Better Times Than These (32 page)

Kahn knew that the task force had completed its sweep of the Boo Hoo Forest and now, all along a ten-mile stretch of the northern mountains, little battles were taking place, some high in the hills, some down in ravines and some in the bordering jungle. The battles were connected by pinpoint markings on maps in the TOC and the briefing tent, but totally isolated from one another by jungle, high ground and other natural obstacles. Frequently, the enemy broke off contact after a few minutes, vanishing phantomlike into the gloomy forest; other times he would hold ground and make the Americans pay dearly for their assaults.

In the past few days, the focus of it all had become a series of enemy redoubts located on some hills and knolls known collectively as The Fake. Earlier in the day Patch had confirmed to Kahn that when he returned to the Company in the morning, their assignment would be to help break up one of these redoubts.

In the briefing tent, however, Bravo Company was merely an impersonal black square on a map overlay. Each day, the square was dutifully moved around, along with other black squares, by the G-3 Operations staff. There were red squares also on the map, and they were moved around by the G-2 Intelligence people. Sometimes the red and black squares would be moved very close together until it began to remind Kahn of a disorderly kind of checkers game, the red and the black hopping wildly about on a board of grids.

In a way, it all made sense here—the black squares chasing the red squares up and down the grids, occasionally landing right on top of one another. The black squares seemed to be winning, because there now were more of them than the red. On the final day he was there, two red squares disappeared entirely from the grid. Really, it was quite funny, and sometimes Kahn felt an urge to laugh out loud. But he didn’t dare. These people were playing a high-stakes game here, and he knew it would not be funny to them.

The officers’-club tent was already full of raucous, drinking men when Major Dunn came in. He looked haggard, and when he removed his cap, Kahn thought that his gray hair looked thinner; but this was not surprising, because Kahn had noticed for the first time a few days ago that his own hair was thinner and chunks of it sometimes came out in his comb. Dunn smiled wearily and dropped his cap on the table. “Hi,” he said. “I’ll get a beer and join you.”

The first thing Dunn noticed when he sat down was Kahn’s bandaged hand.

“Jeez,” he breathed, “got hit, huh—shrapnel?”

“It got infected,” Kahn said modestly. It was good to see old Dunn again, even if he did tend to talk a little too much about his personal life.

“Gosh,” Dunn said sympathetically, “I hope they took care of it—those things can be dangerous out here.”

They drank several beers, and Dunn pressed for news of the fighting. He seemed genuinely interested, and whenever Kahn described a particularly harrowing incident, Dunn would wince in sympathy and shake his head. He seemed happy to have someone to talk with; and finally, he got around to the subject of his wife.

“She doesn’t want a divorce—at least, not right now. What she said was the future is ‘uncertain.’ That’s how she put it—
uncertain,”
he said.

The letter had arrived two weeks before and was waiting for him when he returned from Firebase Meathead. There was another man, an officer at the post; that was all Dunn knew . . . he had no suspects.

“I didn’t want to believe she was fooling around, but I guess I always figured she must have been—she’s so damned pretty—a
Fraulein
—a real German beauty,” he said.

He had written her back the next day. It was a painful letter, full of thoughts and reminiscences, and he had spent most of the night composing it. He told her how much he loved her. That he felt very helpless being here. That he did not want a divorce. That it would all be different when he came home.

“I’m out after this, you know,” Dunn said. “Twenty years—that’s a damned good pension: six hundred a month plus privileges. I’m going to take over my old man’s radio shop in Jersey City, do some expanding. Hell, I know radios; it’ll be easy to step in.”

Kahn listened as Dunn laid out his plan for “the next twenty.” He had it all worked out: a house outside of town, the radio store, moving into television—mostly used, reconditioned sets; then perhaps a dealership. The talk went on for half an hour, and more beer was consumed. Finally, Dunn returned to the problem of
the other man.

“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” he asked. “I mean, what would you do?” He sucked deeply on the beer. “I bet you’d tell her to fuck off, right?”

Kahn wasn’t sure what to say. A sad, quizzical expression crossed Dunn’s face. Kahn remembered the same look when they had spoken in the bow of the transport, an almost tormented look. Before Kahn could answer, Dunn slammed down the glass on the table.

