Fields of Fire (22 page)

Dan was flown to the rear and interrogated and processed. It was easy for him because he had surrendered. The Intelligence people were friendly and he cooperated fully with them. They asked him a series of “control” questions, ones they already had answers to, and found him to be honest. He did not feel guilty when he gave information about his former unit. He hoped secretly that they would all be killed.

He was processed quickly and took the oath of allegiance to the Government of Vietnam. He raised his hand and renounced the National Liberation Front in his clear, melodious tones, making the oath a song. It is such a game, he thought, singing the oath. Governments are not real. Rice is real.

He remembered Hai and the Marines and the memories gave him an embryo of warmth. Nothing else did. He asked to join the Kit Carson Scout program. The interviews were easy for him: he was well versed in propaganda. He told the interviewers the same stories he used to tell the villagers. The only difference was the identification of the culprits. The interviewers nodded warmly, captivated by low flute notes, and Dan was accepted into the program. After a brief course of training he was assigned to the same company he had surrendered to.

There was friendship for him in the company. The Marines liked him. Dan was a warm person who smiled through his sadness. He soon proved to be a shrewd interrogator. He was fierce with prisoners. He was effective, if somewhat unpredictable, with the villagers. There were times when he remembered the valley as it was before a brother would kill a brother for the sake of discipline, and he was gentle and loving, one of them. But there were other times when he could not view a villager but as the wife or child or parent of one of the soldiers who had killed his family and driven him from his land.

All the men are in the mountains. Your man kills families. Shall I kill you?

16

The tiny gray airstrip nestled French-style at the base of a string of mountains. One had to immediately wonder why the French had built it there, and then wonder further why the Americans had chosen to build the Basin's major combat base next to it. There was a temptation to excuse the French, who had not learned the lesson of Dien Bien Phu until after the airstrip had been in use for some months.

But there came an addled surge of déjà vu, perhaps only subconscious, when one stood at the old gray strip and peered into swaddles of blue-green cliffs that lurked to the south and east, and at the uncontrollable Arizona to the north, an easy mortar arc away. It was as if the only substantive change that fifteen years had wrought, aside from the increased ability of both sides to destroy the innards of the prize they sought to capture, was the composition of the fortifications. The French, considering their obligation more permanent, had built concrete bunkers, many of which still stood ten miles away in Dai Loc. The Americans, true to the “temporary” nature of their commitment, erected sandbag bunkers that decayed, sagging at the seams and finally bursting, oozing back into the earth, each monsoon season, and had to be continually replaced.

An Hoa combat base. Cities of tents sprawled from hill to barren hill around the airstrip, red as the claydirt that permeated the air. The perimeter jutted and sprawled in no identifiable fashion, resembling a badly gerrymandered political district. Units had arrived in the Basin in trickles, an artillery battery here, a tank detachment there, each passing month contributing juts of new perimeter in a burgeoning pastiche. Regimental command post, two separate mess halls, most of an artillery battalion, detachments of every kind: tanks, amphtracs, motor transport, disbursing, medical, supply. And the company rear areas. Home of the Twenty-Fifth Marines.

At the edge of the airstrip there was a sign: WELCOME TO AN HOA—LITTLE DIEN BIEN PHU. Rear-area personnel, perversely proud of the frequency of incoming rocket and mortar rounds, had erected the sign. Bagger, just off the resupply helicopter, pointed a rifled arm at the sign and nudged Cannonball. “Sure. And where the hell have we been for the last five months—downtown Saigon?”

They walked slowly up the hill toward the battalion area, past tents red with dust, the dust so deep inside the weaves that no amount of brushing or scrubbing would ever erase its color, past oil-barrel urinals, their screens dripping, choked with flies and cigarette butts, eddies of oil and urine odors surrounding them. Occasional jeeps and mechanical mules cloaked them with the red dust. The road was puffy with it. It rolled off their boot tops as they walked, as if it were a slightly viscid liquid. For those brief moments they enjoyed their dirtiness, the patches of gook sores that ate into their skin, their filthy, month-old clothes, even their relative gauntness. Those minor evidences set them off from the rear pogues who populated An Hoa, typing inside tents, chasing supplies in mules, or examining pay records.

They reached a pallet-box sidewalk and strolled languidly between a closer grouping of tents, into the company office. In the rear of the tent the First Sergeant sat among a gaggle of clerks, drinking a beer. He was huge and crew-cutted, a jovial disciplinarian who still carried a piece of shrapnel in his back from Korea.

The Top squinted slightly when Bagger and Cannonball walked in together, shoulder-bumping close, obvious friends. The racial polarity of the rear area made that a rare occurrence. He made sure that both were on the R & R list, then billeted them in the company transient tent. Finally he smiled sternly to the two scruffy bush Marines.

“You people look gross. Go to the supply tent and get some clean utilities. And get across the street to the showers before they turn the water off. You've got an hour. And shave. And tomorrow, get haircuts.”

Bagger nodded wryly, remembering the ephemeral regime of Sergeant Austin. “Whitewalls.”

