Dateline: Viet Nam: A Military Thriller Double

by Robert Vaughan

  “Thank you, sir, don’t mind if I do,” Hunter said.

  “You, Lieutenant Cox?”

  “Yes, sir, thank you,” Cox answered.

  Colonel Petery poured both men a drink, then poured one for himself. He corked the bottle and returned it to the file cabinet. Hunter couldn’t help but smile. That was the same place the NVA commander was hiding his whiskey. Maybe all commanders were alike.

  “Tell me about the mission,” Colonel Petery said.

  “We located the NVA base camp,” Hunter said.

  “Where?”

  “About ten clicks on the other side of the Cambodian border.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Colonel Petery said.

  “Beg your pardon, sir?”

  “You weren’t on the other side of the border,” Colonel Petery said.

  “I wasn’t?”

  Colonel Petery took a drink of his whiskey and looked over the rim at Hunter. “You aren’t sure where the base camp is. After all, you were a little disoriented. All you are certain of is that it was on the Vietnamese side of the border.”

  “Very well, sir,” Hunter said.

  “Look, Sergeant, I don’t think the North Vietnamese are going to say anything about this. According to their propaganda, there are no North Vietnamese in the war at all. It is all a popular uprising of the people, or some such shit as that. You think they’re going to raise hell because one of their base camps was destroyed?”

  “I don’t know,” Hunter said.

  “Believe me, they won’t say a word. The ones we have to worry about are the antiwar people in our own country. Go on with your report.”

  “Nothing else to report,” Hunter said. “We hit them early this morning. The camp was pretty much destroyed. There were several NVA killed. We had no casualties.”

  “Hot damn!” Colonel Petery said, hitting his fist in his palm. “I knew you could do the job. I knew it!”

  “Congratulations, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Cox said sticking out his hand. “I want you to know that I am putting you in for the Silver Star.”

  “I didn’t do anything to earn the Silver Star,” Hunter said.

  “You let us be the judge of that,” Cox said. “Colonel Petery has already approved the recommendation and it’s gone forward. I just hope my own mission is as successful.”

  “Your mission, sir?”

  “Yes,” Colonel Petery said. “I’ve approved another mission like the one you just completed, only this one is to go after the core element of V.C. in the area.”

  “As soon as your men get a little rest,” Lieutenant Cox said, “we’re going out in company strength.”

  “Very well, sir,” Hunter said.

  “By the way, we just got a new replacement in,” Cox said, smiling. “I’m sure you’ll be interested in him.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Sergeant Bill Hanlon.”

  “What? I thought he got out,” Hunter said.

  “The way I understand it, he was out for all of two weeks. He’s back, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to go.”

  “In my platoon?”

  “Uh...no, I put him in the third platoon,” Cox said. “I need the experience there.”

  “I'll trade you one of my experienced men for him.”

  “He’s mine, no matter where he is, Sergeant Two Bears,” Cox said crisply. “Don’t forget, it’s my company. And I prefer to keep him in the third platoon.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hunter said.

  Cox drained the rest of his drink. “I’d better see to the ambush patrol. Sergeant, we’ll talk tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll have some valuable information to share.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel Petery waited until Cox was gone before he spoke again. Finally, he sighed.

  “I had to give him this operation,” Colonel Petery said. “He was ready to submit a request through channels to the next higher. I couldn’t afford to have them looking too closely at what we’re doing here. They might have found out about your little jaunt into Cambodia.”

  “Couldn’t you find anyone else to command it?” Hunter asked. “That man is an asshole.”

  “But he is an officer in the United States Army,” Colonel Petery said. “And I would appreciate it if you would remember that.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s not something I’m likely to forget, Colonel,” Hunter said grimly.

  The C-130 landed at Tachikawa Air Force Base near Yokohama, Japan. The rear door went down and the stretcher cases and walking wounded were transferred to hospital buses that came from the 106th General Army Hospital.

