Robert Mason - Chickenhawk

“We’re almost there,” I said.

“Thank God. Can you imagine getting back to the company with a fifty-dollar puddle? Ringknocker’d kill me.” He laughed.

I landed on the strip at a spot near the mess hall. A truck pulled out, and the crew began unloading the ice as I shut down. From there it was trucked to one of our

tents, where it entered a complicated distribution system that delivered ice to our company, the nearby engineers, and the 101st before dark.

Being in the ice business gave me the trading material I needed to build a bunker. Both Gary and I were nervous about being mortared. The Prospectors thought we were overreacting. They had never been mortared. We enlisted Stoddard’s help. He was an energetic excavator. Within a day, with Stoopy doing most of the digging, we had a four-by-four hole, six feet deep. While Gary and Stoopy filled sandbags to wall the bunker, I took a Jeep over to the engineers and struck a deal with a captain there. He gave me three sheets of PSP for one block of ice. I took the steel planks, on account, and brought them back. We layered three levels of sandbags on top of them. It was a snug little bunker. And though we knew it probably could not withstand a direct hit, it might, and that gave us great comfort.

Meanwhile, the Prospectors laughed. But Gary and I knew better.

That evening Gary and I sat on our bunker, quietly talking about going home. We were now short-timers with less than seventy days to go.

“They say they’re going to use short-timers only on noncombat missions during their last month.” Gary sipped his daily Budweiser.

“I heard. I think a great plan would be to take a leave ten days before that; when you come back, you’re finished fighting. Just fly rice and stuff around back at Phan Rang.”

“You going to?”

“Yeah, why not? We could both get a leave together. I found some great places in Taipei.”

“I heard it’s better in Hong Kong.”

“ It is, eh? Okay, Hong Kong. I’ve never been there. You wanna take a leave there?”

“Yeah.”

By the end of the first week, we had lifted companies of grunts from the 101st into positions at the north end of the valley. They were getting into firefights, but nothing big. We also established an artillery position in the foothills, placed so that it controlled the semicircle in which the 101st fanned out. Intelligence had reported that there was at least a battalion-sized NVA unit out there, and the 101st was eager to make contact.

My schedule was always blank in the afternoons, and I continued flying the ice runs. After a few days, Sky King and I had worked out a procedure in which the one of us who stayed with Bricklin could drink, while the one who went for the ice stayed dry—so that there would be at least one sober pilot to fly back. This made the daily flights more enjoyable. I was beginning to like being a Prospector. They might be eccentric, but they got the job done, and had a good time doing it. And except for the six casualties we experienced on that first day, no one had been hurt. It was, almost, pleasant.

Things seemed to be going well with the Prospectors. Joviality reigned among them while the action lulled. But something was different about us when compared to the outside world, as we demonstrated the next day.

Most people were in camp when a Chinook landed from Saigon. Ringknocker went out to greet four Red Cross girls as they stepped out of the back of the ship. Deacon joined Ringknocker, and the two of them escorted the girls back toward the camp. I was sitting on my cot, watching the party coming our way. Looking down the tent row, I noticed that everybody had disappeared. The place had suddenly become a ghost town. Gary peered out at the women and announced, “Doughnut Dollies,” but stayed inside. As Ringknocker walked the girls down the company street, obviously looking for someone to introduce them to, he could find no one. The girls began to look nervous as they peered into the dark tents, occasionally seeing a shadowed face peering silently back. They walked down the line of tents and back. Ringknocker and Deacon escorted them back to the Chinook. Meanwhile, the crew of the Chinook had deposited a pile of cardboard boxes on the airstrip. We watched Ringknocker nodding as someone explained them. The worried girls shook Ringknocker’s hand, looked quizzically around the deserted camp, and boarded their ship. Minutes later they were gone. When the ship was safely away, the Prospectors reappeared as if nothing had happened.

“Why did they do that?” I asked Gary.

“Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. I just couldn’t go out and meet them. We all must be nuttier than we think. I mean, round-eyes. Everybody talks about seeing round-eyes again, and here they were five minutes ago, and we all hid?”

“Gratuitous issue.” Deacon pointed to the boxes.

“What’s that?” asked Gary.

“Free stuff from the Red Cross.”

We walked over and drew gifts of soap, combs, toothpaste, and cartons of cigarettes. And everyone looked guilty. They came bearing gifts and we shunned them. Sky King ran out to the airstrip and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Come back!” he yelled. “Come back!”

I watched the sagging top of my mosquito bar from inside. Resler kept a light on and wrote letters. Lying on my back, I noticed that I would have to find another place to put my electric shaver and assorted junk that I kept on top of the mosquito netting. It sagged too much.

Stoopy was buried under his blankets, asleep. One nice thing about the highlands, it was cool at night. Gary turned off his flashlight and for a while I heard him wrestling with his cot and blankets as he tucked in the mosquito netting. Then it was quiet. From far away, I could hear the occasional noises of battle. The 101st was getting more action every day.

I could not sleep. I stared into the darkness and thought about how it would feel to be out of the combat assaults. Gary and I had requested leave to start in two weeks. If all went as planned, we would both be into our last thirty days when we got back. A barrage of artillery sounded in the distance. I felt tense. After nearly a year of unconscious listening I could instantly tell incoming rounds from outgoing, even if I was sleeping next to the artillery or mortar positions. There was something ominous about the noise from the north end of the valley.

The electric razor above me sparked. My throat tightened in fear. The booby trap? The sparks grew to a white blaze. From the intensity of a Fourth of July sparkler, it suddenly blazed to a blinding white flame. I rolled out of the cot onto the ground and stood up. Flickering shadows were cast by the intense blaze. The inside of the tent was brighter than daylight. “Gary! Fire!” I shouted as I backed into a tent rope. The dazzling light flickered green through the canvas of the tent. When Gary said, “What’s the matter?” the light flicked off. I stood out in the cool night, in my underwear, sweating and shivering. Gary was beside me.

“What’s the matter?” His voice was calm.

“You didn’t see a fire?”

“What fire?”

“In the tent. My razor blew up. You didn’t see it?”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” I walked cautiously back into the tent. Stoddard was still asleep. I used Gary’s flashlight and shined it on the top of the mosquito bar. My razor gleamed in the light—intact. I touched it cautiously, then picked it up. It was cold.

“How can that be? It was burning, as bright as a magnesium flare. I saw it!”

“Bob, nothing burned.”

“Look, I’ve got spots from looking at it in my eyes right now.”

“No one can see another person’s spots.”