“Really,” another agreed.
The driver of the bus got on then, followed by the airman with the clipboard. The airman with the clipboard sat on the corner of the front right seat.
“Okay,” he said to the driver. “We can go. Gate six.”
“Gate six?”
“Yeah, around back.”
“What for?” the driver asked. “That’s the long way around.”
“The captain says there’s demonstrators out front.”
“Shit! We don’t mind a little welcome home,” someone said.
“Not that kind of demonstrators,” the airman with the clipboard said. “These demonstrators throw bricks at wounded veterans.”
“What?”
“What can I tell you?” the airman with the clipboard said. “It’s an asshole world.”
Chapter Seven
Sergeant Mills was dead. He was sitting beside Sergeant Two Bears, eating ham and beans, talking about the ’65 Impala he had bought just before he left the States. It had only fifteen thousand miles on it and he got a real good deal. His brother was keeping it and if it had more than seventeen thousand miles by the time he got back, he was going to kick his brother’s ass. It was right after he said that that a sniper’s round hit him between the eyes and, with the hydrostatic action of the brain matter, blew out the back of his head.
Preacher was next. He was a born-again Christian who drove everyone nuts with his proselytizing.
They said McGiver was masturbating. He was on ambush patrol and they found him the next morning with his throat cut and his hand in a death grip around his penis. He’d been sitting out there in the middle of the night, maybe excited by some private fantasy, or maybe just trying to stay awake. For some reason, his death disturbed the men more than most as if they themselves had been caught in such an act.
When Bill Hanlon saw how many men had been killed in Hunter Two Bears’s platoon, he figured they’d let him move over. He went to Lieutenant Cox and asked to be transferred to the R&P platoon. Cox disapproved.
“You’re too valuable to me,” he said. “You’ve got more experience than anyone else in the platoon. In fact, I’m going to make you the platoon sergeant.”
“You’re promoting me to E-6?”
Cox shook his head. “I would if I could,” he said. “But I don’t have the authority. I can make you an acting jack, though. You can wear the stripes.”
“Never mind,” Bill said. “If I can’t have the pay, the additional stripe doesn’t mean anything. I can be your platoon sergeant just the way I am. Who are you going to give my squad to?”
“Who is the senior spec-four?”
“Wilson, but he’s no good. He just got here. He can’t find his ass with a map and a compass. How about Yard?”
Yard was PFC Yarborough. Yarborough had been in Vietnam longer than Bill. He had been as high as buck sergeant three or four times, but he kept getting busted. His propensity for running afoul and the name Yarborough made his nickname of “Yardbird” a natural. That had been shortened to Yard.
“You really want him?” Cox asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Cox sighed and ran his hand over his closely cropped blond hair.
“All right, you can have him.” Cox pointed his finger at Bill. “I’ll cut out company orders, making him an acting sergeant. But I’m going to hold you responsible for him.”
“I’ll look out for him,” Bill promised.
“Good, good. Now that I have your confidence, I can tell you that your platoon is about to go out on a major sweep.”
“My platoon, sir? Not Sergeant Two Bears’s?”
“Your platoon,” Cox said. He smiled. “Of course, I will lead it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We got a break yesterday,” Cox went on. “Sergeant Two Bears’s platoon made a body-count recon into that village that the B-52s bombed. On one of the dinks they found papers that identified him as Captain Duong Cao Minh of the People’s Army.”
“No shit? I didn’t think those guys carried I.D. cards around,” Bill said.
“Normally, they don’t,” Cox confirmed. “However, the bastard had just completed a meeting with some NVA people and he had a few documents from the meeting. But the most important thing is, we know where the son of a bitch came from.” Cox held up a sheet of paper and waved it in front of Bill’s face. “He came from My Song,” he said. “My Song is the headquarters for the V.C. core element. We’re going to take that headquarters out,” Cox said.
“Lieutenant, the moment they realize we’re headed for the ville, they’ll haul ass out of there,” Bill said.
