by Dennis Foley
“Oh shit!” Hollister said. “A cave-in!”
As they reached the hole, Loan scrambled out, covered with dirt. He started jabbering so fast it didn’t make any difference what language he was speaking—no one could understand him. It was clear that Bui was involved, and it wasn’t good news.
Grabbing Nessen’s arm, Hollister said, “Gimme someone who will fit down there.”
He turned and waved at Boyce. “Send me the smallest man you have. It’s a cave-in.”
While Mr. Loan, a second LRP, and a small Hawaiian Cav trooper disappeared into the tunnel with an entrenching tool, Hollister got on the radio to crank up a medevac. Kurzikowski was taking down the information back at Operations when Fowler broke in again.
“Negative! Negative on a medevac request. You don’t even know you have someone hurt. I don’t want to risk a chopper sortie when we don’t even know he needs medical attention,” Fowler screamed. “Quit coddling those people, damnit.”
“Listen … I am convinced that the man is hurt enough to scare the shit out of one of the other scouts. Now I don’t want to risk his life by waiting until I pronounce him injured,” Hollister snapped.
Fowler keyed his mike to respond and then stopped. There was a long silence while he rekeyed it. “I’ve been advised that there is a problem with this C and C, and we are going to have to swap it for another. You just get on with checking out that bunker complex, and get me some answers …” His voice trailed off.
Hollister assumed the chopper must have landed again, breaking off communications. He was just as happy to lose commo. He reached over and spun the dials on the radio to the Admin frequency.
“Five. This is Three.”
Vance’s voice came on immediately. “I’m here, partner. I’ve sent a medevac in spite of earlier instructions from Six.”
When Vance didn’t get an immediate answer, he called Hollister again. “Where’d you go? Problems?”
Hollister’s tone had changed when he did reply. “Five, it’s Bui. They’re just dragging him out now. Fucking overhead collapsed on him. He’s unconscious and spitting blood. Could be real bad!”
“You should be hearing from the medevac in less than five.”
“Rog … I gotta run. Send me those pickup ships. We’re getting the fuck out of here. Out.”
The sun had just slipped below the low tree line on the west end of the landing zone. The medevac picked up Bui only minutes after he was rescued by the trio of ad hoc tunnel rats. But it took another twenty minutes before the entire flight of choppers arrived to pick up the LRPs and the Cav platoon.
Hollister hated complete pullouts. Everyone around the area knew that once the troops were loaded into the choppers they would be most vulnerable. All the choppers and all the troops would be on the same small piece of real estate. Their only protection came from the gunships and the on-call artillery Hollister had plotted.
He waited until he saw the last man get into the last chopper before he stepped up onto the skid of his lift ship. As he did he slapped the peter pilot on the helmet and yelled, “Go! Go!”
It was too quiet for Hollister. They were only a few hundred meters away from where Nessen’s team had spotted VC the night before, and that bothered him—plenty.
Hollister’s chopper rolled forward as the pilots, both on the controls, pulled pitch and tried to get out and up at the same speed as the two choppers in front of it in the formation.
Hollister saw the first explosion on the PZ before he heard it. Then a second impact off to the right Mortars! He just knew it! The fuckers had waited and then dropped four mortar rounds onto the PZ. It was over as fast as it started. All four rounds must have been in the air at the same time. That meant that the VC who dropped the rounds down the tubes had already broken down the mortars and were running for cover before the first round impacted.
The cross talk over the radio was a confusing jumble of pilots and Operations all talking at once. Hollister stuck his finger in one ear while he tried to figure out what was going on by listening to Nessen’s RTO’s radio.
The chopper in front of his, one of six—in staggered trail formation—took some damage and was trying to limp back to Bien Hoa without putting down.
He spun around. The ships behind him seemed to be clearing the PZ without any trouble, and the gunships—four of them—were burning up the area where they thought the mortars had come from. He felt helpless. There was nothing he could do but hang on until they got to a safer altitude and then just ride back to the base camp.