“Just tell her to fuck off—that’s what you’d do—isn’t it?” he cried. His voice was high-pitched and angry.

Some at the bar turned, and the laughter and talk suddenly quieted. Dunn’s mouth was pursed, and a black scowl enveloped his brow.

“How do you like it?”
he bellowed, slamming the table with the glass again. “The daughter of a goddamn sheep farmer! Where would she be now—shearing goddamn sheep! And look at her—she was nothing before. I suppose if I’d made the list . . .”

Anger spread in waves over his face and voice. He spun around and glowered at the astonished crew at the bar, and they slowly went back to their drinks. The laughter and conversation rose again.

“All of my life,” Dunn said in a low, trembling voice, “I have tried to do the right thing, and somehow I’ve messed it up. Do you know how that feels? How could you?”

His voice rose again, and the bar crew quieted down once more.

“Well, I’ll tell you this—anybody that wants to hear it!” he roared. “This time, I’m going to look out for old Number Thirty-seven—
old
. . .
Number
. . .
Thirty
. . .
seven
. . . you hear!” As Kahn and the others watched dumbfounded, Dunn got to his feet and with the bent-over stance of a high school fullback, he hurled himself through the side of the tent, ripping up pegs and ropes, bellowing like a stricken cow into the soft, moonlit night.

The first light of dawn grew from rosy pink to gray, then blue, and while the last morning stars sparkled in the west the bombardment of The Fake began. From a gun park nine miles away, big 175-millimeter guns lobbed a thunderous barrage up and down the knolls.

The brilliant flashes and trembling of the earth greeted the early-November morning while Bravo Company waited in its holes and sweated it out, observing its objective in daylight for the first time. The artillery tore overhead like invisible freight trains, ripping the air apart and exploding with such unimaginable impact that a few of the men actually thought they had gone deaf. From this distance, the knolls did not appear particularly hard to negotiate. The artillery of today and other days had scorched and shredded the earth, leaving only a few patches of trees isolated like tiny islands in a bare brown sea of earth.

The barrage lifted as quickly as it had begun, and they heard the sound of helicopters flying toward them, low over the trees. Moments later they came in, dumping out supplies, their engines still running. The last to land deposited Kahn and three nervous replacements sent forward at the last minute after committing certain sins in the rear.

Alpha Company was milling around in loose platoon formation, checking its equipment and preparing to move out. Charlie Company would follow them, and then Bravo Company. Already there seemed to be a firefight in progress on the second knoll, but no people were visible, and Sharkey hurriedly tried to fill Kahn in on the day’s program and the week just past. There had been more trouble with the men while he had been gone—most of it in Brill’s platoon. Also, a man in Weapons Platoon had threatened the life of Lieutenant Inge, and Inge was considering proceedings against him. Many of the men were weak with dysentery and other illnesses, and some of their gear was in lousy shape.

“You picked a hell of a time to come back,” Sharkey said.

Kahn squinted toward the little firefight on the knoll, and searched his pockets for a pack of cigarettes.

“Now you tell me,” he said dejectedly.

Still they waited, and still the order to move out was not received. Trunk, sitting on an ammunition crate, tried to interview the three replacements and at least make sure they had their essential equipment before he decided what to do with them. One of them, a freckled-faced boy with darting eyes and a mischievous smile, was a former jeep driver who had wrecked a major’s jeep after loading up on too much beer. The other two were black cooks in the noncom mess whom the Brigade Sergeant Major had banished after they served a disagreeable meal. The Sergeant Major kept a motto above his desk:

HE WHO TRIFLES HERE SHALL GO TO THE FARTHEST RIFLE PLATOON, IN THE FARTHEST RIFLE COMPANY . . . NEVER AGAIN TO SEE BASE CAMP.

The Sergeant Major was true to his word, and these three frightened men now shifted nervously on their feet as they contemplated the reality of their fate. The jeep driver gingerly fingered a newly issued grenade on his belt as Trunk ran down the checklist of gear he was supposed to have. When he was asked if anything was missing, the driver managed a half-grin and stated that the only thing he had not been supplied with was his own body bag.

