Given the cushy life of the pilots, the boat boys weren’t going to give them the benefit of any doubts. It didn’t matter a lick to them, for instance, whether or not that SAM was the finest heat-seeking missile the communists could design, and it was fired at a low-flying plane that only had 1.7 seconds to respond before losing the left half of its fuselage. They didn’t care whether he was outgunned or not. That pilot was going to catch nothing but shit on his ride home, and knowing that gave each and every man on the tiny boat something really great to look forward to.
The real trick to a search-and-rescue mission was getting to the downed plane before the Viet Cong. The VC were murderous arseholes, but it
That was the Monk’s job as skipper. As they all puttered up the river, there really wasn’t much to do other than train the M60 into the woods and think of jokes and the girls they’d surely never have sex with. Not in person, anyway.
The rain came down steadily as the boat grunted through a estuary about twenty metres wide. Local boats passed by under the rifle barrels of the men, but none stopped, and no one even looked up as they passed.
Trevor sat behind the Monk in a manner that Sheldon found tense, as though he was prepared to spring from the bench and… something. It was hard to sense what would happen. Jump overboard, maybe? Tackle the Monk?
Sheldon sat far back in the boat, snapping pictures. Taking in the jungle. Trying to understand the terrain, the men, this war. It was so different from Korea. In Korea, the communists attacked the South with Soviet backing, and the United Nations passed a resolution while the Soviet ambassador was in the bathroom, and so the whole to-do was pretty straightforward. This one was all rather less straightforward. And, of course, the big trick in Korea was that the Southern ones wanted us there. Over here, not so much.
After three hours on patrol, the boat came to a rest by a small pier. The Monk didn’t move. He just tossed a radio to Saul and looked at Herman. Ritchie, who outranked them both, then said, ‘Witzy and Williams. Go.’
That’s what they called Saul. ‘Witzy’. Because ‘Horowitz’ was too long, and ‘Saul’ was too old- fashioned.
Why these two? Witzy and Williams? Because who can avoid saying it, that’s why.
‘I’m going, too,’ said Sheldon. No one replied. It was as though, for the first time on the trip, Sheldon wasn’t really there.
Saul handed a letter he’d been writing to Ritchie. ‘Mail it for me if I bite it.’
Ritchie said, ‘OK.’ That’s all he said: ‘OK.’
Saul stepped up to the pier with his M16 in one hand and the radio in the other. He said to Ritchie, ‘My girl’s pregnant. Does that just take the cake or what?’
‘You should go home,’ he said unexpectedly.
‘I probably should,’ Saul said, and then he started hoofing it up the pier with Williams.
They walked through a very small village that seemed deserted. Four thatched houses were clustered together on a patch of brown, muddy ground. A bicycle wheel rusted in the rain. A basket of rotten vegetables sat overturned on a table. Sheldon photographed them, and walked on.
Saul took point, followed by Williams and then Sheldon. Saul was a good soldier. He paid attention, didn’t allow small things to distract him, and didn’t talk while they walked. But he was also in his early twenties, and so didn’t walk slowly enough, didn’t pay close-enough attention, and didn’t talk softly enough when he did open his mouth.
As the jungle opened into a small rice paddy, Saul took out a compass, took a bearing, and then pointed a little off to his left. He turned and looked behind him, right past Sheldon, and got a sense of the terrain they would see on their way back. This was a valuable lesson that Sheldon had been taught in Korea. Once again, his drill sergeant’s voice came back to him: ‘The reason nothing looks familiar when you’re heading back is because it isn’t. You’ve never seen it before, have you? If you don’t turn around, how will you know what to look for? Huh? You! Shithead! What’s the answer?’
On that day, it was another shithead. But it could have been Sheldon, and often was. By the time his own day came at Inchon, he’d be glad for the lessons he’d learned.
They smelled the plane before they found it. The F-4 had only been halfway through its bombing mission, and so went down with lot of fuel that burned with a different smell than napalm, rice paddies, cattle, and people. According to Herman, it was only a two on the ‘gag-o-meter’, whereas the rotting corpses of children in the hot sun was a nine.
A ten was saved for the smell of letters received from bureaucrats.
Saul couldn’t tell from the smell which direction they needed to travel. But soon they started to find pieces of the plane on the ground. Just little scraps at first, like bolts, and bits of twisted metal, but enough to know they were getting closer.
Sheldon looked at his watch. They’d only been in the jungle for fifteen minutes.
Saul directed them towards a small rise up the side. It was a good idea, because it gave them a more commanding view of the grid. Before they reached the top, Williams gave a whistle and said, ‘Over there. Check it out.’
Saul and Sheldon turned to their left, and there, about a half-click away across easy ground, were large chunks of the plane.
‘Anyone see the shithead pilot?’ Williams asked.
Saul pointed off to the left. ‘That could be the parachute.’
‘Right, then. Let’s go see if there are any pink bits in the cockpit first,’ said Williams.
As they were walking down the hill towards the jet, Sheldon made out an incongruous figure leaning against a tree by the side of the footpath. Saul walked right past him, as though he weren’t even there. As Williams approached, Sheldon shouted, ‘Herman, on your right.’
‘Oh, that’s just Bill. Forget about him. Fucker shows up all the time. Never helps, though.’
When Sheldon caught up, he saw that it was indeed Bill Harmon, his friend from New York. Bill was wearing shabby trousers, penny loafers, a blue button-down, and a Harris Tweed jacket. Bill did not show up during these trips between 1975 and 1980. It was only after he died that he popped up and chimed in. Only Sheldon wasn’t sure that Bill was really Bill. He looked like Bill. He had the same stupid things to say that Bill did, but he didn’t feel like Bill. His presence was both more vast and more juvenile at the same time. Bill, in life, had never left Sheldon feeling perturbed. This guy did.
‘What are you doing here, Bill?’
‘Antiquing.’
‘What?’
‘The French colonials were here for ages. Indochina has some amazing hidden treasures that I can get top dollar for back at the shop.’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, and we’re in Vietnam. Of course I’m drunk. Want some?’
‘I got to go. We have to find the pilot.’
‘Pilot’s dead,’ said Bill. ‘They put a bullet in him before his parachute hit the ground. Very unsporting. There’s really no need for you to go on.’
‘So I’ll tell the guys and we can go back.’
‘They won’t believe you.’
‘Why? Are you the ghost of Christmas past?’ And without waiting for a reply, Donny shouted, ‘Hey, Williams. Hold up. The pilot’s dead. We should go back to the boat.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Bill said so. He knows.’
‘Can’t put your faith in Bill, Donny.’
‘But sometimes he’s right.’
‘Sure, but who knows when? Besides, it’s not my call.’
‘Well, then tell Saul.’
‘Fine.’
