Guns Up! (22 page)

“Yeah!” He gasped for air and spit out mud. “Barnes!” He gasped again. “Barnes is hit bad. He
couldn’t move. I had to leave him. We have to go get him!” He spoke quickly, running his words together.

“How ’bout Buford?” I asked. Before he could answer, the lieutenant and Swift Eagle slid in beside us, covering me with mud and water.

“Striker! Who’s still out there?” Swift Eagle rattled off the question.

“Barnes! He’s hit real bad, but he’s still alive. We have to go get him. The gooks are right on top of him, maybe ten yards away.”

“Where’s Unerstute?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see Buford. As soon as that rain hit I couldn’t see a thing!”

“Swift Eagle!” Lieutenant Campbell said. “Go get some volunteers. Striker! Can you lead us to him?”

“I think so. But we gotta be real quiet. The gooks are real close. I could hear ’em talking.”

“I’ll go, Chief!” I said. My stomach churned. For a moment I wasn’t sure I’d actually said that.

“You have to stay with the gun,” Lieutenant Campbell said.

“Rodgers can stay with the gun.”

“Okay. Follow me. Let’s see who else wants to go,” Swift Eagle answered without looking at the lieutenant.

“Give me your rifle,” I said to Rodgers.

“No,” Swift Eagle said. “Just take your .45, so you can help carry Barnes.”

I knew I couldn’t hit the ground with that lousy .45. Besides, it was probably full of rust. The chief didn’t wait for my excuses. He turned and called down the line for volunteers. Ten or more men got up and rushed forward.

“You four. The rest of you go back to your positions. You ready, Striker?”

“Let’s go,” Striker said.

“Lieutenant,” Swift Eagle said as we stepped over the dike. “Make sure these guys know we’re out there.”

Thirty yards through the flooded paddy, we reached
the more solid ground of the graveyard. Striker seemed to know exactly where he was going. The pounding rain covered the noisy sloshing of our feet, but each step sounded like thunder to me. The faces of the enemy mortar men were clearer with each barrage. Striker stopped ahead.

“Barnes,” he whispered lightly. He dropped down and crawled around on hands and knees. “Barnes.”

Swift Eagle turned to me and whispered, “You guys go around in a small circle.”

We searched for ten minutes. It was obvious that Striker had gotten lost or Barnes had crawled away. We gave up the search and headed back. I thought of Buford. I couldn’t imagine what terror he must feel. I knew we were nearing the line of Marines, but I couldn’t see anything ahead. A mortar round exploded seventy meters in front of us, silhouetting a long row of friendly American helmets ten meters away.

“Marines comin’ in! Hold your fire!” Swift Eagle gave the warning.

“Friendlies coming in!” A voice ahead repeated the warning.

The dike was only a foot tall, just enough to lie behind, and it sure wasn’t about to stop any lead, but the first step over it filled my soul with relief.

I found Rodgers and splashed down beside him. He slapped me on the shoulder. “You deserve a medal,” he said. He turned his eyes toward the enemy.

“I agree,” I said jokingly.

“I mean it,” he said, still staring at the mortar flashes. “I told the gunny that you knocked out that gun and took all the fire so the squad could get out of the graveyard.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said he’s putting you and Chan in for the Silver Star.”

“Ah, you’re feedin’ me—”

“Honest. Chan did the same thing you did on the other end of the tree line.”

I couldn’t believe it. I loved it. I wanted to write everybody I knew; then memories of last June crept in. The Don Skully Award for the small football player who showed the most courage. Everyone had started congratulating me in front of the entire school. The head coach was the only coach who didn’t like me. He said he wanted to make an example out of me, but I’d only missed one practice in three years. If I get a medal, I’ll ram it up his nose.

“We’re sweeping across at daybreak,” a whispered voice came from our right. “Pass it on.”

Two hours before daybreak the rain and the mortars stopped. I stared into the blackness until my eyes hurt. The first streaks of morning light brought little comfort. My hands looked like wrinkled paper from being wet for so long.

“We’re movin’ in!” The word sifted by me and on down the line. We were on our feet, moving forward. I felt like I was in an old war film. On line. Fix bayonets. The sky turned pink and blue. The hootch was clear now in the morning light. I couldn’t believe it. We were actually going to storm right over these suckers!

“Fifty-nine days,” Rodgers mumbled, more to himself than to me.

