Friendly Fire (57 page)

“Keep working on him,” Cameron said. “He's strong, and he's young.”

It was no use. Samuels, eight inches away from Hamilton's boots, flinched when the medic covered Hamilton's body with a tarp. “Aw, for chrissake.” Samuels sighed. “Poor Hamilton. He was such a nice, straightforward guy, you know?”

“I know, Prince,” Kleeman said.

“I mean, Jesus, what did he ever do to deserve that garbage, huh? What did he do to deserve getting killed?”

“Take it easy, Prince,” Kleeman said. “Don't you worry yourself about Hamilton now.”

Samuels grimaced. “These goddamn leeches are gonna eat good tonight.”

Aikins saw the medic cover Hamilton's body and knew that Michael Mullen, too, was dead. There was nothing more he could do but see who else had been hurt. He crossed to where the medics were working on Ivy.

“Hello, Doc.” Ivy smiled up at him. Ivy was still on his stomach and had had to raise himself slightly to see Aikins' face.

“You're looking good,” Aikins said. “You're gonna be all right.”

“I know that,” Ivy said. “How are the rest?”

Aikins shook his head, “We got some hurt pretty bad.” He patted Ivy's shoulder. “You take it easy, okay? I'm going to check the others.”

“Sure, Doc,” Ivy said. “Don't worry about me.”

Aikins looked at Ivy for a moment. “You're a good man, Ivy. Take care.” He started away and passed Captain Cameron, who was moving toward Mullen. Aikins grabbed the captain's shoulder and held him back. “Sir, Mullen is dead.”

“Oh, son of a bitch!” Cameron swore. He crossed to Michael anyway and shone his flashlight down. Michael looked so peaceful, so untouched, Cameron couldn't believe he was dead. He knelt and felt Michael's chest, then slapped him to get a reflex, a flinch, a response of any kind. He was going to slap Michael again when someone took his arm. “We already tried that on him, sir,” a medic said. “It's no use. Sergeant Mullen is dead.”

“Okay,” Cameron said softly, sadly. “You'd better cover him up.”

Michael Mullen and Leroy Hamilton were the first men Captain Cameron had seen killed since he had been out in the field. It disgusted him that they had had to die in such a way—that they had died at all, but particularly the manner of the deaths struck him as such a terrible waste. They had been such good men. Cameron glanced at his wristwatch and, astonished, took a long look at it again. Only fifteen minutes had passed since the shell had hit. Because of the killed and wounded, there were now gaps in his company's defensive perimeter. He sent for Lieutenant Steven Boeri, the 3rd Platoon's platoon leader, and told him to take a squad and secure the 1st Platoon's portion where the men had been hit. He next told Lieutenant David Miller of the 2nd Platoon, “I need to secure a LZ for the med-evac. Get some people down on the other side of the clearing, and see what you can find.”

“Right, sir,” Miller said and started off.

“MacPhearson?” Cameron called.

“Here, sir,” the 2nd Platoon's platoon sergeant said.

“Mac, get me a litter detail, will you? Take some men from your platoon and the Third Platoon. We'll need to move the wounded down to the pickup zone.” Cameron returned to the radio again. “Black Smoke One? This is Black Smoke Six.…”

Culpepper knew that two men had been killed, but not until MacPhearson picked him for a litter detail did he learn that Michael Mullen had been one of them. Culpepper felt himself sink. Never before had he felt so totally depressed so fast. Michael had always been such a calm person, so quiet. Nothing had ever seemed to rattle him. That's what seemed so utterly strange to Culpepper: Michael had been so normal. How could he now be dead?

Lieutenant Colonel Schwarzkopf was clearly upset. He told Cameron not to leave the radio again. Schwarzkopf needed to know what was going on. “Are you sure you need a jungle penetrator? You know they're risky even in the daylight.”

“Sir,” Cameron answered, “the only thing I can tell you is that two of my people have bought the farm, and if I don't get it, two more will.”

“Okay,” Schwarzkopf said. “That's what I needed to know.”

“How long before we get the dust-off? We—wait one,” Cameron said. Lieutenant Miller had returned from the clearing and was saying, “Sir, we've got you an LZ.”

“Are you sure?” Cameron asked.

“Yes, sir,” Miller insisted. “All we've got to do is chop down one or two trees.”

