South China Sea

bullying? No, that wasn’t it. She was about the same age as his daughter.

The girl moved closer to the pig and hesitantly touched its still-warm underbelly with her big toe. She did it again, then, satisfied it was dead, looked behind her for several seconds, then looking forward, stepped over the boar and stopped dead, her eyes following the short barrel of Kacey’s machine gun, her body giving a start as she met his eyes, her mouth agape. She had never seen a black man before.

“Shh,” Kacey whispered, putting a finger to his mouth, then, with the same hand, gesturing for her to give whatever she was holding to him. He could see it was a grenade with the pin pulled, only her grip keeping the release lever down. She looked back along the trail again, and in that instant the Ranger was about to grab for it, but one fumble… He waited till she turned and looked at him again. Smiling, he very slowly extended his hand. Her tiny warm hand withdrew from him for a moment. He stopped, his dry mouthed smile fixed, his tongue cemented to the roof of his mouth. She let him close his giant’s hand around hers, and his thumb took over the pressure on the lever. Now he was in a real fix. What do I do with the fucking thing?

As she turned and walked away from him, stepping carefully back over the dead pig, Kacey transferred the grenade to his left hand in case he had to fire the HK single-handed, and felt for the first aid pouch around his helmet. He’d tape the grenade’s lever down.

He had it done inside a minute and, first pulling the pig off the trail then moving into the mildew-smelling bush, he made his way forward at turtle speed, torn by his desire to get away and make sure Foxtrot Company was alerted to enemy presence, and the need to be absolutely quiet should the girl bring anyone back.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

With the weather closing in, nimbostratus cloud now spreading out over the valley above Dien Bien Phu in a low, metallic-gray ceiling, the American air cavalry still had smoke to contend with. The aerial armada of helos carrying the battalion had to turn back — to the delight of Pierre LaSalle, who, from the safety of Hanoi, kept filing stories critical of the U.S. presence.

General Jorgensen called Freeman at Second Army’s HQ at Phu Lang Thuong. “Douglas. Harry Jorgensen here. Washington’s pressing me. They want to know if we can hold Disney Hill or whether you should pull out before casualties become unacceptable?”

“General, we have pulled back. By God, I hate to have to admit it but we have, and we’re still being hit. Those bastards of Wei’s are swarming out of those goddamn holes like ants. Trouble is—” There was a sizzle of static on the line. “—trouble is, we can’t pull back any farther, otherwise we’ll be waist high in paddy water.”

“I’m not saying pull back as far as Lang Duong, but if you can get out of the paddies onto higher ground, we can maybe move some armor in.”

“Negative. We’re between a rock and a hard place here. We withdraw any farther, we’ll have to fight waist high in mud. Turn into a goddamn turkey shoot for the Chinese. No, we’re going to have to make our stand where we’ve dug in between the base of the hill and the rice paddies. ‘Least TACAIR can hit the hillside.”

“But the choppers can’t see where they’re going.”

“General, you get me helos to bring those men in tonight, and I’ll counterattack.”

“What?” It was like being down twenty to zip in the Rose Bowl at halftime, Jorgensen thought, and the losing coach telling you he was going to win the game.

“Last thing they expect, General,” Freeman continued. “I’ve got — mortars… I need is the men.”

The static was getting worse, but whatever Freeman had said, Jorgensen told his aide in an aside that it was going to take more than mortars. Freeman’s forces were already running low on ammunition, and despite some blind drops into the smoke and mist, most of the ammo crates had disappeared underwater. Anyone who had to leave his weapon and pack behind, wading out to try to retrieve them, was at especially high risk, as Chinese snipers at the edge of the smoke used the sodden parachutes as range markers.

“Douglas…”

“Yes, General.”

“I’m sorry for my remarks—”

“My fault,” Freeman cut in. “I have a penchant for sounding off when what I should do is shut up.”

“You’re the best field commander for Second Army, Douglas. I’ll try to get you those helos.”

When Jorgensen hung up, Freeman, in an uncharacteristically paranoid moment, under the stress of battle, wondered aloud to Cline what Jorgensen had meant when he said he was “the best field commander for Second Army.”

“For Second Army?” Freeman said, hypothesizing that Jorgensen might have meant he wouldn’t be the best field commander for any other U.S. Army.

“I don’t think he meant that for a moment,” Cline told Freeman. “He means you’re the best man for the job.” Cline paused. “For the situation we’re in.”

Freeman turned on him. “The situation we’re in, Major, is a retreat. By God, is that all he thinks we’re good for? I told him I was going to counterattack, and I will. Damn it,” Freeman said, pacing up and down before the situation map, “I need a prayer for good weather — like Georgie Patton had at Bastogne. Get some air cover. Bob, get that senior padre of ours to see to it.”

Embarrassed, Cline opined that the padre was probably pretty busy with the wounded that the “dust-offs”— or Medevac choppers — had brought back to Phu Lang Thuong’s field hospital.

Freeman looked surprised. “I thought all our wounded were going straight to the Tampa?”

“They are, General, but there were so many wounded in Disney that there was a backup of choppers all the way off Haiphong harbor, so some came back and unloaded at Phu Lang Thuong’s field hospital. As I said, the padres are pretty busy.”

“What’s the matter with you? Goddamn prayer only takes a minute. I want a prayer and I want to see a copy of it. Padres know the right wording.”

“Yes, sir.”

Reluctantly, Cline made his way toward the field hospital, feeling more embarrassed by the second until he realized that if you believed in God, Freeman’s request, a symptom of “Disney”-induced stress, made perfect sense. He realized then that what really bothered him was his own angst, the persistent question he harbored at the back of his mind as to whether or not God had made man or man had made God. Freeman’s order for a prayer was forcing Cline to confront his own uncertainty.

* * *

“I’ve already said prayers, Major,” the overworked padre told him. “I’m praying for every man that’s wounded on our side as well as on the Chinese.”

“I don’t know whether the general’d appreciate that.”

“The general’s not God, Major, though sometimes he acts like it.”

“Look, Padre, I don’t want to get in a slugfest with you. The general’s ordered a prayer, a prayer for good weather so we can get proper air cover.”

“To kill more Chinese?”

“No,” the major said, feeling his temper rising. “To get out of this murderous trap our boys’re in.”

The padre said nothing. He’d just administered last rites to a man — a boy, really — whose face had been blown away by a Chinese stick grenade.

“Look, Padre,” Cline told him. “Quite frankly, I don’t give a hoot if you write a prayer or not — I’m not one of your flock — but if I don’t have something on paper to show the boss, I’m going to get reamed out. So, what is it to be? You want to write the prayer or tell him personally that you won’t?”

The padre sighed. “I’ll write a prayer.”

Cline resented the dog-in-the-manger tone. “Listen, Padre, last time I heard you give a sermon — which I was required to attend — you were going on pretty strong about defeating godless communism.”

“I still am — but not men.”

Cline rolled his eyes impatiently. “That’s like saying you want to fight Nazism but you don’t want to kill Nazis.