Our first steps were slow. Cautious. Forty yards away the pace suddenly quickened. No one spoke. Someone to my right began jogging forward. I started jogging to keep up. Now the whole line was running. Someone let loose a howl. Now everyone was screaming like banshees. A cracking burst of AK fire rung out across the graveyard. Then another. The second burst was a mistake. I could see the muzzle flash from the roof of the hootch. I opened up with a fifty-round burst. At the same time, twenty others fired on the hootch. The sniper’s
body exploded from the roof, pieces of flesh and cloth flying in all directions.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Swift Eagle was finally heard, and the firing stopped. The hootch was burning. Black smoke tunneled one way, then another, in a swirling wind.

“There’s a Marine over here!” someone shouted from my right. I glanced over quickly. It looked like Buford lying face down. I looked back to the hootch. Nothing. No firing at all. We swept by the burning hootch and ten yards deep into the thick jungle.

“They pulled out, Lieutenant!” someone shouted.

“We got another body over here! It’s a Marine!” another voice called from the left. I ran over to see who it was. Striker stood over a bloody body lying face down. The chief stood next to him looking down.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Barnes,” Striker said. “I don’t know how he got over here in front of this gun bunker.” Not until then did I notice he was lying in front of a foxhole with dirt and wood built up around it. Hundreds of empty .30-caliber cartridges were scattered about in the mud. His pack was ripped apart. His E-tool had a bullet hole through the shovel end. Striker bent down. He grabbed one shoulder and rolled the body over. Bullets had torn deep creases under each cheekbone, giving him huge dark bruises around each eye. It looked eerie. Dried blood covered another bullet crease under his jaw. Most of the right ear was shot away. I stared at the huge bruises. Suddenly his eyes sprang open. I couldn’t speak. I tried to point, like a mute with mouth hanging open. Then a smile spread across his face.

“He’s alive!” Striker screamed in disbelief.

“Corpsman!” Swift Eagle shouted.

“How did you get over here?” Striker asked. “Can you talk?”

“The gooks drug me over. They thought I was dead.
They crawled out after me right after you left. One of ’em pulled out a knife and came down on me.”

“Calm down. Save your strength,” Swift Eagle said dryly.

“I thought it was over for sure. But he just cut my bandoliers off. Then they dragged me up front of their gun. God, I thought for sure you guys were gonna walk right into it! I almost drowned laying there!” He was still perky. I couldn’t believe it.

I turned to find Chan. He had to see this. I saw him standing near the burning hootch. I ran over to him.

“John! Come here!” He raised his hand and waved me over. “Look at this.” I looked into the burning hootch. A sun-faded tan pith helmet filled with dried blood and gray human brains lay on the dirt floor of the hootch. I bent down and darted inside, grabbed the helmet, and brought it out. Something in Vietnamese was written on the front. I dumped the brains and blood into a puddle and handed the pith helmet to Chan. “What’s it say?” I asked.

He studied the writing for a few seconds, then handed the helmet back to me. “It says, ‘We’re here to stay.’ “

“One thing’s for sure, this sucker is staying.”

“Unerstute’s dead,” Chan said.

“He shouldn’t have been here. I really liked that guy.”

“I found no wounds. No blood. Nothing. I suspect heart failure.”

“Barnes is still alive. You have to see him!” I led Chan to Barnes. Doc had just finished with a bandage on his leg. It looked like he was losing a lot of blood.

“How’s he doing, Doc?” I asked.

“He’ll make it.” Doc stood up and led us a few feet away. “He probably won’t walk again. I don’t know why he’s still alive. I counted eleven bullet holes from head to toe and some shrapnel holes besides.” Doc spoke with his usual boring Boston attitude, as if the wounded were keeping him from something more important.

“That’s amazing!” I said.

“What about Buford?” Chan asked.

“All I could find was one tiny little shrapnel wound in his side, but it was so small it was like a pinprick. It couldn’t have been what killed him. He died from fright. He had a heart attack out there.”

“Correct. I concur.”

Doc’s face flushed, half with anger and half with embarrassment. He hated being put in his arrogant place. He removed his glasses for cleaning and turned away without a word.

