Sand in the Wind (51 page)

Chalice was fifty yards into the brush when Pablo tapped him on the shoulder and said in a low voice, “I smell Gooks.” At first Chalice thought he was kidding, but then he remembered that Pablo rarely said anything on patrols and never without a purpose. As Chalice turned and looked at him questioningly, Pablo motioned forward with his head and said, “Pass it up.” Rabbit was the man in front of Chalice. He passed the word forward only after Chalice insisted he do so, and still thinking it was a joke. By the time Chief got the message, he stood at the edge of a clearing that contained a large, inhabited ville.

Redstone carefully scanned the village. Few faces turned towards him, and those that did quickly turned away. The villagers weren’t surprised. It was as if they had known exactly when the Marines were coming, what they would do, and how soon they would leave. Redstone had expected this. If the peasants had acted in any other way, it would have been far more disturbing to him, for it would have been something out of the ordinary. Only after he had carefully scanned everything before him, did Redstone move far enough into the clearing to allow the rest of the platoon to enter it. Tony 5 quickly divided the men into their squads and spread them out. Kramer assigned each squad leader responsibility for a particular section of the ville.

Chalice strained his eyes to get a look at the villagers, immediately aware of how different the Arizona side of the river was. The ville looked exactly the same as those on the other side of the river, but was strikingly quieter. No children played around the hootches. Instead they stood inside them, behind their mothers or grandparents; and their large, innocent eyes stared back at him with fear and distrust. Most of the elders refused to look at the Marines. They stared down at the cooking, sewing, or whatever else they were doing. Except for a few young mothers, all the people were either extremely elderly or children. Even if he had not been told numerous times, Chalice would have sensed that the absent villagers were either dead or Viet Cong.

In the first hootch Chalice’s fire team was to check out, a young woman sat sewing in the middle of the floor. A small boy peered from behind her back. Only once did she glance up at him, somberly and for a second. “Chao, Ba,” he said to her, using the Vietnamese greeting meaning, “Hello, Mrs.” She ignored him, and he wondered how many times she’d been abused or molested by Marines, sat listening to words she did not understand, yet knowing she was being insulted and derided. He walked towards the child and it shrank away from him. Chalice clumsily took a chocolate from his shirt pocket. So many times before, children had begged him for candy; but now he had to coax the boy to take it. The boy nibbled at the chocolate slowly, his eyes suspiciously fixed upon Chalice. The woman spoke no words, but clearly she was screaming at him to go away. Now he further understood why so many of the men had told him that every living thing on the Arizona side of the river was Viet Cong.

Forsythe had been checking the inside of the bunker behind the hootch. He emerged from it and led his men to the next hootch. An old couple sat on the packed dirt floor. Their reactions were the same as those of the young mother. Forsythe handed Chalice the flashlight and the .45. Chalice took them to the three-by-two entrance of the bunker. Kneeling on his hands and knees, he cautiously crawled inside. Even after his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could see nothing; so he turned on the flashlight. The musty smell almost choked him as he crept along the damp floor. It was covered with rough boards. He squeezed his hands through the cracks between them and felt nothing but dirt beneath. Next, he felt along the bamboo walls. Chalice was being extremely careful, yet his mind was only slightly concerned about the possibility of a booby trap. Instead, he tried to imagine what it was like for the old couple to spend all their nights huddled inside the bunker, listening to the bombs being dropped, knowing that the mud and bamboo would be of no value if one even came close.

For two hours Second Platoon searched the hootches. While the faces that met them were different, the reactions were the same. As Tony 5 formed up the platoon, Chalice couldn’t help but look back at the ville. He tried to understand why these people had chosen to stay in a free-fire zone, enduring the random bombings, unable to stray from their village and its surrounding rice paddies, knowing that they lived at the mercy of every Marine with a gun who in fear might choose certain death for them to prevent his own possible death.

Childs was assigned the point for the march back to camp. Knowing the dangers of returning by the same route they had used to approach the ville, Childs broke a new path through the sparse brush. As he neared the edge of the high ground and was able to see the rice paddies beyond it, he felt the natural tendency to become careless. But his experience caused him to overcome this. While Hotel Company had yet to hit a booby trap, Childs knew that every other company in the battalion had. Chalice was walking directly behind Childs, and his eyes were fixed upon the rice paddies a few yards away when Childs suddenly stopped and mumbled, “I knew it.”

