Night Work: A Novel of Vietnam (The Jim Hollister Trilogy Book 2)

by Dennis Foley

  Hollister envied him the schooling, but guessed that it probably irritated Fowler to be talking with a junior officer with more combat experience and a Senior Parachutist rating—indicated by the star on top of his own jump wings.

  “Quite a shopping list, Captain,” Fowler said, dropping the last page back on his desk. “Just how soon would you like all this delivered to your CP?” he added with a trace of sarcasm.

  Hollister was determined not to lose sight of his objective and get mired in an argument with Fowler.

  “Sir, at this point, I’ll take what I can get and come back for more. I really believe that we can do some good work and earn our pay if the troops feel like they can be backed up quickly.”

  “Oh, so the troops are complaining?’ Fowler said with more sarcasm.

  “No, sir. That’s not what I said. I can tell you that just the other night I was out on a patrol and tried to get chopper support to fire up some VC using a canal. By the time the mission was passed to the gunships, the VC had long left the area. It’s all a matter of response time, sir. That’s all.”

  “I read the report on that and thought the team leader might have called in the request a bit earlier.”

  “Sir, our team leaders can do a lot of things, but predicting the future isn’t one of them,” Hollister said, irritated by the suggestion.

  Fowler’s tone turned harsh. “Don’t get smart with me, Captain. ’Cause I’m the only hope you have of getting a fucking poncho liner!”

  Hollister was upset that he had let Fowler get to him. He wondered for a split second how a guy like Fowler could get into a job of so much importance and as quickly remembered others like Fowler, who look great from above, but the folks counting on them know what horses’ asses they are.

  Fowler waved Hollister’s typed request in front of him. “Don’t press me,” he said. “How the hell can I answer any of your petty requests until I read this? Now, quit wasting my time, and let me get back to work.”

  Hollister tried to calm his anger on the way out of the complex. He couldn’t remember the last time he wanted so badly to drop someone in his tracks. But he knew that popping Fowler would do no good for anyone and would get nothing done for Juliet Company.

  Outside the Operations Section, Cathcart, toying with a rolled-up piece of paper, waited for Hollister. “So, how’d it go, sir?’

  “Don’t know. I’m still empty-handed,” Hollister replied.

  “Major Fowler, huh?’

  “How’d you know?’

  “Well, sir, I don’t want to say nothing against no officer, but …” Cathcart didn’t finish the sentence, but Hollister got the message.

  “I’m waiting for him now. I have to take him to a meeting at USARV, so I can’t be much help to you until later,” Cathcart said.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got to see him later, then try to wrangle a ride back to Cu Chi. I’ll be able to find my way around. You’ve been lots of help.”

  Cathcart nervously offered the rolled-up paperwork to Hollister.

  “Sir, this is that copy of the 1049 you asked for. I’ve filled it out and dropped it off at the Orderly Room.”

  Hollister took the form, opened it, and looked it over quickly. “Okay, I’ll take it with me and start pulling from my end.”

  As Hollister folded the form up and stuck it in his shirt pocket, Cathcart smiled, then frowned. “You think I can really be a LRP, sir?”

  “I think so. You’ll think so, too, after a little bit of training.”

  “What I need is your help setting up a recruiting process within the Field Force,” Hollister said to Sergeant Major Carey in the G-l Section.

  “I s’pose we can put an ad in the Field Force magazine, and I can put the word out at the next sergeant major’s meeting,” Carey said, looking over his glasses at Hollister.

  “My guess is that’ll generate an opportunity for some folks to get rid of deadwood that way.”

  “Sir, you don’t have to take ’em. If they don’t look right, just throw ’em back—like fish. I can always find places to put warm bodies, even lukewarm ones.”

  The remark brought a smile to Hollister’s face. “Somehow fish seems like an appropriate term. But is there any way you can prescreen them before they get orders to Juliet Company?”

