13th Valley (63 page)

In the grass McCarthy worked on Brunak. Brunak had caught a round in the right side. It was difficult to determine how badly he had been hit but McCarthy was sure it was bad. Brunak was laughing, then tensing, cramping his entire body, then laughing again, flowing from consciousness, pain and spasms, to empty shock. McCarthy applied a field dressing to the hole in Brunak's side and jabbed him with a syringe of morphine. From his aid bag he took a 500ml plastic bag labeled Plasma Protein Fraction (Human). The plasma solution came in a kit complete with IV needle and airway cannula. McCarthy pumped Brunak's arm then jammed the needle in. He knew he was missing as soon as the needle broke the skin. He yanked it out. Brunak flinched. Then he laughed. McCarthy stuck him again and began the IV flow.

On the trail Doc Johnson had closed Silvers' eyes. The medic methodically wrapped a large sterile dressing about the dead man's neck so no one would see the extent of the damage. Doc pulled a towel from Silvers' ruck and placed part of it behind Leon's head. He brought the remainder over the sallow face. Then, holding his aid bag, Doc rolled off the trail into the grass.

Cherry squatted in the grass beside Thomaston. He awaited directions. Egan came back to them. He grabbed the handset, radioed El Paso, explained the situation, and requested a priority medevac. He tossed the hook back to Cherry and snapped, “Git down. I don't want ta call in a bird for you too.”

Hoover crawled over to the group about Brunak. Thomaston grabbed his hook and radioed the CP. “We're movin back into the grass fifty meters,” he said after talking to Brooks. “We'll get the Dust-Off out there.”

Thomaston and Egan directed the perimeter to move further down while they, with Jax' help, pulled Silvers' body from the road. With the others breaking a trail and then crushing a tiny clearing toward the valley center, Egan and Jax jumped back onto the road and pulled Silvers' body, ruck and weapon into the grass. Jax separated the ruck from the body of his dead field partner. He lifted the body gently and carried it to the clearing. “Yo gowin be alright now, Leon, my friend,” Jax whispered soothingly. “Yo kin relax an fo'get this place.” Cherry followed carrying the blood-soaked ruck. Lairds brought the extra weapon and helmet. Brunak, McCarthy and 2d Sqd had already reached and secured the clearing. 3d Plt pulled back to reinforce the evac site, 2d Plt and the CP circled the perimeter in recon patrols, pushing to points 100 meters from the designated pick-up zone.

“Hey,” Egan said to Cherry. “You need some good shit?”

“What shit?”

“Here,” Egan said rustling through Silvers' equipment. He tossed Cherry a two-quart canteen.

Cherry looked at it, then walked over to the ruck. Across the top, blood drenched but unharmed, was a five-quart water blivet. Cherry untied it. The blivet was a double-layered plastic bladder enclosed in a strong nylon bag, the three bags joined at the top with a canteen neck and screw cap. Water blivets were less cumbersome than canteens and they could be used as pillows. They were in very short supply. “I'd like to take this,” Cherry said.

“You got it,” Egan answered.

“And his bayonet.”

“Take it.”

Numbnuts let Cherry and Egan leave the ruck before he went over and scavenged all C-rat meals that were not Ham and Lima Beans. Denhardt scavenged Brunak's ruck.

It was after sunset, late dusk, when the medical evacuation helicopter finally found Alpha. The thick mist prevented the Dust-Off commander from seeing marking smoke and it was not dark enough to use the mini-strobes. The birds even had difficulty finding the valley for all of northern I Corps lay in thick fog and rain. The Dust-Off had first to locate Barnett, then follow a vector path 268°, almost due west.

Cherry directed the bird's approach by ear. “You're passing to our sierra maybe two hundred meters,” he called. Then again, “You're approaching us. You're passing over us right, right … now.”

The helicopter made a half-dozen passes, at first so high it could not be seen through the fog, then lower and lower. Finally it hovered 15 meters over their position. From the ground Cherry could see the crew chief standing on the left skid and the medic standing on the right. Huge red crosses were painted on white squares on the bird's bottom and sides. The rotor wash from the bird made the rain slam down and sting on upturned faces. Escort ships could be heard circling though they could not be seen. From the right side of the helicopter stuck a three-foot arm and from that dropped a small torpedo-shaped object on a steel cable. The torpedo dropped evenly and in seconds it was on the ground. Doc Johnson, Doc McCarthy, Thomaston and Jax grabbed the torpedo and unfolded it.

