13th Valley (30 page)

With Alpha safely atop 848 and Recon on a lower peak 900 meters due north the command decision was made to insert all other units as planned. The operation's momentum increased. Helicopters seemed to swarm everywhere at once over the Khe Ta Laou. Companies C and D began their insertions. Two kilometers north of 848 the American/ARVN unit exchange on Barnett commenced. Infantry units arrived by Huey and American security teams relieved ARVN security teams. Chinooks could be seen arriving with American airmobile 105mm howitzers slung-loaded and departing with slung-loaded older style 105s of the ARVN artillery unit. Just east of Recon's LZ Cobra gunships came on station and could be seen working over a draw. Tiny black mushroom clouds erupted in silence below the helicopters. The jungle-muffled karRump reached 848 so much later than the sight, the sound seemed incongruous.

From training and fear, Alpha troops ordered themselves into a tight defensive perimeter below the peak, concealed in the brush. This was front-line Nam. The differences between the boonies and Phu Bai were as great as the differences between Phu Bai and the World. Few people experienced the difference, few recognized it. Da Nang was a forward area to military personnel and journalists who lived in Saigon. Phu Bai was forward to Da Nang, Eagle forward to Phu Bai. Combat and firebases such as Bastogne and Veghel and Khe Sanh were front line compared to Eagle, but to the guys humping rucks in the mountains, everything was rear.

Platoon sergeants immediately organized recon patrols and before the unit had been five minutes on the ground squads were reconnoitering south, east and north. Lieutenant Brooks, the platoon leaders and boonierat advisers clustered at the center of the defensive ring to discuss first impressions of the new AO, to reaffirm the order of movement and to prepare to walk west, off the hill toward an objective they would not reach for thirteen days.

Below them, perhaps two kilometers west of 848 and extending perhaps fifteen kilometers to the foothills of the Laotian border, the Khe Ta Laou Valley was flooded, completely obscured, by a continuous white mistcloud which filled the long valley halfway up the north escarpment and overflowed through spillways between south escarpment peaks. The view of the valley from the summit of 848 was magnificent. In the middle of the immense fog sea, like a jade island in a whipped cream ocean, the top of a single tree broke through the mist and rose to glisten in the sun. Boonierats clustered to the northeast corner of the hill to peer into the valley they had heard held an NVA headquarters.

“Sir. Sir,” Pop Randalph called. “Sir, theah's a daid gook down heah. He's all blowed up an covered with dirt. He's got two Chi-coms an a sachel charge with'm.”

“Well I'll be dipped in shit,” Garbageman said.

“Go git the L-T.”

“I'll git um, Pop,” a third soldier volunteered. “I'll git um but I'll be dipped in shit, too.”

“We aint been heah but two minutes,” Pop smiled, “an a'ready we got us a body count.”

“There aint much left a him,” Garbageman laughed. They were standing about a depression of soft earth and mulch just below the crest of the LZ. Garbageman snickered, stepped over the depression and climbed toward the peak to see if the L-T was coming.

A fourth soldier from 2d Plt brought Pop an entrenching tool, a short, collapsible shovel/ pick. The old platoon sergeant stepped to the depression, straddled the low spot and began to dig, gingerly picking away at the mulch. Immediately thick odor rose. “God A'mighty,” he sang out cheerfully. “We got us a gook. We got us a gook. We got us a gook all blowed ta shit hell en highwater.”

Other soldiers clumped about the old boonierat picking at the slime in the hole. The commotion attracted more soldiers and they crowded closer attracting more until nearly all soldiers from that sector of the LZ's perimeter surrounded Pop and the hole and the mob trapped the rising spreading disturbed stench of decaying human, trapped the odor and held it motionless. Pop stirred the muck with the tiny spade, consciously avoiding acknowledging the gathering, humming in the limelight, slime oozing about his boots. Soldiers at the edge of the mob pushed forward to get a glimpse. Those in the middle swayed in two-way traffic driven forward by curiosity and by the pressure from behind. Soldiers at the center laughed, gulped, tried to stop their lungs in mid-stench inhale, tried to escape. Someone vomited. Still the circumference about the pit tightened.

“We got us a gook. We got us a gook,” the refrain passed from man to man, from inside to out.

“Don't they ever wash?” someone yelled.

“That dude aint got all day protection,” called another.

