Black Market (24 page)

Arnason sensed that the Marine NCO wanted to say something important and hurried to finish his food.

“Sergeant Woods tells me that your teams are going out on the Khe Sanh Plateau … near the river?”

“Yeah, but it’s pretty secret stuff right now.” Arnason trusted the NCO, but the fewer people who knew about the operation
the better it would be for his team.

“I know. We were just out there, and frankly, we got our asses kicked.”

“How many of you were there?”

“A Marine platoon and a section from my engineer platoon.” The gunny turned slightly so that he could watch Arnason’s eyes
as he spoke. “The NVA hit us in the morning right after a monsoon downpour. We lost five AMTRACKs and eleven missing in action.”

“POWs?” A chill went down Woods’s back.

“No, I don’t think they were all taken … we really don’t know.” The gunny’s face turned pink from the embarrassment he felt.
“We couldn’t get back in there to check.”

“You mean the NVA are still there?” Arnason felt concerned for his team. “Can you show me on a map where all this happened?”

“Sure.”

Arnason removed his mission map from the side pocket of his jungle fatigues and opened it up on the ground in front of them.

The gunny oriented himself on the map and used his index finger to point with. “Right there, near that gorge that looks like
a pair of tits.” He tapped the map.

Arnason felt a chill go down his spine and he looked over at Woods. The location the Marine was pointing to was less than
a hundred meters from the observation site Welburg’s team had been assigned to. He felt a boiling anger replace his initial
fear. They should have been briefed on the Marine action. Someone at the brigade headquarters should have known about the
recent fight near the river.

“I know this is a big favor to ask you guys.” The gunny’s eyes swept the group of Army men. “If you’re anywhere near that
area”—he tapped the map again—“would you check for any of our Marine dead and maybe … bury them or have them brought back
here…”

“That’s a
promise
, Gunny!” Arnason tried to lighten the moment. “We’ve got to pay you back for the excellent meal somehow!”

The gunny nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak.

The lance corporal spoke for the first time. “We don’t want you to get the idea that Marines leave their dead on the battlefield.
We were hit by at least an NVA company, and they’ve shot down two choppers trying to land there … and the general doesn’t
want to start a pitched battle so close to Laos from here. He said that we’d get them out once we got established at Khe Sanh.”

Arnason looked hard at the Marine. “
We
understand, believe me.” He risked a glance at Woods, who nodded his head in confirmation. “Sometimes it’s a lot smarter
to wait and save lives…”

“I’m glad you understand. A lot of people think you should go back for the dead regardless of the cost in lives…” The gunny
took a deep breath. “We’ve got to keep this between us NCOs. I don’t think the officers would appreciate me airing our dirty
linen to you Army folks.”

“That’s probably the reason we weren’t briefed on it … There were still dead out there and they wanted to police them up before
we got here, and then things got too bad for that to happen.” Arnason was sure he was right on target.

“Probably.” The gunny looked down at the map. “You guys had better watch out for this ford across the river…”

The Army team gathered around the map and listened to the engineer NCO describe the AO in amazing detail. Warner didn’t say
a word but memorized every tiny detail the Marine pointed out on the map. He knew it was going to take a maximum effort on
everyone’s part to come home from this one.

The jungle smelled different to Woods. The air seemed damper and heavier. He licked his lips and decided that the air even
tasted sweeter than the air around An Khe did, and then he realized that there wasn’t any red clay dust floating around. The
green leaves of the plants were shiny and clean. Even the rotting trees on the ground were vivid shades of brown.

Woods was fine tuned.

Sanchez slipped through the undergrowth behind his sergeant. He watched for any movement at all in the thick jungle and missed
very little. Woods was walking point and Sanchez was his backup man; both of them realized there would be little help from
Welburg and his two buddies if anything happened. A loud snap came from down the new trail Woods was breaking, and a soft
curse floated back up to where Sanchez and Woods had stopped. Welburg sounded like a pregnant cow walking through a flea market
on a Saturday. Woods shook his head and started walking along the azimuth he had shot earlier. He had decided on approaching
their observation site from an oblique northwesterly angle rather than from due east. Welburg hadn’t agreed with his logic,
but Woods ignored him.

Sanchez tapped Woods’s shoulder and pointed, using the barrel of his rifle. A three-foot-long bamboo viper watched them from
its perch between two large bamboo stalks. A soft breeze slipped along the jungle floor, and the clump of mature bamboo clicked
together, making a pleasant music. Woods decided to wait, to brief Welburg on his course and warn him about the viper perched
only a few feet away.

Welburg struggled to maintain his balance on the narrow trail Woods had just broken. The sergeant’s backpack wasn’t packed
properly, and Woods wondered what the NCO had brought along on the patrol that was so heavy.

“What the fuck are you wearing?” Welburg sputtered the words out between huge gulps of air. Sanchez could see that the man’s
eyes were still very bloodshot and realized that Welburg had been drinking during their stay at LZ Stud.

“Camouflaged capes! Quiet!” Woods’s eyes continuously swept the jungle for any sign of danger. “Watch out—there’s a viper
right above your head.” The snake was actually off to the side of the trail, but Woods couldn’t help screwing with the drunk
a little.

Welburg jerked and tried looking straight up over his head. The weight of his pack drew him backward, and he staggered and
fell on his rear. The noise sounded like an elephant breaking trail.

“
Shhh!
” It was one of his own flunkies who corrected the sergeant. Slowly it was dawning on the Southern boys that they were in
a real war zone.

Woods signaled for the team to toughen up around him. He could tell by the expressions on Welburg’s two flunkies’ faces that
they weren’t going to give him any trouble. In fact, he could see that they were more than anxious to listen to him, and they
were beginning to ignore Welburg.

