13th Valley (97 page)

“Negative that,” Brooks is adamant. It has been his most successful move ever. He does not want it ruined, he does not want it to end. “Pop smoke in front of your position,” he radios 2d Plt. Calhoun takes over from there. Red smoke is billowing up from a smoke grenade before them. Calhoun is in radio contact with the Cobras. “Dinks at two one zero degrees,” he radios and first one Cobra and then a second roll from the sky diving across Alpha unleashing their mini-guns into and south of the smoke, running cutting a swath on the 210° course. The electric Galling guns fire so quickly they sound like buzz saws. The pilots report no kills. They do not see the enemy.

Woods comes from the bunker opening. He is livid. He wants to go back in. “There's a map room in there, L-T,” he says. “I just know there's goina be a full fledged TOC down there.” As he speaks firing erupts behind him where Lt. Caldwell and 3d Plt CP are manning the perimeter. Woods drops flat, scrambles to his ruck and slips in. He grabs his rifle and crawls toward the fight. Again the boonierats pop smoke and again the Cobras dive in but Lt. Caldwell has retreated, has ordered his men back and the NVA have followed. The enemy is on Caldwell's side of the smoke. Kinderly is hit in the head by shrapnel from a B-40 rocket. The skin is torn to pieces, the skull is splintered. He is running, retreating. El Paso, Brown, L-T and FO run into the fight. They overtake Woods. They sweep past Caldwell who is still giving ground. They are firing madly. A shot grazes Brooks biting a skin chunk off his left wrist. He fires. He sees the man firing at him as he fires. The NVA skull bursts, explodes.

He is sweating, crawling, calling in air support. A Cobra pilot sees movement toward the bunkers from the east. He dives his ship firing rockets and mini-gun. Other gunships are diving to the west and the south, then rolling, circling above Alpha and diving again. The NVA are pulling back from hitting Bravo, Charlie and Recon. They are falling back to cover their headquarters complex. Brooks looks up and sees the C & C bird at twenty-five hundred feet. Rockets and Cobras and LOHs are everywhere. There is fire spewing from the sky over Alpha in every direction. The sky is darkening with smoke.

At the complex center Nahele is with the stacked munitions and equipment. He rigs two blocks of C-4 explosive to the radios and inserts a blasting cap. He works quickly, forcing his mind to concentrate, forcing his fingers to operate. Alpha is pulling back. Nahele sees Doc Johnson carrying Doc Hayes on his back. Nahele attaches his claymore wire to the blasting cap wire and quickly unrolls.

“Fuck that,” Caldwell screams at him. “They can blow it with ARA. Dinks are poppin up all over.” Caldwell is running, running for the knoll. Nahele checks his claymore firing device, looks once more at the bunker orifice. It is dark, black in the light of the day. The blackness explodes, Nahele's chest explodes with pain. He falls, is thrown backward. His body racks in spasms. He can hear the crunched bones. The pain ends quickly which surprises him. He can no longer feel it. He hears the impact of rounds slamming into his legs, abdomen, chest, but he does not feel it at all.

Brooks and FO, shouting orders that go unheard, try to organize the boonierats. Alpha retreats to the knoll behind a screen of ARA.

C
HAPTER
31

There is pandemonium on the knoll but there is no firing. There is firing in the valley. NVA soldiers seem to be everywhere, firing from unseen everywheres. The four squeeze companies are again all being hit. It is as if Alpha has ripped the top off an anthill. 1st Plt is in a line at the knoll's south crest. 2d and 3d and the CP are coming in, collapsing.

