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The days passed, baking in the grass under the white blazing sun, digging trenches, cleaning the area of rubbish left by the Yanks, eating food cooked by the Yanks.....
"Okay, Brit; how many eggs ya want, boy?"
"Er, two, if you please."
"Hey, ya can have as many as ya want, just eat all ya take!"----and watching the constant aerial activity: groups of 40 Hueys in flies of ten buzzing along like strings of giant dragonflies, curving around and down to earth, crouching, and then lifting slowly with their load of soldiers, climbing singly, gaining speed and formation as they flew off to the east.
"In one glance we can see more helicopters here than there are in all of Great Britain," observed an impressed Tim Henry.
"Yeah," from his fellow platoon commander, Dale Ball, "but nobody knows what's going on, despite all the show."
Sternly from Crosby, "Are you trying to flout tradition, Mr. Ball?"
As each company arrived to expand the perimeter, muttering soldiers filled in the pits they'd dug and began a new one---sometimes only 30 yards from the old place.
The Belmeath arrived on the coast, and the road convoy from it drove in at stand-to one evening. Then all the things from Belmeath's great hull began to appear---tents, Centurion tanks, Land-Rovers, trucks, FV432 Mk. 3 "Bulldog" armoured command vehicles (ACV), telephone cable, and the inevitable typewriters and paper.
A tent city sprouted; showers were erected and latrines dug. Deep stormwater drains crisscrossed the area, each claiming their share of the unwary, probably the noisiest being one of the battalion characters, Sergeant Eddie Osborn: a soccer player, six foot four, loud of voice, and direct in action. Stomping forcefully into his tent one pitch-black night, he puts a size 11 boot into an ammo box used as a cigarette-butt tin, and instead of halting and removing it by hand, tries to shake it off in the best Eddie manner---stomp, thump, off balance in the pitch black, one flailing arm catches in a mosquito net, net wraps around body now pirouetting out of control, into camp table that goes over with a crash, the whirling 160-pound body reeling in the dark, hits a camp stretcher, crashes onto it, falls out the back of the tent, a roaring mass wrapped in mosquito net and tropical sleeping bag rolling across the 6 feet of ground into the yawning blacker mouth of the drain. The eruption of clanking, crashing, and thumps accompanied by the distinctive roaring voice halted all conversation for 200 yards: heads popped out of tent flaps.
"What the deuce is going on?"
"How the hell would I know? Eddie's gettin' stuck into something'."
"Bit early for the big bastard to be pissed, eh, what?"
"Infiltrators!" roared Kelly, reaching for rifle and belt, eyes peering into the black.
Dustin Shields, one of the tent's occupants, ran to the front calling, "Eddie! Eddie! What's goin' on? Where are ya?"
From the darkness, a muffled curse and "I'm in 'ere, Dustin," and Dustin blindly plunged into the Stygian darkness, hands outstretched meeting upturned tables, disarrayed beds, clothes once neatly stacked now on the floor, all the while, the muffled curses and sounds of struggle so close in front of the pitch black.
"Arrrrrrrumph----bloody thing----Dustin, c'mon!"
A slowly gathering group in the darkness outside wondering what the hell has happened, imaginations beginning to flare up.
"Eddie," plaintively, "where are ya? I can't find ya!"
Eddie jerked his head free of the mosquito net folds, and his roar was plainly heard 400 yards away in the soft black Vietnamese night.
"In the fuckin' stormwater drain, ya bleedin' arsehole!"
Pete Montgomery, the intelligence officer, hung his safari helmet on the corner of the mirror fixed to the tent pole, sank into a canvas field chair, spread his extended legs, and slapped his open palms onto his thighs.
"Well, active duty and travel is said to broaden the mind, and I think the III Corps Conference will live in my memories of Vietnam."
"Oh?" from pudgy, rugby-loving Captain Alec Collins, the adjutant.