Fowler still hadn’t shown up at the LRP compound when Hollister got off the chopper with the other members of Nessen’s team.
Vance ran out to meet Hollister halfway. “They just called from the Clearing Station. I’m going up there to make sure our wounded are taken care of. You stay here and close out the details.”
“Wounded? You mean Bui?” Hollister asked, yelling over the sounds of the choppers landing two at a time on the pad.
“Seems you took some casualties from the mortars. A door gunner got his shoulder separated when the concussion spun his machine gun around and clipped him. He’ll be okay. But two of the Cav troops took some frags—doesn’t seem to be critical. They’ll be in overnight,” Vance said as they walked toward the jeep parked outside Operations.
“And Bui?” Hollister asked, automatically looking toward the back door of the club for T.T.
“Not so good. He’s pretty fucked up. They told Sergeant Rose that Bui’s got three, maybe more, cracked ribs. Punctured both lungs. They also think he’s fractured a vertebra in his neck. They’re still waiting for the X rays to dry to make sure they got a handle on everything.”
“What’s that mean?” Hollister asked.
“Rose tells me everything should be fixable unless they find some more internal injuries. But even if they don’t, he’s a long way from being out of the woods.”
Hollister saw T.T. as she stepped out of the club’s back door. “I’ve got to go talk to her. How much does she know?”
“Rose told her what I know,” Vance said.
“Fuck!”
“What?”
“I promised her he wouldn’t be going to the field again. No damn wonder the fucking Viets don’t trust us.”
“Hey, go easy. Wasn’t your idea,” Vance said, offering Hollister a cigarette.
He waved off the smoke. “She won’t understand that. And where the hell is Major Audie Murphy anyway?”
Vance smiled for the first time.
“What the hell is so funny?”
“Edmonds faked trouble with his chopper to ground the C and C at Two Field so he could keep Fowler out of our hair long enough for you to get that gaggle out of the AO.”
Hollister laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned. I’ll be buying him drinks for the rest of my tour.”
“So we better take stock of where we are and what damage has been done and get this ragbag operation back on its wheels—before Fowler gets back,” Vance said.
It was almost midnight when Hollister and T.T. entered the Evac Hospital. Even before he stepped across the threshold a sergeant at the reception desk stood and started to hassle Hollister.
“Captain, if that woman isn’t authorized personnel, she can’t come in here,” the medic said.
“Don’t worry. She’s an interpreter,” Hollister lied.
“Oh. Okay, sir. Guess you’re looking for the LRP casualties?”
Hollister nodded. The sergeant pointed toward the Recovery Ward and plopped back down in his chair.
The contraption that held Bui wasn’t built for a man with a crooked leg. The doctors had had to pull the leg away from the board they had strapped him to. From the ankle of his good leg to his forehead, he was taped to the board to keep his body and his neck immobilized. A flexible tube was attached to the hole they had poked into his throat to help him breathe, and blood filled drain tubes that led from his torso to collection bags below his bed frame. His face was swoll
en and discolored. And his chin and nose were terribly scratched where he must have tried to force the earth away from his face to get some air while he was buried.
T.T. made no sound and gave away no expression as she walked to his side and knelt down next to him, taking his hand in hers. Hollister watched as she touched her cheek to the back of his hand, tears quietly slipping from the corners of her eyes. He knew she could hear better than he could the gurgling sounds coming from deep inside Bui’s chest cavity as he strained to breathe.
It was almost four in the morning when they left. T.T. was silent, but Hollister knew she appreciated his efforts to get her in to see Bui. She wasn’t even supposed to be on the Bien Hoa compound after ten-thirty at night. And at four A.M. it was too late to try to slip her out of any of the three gates that were still open. He would find a place for her to sleep.