  Though there was nothing wrong with Francis Poindexter’s legs, the wound over the end of his arm was still open and draining, necessitating that it be immobilized. Therefore, he was confined to a stretcher.

  Francis had missed Japan on the way over and had never seen the country. He chuckled, dryly. This was a hell of a way to visit. He raised himself up a little to look out the window. The streets were alive with people, busy people hurrying to and fro on whatever personal errands took them about.

  The thing he noticed most was the way they felt no sense of danger. But it was tiring to hold his head up, so, with a sigh, he let it fall back to the stretcher and stared at the tiny holes on the ceiling of the bus.

  Once in the hospital, the doctors were able to close his arm stump. When he awoke in his bed the next morning, he was aware, perhaps for the first time, that he would be minus one arm for the rest of his life. He knew it was an irrational thought, but as long as the wound was open, he had not fully accepted the loss.

  Within a few days, Francis began adjusting to the situation. Through his window, he could hear the sounds of peaceful street traffic. The halls were filled with smiling doctors and nurses, the sheets were clean, and the food was good. As a young, pretty nurse cut his pork chops for him, he thought of the guys back in An Loi and wondered what they were eating. It was odd. He was here physically, but mentally he was still in the jungle with his unit. He couldn’t get over the feeling that he was expected back, that his bunk was still there in the tent and his buddies were waiting for him. He owed Mitchell five dollars. Silverthorn owed him three.

  Two weeks later, Francis was loaded onto a hospital bus with a dozen other patients. This time Francis was walking and he sat in a seat near the window so he could look out. A triple amputee, no more than nineteen, was loaded onto a stretcher beside him. A hospital corpsman was with him, holding a can of root beer. The young amputee was sucking the root beer through a straw. Seeing him, Francis felt almost guilty that he was coming out of country in so much better shape.

  At the air base, they were loaded onto a C-141. The C-141 was the largest airplane Francis had ever seen and it was like being moved into a gymnasium. Francis was taken to a seat and told to sit down. Because of his arm, he was given an isolated seat so there would be little danger of anyone bumping into him. He sat quietly, listening to sounds of the airplane being loaded: the snapping of locks as the stretchers were secured, the closing of seat belts, and finally, the whine of the big rear door as it was closed. A few moments later, the jet engines roared as the ship rumbled down the runway and finally lifted off. There were no cheers.

  Captain Minh lay on the sleeping mat beside the young girl who had proudly given her body to a hero of the revolution last night. After delivering the weapons, he was asked to go to Tuy Due, where he met with Major Dom, of the NVA. Major Dom was upset because the Americans had attacked an NVA camp across the border in Cambodia and he wanted Captain Minh to conduct an operation to “punish” the Americans for their sins.

  Captain Minh looked over at the young girl. He had no idea how old she was, though she didn’t look much more than seventeen. Her breasts were little more than slight pillows of flesh, though her nipples were the nipples of a woman. She had been proud of her ability to please him last night and now she slept the peaceful sleep of one who had done her best to serve the cause. She had called him a “hero”
last night.

  You think what I do is heroic? Minh thought as he looked at the sleeping girl. He reached down and brushed her hair away from her face so he could see her. The battle against mosquitoes and snakes and all sorts of biting insects is not heroic. The battle against skin diseases and malaria and dysentery is not heroic. It is not heroic to be hungry and wet, and to suffer from the heat, and yet, all these things we must do. It is not even heroic to fight against the Americans when you lose the element of surprise and the American firepower and numbers can become very deadly. I am not a hero, I am an accident.

  The girl moved against Minh and feeling the pressure of her body against his made him aware that his bladder was full. He got up from the mat and walked to the door to relieve himself. That was when he saw them. So high that they were practically invisible, a flight of B-52’s was coming toward them. There were nine planes in three groups of three. The first three banked away sharply and he wondered why. Then he realized that this village was very close to the Cambodian border and the airplanes would have to turn sharply to keep from overflying the border. That hadn’t stopped the soldiers who attacked the NVA camp, but they had slipped in, then slipped out. Bombers couldn’t do that.

