“Damn good flying,” Deacon said from the left seat as I landed behind another Huey back at the airstrip.
“Thanks,” I replied. Coming from an IP, that was a real compliment.
“If you fly that good again tomorrow, I’ll sign you off as an aircraft commander.”
The next day was also the Prospectors’ last day at Nhon Co. So at the end of another day of local ass-and-trash, we flew directly back to Phan Rang. Other ships brought the tents and gear back. I did fly well, and, true to his word, Deacon signed me off as a qualified aircraft commander. On the walk to the company area, Deacon told me that Ringknocker was arranging another big party.
“We seldom get a break like this; we’ll be here four days. Ringknocker likes to see the men enjoy themselves. I’d roll my bedroll up if I were you,” Deacon said.
“Roll up my bedroll?”
“Yeah. Just roll your mattress up and tie it.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
It was nine o‘clock and the party was in full swing. Doc DaVinci sat next to me at the bar and explained how he had prepared the skull that now sang on the wall. He was drunk. The members of the songwriting team sat facing each other in a circle of chairs in a far corner, producing sounds that clashed with a Joan Baez tape. They were drunk. Sky King and Red Blakely Indian-wrestled in the middle of the floor. Sky King held a brimming mug of beer, claiming that he would not spill a drop while he dispatched Red.
“I boiled it,” said DaVinci.
“In the kitchen?” I asked, interested.
“No, no. They wouldn’t let me do it in the kitchen. I built a fire out back and boiled it there. Boiled it a whole day.”
I glanced at the skull, clacking with Baez’s words, admiring the clean gleaming white of it. “It’s so… white.”
“Not naturally. I bleached it after I pulled off the meat.”
I drank some bourbon and nodded. “Of course.” I put my drink down. “Bleach.”
“It’s a fact,” DaVinci said. “Clorox will give your skull a whiter, brighter look.”
“They’re coming!” Sky King yelled. Everyone stopped talking. I could hear a siren wailing in the distance.
“You rolled your bed up?” Deacon had walked up to me.
“Yeah…”
“Smart boy,” he said.
“Who’s coming?” I asked Doc.
“The ladies, of course.”
The siren got louder, then stopped. Somebody outside said, “Back ‘er up.” In the light that shone through the windows I could see the rear end of an army ambulance moving toward the open door. It stopped and someone opened the back. Packed inside were at least a dozen smiling Vietnamese women. All the Prospectors were standing, applauding, whistling, while the ladies were helped out of the ambulance.
It’s hard to say what happened next except that once the women were all inside the club, they began to disappear. Men grabbed giggling girls and ran out the doors into the night. It all happened in minutes. I sat there on the bar stool, open-mouthed. I had just seen an ambulance back up, unload a bunch of whores, and they were carried away?
“There must be some kind of rule against that,” I said.
“Hey, it’s our ambulance,” Doc said.
“If that happened in the Cav, everyone here would be up for a court-martial.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“It works great,” said Doc.“The security guards never stop an ambulance. Best damn thing we ever traded for.”
“You traded for an ambulance?”
“Yeah. Ringknocker got an ambulance, a deuce-and-a-half, and a Jeep for one Huey.”
“A Huey?” I shook my head.
“Yeah, a Huey. It was one of ours that got shot to shit. It was declared a total loss, and its number was taken off the registers. It was just wreckage when Ringknocker made the trade. Part of the deal was that our maintenance guys would piece it back together. It looks like shit, but it flies.”
“That’s incredible.”
“I know. Ringknocker has got a creative mind.”
It had been only fifteen minutes since the girls were carried off when one of them walked back into the club escorted by her partner. “Next,” he called out.
Doc slapped my shoulder and nodded toward the girl. “It’ll change your luck.” He grinned.
“No thanks. I’m still fighting a case of clap,” I said. Inside, I was awed by their style—these Prospectors were out of a dream. “You go ahead.”
“Not me. Every time I try to examine them, they get pissed off.” He blew a kiss to the girl.
“No you!” she said, shaking her finger. Doc laughed loudly.
She left with someone and two more came inside.
I had forgotten about the songwriters. They were still in their corner rehearsing their latest lyrics, apparently undisturbed by the intrusion of the lovelies.
I left the party at one o‘clock. The girls had been sent back out through the gates in the blaring ambulance, but the Prospectors partied on.
“Okay. We’re taking two ships. Deacon, you pick a crew. I’ll fly the other with Daring.” Ringknocker held a briefing at a table in the mess hall the next morning. Deacon and Daring nodded. I watched from the next table while I ate fresh scrambled eggs. “The target is the Repair and Utility compound, here.” Ringknocker pointed to his frayed map. The R&U compound was a fenced-in field at another air-force base, heavily guarded, surrounded by all sorts of security, where the civilian contractors stored their mountains of building supplies. Such things as tin roofing, lumber, air conditioners, refrigerators, sinks, toilets—everything needed to build a truly American base. “Now I’m trying for an ice maker, but anything will do,” Ringknocker explained. “Deacon, I want you to fly cover while I go down. Keep me posted when the guards start moving our way.” Deacon nodded. “Okay, let’s go.” The group of men got up and left, dressed for a mission.
Ringknocker’s Huey came back an hour later carrying a huge wooden crate on a sling. He landed it on the back of his deuce-and-a-half, which drove it immediately to the maintenance area. When they opened the crate, they discovered that it contained another refrigerator, just like the one they already had. Ringknocker was happy anyway, and by late the next day he had arranged to trade the refrigerator to an air-force unit on the other side of the base for a brand-new ice-making machine. For the next two months, wherever we went in the field, someone got the job of moving the five-hundred-pound ice machine as part of our field gear.
On the afternoon of the fourth day of the break, Deacon told me to take a ship up to our headquarters and pick up two new pilots.
I flew with Sky King, who chattered during the entire thirty-minute flight. He was a happy man and very lik able. His total disregard for army formalities made me forget that he was a captain.
We landed at the sandy pad at headquarters, shut down, and walked to the tent with the mail courier. From a hundred yards away I thought I recognized one of two men carrying flight bags on their shoulders.
“Those must be the two pilots,” said Sky King.
I nodded, staring at the distant, frail figure who sagged under the weight of a giant flight bag. I knew that walk.
“Shit!” I said with a wide grin on my face. “How far do I have to go to get away from you?” The two men were twenty feet away.