It took eighteen minutes for the chopper to get there. It swirled up such a thick dust cloud when it landed that Mac had to drop to his knees.
Mac swiped at the dust settling over his body as the helicopter took off. His face was black with dirt. He waved, knowing Rick couldn’t see him. What the hell would they do without men like Rick? His shoulders slumped. He’d been given a message that the two men didn’t make it. He’d known they wouldn’t but hearing it confirmed made him so angry, he slammed his helmet on the ground. “Son of a bitch!”
“Easy, Major,” Phil Pender said, coming up behind him. “Here, have a smoke.”
Mac turned. This was a new Phil Pender, one he’d actually come to like and respect. He was lean now, hard and tough, a man fighting for his life along with the rest of the company. It hadn’t happened overnight; in fact it had taken six months before the snappy lieutenant got his act together. When he realized he was on the trail for good, he’d buckled down. Next to Stevens and himself, Pender had the most kills in the outfit. He’d even managed to take two prisoners, a feat headquarters recognized and rewarded. Pender was a captain now, and he himself was a major.
“The perimeter is as tight as a duck’s ass, Major. There’s a stream over there in case you want to cool off. Stevens found it by accident. Well, actually, the truth is, it’s little more than a puddle, but it sure as hell is wet.”
“Thanks, Pender.” There was no need to give Pender orders. He seemed to know instinctively what was required in his C.O.’s absence.
Mac laughed when he saw the water Pender referred to. He almost hated to disturb the little puddle. He dropped to his haunches. He was about to dip his hands when he noticed, because he was so low to the ground, that the vines and greenery were trampled on the opposite side of the puddle. He’d come down a path that had been hacked by his men. The fine hairs on the back of his neck moved. He found himself looking overhead, sensing danger. He listened, his eyes watchful. It was so still, so quiet, he could hear his own heartbeat. He looked at the puddle again. He had only an instant, which he used to drop to the ground. He rolled back into the thick greenery, whistling shrilly at the same time he opened fire, spraying the perimeter of the puddle. He heard a grunt, a curse, and gunfire. He rolled again before he opened fire a second time, followed by return fire.
When the jungle was silent again, Mac thrashed through, his eyes murderous. “Pender, I’m going to string your ass from the nearest tree! Didn’t you check?”
“Yes, sir, I did,” Pender grated.
“How many were there?”
“Seven, sir,” Sergeant Stevens said. “You got them all. Do we leave them?”
“The VC come back for their dead. Drag them out of here and set up an ambush. Pender, you jackass, this is your detail.”
Back inside the perimeter, Mac sat down. He’d lost his cool, something no good officer was supposed to do. For a few brief minutes he’d stared at his own mortality, and he’d reacted. Jesus Christ, was he ever going to get it down to a science? Sloppy leadership, every officer’s nightmare. Shit! He had to remember Pender was as green as he was. Still, a puddle in the middle of the jungle should have been suspect, even to Pender. He couldn’t blame Pender for the band of VC. The little weasels were everywhere—under bushes, in the trees, in caves and holes. Just because an area looked clean didn’t mean it was. This wasn’t his turf. He couldn’t ever lose sight of that fact.
The idea of going into politics was starting to look better and better. “Bullshit!” he exploded, thumping the ground next to him. A snake, whose sleep was disturbed, slithered into the open, rearing its obscene-looking head, poised to strike.
“I got ’im, Captain. Don’t even breathe,” Pender hissed. A second later the snake’s head was airborne, the main body twitching at Mac’s feet.
“Good work, Pender,” Mac said gruffly.
“Just trying to do my job, sir,” Pender said quietly.
Mac moved into the open, but not before he kicked the snake’s remains into the jungle, cursing as he did. Twice within an hour’s time he’d stared at death. He felt himself shudder. Jesus, did it mean his time was coming close? He was beginning to feel as if he was only one step ahead of the Grim Reaper. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to spook his men. He had to get himself together.
“Sir,” Freeze said, “an order to stand by for cover fire just came in. Supplies. And some mail.”
