Better Times Than These (35 page)

Brill’s platoon was lying or sitting behind the rock outcropping with hard, determined looks on their faces. Kahn squatted down in front of them, next to Brill.

“Here’s the CO,” Brill said. “You bastards better listen up.”

“Look,” Kahn said, “I know nobody wants to go up there. But the colonel says we are going to do it—and we are going to do it. He also said that when we get up this goddamn hill we can go home—so saddle up; get with it—on the double.”

No one said a word or moved. Somewhere above, a sniper’s rifle cracked nastily. Everyone looked at Kahn. He paused for long seconds, searching the faces of the men.

“Did you hear what I said?—The colonel says we are out of here soon as we knock off that crest . . .”

“Yeah, Lieutenant,” one man said sarcastically. “Just like he said there wasn’t no gooks left in that ravine yesterday.”

There was another silence. Someone else spoke up.

“Shit, sir—we go up there—it don’t mean nothing. You know that. We just gonna get a bunch of us killed. Them gooks’ll be back on this hill the minute we leave,” the man said.

The radio crackled, and Bateson shoved it at Kahn.

“Not now—tell him I’ve got a situation down here,” Kahn snapped.

“All right, goddamn it,” he said angrily. “This is a direct order to every one of you. Lieutenant Brill and Sergeant Trunk are my witnesses. You men get up, get your gear and move out with Lieutenant Brill in one minute. If you don’t, I’m going to take up Second and Third platoons anyway and I’ll promise each and every one of you you will spend the next ten years in the stockade at Fort Leavenworth. I am counting now,” Kahn said.

He looked down at his watch. The second hand swept toward the bottom, and started upward again. Still they sat.

Once he looked up at Brill and for an instant he thought he saw Brill and Sergeant Groutman exchange glances. Trunk had seen this too, and he raised his eyebrows at Kahn, as though to ask if Kahn wanted him to intercede. Kahn shook his head sharply and returned to the watch. He was in charge here now. He had to see it through. The second hand had returned to the top.

“Okay—that’s it,” he said. “Trunk, let’s get the hell out of here.”

They trotted low along the rocks back to where Inge’s platoon had joined Third. Kahn gave him new instructions.

Before Kahn reached First Platoon, Inge was on the radio to him.

“I can’t get ’em to move. They say if Second Platoon won’t go they won’t either,” Inge said.

“Shit,” Kahn growled. He was on his way back to Inge’s position when the radio hissed angrily. “It’s the colonel . . . says he wants you right now,” the operator said. Kahn put the handset to his ear. Patch was irate.

“Colonel,” Kahn began, “I have tried everything. They say they won’t go up there again—and I can’t go with just one platoon.”

Patch was mortified. He was standing on the hill with three newspaper reporters, two television crews and a magazine correspondent, who had come to record what the Army was presently billing as the largest single battle of the war—two thousand Americans taking on an entire enemy division and kicking the hell out of them by anyone’s standards. Now
this
embarrassment. Men who would not fight? Patch seethed—it could not be permitted.

“Try to pull them together in a single spot,” Patch said calmly. “I am on my way down there.”

To his deep dismay, Patch was followed into the ravine by the entourage of reporters and cameramen, who sniffed a story in this. Men who would not fight? It was good copy. And Patch could not prevent it. As they came up the low slope to the rock outcropping, Patch was in the lead, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, an indignant scowl on his face. In the distance the sounds of rifle fire from another company echoed down the ravine, but as he strode on, he observed with satisfaction that the correspondents were bent over at the waist protectively in a sort of Groucho Marx crouch.

When he reached the outcropping, Patch brushed by Kahn and addressed the men directly. Some of them looked a little embarrassed and stared at the ground. His expression softened.

“Come in here closer,” Patch said quietly, motioning them toward him. He remained standing, most of his body exposed above the rocks. The men slowly gathered in and sat back down. The news correspondents backed up against the rocks and squatted on their haunches and took out their notepads. The TV film cameras purred.

Patch looked around for a minute before selecting an antagonist. His choice was a dark-eyed Italian boy from Providence, Rhode Island, who had been glaring fiercely at Patch since he had walked up. Patch nodded toward him.

“Okay, soldier, suppose you tell me what’s the matter here,” he asked solicitously.