Cherry is sitting beside Egan whom he has cared for since Egan passed out in the trench. Cherry had carried the platoon sergeant to the knoll's crest, had put him down and had helped set up the perimeter around him. Then he had stripped Egan's back and legs exposing a dozen holes seeping blood. He had cleaned them one by one as best he could until Doc Mc-Carthy came and bandaged the wounds. Egan had moaned, had come to and passed out again. Then he had come to and his body had contorted, his back arching and twisting involuntarily from the pain. Egan had moaned horribly yet quietly, so inscribed is his mind with the need for silence. He tries to speak. His jaw draws back with each breath, the skin of his gaunt face stretches tighter. “Give him somethin,” Egan hears Cherry saying to Doc McCarthy. “Yeah,” Doc answers glumly. Egan moans. He can't remember how to talk, how to operate his jaw. He wants to speak but his lungs and mouth won't cooperate to produce the sounds. He tries again. He moans again. He thinks he is speaking. He thinks he is saying, Don't, Doc. Cherry, don't let Doc give me anything. No morphine. No pain killers. Godfuckendamn, he thinks the words are clear and is frustrated that McCarthy and Cherry do not seem to understand, that Mc-Carthy is preparing to inject him. Goddamn, he thinks. If I'm going to have my shit scattered in the wind, I want to know it. “What's that, Man?” Cherry asks him. “You're goina be okay.” Promise me Bro, Egan thinks he is saying. It aint goina help. Don't help. Like Hughes. Didn't help that fucker. He felt his fucken ribs go, en then you fuckers shot him up with dope. Then he died. Mothafucker didn't even know he died. I gotta know. I gotta know. McCarthy injects a syringe of morphine into Egan's thigh. Egan passes out again.

Cobra gunships are diving at the bunker complex, firing rockets. They are aiming for the huge pile of equipment and munitions stacked so neatly by Baiez and Shaw.

2d and 3d Plts have only just arrived at the knoll top. They are sweaty, filthy, blood-splattered and out of breath. McQueen drops Nahele's body in a clump of brush by Egan and collapses next to it. Doc Johnson lowers Doc Hayes next to him. Hayes is moaning, coughing blood and sputum. There are two more seriously wounded and half a dozen not so serious including Brooks. Around the entire perimeter exhausted frightened boonierats are regaining strength and courage and organization. Thomaston is directing the incoming platoons like a traffic cop. 1st Plt is set up across much of the south slope. It is the knoll's only real surface access. The knoll is a peninsula in the river surrounded on three sides by cliffs and water. From the valley floor and from the ridges the knoll had appeared small yet now the bulbous end with the titanic tree and the cliffs seems too large for one company to defend. The south side is a 100-meter wide ramp with tangled brush and small trees. The two paths that Egan, Cherry and McQueen had discovered on their recon have disappeared. Now 1st Plt squeezes down to cover sixty or seventy percent of the ramp. 2d Plt is directed to cover the east, 3d Plt the west. A few soldiers are scattered across the north overlooking the cliff and river. The defensive perimeter is an open end U-shape facing south. Everywhere the perimeter guards are checking their ammunition and weapons and clearing fields of fire. 1st Plt boonierats set up claymore mines across clearly visible approaches. The boonierats dig in. Marko and Jax erect a hasty position by rolling a thick log onto a tiny rise. They are staring down the peninsula. A thought hits them simultaneously. They shed their rucksacks and scavenge through looking for more ammunition. They are almost out.

Brooks is shouting orders now. He has caught his breath from the racing retreat to the knoll. He takes over from Thomaston. Doc Johnson tries to inspect the L-T's wrist. Brooks looks at him then at his own wrist. There is a three-inch long gouge. He had forgotten about it. It is no longer bleeding though there are dried blood streaks across the back of his hand. “It's, ah …” Brooks tries moving his wrist. He winces. “It's a little stiff. Nothing.” Doc snorts disgusted. He grabs Brooks' arm but Brooks jerks it back. “Later,” he says. “See to the others. Get the wounded up to the tree. Make it a collection point.”

“Mista, L-T …”

“Get the CP up there too,” Brooks snaps. He breathes deeply. Suddenly he feels out of steam, run-down, not out of breath but out of fuel as if the adrenaline in his system has burnt up all the energy sources and there is nothing left to power his body. He does not shout now. He reverts to his characteristic soft voice. “Have the CP set up beyond the tree,” he says. “Have De Barti furnish a squad to clear this place of booby traps, then have them get to work clearing the LZ. We sure as hell aren't walking out of here.” Brooks walks up the knoll toward the tree. He stops, turns, looks at his perimeter and at the valley below. His presence and calm pervade Alpha's troops. They take strength from him. He turns again and looks at the tree. It is the first time he has been aware of it since he saw its shape from across the river six hours earlier. The sun is directly overhead yet he is comfortably shaded. Brooks looks up the straight smooth torso. It rises like a gigantic dark marble column from the knoll, branchless for, he estimates, 175 feet. Then the top mushrooms out huge branches, branches as large as trees, branches extending straight out then drooping. Looking at the tree makes Brooks feel peaceful. It is lovely, he thinks. And there aint no way in hell anybody's been climbing up that thing.