The Top affirmed, still smiling. “That's right, Marine. Whitewalls. Welcome back to the Corps.”

Bagger nudged Cannonball as they exited the tent. “Welcome back to the Corps. Christ. Will somebody please tell me where the fuck I been for five months?”

Cannonball shrugged nonchalantly, accustomed to hassles. His sharply featured, cream-colored face was totally at ease. “C'mon, Bagger. Didn't you know this is the real Corps?”

In the transient tent there were a half-dozen new dudes, green-clothed, faces ambiguous, as yet unaffected, who would join the company in the bush shortly. They crowded together at one end of the tent, suffering communally the miseries of the inexperienced. In the rest of the tent were a dozen other transients, back from the hospital, on the way to or returning from R & R, or merely slackers, playing an angle that would keep them in the rear while the days ran on their tours.

Bagger and Cannonball strode into the tent, found adjacent cots, and dropped their packs and weapons. A tall, spindly man with a full mane of jet-black hair approached them. He was grinning conspiratorially, and wore two strings of love beads, like brightly colored Indian trinkets, around his neck.

Bagger looked at the man as he approached in the shadowed darkness of the tent, then finally recognized him. “Way-ull. Kiss my ass. It's Stretch. Where you been, boy?”

Stretch's long neck bobbed affably. “Japan. Two months. Been skating for a fat man's ass. Uh huh.”

“How the hell you make it to Japan on a stomachache?”

Stretch smiled proudly, massaging his stomach. “Had the hookworms, man. Had me a Number Ten case. Rode those mothers all the way to Yokosuka. They laid eggs in my gut and I took a two-month cure. Can you dig it? Coulda kissed each one of 'em.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Had the shits, cramps, stuff like that. What the hell. For two months in Japan, I'd do it again.” Stretch grinned his conspiratorial grin. “Matter of fact, I just might.”

“Well, you won't have any trouble finding wormy water. Skipper won't have any water buckets sent in, and we're in the An Tams now. He says it affects our mo-bil-ity. Yeah. There's plenty of wormy water.”

Stretch turned to Cannonball. “Well, Cannonball. How you making it, boy?”

Cannonball smiled easily and tapped Stretch on the chest. His fingers lingered along the tall man's shirt front, and he stood very close. “You see a boy, you jus’ go ahead an’ knock him down.”

Stretch laughed. “Yeah, old Cannonball. Hey. Homicide's back.”

Cannonball's hazel eyes sparkled. “No shit? I been wonderin’ where that bad-ass brother been. He been gone a hell of a long time fo’ a slice up the side of his head. Where's he at?”

Stretch cocked his head, enjoying his informer role. “Well, he's in trouble. Uh huh. Reason he took so long is he decided to take him a vacation down in Dogpatch—you know, in Da Nang, there—when he got out of the hospital. Spent a couple months shacking with some whore down there when he shoulda been back in the bush. They caught him swiping a camera in the R & R center a couple days ago, sent him back here for a court-martial.”

Cannonball shook his head. “Damn fool.” He looked back up to Stretch. “So, where's he at, man?”

“He's over in the Black Shack.”

“Say what?” Cannonball squinted up at the gloating Stretch.

“Man, you have been in the bush a long time. The Black Shack. Two tents down, in the back.”

Bagger erupted into motion, taking Cannonball by the shoulder. “Well, come on. Let's go see the stupid shit.”

Stretch leaned his narrow head back, mocking Bagger. “You better not go, Bagger. He don't want to see any Chuck dudes. He won't even say ‘hey’ to me when I see him on the road.”

Bagger dismissed Stretch. “So what. Neither would I. C'mon, Cannonball. Let's go.”

IN the battalion area, two tents down from the company tent, one-quarter of a troop tent had seceded from the Marine Corps. Blocked from the remainder of that tent by a divider wall, and from the rest of An Hoa by a barrier of hate, it held six cots, although it had never been fully occupied. Four months earlier, Bagger learned, a group of blacks awaiting court-martial had seized it in the name of Brotherhood, and christened it the Black Shack. Periodically the occupants changed, but the Black Shack had remained: no officer or NCO, white or black, had had the fortitude to eject them.

Above the tent flap was a hand-lettered sign: NO

CHUCK DUDES ALLOWED: THIS MEANS YOU. Malcolm X glowered from a poster on one wall. On another, Bobby Seale pointed a rifle at the camera. There were hand-lettered posters: KILL THE BEAST. DEATH TO ALL CHUCK PIGS. A table in the center of the tentspace was covered with stacks of Black Panther and Muslim literature.

The Black Shack was the place to come and rap about the horrors of racism and prejudice.

And Rap Jones was its guru. Bagger had heard of Rap Jones. The longtime private was infamous throughout the Regiment. Rap Jones had been in Vietnam more than two years, merely trying to complete a one-year tour: a person's brigtime didn't count toward completion. Rap Jones had been convicted of more than a dozen noncapital offenses, most of them petty, ranging from unauthorized absence to refusal to obey a direct order. Rap Jones, it was rumored, knew every dope pusher and deserter in Dogpatch, the thicket of tin shacks in Da Nang where such errant people dwelled.

