Better Times Than These (48 page)

Foliage had all but swallowed some of the ghost-town huts, but they brushed this aside and searched in a workmanlike way until it was established that there was nothing there to harm them, and afterward began automatically congregating in the clearing at the center of the village around a small pond covered with smelly green slime. The officer from Topographical Services had been moving around busily, pacing off distances, measuring angles and writing on his map, when Kahn walked up to him.

“About done?”

“Just about,” he said, and showed Kahn the map, on which he had penciled in the words “Gingerbread Village.”

“Still at it, huh?”

The warrant officer nodded and smiled.

“What do you make of this?” Kahn asked, pointing to an arrow under which had been written “The Ghost Town Trail.”

“I walked down it a little ways. I’m not sure if it was made by animals or people; seems to lead toward the river.”

“The Crystal River,” Kahn said wryly.

“Yeah, Crystal River,” said the officer of Topographical Services. “I’d be curious to see where it goes.”

They had not been on the Ghost Town Trail for long when the blood bees found them.

The midday sun was whiter and seemed hotter than the day before, and the sky had turned a hazy blue-gray. Yet the air remained still and cool beneath the treetops above the trail. They still had not encountered any dense jungle and could see forty or fifty yards on both sides and ahead, where the forest floor was green with ferns and low-lying flora. The blood bees appeared from nowhere.

All at once there was a thin humming in the air and a sense of flying things, and within minutes everyone in the column had been bitten several times. In a curtain of profanity they began rolling down their sleeves and swatting wildly around their faces. The bees were small, perhaps half the size of a normal bee, but they descended on human skin like mosquitoes, sucking blood until they were either squashed or brushed away. They seemed to come from everywhere, millions of them, buzzing, hovering and darting all across the forest floor. It was maddening—but no one had promised it was going to be easy.

It took an hour to reach the Crystal River, and the blood bees remained with them along the way. The point squad stopped short when they heard the gurgling of the stream ahead and then crept slowly up to the bank while the rest held up in their tracks along the trail. Kahn sent for Holden to join him and go up for a look.

They hadn’t walked ten steps when a burst of gunfire crushed such hopes as remained that the war had somehow overlooked their newfound paradise.

The point squad had been standing quietly in some thick plants near the riverbank when the North Vietnamese soldier appeared on the other side. He hadn’t even bothered to look around, but simply emerged from the bushes and strolled to the water’s edge. He was weaponless but unmistakably enemy, pith helmet and all, and his trousers were neat and clean as though they might even have been recently pressed. He dropped them and squatted into the stream to defecate.

Crump spotted him first, and then the others did, but they were all too startled to do anything. Recovering, Crump laid down his blooker and snatched a rifle from the man nearest him.

“Hate to do this to anybody in that position, but he oughtn’t be fouling the river,” Crump whispered as he flicked off the safety.

The first shot struck the man in his back, and the other hit him in the neck. He teetered precariously for a second or two before toppling into his own mess, thrashing around like a speared fish, then floating gently downstream toward them—the penultimate “target of opportunity.”

Kahn and Holden arrived in time to see the body float by. By now the point squad had spread out warily in the bushes, anticipating more trouble.

“Caught him with his pants down, Lieutenant,” Crump said matter-of-factly. He pointed the muzzle of his blooker gun toward where the man had fallen.

Kahn gazed at the spot for a few seconds, dimly aware that he was in charge. “Well, we can’t stay the hell here now,” he said to Holden. “Let’s wheel it upstream and cross there . . . and, uh, you’d better get Battalion on the horn and tell them we’ve made contact and they should stand by.” He looked again at the spot where the man had taken his final constitutional. “Whoever they are, they know we’re here—thanks to the efforts of Private Crump,” he said grimly, but without disapproval.

They waded across the river and moved stealthily through a grove of banana trees, and found themselves at the edge of a large horseshoe-shaped clearing overgrown in elephant grass. Except for the man by the river they had seen no signs of the enemy, but it would have been high folly to assume he had been alone. A bank of grayish clouds was gathering above the Candy Cane Ridge, and the air had become sluggish, but not oppressive. The blood bees, though fewer now, still buzzed and stung. It was nothing to compare with the surprises of the Ia Drang or the Valley of The Tit, but neither was it as comfortable as yesterday, or even today, before they had entered the abandoned Gingerbread Village. That was where it had all started to change, almost as if their presence there had violently disturbed some evil thing.

