Better Times Than These (36 page)

Almost gaily, Bravo Company began picking over the corpses for souvenirs. Anything of possible keeping or trading value was removed. A few pistols were found, and an occasional whistle or knife. These were keepable, as were watches, and wallets, some with photographs in them, if they were still intact. Diaries and official documents had to be turned over to the Intelligence people. They pocketed what they could and then sat down amid the carnage and lit cigarettes or opened C rations. Confidence was as high as it had ever been. They had encountered an enemy as mean as could be imagined and conquered him. In the process, they had worked their will on their Battalion Commander. That Patch had agreed to blast the hill with jets and artillery was a sign to everyone that they had somehow gained a measure of control over their own destiny. However small it was, they did not intend to lose this. They were still cattle, and they knew it, and would never be anything more as long as they remained in the Army. But they were now at least a fierce and organized herd of cattle, and that counted for something.

Later in the afternoon, when the sun again hung like a great shimmering ball in the western sky, they waited quietly for the helicopters that would take them back as they had been promised. No one said much, partly because they were tired and shaken by what they had done today, and partly because of the realization that they actually were going home, and for a while it would be over. During the last hour, the jubilation of victory had faded into a welcomed numbness that blotted out the terror of the past weeks. It was a good, light-headed feeling, combined with a sense of satisfaction that at last they had become experts at their grim task.

Somewhere far down the valley the steady
whop-whop-
whop
of helicopters broke the mountain silence. All looked in the direction of the sound.

Just above the farthest peaks they could see them, first one flight, then another and another, flying in diamond-shaped formation, little black puffs of smoke spurting rhythmically from their engines. The sun glinted off their windows like dancing spangles, erasing any lingering doubts that Patch might not be true to his word. As they drew closer, the sight of these machines raised a marvelous feeling of joy and relief—much as the sight of land must have raised in seamen who had lived through weeks of storms. They were sailors whose ship had just come in.

Kahn pulled the pin on a green-smoke grenade and tossed it into a clearing where the helicopters could land. People began standing and collecting their gear, but there was still little talk or laughter.

From somewhere in the mob, a voice rose in song. It was a deep, rich Southern voice, belonging to the large Negro, Carruthers.

Glo-ree, glo-ree, hal-al-luuul-ya,
Glo-ree, glo-ree, hal-al-luuul-ya,
Glo-ree, glo-ree, hal-al-luuul-ya,
His truth is a marchin’ on . . .

It took everyone by surprise, this clear, wonderful voice echoing out across the blistered mountainside like a clarion call. Carruthers began another chorus.

Glo-ree, glo-ree, hal-al-luuul-ya . . .

Others joined in, struck by a wave of elation despite the numbness and exhaustion. By the end of the chorus the entire company was singing, even Kahn—loudly, joyously, reverently, their sweat-stained faces turned upward toward the dying sun. On a few faces, tears streamed down, making little rivulets that washed away the grime and filth of their shabby existence. They did not stop singing even when the first helicopter dropped down and drowned them out completely. Each squad continued to sing as it boarded, much to the astonishment of the pilots, who were convinced all infantrymen were crazy to begin with. The singing ceased only when the last helicopter descended into the lengthening shadows and the last man scrambled aboard. Moments later it jerked skyward in a fat wash of dust and wind, leaving the mountaintop in the peace of approaching night.

Part  Three

THE
DISMAL
DEEPS

25

E
veryone knew about the inspection before it was announced. It was just one of those things that got around.

They also knew the reason, or thought they did, and it had given them cause for apprehension. They had worked feverishly since midmorning, individually or in small knots, polishing and cleaning, shining and rearranging, and when the word came down that Colonel Patch and the Brigade Sergeant Major were on their way to the Company area, the work slowed but did not stop and was performed in a more orderly manner.

“What is that activity over there?” Patch asked curiously, pointing to a group of men working in the sandy soil by a row of tents.

The Sergeant Major squinted from the glare and rubbed his chin. “It’s uncertain, sir,” he said.

“It looks like they’re raking the sand,” Patch said.

“Yessir, it does,” the Sergeant Major said thoughtfully.

“What in hell are they raking sand for?” Patch demanded.

“I’d have to ask the First Sergeant about that, sir,” the Sergeant Major replied.

“Why don’t you ask the men?”

“Doubt it would do any good, Colonel—they probably don’t know.”

“Well, ask them anyway,” Patch said.

The Sergeant Major stepped forward. “Hey, you—come over here!” he said. The men looked up. The Sergeant Major pointed to one of them, who happened to be Spudhead Miter, and motioned him over. Spudhead looked nervously around at the others.

“Yes, you!” the Sergeant Major bawled. “Over here.” Spudhead’s heart sank. He always seemed to get singled out for something.

They had been back nearly two weeks. For the first few days they had been visitors in a strange new city.

The old row of billets was now surrounded by dozens of other tents, and the dirt paths between them had been graded and some of them paved with asphalt. Signs identified various units, directed traffic one way or the other and issued assorted standing instructions. A sign at the head of Four/Seven’s row of tents proclaimed
DO NOT PISS IN THE COMPANY STREET
, and when Bravo Company saw this they knew they were back in the Real Army.