Kahn was surprised at Patch’s tone of voice. It was certainly not the outraged voice he had expected; the one he had heard so many times over the radio; the one that had condemned the men to their bunk rooms aboard the transport. It was a nice, sweet voice, a sympathetic voice, a soothing voice. Patch’s face had a look of deep concern.

“Well . . . ah . . . sir . . . ah . . .” the boy stammered. “It’s, ah . . . like, we been out here almost four weeks now, and, ah . . .” He stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts. The glare on his face melted to a look of awkwardness, as though he weren’t quite sure how to express himself.

“Yes? Go on,” Patch said nicely.

“Uh, see, sir . . . you said yesterday there wasn’t gonna be no NVA in that ravine, and then we got chopped up bad down there . . . and, ah . . .”

“Yes, I know you did, but I was very proud of you, all of you,” Patch said. “Go on.”

The TV cameras whirred and clicked, and the microphone man moved closer to the boy.

“They just murdered us—there wasn’t nothing to do but get down . . .”

Patch looked at the boy, reserved, waiting for him to continue.

“You just don’t know how bad it was up there, sir . . . It was . . . it was all over us . . .” He searched for words. “It was
horrible,”
he blurted out.

“Yes, I know it must have been,” Patch said sympathetically. “Go on.”

“We, ah . . . I don’t know, sir. We just don’t none of us want to go back up there again . . . I mean, there ain’t been enough artillery up there or something, ’cause the gooks are set up everyplace, and we go back up now, we just gonna get killed . . . sir . . .” the boy said, almost apologetically.

From above, the sniper’s rifle cracked again. Patch did not flinch. The news correspondents reflexively tucked their heads into their necks. A fatherly smile crossed Patch’s face. He knew he had them now—or was pretty close to it. He sensed they knew it too. This was a ploy he’d picked up from an old Army manual, and he’d once given a talk on it at Command and General Staff College.

“You want more artillery up there, do you?” Now he was speaking to them all. “Well, we can certainly get that for you. Tom,” he said to Captain Flynn, his aide, “raise Wicked Blast. Tell them I want fire on this knoll. Walk it up and down about fifty meters from the top.”

The aide summoned the radioman and began speaking into the handset.

“Now,” Patch said, drawing himself up. “We are going to put the Big Heat on. But let me say this. You all know we laid fire on these hills for nearly two days and you all saw the results this morning. Obviously they are well dug in up there, and it’s going to take infantrymen to dislodge them. It’s going to take men like yourselves . . .” He paused for a moment.

“Part of the problem,” he said, “has been that that is a very big ridgeline and until now we didn’t know exactly where their strongpoints were. Thanks to you, we do. Another problem is that it’s been hard to put accurate fire up there because a lot of the guns have been firing ever since this operation started and their bores are smooth as a woman’s tits . . .”

“Ah, sir,” another voice came out of the crowd, “maybe if you put napalm up there it would help.”

Patch looked at the voice and spoke again to the whole group.

“Ah, yes, napalm—good thought. We haven’t used much of that yet for the same reasons—we weren’t sure exactly where they were. Tom, get Air Liaison on the horn. Tell him to put napalm up there after the artillery lifts.” The aide spoke again into the radio. The cameras continued to whirr.

The sniper had been silent for a while, and Kahn suddenly wondered if he or any of the other North Vietnamese above could see the weird little drama being played out down here. If so, he thought, it must be very puzzling to them—the television cameras, tape recorders and people writing in notebooks. Perhaps they were having a laugh out of it. In other circumstances it might have been quite funny.

“Now,” Patch said masterfully. “After we have smashed them with artillery and fried them with napalm, when you men get up there all you should find is bits and pieces and maybe a few half-witted gooks. But I want you up there. I don’t know what Lieutenant Kahn has said to you, but whatever it was, I am wiping the slate clean. I want you to go back to your positions and watch this little show. Then I want you to go back up that hill and mop up whatever is left. When you’ve done that, I am going to pull you out of here and you’ll all get some rest.”

As if to punctuate the colonel’s closing argument, two artillery rounds thundered overhead and exploded just below the crest of the hill. Everyone looked up. The Big Heat was on. The aide spoke into the handset again, making corrections.