"Yes, I've never seen anything like it. It's held in a large room, about sixty by thirty feet, no ceiling, just the roof of galvanized corrugated iron. The chief staff officer sits at the head of the table and calls on people from the units and so on to report.
"If you don't have any interest in what's going on, you talk to your neighbor or just get up and walk over to the window with two others, spin a yarn and have a smoke. When the rain starts on the roof, no one can hear anyway. The leaks make life interesting as well. Lieutenants just turn their backs on a full colonel and talk about where they were last night. Incredible! Come on down and broaden your experience, won't you, young Alec!"
"Wouldn't miss it for tuppence, Pete."468Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOiRaUhuMPz
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The first patrols went out: three Britons as members of American patrols to familiarize themselves with the area before the battalion patrolling program began in earnest. The first groups of three returned with accounts of Americans patrolling that gave much cause for snorts, laughs, and contemptuous sneers at Yank professionalism.
"We turned up over there, met the Yank patrol commander, and he took us down to the company. He just walks in and says, 'Okay, youse guys," said Aiden Quaid with a Yank accent, 'who wants to go on a patrol?' an' a couple of the dogs sort of act real indifferent, say 'Okay sarge,' grab their M16s and stand up. The sergeant says, "Okay, we're gonna head out a piece an' try to get us a buncha Cong' and that's all the patrol preparation there is! No briefing, no map, no check of gear, no chain of command, no arty, no action on contact, just 'who wants ta go?' and 'we're gonna get a few Cong!' Ya get out there and they are crashin' along, one has a transistor, their coughin', and spittin', and fartin'. No wonder we never saw any bloody thing. They dunno the first fuckin' thing about it!"
After the night on which two groups fired on each other and the third was collecting one lot of Land-Rovers from the small battle, enthusiasm for patrolling with the Yanks all but disappeared.
Shortly after, the British began their own patrolling program, and until the battalion left, there was never a day or night without patrols out in the area to the battalion's front, extending to the major river flowing east to west. The VC had used the area as their own, approaching to attack the airbase and retreating through it. Now, after several small patrol battles, they could no longer roam at will. Their couriers, food supplies, resting places were all in danger, and VC activity stopped.
After several months, fallow ground that lay some distance from the towns was again cultivated. Virgin ground was broken, some forestry work began; the market became livelier, and electric street lighting was installed.
The marketplaces were to provide a point of comparison later, when operations took the British into areas controlled by the VC; there the marketplaces were deserted, overgrown and unused. All produce was seized by the National Liberation Front. However, in areas under government control, the markets were thriving, bustling centers of activity.
Meanwhile, in other areas of the country, the VC were very active, continuing their series of successful battles, smashing the government forces, demonstrating their superiority.
The Army of the Republic of Vietnam had a garrison some miles away on the edge of the large river. Part of the garrison consisted of 155mm howitzers employed to fire into the huge expanse of jungle designated War Zone D.
One night soon after the British arrived, tropical rain poured down, clouds covered the sky, and the inky darkness was complete. Softly but distinctly through the night came the thuds of explosions: the word got around:
"The Charlies are hitting the camp at Bien Ðoc, and the wheels are worried they might get the 155s and turn 'em on the airfield."
"Sounds like a problem for the U.S. Air Force chaps, eh, mate?"
"Yeah, but they've turned out a lot of lights---look!"
And through the steamy, sultry wetness, the glow from the airfield was greatly reduced.
"The beggars must be worried. Anyway, there's not much we can do against 155 rounds in the air."
10-feet underground, in the humid command post, the two captains on duty decided to send a situation report to brigade HQ. Ignoring the radio and telephone, as the fiendishly cunning VC had been known to listen to radio transmissions and tap telephone wires, young Captain Alec Collins, as adjutant, decided the best thing to be done was to send the report by messenger. A happily sleeping driver was awakened and a not very impressed Joe Fox---who better to go, being a Vietnamese-speaker?--given the sealed envelope:
"To be delivered by you to the duty officer at the brigade CP. Understand that?"