“What's that thing?” Cherry questioned.

“Jungle penetrator,” Egan answered.

The four men lifted Brunak and his gear and strapped him into a sitting position on the now unfolded, tri-pronged, anchor-like seat. They strapped his gear across from him. Thomaston stretched his arms up over his head and extended his thumbs signaling the crew chief to take him away. The hoist cranked and Brunak rose, swayed beneath the bird, and ascended. The medic reached out and pulled him in. The bird departed, circled and returned. The procedure was repeated with the body and gear of Leon Silvers. Then the medevac departed for good. No trace of the dead or the wounded remained except for blood and neck tissue in the midst of the enemy road and the blood stain on Cherry's water blivet.

C
HAPTER
24

Bug repellent was also used to repel leeches. Typically boonierats carried several plastic bottles of the fluid. By 2300 hours every soldier in Alpha had run out. That night's position came to be known amongst them as NDP on Leech Reef. They called the night Bloodsucker's Bitterness. The bloodsuckers were not all leeches.

It had been nearly dark when the medevac departed and Alpha had formed up again, in column again, on the road again. Brooks had opted for a quick 200-meter hump east up the roadway. He had hoped to find a passage up the cliffs to the north ridge. Tension amongst the men was high. With every step every man searched the corridor walls left and right, top and bottom. At drag Marko, Jax, Egan and Cherry walked backward. Fifty meters behind Whiteboy and his squad followed. They had dropped off in hopes of catching NVA trail watchers popping up after the column.

At point Garbageman, Pop, Smitty and Mohnsen walked a staggered lead sweep, each scrutinizing one parameter of the corridor. Innumerable sites along the road indicated signs of enemy troops moving into the elephant grass. Footprints in the mud filled with water as the point element approached. At two points where minute trails exited the road, Pop was certain the grass of the wall swayed not from wind but from having been brushed. He saw nothing. Where trails intersected with the road, riflemen stood guard for the column, 16s or 60s aimed up the secondary routes. All weapons were off safe, on automatic. This was unusual for the normal unsure footing demanded the precaution of keeping weapons on safe. An index finger was kept on the trigger and a thumb on the safety lever. The two could be squeezed simultaneously taking no more time than only squeezing the trigger. An unofficial agreement had passed through Alpha when the boonierats had moved out. That they moved out at all was a testament to the faith they had in Brooks. Brooks was aware of their faith and loyalty. He gritted his teeth and told himself it was the only way. Mohnsen had glanced conspiratorially at Smith then clicked to full automatic, Smith turned to Jones, Jones to Garbageman. In back Egan nodded to Cherry. At middle El Paso nodded to FO and FO to the L-T. The nods, glances and clicking began at numerous foci and expanded to encompass the entire column. All weapons were aimed outward from the advancing double column.

The rain had subsided, abated to a drizzlemist and the temperature had fallen from cool to cold to very cold. In the lushly vegetated mountains of the Annamite Range rainy season temperatures of 30° F were neither incongruous nor unknown and nights below 40° were common. But in August, temperatures seldom fell below 50° and the boonierats of Alpha were not dressed for the cold. Coupled with the wet, the cold chilled them to miserable teeth chattering. Being on the roads with night's edge on the sky increased their inner trembling. Their eyes played tricks as they stared up the cliffs or up the road or into the grass. Shadows darted about, poked up in peripheral vision then vanished under direct scrutiny.

“Keep pushing,” Brooks radioed forward. “Keep it moving. Find a passage up the cliffs.”

But there was no passage. The wall to their left rose vertically as a single monolith without gully, without break. When visibility neared zero Brooks ordered the unit to halt. Whiteboy's squad caught up, the column squeezed together, closed intervals from ten feet to three. On command the soldiers turned right 90° and dissolved into the grass. They swept in like a silent wave, breaking after 100 meters. The flanks contracted and with the instinct of well-disciplined troops the boonierats formed an irregular oval perimeter. Quietly the perimeter guards laid down and arranged guard schedules. The leech assault began immediately.

