Thirty Days Has September Page 9

  The attack was over. The firing had gone from constant and intense to lightly sporadic, and then nothing. The Gunny came to inform us that the company lost eight more KIA, and we had six wounded awaiting evacuation. Three of the dead had been killed by friendly artillery shrapnel, all of them from First Platoon. He said that most in the company thought I’d saved everyone, except for a few who knew and liked the dead Marines. A couple of NVA kills were confirmed outside the perimeter, with body parts totaling probably thirty more, but those could not be confirmed on the daily report, because of the rules. The artillery beaten zone was a charnel house of human destruction, even by only the briefest inspections before dawn, according to the Gunny.

  The Gunny came to sit on a small section of my hooch that wasn’t wet. The drizzle had abated only minutes earlier. Dawn was in the air even if the sun hadn’t yet risen above the horizon. The light would come from over the ocean, illuminating the Philippines before it crossed the nearly one thousand miles of South China Sea to reach Da Nang.

  “You did okay, this time around,” he said, taking out a cigarette.

  Fessman eased back toward his own hooch, while Stevens and Nguyen remained invisible in the darkness, although I felt them there and paying attention. The company was like a small mid-western town where everyone paid attention to the smallest detail of words and actions while making believe they weren’t at all.

  “I had my radio operator come up on the combat net, but it’s not the net I was looking for,” I said matter-of-factly. “You mind giving him the right frequency so I don’t have to spend hours trying them all?”

  “You’re not ready yet,” the Gunny replied.

  I noted that he’d only used the word “sir” once before, and that was right after I’d called in the first spotting round of white phosphorus. Was I going to have to somehow earn the right to be company commander by passing tests I didn’t know were tests? I said nothing because there wasn’t much I could think of for an answer that wouldn’t make me look weaker, and even more cowardly than I had already demonstrated.

  “First Platoon’s gonna be a problem,” the Gunny said, puffing on his cigarette and then spitting little chunks of tobacco into my small moat. “Jurgens, Harrington, Boaz, and Nim called themselves ‘The Four Horsemen,’ like from the old movie. And now Harrington and Boaz are bagged and going out on resupply. That’s not going down well. The fact that they died from artillery you called in, I mean.”

  “Maybe they can change their name to ‘The Deadly Duo,’” I replied, without thinking. I heard Stevens muffle a laugh in the darkness just beyond where the Gunny and I sat.

  The Gunny ignored my comment. “You know what I mean.”

  “I presume you’re telling me this to either warn me or let me know I’ve got to do something, or both?” I asked.

  “Just letting you know,” he replied.

  I thought for a moment about what the man was really telling me. I was supposed to understand that First Platoon was even more likely to kill me than before, but I was to do nothing about it. Maybe the problem would simply go away after we took Hill 110.

  “Stevens, get over here,” I said, raising my voice a bit.

  Stevens rushed past Fessman’s hooch to stand waiting at the edge of my moat.

  “I need a position and bearings on where First Platoon is down for the remainder of the night,” I ordered.

  “You can’t do that,” the Gunny said, rising to his feet and motioning Stevens back with his left hand. Stevens didn’t budge, waiting for me to confirm my order. Or so I presumed.

  “They won’t fire on our position,” the Gunny said, emphatically. “Artillery doesn’t do that, ever. It’s part of our rules of engagement.”

  I looked at Fessman, who’d approached to stand on the edge of my poncho cover. His eyes were big and round, like before. I said nothing to the Gunny, just letting the time run until dawn. The Gunny had just revealed that he didn’t know about our real position in relationship to the battery, or probably anywhere or anyone else, for that matter. I wasn’t going to tell him otherwise. I had no intention of calling in a mission on First Platoon, except deep down in the confines of my darkest emotions. But I would have to do something. Something would either come up or I would be dead. I was going to be dead anyway and I knew it in my bones. The NVA were well-equipped, supported and tenacious in numbers. The Marines around me were the same.

