I thought about the LZs, trying to remember the bushes. I remembered the confusion, the crackling door guns, the smell of gunpowder, the yells of the grunts, the radios going crazy. But bushes? Bushes were the furthest thing from my mind. How was I ever going to learn all this? What lesson would I miss that would cause my death?
“There’s a lot to look for,” I said, hoping someone would tell me not to worry about the bushes, that there was a trick to it.
“Yep,” agreed Resler, “remember that giant bow and arrow, Bob?”
“Yes.” I lit a cigarette from my third pack. “Tell Nate about it.”
“Bob was in another ship, but we both saw it. We were about ready to land when a gunship pilot said he saw something suspicious.”
“Was this last month?” Nate interrupted.
“Yes. When you told me about the bushes, I remembered that I didn’t see what this gunship pilot was talking about. He finally made it clear when he asked us if we saw a wire or string going across the LZ. When he said that, I saw something, too.” I could see Gary grinning as the moon shone briefly between some clouds. “The guy said, ‘Watch this,’ and dove toward the clearing while we circled. He fired a rocket into the middle of the clearing, and the blast broke the string. Suddenly a big pole, a sapling, shot across the clearing like a giant arrow. Whoosh! I couldn’t believe it!” Gary and I laughed, but Nate just puffed away on his pipe.
He stood up suddenly, tapped the pipe on the heel of his hand, and stuffed it into his breast pocket, letting the bowl hang over the top. “Well, you guys are going to have to develop your observational abilities to match those of that gunship pilot if you want to make it through this war.” With this gem of friendly advice, calculated to increase our feelings of inadequacy, he turned to leave. “Good night.” He dissolved into the night to visit other friends.
I was getting the trash from my meal together when Gary said, “You know, there’s something about that guy that makes me nervous. Do you think it’s the pipe? My father never trusted anyone who smoked a pipe.”
It rained all night. Four of us lay crammed into the Huey trying to sleep. The sliding doors were open to give us ventilation. I lay on my stomach on the deck, using my rolled-up fatigue shirt as a pillow, facing out the open door. Leese lay on his back on the other side with his fatigue jacket covering his chest and face. Reacher tossed and turned on the nylon sling bench at our feet. The gunner was half sitting, half lying against the aft bulkhead in the pocket behind his machine gun. His head was bent hard forward, forcing his chin into his chest. One would think that Reacher had the best bed. Not so. The bench was designed to hold four sets of buttocks, not a reclining body. Aluminum bars that would normally pass between sitting people forced themselves against the bones of anyone unlucky enough to have to sleep there. There was no alternative. The rain kept us inside because we had no tents.
I couldn’t sleep. The air was heavy and dank. It rained only enough to keep the air saturated, not cool. Occasionally a drop would splash against the deck next to my face and spawn smaller drops that landed on my nose. I moved closer to the open doorway, hoping that the rain would scare away the mosquitoes. The GI bug repellant I had borrowed from Reacher worked well for a few minutes, but faded quickly.
“Hey, Reacher,” I whispered, “you awake?”
“Uh-huh.” His dreary voice barely contained the anguish of the battle he was losing with the bench.
“Let me have some more of your mosquito repellant.”
“Uh-huh.” He sat up in the moonlight and handed me the plastic bottle from his breast pocket and lay back down with a sigh.
There was barely enough for one application. I put a few drops on my palms and rubbed my hands together. I wiped my face. If I could keep them away from my face, I could get to sleep. I rubbed the excess on my hair and arms and looked over at Leese. He was lying under his shirt, asleep. In the partly cloudy moonlight, I checked my watch: 0200. I held the bottle near Reacher and said, “Here.” Silently he reached up and took it.
When I put my head back down, I heard gunfire in the distance. It lasted only a minute and stopped. Probably a nervous grunt. Of course, it could be the beginning of an attack. I imagined how our position looked from above. The thirty-two dark shapes of our helicopters sat on the lighter-colored ground. On our perimeter, some grunts hid in their pup tents trying to sleep while others stared into the gray foliage watching. From my imaginary viewpoint, I couldn’t decide which would be worse, a wave of VC swarming in on us or a mortar attack.
A mosquito bit me on the neck and brought me back to my damp aluminum deck and the drizzle. Goddamn their vicious little bug brains. I decided to think about hating mosquitoes. I hoped my thoughts would broadcast hatred and loathing enough to scare them away. I thought of torturing mosquitoes for a while, pulling out wings, squeezing heads, ripping off legs, and they stopped biting! They actually flew away. Had I made a great discovery? Would this stop our having to take malaria pills? Just hating mosquitoes intensely kept them away? But what would happen when I fell asleep? Would they come back? They would. Probably with reinforcements, too. The thing to do, I reasoned, was to call a meeting, a rally, and concentrate on hating mosquitoes, en masse, all at once. We could corral them into one big mass of frightened bugs. I saw myself reaching into that mass and grabbing a big handful and squeezing. Their screams of horror and cries for mercy only brought a smile to my face. I reached for another handful.
I smelled coffee. Leese was up. I sat up to see where he was. Reacher was gone too. My watch said 0530. I blinked for a minute while my brain tried to join me in getting awake. My face itched. My hands itched. The mosquitoes had won.
Leese squatted on the ground on his side of the Huey, boiling water. Beyond him, I could see the camp coming alive. Little orange fires flickered, and gray shapes moved among the dull-green helicopters in the morning haze.
I rolled out on my side, walked around to join Leese, and in a few minutes I had my own coffee brewing. By 0700 we had all eaten, had coffee and cigarettes, pre-flighted the helicopters, and were ready to get the hell out of there. Three hours later, the crews were still hanging around their Hueys, sacking out if they could, or staring bleary-eyed at nothing, like me.
Farris and Shaker called us together for a briefing.
The action in Happy Valley had disappeared. The VC had slipped away in the night. The fifty-calibers had stopped firing, too. If they had been destroyed, there was no evidence on the ground according to the grunts. Action was postponed until another day.
Leese and I, along with seven other ships, were to spend the day flying ass-and-trash (people and equipment) around the division. The rest of the gaggle were going home to dig more ditches and haul more stumps.
It was all good news to me. I hoped the VC kept right on going to wherever they were going. And I would rather do anything than chop at stumps that were bigger across than a small crowd.
It was almost dark enough to use the landing light when we finished resupplying the patrols. I hovered over the uneven ground of row three looking for an empty pad to park. I passed some spots marked for another company. They had begun painting unit numbers on pieces of PSP at the head of each slot. When I found an empty spot belonging to us, it was half a mile from our company area.
Leese had called operations on the way in, and they sent a small truck to pick us up. We were the last ship in the company to get back, according to the driver.
It was well past sunset, but a soft glow still drifted in the west. The cool light glistened off the mud-slick road. The four of us sat under the canvas covering in the back of the truck, watching the Hueys pass by as the truck la bored through the mud.