“Well, anyway just wanted to chat for a while. Uh… what you doing with the map this time of night?”
“Just playing, sir. You know, figuring the lay of the land. Didn’t have that much time to read the terrain before dark.” Pausing, then pointing down the valley, he said, “Fired the RP ‘bout six hundred meters out, center of sector. See that little knoll on the floor down there?”
I nodded. I’d seen his three rounds impact earlier, the third one hitting dead atop the knoll.
“Wanted to fire it closer, but the lay of the guns precluded me from bringing rounds in any nearer One Six and Two Six. But that’s no problem. I can work off the RP in any direction, at any range.”
“Fine. How long you been over here now, Mark?”
“Six, nearly seven months.”
“Oh? Where were you assigned?”
“Eighth Field. They couldn’t find an observer slot, so they went along with my transfer to divarty. You know, got to make sure all our artillery lieutenants have an opportunity to do their time with snuffie.”
I smiled. “Yeah, one of those necessary ‘career-enhancing moves,’ huh?”
He nodded, grinning.
“Where’d you go to school?”
For the next half hour or so, we talked of that trivia that soldiers in combat talk about—families and friends, women and wives, R&R, the war, careers, the Army, the company, and the Nam. The flares, swinging to and fro under their parachutes, continued to cast eerie, bobbing shadows across the valley’s landscape below us.
Suddenly a stream of twenty or so speeding red tracer rounds slammed into the side of a hill a short distance to the north of us, exploding on impact.
I jumped! Then relaxed.
“Nervous, sir?” Moseley asked, tongue in cheek.
“Yeah, stay nervous. Uh… what was it? Forty mike-mike?”
“Yep. Dusters. Got a pair of ’em on the highway south of Evans.
They’re just throwing rounds down range, H&I.”
“Well, hell, hope they know we’re up here.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, sir. They’re in the net and have our plot. Guarantee it.”
He was right. They must have our plot, and so there was nothing to worry about. But I said, “Check it out, will you, Mark?”
“Sir?”
“The dusters. I know and you know they know we’re up here. I just want to make sure they know, okay?”
“Sure, sir. No problem,” he said, turning to his radio.
The Bull, reclining on his back, fingers interwoven behind his neck, was still gazing skyward when I returned. “Enjoy your little tete-a-tete with our cannon cocker, Six?”
“Yes, I did, Top. Bright young lad,” I replied as I wrapped myself in my poncho liner.
He lay in silence for a while and then suddenly, buoyantly, remarked,
“Damn, look at that sky, sir! Clear as a bell. Tomorrow’s gonna be a bright and sunny day, same as if we were back on the plain.”
“Hope so, Top.”
The next morning, destined for other parts of Thua Thien Province, we walked off our horseshoe ridge because Evans’ helicopters were socked in. It was raining.
One evening in early March, we set up our NDP on an old French plantation several klicks east of Highway One adjacent to the river Giang, which at that juncture was actually more canal than river.
From here, Major Byson had told us, we would be picked up early the next morning and air-assaulted across the river into the village of Thon Can Nhi, which was supposedly infested—as indeed they were all supposedly infested—with enemy or enemy sympathizers.
It continued to rain, usually that irritating drizzle we had become accustomed to. The sun rarely emerged. We were always wet and chilled to the bone, wondering if I Corps’ winter monsoon would ever end.
Shortly after the evening log bird departed, I walked the company’s perimeter, as was my custom each night just before dark. This nightly ritual gave me an opportunity to check our defensive arrangements and, perhaps more important, to see and chat with the soldiers of Charlie Company.
Entering Two Six’s area, which was closest to the river and obscured from most of the company by a grove of palms intermingled with banana trees and other tropical vegetation, I saw, twenty or thirty meters forward of the platoon’s perimeter trace, a picturesque two-story French plantation house. It was an imposing brick-and- stucco structure, now badly in need of a coat of whitewash, with a red-tile roof. The roof was also in dire need of repair. Still, the house looked very out of place in a land of thatched and mud-walled hutches.
I left our perimeter and entered the house from the rear. It was, of course, deserted and was devoid of furniture, with the single exception of an old rocking chair in the middle of what probably had been the downstairs parlor. I wondered why the rocker hadn’t been “liberated” along with the other furnishings. Maybe the Viets don’t like rocking chairs?
Exiting the front door, I walked out onto a weathered veranda and gazed across what had undoubtedly once been a beautifully landscaped lawn that descended gently to a small canal running inland from the Giang.
Although the lawn was now hopelessly overgrown, there were still several giant tamarind trees forming an archway from the veranda to the canal. Reentering the house, I sat in the chair and rocked myself for a while, savoring the surreal tranquility of the moment. I tried to imagine what the house had been like in its heyday and found myself pondering the fate of the family that had lived within its walls years, perhaps a decade or more, ago. Then I got up and walked back to the war. It was nearly dark.
Approaching the CP, I noted a somewhat disgruntled first sergeant anxiously awaiting his evening parley. I sat down beside him, and before I could query him on the state of the command, he blurted out,
“Sir, the state of the command sucks! I Corps and this goddamn weather suck! Troops are wet, cold, and miserable!”
“Well, Top, as you very well know, neither of us can change the weather. Uh… as to the state of the command, is it your considered opinion, then, that the troops are no longer so very excited about our move to I Corps?”
“Excited? Six, next to a quick flight back to the States or a second R&R, the troops would rather be back in Binh Dinh right now than anywhere else they can think of!”
He paused and then said in a calmer tone, “Aw, shit, I know we can’t do anything ‘bout the weather. Just wish the sun would come out again, you know, even for a few hours. Give us a chance to dry out.”
“Me too, Top. Just like to know it’s still up there somewhere, huh?”
“Yeah, ain’t seen it so long, shit, not more than a couple times since we left Binh Dinh. Uh… platoon sergeants think it might be a good idea to have field jackets shipped out. What’s your feeling on it?”
“Don’t know, Top. They’d be nice at night, but what with the log birds not flying that often up here, it’d be a pain in the ass carrying wet field jackets ‘round with us all day.”
“Yeah, that’s what I told ’em. You know, just hold off a while, cause the sun’s gotta shine again. If it don’t, the whole goddamn company’s gonna go bugfuck!”
“Hey, Top, you worry too much. Hell, I know the weather’s depressing, but snuffie understands there’s nothing we can do about it. And I think morale’s still good in spite of it. Least that’s my sounding. How do you see it?”
He smiled and said, “You’re right, Boss. Snuffie’s fucking miserable, but he’s joking about it. You know, ‘Gonna swim my way back to the world, Top.” And, ‘Got a can of ham and limas for a dry pair of socks, Top.” And, ‘Where’s my fucking diving pay, Top?” But what we really need is to get a couple of kills in the sunshine. Then morale would soar!”
Figuring we’d covered the issue of troop morale, I told the Bull about the deserted plantation house.
“Probably some fat old French fart now living in the lap of luxury somewhere in France,” he speculated. “You know, sipping his grape in Paris, Marseilles, or some such place.”
“I kind of hope he is, Top,” I said, surprised at my own comment.
“What? Uh… why do you say that, sir?”
“I don’t know,” I responded, suddenly laughing. “Sonofabitch, I really don’t know.”
