Robert Mason - Chickenhawk

“First things first,” said Ringknocker. “Hey, Red, take Mason over to your tent. He gets the empty bunk there.” I started out the door with Red. “When you get your gear organized, come on back. Chow’ll be served in about a half hour, and then we can talk.”

“Yes, sir.”

He beamed.

The tent floor was rolling red dust, but there was a plywood platform next to my cot. I sat on the cot, which was already made, and looked around. Red was smiling at me from his cot. God, they don’t even have a floor, I thought. “Why do they call him Ringknocker?” I said.

“He’s a West Pointer, wears a class ring.”

“Ah.” I had never met one before. Now his aggressive, cordial manner seemed appropriate. “Seems like a nice guy.”

“Yeah, he is. Lot better than our last CO. Nobody liked that prick. That’s why he woke up one night with a knife sticking out of his chest.” Red announced this as though that was the typical way in which incompetent commanders were dealt with.

“You’re kidding.”

“No. He was black and an asshole. We still don’t know who stuck him.”

“He was killed?”

“No. We got him to Cam Ranh just in time.” Red grinned. “It all turned out to the good, though. The replacement CO was Ringknocker, and he’s a natural leader. You know what I mean?”

Though I had never met one, I thought I knew what he meant.

The club I had been in was one half of the tin-roofed building. The other side was their mess hall. Dinner was served by Vietnamese waitresses to groups of four sitting at cloth-topped tables set with clean napkins and bronzeware. During the meal, Red told me that everything was paid for out of club dues and the meal tickets. “But don’t get used to it; we’re never here anyway.”

Before we finished, I heard guitar music coming from the club on the other side of the bamboo partition. The building shook as a Phantom F-4C hit its afterburner on takeoff. This was an air-force base. The runway was a quarter mile from the Prospectors’ camp. The Prospectors were a little band of gypsies camped in a vacant corner of the walled city.

A voice wailed from the club as Red and I walked in.

“Man, that’s horrible,” said Ringknocker.

“We can change it, but it’s a start,” said the singer, a captain named Daring.

“Haw, you can take that ditty and flush it, Daring, you asshole!” a pink-faced cherub of a man yelled from the bar. He was Captain King, otherwise known as Sky King.

“Okay, okay, goddamnit.” Daring glared at Sky King. “Let’s hear what you got.”

“What I got goes squish, squish between Nancy’s legs. Right, Nancy?” Nancy, a Vietnamese girl of twenty, had special permission to work at the bar until eight o‘clock. All other Vietnamese workers had to leave at dusk.

“Nooo! You bad man!” She blushed. To my knowledge Nancy never cooperated with any of Sky King’s vulgar requests, or anyone else‘s, either. She was beautiful, neat, efficient, and an excellent barmaid. To all advances she announced that she was married.

“Hey, Mason.” Ringknocker leaned back from his table when he saw me. “Do you recognize your comrade, here?” He pointed to a heavy-set man sitting beside him.

“No, sir, I don‘t,” I said. Ringknocker waved me over.

“This is Mr. Cannon, from…” He looked at Cannon.

“Delta Company, 227th,” announced Cannon.

“From right around the corner,” I said. “Nice meeting you.”

Cannon just nodded, looking worried.

“Yep. Cannon flew guns in the Cav,” said Ringknocker. “But in our company, we assign pilots to the guns by their weight. You now how weak those B models are, especially loaded up with ammo. So all our gunship pilots are skinny fucks, like you.”

A shock hit my body. That’s why Cannon looked so worried. Ringknocker was making him fly slicks. And he was going to make me fly guns.

“What’s the matter?” Ringknocker said, reading my face.

“I fly slicks.”

“Yeah, and I fly guns,” Cannon interjected.

Ringknocker lowered his eyebrows to a more official level. “Well, my policy is skinny guys in the guns, fat guys in the slicks. Besides, I don’t know what you’re worried about, Mason. Guns are a lot safer than slicks. Most of our hits are taken by the slicks. In the guns you at least have something to shoot back with.”

A Phantom roared on takeoff.

Daring changed a line: “Sky troopers sailing through the air…”

“I’ve flown six hundred hours of combat time as a slick pilot. All my experience is in slicks. And I’m still alive. I don’t want to change anything I’m doing at this stage of the game.”

“That goes for me, too,” said Cannon. “I’m still alive, and I don’t want to change nothing.”

“Six hundred hours?” Ringknocker looked impressed.

“That’s right.”

“Shit,” he said, “the most anybody, even Deacon, has in our company is three hundred.” Ringknocker tapped his ring on the table. “Flew your ass off, hey?”

“Yeah, and I understand slick flying.”

“And I understand guns,” said Cannon.

“Shit!” Ringknocker looked dismayed. “I have my policies, you know.” Cannon sat back in his chair, looking pissed off. I was thinking, Another fucking book man.

“Okay, okay, all right, fuck it,” said Ringknocker. “Fuck my policy. Cannon, you fly guns. Mason, you fly slicks.” Ringknocker grinned. “And that’s an order.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“It’s a deal,” said Cannon.

“Settin’ our traps to catch them bears…” droned Daring.

“No, no, no.” Ringknocker suddenly leaned into the circle of songwriters. “Horrible, horrible, horrible.”

Sky King dropped to his knees, holding his hands on his ears. “I’m sick!” he yelled. He humped over and retched loudly.

“Look. We get a decent song, we get invited to Saigon for two days in the sing-off,” Ringknocker announced. “You wanna have two days to fuck off in Saigon, don ‘cha?”

I sat there dumbfounded as Ringknocker explained. A sing-off? Song contest? Cannon, arms folded across his chest, looked at me and shook his head. These guys are strange.

The songwriters argued; then Daring strummed once more. This time three other guys, out of the twenty in the club, sang along. While they sang I noticed something moving on the wall. A human skull mounted above the bar moved its jaw, clacking along with the song. Sky King was pulling the string that led from the skull to the end of the bar. “Sing it, Charlie!” he yelled.

“Charlie?” I said to Red.

“Yeah, Doc made him from a VC head we brought in.”

I nodded. What else would you call a VC head?

The song ended.

“Puke,” said Deacon.

“You really think so?” Ringknocker asked with a worried look. Deacon was one of the two platoon leaders in the Prospectors. He was also the company’s IP and part-time sage. He wore a graying flattop over a smooth and sincere face. Ringknocker trusted him implicitly.

“Yes,” said Deacon.

“Well,” Ringknocker shook his head, “we’ll just have to keep trying.”

The Prospectors left at dawn. I stayed behind with another warrant named Staglioni. We were to bring out a slick that was being repaired.

Staglioni told me that four or five ships in the company were already out in the field at Nhon Co. “That’s what we usually do. We have some guys go ahead and set up camp while the rest of us come back here to take a break.” Staglioni was tall and soft and dark. His accent was New York to me.