Chalice waited impatiently for Childs to start moving again. Instead he heard Childs repeat, “I knew it.”

“Knew what?” Chalice asked. Childs pointed to the ground at his feet. Chalice didn’t see anything. “What is it?” Childs again pointed to the ground, but all Chalice could see was a reed bending across an opening in the brush. “What are you pointing at?”

“Just a goddamn trip wire.”

Chalice continued to strain his eyes without being able to see anything. “Where?”

“Practically leaning against my ankle, stupid.”

“The reed?”

“Yeah!”

Childs bent down to examine the reed. Still bewildered, Chalice was about to ask “Where?” when he moved his head and saw a glint of light flash above the tip of the reed. Whoever had set the booby trap had threaded the trip wire through the reed. Although Childs had been extremely careful, his spotting the wire was more the result of luck than anything else. The men behind them became restless, so Childs sent back word of what he had found. By the time Kramer reached the head of the column, Childs had traced the wire to a C-ration can with a grenade in it. The delay had been taken out so the grenade would explode instantly when pulled from the can. Kramer was trying to think of a way to detonate the booby trap when Childs placed his hand over the top of the can and casually yanked it away from the bush it was tied to. He handed it to Chalice, then got down on his hands and knees to search the brush for additional booby traps. In this manner, Childs crawled the twenty yards to the edge of the tree line. He took back the can with the grenade in it and placed it on top of a rice paddy dike. When the column was thirty yards away from it, Appleton, the last man, turned and shot the can off the dike, thus detonating the grenade.

An hour after they had returned to the perimeter, Trippitt called together his platoon commanders. He explained to them that the next day they would make camp in a tree line adjoining the village where Second Platoon had found the booby trap. Around noon, three of the platoons, with Second Platoon at the point, would circle behind the ville and approach from its opposite side. The remaining platoon would stay set-in as a blocking force in case any Viet Cong were flushed from the village.

The men were told the plan at dawn the next morning. Nobody was surprised, and they were all less than anxious to return. Chief was given the point. As soon as he was within three hundred yards of the ville, he began leading the column across the rice paddies instead of on top of the dikes. When he reached the high ground, he avoided anything resembling a path and pushed his way through the brush. The closer he approached to the village, the more often he had to jump over trails that angled across his path.

Chief soon found himself at the edge of the clearing with the ville in front of him. Three trails adjoined the clearing within a few feet of where he stood. Realizing this was a bad place to enter the ville, he hesitated going forward and tried to decide what to do. Trippitt radioed ahead to ask what the hold up was. Chief eyed the ground in front of him. It seemed hard packed and undisturbed. He moved slowly forward while shifting his eyes cautiously between the ville and the ground. Suddenly, as he was looking towards the ville, the ground beneath his feet gave a fraction more than it should have. He stood motionless for a protracted instant, as if awaiting retribution for a fatal error. Nothing happened. “Stay back!” Redstone cautioned sharply.

Appleton was right behind him. “Booby trap?”

“I think so.”

“A dud?”

“Maybe it’s pressure-release,” Redstone answered, referring to the type of booby trap that is detonated after pressure is removed instead of when it is applied,.

“Don’t move. I’ll get the lieutenant.”

‘That’s the last thing I’m gonna do,’ thought Redstone. ‘The very last thing.’

Kramer approached and found Redstone in the exact same position as when he had first felt the earth give beneath his foot. “You sure it’s a booby trap?”

‘No. I’m just fucking around.’ — “I think so.”

“Okay, don’t move.”

‘Sure am gettin’ some great advice.’

Kramer turned to Ramirez. “Get some E-tools, fast.” Two shovels were quickly passed up the column. Ramirez and Appleton held them as they looked questioningly at Kramer. “Dig a trench just off the trail. Be careful.” Ramirez moved forward on his hands and knees. “That’s far enough. Start digging,
carefully.
Make it just deep enough for Chief to dive into.” Redstone also wanted to remind them to be careful, but he realized this was unnecessary. “Won’t do much good,” he commented somberly, doubting that the trench would do
any
good.

“Won’t do any harm,” Kramer replied. “Did you hear a click?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything.
  
.
 
.
 
. It
might not
be a booby trap.”