  “What’s the battle plan for tomorrow?” I asked the Gunny, changing the subject. First Platoon was now my problem and I understood that. “And when’s the CP meeting scheduled with platoon commanders before we cross the line of departure?”

  “Dawn,” the Gunny answered. “We can meet right here, if that’s okay with you, and then I’ll see if Sugar Daddy can make it.”

  If it was okay with me… Like I was anybody at all, except the guy hiding in his hooch after running away, who happened to be able to call effective artillery. I wasn’t even allowed to listen in on the combat net, much less issue any orders. And then there was the matter of First Platoon and Sugar Daddy. The company had a whole platoon of black Marines and I had not seen even one. How was that possible, I wondered? And why was I meeting Sugar Daddy? What was his role? How could I avoid telling him that we didn’t have black units in the Corps and that he had to disburse them into the other platoons? I didn’t even know his rank, not that rank seemed to be that important in the company I’d been dropped into.

  “I’ll be back,” the Gunny said, tossing his cigarette into my little moat without field stripping it or even making any effort to put it out.

  When he was gone Stevens leaned forward. Only when he whispered and I understood him did I realize that my hearing was coming back.

  “You still want the data on First Platoon?” he asked.

  “Fuckin’ A,” I replied.

  Stevens and Nguyen went back to their hooches to get ready, or so I thought until a few seconds later. Stevens pointed at me and Nguyen stepped forward with both hands held out. I looked down but it was still dark and I couldn’t see or imagine what he might have. When he noted that fact, Nguyen took a small object out of his right palm and held it up. I squinted to make out a black bracelet composed of some kind of strands. Nguyen motioned toward my right arm. When I brought it up he reached over gently and held my wrist. Slowly, he expanded the bracelet with both hands and then slid the thing up over my hand and onto my wrist. He tightened it by sliding something.

  “Montagnard,” Stevens said. “The bracelet will protect you. It’s only given to great warriors of his tribe. He’s not Vietnamese.”

  “Great warriors,” I whispered to myself, trying to figure out how the thing adjusted. I wondered how the great warrior with Stevens could so mistake what I was?

  “What is he if he’s not Vietnamese?” I asked, shaking the bracelet. It would take some getting used to but I could not take it off, I was certain, without hurting the man’s feelings.

  “Montagnard, of course, sir. The mountain people.” Stevens said. “We’re now in his area of operations.”

  I nodded toward the Montagnard, not knowing what else to do. I now had my first real amulet against the forces of evil, other than a Lucky Strike. The whole thing had to be hilariously funny but I couldn’t find the humor in it anywhere. I pushed back into the poncho cover, ate some more crackers and waited for what dawn had to bring.

  Where was John Wayne when I needed him?

  twelve

  The Fourth Day

  Love child, never meant to be. Love child, always second best.” Brother John, on Armed Forces Radio, presaged the lyrics in his deep baritone voice. A different voice introduced John without actually introducing him. Was John really in Nha Trang, spinning a platter with the latest Supremes’ song on it? The song was as far and distant from the coming dawn as I was from any kind of reality that I wanted to be a part of. I got up, althoug
h I could not remember sleeping like I’d been so accustomed to doing back home. I’d merely missed a few hours somewhere. I didn’t feel like I’d slept or was waking up. The sounds of morning gentled their way into my recovered ear canals. I knew I needed some kind of ear plugs for night combat or I was going to go deaf, but then when I thought about it further, I realized that I’d be deaf anyway with the plugs in and I could not afford to be deaf in combat any more than I already was when the firing began.