“Hey! Break it up!” The voice of the company commander exploded angrily. “Break-it-the-fuck-up!” Brooks yelled in a harsh uncharacteristic voice. Spectators parted to let him and Garbageman approach the hole. “Break it up,” Brooks said harshly again, aghast that his troops, including his eldest NCO, would cluster so stupidly. “Where are you supposed to be? One round would get you all. Get back to where you're supposed to be. Who's covering the perimeter?”

Brooks stood stone still, stared at his troops. Men shuffled sheepishly away, glancing furtively toward the commander, ashamed by the most elementary of reprimands yet still curious. When the cluster dispersed Brooks asked calmly, “What do you have, Pop?”

Garbageman joined Pop in the hole. El Paso and De Barti stood behind and above Brooks. All five men stared into the pitted moist earth.

“I aint sure, Sir,” Pop said. He smiled at the commander.

“He aint been daid more'n a week, Sir. Looks like he was in this heah hole when a arty round decided ta share it with'm.” The old boonierat backed out of the hole and handed the entrenching tool to Garbageman who immediately assumed Pop's position in the mulch and began shoveling. The sides of the foxhole had caved in and the dirt was clumped and black and loose. Hundreds of flies hovered and landed and hovered and re-landed with each disturbing movement of the shovel.

“He had im a US pistol belt,” Garbageman said, lifting a slashed soggy belt. “Damn. He had boocoo shit in here with'm.” Garbageman dug deeper and disinterred first a twisted belt of RPD cartridges then three more satchel charges and two aerated ponchos then four more Chinese-communist grenades and assorted personal and food items. Then Garbageman lifted a large brown muck-covered chunk. He examined it closely then backed off and laughed. “His foot's blown off.” He lifted the chunk on the shovel blade and displayed it.

“Bout a size nine I'd say,” De Barti said and he too laughed. “Pee-uu! Dinks always smell that way?”

“This Tootsie-Roll don't taste so good,” Mohnsen, the squad leader of Garbageman's squad, said as he joined them. “That sure is one helluva mess. Do ya gotta dig it up?”

“We gotta dig it out,” De Barti smiled. “Intelligence. You know that. An intelligence report.”

“Here's his ribs,” Garbageman said producing a decayed shattered human torso. “Looks like a dog's, don't it?” The body was very decayed and small pieces came up with each shovelful.

“Well, Sir,” Pop smirked, “the ribs is theah and theah's a foot. We don't got enough ta put him tagether yet. Got by artillery. I'd guess a dee-rect hit.”

“Got a gook killed by small arms fire. Killed today by small arms,” De Barti corrected laughing. “Blown away just now by small arms fire. That son of a bitch is blown ta shit, isn't he?”

“Killed by artillery,” Lieutenant Brooks said flatly.

“Sir?” Pop Randalph questioned. He knelt down by the pit. “Sir, theah's three sandals in heah. I think theah was two of'm in the hole. Must a been a dee-rect hit.”

Garbageman lifted more satchel charges and grenades and some empty C-ration cans and more pieces of human body. The area about the hole became littered with ration cans and debris. Deeper Garbageman found two Chi-com gas masks and more RPD machine gun rounds. “Hey Pop, there's his head,”

Garbageman giggled.

“I wonder what that silly sonabitch was doin with it so low,” Pop winked. “Reckon he was kissin his ass good-bye?”

“Think we oughta call him a Medevac?” De Barti laughed.

“Can't you find his weapon?” Brooks asked flatly.

“Maybe he was layin on it,” Pop suggested.

Lieutenant Thomaston, carrying a belt of M-60 ammunition, approached the group around the hole. The cartridges in his hands were bright shiny new. “Goddamned ARVNs, L-T,” he complained to Brooks. “They must have left this here. Damned ARVNs. It's like they're resupplying the dinks.”

The odor from the pit nauseated Brooks and he stepped upwind to look at the ammunition. “Oh Christ,” Thomaston stepped back. “What's that? What did him a J-O-B?” Thomaston scrunched up his nose and stepped further back.

“He don't smell near half as bad as the one we found on that other LZ,” Pop chuckled.

“El Paso,” Brooks said, “write down what we find and give the list to Cahalan to call in. We'll stay here until the patrols are back in. Pass the word to chow down. We'll move out at 1030 hours.”