"Yessir!"
Outside, Fox spoke earnestly to the driver. "Listen, guv'nuh, apart from being woken up in the middle of the fuckin' night, you better believe we're in a prick of a position. We have to take this friggin' envelope to brigade HQ---fair enough---but in this pissin' rain, pitch-black night, past all those wog posts, and through the trigger-happy bloody Yanks. Okay?"
"Fuckin' hell!"
"You said it. Now listen---go real slow, convoy lights only, and for God's sake, stop and go when I tell you. Those bastards out there will shoot at us as soon as they look at us. They think the VC are comin' as well, so we gotta be really careful. Okay, let's move."
And so began a trip in pouring rain and pitch-black, along a road without directions, past nervous Vietnamese and American posts, getting lost among the vehicles and conex containers of the supply unit, calling out loudly and firmly: "British" as each post announced its presence by a "Halt! Who is there?" simultaneous with the click-clack of machine gun bolt. After 45 minutes, brigade CP was reached; the rain had let up and the reflected glow from the town lights dimly showed the white MP helmets and building. To the north, the explosions had stopped.
The American duty officer looked up in surprise at the appearance of the wet, muddy Briton, producing an envelope from his pocket. "Message from the British battalion, sir."
With a questioning glance at his radio and telephones, the American opened the envelope, read it and then looked up, a light in his eyes made of weariness, "another-illusion-destroyed, nothing-can-shock-me, you-Brits have-them-too, eh?" And with the littlest shake of his crew-cut head, asked, "Do you know what this says?"
"No, sir," as it was proffered for reading under the field lighting---"Sitrep. Nothing to report."
"Fuck me! All the way at night in this weather through the trigger-happy bastards out there---Jesus T.T. Christ!"
"Okay, take car."
"Right, sir."
Out into the dark for an equally careful return, fuming at the stupidity of the officer class.
The arrival of the whole battalion meant the departure of the American cooks and the American quality of food. Back were the traditional British cooks, traditional British rationing of food--"once slice of bread per man, per meal" rumbled the huge bulbous warrant officer caterer, at the dismayed, resigned infantrymen filing past.
"Look at these bastards," muttered Henry Morrison to his mate, Teddy Baker, both "known to have a beer on a hot day."
"Look at the difference between the Yanks and these bastards. At least the Septics were happy and proud to serve the food they cooked. But these bastards are serving horse shit, and they know it. It took a lot of fuckin' imagination and effort to serve bloody spaghetti again---3rd meal in a row. And they're gettin' the food down the hill exactly where the Yanks got it."
"Hey," butted in the Tommy behind them in the queue, "didja hear about Red Berryman? Went in with that fat bastard of a caterer Carmino to pick up the rations. He's got a list of what he wants and starts reading it out. The Yank is a bit shocked at the low number of eggs---Carmino says it's 1/3 of an egg a meal per man, but the Yank doesn't understand that means 1 egg per day---he says, 'Shit man, whyn't ya give 'em a whole egg?' Anyway, when it's all in the truck, the Yank says, 'How about some fruit juice and stuff like that?' Red pipes up and says, 'Yeah, let's have some.' Carmino tells 'im, 'Shut yer pie hole, mister! I'm the caterer here,' and tells that Yank that Britons only eat what he's got on his list!"
The queue moved forward till Henry and Teddy were being served. He turned to Teddy and said loudly, "Ya notice the difference between those Yank cooks and our cooks?"
Carmino, hands on hips, surveying his realm, perks up and moves a pace forward, eyes anticipating a compliment; the cooks and queue in earshot pay attention, "No, Henry, whaddya mean?"
"Well, Yank cooks go to cooking school for fourteen weeks, fair enough, but they only learn how to cook."
Carmino leans forward, all ears, as Henry says, "Our cooks go to cooking school for fourteen weeks, too, but they're mainly taught how to catch blokes coming for a backup."
