Better Times Than These (45 page)

And the nights, which before had been scary and depressing and lonely, he now almost looked forward to. Once they had gotten the Company settled in, the two of them would sit in Kahn’s Command Post tent and cook their supper and talk about things far removed from the war and the Valley of The Tit. Kahn learned, for instance, about Holden’s family background, and his sister, Cory, and his tennis game and, of course, about Becky, and even though Holden frequently said their relationship was finished, Kahn suspected he had not seen the last of it. Kahn told Holden about himself too. About the geology and Savannah and the South, which seemed to fascinate Holden. Several times he said that when all this was over he would like to come South and the two of them could maybe take off on a trip to Atlanta and New Orleans and other places—and also, if Kahn ever wanted to come to New York . . .

Tonight they had been feeling better than usual, because of the phosphate discovery and an unexpected bottle of bourbon.

That morning Kahn and Holden had been flying over the far end of the valley, looking for one of the patrols that had gone out the day before, and as they passed over a series of jagged craters made months before during a B-52 strike, Kahn punched his intercom button and asked Lieutenant Spivey, the pilot, to circle around again, lower.

They made a pass, and then Kahn asked Spivey if he would mind setting her down in the paddy.

“Aw, for the love of God,” the big slack-jawed Irishman said, “I’m supposed to be taking supplies out here, not landing all over the place.”

“You can leave her running,” Kahn said. “It won’t take me two minutes—I want to look at something in one of those craters.” Spivey shrugged and dropped down into the rice field. Kahn hopped out and was back minutes later with two handfuls of rocks and dirt.

“What was that all about?” asked Holden, as Spivey hauled air again.

“Phosphate,” Kahn declared.

“No kidding?” Spivey broke in.

“I think so,” Kahn said, “I want to look at these samples.”

“What is it?” Holden said in a perplexed voice.

“They use it in mineral fertilizers,” Spivey interjected. “It’s hard to come by, at least in the U.S.”

“You know phosphate?” Kahn asked.

“Got an uncle who’s a mining engineer. I used to work for him before this came up,” Spivey said.

They had made contact with the patrol, and afterward Spivey delivered them back to The Tit. It had not rained since early that morning, and the three of them sat outside on some logs and ate lunch, and as they drank coffee, Kahn delivered his opinion of the phosphate find.

“No way to tell without drilling and that sort of thing; but just looking at the stratification in that crater and these samples, I’d be willing to bet this whole valley floor is made of phosphate. Maybe other valleys around here too.”

“Maybe you can get the Army to ship it home in your trunk,” Holden said. “Or sell it at the PX.”

“Listen,” Kahn said, “the war ain’t going to last forever, right? And when it’s over there’ll still be a great big field of phosphate ore ready to come out of the ground.”

“Yeah, but who owns it?” Spivey said.

“There seems to be a big dispute about that now,” Holden chimed in cheerfully.

Kahn ignored him. “Probably nobody,” he said. “I mean, the damned Vietnamese own it, I guess, but they don’t know it’s there. Suppose you went down to Saigon and said, ‘Somewhere in your country there is a big vein of phosphate and I would like the rights to mine it and give you such-and-such of the profits.’ How could they lose? They don’t know where it is and they’d never find it on their own. We could set up a fertilizer plant right here, with local labor. Mix the stuff with nitrate and peddle it all over Asia. It could maybe double a rice crop in a year or so.”

“How do you know you’ll be dealing with Saigon?” Holden said darkly. “You might have to go to Hanoi, you know.”

“Fat chance,” Kahn said. “You guys interested?”

“Huh?” Spivey said.

“In what?” Holden asked.

“The Far East Phosphate Company,” Kahn replied awesomely.

“Look,” he said. “Spivey—you’ve got mining experience, right? And Holden, your family is into banking . . .”

“Brokerage,” Holden reminded him.

“Same thing,” Kahn said. “It’s going to take money, and it’s going to take experience and time too. But can you imagine what this country’s going to be like when the war’s over? This could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance . . .” As he spoke, the words of Mr. Bernard suddenly flashed in Kahn’s mind.
“You will be in a good position . . . You may see certain opportunities . . .”