Twenty minutes later a medevac chopper settled down in the muddy paddy. The sun was fully up now, like a blazing ball in the copper sky. I watched as Barnes and Buford were loaded onto the chopper. I wanted Buford alive. I wanted him to go home and spit in his family’s face. He could have gone home, but he didn’t. I thought of the cowards in Canada.

We started after the NVA, on a force march. The jungle looked dense and black. Their retreat was hurried, and our point man followed it easily. Thirty minutes on their trail led us into a snake-infested jungle swamp. The unmistakable sickening sweet odor of rotting corpses filled the damp, humid air. I found solace in the stench, knowing they were dead gooks. I wanted to shoot more. I wanted them to pay.

We marched on and on. In and out of swamp after swamp. It was nearing evening when we finally climbed out of the swamps and onto solid ground. The terrain in front of us was rolling hills with scattered patches of trees and brush. Without my even realizing it, we had linked up with a huge column of Marines stretching past one hill and over another.

The sun was dying on the horizon. We had to stop soon. I felt like I had to eat something. Cracking rifle fire broke the silence of the march. It was over as quickly as it started.

“Corpsman up!”

Swift Eagle ran by me shouting, “Get in a perimeter!”

“Who’s hit?” Rodgers asked. The chief kept running toward the lieutenant. “Who’s that they’re helping?” Rodgers pointed to three Marines standing over another Marine twenty meters back. For a moment I thought it was Chan.

“I’ll go see,” I said. I ran back. “Who is it?”

“Ellenwood,” Doc answered.

“Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he okay?”

“I think so. We need a medevac.”

“Let me see my baby!” Jack sounded dazed, like he was in shock. “Let me see my baby!”

“What’s he talking about?” Doc asked, his voice beginning to show the strain.

“His baby. I know what he’s talking about.” Memories of Jack calming me down after my first confirmed kill by showing me pictures of his new baby boy came back to me. “Give me his wallet.” Another Marine handed me his helmet. I fumbled for the wallet. “Here it is.” I unwrapped the plastic around it, opened it up, and found the color picture of the laughing baby boy. “Here, Jack. Here’s your baby.” It was too dark to see the photograph clearly, but he calmed down just by holding on to it. I wondered why it had happened to Jack, out of five hundred Marines and with only two weeks left.

Our night ended in a perimeter waiting for a medevac that didn’t come.

The next morning started with the humming noise of thirty to fifty helicopters flying in formation in the eastern sky.

“Good grief! What’s all that?” Rodgers asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Hey, Swift Eagle! What’s going on over there?”

Swift Eagle looked up from his can of congealed lima beans and ham fat. He gazed stoically at the huge formation. “I think it’s the 101st Airborne. They get a noon meal. Hot, too!”

“What? Are you kidding?”

“John.” I turned to see Doc. The arrogance replaced by a solemn face looking down at me. “Jack’s dead.”

“Dead? How? He wasn’t hit that bad!”

“He had a stomach wound we didn’t find till this morning. He could have made it, but we couldn’t get a medevac chopper.” Doc spoke as though he was pleading for understanding. “There just weren’t any choppers.”

I followed the flight of the Army armada of helicopters until my vision blurred. Then I cried.

The lieutenant put Chan and me back together. I was thankful for that, almost as thankful as Rodgers was to get away from the gun.

“Saddle up!” The gruff voice sounded far away. I felt numb over Jack’s death. Not sad. I was too tired of it all to be sad. I felt anger, too. Anger at our incompetent corpsman who didn’t find a stomach wound. Anger at the Army for darkening the sky with helicopters bringing hot meals to Army units that were already too soft while my friend bled to death for lack of a single medevac chopper. But most of all, anger at the gooks.

“Here’s your pack,” Chan said. I watched the medevac chopper fade into the hot morning sun. “You knew him better than I did, but that was one decent man.” Chan nudged me with my pack. “You all right?”

I felt myself sighing. “I wonder if I’ll be sane when I get home.” Chan didn’t answer. I put my pack on. The straps dug into my sore shoulders. It felt heavier than usual, or maybe I was just weaker. I threw the M60 over my shoulder and nestled the hot metal into the little saddle of callus and muscle between my neck and shoulder bone. The never-ending hump started again. I kept hearing Jack ask for his baby. Push it out. Think clear. I wonder how far I’ll walk before it’s over? Fifteen miles a day times thirteen months equals three-ninety-five times fifteen equals…“Chan?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s three-ninety-five times fifteen?”