“We can’t take that chance.”

‘I can’t,’ thought Redstone.

In order to keep calm, Kramer began thinking out loud. “If it’s a dud, we’re safe.”

‘You’re safe,’ thought Redstone.

“If it’s pressure-release, we’ve still got a chance. You’ll dive into the trench, right?”

Redstone nodded while thinking he’d be “lucky” only to lose his legs. This thought seemed bad enough, but then a worse one came to him, and he asked Kramer, “What if it’s a Bouncing Betsy?”

This frightened Kramer. He pictured a metal canister popping a few feet above the ground, hanging for a second, and then exploding in all directions. “Then we’re wasting our time,” he thought out loud. “Maybe we could do it some other way.
  
.
 
.
 
. Do you want to try and put a board under your foot?”

“Never be able to do it.”

A few seconds later, Kramer got another idea. “Should we spread some flak jackets around your leg?”

“Too risky. I might of missed the fuse. You might hit it.”

Until now, Redstone’s muscles had remained in the same tensed condition as when he had first felt the earth give. Feeling the strain and afraid of getting a cramp, he carefully relaxed his muscles without moving his foot. Redstone immediately felt surer of himself. He was further relieved to see sweat dripping from Kramer’s face, knowing that his own face was dry. Still frightened, he felt Kramer was doing enough worrying for both of them, thus leaving his own mind free to react.

In a few minutes Ramirez and Appleton finished digging and returned to their places in the column. Redstone eyed the trench nervously, planning exactly how he would dive into it. Kramer motioned back the men behind him. He asked Redstone if he was ready. Chief nodded while thinking, ‘If you’d get out of here, I’d get this over with.’ Kramer started to walk away, but Redstone called him back and explained that he wanted a small hole dug next to the sole of his back foot. As Kramer was doing this, Redstone said, “Make it gradual so I can put my foot in it without putting any more weight on my other foot.”

Kramer finished digging and stood waiting for Redstone to put his foot into the hole. Instead of doing so, Redstone motioned Kramer back. Only after Kramer was fifteen yards behind him, did Chief ease his foot into the hole. Very gradually, he shifted more weight onto his back foot while trying to retain pressure on his front foot. He leaned slowly forward, and at the right instant, shot his body towards the trench. Even before he landed in the bottom of it, Redstone knew there hadn’t been a booby trap or else it was a dud. For a few seconds he lay motionless in the trench, relieved by the sound of his own heavy breathing. He got to his feet and spit some dirt from his mouth.

Kramer walked forward and found Redstone standing near the spot where his foot had been. “No booby trap?”

Redstone pointed to the spot. “It’s there all right.” As Kramer kneeled, he could see a pinlike detonating device. If the rest hadn’t been covered by dirt, he would have seen a circle of them less than an inch in diameter. They had been placed in the ground upright, and all that should have been necessary to set off the mine was for one of them to be bent more than thirty degrees from the vertical. Clearly this had happened. Chief pointed to the needle that lay almost flat. “A dud.”

Kramer returned to his position in the column as Redstone again began to crawl forward. Appleton stood well back while he watched him. First Chief would run his hand over the ground while gently pressing to see if it would give. He had gone about ten yards when the weight of one of his knees depressed the ground. There was a pop. A canister burst up from the ground. The thought, ‘Maybe a dud’ — his only chance — shot through his mind the same moment the canister exploded beneath him.

The instant before Appleton was knocked backwards by the concussion, he saw a mass of arms and legs fly up in front of him. Ramirez, who was in back of Appleton, caught some shrapnel in the leg. They scrambled to their feet and reached Redstone at the same time as Kramer and Stoker. All of them had to turn their heads away as soon as they saw what lay in front of them. Redstone’s calm face, his eyes wide open, stared up at the sky. Shreds of dripping flesh hung from his rib cage, then nothing. His legs, cut off at the waist, were lying at a right angle to his upper torso and facing down. Only a thin strip of flesh joined the two sections of his body; and below his rib cage lay a green and brown iridescent mass that had once been his stomach. Stoker stepped backwards and began to vomit. Kramer was only able to keep from doing so by turning his back to the corpse. He noticed Ramirez’s blood-soaked pants leg, and began to tell Stoker to take care of him before changing his mind and calling for another corpsman.