Men in Green Faces (32 page)

Jim was at his side in a moment. “What’s wrong?”

Still breathing hard, getting air back into his body, he managed, “Too…too heavy. Couldn’t stay…up.”

“Stay there,” Jim ordered, and went to get Doc.

In that short time, he was able to start raising his head but still couldn’t pull himself up.

Doc began to talk softly to him. “Take slow deep breaths. In your nose, out your mouth. Come on, Gene. Slow down. In your nose, out your mouth.” He patted Gene’s back. “You’ll be fine.”

Eventually his breathing had slowed, life had come back to his body, and he had been able to sit up. It had taken fifteen minutes more before he’d recovered enough that the squad could move out.

Now, after seeing Brian’s head go under, Gene knew he’d have to take a deep breath before that point in the river. He also knew it wasn’t far across and that the tide was low. There would only be a few feet underwater before he’d be able to walk the rest of the way to shore. He couldn’t let the past stop him from what was at hand. The rest had crossed. It was his turn.

Gene eased into the water. When he reached the point where he thought the rest of the squad had started kicking, he was ready to fill his lungs with air before going under. The water had risen to his mouth. He kept moving, but tilted his head back. The water covered his ears, leaving his mouth and nose above the surface. Get ready, he told himself. Get ready to breathe deep. But the riverbed sloped upward and in two steps the water level was at his shoulders.

You dummy, he thought. All that worry waiting for his turn had been for naught. He was taller than anyone in the squad. But it wasn’t for naught, he realized. He’d confirmed what he’d learned in training. Never panic. Keep thinking. Stay in control.

Cruz signaled to move out. It had taken about ten minutes for the squad to cross. The enemy was a short distance away. Probably less than five hundred meters.

They moved south along the river, looking and listening as they got closer. Brian’s hand went up.

Enemy in sight.

One lone man, Gene saw, standing on the riverbank in his undershorts, taking a leak.

Cruz used the starlight scope to better see the area ahead. With the stars, the scope would be as good as seeing in daylight except everything looked green.

Cruz followed the man back to the camp. He returned to say there were two small hootches, with about ten men-sleeping outside.

With daylight only an hour away, they moved into the jungle to approach the camp from the rear. If any enemy tried to run, they could only run to the river. And if they did, Gene thought, the squad could pick them off like ducks.

In position, he peered through the foliage at the sleeping NVAs. AK-47s lay on the ground beside them. The two hootches were about five feet apart. He glanced around. The rest of the SEALs were on line, about ten feet apart.

Cruz would initiate firing. When he opened up, they’d do the same, and run straight through the camp, hitting the enemy fast and hard. With surprise on the squad’s side, the NVAs shouldn’t even get a round off in return. Gene lifted the 60 slightly, ready to slaughter all of them.

In the silence, Roland made radio contact, using three squelch breaks, to alert the boats to stand by. When the crews heard the gunfire, they’d come up the river, to the target area, and extract the squad.

Cruz lifted his weapon. He fired, and the entire squad opened up fully automatic.

Gene concentrated on taking both hootches under fire, as did Jim and Roland. If there were ten men outside, ten more must be inside, so they fired low to be sure they hit anybody sleeping on the floors.

For thirty seconds, they stood fast, putting out almost fifteen hundred rounds along the ground and in the hootches.

“Move in,” Cruz yelled.

Staying on line to ensure none of the squad members were caught in their own lines of fire, they moved out fast. Some of the enemy tried to get up and grab their AK-47s, but were blown down in the devastating volume of fire.

Gene ran past the hootches, pouring rounds through his entire area. Jim, also past them, paused to send up pop flares. The whole area lit.

“Cease fire!” Cruz ordered, and Gene took up the call. “Cease fire!” The boats would be on their way to pick them up.

Ten bodies lay on the ground. Ten more lifeless forms were inside the hootches. Total firing time had been no more than two minutes, Gene estimated, and almost six thousand rounds had been expended.

“He has a gun!” Brian yelled, and at the same instant, opened up on a wounded NVA.

Gene whirled with the rest of the squad. In unison, they fired in the direction of Brian’s fire. The body jerked on the ground, the rounds ripping it apart.

“Make sure they’re all dead,” Cruz yelled out. “Jim, Roland! Frag the hootches!”

