“Gainesburgers,” said Banjo. We had named the army’s canned ground-beef patties, served in gravy, after the dog food. The preserving process had converted real meat into an unidentifiable, chewy, dry substance soaked in grease.
The line moved past the front of the mess tent. Into the two halves of my mess kit the servers poured, placed and plopped a variety of foods: “Gainesburgers,” instant potatoes, boiled cabbage, stewed corn, and circles of sliced canned bread. I walked back to the bunker to join my comrades as they ate sitting on a pile of sandbags.
“Is there going to be beer tonight?” Connors asked.
“Tomorrow. I’m going to Qui Nhon to pick up a ship-load,” said Nate.
“How come you get the fun details?” Connors complained.
“Luck, skill, experience, ass-kissing. You know,” quipped Nate. He had finished eating and was now beginning the ritual of the pipe.
“Think that bunker will take a direct hit?” Resler asked me.
“I don’t think so. But I guess that depends on how thick we made the roof.”
“How thick are we gonna make it, Captain Farris?” Resler turned to our squad leader.
“I think Captain Shaker wants us to make the roof two bags thick,” Farris answered as he balanced the two halves of his mess kit on his knees.
“Will that take a direct hit?”
“Naw,” said Farris.
Before noon the next day we had laid sheets of perforated steel planking (PSP), normally used for roads and run-ways, across the tree rafters, and laid a roof two bags thick across them. It sagged a little in the middle, but you could walk around inside it if you bent your head down. From outside it looked massive and sturdy indeed, a pattern for the other three.
After lunch we worked for three hours filling more sandbags when PFC Berne, a runner from operations, ran up to us. He looked concerned.
“Mr. Connors, you and Banjo are supposed to get in the air right away!”
“What’s up?” Connors threw his shovel down.
“Nate got shot down on the beer run.”
“C‘mon, Banjo.” Connors ran toward the operations tent. Resler and Riker and Leese and I watched them go.
In the midst of the digging and building, I had forgotten that there were people outside who did not want us here.
In the pale moonlight that night, we celebrated the beer run. Four pilots, each holding an unopened can of beer, marched around the bunker. With flourishes and chants of “Oh noble leader,” they approached Fields, who sat laughing in a lawn chair. They put the beer on the bunker and backed away, having delivered the fruits of the mission. Those four lonely cans were all that survived of the 100 cases that Nate and Kaiser had picked up in Qui Nhon.
The Snakes loaned us enough beer for the party. We sat on and around the bunker while Nate and Connors told the story.
“I was flying at two thousand feet with Kaiser when they got us,” said Nate. “I didn’t see where it came from, but we heard them hit. Two rounds severed the fuel line near the engine, and a few seconds later it got real quiet.”
“Quiet’s not the word for it,” Kaiser interrupted. “I could hear my heart beating.”
“This was my first real autorotation. I bottomed the pitch and looked for a place to land. The ton of beer in the back made the trip down real fast, but I made it okay.”
“Yeah,” said Kaiser, “he landed okay. He put the skids two feet into the fucking ground. Landed okay, my ass.”
“So, I hit a little hard. I didn’t bend anything,” said Nate.
“I don’t care if you bent anything; I’m glad you’re all still alive,” said Fields, smiling. “What happened then?”
“Well, we’re on the ground in grass up to our ass looking at the tree lines. Kaiser called for help on the emergency channel when we were hit. The crew chief and gunner stayed at their guns and covered us.” Nate held his lighted pipe in one hand while his other hand held his elbow. His back arched as he talked, and he periodically used the pipe as a pointer to emphasize a fact. “We musta landed beyond the VC, because there was no more shooting. About two minutes after we landed, a slick from the Snakes came over, checked us on the radio to make sure it was clear, and came in to get us. We stripped the radios and brought them and the machine gun with us. Kaiser wanted to bring some beer out, but the Snake ship wouldn’t wait. As soon as our asses touched the deck, they were gone.” Nate’s pipe pointed up. “So while we were being picked up by the Snakes, Major Fields and Connors and Banjo came out to join us along with a gunship. We met them on the way in and circled back out. From the time we left our ship to the time we got back it was about a half hour.” Nate gestured toward Connors.
“My turn?” Conors grinned. “Well, when we got to the scene, the gooks had been busy. I could see them scrambling off into the woods as we came up. The gunship dove down after them, but it was too late. When the gunship said it was clear, we came in.” Connors stopped to laugh with Nate over a private joke. “Look, I want you to realize that the grass in that clearing was real deep.” Connors took a drink of beer. “Like I said, the gooks had been busy. They had tried to sabotage the ship, I guess, because they had spent the time slashing the seats to ribbons, smearing shit on the instruments, piling dirt into the cockpit, and cramming sticks down the hell hole. Bright guys, these Vietnamese. They did get one thing right, though. They had taken every single one of those cases of beer off with them. Now, that’s terrorism.”
“But—” Nate added, with raised eyebrows.
“But they missed one case. One case had dropped into the grass, and nobody knew where it was until I landed that six-thousand-pound machine right on top of it.” Fields was practically crying, he was laughing so hard. “But,” Connors continued, “I did manage to spare some of those cans.” Connors pointed to the four Budweisers on the bunker. We cheered. Connors raised one of the cans up high and proclaimed, “To the Preachers. May we have more beer and less action.”
The party broke up early when the sky darkened and the first drops of rain fell. As the storm clouds erased the moon, I remembered that I had yet to improve the drainage trench around my tent.
“Man, if a snake got in here with me tonight, I don’t know whether I would just lie here and let him bite me or jump out into this fucking rain.” Resler’s voice was muffled through his tent and mine.
“Snake?” I heard Leese call out. He was on the other side of Resler. The rain pounded so hard it sounded like tearing fabric. My flaps were tightly closed, and I watched the rivulets of water run along the bottom edge of the canvas at the back of the tent. Where the water dripped onto my dirt floor, I scraped a trench with my pocket knife to let it drain out.
I wrote my nightly letter to Patience. I told her about my tent, not flying, the constant racket from the perimeter, and a sergeant who had been bitten by a snake. He had not checked his bedroll before he got in. Luckily we had antivenom, which was rumored to be as painful as the bite.
Above the roar of the rain I could hear the whump of mortars and artillery from nearby positions. Small-arms fire crackled from all directions. I could imagine what it would be like to be on perimeter guard duty on a night like this.
Something moved under the covers. I froze. I felt something cold squirm against my calf. Snake? What should I do? If I yelled or moved, he would bite. While the rain pounded the canvas, I sweated in the stifling air. When it crawled onto my knee, I realized what it was. I pulled the covers back, and a giant brown insect flew into the side of the tent.
“Snake! Snake!” Connors’s voice was muffled but loud in the storm. I pushed my head outside and pointed my flashlight toward his tent. It was gone. He and his tent spent the rest of the night in the GP.