  Minh wondered why they were here. The second V of three aircraft banked away, then the third V.

  Suddenly Minh got a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Those planes were dropping bombs! He couldn’t see anything yet, but he knew it. Within a couple of minutes, the bombs would come crashing down on the village!

  “Awake!” he shouted. “Everyone awake! Find shelter! B-52s! We are being bombed by B-52s!”

  The young girl with whom he had spent the night was up instantly. Her eyes were wide with fear.

  “Bombs!” Minh shouted. “We’ve got to find shelter!”

  “Come!” the girl said, and she darted out the back of the hut, with Minh right behind her. The girl ran toward a tree, then dropped down and disappeared beneath a bush. Minh realized there must be a hole there and he went with her.

  Minh’s shouts had awakened a few others and they in turn shouted at others, so that the village was awake and everyone was running toward some sort of shelter.

  By now Minh’s fears were realized because the bombs had fallen far enough so that the whistle of their fall could be heard. It would be less than thirty seconds now before the first bombs hit.

  The girl beside Minh drew next to him in terror. If she looked seventeen last night, she looked no more than twelve at this moment and Minh reached for her, not as he would toward a woman with whom he had just spent the night but as he would for a child.

  “We will be all right in here,” he said reassuringly, though he knew that their chances were not very good, even in this shelter.

  The first bombs hit. They fell in the jungle at least half a mile from the village and the thunder of their explosions was deafening. Smoke and flame rose above the point of the bomb strikes and a visible shock wave rushed out toward the village, causing all the houses to shake, knocking down those few villagers who were still running around.

  The next wave of bombs hit closer in. Then they started moving toward the village, as if laying a giant carpet of death and total destruction on the jungle floor. Whole trees were uprooted and they flew before the approaching carpet of bombs like twigs in a gale before a storm. A tree landed just in front of the opening of Minh’s shelter and the trunk of that tree acted as a barrier against most of the other flying limbs and debris.

  The bomb carpet moved into the village itself and every house was flattened. It marched inexorably through the village, until it was right over Minh’s shelter opening, and the tree that had been acting as a barrier exploded into splinters as several bombs fell on it. Minh felt a searing blast of heat, an intense pain, then nothing.

  The name of the movie was Revenge of the Great Hero. It was a movie about Chinese knights, warriors who possessed almost magical powers in the martial arts. The movies were exceptionally popular with the Vietnamese, and Ernie liked them, not for the action and adventure that thrilled the Vietnamese, but because they were so unbelievable as to be funny. Marty came with him.

  At the movie, Ernie and Marty ate dried fruit and salted nuts, and they drank Coke. The cans were too valuable to be given out, so the Coke was poured into plastic sandwich bags. The bag was then twisted shut and sealed around a straw with a rubber band. In order to drink it, one had to hold the bag carefully in hand. It was a little like holding a piece of cold liver.

  The soundtrack of the movie was in one Chinese dialect, while another dialect was written in subtitles on the screen. The movie was also subtitled in Vietnamese, French, and English, so that the screen was half covered with words. Despite that, it was great fun and Ernie booed and hissed when the villains appeared and cheered lustily for the heroes and he enjoyed immensely the hours away from the war.

  After the movie, he took Marty to his apartment because he had promised to cook her dinner.

  Marty was sitting in a wicker chair on the terrace, nursing a gin-and-tonic. There was a glass dining table on the terrace and the table was already set for two. Around the edge of the terrace was a brick planter, providing soil for a well- maintained hedgerow. Large urns served the same purpose with regard to flowers so that the rooftop terrace became a lovely and very private garden.

  Marty could smell the garlic and the wine and the hot butter as Ernie worked in his kitchen. She held her glass aloft.

  “Ah, ’tis the burden of the Occidental to come to this accursed land and civilize the heathen. And I intend to start with women’s rights. Perhaps I should sell tickets to the Vietnamese women so they can see a man cooking in the house,” she suggested.

