A Rumor of War (35 page)

The worn white soldiers in Khaki dress,

Who tramped through the jungle and camped in the byre,

Who died in the swamp and were tombed in the mire.

—Rudyard Kipling

“The Ballad of Boh Da Thone”

Creeping through the stunted grass, I seemed to be making as much racket as a man stumbling through piles of dry leaves. Please don’t let them hear me or see me, I prayed silently. Please let everything go right. Let me get them, all of them. Guilt washed over me because I was asking God to help me kill. I felt guilty, but I prayed anyway. Let me get them, all of them. I want all of them. The edge of the clearing was less than ten yards away, but it seemed I would never get there. It kept receding, like a mirage. My heartbeat sounded like a kettle-drum pounding in a tunnel. I was certain the Viet Cong could hear it or the sound of my breathing.

The rifle shot was deafening compared to the dead silence that had preceded it. The bullet kicked up dust a few yards from my face, and I whirled around on my stomach like a crab. Crowe and Allen were down and rolling over—the round had passed right between them—rolling over to fire while Lonehill, on one knee, sent a long, ecstatic burst into the hedgerows across the river. One of the Viet Cong threw up his arms and seemed to rise several inches off the ground before he fell heavily on his back, his rifle twirling through the air like a majorette’s baton. It was as if an invisible giant had picked him up, then slammed him to the earth. I could not see the VC’s body; one of his comrades must have pulled him into the underbrush as I was getting to my feet. The third Viet Cong had taken cover behind the shrine. I hadn’t seen him, but instinct told me he was there. Lonehill was firing into the hedgerows, Crowe blasting away with his twelve-gauge, although the shot-pattern was too wide to be lethal at that range. I began running toward them, realized I still had to get the rest of the platoon, pivoted to run back into the woods, and went down when a line of bullets chewed the earth beside me. Staggering to my feet, I went down again as the VC behind the shrine fired a second time with his BAR or machine gun—I couldn’t tell which. Lying in a shallow dip in the ground, I made love to the earth. The Viet Cong around the river bend had opened up, so that, on the peninsula of land formed by the horseshoe bend, the four of us were caught in a cross fire. I tried once more to make it to the edge of the clearing but was struck in the face by spraying dust as soon as I lifted my head to run. The experience of being under heavy fire is like suffocating; air suddenly becomes as lethal as a poison gas, its very molecules seem to be composed of pieces of lead flying at two thousand miles an hour. The bullets hissed and cracked over my head, and I yelled—no, screamed—“Allen! I’m pinned down. Pour it on ‘em, god-damnit. Your right front, around the bend. POUR IT ON ’EM GODDAMNIT.” The three marines managed to sound like a small army, with Crowe’s shotgun roaring loudly. Then came the flat, dull blasts of 40-millimeters as Allen laid down a barrage with his grenade launcher.

An eerie sense of calm came over me. My mind was working with a speed and clarity I would have found remarkable if I had had the time to reflect upon it. I knew what I was going to do. The platoon could not assault across the deep, fast river, but it could pour a withering fire into the Viet Cong. If that did not kill all of them, it would at least kill some and drive the rest out of the village. But first, I had to bring up a machine gun to suppress the fire coming from around the river bend, and a rocket launcher to knock out the enemy automatic weapon in place behind the cement-walled shrine. That had to be done before the platoon could be deployed safely. They would bunch up in the small clearing and a lot of them would be hit if the enemy fire wasn’t suppressed first. And it had to be done quickly, before the Viet Cong recovered from their surprise and started to fire more accurately. The whole plan of attack flashed through my mind in a matter of seconds. At the same time, my body was tensing itself to spring. Quite separate from my thoughts or will, it was concentrating itself to make a rush for the tree line. And that intense concentration of physical energy was born of fear. I could not remain in the hollow for longer than a few more seconds. After that, the Viet Cong would range in on me, a stationery target in an exposed position. I had to move, to face and overcome the danger. I understood then why a cornered animal is so dangerous; he is terrified and every instinct in him focuses on a single end: destroying the thing that frightens him.