Holden was near the rear of the formation, close to a radio and to the officer from Topographical Services, as they crossed the open space. Ahead, the lead elements moved nakedly through the waist-high grass, shoulders hunched over and slightly bent, as if they wanted to go into a crouch but were embarrassed to do so without so much as a shot’s being fired. A short, pale-complexioned soldier at Holden’s side was moving his head from side to side as if he were watching a tennis match. His eyes blinked rhythmically, as though they were gulping for air.

Holden fought to keep down a burble of hot stomach fluid that was rising in his throat like mercury. Even in the midst of fifty heavily armed men he felt very much alone. Not scared, but alone. At least, not scared in any way he had known before. Maybe he was too frightened to be scared. Maybe he wasn’t scared at all—who knew? Who cared? The line of trees danced and shimmered in the sun, and her face appeared as it had been doing, on and off, all morning. He had come all the way out here to take his medicine, but she followed him anyway—her face. Her body . . .

It was not always unpleasant. Sometimes when he pictured her he remembered the good times they had had, and he would forget that she had decided to go with Widenfield. But sooner or later that fact returned. He saw her hanging on to Widenfield, having breakfast with him, lying beside the fire with him. The one thing he
never
allowed himself to imagine was her actually screwing him. Frequently he would see her face—hair spread out, tossing her head from side to side, eyes open to tiny slits, her tongue flickering out of her mouth; big breasts heaving, her nipples stiff and wonderful, passionate sounds coming from her mouth, her legs curled up around . . . HIM!—not Widenfield, but
him
—and that was the way he always remembered it. Him and not Widenfield. If only he could get to her right now, he thought, to tell her . . . he knew he could put it right! He had written so many letters, but sent none of them . . .

Maybe Kahn was right. Maybe he should just write her off as tough shit and think about other things—like joining the Far East Phosphate Company—and stop worrying about love and marriage and getting locked into an office job and a house in Scarsdale—solemn thoughts anyway, when you were twenty-four years old. He scanned the fanned-out sweating men ahead, and suddenly it occurred to him that if an army could be conscripted of no one but jilted men, there wouldn’t be a force on earth that could beat them, because they would be the meanest sonsofbitches in the world.

It started up ahead—a ferocious tearing sound all around, and ripping, whizzing noises in the air. As he dropped to his knees looking for a place to hide, Holden caught a glimpse of a man falling ahead. A bullet had caught him in front and spun him completely around. He seemed to hang in the air for a moment before crashing down. His eyes were shut, and his mouth was a great black hole, but no sound had come from it—at least, no sound that could be heard. His rifle preceded him to the ground, and his elbows were drawn in to his sides and elevated high in the air as though he had been caught in the middle of a chin-up.

Holden slithered over to a hummock, which turned out to be an anthill, and hid there wondering what to do next. All worries of love and rejection had vanished. His world was suddenly reduced to minuscule proportions no broader than the distance between nose and dirt. Around him a zillion insects scampered here and there, the peace of their day disturbed by the transactions of men at war. So far as he could tell, nobody on either side of him was doing anything more than he was. The air above his head was filled with deadly projectiles, and there was nothing to do but hang on, which he did for what seemed like a long time but was actually only a minute or so. During that period he was in a good position to observe the frantic comings and goings of the ant colony, of which he was now practically a part—as were the others, pressed to the ground with the ants and other crawling things. They had become—Holden thought mirthlessly—a company of ant-men, who by definition had very low horizons.

“Horse Two, Horse Two, what is your location?”

Holden suddenly realized that the violent tugging at his sleeve was the RTO, who had jammed the handset into his face. It carried the voice of Kahn.

“Horse One, this is Horse Two,” Holden said back into the device.

“Horse Two, what is your location? Over.” Kahn sounded very businesslike.

“Uh. I’m, ah, behind an anthill.” He knew that sounded dumb as soon as the words left his mouth.

“Horse Two, can you see me? Over,” Kahn said, ignoring the remark.

“Negative, Horse One. I am pinned down here—I can’t tell where from yet—I think it’s coming from the tree line.”