“All right,” Patch said cheerfully. “Lieutenant Kahn will take over now and put you where he wants you. You men have done a fine job so far. Good luck on this one.” Patch nodded to Kahn. He stepped forward. “Platoon leaders, take your platoons back to their original positions and get ready to move out like I said before,” he said.

The TV cameras were still running. The reporters scribbled furiously in their notebooks. The men did not move.

Slowly out of Brill’s platoon a lanky figure uncoiled from the ground. He looked around and said in a Southern drawl, “You heard what the man said; let’s go,” and Brill’s men, following the lead of Pfc. Homer Crump, pulled to their feet and dragged themselves away, talking and muttering to each other and to themselves.

Thick, acrid smoke and dust wafted down from the crest of The Fake and engulfed them as they hauled themselves painfully upward. Small fires were burning everywhere, ignited by far-flung bits of napalm jelly. There was still no shooting as they reached the abutment where they had taken shelter during the first assault, and they plunged forward with mean, determined thoughts, watching almost hopefully for the first North Vietnamese to poke his head up. An electric sense of victory ran through Bravo Company now, spurred in part by the terrific bombardment of The Fake and also by Patch’s appearance on the scene.

Far to the right they heard the faint sounds of some other battle, but it did not concern them. Their own line was spread out perhaps a hundred yards, Brill on the far left, Inge inside him and First Platoon beginning to pinch in from the right.

Spudhead was laboring behind with the boxes of ammo for Muntz’s machine gun when the first firing began, ahead of them. It seemed almost halfhearted this time—an automatic rifle or two blapping out of the haze. They crouched lower, but since the bullets were apparently directed elsewhere, they pressed forward. They had reached just about the same spot where the earlier firing had started when Spudhead saw the two North Vietnamese pop out of their hole and lob two black objects toward them.

He tried to scream “Grenade” but could not think of the word. All he could say was “Oh, hell,” and he buried his face in the dirt. Others took the cue and dropped briskly to the ground as though they had suddenly been put to sleep with an amazing nerve gas. There was an explosion, and dirt flew into the air. There was no second explosion. Bright flashes came from the spot where the two heads had popped up. Dirt kicked up behind them. The bunker was about thirty yards away, just below the crest, surrounded by blackened sandbags.

“You see it!” someone yelled.

“Yeah, I see it,” Muntz growled back. He was struggling to set up the M-60. Spudhead crawled beside him and took one of the ammunition boxes off his belt. It had been rubbing his backside raw for several days, and he was glad to be rid of the damned thing. The fire rained down on them again from ahead.

“See, there they are,” a voice yelled from behind.

“Goddamn it,” Muntz screamed back, “don’t tell
me
—I
know!”

Another grenade sailed out of the bunker toward them. Muntz’s machine gun barked and caught the pitcher in mid-throw. He disappeared behind the sandbags as though he had been poleaxed. The grenade exploded harmlessly far ahead of them.

“We can’t stay here,” Hixon, the other ammo bearer, whispered; “there ain’t no cover.”

“Shut up,” Muntz said.

Farther on, Dreyfuss was signaling with his arms from the prone position, motioning several men forward and to the side of the bunker. Two men jumped to their feet and made a dash in the direction Dreyfuss had indicated.

The enemy guns spat nastily again, and Muntz fired off a burst from his M-60. The men Dreyfuss had sent forward rose to their knees and hurled grenades at the bunker. One of them landed inside. Instantly, the grenade flew out again, exploding in midair and sending fragments rattling overhead. The two men threw two more grenades, but before they went off, three ragged men scurried out of the bunker and began clawing up toward the crest. The grenades exploded, and two of the three slid back down. Muntz cut the other one nearly in half with his machine gun, and he slid back with his friends.

There was other firing on both sides, but it wasn’t very intense. Then through the smoke, several men appeared at the very top of the hill to their right. Muntz swung the machine gun around and dropped his cheek down.

“No, no!” Spudhead cried. “That’s us—that’s Americans!”

Dimly, they could see more men steadily walking forward, occasionally shooting down the back slope of The Fake. A cheer slowly began to rise from the men still lying on the forward side, and they got to their feet and dusted themselves and began trudging to the top. As they got closer they could see dozens of strange dark lumps on the ground, some covered with dirt. Closer inspection revealed these to be bodies of North Vietnamese, some incinerated black by the napalm. “Crispy critters,” someone called them.