“Chow down,” Garbageman sang from the hole. “Everybody chow down. Sounds fine ta me. I'd like mine medium rare. How bout you dudes?”

“Get to the bottom of that fuckin stink pit,” El Paso snapped.

“Wanta help me stir the soup?”

“Fuck you.”

The transformation from base camp soldier to boonierat continued amongst the light-hearted quipping, eating, smoking. Half the troops removed their helmets and tied them to their rucksacks. Helmets were required in the 7/402 but the wearing of them was not enforced in Alpha. Many of the boonierats felt the encumbrance of the heavy steel pot was not worth the slight probability of protection from a glancing bullet or piece of shrapnel. Against a direct hit a helmet was considered useless. Brooks replaced his with the odd-style baseball cap; Egan wore a tight-fitting broad-brimmed boonie hat that hid his red hair. Some men stripped off their shirts. Blacks, like Jackson, put only an olive drab towel over their shoulders as a cushion against the rucksack; whites, like Whiteboy, with skin that could be seen through five meters of dense jungle, covered their torsos with olive drab tee-shirts. Infantrymen in the 101st did not wear flack jackets in the boonies, the trade-off of protection for encumbrance not being worthwhile.

Daniel Egan searched the recesses of his mind. He had satisfied himself his platoon's segment of the perimeter was properly manned and defensible and that his patrols were out reconning. He sat alone in a bush and let his mind grind again, brood again, clash within itself, transforming itself, preparing for the responsibility of a platoon sergeant, for the alert paranoia the field demanded. A giant click, a massive gear grind began.

All the collective lessons of ten years of American involvement snapping into place in his head, all the collective lessons learned, forgotten, relearned by tens of men, by tens of thousands. The lessons were there in Egan's mind, there from almost eighteen months of combat duty, there from his heritage as an American, as a man, as a human being. All that need be done was to relax, allow the mind to shift, to tap the data banks of 10,000 years of human warfare perhaps 100,000 years perhaps for the entire age of man perhaps earlier. The adjustment was not easy. Egan fought it. All men fight it. Egan's mind balked. His direct experiences were close and easy to grasp, to drop him into the channel which flowed back, inhibited but deep and straight for a million years to a million years of data. And his enemy, Egan thought, conceived without words, knew, they too would bring the collective lessons of tens of millions of men from tens of thousands of years of fighting, of fighting North against South, brother against brother, the same pattern from antiquity to post-Geneva, the enemy with a mind-set developed by tens of billions of man-years of war all brought to the battle for the Khe Ta Laou. And the land, Egan thought. No experience needed. That he knew for sure, felt for sure. The land knows all, has seen all, has always known it, has always absorbed the blood and returned men to their humus components. Egan's mind shifted. He was there. He was ready. He was relaxed. He rose with his M-16 dangling lightly in the fingers of his right hand, rose and walked back to the company CP.

Cherry sat alone, in awe of where he was and how he had arrived. Up the hill behind him soldiers were laughing and cursing loudly. He sat quietly, alert, half-hidden, scared. His forearms ached. He rolled his arm over and looked. Both forearms were scraped and burned and bruised. Below his right elbow there was a two inch long incision surrounded by blood and a crusting scab. Cherry did not remember it happening. Thinking about it now he figured he had bruised himself while jumping from the helicopter. He looked down into the jungle then to his sides then to the laughing men. Since the moment after insertion when Jackson had given him the chocolate candy disc and he had checked in with El Paso, no one had spoken to him.

Just north of where Cherry sat, slightly higher up the peak, Jackson and Silvers were eating canned C-ration fruit cocktail from one can with one white plastic C-ration spoon. Jax was lying on his side trying to catch some Zs between passes of the fruit. Silvers was leaning against his rucksack, reading a July 13th copy of
Newsweek
. They had spoken little since moving into position above the rest of 1st Sqd. “Hey,” Silvers poked Jax. “Listen to this.”

“This,” Jax yawned, “I can miss.”

“‘General Creighton Abrams,'” Silvers read aloud, “‘American Commander in Vietnam, is reported increasingly concerned about President Nixon's plans to withdraw 50,000 more U.S. troops from Vietnam by October.' Think maybe I'll get a big drop?”

“Na,” Jax rolled onto his stomach. “By the time yo get a drop, I'll be a pop. They aint gowin let yo out—word's out. All Jews stay. Blacks leave today.”