Cox grinned again. “No, they won’t,” he said. “Not the way I’ve got it planned. It’s a pretty good gimmick, even if I did work up the plan myself.”
When Lieutenant Cox laid out his plan for Bill, Bill had to admit that it was a good one. The plan called for a helicopter-lift company to fly to a landing zone, set down as if the helicopters were discharging American troops, then take off again. Five minutes after the choppers took off, American artillery would concentrate a time-on-target attack, laying down a blanket of artillery shells over the entire area.
If any V.C. were drawn to the landing zone by the helicopters, they would be caught in the artillery barrage, but that was just a secondary effect. The primary effect was to keep the attention of the V.C. averted while Lieutenant Cox and his platoon approached My Song.
Yard was at point, and the patrol moved out in a single file along a jungle trail, keeping the required five-meter separation. Half an hour later, Yard came jogging back toward them.
“We’ve got a hut up here,” he said.
“Abandoned?” Bill asked.
“Doesn’t look like it. It’s built on a concrete pad and everything.”
“Probably some farmer,” Cox said. “We’ll skip on around it.”
“Lieutenant, if it’s built on a concrete pad, it’s worth checking out,” Bill said.
“All right, we’ll check it out,” Cox said. He looked at his watch, impatiently. “But don’t take too long. I want to hit the ville right after noon when they’re all taking their nap.”
“If you want, Yard and me can take a squad, check it out, then catch up with you.”
“You don’t need a whole squad,” Cox said. “You and Yard do it alone. Move Silverthorn up to point.”
“Okay,” Bill agreed.
Bill and Yard waited until the platoon had moved on before they hurried down the trail to the hut. When they reached the hut, they saw someone coming out, carrying an AK-47.
“Shit!” Bill said. “V.C.!”
The V.C. saw them almost as soon as they saw him and he sprayed a long burst of automatic weapons fire toward them. Bill and Yard dived for cover and returned fire with their M-16’s on full automatic.
Their bullets ripped through the walls easily and after a few moments, a white flag fluttered out the door.
“Chieu hoi!” someone called from inside. “Okay, come on out!” Bill called.
The door opened and four men came out, holding their hands over their heads.
“Now what?” Bill asked.
“The big question is: Is that all of them?” Yard replied. “What if there’s someone inside waiting for us to show ourselves?”
Bill laughed. “If there’s anyone left inside, he must have the rank,” he said. “You can bet your ass no officers are going to come out and make themselves bait.”
“Well, what are we going to do?”
“I’ve got an idea,” Bill said. He rose to his knees and called to the four V.C., ordering them to come to him. The four V.C. looked at one another nervously, then started across the clearing toward the tree line where Bill and Yard waited.
“Hand me one of your grenades,” Bill said, taking one from his own webbing. He pulled the pin but kept the handle down.
“What the hell are you going to do?”
“Watch.”
When the V.
C. got to them, Bill gave one of them the two grenades, putting one in each hand, with the pins already pulled. He then gave instructions to walk back over and toss the grenades into the hut.
“What if he throws them at us?”
“If he looks like he’s going to, we’ll shoot him,” Bill said.
The V.C. tried to resist, but Bill pressed them in his hands. Then, with sweat popping out on his face and his eyes darting about nervously, the V.C. started toward the hut. He got about halfway when there was a shot from inside the hut. The V.C. dropped and the two grenades rolled out of his hands.
“Duck!” Bill said.
The two grenades went off with a roar, though they were far enough away that there were no injuries.
“All right, it isn’t empty,” Bill said. “Let’s call in napalm. We’ll burn the sons of bitches out of there.”
One of the three remaining prisoners started yelling. Bill couldn’t understand what he was saying, though he did recognize the word napalm. Now there was another white flag fluttering from the door.
“Okay, tell the son of a bitch to get out here,” Bill said. “Tell him to get away from the building. I’m going to call in napalm.”