Running, Jim and Roland pulled pins, and as they threw the fragmentation grenades, they shouted, “Grenade!” and the SEALs hit the deck.

Gene heard the explosions ripping through the hootches and shrapnel whizzing overhead as it tore through the palm frond walls.

“Burn them,” Cruz ordered.

Taking out MK-13 Day/Night flares, Roland and Jim lit the flare end and set the dry hootches afire.

Getting to his feet, Gene realized that they’d killed twenty NVA in two minutes, and with them, the secret of the weapons’ location. Though he was grimly pleased that a few more had died in revenge for Willie, he regretted the weapons remained hidden.

Maybe, he thought, half listening to Roland on the radio with the boats, they’d stay in their grave for centuries. An image of the eerie fort they’d found came to mind, and he shivered, turned away, and walked with the rest of the squad to the riverbank.

It was full daylight by the time they docked at Seafloat. Once debriefing was over, the squad went to chow. Standing in line behind Cruz, Gene said, “You-O, you did a good job, buddy. Really a good op. Way to go.”

“Thanks. If I’d known how good it feels to plan and run one, I would have led ops long ago. Now it’s too late, damn it. We’ll be going back to The World in ten days.” He grinned. “Hell, I just might come back.”

Gene stared. Ten days? Ten days before leaving for The World?

He felt a heaviness inside. They could be dead in ten minutes. Ten days was the same as forever. He took his tray and sat down to eat, wondering how long luck and good planning could hold up. Willie’d had three days to go.

On the way to the cleaning table, he passed Marc and Freddy Fanther carrying a footlocker to the helicopter pad.

“How you doing, bro?” Marc asked.

Gene looked into the pale blue eyes. “Okay, Eagle. And you?”

“Better each minute that passes. Big bash tonight. Last party. You better be there,” he yelled back. “You go out on an op tonight, we go to war.”

“You got it. I’ll be there.”

Cleaning the 60, he could still smell the decomposing body stink on Cruz and Brian and tried to stay upwind from them. They’d have no problem getting to be the first ones to scrub down. He went to hang the 60 from his rack before stripping down and waiting his turn at the rain barrel.

Feeling jittery, he decided to have a cigarette. He went back inside, got one, and some matches, and returned to rejoin the line outside and light up. He put the cigarette in his mouth, took out a match and struck it. He smelled burning sulfur, but the match wasn’t lit. There at the tip of his right index finger was the flame. He raised his finger to light the cigarette, and drew, but got no smoke. He threw the match away and lit another one. Again, he saw his finger flame and touched it to the end of his cigarette. The smoke refused to light.

Jim, standing nearby, yelled, “Doc!” and pointed at Gene, who tried a third time to light the cigarette with his fingertip. They went to him.

“What’s wrong, Gene?” Jim asked.

“Can’t light my cigarette,” he said. “See?” He touched his finger to the tip and drew on it. “The damned thing won’t light.” Naked, he stood staring at it.

Doc took his arm. “Come on.”

He pulled away. “Wait a minute. I want a smoke.”

“Okay,” said Doc. “Here. Let me light it for you.”

Gene handed the cigarette over, not remembering that Doc didn’t smoke, would never so much as let a cigarette touch his lips. But that morning, dripping wet and covered with soap, he did.

“Here you go,” Doc said, handing the lit cigarette to Gene.

Jim, still wet, towel draped around his waist, took Gene’s arm. “Come

Near the door, with Doc on Gene’s other side, Jim saw Cruz and yelled to him, “Go get the doctor and get back down here.”

Cruz, one leg in his swim trunks and one leg out, looked up at Jim. “What’s up?”

“Damn it,” Jim barked, “I said get the doctor! Now!”

Cruz, hopping toward the door, managed to get his other leg in the trunks and took off at a run yelling, “Out of the way!” at people blocking his path.

Gene sat on Jim’s rack behind the plywood partition. The doctor looked at him and asked again, “What’s wrong?”

“His pulse is 148,” Doc said, holding Gene’s wrist.

“Move over,” the doctor said to Doc.

Gene waved his other hand. “What’s you doing here, Doctor?” he asked. “Want some coffee?” He offered the doctor his pack of cigarettes. “Be careful,” he warned. “It’s hot.”

After checking Gene’s vital signs, the doctor told Jim, “He’s on something. Let’s get him down to sick bay. Hold onto him.”

Silently the rest of the squad watched as he was led out.

