Danny came back up behind two women. They were both dressed very nicely and carried evening bags. They sat down across from Chuck and me while Danny introduced them. “Linda, this is Bob. Vicki, this is Chuck.” He stood back for a moment, grinning at the happy couples. “I must go see about your drinks.” Before he left, though, he leaned over to me and whispered, “Sharon was already—” I nodded quickly.
Linda leaned across the table and whispered, “It is so sad that you could not get the one you loved. Do you wish me to leave?”
Yes, I did. That girl, Sharon, seemed to be an Oriental version of Patience. Patience looked at me the same way when we first met. But there wasn’t enough whiskey in me to cause me to become callous. The fact that Linda was willing to leave, to be rejected, stirred what remained of my sensibilities, and I said, “No, of course not.”
“She is more beautiful than I am,” said Linda, fishing for compliments. In fact, Sharon was more beautiful than Linda, but I reminded myself that neither of them would be near me if I wasn’t going to pay. In four days it would be over.
“Don’t be foolish; you are more beautiful.”
“Thank you for saying so.” She smiled.
Sharon still looked at me occasionally. I wondered why.
I have dim memories of the insides of many different clubs, singing in the streets, and bright lights and taxis. I even woke up in a different hotel. My companion, for ten dollars a day, was Linda. She showed me the sights on the island in between servicing my desperate horniness. We ate at different clubs and restaurants every night, never visiting the same place twice. Occasionally, as we toured, I would see Sharon watching me familiarly.
In moments, the four days were spent.
Surprisingly, girls crowded outside the bus as we arrived at the airport. As we got off, reunions were formed by the departing soldiers and their Chinese girlfriends. The girls were actually crying. Why in the world? Perfect strangers five days ago were now sobbing tearful farewells. I climbed down out of the bus, but there was no Linda. I moved past the hugging couples, to follow a roped path to the terminal. Five steps away from the door, I heard my name called. I looked up and saw Sharon. She was smiling broadly, but tears flowed on her cheeks. She held her arms out and I instinctively hugged her. I could not understand why she was doing this.
“Please be careful,” she said.
A nearly hysterical feeling of fear hit me as I stepped off the plane at An Khe. The fear welled within me, changing to a prickly, cold terror in the moist heat. I shivered slightly and forced the demons to the background while I looked for a field phone. I shivered in the dark tent while I waited to be connected to my company.
“Welcome back, Mr. Mason,” said Sergeant Bailey. I calmed immediately at Bailey’s voice. “We’ll send a Jeep over right away.”
It was gray outside, overcast, humid, incredibly hot. I fired up another Pall Mall and waited.
In a few days I succeeded in almost totally suppressing my fear. We were not taking many hits out in the mountains where the Cav was currently fishing. The closest thing to real action was when one of our gunships shot down a slick.
Major Astor, the replacement for Captain Morris, was a tall, sturdily built man with short blond hair, more like the stereotypical marine than an army pilot. He joined us right after Bong Son valley. He saw only our pleasantly boring missions in the local boonies, which led him to erroneous conclusions.
“They let us go pretty much where we want to go,” Major Astor said to John Hall. “How much longer can the VC last if we’ve got control of the air like we do?”
“We don’t have control; they do,” said John.
“Yéah. I’ve seen how tough they are. Actually, though, what could you expect them to do against our helicopters?” Astor grinned.
“You’ve got it wrong, Major. The little people have just decided to take a small break for a while.” John was drinking whiskey; the major beer; and I was listening. We were at the bar of our soon-to-be-opened-built-by-our-own-hands officers’ club. There was no bartender yet; people just brought their own bottles.
“You call them ‘little people’?”
“Sometimes.”
“Makes them sound like elves.”
“Well, sometimes you’d think the little bastards were carrying around some fairy dust or something, the way they can be exactly where you don’t want them to be.”
Connors and Banjo walked in. Connors’s shirt was stuck to his sweaty body, and sweat ran down his face. Banjo looked dry in comparison.
“Bartender!” Connors yelled. “Beer! Give me beer!”
“There is no bartender,” Banjo said.
“I know that; I’m just practicing.” Connors looked
around and nodded to the new major. “Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening, Mr. Connors. I just found out that you’re the company’s IP.”
“Yes, that is true. I am an ace with a helicopter.”
“Just don’t get near him when he tries to tie one down,” said Banjo.
“Fuck off, Banjo.”
“Ever teach at flight school?” Astor said to Connors.
“Not yet. That’s probably where they’ll send me after this bullshit, though. Why? Are you an IP?”
“No,” said Astor. “I just graduated. I was impressed by the training program at Rucker.”
“Army helicopter training is the best there is. When you leave, you’re almost safe.”
“Almost safe?” Astor laughed.
“That’s right. Any new pilot is still dangerous. They know just enough to get themselves in trouble. After another five hundred hours of practical flying, learning how to use the aircraft, I’d say they were pretty safe. If you’re still alive at a thousand hours, you must have it down pretty good. That’s stateside time. Over here you pick things up quicker ‘cause of the pressure of being shot at.” Connors grabbed the beer that Banjo put in front of him.
“Well, I thought it was a damn good program,” said Astor. “And after flying over here awhile, I’m even more impressed at how good the training is.”
“Yeah, it is good. But don’t judge the action here by what you’ve been seeing since you’ve been here. When you start making your approaches to that tight LZ, in formation, with the VC shooting at your ass, then it starts to get tough.”
“Even so, if you fly like they taught you, and don’t panic, you ought to do okay,” said Astor.
“What can I tell you? You got the big picture for sure.” Connors turned to me and Hall and rolled his eyes.
“Here’s to army aviation.” Astor raised his beer.
“Huh?” said Connors..
I left the club to write my daily letter home, mentally totaling my flight time. By Connors’s definition I was a little better than pretty safe, with seven hundred hours. Connors himself had nearly three thousand hours, almost all in Hueys. All of this proved to me that I was becoming a professional—a helicopter pilot. When I got back home, I could start my own helicopter company. All I had to do was get back home.
Later that night, I heard the shrill screaming of a man gone crazy. I ran outside, goose flesh rising on my skin.
“God damn them! God damn them!” the voice shrieked.
Near the club, I saw four men carrying one of our pilots, a screaming, twisting, fighting Captain Fontaine. Fontaine hated Owens and White.
“I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them!”
“Calm down…”
“I will kill themmmm!” Fontaine’s voice trailed into a high-pitched scream. He was a struggling pig going to slaughter, but the four men, one of whom was Connors, held him tightly and carried the writhing man up the short stairs to his hooch. And Fontaine was such a calm guy, too.