Chapter Four

Vietnam Spring (part three)

Dear Mom and Bob,

I looked at the calendar this morning and realized I've now put in ninety-nine days of my tour in-country. Only ninety-nine more till hump day. You can call it my 25% anniversary, I guess. Or my half-way-to-hump-day anniversary.

Whoopee.

The other thing I noticed is that a while ago the two of you celebrated your one-year anniversary of being in the Bahamas. How's everything in Freeport? Do you two get plenty of lobster salad for lunch? Are you still getting plenty of work, Bob?

More important, if I'm not mistaken, you'll soon be celebrating your fifth anniversary. Congratulations! I still remember the celebration at Steve's Rustic Lodge like it was yesterday. I wish I could have one of Steve's juicy, rare sirloin steaks like I did the night of the wedding. Around here, that kind of food (and fun) is very rare.

Hey, Bob. Remember when we used to sit fishing on the seawall in back of the house in Flor-a-Mar? Well, I've got this Vietnamese kid who comes surf-fishing sometimes with me when I'm not flying. His name is Dac Hoa. He's about the same age, maybe a little younger, than I was when we lived in Flor-a-Mar. He helped me fix up this old bike that I ride to the beach. Dac Hoa supplies the bait, fishing lines and lunch. All I do is show up. His English isn't real terrific but that's okay. You don't need to talk a whole lot when you're fishing.

Well, speaking of fishing, that's where I'm headed now. But I wanted to drop you a line first. The best thing about the beach is the beautiful water and the clean, salty air. It's probably not too different from your West End beach. Here, all you have to do is find a spot away from the snipers. Then you don't get shot at and everybody has a good time.

It's a beautiful spring day here but hot as hell. I can't imagine what summer will be like. But as long as I'm here, I hope to find out.

Love you both,
Josh

Josh pedaled to the beach, south past China Beach, past the two lifeguard towers, each with a lifeguard and an armed Marine lookout. In the bike's basket he had a couple cans of 7 Up and a book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He had been reading out of the book (slowly) to Dac Hoa. But the real season Josh read it is because he still enjoyed the story——just as he had at Dac's age.

He hoped the boy would bring lunch, perhaps cha gio (spring rolls) and dumplings or pho (noodle soup) in a jug. The homemade Vietnamese food from his aunt's kitchen was far superior to anything on base.

Around a jetty, a slim tumble of rocks jutting into the ocean, and beyond a gentle curve lay a u-shaped, cove-like stretch of beach. This was the fishing/picnic spot Josh liked most, a quiet place away from the crowds. The beach sloped upward to a thick-trunked shade tree and the beach road some distance above. There was plenty of military and civilian traffic on the beach road, but the sound of the surf against the rocks drove away the mechanical sounds. Most of the time only the air traffic noise overhead reached the cove.

The first time he and Dac Hoa had fished here they caught speckled trout and some type of mackerel. They waded in the waves and threw the thick black lines beyond, into the shallows near the rocks. The trout tugged at their lines and flashed silver in the surf as they reeled the fish in, wrapping the line tight around a smooth board with a hole punched in it for your thumb.

Two days later Dac Hoa had returned to their fishing spot with moist, steamed trout wrapped in leaves. But today Josh waited with Tom Sawyer in his hand and his back against the rough bark of the shade tree. He looked at the title page and thought about the time in junior high when Larry Katz had argued with their eighth-grade English teacher about Mark Twain being the greatest writer in the history of American literature.

Dixon looked over his shoulder at the sun saddled high over a furrow between the mountains. "Yeah, I come from a place where lots of kids don't smile a lot. Back in Tulsa, the kids, they're poor as shit. They got nothin' to do. 'Cept get in trouble, maybe. After school, they just hang around. Places dirtier than here, man. That's why I got the hell out of there and went to college."

"Where'd you go? Oklahoma State?"

"Naw, I went to a small black school. You never heard of it. We were so poor it wasn't funny. But my momma worked day and night and made me study and I got a piece of a scholarship and got out of there. Got three brothers and two sisters tryin' to do the same thing."

"Good for you."

"But none of 'em's got it easy. It ain't easy livin' on the wrong side of town in a place like Tulsa. If you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean. At least I think. You know, a lot of kids have it tough. I mean, no one ever said growing up's easy. It's just mandatory."

Dixon rose, crushed the empty 7 Up can in his fist and tossed it to Josh. He ran a hand over his close-cropped hair, sweat glistening in the sun.

"But you know, Josh, the funny thing about kids is, if you leave 'em alone long enough, they usually find somethin' to smile about."

Dixon slipped off his sandals and shuffled through the sand to the water's edge. He called to Josh over his shoulder. "You know we got night duty tonight, medic. If I were you, I'd take a swim, cool off and relax till 2100."