At Alpha's center the CP formed a tight nucleus. “Don't dig in,” Brooks whispered to El Paso. “No noise, no movement, no lights. Get that word out. We're going to hide here. I don't want to hear the sound of digging.” Then to El Paso Brooks said unofficially, “Every time we dig I feel like I'm digging my own grave.”

Beside the company commander FO and Brown had buried themselves beneath two ponchos. By flashlight FO studied the topo map and plotted his targets. Tonight, he thought, I'm goina bring in arty all over that road. FO called the FDC on Barnett and gave a long list of coordinates. First he called in DTs for Alpha, then he called in the road. He discussed the target with the artillery commander. Without being able to observe the impactions it would be impossible to ascertain the extent of damage the rounds were causing or, indeed, if the rounds were even hitting the target. Five meters too far to the north and the rounds would land up the cliff, perhaps caving sections of cliff in upon the road. That would be of little use. The NVA would use the loose dirt and rock to improve the road surface. Rounds landing five meters too far south would impact in the elephant grass and not affect the road at all. Only direct hits at road center would cause the NVA to slow. The craters would fill with water and vehicular traffic would bog down in the quagmire. With luck, arty would blow the ceiling off the corridor and expose the road to air attack. FO described the road in detail. And he described the cliffs. The battery commander asked FO to wait one. He checked with the forward TOC on the firebase and with the main TOC at Evans. He radioed FO back. The road would receive H & I fire, later, maybe. From Barnett he did not believe he could drop rounds onto the road. His guns were north of the cliffs and the road was protected. But possibly, the eight-inchers at Firebase Jack far to the south, if they had time and if they had no higher priority missions, might drop a few rounds in the vicinity of the road. That was the best he could do.

Cherry and Egan slithered to the CP for the nightly meeting. “Do you guys have any extra bug repellent?” Brooks asked.

“Aw fuck,” Egan growled quietly. He had soaked his fatigues with every drop of repellent he had had. “I was hopin you had some. These mothafuckers are suckin me dry.”

“Doc had one in his ear,” El Paso whispered matter-of-factly.

“Numbnuts got one in his ass,” Cherry chuckled.

“Musta had ta share the space with his head,” Brown whispered laughing.

They bantered back and forth very quietly and moved closer and closer. They sat together in a cluster with Brooks at the center. There were thirteen of them, the seven from the CP, Egan, Cherry and Jax from 1st Plt, De Barti and Garbageman from 2d, and Caldwell from 3d. Each man was wrapped in a poncho liner for warmth and over that in a poncho to keep the leeches out. Had it been light enough to see, the cluster would have looked like thirteen crumpled dirty bags of trash tossed atop one another in a muck snot swamp. In the blackness they were nothing but thirteen quivering voices. Some chattered from the wet and cold. Some shivered feeling the crawling cool clamminess of endless legions of leeches inching ever closer to their flesh.

Ah, for a smoke, Egan thought. To smoke and burn the suckers off. To watch the mother whores squirm. Fucken night. Fucken light discipline. Can't light up. Most of these assholes don't have a goddamn dry cigarette. Assholes. How many times do ya have ta tell em to keep their smokes in their ammo cans.

Jax moaned. “Oh Man, these mothafuckas eatin me up. Up the side my head, they done whup. These mothafuckas eatin good tanight. On that road, friends, they eatin right.”

“Ssshhh,” Brooks hushed Jax. “Cahalan, report.”

Cahalan reported. He went into detail about Bravo's action at what they now called Comeback Ridge. Then he described Recon's skirmish. Cahalan had questioned the TOC RTOs about the various actions by US and ARVN forces in and around Khe Ta Laou. He reiterated all he had learned and then he recounted Alpha's own day formally concluding with a Lessons Learned section based on discussions Brooks had had with FO and Thomaston and others about the river crossing and about how Silvers was killed and how it could have been avoided, and how 1st Plt adjusted rear security for the second road march.