Cameron clapped the young lieutenant on the back. “Good enough! Get some men with axes and machetes and get to it.” He picked up the handmike again, “Black Smoke One? This is Black Smoke Six. Send the dust-off. We can bring him in close enough to the ground to get everybody on board. I repeat, send the dust-off. We have an LZ.”

“This is Black Smoke One,” Schwarzkopf said. “Good work. Dust-off's on the way. Stay in touch.”

“Roger, this is Black Smoke Six. Out.” Cameron handed the microphone to the radio operator. “Stay with me,” he told him. “We'll go down to check the LZ.”

Aikins caught up with Cameron and reported on the wounded. Samuels and Ivy would need litters. So would Sergeant Gonzales, who had been wounded in the foot and arm. Staff Sergeant Wetsel could walk, but the shrapnel wound in his hand necessitated his being evacuated. Cactus, who had been sleeping next to Polk, was more sick and scared than hurt. He had been hit in the brow by a rock and said it impaired his vision. “So, you might as well let Cactus go, too,” Aikins said.

“Samuels, Ivy, Gonzales, Wetsel and Cactus. Five,” Cameron counted. “Is that all?”

“I think you ought to take a look at Lieutenant Joslin, too.”

“Joslin?” Cameron asked, surprised. “Was he hurt, too?”

“He was right under the blast and was pretty shaken up,” Aikins said. “I think he was hit hard by a rock or a tree limb. He's sitting over there by that tree.”

Cameron shone the light in his young 1st Platoon leader's face. Joslin's features were black with dirt.

“How do you feel?” Cameron asked him.

“I'm okay,” Joslin said, wincing at the bright light.

“You sure? The medic says you got hit pretty hard.”

“No, I'm all right. I only got a lot of dirt in my eyes.”

“I can have you med-evac'd out,” Cameron said.

“No, please. Don't do that, sir,” Joslin said. “I'm fine. I don't want to go.”

“Are your eyes still bothering you?”

“I just feel a little dizzy still. A little sick to my stomach from the concussion. It'll pass, sir.”

Cameron looked at Joslin closely. “It's a helluva thing to have happen your first night in the field.”

“They were good men,” Joslin said. “I wish I'd had time to know them better.”

Aikins was helping to load Samuels onto a litter made by threading two six-poles through some ponchos. The morphine had barely started to take hold, so any movement caused Samuels excruciating pain.

“Try to relax and lie still,” Aikins told him. “We'll slide this litter under you and get you out of here.”

“Doc,” Samuels said, “are you sure I'm going to walk again?”

“Yeah, man, no problem.… Okay,” Aikins said, turning away from the Prince, “I need someone to hold his leg steady.”

“I'll do it,” Kleeman said.

“
You
, Kleeman?” Samuels groaned. “For chrissake, don't you do it! You won't take two steps without tripping!”

“Yeah, well, Prince,” Kleeman said, “there are trips and then there are ‘trips,' you know?”

“I know. And this one's a real bummer.”

Willard Polk had pulled himself together and was standing beside Samuels when they slid him on the litter. “Polk,” Aikins said, “you take that end by his head.” The medic stationed one man at each corner of the litter, then reconsidered and told Polk, “You'd better give Gonzales a hand. They need another man on that litter there.”

“I can carry the Prince,” Polk insisted.

“I don't want to risk having you fall,” Aikins said.

Polk shrugged and looked down at Samuels. “Don't sweat it none, man, you dig? You're gonna be
all
right.”

Aikins had removed his belt and was using it to strap Samuels to his litter. “Doc, hey, I'm really serious now,” Samuels said. “Please, please don't let them cut my leg off.”

Polk answered instead. “Man, there ain't
nothing
wrong with your leg!”

“Go on, Polk,” Aikins said, “give them a hand with Gonzales.”

“Just trying to help,” Polk said.

A man was stationed at each end of Samuels' litter poles, and Kleeman was by his leg. “Okay now,” Aikins said, “when I count to three, lift together. Don't jerk. Just lift him slow and easy.… You all set, Prince?”

Samuels, looking at Leroy Hamilton's tarp-covered body next to him, gritted his teeth and nodded yes.

“One,” Aikins counted, “two …
three
—not too fast, take your time. Kleeman, keep that leg in tight.” The poncho was not long enough to support Samuels' entire body; Kleeman was needed to keep Samuels' wounded leg from dropping. They gently began to move across the perimeter through the brush toward the clearing. “Keep it easy,” Aikins warned. “The more you move around, the more pain the Prince will be in.”