A roar from Carmino, glares from the cooks, grins and chuckles from the queue, and the two walk off under a hail of threats from the irate Carmino.
"You two bastards won't be fed again!"
And so, in a daily round of erection of tents and marquees, digging trenches, drains and latrines, putting up barbed wire, clearing the ground in front of it, scrounging ammo tins as lockers and wash tubs, laying telephone wire, digging command posts, reminding anyone with a vehicle going outside the area to bring back some beer, waiting for mail, buying the only two items available in the canteen (brilliant purchasing---seventy-pence biros and warm American soft drinks), getting a tan but avoiding sunburn, extending the patrol boundary, watching the incessant air activity, becoming accustomed to the sudden nerve-crunching crash of artillery being fired from the rear (new arrivals started and dropped things, older ones started less until the crash had no effect), gluing maps together and requesting air photos from brigade, and relating tales of American lack of professionalism, the battalion grew acclimatized, and, most of it, waited to start real operations.
In the officers' mess, "Flash" Gordon nodded to the barman and repeated the question put to him by a classmate from military college now on the staff in Saigon. "How do we find the Yanks? Some are very good, very switched on. But in general, half-trained and inexperienced by our standards. I think they're relying on a combination of shouting 'Airborne' and courage to get them through. They are very confident but have nothing to base it on since World War II and Korea. They'll learn the hard way about decking themselves with bright name tags, para wings, and so forth. You'll notice the fashion is to bleach the helmet cover as pale as possible. This is to impress with the length of time in the tropics---sun and rain, and so forth, making the wearer 'an old Asia hand.' How do you reckon those bleached helmet covers will go in the jungle?"
"Ah," said his friend thoughtfully. "Well listen---the M16 now; we look like being able to acquire enough to...." and the conversation moved to the eternal British problem of enough modern equipment.
During stand-to, the men sat watching the scrub in front, and the clearing patrols sweeping past. Friends exchanged yarns in low tones, waiting with the patience of experience for the word "stand-down." A silence settled over the British area, through which floated the shouts, revving engines, transistors, and hi-fi gear of the neighboring Americans.
Suddenly, one evening, to the rear of the rifle companies, from the area of the administration company, a submachine gun fired one long burst---a few shouts---silence.
"What the fuck was that?!"
"Dunno, sounded like a Thompson, but funny."
"Yeah. One of those administration company wackers."
Next day, the story went around: the bloke had suddenly run into his tent and fire a whole magazine into a photo of his family, screaming, "The commies won't get 'em, the commies won't get 'em," which added continuance to his upset manner and performance on the cruise over on the Belmeath.
As the British force lacked the medical and psychiatric facilities, the deranged man was flown to Singapore the next day, and thence to Great Britain via the RAF. Six feet tall, weighing 168 pounds, a member of administration company (back from the perimeter) and unlikely to go on operations, his "nerves" cracked after less than a month in a war zone. Months later, soldiers coming over from Britain related the story of a chap who had been sent back because he got fed up with the way the battalion was being run, and with his own gun, held the assembled officer and sergeants while he lectured them on the right way to run an infantry battalion, then "someone crept up behind me and hit me."
"Well, Blimey," grinned Ricky. "Now we know what really happened that day in administration company."
"Yeah, makes a good yarn, though. He couldn't say he had stomach problems, could he?"
"You mean, no guts?"
"Right."
"Wonder when we'll get leave in Saigon?"
"Coupla cathedrals ya haven't seen yet, eh?"
And so the subject was dropped.
