“But why use them, sir? That’s what I was getting at. I mean, it sounds like a good idea, right? Enemy’s trying to evade us in the dark, so you pop flares so you can see him, right?”
I nodded.
“‘Course, then he can also see you, right?”
I nodded again.
“So, when you think about it, really think about it, it doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. I mean, here’s Charlie, who was able to disengage and hide himself from Running Navaho in broad daylight, and now we’re gonna pop flares to find him in the dark? Shit!”
“Well, goddamn it, Top! You’re right! Want me to call Tolson and put a stop to it?” I said, grinning at him.
“Naw, don’t bother. The good general is probably in the sack by now.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes; then I got up. “Top, think I’ll go over and talk to our new FO for a few minutes. Remiss for not doing so sooner. Join me?”
“Naw… uh… sir. Think I’ll just stay right here and count stars.”
I walked the short distance between our CP and where Lieutenant Moseley and his recon sergeant were sharing a piece of the country’s sod.
Moseley, on radio watch as his recon sergeant slept close by, was alternately studying his map under the glare of a red-filtered flashlight and then gazing out at the valley floor below. Seeing me approach, he rose to his feet, saying, “Sir?”
“Evening, Mark,” I said, motioning him to sit back down as I did the same. “Uh… thought we might chat a while. We haven’t done a lot of that. My fault. Sorry.”
A bit uncomfortably, he said, “If it’s about what’s expected of me, Slim filled me in on that quite thoroughly, sir. What with that and our little talk at Phu Cat, well, thought I’d been…”
“No! Hell, no. Nothing like that, Mark. Shit, couldn’t be more pleased with your performance—company couldn’t be more pleased.” Then, smiling, I said, “Hey, Mark, even though we all know that Slim’s gonna make general someday, and of course Lieutenant… uh… Captain Brightly knows it better than any of the rest of us, we’ve all noted that you’re firing your registrations quicker than he did.”
He brightened.
“You know, it’s a small thing,” I continued, “timing how long it takes to adjust on an RP, but it gives snuffie something to do before he settles in for the night. Hell, for him it’s entertainment, and he has very damn little of that. Same as with Wester and his shotgun. You heard about our point man in Two Six who can pump out a fully loaded twelve-gauge faster than an incoming replacement can fire a twentyround magazine through an M-16?”
He nodded.
“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.