night, and the soldiers dreaded the night. They were at their most vulnerable under the cover of darkness, partly because of the enemy’s tactics of striking in the early-morning hours, but also because it was the one time when soldiers were truly alone with their thoughts and fears. Still, Fletcher savored the sunset, which at this time of year, was something of a rarity to witness. Most late afternoons were accompanied by heavy showers, the kind of incessant rain that, regardless of your shelter, would permeate your clothing like damp rising up a wall and leave you itchy and uncomfortable for the rest of the night.
Grateful for the respite, Fletcher scanned the dense jungle that spread out below them. Years of war had taken their toll on the vegetation, and large clearings were visible in areas that had sustained heavy bombings. But the jungle was recovering. New shoots and foliage thrived on the edges of bomb craters. Large trees had been felled, but new ones were already competing to take their place. He wished all wounds could heal so easily. As the last of the day’s sunlight disappeared over the edge of the earth and the insects’ nocturnal song intensified, Fletcher could feel the jungle’s heartbeat. It pumped with as much life as it did death.
Four
By midmorning, Gunther had confirmed their coordinates via radio and ordered their pickup within the half hour. Other choppers would follow to secure and develop the area, but their job, at least for the meantime, was over. Squad leader Wayville Rex and Kingston Lane, whose intensely dark complexions and large frames suggested a familial resemblance where there was none, were instructed to set up three separate smoke canisters in the jungle surrounding the landing zone that would be deployed once the helicopter was within range. Each canister contained a different color smoke. The pilot would then have three potential pickup points, of which only one was correct. Gunther would reveal which one they were positioned next to only at the last available moment. If Charlie was nearby, he would have to guess their location and, consequently, the pickup zone. The helicopter would swoop down and hover just above the ground as the men clambered on board. This was by far the most vulnerable time of the operation. Scores of helicopters had been brought down by rocket launchers as they waited either to pick up soldiers or drop them off. Fletcher found it remarkable that despite many U.S. UH-1 helicopters being shot down, a surprising number would be retrieved by larger helicopters known as Chinooks and Skycranes. The Hueys would be repaired and sent back into action only days later.
Waiting anxiously, the Fat Lady listened for signs that its lift was approaching. As usual, Mitchell was the first to hear it. “Flapping bird. Flying from the east.”
Rogan bided his time before giving the instruction to deploy the canisters. As the helicopter’s drone grew louder, he gave the order.
Ribbons of red, blue, and white smoke billowed into the sky.
The command of red was given to the pilot in a simple code. It was something of an inside joke, as the Fat Lady only ever waited under red smoke. Within seconds, the Huey swooped down over the trees. It was coming in so fast, its tail rotor clipped the branch of a small tree.
Rogan gritted his teeth. “Fucking cowboys.”
The Fat Lady hurried toward the chopper and scrambled on board. As always, Rogan was at the rear, looking for any signs of activity in the trees behind them. He turned around for the last few yards and launched himself up into the cabin. He raised his hand, extended his index finger, and swung his wrist around in a circular motion, signaling the pilot to fly. His hand was still turning when something caught his attention.
A flash, a puff of smoke, and a series of drowned-out hollow thuds.
“Shooter! Shooter at one o’clock!” he shouted, immediately returning fire. Mitchell, Travis, and Wayville quickly joined in. They sprayed hundreds of rounds into the trees until they were out of range.
“Fucking gooks!” Mitchell yelled out into the jungle, before hawking up the phlegm in his throat and spitting it out the door.
“Is everyone all right?” Rogan asked.
“We’re cool … we’re cool,” Travis replied, “but Gunther’s going to need a new radio.”
“What?” Gunther frowned, removing the radio from his back.
Smoke wafted out from a burnt hole in the middle of the pack.
“Son of a bitch! I knew there was a reason I signed up for comms!” He bent over and kissed the scorched canvas.
“If you buy it a drink, maybe it’ll give you a blow job.” Wayville smiled.
“Real funny,” Gunther smirked. “Real fucking funny.”
Five
The Strip, as it was known by the soldiers, was located thirty kilometers north of Dak To in a highly mountainous area near the Laos border. Situated on top of a hill, it was classified as a small base—little bigger than a firebase—home only to some six hundred troops. It contained the usual spattering of tents and prefab buildings, several munitions stores, bunkers, watchtowers, a mess, and, of course, base headquarters. It was surrounded by thick, rusting reams of barbed wire and further protected by mines linked to large oil drums brimming with a lethal combination of diesel and napalm. If Charlie wanted to get up close and personal with them, he would first have to tiptoe his way through the Strip’s tricky dance floor.
Despite its size, the base was in perpetual motion. Like its namesake in Las Vegas, the Strip never slept. It was one of the few bases still operating at full capacity anywhere near the demilitarized zone.
Fletcher plodded toward the tent he shared with Travis and Mitchell. Some time ago, there had been a fourth, an edgy farm boy from Kentucky named Hank Landolin, but he passed away from complications arising from malaria. Had he not died, the army might well have imprisoned him, as he had neglected to take the mandatory prophylactic medication that was provided to all U.S. soldiers. It was a deliberate oversight on Hank’s end. Contracting malaria was one of the many ways soldiers tried to get out of combat.
Finding Jack Page 2