Tin-roofed cinder-block buildings dotted the Operations area where before only tents had stood. The lone exception was the TOC, which remained as it was, isolated atop the little rise. All of the tents and new buildings had been sandbagged, and most were equipped with generator-driven electric lights. To accommodate the influx of new troops and equipment, the perimeter of the encampment had been widely extended on all sides, and beyond its outermost barrier, a second city of native shanties had sprung up, much resembling the Seething Reptile City they had passed the day they got off the transport. In the dim remaining light of their first night back in camp, Bravo Company studied the occupants of this second city through the rolls of barbed wire, uncertain whether they should regard them as friend or foe.

Filthy, hungry and shaken from the fighting, they were herded into a line outside the Supply building and told to strip naked and throw their rags into a row of garbage containers. New fatigues were handed out, along with a towel and a bar of soap, and they were directed to a water tanker with shower nozzles. It was by the numbers again—always by the numbers—but each man did his utmost to scrub himself as fresh and clean as the inside of a new car.

The mess hall was opened specially for them. Hot scrambled eggs and bacon were dished out, with helpings of canned peaches: breakfast food, because there was nothing left from supper—but they couldn’t have been happier at a king’s banquet. Some returned for thirds and fourths, and Crump, after he devoured the last scrapings from every pan, ate an entire jar of jelly set before him on the table.

Afterward they lay in their cots, satiated and clean and free from the terror that stalked them through the Boo Hoo Forest and the knolls of The Fake. Long after most had slipped into deepest dreams, Crump lay brooding about his banana-cat. He had arranged to go down in the morning convoy to Firebase Meathead and retrieve it, because they knew they were not going back there anytime soon—obviously, since all of their gear had been gathered up and delivered to the billets here. Crump lay back and stared across the blackened paddies with troubled eyes. He was wondering if the Engineers Company men had treated the banana-cat well, and if it would remember him.

Spudhead sprinted toward Colonel Patch and the Sergeant Major and halted before them, holding his rake at parade rest.

“What are you men doing there?” asked the Sergeant Major.

“Raking sand, Sergeant Major,” Spudhead said nervously.

“Who told you to do that?” Patch inquired.

“First Sergeant did, sir,” Spudhead said.

“Why did the First Sergeant tell you to rake sand?”

“He didn’t say, sir; he just said to go out and rake all the sand around the orderly room and the chow hall.”

“Did you ask him why?” Patch said.

“No, sir . . . I mean, yessir—Private Muntz asked him.”

“And what did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything, sir, but he made Private Muntz go burn the shit barrels in the officers’ latrine.”

Patch glared at the Sergeant Major, who shrugged his shoulders. Then he looked at Spudhead and his eyes got wide and he seemed to breathe heavily.

“You go back and tell those men to stop raking that fucking sand!” he bellowed. “This is a combat zone! Why the hell should we be raking sand in a combat zone? Is everybody around here crazy?” Patch began pounding himself furiously on the leg.

Spudhead was at once frightened and confused.

He had been in the Army more than a year, but this was the first time he had actually been addressed personally by his Battalion Commander. Rarely, in fact, had he even been this close to him, except in passing, and now it appeared that the colonel was angry at him, and he knew it was a dangerous thing to get on the Battalion Commander’s shit list.

The last time Spudhead had had any dealings with Patch was up on The Fake when he had persuaded them to go back up to the top. What Spudhead remembered then was the great empathy and calm and confidence the colonel had exuded, as though he were one of them, and speaking for all.

He still wasn’t sure how it had started. He remembered a heated discussion off to the side between Lieutenant Brill and Sergeant Groutman, and afterward Groutman had crawled over to where some of his buddies were clustered, and a few moments later word had spread that they were ordered to make a suicide attack up the hill, and no one wanted to do that. It had all seemed like some disordered, nightmarish dream—the violent confusion halfway up the slope, the man’s head stuck on the tree stump, the terrible fire from above and the pell-mell scramble back down.

But the way he remembered it now, nobody had actually told them to move out the second time. He recalled that Lieutenant Brill had received an order from Lieutenant Kahn, and told them to get ready, but then after he spoke with Groutman, he had told them nothing, and then he’d gone back on the radio to Lieutenant Kahn and said they wouldn’t go, and Kahn had come over, and then the Colonel had arrived . . . All of it was hazy then, as now, but Spudhead somehow felt that they would probably have gone back up under their own steam if Brill had ordered them. Probably . . .

Patch’s face was craned forward very close to Spudhead’s—so close, in fact, that he could see his own reflection in the colonel’s black sunglasses.

“What the hell’s keeping you, soldier?” Patch bawled, and Spudhead suddenly came to life and ran back with his rake at port arms to deliver the colonel’s message to the other sand-rakers, wondering as he did why the Battalion Commander seemed so different here from the way he had been out in the field.

Everyone figured the inspection was connected to the potato-throwing melee in the chow hall the night before, and they were prepared to accept the worst. It had started spontaneously and innocently, but somehow had gotten out of hand, and before the MPs arrived a dozen men were bound for the field hospital and the second cook had been stabbed in the groin with a fork.