Without a command from my conscious mind, I lunged into the woods and crashed down the trail, calling for a machine gun and a 3.5-inch rocket team. They came up, stumbling beneath their heavy weapons, and sprinted across the clearing to where Allen’s men were still firing. The three-five’s backblast made an ear-splitting crack an instant before its armor-piercing shell slammed into the shrine and bits of concrete and tile spiraled up out of the smoke. The machine gun sprayed the hedgerows, the casings of the long, slim 7.62-mm bullets clanging as they flew rapidly out of the gun’s ejection port. Elated, I emptied my carbine into the hole the rocket launcher had made in the shrine’s wall. Then a second three-five shell went off and there was no more firing from the enemy gun.

“First and third squads up!” I shouted, running back toward the woods. “First and third up, on line. Second watch our rear.”

Led by big Sergeant Wehr, the platoon guide, the marines broke out of the jungle at a run. Wehr, who had just arrived in Vietnam, seemed a little bewildered by the invisible things crackling in the air.

“On line, I said! On line here. First on the left, third squad on the right. On line and start putting rapid fire into the ville.”

Bent low beneath the enemy fire, the marines quickly shook themselves into a skirmish line, wheeling like skaters playing crack-the-whip, extending their front along one leg of the river bend. Then the line surged across the clearing, the men firing short, spasmodic bursts from the hip and the whole line going down when it reached the riverbank, going down and opening up with an unrestrained rapid fire. I could not hear any individual shots, just a loud, continuous tearing noise. The hedgerows fifty yards away shook as if struck by a violent wind, and a hut flew apart when it was hit by a three-five shell. Pieces of bamboo and thatch were tossed up by the blast and then tumbled down, the thatch flaming as it fell.

I scrambled along the line on my hands and knees, shouting myself hoarse to control the platoon’s fire. The marines were in a frenzy, pouring volley after volley into the village, some yelling unintelligibly, some screaming obscenities. Allen ran up to me. His blue eyes looked crazed. He said he had seen some of the Viet Cong pulling out and one of them falling, hit by machine-gun fire. A bullet smacked into the earth between us and we went rolling over and came rolling back up again, me laughing hysterically, Allen looking even more crazed as he pumped 40-millimeters into the village. A few moments later, Miller called on the radio and confirmed that we had driven the VC out of Hoi-Vuc; a sniper in his company had seen a squad of them fleeing down a trail, and had killed two.

There was still some enemy fire coming at us, but it was ragged and badly aimed. I passed the word that the Viet Cong were on the run and that D Company had killed two more. The platoon became as excited as a predator that sees the back of its fleeing prey; a few marines slid down the bank and started shooting from the water’s edge. I could feel the whole line wanting to charge across the river. The platoon was one thing, one being poised to spring and smash the life out of whatever stood in its way. I could feel it, and, feeling it, sent Lance Corporal Labiak’s fire-team downstream to look for a ford. If we could get across the river, we could finish the job. I wanted to get across the river in the worst way. I wanted to level the village and kill the rest of the Viet Cong in close combat. I wanted us to tear their guts out with bayonets.

We took some sniper fire and silenced it with M-79 grenades, Labiak came back, soaked up to his chest. The river could not be crossed, he said. The bottom dropped off sharply and the current had almost swept him off his feet. Well, all right, there would be no pursuit, no final, climactic bayonet charge. Still, I felt a drunken elation. Not only the sudden release from danger made me feel it, but the thrill of having seen the platoon perform perfectly under heavy fire and under my command. I had never experienced anything like it before. When the line wheeled and charged across the clearing, the enemy bullets whining past them, wheeled and charged almost with drill-field precision, an ache as profound as the ache of orgasm passed through me. And perhaps that is why some officers make careers of the infantry, why they endure the petty regulations, the discomforts and degradations, the dull years of peacetime duty in dreary posts: just to experience a single moment when a group of soldiers under your command and in the extreme stress of combat do exactly what you want them to do, as if they are extensions of yourself.

I could not come down from the high produced by the action. The fire-fight was over, except for a few desultory exchanges, but I did not want it to be over. So, when a sniper opened up from a tree line beyond the village, I did something slightly mad. Ordering the platoon to train their rifles on the tree line, I walked up and down the clearing, trying to draw the sniper’s fire.

“When he opens up, every man put five rounds rapid into the tree line,” I said, walking back and forth and feeling as invulnerable as an Indian wearing his ghost shirt.

Nothing happened.

I stopped walking and, facing the tree line, waved my arms. “C’mon, Charlie, hit me, you son of a bitch,” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “HO CHI MINH SUCKS. FUCK COMMUNISM. HIT ME, CHARLIE.”