“I want to check out an area before we slip into our observation post near the river. When we move from here, you’ve got to
move really
quietly
and ease through the jungle.” Woods didn’t want to risk much more talking, but it was very clear that Welburg hadn’t trained
any of his men on the art of reconnaissance. He slipped his backpack off his shoulder and lowered it to the ground. Woods
knew exactly where to reach under the flap, and he removed a tightly rolled nylon cloth. “Wear this over your gear.” He handed
the cape to the closest Welburg flunky and reached back in the pack for another one. He had planned ahead before they left
and had asked Arnason if he could use the extra ones on his patrol. Welburg refused the cape with a wave of his hand and a
huff. The smaller Welburg flunky hesitated and started to hand back the cape, then thought better of it.

Woods still kept the point, but he moved Sanchez back to the rearguard position. It was a decision that he really didn’t want
to make and wouldn’t have, except it was becoming very clear that Welburg did not know what he was doing in the jungle and
had relinquished his command to him.

The smell reached him first. Woods gagged and had to swallow his vomit. Something very large had died, and the smell of flesh
rotting in the jungle heat rolled over the team. Woods dropped down in a combat crouch and moved forward very slowly. He had
slipped the safety off his CAR-15, and wherever his eyes went, the barrel of the weapon automatically pointed. The first AMTRACK
appeared in front of him, and Woods lowered himself down almost into a ball. He had found what he was looking for. The Marine
infantry fighting vehicle had been hit by three RPG-7 antitank rounds and had burnt black. Woods moved around the vehicle
without looking where the rest of his team was. He hoped that they had the common sense to disperse. They didn’t, and were
trying to bunch up behind him until Sanchez tapped each of them on the shoulder and pointed where he wanted them to go.

The NVA rifleman saw Woods first and pointed his SKS’s front sight at the hated American’s chest. He followed the American’s
movement around the AMTRACK and lost him for a second. Sweat dripped down from his forehead and rolled over his exposed cheeks
before being absorbed by the olive drab triangular arm bandage that he used as a face mask to keep out the smell of the rotting
bodies. He had been caught sleeping on guard duty and was being punished by his captain. The rest of his company had withdrawn
back across the river because the smell was becoming too bad. He was left behind as a one-man forward observation post to
teach him a lesson. His captain had told him that there wouldn’t be any Americans returning to the fight site since it had
already been three days, but he had left him a land-line field telephone just in case a worthy target appeared for the rest
of the company to attack. He reached over and touched the handset for security and then remembered that he was a
soldier
of the victorious North Vietnamese Army, even though he had just turned seventeen years old. The NVA soldier replaced his
hand on the pistol grip of his SKS and sighted in on the American.

Woods moved slowly across the semiopen area to where the strong odor was coming from and dropped down on his knees in shock
when he saw the eleven sun-bloated bodies swaying gently in the breeze. None of the dead Marines were recognizable. The three
days hanging upside-down in the hot sun had caused decomposing gases to form in their intestines and bloat their bodies horribly
out of shape. Woods’s eyes locked in on the clouds of flies swarming the bodies, and he wondered where so damn many flies
could come from. The shock of seeing so many dead Americans hanging by their feet from the branches of the giant tree had
made Woods forget that he was on a combat patrol in the middle of the jungle.

Sanchez reacted. He had been around a lot of rotting animals before in the squalor his migrant family had lived in throughout
the South. Sanchez reached down and pulled his neckerchief up over his lower face. Smelling his own sweat was a lot better
than having to smell the decomposing bodies of the Marines. The rest of the team followed suit.

Woods started forward holding his K-Bar in his hand. He was planning on cutting the dead Americans down from the tree. Sanchez
reached out and grabbed him. He shook his head, knowing that if the bodies fell and hit the ground, they would burst open
and the sight would be ghastly. He didn’t tell Woods that, though, and whispered through his bandanna: “Booby traps…”

Woods nodded and agreed with Sanchez’s logic. The bodies would surely be booby-trapped. He looked at Sanchez and shrugged
his shoulders, asking what they should do.

“We’ll call in a napalm airstrike when we reach our observation site … We can’t tell the gunny what happened here…” Sanchez
saw the python move on the tree limb above one of the dead Marines and pointed for Woods to see. He felt a deep hate fill
his chest. There wasn’t anything they could do for the dead Marines, but he wasn’t going to let a damn snake crawl all over
them. Sanchez pulled his pack off his back and reached in the side pocket. Woods watched him remove the silenced .22 caliber
pistol and approved what he was going to do. He didn’t like the idea of snakes crawling over dead Americans either.

Sanchez sat down, braced his forearms against his knees for a better aim, and sighted in on the snake’s slowly moving head.
The ten-foot reptile ignored the humans on the ground below; actually it was hunting small lizards that had been attracted
to the bodies by the hordes of flies.

The young NVA soldier stretched out flat on the ground and used the root from the giant mahogany tree to steady his rifle
barrel. He slowly spread his legs apart for a better firing position and took up a good sight picture. The American point
man was still his selected target. He rubbed his cheek against the worn wooden stock and smiled slightly as he began squeezing
the trigger. He brought his right leg up a little and the tip of his canvas boot hit the skull.

She had just hatched and had dried off on her perch in the open eye socket. The tan canvas boot that just missed her had instinctively
forced her to defend her nest. She flew up and attacked the large beast on the ground. Her first strike hit the NVA soldier
on the back of his neck, under his tan pith helmet. The NVA soldier lost all interest in the American and screamed, reaching
back to dislodge the stinging wasp.