  “Captain, I think your boys got balls bigger’n helmet liners, and I’d be the last guy to send you some lightweight. I can’t promise you more than I can do. But count on me to help. I can usually get the G-l’s attention on an assignment policy here and there, and right now selling LRPs to him ain’t a big problem. So count me in.”

  “Well, I’m really happy you feel that way. Can you start by keeping an eye on this,” Hollister said, handing Carey the copy of Carthcart’s 1049.

  The sergeant major grinned as if he’d been had and took a quick look at the paperwork. “Shit, sir! Ten seconds, and you’re already raiding my headquarters!”

  “I think he’ll be a better LRP than a gofer. He’s a good kid that needs to do something right for a change. I’ve got plenty of jobs for him.”

  “Well, I’m going to catch hell from the headquarters company first sergeant, but he owes me one—or two.”

  The firecrackers started early in the afternoon. Hollister had forgotten the reciprocal agreement the allies had with the North Vietnamese. For American Christmas and the Vietnamese Lunar New Year they would each promise to cease fire and conduct no offensive operations. That was why almost all of the LRP teams were in, back at Cu Chi, and why the mood around the headquarters was a little more casual than he would have expected. He tried to get used to the noise from the little staccato explosions, but found that he couldn’t completely block them out.

  It was only a little after six o’clock when Hollister walked into the IIFFV Officers Club, his stomach full from a greasy mess-hall meal. He ordered a Scotch as he settled into the barstool’s swivel seat.

  The false eyelashes and the bouffant hairdo on the tiny Vietnamese barmaid looked out of proportion to her small face and well under five feet of height.

  All of it was an amazement to Hollister. When he last left Vietnam, the closest thing he had seen to a club was some building or tent that had an icebox in it and a flat surface to use as a bar. But there he was, on a leatherette barstool, drinking from a real glass, with clear ice-machine-made ice cubes, that was resting on a coaster with the IIFFV insignia printed on it. To top it all off, the drink had a swizzle stick with the letters IIFFV on the round, lollipop-type top.

  There were about twenty-five headquarters types in the bar. No one appeared to have dropped into the bar from a field unit except two warrant officer pilots who sat at a table near the jukebox nursing two soft drinks.

  The phone behind the bar rang and the Vietnamese barmaid answered it. Her voice became agitated, and she started talking rapidly—in Vietnamese. She finished the call and started talking to someone on the other side of an open door.

  Soon the club NCO, an American sergeant wearing a tailor-made walking suit from Bangkok, came out from the office behind the bar. Listening to the conversation between the barmaid and the manager, Hollister was able to gather that the problem was with the band. Somehow they were AWOL. They had been expected earlier in the day to set up and to rehearse.

  She and the sergeant exchanged a few more words in a mixture of English and Vietnamese. Finally, the sergeant turned to Hollister and threw up his hands. “I hope that you weren’t waiting for the band, ’cause they ain’t comin’ tonight, Captain.”

  “I’m just happy to be able to belly up to a bar and knock back a Scotch or two.”

  The sergeant reached back behind the bar. He pulled down a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and poured Hollister another drink. “This one’s on me, sir.”

  Hollister raised the glass to the sergeant before taking a sip. “Thanks. I’ll have to see what I can do about having the band ambushed more often,” Hollister said.

  They both laughed.

>   “Well, sir, I’ll see what I can do about getting someone to replace them worthless zip rock and rollers. Shit!” He wandered back into his office, closing the door behind him.

  The jukebox kept playing, even though no one in the room was putting any club tokens into it. Hollister had yet another drink and listened to the music, his mind wandering back to Susan. He missed her, but the fact that he had almost a full tour ahead of him made the feeling more depressing. He wondered if he would even make it through the tour without becoming a casualty. Sure, he’d been banged around before and picked up a little shrapnel, but he was sure that every day he survived made the next that much more difficult.