  I poured water into my helmet, setting the liner aside until later. I shaved carefully with no mirror and a mechanically operated double-edged razor. The edge was brand new but not sharp. I worked at it intently, trying to forget where I was. I took off my utility top and washed under my arms for no good reason I could think of. I brushed my teeth, spit out the water and was done. I got dressed for the coming day, put my helmet together, strapping the rubber band Fessman had given me around it. Now I had repellent right there at any time anywhere. My utility top still had some wrinkled starch left in it which had nicely absorbed now blackened sweat marks. Shirts or tops were not called that in training. They were called blouses, but I could never think of them that way. Folding up the bottoms of pants, called trousers, at the bottom was called blousing too, for whatever reason.

  The day was going to be partly cloudy with the sun soon coming up over the top of Hill 110, our target or objective. I had now seen the hill that had become famous a year before for some attack that had been punishing on some other unit.

  I stood up, got my gear together as best I could, and went to work brewing some instant coffee in my canteen cup holder. I was out of cream and sugar again.

  But maybe there were packets in one of the Ham and Mothers I’d have for breakfast. The Gunny came out of the heavy brush nearby as I ignited some Comp B. A big, black Marine wearing a bush hat followed him. Bush hats were flattened, soft things that would also look right at home on some sailor’s head off the cost of Maine, except this Marine’s was green. The black Marine wore no rank, which I was now accustomed to. He also wore a utility top, but with the sleeves cut off all the way up to his armpits. His boots were the jungle boots issued back at Battalion, if I ever got back to Battalion. The most distinctive feature of the Marine was his purple sunglasses. Big twinkling lenses surrounded by gold frames.

  “Sugar Daddy, I presume,” I said, looking up but making no attempt to move from my crouch over the small fire.

  The Gunny squatted down, as did the big Marine.

  “You’d be Junior,” the man said with a giant smile, revealing snow white teeth except for one centrally located shiny gold one.

  I made no move on the outside at the use of the nickname, glad I’d already heard it. I brewed the coffee, stirring slowly until it was hot enough.

  “Some coffee, Gunny?” I asked, looking the Gunny straight in the eyes. I noticed that Fessman, Stevens, and Nguyen had retreated into the background completely.

  “Bracelet,” Sugar Daddy said, pointing at my right wrist. “Don’t give those to nobody. Elephant stuff. Big mojo.”

  His voice was as deep and beautiful as Brother John’s, I noted. I drank some coffee, wondering if I was supposed to say something, complain, question or whatever. I could think of nothing that wouldn’t create instant conflict. If there’s anything I’d learned at lightening speed, it was that training and experience were no help at all. I didn’t know anything relevant except what I was learning day by day, as long as I lasted.

  “I’m platoon commander,” Sugar Daddy finally said into the silence.

  “Yes,” I answered, drinking more coffee, but not tasting a thing. For some reason this meeting was vitally important, but I didn’t know why. I waited some more.

  “Unit’s doing fine,” Sugar Daddy said.

  Fine. The Company was losing five percent of its strength per day, and that was just the dead. There were no officers. There’d been no way to call in accurate artillery or even read a map before I showed up. And evidently there were as many deaths caused by friendly fire as from the enemy. The Company was doing fine? What did he mean?

  “Why are we here?” I finally asked, deciding to show my ignorance.

  The Gunny refused to look at me, instead taking out his K-Bar and poking around at the remains of my little fire. Sugar Daddy took out a cigarette and lit it. It was no ordinary cigarette. It was pungent smelling marijuana or maybe something stronger. He blew the smoke gently across the fire. I didn’t blink or cough.

  “Tom says things can stay the same,” Sugar Daddy intoned, blowing more smoke, as if to accentuate his message.

  “Who’s Tom?” I asked, surprised.

  The Gunny waved one hand upward a bit. I realized that Tom was the Gunny’s first name.

  “Okay,” I replied, drinking some more coffee.

  “Okay?” Sugar Daddy asked. “What’s okay mean?”

  I drank more coffee, thinking about the fact that there was no safe or comfortable place the conversation could go. I was living in some anthropology experiment where the apes had been replaced by Marines. Different sized and different colored, but apes nevertheless. Sugar Daddy was applying his somehow attained Alpha Male status and I was supposed to either meet him right now in combat or demonstrate that he was the alpha and I was a lower class male.

