James Crumley - One to Count Cadence

Saunders, wearing fatigues he had obviously slept in, was on the other side, screaming on the wire to the mortar pits, "Illumination, goddammit! Illumination! Alternate! Illumination!" Then he would shout at the guard in the spotting tower to get off his ass and direct fire, goddammit. Tetrick ran in behind me, dressed in underwear and combat boots. He rubbed the side of my face, my shoulder, and my ribs, then drew back a bloody hand.

"Just scrapes," he said. "You're all right."

I had been, as long as I didn't know I was bleeding, but the sight of his red hand hit me behind the knees, and they shook so badly, I staggered as I followed Tetrick over to Saunders.

"Get some men in the com trench," Saunders said. "Need cover so the men in the vans can get over here."

"Already done," Tetrick said. "I got Barnes and Garcia kicking 'em outta the slit trenches," he continued, but Saunders was listening to the phones.

"Coming down the trenches. Both sides," he yelled. "Stop them. Spotter says demo teams."

Tetrick waved me toward the right, then pushed me as he went to the left. Behind us, Saunders screamed for illumination, the radioman screamed for a flare ship and an air strike, and the wounded screamed for mercy. Saunders was getting some illumination, but no one else got anything.

In the trench, by the pale ghostly light from drifting flares, I could see men leaping and running out of the vans, trying to get to the trench. My old Trick had been working mids. Cagle and Novotny flew directly at me, but a mortar explosion threw Cagle ten feet to the right. He landed still running, but now as if he were being pushed from behind, three or four quick shoves, and bursts of black blood exploding across his chest, and I knew he must be dead, but I didn't think about it. Novotny slid into the trench like a man stealing second, his rifle held high, but I grabbed him before he hit bottom, jerked him down the trench behind me, then up to the wall around the nearest van where we crouched, trembling, mouths sucking for air, until three VC in jockstraps carrying satchel charges crept down the trench below us. As they passed us, I elbowed Novotny, set the Armalite down in favor of the shotgun, then stepped behind. Three quick rounds of 00 buckshot smashed them to the ground. Two more, directed at the two that still had heads, saved me the trouble of checking them out. When I turned, Novotny still sat there, looking up at me like a whipped pup. With a double handful of fatigue jacket, I pulled him to the trench.

"Shoot, you bastard, shoot."

He fired a tentative round into the trench. I slapped him. He turned, angry, then back, and he fired into the bodies until I slapped him again. He followed when I turned and ran, leaped the trench, and rolled over the protective wall into the mortar pit.

Novotny fell directly on top of me, and what little wind I had left fled into the stream of incredible noise wailing about my head. Vaguely, I wondered if he had broken any of my ribs. It felt as if the right ribs were sticking into my lung, and when I vomited up my supper, I ran my fingers through it to see if there was any blood. I didn't find any. I wasn't quite tired enough yet to sleep in my own vomit, so I got to hands and knees, and as I did, the sergeant in charge of the mortar pit stepped on my hand. I stood up quickly, knocking him down.

"Get off my fucking hand," I screamed.

"Get out of my fucking pit," he shouted.

"I'm trying to get some cover for your fucking pit."

"Well, do it. Don't stand there with your finger up your ass." Sick, tired, bloody, surely dying, I tugged Novotny along behind me among the burning squad tents, shaking kids out of their holes. Somehow, no, not somehow, but with punches, kicks, and horrible threats, we wrestled ten frightened kids to their rifles and to the protective wall in front of the mortar pit, stood them there with a boot in their butts each time they tried to sit, and made them fire down the trench. We would have had eleven, but I hit one recalcitrant too hard, and left him unconscious in his slit trench. He took a direct hit from a mortar as I herded my group away. One of the herd accused me of murder until I threatened to murder him. But I got ten of them there, and left Novotny in charge.

I went back down the trench to the CP, down and over bodies of the dead and the frightened. The smoke cover was gone, and the burning squad tents made lovely silhouettes of their heads. The automatic fire from the M-60 came at them like a plague of locusts, and they lay in their holes, those alive, firing into the night air. Popping up once, I saw a VC with dynamite grenades blowing the radio vans. Those who hadn't made it back already, wouldn't now. I threw five or six rounds at the VC, but he ducked behind a van, so I moved on to the CP.

Things seemed more ordered there. The air strike and the flare ship were on their merry way, the Vietnamese troops had rallied and sealed their perimeter with heavy and heroic losses, but the Vietcong had breached the western gate again, and would have poured in but for our 81mm mortars, which kept them from massing for a charge. The fire from the edge of the trees and the VC mortars slackened, probably because of a lack of ammo. All we had to do was hold what we had, but there were many VC still in the perimeter contesting what ground we were holding.

"But we have to have that machine gun," Saunders said to me as Tetrick handed me three phosphorus grenades.

"You're both out of your fucking minds," I said, trying to hand the grenades back to Tetrick.

Before either could answer, Lt. Dottlinger stood up in the corner where he had been sitting, saying, "See here, Krummel, that's an order, and you damn well better obey." He had taken time to dress in clean starched fatigues before coming to the CP, and he had walked through the fire like a mad general, and tried to talk to Saunders about leading a charge, but Saunders made him sit in the corner. He was very chipper and clean, but only willing to lead a charge or sit in the corner. Saunders looked as if he had just come off a three-day drunk; Tetrick looked like a dirty old man in his underwear and a dressing around his bald head where a ricochet had peeled a patch of scalp away; surely I resembled death warmed over.

"If he opens his mouth again," Saunders said to me, "kill him. And that is an order." Dottlinger sank back to his corner. "That machine gun is hurting us, Krummel. Take as many men as you want. I'll get you some smoke."

"Get me a fucking tank, will you? Sure. Shit, yes, old crazy Krummel will." I put the Armalite and the shotgun down and walked out of the CP. A burst hit the metal legs of the spotting tower as I stepped out, and lead buzzed about me, plucked at my pants, but missed. Or maybe bounced off. I don't know; I just kept walking.

I arranged with Novotny for some covering fire over the trench, then I slipped into it, hoping they wouldn't shoot me, crawling, cursing under my breath, though no one could have possibly heard me if I had cursed aloud, crawling years just to reach the three bodies of the VC demo men, scrambling months over their slick naked back as noise and light pounded at my head, clubbing my ears, abrading my eyes, pounding, incoming, outgoing, mortars trailing sparks up the sky, flares like flash bulbs hanging fire, fires leaping wild behind me, tracers splitting, screaming the dark shadows above, and as I crept past the latrine, burning canvas fluttered into the earth with me, slow, turning like a red-gold autumn leaf, peaceful. My mind, my body said the attack had already lasted out time itself, but my watch lied in less than an hour. I threw it away, then myself as rounds from the covering fire laced the sides of the trench, scattering dirt and solid fright against my face. Head on bloody arm, I slept, no more than an instant, but surely sleep, for I dreamed of an old hawk-faced maiden aunt of my father's who told him that Americans were bad soldiers because they were afraid. Afraid not of dying, but of getting dirty, and they died because they wouldn't crawl on their bellies, not pride but cleanliness next to godliness, and then I squirmed on under the fire, belly, boots, and chin trailing wakes in the filth under me, and I lived.