  He caught himself getting down about his prospects and immediately told himself to do something about it. He knew if he worked at increasing the survivability of the members of Juliet Company, he would also enjoy some of the benefits. With that he pulled his pen out of his pocket and grabbed a napkin off the stack on the bar rail.

  He began to make notes about techniques and procedures that he wanted to effect as soon as he could get back to Cu Chi. He knew he had to make the LRPs more invisible to give them staying power if and when they made contact. That would be his job. If he just got that much done, he’d feel as if he had earned his pay.

  After several napkins, two more Scotches, and lots more fireworks outside, Hollister laid out the napkins to look at his random notes. They all had three things in common—equipment, technique, and training. Those were the keys, as far as Hollister was concerned. If he could get the right equipment and support and train the troops in the techniques that would give them an edge in the flat margins of the Mekong Delta, he’d feel much better.

  “You making up another list, Hollister?” Colonel Downing’s voice boomed behind him.

  Spinning reflexively at the colonel’s voice, Hollister began to stand.

  “No, sit,” the colonel said as he waved at the barmaid for a refill for Hollister and added, “How about a beer for me?”

  “Well, sir, I’m just trying to get a handle on what we need to do out there.”

  The colonel leaned against the corner of the bar, standing between two barstools. “You getting what you want from Major Fowler?”

  “Well, I have to see him again in the morning. He needed a little time to look over my list, sir,” Hollister said.

  Colonel Downing took a long sip from the glass of beer the barmaid had poured. “The general would sure like to see you guys do some good work out there on the border. We just can’t get close enough to them with conventional units to do any good and not take heat for being inside Cambodia.” He took another drink and screwed up his face. “When I was a brigade commander in the Big Red One, I got damn tired of watching Charlie tag us and then run back across the fence to laugh in our faces.”

  Before Hollister could respond, Major Fowler entered the bar, looking around as if he were trying to find someone.

  “Fowler, what’s the story? Hollister here tells me you haven’t filled his requisition yet,” the colonel half kidded.

  The remark cut into Fowler. “That’s not entirely true, sir. But I need to talk to you about something else right now. Could I see you outside?”

  The two left, but not before Fowler shot Hollister an expression of displeasure for complaining to Colonel Downing.

  Oh shit! Hollister thought. All he needed was Fowler dragging his feet to punish him for his unintentional gaffe.

  The shower in the small transit BOQ was much better than the fifty-five-gallon drum on the roof in Cu Chi. At least the one at Long Binh had a shower head—much like a gardener’s watering can. The shower in Cu Chi had only an open pipe, with a knob to turn the flow on and off. And “on” meant a single stream of cold water, about the size of a finger. The Long Binh shower had been heated and appeared to have cleaner water.

  The fog from the Scotches dulled Hollister’s brain and made him consider just dropping off early and getting a head start on the following day. He lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of the army cot that was snugged up against the wall in the very tiny semiprivate BOQ room he had all to himself.

  He stood and crossed the room in one stride and pulled his notes out of the pocket of his wilted shirt. He flipped through his notebook and checked off things he had wanted to accomplish while at IIFFV. The scraps of napkins fell out. He carefully folded them back up and made a promise to himself to consolidate the notes on something sturdier than the cocktail napkins.

  He then came across the note to himself about recruiting and remembered Sergeant Major Carey’s words. He wondered if he should speak to Carey about the new first sergeant—Morrison. Hollister was sure the guy had almost no chance of working out.

  He reminded himself that it wasn’t his call and resisted the urge to get involved, knowing it would probably be a problem for him sometime soon.

  Hollister lay in the dark with his arm up under his head, smoking his last cigarette. He was not surprised by all the continued fireworks outside the Long Binh compound, but he was bothered by the noise. He took a drag off the cigarette and remembered the first such celebration he had been through. He was on the beach at Tuy Hoa. At the stroke of midnight of the Lunar New Year, the city of Tuy Hoa, just north of his company’s position by about six miles, opened up as if under attack. The South Vietnamese outpost there decided to celebrate by firing all of their weapons and many of their flares up into the air.

