physical exhaustion hunting the Viet Cong, and now who had been billed as one of the Communist enemy’s most- wanted men.
“Gunny Wilson!” the captain bellowed as he walked toward the snipers’ headquarters. The angry shout echoed through the compound, sending heads turning and wide-eyed faces peering from behind screen doors. The captain never broke his stride as he walked inside the sniper hooch and slammed the screen door behind him.
Gunnery Sergeant Wilson hurried into the small building. Captain Land was rummaging through the large file drawer, looking for a bottle of aspirin.
“Gunny, what’s the latest on Hathcock?” Land said.
“Sir, the last report in on him is two probable kills this morning. He claims one was a high-ranking Chinese officer—possibly a colonel.”
Wilson hesitated and then added, “He’s patrolled daily since the other snipers came home. The gunny 1 talked to told me that Hathcock will come in with one squad and catch another going out and fall right in with them, without even taking his pack off. That gunny’s concerned.”
“Me too. Did you know that the NVA and Charlie both have a bounty out on Hathcock and me? A big one? Several grand?”
“No, Sir.”
“I think it’s time for our Sergeant Hathcock to pack up and come home. I want you to go and get him—put him under arrest, if you have to—but bring him home. I want him standing tall in front of my desk by tomorrow afternoon.”
“You want me to arrest him, Sir?”
“That’s right, gunny. I want you to hog-tie the little shit, if you have to. He’ll kill himself out there, I’m certain. The dummy won’t stop unless I lock him up or Charlie puts a bullet in his head. I’ll be go-to-hell if I’m gonna lose him now. You go and make your travel plans right away. See if you can get air—maybe a Marlog flight.”
At daylight Wilson sat staring out the open door of a CH-46 helicopter, looking over the shoulders of an air crewman who stood behind a .50-caliber machine gun, gripping the two wooden handles and swinging it from side to side as the aircraft shuddered its way to Hill 263.
This daily matt and logistics flight would sit on the ground there only long enough for the crew to unload a few sacks of mail and some boxes of resupply items. Wilson hoped that the gunny in the operations shop there had been able to reach Hathcock before the sniper departed for the day. If Hathcock was waiting at the landing zone, according to instructions, they could fly back on this helicopter. If the gunny had missed Hathcock, it might mean remaining there an extra day.
Hathcock was waiting when the helicopter landed. He had known that the clock had run out from the way the gunny in the operations tent talked.
“Hathcock!” Wilson yelled inaudibly, beneath the whine and roar of the two gigantic rotors that churned through the air above him, as he walked down the rear ramp. He saw Hathcock standing and waving, his baggy uniform whipping in the wind.
Waving him aboard, Wilson turned and disappeared inside die belly of the huge bird. Grabbing his pack and clutching his bush hat in his right hand, Hathcock trotted up the ramp after him.
Wilson tried to talk to Hathcock, but the engines’ loud roar drowned out his attempts, and he sat silent for the rest of die trip.
“Gunny, what’s going on?” Hathcock asked, as die two Marines walked from die landing zone at Hill 55.
“Sergeant Hathcock, you’re under arrest. That’s all I can tell you. The captain came back from Colonel Poggemeyer’s mad as hell.”
The gunnery sergeant’s words knotted Hathcock’s stomach. “What have I done?” he thought. “Did I lull somebody I shouldn’t have?” He thought of the Frenchman. Perhaps die captain. Burke, and he had fallen into a well-planned scheme of murder, where they were left holding die bag.
The two Marines walked toward finger four where their captain stood behind a sandbag wall, scanning die fields and hills below.
Hathcock remembered presenting himself to his battalion commander for nonjudicial punishment seven years before in Hawaii. In that case, he lost a stripe for slugging a lieutenant in a bar. They were both drunk, and the officer started it. But striking an officer is striking an officer—drunk or sober. Hathcock clearly understood why he got busted then.
But diis. What had he done now?
“Sir. Sergeant Hathcock reporting as ordered, sir!” Hathcock barked, as he stood at rigid attention before the captain.
Land eyed his sergeant and felt a sharp pain—Hathcock looked worse than he had imagined. The 24-year old Marine almost looked like an old man, gaunt and hollow. He had shrunk so much that his camouflage uniform bagged off his shoulders and hips. His boots were scuffed white, and his dark red eyes had sunk deep in their sockets.
“God damn you, Hathcock!” Land said, “What am I going to do with you?”
“Sir. I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong. I have done my best to support that operation, and they are real sold on snipers now.”
“I left you down there with thirty-two kills to your name, and you come home with what? Sixty-two or sixty- three confirmed! That’s thirty more on your own. You did one hell of a job. But you did something stupid.”
“Sir?”
“You forgot one of die most important aspects of leadership that I know. You totally neglected the welfare of your men.”
“I sent those men home after two weeks. Sir. I went out on patrol for diem when they looked too tired to work. I didn’t neglect diem. Sir.”
“You neglected one.”
After a silent pause, Hathcock concluded, “Me?”
“That’s right—you, Hathcock, you don’t know when to quit. You put yourself into situations that are impossible. You hang your life out on die ragged edge and gamble against all the odds. You overload your ass and men won’t stop. What the hell you weigh now?”
“Sir, about a hundred forty-five or fifty.”
“Maybe when I left you there. I don’t think you could tip the scales at more than a hundred twenty-five pounds now. You’re out there living on a can of peanut butter and a handful of John Wayne crackers.”
Hathcock half smiled, “Sir, it keeps the buzzards off my back.”
“Shit yeah! for a day or two, but not for a month. The buzzards wouldn’t waste their time with you now!”
Land folded his arms and looked up and down at his sergeant, who remained at attention, and then the captain shook his head. “Hathcock, 1 put you under arrest because that was the only way 1 could be sure to get you back here. You look like hell. You probably haven’t slept more than a couple of hours a night in the past month. You’ve lost so much weight that your clothes are falling off you. How can you do that to yourself?
“If I hadn’t pulled you out, how long would it have taken before you fucked up and let Charlie kill you? Hathcock, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna write Jo a letter, telling how you got yourself killed!”
Hathcock’s face betrayed his disappointment. He hadn’t realized that the chances he took would wound the captain as deeply as he now realized they had, and he spoke up strongly: “I’m as sorry as I can be, Sir, and I feel awful that I destroyed your confidence in me. I was trying to do the best job I could, and I just totally forgot about myself. I ain’t making any excuses. I’ll take whatever punishment you order, but I want you to know I’m sorry.”
“Sergeant Hathcock,” the captain said, with official sternness, “You are restricted until further orders. You may go only to the head, the mess hall, and to chapel services. You step outside this wire, and I’ll have a stripe. That clear?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“That starts now! Get to the hooch. Square away your gear. And get some sleep!”
“Aye, aye, Sir.” Hathcock said, taking a rearward step with his left foot, executing a drill-perfect about-face, and walking briskly toward his quarters.
Land reached into his back pocket, pulled out a dirty black wallet, and withdrew five dollars.