“Well, it’s coming from all around us up here,” Kahn replied gruffly. “Can you move two squads to my right toward the tree line and lay down some fire?—We have to get the hell out of here.” Holden thought Kahn sounded remarkably calm for someone in his predicament. He sounded almost as if he were falling asleep, which was frustrating for Holden and almost made him mad.

“Ah, roger, Horse One, wait one.” Holden extended the handset back to the RTO, who was flattened down beside him. He hadn’t stuck his head up since the first shots were fired, and since he was an officer his job was to do exactly that.

Cautiously he peeked above the anthill and looked around, but could see nothing except grass. Pulling his knees under him, he rose behind the anthill as far as he could, then sprang upward like a jumping jack, took two quick looks around and threw himself to the earth again, motioning for the radio.

He caught a glimpse of Kahn’s men lying maybe fifty yards ahead, deep inside the end of the horseshoe-shaped clearing. He had seen no enemy, but they were obviously firing from the line of trees, which extended in front and on both sides of the spot where Kahn was, and Holden figured that if they weren’t in it all the way back here, he could probably get to within twenty yards of Kahn . . . maybe closer . . . without being spotted.

“I think so,” he said.

“No ‘I think sos’!” Kahn barked. “You’ll have to do it. Try to move straight to the tree line and then come forward about thirty meters. Really pour it on them—and shake it up; I’ve got to pull back quick.”

Holden crawled off to the left, where he remembered a couple of squads had disappeared when the shooting started. He came on three men lying in a little indentation beside the unassembled components of a mortar. Lying on his belly, Holden addressed them from about five yards away: “I need you people. Get the rest of your squad and follow me. We have to move up.”

“Sir,” came a muffled response, “that’s way too close. We couldn’t do no more good there with mortars than we could here.”

“I don’t care about mortars; I need a fire team,” Holden said loudly.

The three men looked at each other darkly. “Sir,” one of them said, “we’re the mortar squad; what are we gonna do with the mortars? We can’t take ’em with us.”

“Screw it—leave ’em here,” Holden said. He was beginning to feel panicky. A bullet kicked up dust behind him.

The man who had spoken looked at him as though he had just been told to take a flying leap off a high place. “Lieutenant, we can’t leave ’em here—these are the mortars . . .”

Holden glared at the man, suddenly realizing he was right and trying to figure out what to do next. The RTO solved the problem by handing him the handset.

“Jesus God, where are you?” Kahn screamed. “We’re being penetrated up here!”

“With the mortar squad,” Holden shouted back. His face felt flushed and tingled. Again he had said the wrong thing. A longer explanation was required.

“For chrissake, we can’t . . .” There was a lull as Kahn’s voice trailed off. The sound of a heavy machine gun came from the trees and there were several explosions. Holden rose on his elbows and tried to see what was going on, but his view was limited to the tops of the grass and the white, sickly sky. Ant-men, he thought.

Kahn came back on the radio. “Okay, forget it—we’ve got to pull back right now. Get everybody you can to pour it on that tree line ahead of us—and keep it a little high—but everything they’ve got—and forget about mortars—got it?”

“Roger,” Holden said, and took off on his belly to give The Word.

In less than a minute they came pouring back, some crawling, some flat on their stomachs, some loping apelike. The covering fire Holden had instigated was doing its job. Panting, bug-eyed, dragging his rifle behind him, Kahn collapsed behind the indentation in the ground and lay on his back, trying to catch his breath.

“Air strike coming,” he said between gasps. “Let’s get our asses back across the damned river.” He looked at Holden’s grime-covered face and grinned. “How ya like the Real Army, Princeton?”

“I’d rather be digging phosphate,” Holden croaked.

The mortar squad, the officer of Topographical Services and assorted other elements were sent to ford the river and set up a defensive position on the other side. The plan was that the rest would shoot like crazy and then the jets would swoop down and blast the line of trees and they could retire. It was the standard school solution—except that the North Vietnamese had thoughtfully sent some people around to flank the riverbank ahead of them. Kahn realized what had happened the instant he heard firing from behind and was already working on a new plan when a terrified red-haired private with a blood-soaked ankle collapsed into the Headquarters party with news that the enemy had not only flanked them, but
were
on the other side of the river, and in force. The River Blindness again, Kahn thought, and then the jets began to scream overhead.