One more V.C. came out of the building holding up his hands. He walked past the body of his comrade he had just killed. When he reached them, the other three started talking to him. Bill couldn’t understand what they were saying, but from the tone of voice, it seemed pretty obvious they weren’t pleased with him.
“What are we going to do with them?” Yard asked.
“We don’t have any choice,” Bil1 said. “We’ve got to take them back to the compound.”
They heard the angry snarl of a turbine engine then and looked up to see a chopper flying just above the trees. From the crest on the nose, Bill recognized it as a helicopter from Capitol Flight. He spoke into his PRC-6.
“Capitol Huey that just passed over papa seven tango five, this is Wide Receiver. Do you copy?”
“Yeah, Wide Receiver, Capitol Three, go ahead.”
“Capitol Three, I have four victor Charley papa whiskey, say again, four victor Charley papa whiskey. Can you handle them? Over.”
The Huey turned and started circling back. “Wide Receiver, do they require medical assistance?”
“Negative.”
“Pop smoke, Wide Receiver.”
“Roger, popping smoke now.” Bill nodded at Yard, who threw a canister out into the clearing. Green smoke began spewing up.
“Roger green?” the pilot asked.
“Confirm green,” Bill replied. Bill knew that early in the war the pilots would sometimes request a certain color smoke. The V.C. who had radios would often set off their own smoke grenade, trying to lure the choppers down. The result would be two plumes of the same color. Now the color was never identified until after it was popped.
The helicopter flared out in the clearing, very near where the body of the dead V.C. lay. Two men jumped out through the side door and, carrying .45 handguns, came for the prisoners.
“Thanks for taking them off my hands,” Bill said.
“No sweat,” one of the two G.I.’s said. He had a broad smile. “I’m a clerk at MACV. This is the closest to action I’m going to get.”
“You call, we haul,” the other one said. They made a motion with their pistols and the four sullen V.C. walked over to the chopper and climbed in. Almost before they were seated, the chopper lifted up, then flew away.
“Okay,” Bill said. “Let’s catch up with that doofus-assed Cox and see what the hell he’s up to.”
Bill and Yard moved quickly through the jungle toward My Song. About thirty minutes later they heard heavy firing from the village.
“Shit! Cox has taken them right into an ambush!” Yard said.
“Come on,” Bill said. “We’ve got to get there.”
They started jogging toward the village. They didn’t run all out, because anybody who suddenly burst from the jungle on a dead run was a sure target for a nervous infantryman, especially someone being led by Lieutenant Cox. Cox was not someone who instilled confidence in his men.
Bill and Yard broke out of the clearing, then stopped dead in their tracks.
“Son of a bitch, Bill, what the hell are they doing?” Yard asked in shock.
“I...I don’t know,” Bill said. “God in heaven, I don’t know.”
Old men, women, and children from the village were huddled in a ditch that ran just outside the edge of the village. On the berm looking down into the ditch stood about ten men from Cox’s platoon. They, and Lieutenant Cox, were firing down into the ditch. Heads were exploding under the crash of bullets.
“Silverthorn,” Bill said, seeing Silverthorn and the rest of the platoon standing in a group about fifty yards away from where the killing was taking place. Bill pointed to the killing. “What is this? What’s this all about?”
“You ask me, that doofus son of a bitch has gone crazy,” Silverthorn said. “When we come in here a while ago we didn’t find one V.C. Not one weapon…nothing. So Cox, he just started rounding up the villagers and...well…you see what he’s doing.”
“Didn’t you try to stop him?”
“He’s the lieutenant,” Silverthorn said. “I got no right to say anything to him. Besides, there was something about him…something in his eyes…I’ll be honest with, you, Sergeant, I want to just stay the fuck away from him.”
“Over here!” Cox called. “Get that bunch over here down in the ditch!”