Mac gave the order to take cover as a Huey gunship perforated humid air. He watched as it circled overhead, then banked, hoping to draw enemy fire. Seconds later, a second ship sizzled in, dropped supplies and lifted off, all within five minutes.
“Stevens, distribute the ammo; Freeze, dole out the C-rations; Pender, sort the mail.”
The mood of the men lifted when they heard the word mail. Word from home. How bright and hopeful their faces were. Mac felt a lump rise in his throat. For a little while, until they started on their trek up the mountainous terrain, things would be okay. Letters from home, the cure-all for just about anything.
Pender handed three letters to Mac: one from his father, one from Benny, and one from Alice. He read his father’s one-page, large scrawled note first, just to get it out of the way.
Dear Mac,
Dean Rusk stopped by the other day to fill me in on your activities over there. I understand you’re well thought of in the upper echelons of the army. (He told me the Distinguished Service Cross you received will look good in the papers when you throw your hat in the ring.)
We’re gearing up for your return, eight months or so, isn’t it? If you like, I can have you ordered back here so you can be home for the holidays. Advise as to your intentions.
The letter was signed Justice Marcus Carlin, after which his father penned in his initials. Mac snorted. “You know what you can do with all your grand plans, Pop,” he muttered.
He ripped at the envelope from Alice written weeks before. A picture of baby Jenny fluttered to the ground. He picked it up, stared at it with clinical interest, and wondered why he didn’t feel paternal. He read the short note.
Dear Mac,
I know you’re alive, otherwise the army would be knocking on the door. Your father told me you receive mail even though you’re in the jungle. So, if you receive mail, why don’t you send mail?
I understand it’s very warm over there. What do the women wear? Do they know the miniskirt is in fashion, or do they wear some kind of traditional clothing?
I will probably never forgive you for giving Benny your power of attorney. That was a lousy thing for you to do, Mac. A baby certainly costs a lot of money. You should be ashamed to have your wife beg for money.
Jenny is growing rapidly. She eats constantly.
The letter was signed, Your wife, Alice.
Mac looked at the picture of the baby again. She looked like Alice. She was chubby with a full head of hair. He supposed she was a pretty child, but her face was screwed up in a grimace. He imagined she was wearing a dirty diaper, which Alice was too lazy to change. He slid the picture back into the envelope and ripped at Benny’s letter, which was as normal as apple pie and hot dogs.
Dear Mac,
How’s it going, good buddy? Jeez, I envy you. Not really. Your old man managed to get an article in the Washington Star about you after Johnson and Rusk’s visit. It read real good. I saved it in case you want to see it when you get back.
Important news. Carol is pregnant. She swears it’s going to be a boy this time. Better be, is all I can say. We’re painting everything blue. I’ve never seen Carol so happy. Me too, for that matter. Every man wants a son. I talked it over with Carol, and she agreed to name the baby after you, if you have no objections. We want you to be the godfather. We can do it by proxy for now, and when you get back we can do it all over again.
No luck in tracking Bill. I’ve got this gumshoe named Snedeker on it. There, for a while, we thought we had a hot lead, but it didn’t pan out. We’re now working on magazine subsc
ription lists, since Bill was a sports fiend. Something might turn up.
I saw Sadie last week. We spent the entire evening talking about you. She misses you terribly. She’s planning a ticker tape parade for you when you get back. Don’t laugh, she’ll pull it off too, you wait and see.
On the home front—your wife is more than a little perturbed with me. I didn’t know speech could be as flowery as hers. She even had your old man call me to loosen the purse strings. I told them no soap. Before I dole any monies out, I make her tell me what it’s for, and then I ask the world’s best budgeter if it will fly. What that means is I go by Carol. By the way, she loves tooling around in your Benz. That’s something else Alice didn’t like. All is well, so don’t worry about it.
Your last letter was an eye opener. I knew you could do it, Mac. I’m so proud of you, I could just bust. You just watch your butt is all I can say. You and I have things to do and places to go when you get back, and my kid needs a godfather, one who can give him ritzy presents, because that’s the only way he’s going to get them.
