The firing still continued. Then the mortar squad brought their mortars in on the enemy and the fire stopped.
Labouf returned with two batteries, and Hale was able to talk to his commanders.
Hale had everyone return the money to Labouf. Reynolds & Raymond grumbled but handed it over.
“You’re going to carry this money. Hump it all the way to the Holiday Inn. Maybe the dinks’ll have a big PX where you can spend it,” Hale said. “You and those two crazies are going to be my scouts from now on.”
Labouf did not complain. He seemed happy to have his money back.
They crossed the stream. Far off on the mountain, Jackson could still hear the fire from the two trapped platoons.
Luck been keeping me alive, Jackson thought. Just like Labouf. Nothing but luck. Light on R&R in some fucking lost city.
Then Jackson decided he no longer cared. It did not matter that he was wet and tired and hungry. Now he hated the dinks who had killed so many of them. He wanted to see the Holiday Inn. Run yelling with the other men as they made their assault on the bunkers, waste the dinks. Make them pay.
CHAPTER
23
By the time it grew dark the battalion had broken off contact with the NVA. They wandered on the mountain, directed by the lieutenants who conferred with Hale before making any decisions. Occasionally they could hear the distant sound of firing from the two trapped platoons. Instead of stopping for the night, they kept moving. Hale never gave the order, but no one mentioned stopping. Once they reached the valley they had a plan, the details known to everyone from Hale’s briefings. Jackson supposed the plan was the reason they kept moving, that and the chance to be airlifted out of the valley if the weather cleared.
“He’s getting us to a place where the dinks can finish us off,” Labouf said.
Labouf had survived a day with Reynolds & Raymond. He had come in to report to Hale and receive his instructions for the night.
“Maybe it’ll clear and we’ll have air support,” Jackson said.
“Alabama, you’re the only one in this whole battalion who believes that shit,” Labouf said.
They reached the crest of the mountain and started down the side. This was the first time the battalion had been on the move at night. Jackson kept tripping over vines and walking into limbs, and he wished he had Tom Light to lead him through the jungle. Soon Jackson began to hear the faint sound of drums and gongs along with shouts and chanting. From Hale’s briefings Jackson knew there was a Montagnard village at the foot of the mountain. The people of the village served as porters for the NVA and grew food for them.
“Goddamn funeral the Yards are having will distract the enemy,” Hale said to a lieutenant. “Maybe the dinks’ll be drunk on rice wine too. Most of them will be fucking base camp soldiers. Gone soft. Easy pickings.”
“They’ll be waiting for us,” Labouf whispered to Jackson.
Then Labouf went out to scout ahead of the battalion.
Where was Tom Light? Jackson wondered.
Hale’s plan of attack was to advance between the village on their right and the paddy fields on their left across the valley of scrub and grass. A creek ran down the center of the mile-wide valley. The larger bunkers were located on the far side at the foot of the mountain, but there were small bunkers and trenches scattered through the scrub between the creek and the mountain. According to intelligence, most of the NVA were across the border in Vietnam. Hale wanted very much to capture the general who made his headquarters at the base camp.
“Most of ’em are still up on the mountain looking for us,” Hale said. “We lost ’em in the dark. The rest are tied up with those two platoons from Alpha. Had it planned that way all along.”
The battalion slowly moved into a position at the foot of the mountain and waited for dawn. From a few yards in front of where Jackson lay next to Hale came the sound of falling water which Jackson supposed was a small waterfall made by a stream running off the mountain. Except for an occasional shout, the village had been silent for several hours. Then it stopped raining, the trees still dripping on them. A water buffalo bellowed, a rooster crowed.
Sounds just like home, Jackson thought.
The sky began to lighten.
“It’ll clear. We’ll have air support,” Jackson heard Hale whisper to a lieutenant.
Jackson watched Hale take the silver eagles out of his ruck.
“Put ’em on for me, Jackson,” Hale said.
Jackson started to pin the first one, but Hale’s fatigues were rotten and the cloth disintegrated beneath Jackson’s fingers. Finally he found a spot that held and attached the eagle. Then he pinned on the other one.
“One battle away from these,” Hale said.
Hale had Jackson put on the whip. After several unsuccessful attempts, Hale managed to make contact with a Forward Air Control plane. The one battery they had left was getting weak. Air control promised Phantoms if the cloud cover over the valley lifted and, later, helicopter gunships and medevacs. Hale had Jackson radio this news to all his commanders.
As it grew light, Jackson saw the waterfall was water from three six-inch-thick bamboo pipes the Montagnards had driven into the hillside, the water falling into a large pool which had formed below. Around the pool the grass had been cropped short by the hill people’s livestock. Jackson held a flare and waited for Hale’s order.
Jackson pressed his face down into the leaves, smelling that Tom Light stink. Hale tapped him on the shoulder, and Jackson raised his head.
“Get ready,” Hale whispered in his ear.
Then Jackson saw a figure at the pool, a young Montagnard woman. She wore a piece of shiny black cloth wrapped around her from her breasts to her ankles and carried a small baby on her back. The woman took the baby out of the sling and placed him on the grass. Then she unwound the cloth and taking the baby in her arms stepped into the pool.
Hale was looking at his watch. Jackson wished he had the starlight so he could know if he was going to live. Light knew. Where was he?
The young Montagnard woman bathed the child who began to cry as she splashed water on him. Then she bent over and placed him on her back. The baby lay his head to one side and stretched out his arms to cling to her. Keeping the child balanced on her back, she began to bathe herself. Just then the sun cleared the mountains and through a break in the clouds fell on the pool, the light shining off a brass ring the baby wore around one ankle.
Loretta, Jackson thought.
He imagined how it would feel to hold her again, and he felt himself grow hard.
“Do it now,” Hale whispered.
Jackson rolled over on his side and, aiming the flare at a thin place in the tree cover, started to hit the bottom of the tube with his palm. But he hesitated, glancing at the woman who was still in the pool. She had begun to sing, her voice soft.
“Now!” Hale said.
Jackson hit the tube, the star cluster going off with a pop, the flare ripping through the leaves, taking forever to clear the trees. But finally it did, and with another pop the parachute opened, and the red flare began to burn. As Jackson scrambled to his feet, he saw the woman with the baby in her arms staring up at the flare. The baby looked at the flare and laughed. She started to scream, her mouth opening wide, but he heard no sound coming out because the shooting had started — frags, automatic rifles, machine guns drowned out the woman’s screams. Leander’s mortar squad began to fire at the bunkers.
They were all up and running. Jackson’s legs were not working right, for it seemed to him that it took minutes instead of seconds for him to run past the woman who crouched with her screaming child by the side of the pool, the mother trying to wrap the piece of cloth back around her body. Her breasts, big with milk, swayed as she tugged at the cloth. The baby reached for her, one tiny hand clutching a breast. Finally they were past the woman and her baby, Jackson looking for cover as they ran into the village, but forced to go where Hale went because Hale had the handset in his hand.