As they crossed Bien Hoa Army Base, Hollister started to take inventory of what had happened. In a single day he’d been chewed out by his new boss, he’d disobeyed several orders, he’d been openly insubordinate, he’d lied, and he’d misused his authority to get around rules. It just wasn’t like him. And he wasn’t proud of his behavior.
He had also seen the worst demonstration of concern for the troops, poorest application of combat resources, riskiest maneuvering of manpower, and the most unwise splitting of forces and command responsibilities, as well as leadership blunders and willful suspension of established company SOPs. And it wasn’t over yet.
At the compound Hollister took T.T. to his room. “You can sleep here,” he told her. He looked at his watch. “It’s easier than trying to get you out of the gate this late and then back in. You won’t get any rest at all.”
“Oh, no can do,” she said with alarm. “This you room, Cap’tan Jim.”
“No, for the next few hours it’s your room. You’ve had a long night. Try to get some rest.”
T.T. smiled at Hollister, and her eyes started to tear up. “My Bui? What you think happen to he?”
Hollister took her by the shoulders and gave her a slight squeeze. “I think that your Bui is a brave soldier and that he will be very sore. But he will be okay, and you two will be together again soon.”
T.T. let out a small whimper and caught herself. “Thank you too much, Cap’tan Jim.”
After checking into Operations and finding things out in the AO quiet, Hollister crossed the compound in the still-dark moments before dawn and entered the mess hall. Vance was already there, drinking coffee and jotting down notes on some scraps of paper.
Hollister grabbed a cup of coffee and walked up behind Vance. “You’re up early, Ranger.”
“Hey, Jim. How’s Bui?”
“He’s pretty broken up, but I think he’s got a good chance of returning to duty in a few weeks. I just hope he wants to come back to work here.
“So where is he?” Hollister asked.
“Fowler? He got back after you left last night. He didn’t say shit to me. Just went to his room and slammed the door.”
“Where the hell was he?”
“Edmonds kept him tied up with that downed chopper until he finally blew his top and commandeered a quarter-ton to bring him back here,” Vance said.
“So when does all hell break loose?”
Vance shrugged. “Got me. The fucker’s probably writing up courts-martial charges that will have to be sent up the pipe in a footlocker.”
“We’re in big trouble, aren’t we?”
“Could be. We could all be reassigned to the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Levenworth for some of the stunts we pulled yesterday.”
“Well … if he starts any more shit he’s gonna have to explain his actions with Nessen’s people and using the reaction force like a damn maneuver element and then sending Bui back down in that hole to get a fucking body count off of dead men from another war.” Hollister collapsed a small milk carton and dropped it on his tray. “If we take it in the shorts on this, he’s getting some on him.”
“I’m not sure what our next move is right now. You think they’ll get wind of this at Two Field?” Vance asked.
“I hope so.”
“What if they don’t?”
“I just don’t have the stomach to go whine about Fowler. But he’s gonna get someone killed, and I might have to get over my own principles. Pretty shitty options, if you ask me,” Hollister said.
“If I go to General Stone and tell him—”
“No,” Hollister interrupted. “That’s a sure way to give Fowler an argument that you’re just looking to get his job. If anyone has to blow the whistle, it can’t be anyone who stands to gain anything by doing it. That’ll only confuse the issues.”
“So?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see what he’s up to and do some damage assessment today. Maybe we’re just a little too sensitive and overreacting to what is just an asshole for a boss.”
“Yeah. Still, I don’t expect Fowler went to his room last night and will wake up as a Sangean today. Nope, no bets there, partner,” Vance said.
It was just getting light when they left the mess hall. “Oh shit!” Vance said.
“What?” Hollister asked as he stepped up next to Vance. “There,” Vance said, pointing across the compound to an open area just outside Fowler’s window.
During the night the LRPs had taken six Ml6s, fixed bayonets, and stuck them in the ground outside the BOQ. The message was clear. They had seen a team risked unnecessarily.