Some of the marines started laughing, and when I heard one of them mutter, “That stocky little fucker’s crazy,” I started laughing too. I was crazy. I was soaring high, very high in a delirium of violence.

“C’mon and hit me, Charlie,” I yelled again, firing a burst into the tree line with my carbine. “YOU SON OF A BITCH, TRY AND HIT ME. FUCK UNCLE HO. HANOI BY CHRISTMAS.”

I was John Wayne in
Sands of Iwo lima
. I was Aldo Ray in
Battle Cry
. No, I was a young, somewhat immature officer flying on an overdose of adrenalin because I had just won a close-quarters fight without suffering a single casualty.

The sniper declined my offer, and I gradually calmed down. A call from Captain Miller brought me back to the real world. The platoon had done a fine job, he said. It was a diversionary force, and by God, it had certainly provided the VC with plenty of diversion. He ordered us to remain in position for the night. I did not particularly like that idea; the enemy knew where we were and would probably mortar us. On the other hand, that’s what we were supposed to do, divert the enemy’s attention away from Miller’s company.

The platoon formed a perimeter and started to dig in. Knowing we would probably be shelled, we dug the holes deep, or as deeply as we could in the gummy, resistant soil. When Jones and I finished, we stuck our entrenching tools in the parapet and slid into the hole for a cigarette. A cigarette had never tasted quite so good. I was still elevated. Smoking, I cleaned my carbine, running the rag lovingly over the varnished stock, the barrel, and the long, curved banana clip, enjoying the feel and the sound of the bolt mechanism as I worked it back and forth. I had not killed anyone with it, but I had caused a few deaths, and a part of me had enjoyed that, too, enjoyed watching the first Viet Cong die.

The reprieve from the monsoons ended that night. Our foxholes were turned into miniature swimming pools. Sniper fire cracked over us most of the night. Although it had only a slim chance of hitting its mark, it kept us on edge. Every fifteen or twenty minutes there was a
crack-crack-crack
and nothing visible but a swirling blackness and the white mists rising over the river. In the early hours before dawn, it stopped raining. With neither rain nor wind to keep them down, swarms of mosquitoes rose from the damp earth to feed on us. The leeches had a banquet too.

Lying in a half-sleep in six inches of water, I heard a shrill wailing and someone yelling “INNNCOMMIIING!” and then a sound as of lightning striking a tree, a splitting sound. The earth shuddered.

“Jesus Christ, what was that?” asked Jones, next to me on radio watch.

“Whatever it was, it wasn’t a sixty or an eighty-two. Get D Company. It might be our own stuff.”

Reaching back over his shoulder, Jones unhooked the handset of the PRC-10 and intoned, “Delta Six, this is Charley Two, over… Delta Six, Delta Six, this is Charley Two, Charley Two, over… Delta Six, this is Charley Two, do you read me, over… This is Bound Charley Two calling Bound Delta Six, do you read me, Six, over…”

There was another high-pitched whistling, growing louder. The ground shook again as the shell smashed into the riverbank less than fifty yards away. A shower of earth, twigs, and hot shrapnel struck the river with a hiss.

“Delta Six, this is Charley Two,” Jones said, lying with one arm over the back of his neck. “Do you read me Delta Six, over.” He turned to me. I rolled onto my side and felt the cold shock of water pouring down my shirt and into the crotch of my trousers. “Sir, I can’t reach D Company. The batteries must’ve gotten wet.”

“Goddamn radios. Goddamn junk shit they send us. Well, keep trying. If that’s our own stuff, we can get them to cease firing.”

“What if it ain’t our own stuff?”

“Then maybe we’ll get our asses blown away. Keep trying.”

“Delta Six, Delta Six, this is Bound Charley Two calling Bound Delta Six, over.”

A faint voice, broken by static, crackled in the receiver.

“… two… position… over.”

“Delta Six. You’re breaking up. Say again.”

“This is Delta Six… your position… over.”

I grabbed the handset and gave our map coordinates, hoping the voice on the other end was not one of the VC, who sometimes monitored our radio traffic. “Listen, Delta Six, we have impacting rounds less than five-zero meters from this position. Could be Victor Charlie one-twenties or rockets. Interrogatory: is our own arty firing now? If our arty firing now, tell them to cease fire.”