Take it easy, Mac, I miss you. Carol and I include you in our prayers every day. Carol sends her love, the girls send kisses, and I send you my best.
Benny
Mac wiped at his eyes. Goddamn sweat, a man could hardly see straight. The letters went in his field pack.
His fingers were careful, cautious, as he undid the flap of a fourth letter. Rick had dropped it off along with the information about his men. Before Mac unfolded the single piece of paper, he held it to his nose, his eyes closing as he brought Casey’s image to the forefront of his mind.
The moment he finished it, Mac pushed his helmet back on his head. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. He felt like standing up and shouting “Hooray!” for the whole damn United States Army to hear. She wanted to go back to Pleiku where she was needed, but not until after the Fourth of July picnic. “Please understand, Mac,” she’d written, “I came here to do what I’m trained to do, just as you are doing. What kind of person would I be if I sat here on the beach reading novels when I could be helping some dedicated doctor save one of your men?”
She was right and he was wrong. Jesus, was he ever going to do anything right? The nurses and doctors were as vital to this war as the men who fought it. He laughed then, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy. His men smiled tiredly. It was good to hear someone laugh in this hellhole. The problem was, how was he going to rectify his mistake? By taking precious time from his visit to Da Nang for the famous picnic all of Vietnam knew about. He’d go to Saigon on foot, if necessary, or maybe he could manage to get a call patched through from Da Nang. Whatever it took, he would do. “She’s a winner,” he told himself over and over. He read the letter again and again. When he was confident he knew the contents by heart, it too went into his field pack.
He got to his feet and stomped on an army of red ants that were as big and fat as his pinky finger. He winced at the sound his boot made when he crushed them. They left a vicious sting that made a person’s eyes water. He could see the men swatting at them as they chewed through their fatigues.
Red ants, bamboo vipers, blistering skies, and VC—all treasures of Southeast Asia.
“Saddle up! Move out!”
Day 487 on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Chapter 7
WHILE THE SOLDIERS and nurses, along with Red Cross volunteers, prepared the momentous Fourth of July picnic, hoping it would take the brutal edge off the horror of the war, the American populace was attending a free Barbara Streisand concert in New York, and Elvis Presley was tying the knot with Priscilla Beaulieu. Titillation turned to sorrow when Spencer Tracy took his last curtain call at Katharine Hepburn’s kitchen table, followed by Jayne Mansfield’s tragic death in an auto accident.
Who could blame the Americans for wanting a pleasant memory to take home from Vietnam? Certainly not General Westmoreland, often referred to as Westy by his peers. It was rumored that 446,000 Americans were in Vietnam, and that Westy was asking Defense Secretary Robert McNamara for an additional hundred thousand men, saying, “We’re winning slowly and steadily.” On hearing the news, those attending the picnic sent up a shout of victory that was short-lived.
“Let’s paint this place red, white, and blue and drink to old Westy,” a grunt shouted as he wielded a paint brush, intent on painting anything that wasn’t moving.
The war wasn’t exactly put on hold, but it came damn close when the chopper pilots and the Bird Dog pilots dropped leaflets all over the country announcing the picnic on China Beach. There was no wording on the clever leaflets, simply pictures of men and women reclining on beach chairs with drinks, topped by colorful parasols alongside a beach with a china plate for identification. Word spread faster than a brushfire.
Later, by general consensus, it was decided the Fourth of July picnic at China Beach was the highlight of the Vietnam War.
Choppers started to arrive an hour past dawn. On the ground hundreds of hands lifted down crates of corn, and cartons of hot dogs and hamburger patties packed in dry ice. Condiments were whisked into tents along with barrels of Budweiser beer and Coca-Cola. Buns, five hundred to the bag, were left sealed to ensure their freshness. The ice cream, which turned out to be chocolate and cherry-vanilla, was still frozen solid, thanks to the Sealtest Company, which packed it in special shipping freezers for the long trip. There was even a sheet cake cut into sections, decorated like Old Glory, along with enough candles to set the beach on fire. Tens of thousands of marshmallows were wrapped in identical bun bags. When the fifth chopper landed, a shout went up from the eager soldiers unloading the plane. “Watermelons! Real goddamn watermelons!”