They discussed it for another half-hour, becoming more enthusiastic, until Spivey had to leave.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, and walked over to his helicopter, on the side of which was emblazoned the slogan
YOU CRY
—
WE FLY.
He removed from beneath the seat an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s Sour Mash Whiskey. Each of them took a slug to seal the deal, and Spivey left the bottle with them when he took off.

That night in the tent, Kahn and Holden sat around drinking the whiskey, and Holden confided to Kahn that Becky was still very much on his mind. “I guess it’s the real reason I raised hell to get off Staff. I thought it would be better out here. Get it off my mind . . .”

The tent flap flew open and Sergeant Dreyfuss, bare-chested, poked in his head.

“Lieutenant, listening post says they think they saw movement. They want to blow off a flare.”

Kahn got to his feet. “Yeah—okay; roust out a crew. Where was it?”

“In the draw just to the right of the Second Squad machine-gun pit.”

“What’d they see?”

“Not sure—just something moving, they think. Probably ain’t nothin’.”

“Yeah. Better safe than sorry—tell ’em to keep their eyes peeled.” Dreyfuss disappeared, and Kahn poured himself a cup of coffee. “Those bastards are getting like the Vietnamese. They keep seeing things—it’s the third time this week.” He sat back down and lit a cigarette, drew a lungful of smoke and coughed violently. “These damned things are going to kill me yet. I’m up to three packs a day.”

Holden was fiddling with a compass on the field desk, turning it this way and that, watching the needle spin.

“It’s the pits about your girl, Frank,” Kahn said. “She sounded pretty sharp till this guy Widenfield got hold of her. Why the hell they fall for the older guys I don’t know—but they do. You know, I had a girl once myself—or at least, I thought I did—just before we shipped out. She was a . . . ah . . . aw, hell—that’s another story. You want some coffee?”

“Billy,” Holden said. He put the compass aside. “If you’re serious about this phosphate thing . . . you know, I would like to try it. It sounds crazy as hell, but at this point—”

The crack of the mortar interrupted him, and they both turned toward the tent opening. The flare cast an eerie glow over the hillside, floating gently into the paddy fields, where it extinguished itself in the muck.

“Seeing ghosts again,” Kahn said crossly. He ground out the cigarette on the dirt floor. “We still gotta get off this damned hill . . .”

“You think so?”

“I know so. There’s three or four thousand people in that valley—all rice farmers—except maybe for one night a year. Then they stop being rice farmers and start being VC. Ol’ Papa-san and Mamma-san and Baby-san all got a rifle or grenade buried somewhere, and when they get the word they dig ’em up and come out of the woodwork and
whammo,
no more Bravo Company. Sun comes up next day and they’re rice farmers again—till the next time.”

“Doesn’t sound too encouraging for the Far East Phosphate Company,” Holden said.

“I guess not,” Kahn said.

Rifle fire shattered the stillness, and seconds later a spate of excited unintelligible words were shouted out in the night. There was more rifle fire, but it was impossible to tell who was shooting at what. Kahn leaped up and ran outside, Holden close behind him. People were running everywhere and cursing in the darkness. Quick little yellow flashes were coming from half a dozen places on the forward slope. An explosion burst on the right side of the perimeter. Dreyfuss came panting up to Kahn, weaponless and still naked except for his underwear. “We’re being hit, sir,” he said.

“I can see that, Sergeant,” Kahn said irritably. “What have you done about it?”

“First Platoon’s got the right, and . . . ah . . . I can’t really tell what’s going on yet . . . They—”

“Get on down there and find out,” Kahn barked. Two grenades burst far downhill. The tiny yellow flashes continued in periodic staccato.

“What can I do?” Holden said loudly. He was standing in sort of a half-crouch.

“Hang tight—let’s see what we’ve got.” Kahn grabbed a frantic-looking soldier running past him. “Go up and tell Lieutenant Range I want two of his squads to take up positions down there—on the left. Take off.” The man disappeared uphill.

“Mortars! Where the hell are the mortars?” Kahn bellowed upslope.

“Waiting for data,” a voice called down out of the blackness.

“Fuck that!” Kahn roared. “Line of sight. Walk ’em up.” He turned to Holden.

“Go raise Battalion—they’re probably already on the horn. Tell them what’s happening and stand by. Goddamn it!” he spat. “I knew we should have got our asses off this hill.”