In sick bay, the doctor asked, “What have you taken?”

“Nothing.”

“Gene,” Doc asked, “what kind of drugs have you taken?”

Gene shoved him away. “What the hell are you talking about? You know I don’t do drugs. What’s wrong? Why am I here?” Fear rose, and confusion. He tried to get up. “Let me out of here!”

Jim and Doc held him.

“Take it easy,” Jim said. “Something’s wrong and we’ve got to find out what you’ve taken.”

Gene shook his head. “Nothing. Really. I don’t do dope.”

“We know, but something is wrong. Just take it easy.”

“Okay. Guys, let go. I’m okay. Go ahead, Doctor.” He looked quickly from side to side. “Can I have a smoke?”

“Sure,” the doctor said. “Give him one.”

Doc started to light one. Gene pulled it away. “Give me that! I’ll light my own cigarette. You don’t smoke anyway.” He lit the cigarette and began to puff on it, while Jim told the doctor what they’d seen.

“You take any Dexamyl?” the doctor asked Gene.

“Yes, but only two.”

“How long ago?”

“Just before going out.”

The doctor looked at Jim, who said, “An hour or so after midnight.”

“Have you been taking them long?”

Gene shook his head. “No. Just before going out on an op.”

“He’s .been going out quite a lot since you released him,” Jim said.

“When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep, Gene?” the doctor asked.

Gene drew on his cigarette and didn’t reply.

Jim’s eyes narrowed. “Doc,” he said, “go over to Johnny’s and check the op reports.”

While Doc was gone, Gene sat silently, not protesting as the doctor continued to examine him under Jim’s watchful gaze.

In a short time, Doc returned and took Jim over to the side of the room. “He probably hasn’t slept for ten days. If he’s gotten any sleep at all, it wasn’t much. He’s been in the bush day and night.”

Jim relayed the information to the doctor, who then turned to Gene.

“You’ll be okay. You’ve worn yourself out. You hallucinated there for a short while from taking the Dexamyls. I’m going to give you a shot,” he said, “that will counter the drug, and you’ll be able to sleep.”

“Then I’m okay? I can still go back out?”

“Yes, but not until you get some rest. You’ll be fine, but don’t take any more pills.”

Gene nodded. He felt fine, but he’d do whatever it took to please the doctor. Whatever it took to continue to operate.

As he started to get up, Doc moved to help.

“I don’t know what kept him going,” the doctor told Jim. “No sleep in ten days. Even on Dexamyl he should have shown the effects before this. What’s driving him?”

“I don’t know,” Jim answered. “I’ll try and find out. When I do, I’ll have a talk with him.”

The doctor sighed. “He’ll be coming down hard in a few hours. I guarantee he’ll sleep. I’ll stop by tomorrow just to check.”

Meanwhile, Doc, itchy with the dried soap he hadn’t had time to rinse off, marched a naked Gene back to the hootch. As they went, he delivered a fiery lecture about drug-taking, sleep deprivation, and absolute stupidity.

Gene ignored him, wondering which squad would be operating when the sun went down.

D
ARKNESS FELL EARLY ON
Seafloat. Gene’s last op lay three days in the past, as did the Eagle’s party, and Delta Platoon’s early morning departure for the trip back to The World.

By party time, Gene had been asleep for hours, knocked out by whatever the doctor had given him at the end of his sleepless, drugged, ten-day vendetta of revenge for Willie.

He’d come awake an inch at a time, fighting back to consciousness while trying to make sense of the voices around him, to separate them out. The squad…some of them were talking about him.

“—should have fucking noticed that he—”

“Can’t watch every goddam body, Doc.”

“—were here too. All of us. Nobody put it together, he was operating every fuckin’ minute of—”

“Right on, Brian, but still—”

“No damned excuse. My bastard brain must’ve been half dead. He was in no damned condition. Could’ve been fuckin’ killed or got somebody else killed, Cruz.”

“But nobody
was.
And they never have been. Not if he’s on the op.

“Fuckin’-A right, Cruz, and look how many he was out on, the last week or more. Day and night, man.”

“Come in all bloody, covered with mud—”

“And smellin’ like shit—”

“Talk about shit, we going to chow or not?”

And Gene drifted back into sleep until just before midnight when he woke again. He pulled on his jeans and went quietly outside, drawn to the west edge of the helo pad.