The sixth chopper was full of entertainers, singers in miniskirts and comics of every description. A small band in glittering, sequined outfits chorused, “Hi, guys, what’s new!”
The fifth chopper pilot, his rotors still at high speed, leaned out, waving a clipboard. “I need Carlin’s signature on this before I can return to the base.”
Mac, in a flowered shirt, straw hat, and canary-yellow shorts, strode over to the pilot. He scribbled his name, a slash that was little more than a scrawl and completely illegible.
“I don’t know how you pulled this off, Major, but I’d sure as hell put you up for a commendation. Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. Just make sure you get me out of the stockade if some smart-ass general gets downwind of this. There’s not a man in this country who will rat on you, Major, so rest easy and save me a hot dog. I’ll be back later in the day for some ice cream and corn and whatever the hell else you have.”
“You got it,” Mac chortled happily.
How had he pulled it off? He was grinning from ear to ear when he thought about it. With the help of friends, that’s how. If there was one thing Benny liked, it was a challenge. He looked down at the paper he was holding. On the back were two notes, one from Sadie and one from Benny.
Benny’s read, “I hope you get gas from all of this! I’ll be thinking about you when those fireworks go off. It was my pleasure, Mac.”
Sadie’s read, “Mac, honey, I had a ball helping Benny with this. Don’t eat too much—you’ll get sick. We had help from some of the White House personnel. All I had to promise was that I’d put their pictures on the wall. The camera is in the middle of the marshmallows, along with twenty rolls of film. Send them on and we’ll make you copies. I have a new board in the bar, just for you and the wonderful people you’re serving with.”
He saw Casey then, a vision in pink, complete with a cherry-red visored cap and dark sunglasses. Next to her was Lily in white shorts and halter, every bit as pretty. When Casey spotted him, she ran straight into his arms. He hugged her, a devilish grin on his face. A minute after she was introduced, Lily excused herself.
“I missed you,” Casey whispered. “Please, you have to tell me you aren’t angry with my decision to go back to Pleiku. Tell me you understand.”
“Of course I understand. By tomorrow morning i
t will be taken care of,” Mac said, hugging her.
As they walked along they could hear hushed tones, fingers pointing in Mac’s direction. “That’s the guy. Hebrew National hot dogs. In Vietnam, yet!” Hundreds of times they stopped so Mac could shake hands or get clapped on the back. Rank was left back on the trail. Here, he was one of the guys. Casey loved every minute of it.
Every fifty feet there was a small fire and a phonograph. The Beatles sang “When I’m Sixty-Four” and “Lovely Rita,” while further down the beach the Rolling Stones sang “Ruby Tuesday.” From somewhere off in the distance a third phonograph was playing the “Star Spangled Banner” over and over.
Laughter, good-natured teasing, frolicking in the water, and gorging on food were the orders of the day. There was no drunkenness, no brawling, no anger of any kind. This picnic was too important to everyone attending. Choppers set down and then lifted off, delivering men who shouted happily as they shed their combat boots and field packs to plunge into the sparkling blue water before accepting beer and hot dogs. Men straggled in from the jungle while others came in jeeps. At one point Mac, who felt like an indulgent father, estimated the body count on the beach to be around a thousand. Some of the guests stayed no longer than thirty minutes, just time enough to have their pictures taken alongside a pretty entertainer and to get something to eat. It was the nurses, dressed in skimpy bathing suits, who arranged the relay races with scoops of ice cream for prizes. They worked in shifts so they too could take advantage of the cool, beautiful beach. Mac and Casey took their turns cooking and pumping beer and snapping pictures. Several times during the day, Mac announced over one of the gerry-built loudspeakers that copies of the pictures would be available at Saigon headquarters in about a month, or as soon as Sadie could send them.
For All Their Lives Page 21