  It was a matter of great concern to many of the Americans, who realized how dangerous it was. The ordnance fired up had to come down somewhere. That year several buildings caught fire in Tuy Hoa.

  The soundness of his sleep was shattered by the double rattle of a burst of incoming and one of outgoing small-arms fire on full automatic.

  Instinctively, Hollister rolled out of his bunk and flattened himself on the floor. He tried to clear his head of the alcohol and get his bearings. His first discovery was that he was naked save his GI boxer shorts.

  He had a fairly good idea of the orientation of the BOQ in respect to the perimeter and concluded that the shooting was coming from the guard posts. But he also became aware of shooting at a distance from the compound. He assumed it was in the direction of Bien Hoa Army Base, just seven thousand meters away.

  Rolling across the floor to the chair, where he’d hung his uniform and the pistol belt that held his holstered .45, he cursed himself for being a little drunk and a little rattled. He knew he should have taken the time to find out where the bunkers were and what the emergency plan was within the compound in the event of attack.

  “Shit!” Hollister said, pulling the pistol from the holster and jacking a round into the chamber. He was angry with himself for only bringing one magazine. He had only loaded eight rounds and wasn’t real proud of his accuracy with a .45 automatic. He laid the pistol on the floor and grabbed his trousers. He rolled over on his back and tried to put them on. He finally gave up, stood at a crouch, and quickly slipped into the camouflage fatigue bottoms. All the while the firing outside continued and the activities escalated to the firing of flares and launching of choppers.

  Dressed, Hollister moved to the doorway of the BOQ. The slanted louvers only allowed vision out and down, not straight out or up. His first view was that of fire. The wooden building directly across a small roadway was on fire and would quickly burn to the ground.

  Soldiers were running everywhere, and a siren kept wailing. The small-arms fire that had started out as sporadic exchanges was now picking up, and the number of flares floating over Long Binh were soon matched by flares over Bien Hoa.

  What to do next was Hollister’s immediate problem. He wasn’t part of any organization and didn’t fit into any kind of reaction force plan. He was sure that much of the firing was just spookiness prompted by hearing firing on one part of the perimeter. He was also sure that some of the firing he had heard was in fact VC fire. After a while even a tin ear could tell an AK47 from an American Ml6.

  Hollister decided to
head for the Operations Section to see if he could be any help in resolving the enemy contact or in helping control some of the frightened rear-echelon troops—many of whom were, no doubt, hearing their first incoming fire.

  As he crossed the compound, he was careful to move in the few pools of light he could find in order not to be mistaken for a VC and shot by a trigger-spooky REMF. He realized that doing so would expose him to enemy fire, but guessed that the threat to him was greater from his own than from the VC.

  The doorway leading into the TOC of the Operations Section was crowded with officers and NCOs, some trying to get in on official business and some who just wanted to find out if they were really under attack.

  It was obvious to Hollister that he couldn’t be of much use. He considered trying to get a message into the TOC that he was there and available, when Cathcart came hustling by. The boy was a different personality. He forcefully cleared people out of his way, a handful of classified documents in his hand. The chaos outside didn’t seem to rattle him. Instead, he took on an official and important manner that convinced senior NCOs and officers that he should be let through the doorway because he had something important that needed to get inside. Hollister smiled at his perceptiveness. He’d known that Cathcart had it in him the first day he met him.

  A chair was at the far end of the hallway leading into the TOC. Hollister grabbed it, spun it around, and squatted astride it. He watched the flow of bodies running in and out of the doorway and started to piece together the situation. The scuttlebutt had it that there were several simultaneous ground probes being reported in from all parts of III Corps. Most were attacks on fixed installations. He figured that much of that was due to the standdown in effect throughout the country. Most combat units were in their base camps and enjoying the relief from commitment to combat operations. That meant they were more than likely asleep or up drinking and having parties. In either case that gave the enemy the advantage of surprise.