Suddenly Brooks, Alpha, the knoll and the valley are rocked by a concussion, a fantastic flash and explosion like none any boonierat has ever seen. Then comes a series of secondaries while the first explosion is continuing to erupt. The munitions at the bunker complex are exploding, a room below explodes. Shockwaves flip the diving Cobra that has initiated the explosions. The pilot is hanging on trying to regain control. There is a huge black cloud. More secondary explosions. Dirt and shrapnel gust up with explosive force then rain down. The flash burns from outside in, the edges turning immediately black, fire and flame roiling inside, breaking through. The huge cloud seems to detach itself from the ground.

Then it is over. It has not lasted a full minute. The cracking rifle fire in the valley seems to make no sound. A laugh cracks from Alpha's perimeter. Then another. “Gawd Damn!” Pop yells. Cherry whistles a blood-curdling shriek. They are laughing, cheering, clapping. “Gawd Damn!” Pop yells again.

“I ain't NEVER seen nothin like that,” Calhoun squeals. He slaps Pop on the back.

“Gawd, that exploded quicker than a cat covers shit.” Pop is dancing.

“God! That's like the time the ammo dump at brigade blew,” Baiez laughs.

“Better.” Shaw is hysterical. “Better en badder.”

Brooks too is smiling. He is pleased. That's what we came to do, he thinks. He wants to let them enjoy it, enjoy the show. They've earned it, he thinks. They paid the price.

“Raggedy-ass mothafucka,” Doc Johnson screams at him, drowning the applause. Brooks snaps his attention to Doc. Doc has come down from the tree. “Where my medevacs?”

“Where you going to land them?” Brooks snaps back.

“I got men need medevacs, Mista. Get me a fuckin bird.”

“Show me what you've got,” Brooks says firmly.

The perimeter positions settle down. A jittery tight-trigger tenseness settles on them. They are hot, thirsty, out of food and out of water. Ten men are hacking the brush from the knoll top and dumping it over the cliffs.

Brooks and Doc squat by the base of the tree. At the base gnarled roots splay across the knoll in a ten-meter radius humping and dipping and crossing themselves. Doc has the wounded lying in a protective cove, a canyon created by the root ridges and the tree trunk. Doc McCarthy and Doc Korman are administering to the wounded. The bodies of Doc Hayes and Nahele lay crumpled, not yet covered, at the cove edge. Brooks grits his teeth. Hayes didn't have a chance, he tells himself. He wouldn't have made it had he been shot that way right inside an operating room. Brooks gulps. No one looks at the dead.

Brooks inspects the wounded one at a time. Kinderly's entire upper head is wrapped, his eyes covered. There is blood on the bandages. Doc Johnson whispers to Brooks, “He gonna lose both eyes, Mista, you doan get him out a here right now.” They move on to Bill Frye. He is conscious, not even dazed. He is sitting scratching his chin, shaking his head. “You okay, Cookie?” Doc says to him. Frye pulls his shirt open. His left side is bandaged heavily. He looks up and nods. Then he says, “I'm sorry, L-T. Really. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay, Cookie,” Brooks answers.

“I saw the fucker, L-T. I saw him shoot me. I shoulda got him first. Crazy Cherry saved my butt.” Frye shakes his head.

Brooks sees Egan. He did not know Egan had been hit. He spins quickly to Doc.

“Fucked up, Mista,” Doc says.

“He'll be all right,” Doc McCarthy says. “I don't think none of it went in too far.” McCarthy is holding a bag of plasmatine above Egan. Egan is conscious. His face is empty, his eyes unfocused. He is lying on his side facing into the tree, babbling deliriously.

“He all shot up with morphine,” Doc Johnson says bending over Egan, counting, timing his respiratory rate. “Dumb fucka,” Doc Johnson raises his thick upper lip gesturing at McCarthy, “shot em up twice. He lost lotsa blood an I think he gonna have spine trouble.”