  “Not if you want to eat,” Ernie replied good-naturedly.

  “Tell me, what is that perfectly heavenly smell?”

  “Steak, with champignons de Paris,” Ernie said. “Only, perhaps I should say champignons de Saigon. In truth, I don’t know where the mushrooms came from but they were plump and tender and they will do.”

  Ernie brought two plates out onto the terrace. Each plate held a large, steaming steak, smothered in mushrooms. He set the plates down. “With this, I thought we would have an amusing little red wine, not elegant, but adequate.” He poured the wine. “Bon appetit,” he said.

  They ate quietly for a few moments. Then Marty sighed.

  “Are we dinosaurs, Ernie? Are we anachronisms, you and I?”

  Ernie smiled. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why would you ask?”

  “My editor,” Marty said. “He wants me to change the tone and tint of my stories to, and I quote, ‘get more with the times,’ unquote. It seems my stories are too sympathetic to the fighting man.”

  “I know what you mean,” Ernie said. “The mood of the country—or perhaps I should say the mood of the country’s press—is becoming more and more antiwar. Heroic pieces aren’t in. They want human-interest pieces.”

  “Yeah, as long as the human interest shows the U.S. in a bad light,” Marty said. “I can’t do that, Ernie. I don’t know, maybe I’ve been over here too long…with these boys too long. My God, I’m as much against war as anyone. You can’t see these kids get blown away day after day without having some feeling about it. But I’m not going to stab them in the back by saying that what they are doing is senseless.”

  “I know,” Ernie said. He smiled. “But not to worry. There are enough red-hot journalists over here after their own Pulitzer that I’ve no doubt your editor and mine will get what they want and leave us in peace. In the meantime, I will continue to write what I see and feel.”

  “That’s what I said—you’re a dinosaur.” Marty laughed.

  “Like you?”

  “Like me,” Marty said. “The last two of an extinct species.”

  Ernie smiled. “Well, you’re a girl dinosaur and I’m a boy dinosaur. Maybe we could do something about preserving the species.”

  “God, I hope not!” Marty said,
laughing, and spewing wine.

  “Oh,” Ernie said, his disappointment showing.

  “On the other hand,” Marty said, looking at him with eyes that had suddenly grown smoky, “if there are any dinosaurs lurking about, hiding behind curtains and that sort of thing, we might give a demonstration.”

  “Yeah,” Ernie said, refilling her glass. “That’s just what I had in mind.”

  Francis Poindexter woke up to an icy blast of wind. He was unprepared for the cold and he looked around the cabin in some confusion. A nurse walked by.

  “What is it?” Francis asked. “What’s going on?”

  The nurse smiled at him. “Look out your window, soldier,” she said. “We are on the ground in Washington, D.C. Welcome to the good old U.S.A.”

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Francis said.

  “Okay, listen up!” someone shouted, speaking through a bullhorn from the back of the plane. “Walking wounded, there are buses for you. Officers and top three grades first, then the rest of you. Step quickly, gentlemen, it’s cold and we’re freezing our stretcher cases.”

  There weren’t that many officers and top three grades, so it quickly became Francis’s time to leave. He shuffled through the plane, looking down at the stretcher cases on either side. He saw the boy who had been drinking the root beer. The boy was looking through the window at the lights outside, his eyes dull, his face expressionless.

  Yeah, Francis thought. I know what you mean. I hadn’t planned to come back this way either.

  “This way, fellas,” an airman with a clipboard directed. He was standing by the steps of a blue air force bus. Francis got on, then sat down and waited as the others shuffled onto the bus and took their seats.

  “Well,” someone said, “we’re here.”

  “Yeah,” another said dryly. “Where’s the band?”

  “Forget the fuckin’ band,” a third put in. “Where’s the bar? I just want to get drunk. I want to get drunk and stay that way for the rest of my life.”