“Look,” Vance said, pointing toward Fowler’s window. “Seems like the troops are trying to tell him something.”
Hollister caught the outline of Fowler stepping back from the window. “He saw it. Bet that isn’t going to help his mood any.”
By noon they had not heard or seen Fowler. Vance and Hollister met again and decided just to continue to march. Whatever was going to happen would happen. Their major concern was to get the company back on its feet and keep them too busy to stew in their anger at Fowler.
Hollister put priority on two things for the day, getting a letter written designating T.T. as the company interpreter so she could get in to visit Bui regularly and collecting notes on what had happened. If it came to a showdown, he wanted to have every move Fowler had made since taking over the company in writing.
On the morning of the second day, Bui had improved and Fowler had called the Orderly Room several times—from his room. He instructed the first sergeant to have paperwork sent over to his room and issued instructions for routine tasks that the NCOs in J Company had been handling without guidance from its commander.
The routine seemed to return to almost normal by the end of the week. Still, neither Vance nor Hollister had spoken to Fowler. He stayed cooped up in his room almost all the time, except when he left the compound with his driver to go to meetings at Field Force Headquarters.
Sergeant Major Carey told Vance that Fowler was attending meetings and submitting reports to the Field Force G-3 as if everything were running smoothly. But when he returned to the LRP compound, he closed himself up in his room and only went to the mess hall for something to eat well after the last regular meal was served. Around the company he became known as “The Ghost.”
Hollister and Vance continued running the operations of the company with virtually no input from Fowler.
Early on the morning of the fifth day of self-exile, Vance sent a runner over to wake Hollister. Still half asleep, Hollister entered the Orderly Room. “Damn, it’s two A.M. What’s up? We got a contact about to pop?”
“No,” Vance said, thrusting a document toward Hollister. “We have a mutiny about to happen.”
Hollister rubbed his eyes and tried to read it. The letter was from Fowler to All Members of the Command. The subject was New Tactical SOP.
Hollister scanned the document. “What the hell is all this?”
“Let me save you the trouble,” Vance said. “He’s pissed about the performance and the lack of aggressiveness of the company and wants to change
policy. Teams will stay on the ground until they make contact or run out of ammo, water, and rations. Air re-supply will be a method of extending patrols and increasing the likelihood of successful contacts. And in the future, all contacts will be pursued to insure every possible chance that they result in a body count.”
“Yeah—ours!” Hollister said.
“He sent a copy of this to every man in the company late this afternoon, and the troops are hot.”
“The troops? I’m pretty fucking hot myself,” Hollister said.
“No, this time it’s gonna be a showdown. Come take a look at this,” Vance said.
They walked out the front entrance of the Orderly Room and found another sign from the troops. All the Ml6s in the company had been neatly placed in three-rifle, muzzle-up stacks—in army terms—they had stacked arms. They were through.
“Son of a bitch,” Hollister said. “It’s over, man. This’ll fucking cripple Juliet Company. Let me take care of this,” he said, not waiting for a reply from Vance.
Hollister didn’t care whom he woke up as he slammed the screen door to the BOQ behind him. He quickly moved down the short hallway to his room and pulled out the sheaf of papers he had collected on Fowler. Tucking them under his arm, he went to the end of the hall and into the darkened Officers’ Club. Behind the bar he found the stack of rock and roll tapes and picked one without a label on its clear plastic reel. Dumping it into his shirt pocket, he doubled back down the hallway and stopped at Fowler’s door.
Hollister swallowed, straightened up, and kicked the door open. Hollister reached over and threw the light switch on. “Get the fuck out of that rack, Fowler,” he yelled at the sleeping major.
Fowler jumped to his feet, wearing only his OD T-shirt and shorts. “What the hell is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of this is that you are finished. You are leaving Juliet Company.” He was rattled by his own anger and could feel himself losing control. As he looked at Fowler, he tried to calm himself, unsure as to what lengths he would go to rid the company of the major.