Willard Polk on one end of Sergeant Gonzales' litter, heard the sergeant, halfway to the clearing mutter, “Fuck it! I'd rather walk.” Gonzales got off the litter, threw one arm over Polk's shoulder, his other arm over another man's, and hopped on his good foot the rest of the way.

Captain Cameron had finished pacing off the clearing by the time Samuels and his litter bearers reached the edge. He was kneeling with his radio operator, watching two Cobra gunships circling high overhead. They were dropping flares, and as the sky lit up, the men ducked and worked their way back to the edge of the clearing. It was eerie watching the slowly descending flare. Each man realized the enemy now knew exactly where they were. The sharp, brightly burning flares, swaying gently back and forth in their parachutes, illuminated the clearing and etched the lines in the men's upturned faces. The moment one flare would start to fade, a fresh one would pop.

“Black Smoke One? This is Black Smoke Six,” Cameron was saying into the radio. “We have flareships, but where in God's name is the med-evac?”

Aikins kneeled down beside his company commander in the grass. “What's the problem, sir? It shouldn't be taking this long.”

“Black Smoke Six? This is Black Smoke One.…” Lieutenant Colonel Schwarzkopf explained that the helicopter had had a radio malfunction and had returned to Chu Lai. “They'll slide it out and slap in a new one,” Schwarzkopf said. “Your med-evac will be airborne again in a few minutes.”

“Roger, Black Smoke One. I hope to God he hurries.” Cameron handed the microphone back to his radio operator and turned to his senior medic. “Stick with the Prince, Abe. Tell him dust-off will be here soon.”

Cameron then positioned four men with red-lens flashlights at each corner of the landing zone and placed Lieutenant Bayliss with the pocket strobe in the center of the clearing to mark where he wanted the helicopter to put down. “Don't turn that thing on until I tell you,” Cameron said. Bayliss waved to show he had heard.

Aikins, again with Samuels, saw that the Prince wasn't joking anymore. Chaplain Duigood was squatting beside the litter, and the morphine was at last taking hold. Aikins drew a big
M
with his grease pencil on Samuels' forehead. The
M
for “morphine” was there so the doctors back at the hospital would know what the wounded men had been given. In the harsh light of the flares the
M
looked the color of fresh blood.

“Where's the dust-off?” Samuels asked.

“It's coming,” Aikins said. “How do you feel?”

“It still hurts, Doc,” he said. “But I'll be okay.”

“You want a cigarette?”

“Sure.”

As Aikins tapped one out, Polk asked for a cigarette, too. “The Prince said he was thirsty,” Polk added. “Is it okay if I give him some water?”

“Water?” Kleeman scoffed. “The Prince drinks only wine.”

“This Prince would settle for a beer,” Samuels said.

“We could all use one,” Chaplain Duigood agreed.

Aikins checked on Ivy, who was lying facedown in his litter. He would try to roll over and sit up and Schumacher and Culpepper would press Ivy back down. Ivy was moaning slightly, his head to one side. Culpepper, seeing Ivy's eyes becoming opaque and unfocused, was sure he was dying. Culpepper turned to Abe Aikins, who was marking an
M
on Ivy's forehead, “Doc,” he whispered, “Can't you do something? Look at his eyes.”

“That's the morphine,” Aikins answered. “That and shock.… How you doing, Ivy?”

Ivy tried to speak, but nothing intelligible came out.

“Keep talking to him, Pep,” Aikins told Culpepper. “Make Ivy listen to you. He's going to be all right.”

“Sure, Doc,” Culpepper said, not believing Aikins at all. “Where the hell's that med-evac? They always tells us, ‘You guys get wounded, you'll be outta there in fifteen minutes.' It's been three-quarters of an hour since the shell hit!”

“It'll be here any second,” Aikins said. “Just keep talking to Ivy. Stick with him. I've got to see about the Prince again.”

Russell Schumacher leaned back on his elbows and stared up at the circling Cobras. “What are they doing up there? They going to wait until everybody dies?”

“Those are gunships,” Culpepper said. Ivy's eyes cleared for a moment, and Culpepper recognized his look; it meant, “Am I going to die?”

“You're going to be fine, Ivy,” Culpepper said, but he still didn't believe it. Culpepper felt so empty, so lonely and useless. He wanted to help Ivy, was trying to help him, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. He patted Ivy's shoulder. “Just hang on. Dust-off will be here any second.”