Two or three men herded another bunch of villagers down into the ditch. The villagers knew what was going on. They had seen their neighbors killed and they knew they were next. They went stoically to their doom.
There was no screaming. Bill couldn’t believe how quiet they were. It was like some sort of bad dream, where everything was in very, very slow motion, and all sound was muffled.
“Som’bitch! Did you see that?” someone shouted, laughing. “I shot the nipple right off that bitch!”
Bill couldn’t even hear the gunfire.
“You got shot in the pecker?” Francis asked.
“No,” answered the young red-haired soldier who was in the bed next to Francis. “I didn’t really get shot in the pecker. I just tell the women that.”
“Why?”
“’Cause ol’ Conally there is such a cocksman he doesn’t want the women bothering him,” someone else said.
“Just the opposite,” the redhead said. “See, I’ve got this plan all worked out. I tell them I got shot in the pecker and I’m afraid it won’t work anymore. The next thing you know, she’s got her hand under the blanket. It’s as good as a steam and cream on Plantation Row.”
“Shit! There’s got to be something better than that,” Francis said. “I heard we can get an overnight pass out of here if the doc says it’s okay.”
“Yeah,” Conally answered. “If that’s what you want.”
“Well, he said it was okay, and I’m going out tonight.”
One of the others giggled. “Sounds like a prison break. Hey, pass it down—Poindexter’s going over the wall tonight.”
“Poindexter’s going over the wall tonight,” someone else said.
“Anyone got any hot tips?”
No one answered.
“Well, come on, surely there’s something to do in Washington. This is a big city,” Francis said.
“You ever see West Side Story?” Conally asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You remember that song where they said everything’s all right if you’re all white in America?”
“Yeah.”
“We got our own song. ‘Everything’s all right if you’re all there in Washington.’ Most of us here in the pit...we don’t get into town much.”
Conally had a leg missing. Everyone in the ward, called The Pit by the men, had at least one limb missing; many of them were missing two, and a few, including the young soldier Francis had seen drinking root beer, had three missing.
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“Listen, we could get you a wheelchair. I’ll push you around,” Francis said. “What do you say?”
Conally looked at Francis for a long moment. Then he smiled.
“All right,” he said. “You’re still such a fuckin’ babe in the woods, I guess I better go with you to keep you out of trouble.”
The first problem came when they tried to get a cab. Francis flagged a taxi and when he stopped, Francis opened the back door and started to help Conally in.
“Jeez!” the cabdriver said. “Don’t the government have special transportation for you guys? I mean, it takes you so long to get in and out that I lose fares.”
“Start your goddamned meter,” Francis said.
“Don’t worry, I will,” the cabdriver said, pushing the flag down.
Conally broke into a sweat getting into the cab, but, with Francis’s help, he managed to do it.
“How about putting the wheelchair in the trunk?” Francis asked.
“That’ll cost you just like a piece of luggage,” the driver said, getting out of the car.
“Just do it,” Francis said. With a sigh of disgust, Francis got in beside Conally. Conally looked over at him and seeing the expression of anger on his face, laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking,” Conally said. “You can’t go around pissing people off like you used to.”
“Why the hell not?”
“What happens if you push them into a fight? I’m sure not going to be any help to you. You ever see a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest?” Francis frowned at him for a moment. Then the humor of the situation hit him and he laughed out loud. By the time the driver got back into the car, he was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down his face.
“What’s so funny?” the driver asked.
“Nothing,” Francis said. “Listen, I appreciate you picking us up. I know it’s inconvenient.”
“Yeah, well…” the driver said, hemming and hawing now. It was easier for him to deal with Francis when Francis was being bellicose. “Always glad to help a wounded vet,” he said.
“Especially this one,” Francis said, pointing to Conally. “He got shot right in the pecker and he doesn’t know if it will work anymore. We’re going to try and find a girl who’ll test it out for him.” Conally laughed.
Dateline: Viet Nam: A Military Thriller Double Page 24