Rap Jones, in the parlance, was a bad nigger.

And now Rap Jones stood at the entrance to the Black Shack, holding both tent flaps tightly, arms outstretched like a bronzed Christ, self-proclaimed martyr of the People, denying Bagger access to his friend. Bagger stared up the three wooden steps at Jones, torn between a natural impulse toward undirected, explosive frustration, and his desire to reach a harmony with the smirking malcontent so he could speak to Homicide.

Rap Jones pointed to the sign: NO CHUCK DUDES ALLOWED. “Cain't you read?”

Bagger glanced at the sign, then back to Rap Jones. “Homicide in there?”

“Uh huh. But he doan’ want to talk to you.”

Bagger tried to peer past Rap Jones at the inside of the tent. Bobby Seale pointed a rifle at him from the far wall, but Homicide was not apparent. “Hey Homicide! Come on out here, man! It's me, Bagger! Me and Cannonball! Cmon out!”

No sound or motion from inside the tent. Rap Jones nodded to Cannonball. “You comin’ inside, Brother?”

Cannonball eyed Bagger, noting the anger that had tightened his friend's lips, burned his cheeks, driven his hands deep into his trouser pockets. He knew that Bagger had a tendency to explode when pressured. He looked at the narrowing eyes and comprehended that Bagger was ready to unload on Rap Jones, that he would start a race riot at any second, in an effort to see a black friend. Cannonball sensed the irony of that possibility, and suddenly felt trapped by the two worlds he would have to straddle in order to prevent its occurrence.

Desperate, Cannonball screamed into the tent. “Homicide. Get yo’ black ass out here. Hurry up, now!”

Rap Jones taunted them both with a mocking leer. He jabbed at Cannonball. “You Whitey's nigger, boy? Goan’ stand outside. Don't piss ol’ Whitey off now, boy.”

Bagger bristled. His fists came out of his pockets in two hard balls, ready to mash Rap Jones's face. “Why, you motherfucker—”

Homicide peered down at them, over Jones's shoulder. A jagged scar ran down his deeply black cheek from the hairline, vestige of his wound. His hair was combed out into a puffy Afro. His normally angry eyes were dulled by pills. Homicide was totally spaced out.

He attempted to focus on his visitors, finally recognizing them, and slurred out in a deep bass, “Hey, y'all.”

Bagger glared at Rap Jones, vindicated: Homicide had spoken. “Goddamn, Homicide. What you been doin’?”

Homicide stared dully at Bagger for a long, motionless moment, then touched the scar on his cheek and spoke slowly, as if he were reciting a school lesson that he had just succeeded in memorizing. “Been bleedin’ Whitey's war. Killin’ brown folks, ain’ no reason. Been dyin’ fo’ the Beast.”

Bagger stared unbelievingly at Homicide, then uneasily over to Cannonball, who was grimacing, feeling more and more trapped. Cannonball felt Bagger's unspoken accusation and attempted to ignore it, turning back to Homicide. He studied the stuporous, expressionless face, the body draped in a black skivvy shirt, strings of love beads like a choke chain around the neck, a slave bracelet around one wrist.

Homicide, decided Cannonball, was beyond reasoning. But Cannonball nonetheless scolded him, attempting to reassure Bagger that Rap Jones's hate did not predominate. “C'mon, Homicide. What you sayin’, man? You talkin’ trash. Shut up, now.”

As he spoke two faces peered down at him, one deeply black, round and numb, the other the color of polished leather, thin and angular, hating. Rap Jones spoke with finality, nodding to Cannonball. “You wan’ talk with Homicide, you come inside. You doan’ wan’ come inside, you slide.”

Bagger's neck veins bulged and his wide face was turbulent, furious. “We ain't talking to you! You shut your face. Hear?”

Rap Jones seemingly ignored Bagger, but reached quickly inside the tent and came back to its entrance with a long, carved stick: short-timer stick. Bagger watched his antagonist pat the end of it against the flat of one hand and quickly realized that, in one swift motion, Rap Jones could pull the sheath and expose the hidden blade, and in another, pierce him with it.

But Bagger was beyond caution. He reached inside his flak jacket pocket and pulled out a grenade, straightening the pin. “You pull the cover offa that, I pull the pin outa this. You stick me you better be quick, nigger, 'cause this is going inside your skivvy shirt.”

Both men froze, staring deeply, tautly, into each other's eyes. Homicide still peered blankly over Jones's shoulder, mumbling numb aphorisms about the Beast to a silently staring Cannonball.

Cannonball sensed that he had somehow caused the standoff by his waffling, and that Bagger would not back down of his own volition. To ask Bagger to leave with him now would be a futile gesture that would explode the powder keg. Rap Jones would prod Cannonball for being an Uncle, Bagger would attack Rap Jones, and somebody would die. Or at least bleed.