  “Benton Harbor,” I said, putting my coffee down and looking as far into the distance as the jungle would allow. “Do you know where Benton Harbor is?” I asked.

  “What’s he talking about?” Sugar Daddy asked the Gunny after almost a full minute of silence.

  “I don’t know,” the Gunny answered, finally looking up at me. He frowned but said nothing more.

  “Well, I don’t give a shit about no Benton Harbor or any of that,” Sugar Daddy said, forcefully. “I’m running the Platoon and if you’ve got questions about that you can ask them here and now or forget it.”

  I took the few seconds I had to think about how out of control and totally lost a Marine company had to be to have come to such a desolate unruly place where every vestige of the training and spirit of the Corps had been lost. Marine training had forged me from a middle class kid doing okay in school and sports to a physical specimen acing every test they could throw at me. I was a Marine through and through and I knew down in my bones that another dead Marine officer was going to be of use to no one and nobody, especially me. I was probably dead anyway but I deserved to be killed by the enemy, not my own.

  “Okay,” I said again, this time looking at the man’s purple sunglass lenses. “What position does your platoon hold in the company? Where are you bivouacked from here, grid-wise?”

  The Gunny jerked his head up and I felt someone hidden in the jungle behind my hooch inhale sharply. I knew it had to be Fessman.

  “We’re done here,” the Gunny said, getting to his feet. “We’ve got a meeting to decide about Hill 110, medevac coming in and resupply. Let’s move on back to our units.”

  “Three days in-country and he’s nuts,” Sugar Daddy said to the Gunny in a loud whisper, intended for my ears I was certain. He stood slowly. “He’s your problem unless he becomes my problem,” he said, speaking in full volume.

  “The fourth day,” I said, not moving or looking at either one of them. “It’s my fourth day in-country.”

  They walked off without anybody saying anything further. I listened to their boots making sucking sounds in the mud until they disappeared into the lower jungle ferns and fronds. When they were gone my team reappeared out from the same undergrowth.

  I pulled back into my hooch, thinking about resupply, clutching my letter home and wondering about the battle for Hill 110. Only five hundred meters high, the small hillock or mountain was nearly conical with no good approach to taking it, except by direct frontal attack after an artillery and/or air attack. Machines guns, which the NVA had plenty of, made frontal attacks in modern combat about
as attractive as a fur covered apple. Why was it called Hill 110, when the contour on the top read 1004? It should be Hill 1004.

  I thought about the earlier meeting. It had been a high threat meeting without there being any threat issued directly. I could not meet the threat directly and I could not shrink away from it. So I’d gone sideways. But I had to respond or I would become prey, which I was a bit already anyway.

  Chicken Man blasted out from Stevens’ shoulder-mounted radio.

  “Benton Harbor,” Fessman said, in obvious surprise. “That’s the secret name of Chicken Man. That’s why you asked Sugar Daddy about that place?”

  “It’s a place, too,” Stevens answered. “In Michigan. There was a big anti-war riot there a couple of years ago.”

  “Stevens, go on over to where that guy’s platoon is and bring back some bearings,” I ordered “It’s almost light. Should be easy. Pace off the distance there and back.”

  “If I go over there, sir, and you drop some artillery on them, then every time I show my face in the Company they’ll think I’m getting their location for you.”

  “You’ve taken my order wrong, Stevens,” I replied calmly. “It’s good to know where your people are if you’re company commander. That’s it. So, don’t go. Send our Kit Carson Scout. Why do I have the feeling that he’ll have no problem at all registering where that shadow of a real Marine platoon is set up?”

  Stevens spoke softly to Nguyen. The small Montagnard seemed to disappear after the conversation.

  “Where are those guys in First Platoon from?” I asked the remaining two members of my makeshift team.