Trunk looked up from the checklist and regarded the man ruefully.

“Soldier,” he said, “we don’t joke about death out here.”

Half an hour later they were moving up the first of the knolls, following a dusty trail worn down with the footsteps of men who had gone ahead. As they reached the top, they saw ahead and above the long file of Alpha and Charlie companies making their way to the top of the second knoll, where the fighting was. The upward slope, which they had not been able to see until now, was a desolate rubble of brown earth and shattered trees. On an embankment to their left, just below the crest of the first knoll, the mortar platoons of Alpha and Charlie companies were setting up. Although they still could not see any actual fighting ahead, the sounds of battle wafted back, puncturing the morning stillness along the route of march. The plan was that Alpha and Charlie companies were to relieve the beleaguered Airborne company at the top of the second knoll, then press forward as far as they could. Bravo Company was to remain on top of the second knoll and wait for further instructions.

It took nearly an hour to negotiate the downward slope of the first knoll. The trail was slippery, and such short trees as remained kept pulling out at the roots as the men grabbed them for support. As they neared the bottom, the mortars of Alpha and Charlie companies began to fire from behind them. Also as they reached the bottom, the first of the Airborne company began to stumble down toward them. It came as a confused and aimless mob.

All along the ravine between the two knolls the Airborne company streamed past them, cursing, weeping, helping others wearing bloody bandages. Some had no shirts or helmets, and a few even had no weapons. The Commander, a stocky captain with thick Army glasses, was bellowing in rage, trying to pull what was left of his men together. He ran here and there grabbing bewildered, zombielike soldiers, shoving them into a loose line. There were tears in his eyes, and his face was a mask of anger. “Get down here—Get over there with those men—Where’s your platoon?—Don’t look at me like that, soldier—Move!” he roared.

Bravo Company was stupefied by this spectacle. They had never seen anything approaching it, even in the Boo Hoo Forest, and they wondered what was going on up there so horrible it could throw the paratroopers into such disarray.

Kahn stopped alongside the trail to study his map as the first elements of Bravo Company began to trudge up the slope of the second knoll. A helmetless man with a blackened lieutenant’s bar on his fatigues lurched down toward him, dragging his rifle behind by the sling. His face was beet red, and his tongue was lolling out. He looked like a man who had survived a hanging. Because of the narrowness of the trail he could not get by Kahn and stopped short of him, breathing slowly, waiting for him to move.

Kahn stepped back. “What’s it like up there?” he asked tentatively.

“Go to hell,” the lieutenant said, brushing Kahn with his shoulder as he stumbled past.

A few feet down the trail, the lieutenant stopped and turned. He raised the rifle and slung it on his shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled. Kahn watched him grope down the path, then stepped back into the line uphill.

As they neared the top of the knoll, the ground was littered with the residue of fighting. Ammunition crates, C rations, clothing, bandages, empty cartridge casings, entrenching tools were strewn upon the scorched ground between the splintered trees. The earth had been churned into a soft, dry loam. Below, on the far side of the slope, the corpses of four North Vietnamese soldiers lay baking in the sun where they had fallen. There was a lurid smell in the air.

Alpha Company had already moved out and was at the bottom of the second ravine. Bravo Company could see them walking through the sparse trees. Charlie Company was far to the right still negotiating the downward slope of the second knoll. Every so often there was a burst of small-arms fire.

Already weary from the climb, Bravo Company waited and watched Alpha start up the third knoll. They saw them get as far as midway when a yellowish sheet of gunfire rose in a line above them. Seconds later, a continuous popping of small arms rattled back to Bravo Company. Several Alpha Company men toppled over and lay still; the rest flattened. Explosions burst around them, and the sheet of gunfire continued.

In less than a minute, Alpha was scrambling down the hill to the safety of a line of trees that was somehow untouched by the artillery. The explosions and the sheet of flame ceased. Bravo Company could hear a faint hollering from the treeline. They also saw that Charlie Company had reached the bottom of the ravine and was again moving far to the right, apparently in order to assault the flank of the knoll. Moments later, Bravo Company received new instructions.