Dixon said something else but a big Chinook with flailing twin rotors glided forty feet overhead and eclipsed the words. Josh bundled the empty 7 Up can with the other one in his field jacket, took off his white tee shirt and followed Dixon into the surf.

That night Combs and Dixon sat in the ready room playing hearts for two hours. Aware of the added danger in flying nighttime dustoffs, Marines in the field would only make requests in critical circumstances. Command's orders were strict: no contacts on the medevac frequency unless the casualties appeared unlikely to make daybreak.

The first call didn't come until well after 2300. A VC company had swooped down out of the mountains and ambushed a Marine platoon on maneuvers on the coast near Lang Co. Just before midnight Josh joined the pilot and copilot on their way to the flight line. It was his second night mission, the first being a training exercise a month or so before. Tonight, routinely, they were supposed to be shadowed by a second Huey but the ship had developed fuel line trouble leading to a last-minute scrub.

Alexander waited till he saw them approach to open the clamshell doors. He chunked two extra boxes of 7.62mm rounds into the chopper for his machine gun. The Huey sat ghostly in the revetment with the soft lights from the runway playing on its patched skin. Alexander nodded at Josh and handed him the Thompson submachine gun.

"You know I don't want that thing."

"Never know, mate. Might need it." "I'll put it where I can get to it."

"Clear," Dixon said, and the helicopter's engine cranked and fired. The rotator blades rocked the chopper in its concrete alcove. "Ground," he said, "this is Black Knight medevac ready for taxi."

In moments they were airborne flying over the twin I Corps bridge spans bearing north by northwest in the direction of the Lang Co peninsular. In front of Dixon and Combs, the instruments glowed a dull red. Once over the bay, away from the streaking lights of Da Nang's crowded airspace, Dixon doused the position lights and 188 the Huey sailed ahead in darkness.

"Don't like this moon," Dixon said. "Maybe the fog will kick in near Lang Co and help cover us up."

GO FORWARD TO Vietnam Spring
(part four—END)

GO BACK TO Vietnam Spring
(part two)

Mr. Potter, a diehard Hemingway fan, had dismissed Samuel Clemens as a "nineteenth century" writer. He recommended A Farewell to Arms to Larry the student.

"Read a true masterpiece," Potter said. "A modern story with an accurate and revealing portrait of the human spirit."

"I am," Larry replied. "It's called Huckleberry Finn." Josh smiled to himself, leaned against the big tree and closed his eyes. He waited for a long time before opening one of the 7 Ups. He drank half of it and waited a little longer. Then he picked his way through the rocks up to the road and looked north. He half-expected to see Dac Hoa's dusty bike, battered and gray, rambling along the crumbling asphalt. Instead, a Jeep bounced by beeping its horn and kicking gravel.

Dac's aunt probably had chores for him, Josh thought. Or his uncle, Chen Lo, needed to make a quick buck with Dac's help on a bike repair. One way or the other, it didn't look like he was coming. Josh sat in the shade and eased his back against the tree. He could feel the bark through the thin tee shirt he wore over camouflage fatigues cut and frayed at the knees. The sound of the surf against the rocks made him sleepy. In the distance the sun had peaked over the silhouettes of the Marble Mountains.

The shadow over his eyes woke him. Josh lifted one eyelid just far enough to focus. He tried to see if he needed to grab his K-Bar knife from its sheath behind his back. China Beach with its Marines and lifeguard towers was just around the bend. But the mountains too were only a couple of kilometers away, and there, Josh knew, nested all types of VC assassins and civilian con artists.

The first thing he realized is the figure standing over him couldn't be Vietnamese because whoever it was was too damn big. Josh squinted and slid his hand behind him.

"Whatchoo doin', man? Leave that knife alone."

Dixon crouched down and sat on a rock, adjusting the length of his maroon & navy, paisley print bathing trunks. "You fall asleep readin' my brother, Mark Twain?"

Josh shielded his eyes with his hand and scowled. "You know, you could scare somebody to death like that."

"If you're really scared, Bailey Boy, then you scare much too easily. Which I doubt." Dixon reached down in the shade of the rock and plucked an unopened 7 Up can from the sand. "Now, you might think you were scared, but that just proves you don't know what scared is."

Josh watched him gulp the warm soda. A flight of slow-moving OV-10 Broncos buzzed overhead, shimmering yellow-orange in the afternoon sun.

"Did you come out to check on me?"

"Thought I'd check on the fishin' action. Or maybe take a dip. Your boy get held up?"

"I guess."

"He's a cute kid."

"Dac? Yeah. He's a pretty good little fisherman. Pretty smart, too. I just wish I could get him to smile once in a while."

"Well, Josh, he probably ain't got a lot to smile about, with his parents killed and all. 'Cept you, maybe. I think it's good, you lookin' after him."

"His aunt's really nice. So's his uncle when you get to know him."

Josh wrapped the book and the empty 7 Up can in his field jacket and put it in the basket of the Schwinn propped against the tree.