Holden took off for the radio tent. The first mortar rounds went off with their peculiar clanking sound. As he passed the mortar pits, he could barely make out half-naked men working feverishly over the tubes, sweating and cursing. The amount of profanity required to operate a mortar astonished him.

In his first real combat, Holden was satisfyingly relieved—if not pleasantly surprised—not to be frozen stiff with fear. From time to time, he had worried about it—that when it got down to the real nitty-gritty he wouldn’t be able to stand the gaff and would disgrace in one humiliating moment two hundred years of Holden military honor. But he was doing all right, even though he was scared. And as he trotted along, he realized he was going to be able to function and perhaps perform a useful service.

The first mortar volley burst downslope, and the second rounds were firing off. Fearful cursing issued from the pits and elsewhere. Holden had the radiotelephone in his hand and pressed the bar to speak. Hot damn, he thought, this is really something! He wished Becky could see him now.

“What started it?” Patch asked imperturbably. He leaned back in his chair, a cigar clenched in his teeth. Behind him, through the tiny window of the Quonset hut, Kahn watched the banks of gray rain clouds, but there had been no rain today.

“LP asked for illumination; then all hell broke loose. I think maybe we fired first.”

“What makes you think it was a probe, then? How do you know it wasn’t just a patrol caught with their pants down?”

“Well, they were halfway up the slope.”

“And you weren’t mortared?”

“No, sir.”

“Rockets?”

“No, sir.”

“Grenades?”

“I believe there were grenades. We were throwing them too—I’m not actually sure that—”

“And they fired only in your right sector, that right?”

“Yessir.”

“And broke off after, what? Five, ten minutes?”

“That’s about right.”

Patch pushed the black eyeglasses to the top of his head and squinted at his Company Commander. “Well, that doesn’t sound like much of a probe to me,” he said peevishly. “Sounds like your boys caught some of them going to pay a visit to their women or—”

“Sir, they were halfway up the slope . . .”

“That slope cuts off half the distance to that first string of hamlets—does it not? They probably didn’t want to get caught out in the paddies. So they could have been trying to save time, right?”

“Colonel,” Kahn said, determined to stand his ground. “I believe we were probed last night and that within a few days we are going to be hit hard. I ask your permission to move my men off that hill and set up farther down the valley.”

Patch removed the cigar and knocked off a fat ash.

“Billy, this is well-plowed ground. I put you on that hill for a very specific purpose: because it is strategic to the valley. It commands the approach to the only road in and gives a clear view of the AO, and there isn’t another spot in the area that does that. Besides, I want to leave the gooks with a clear impression that we are there to stay.”

“Sir, I have got some problems out there. The hill is one of them. I am concerned about a full-scale attack and our ability to—”

“Damn it, now,” Patch said irritably, “you have what is in effect an American rifle company reinforced with the whole array of artillery and air support, and you are situationed on some of the finest fighting terrain in this country. You could stand off an entire regiment—let alone whatever raggedy-assed VC might be floating around out there. The only thing you haven’t done is take my suggestion to move your CP farther down so you can blanket the perimeter with mortars. Am I going to have to order you to do that, or what?”

“No, sir, you won’t have to order me to do it. But that’s not the only problem. I’ve been having some trouble with the men . . .”

He told Patch about the mood since Trunk had died. The threats and the insubordination and the unwillingness to pitch in and the rest of it.

“I just think it might help if we were to move somewheres else—kind of a fresh start. It’s gotten so bad I’ve got men wanting to come in and see the Chaplain.”

“Chaplain—what about?” Patch seemed to take interest.

“About the war . . . I guess, and whatever they’re doing . . . What I’m saying is that morale is pretty low . . . This morning I had a man who I just found out is the son of a Congressman asking to see the Chaplain; he—”

“Congressman—what Congressman?” Patch exclaimed. “What’s his name?”

“Miter. He’s an ammo—”

“I don’t care what he does. Jesus God, man—who’s his father?”

“He’s a Congressman, like I say—he didn’t say where from or anything. He just wanted to see the Chaplain.”

“What’s his problem?”

“I’m not sure exactly. I think he’s just lost his stomach for the Army—”