For those whose stand-to positions faced north and northeast over War Zone D, beyond the crest of the slope, the dusk patrols by helicopter provided some entertainment: the flashing red dots of the light on top of the choppers blinking their way across the velvet tropical sky, sometimes with a big yellow moon rising over the horizon---the red dots, always in pairs, blipping low across the sky, sometimes circling as the crews examined something below, then flashing along on another course. Several times, when the red lights were visible against the black but were so far away that no noise reached the watching Tommies, a trail of tinier red dots streamed up from the ground. Immediately, the two helicopter lights, like hunting fish in a dark underwater world, began a circling dance---arc around, straighten into a shallow dive, silent red arrows flare, flit forward and down, and a short red rain spurts slowly after as the rockets and machine guns are fired---all in silence against the backdrop of the soft black night: the blinking ruby turns aside, circling around, and the second begins its shallow dive---before it can fire, the stream of tiny dots leaps up again at the first circling fish; the red shower from the second; red dots rising again until the circling fish, by common consent, veer away, and their blinking red dots grow bigger and brighter as they speed in a straight flight back to the airfield to rearm, the soft drumming engine noise growing to a roar of clattering blades as they streak overhead, circle, and land---home amid the galaxy of lights and their fellow hunters. Out in War Zone D, the soft blackness is complete.468Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKYbkQGewuy
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Aidan Quaid pushed the last roll of maps along the floor in the rear of the Land-Rover, slammed up the tailgate, and perched his thick plastic safari helmet on the back of his head.
Hands on hips, he glanced into the dark interior of the map store where the American storeman was going through the ritual of getting signatures from Ricky for the quantity of maps issued.
Aidan turned, lifting one red-dusted boot onto the rear bumper of the Rover, forearm across knee, and surveyed the scene across the road. The airbase PX sprawled in its air-conditioned comfort, streams of green-clad US Air Force and US Army entering and leaving, with here and there two Britons.
Aidan's eyes fastened on a lone Vietnamese standing outside the PX, near the access road to the side door. Small, dark-skinned, clad in a decrepit Vietnamese air force shirt and trousers---once blue, now gray---neglected black shoes, and a dilapidated, grubby blue cap, skinny arms vanishing into huge canvas protective gloves, he silently stood in the sun by the rear of the garbage truck, watching the streams of casual, tall, laughing, clean, well-dressed Americans striding past into and out of the doorway. His face was expressionless, eyes not seen in the shadow of brow and cap, ignored as a post would be ignored by the men who were visitors to his country. In their pockets and wallets were sums of money he only dreamed of, in the cartons and bags they carried were riches, treasures, and wonders he'd only heard of and could not hope to earn as a lowly private.
Through the windows of the cafeteria could be seen Americans eating the varied luxuries endeared to the Yankee palate: hamburgers, french fries, creamed potatoes, potato salad, roast potatoes, hot dogs, chili con carne, baked beans, bean salad, lima beans, lettuce, celery, cucumbers, ham, roasts, ice cream (flavor after flavor), and all the drinks---Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up, tea (iced or hot), coffee, chocolate, milk (homogenized and pasteurized) in twelve flavors, and twelve fruit juices---all forbidden to the small, thin, scruffy garbage man. He was a free Vietnamese whom the Americans had come to help fight Communism---at tremendous cost in technology, treasure, and blood; assistance which would provide him with any instrument of destruction but would not give him one chocolate bar.
The small onlooker, seen as a figure casting a small shadow on the far periphery of their own awareness of the scene, did not exist for the Americans. Cartons of cigarettes and drinks, radios, tape decks, turntables, speakers, cameras, binoculars, watches, soap, large fluffy towels, sweets, yards of dress and suit materials, all the outpourings of Cornucopia americana flowed past the man who did not exist.
Aidan looked up as Ricky came out of the map store and swung up into the front seat.
"Look at this, Ricky, it's bloody wrong."
"What is?"
"That wog there---arse out his strides, staring at all the goodies. No bastard knows he's there. Even a fuckin' dog would get some attention. How d'ya reckon they all feel, seeing this stuff and not able to have it, just because they're not Yanks or allies, in their own bloody country, too!"
Ricky absorbed the comments, took in the scene, thought for a moment, and turned to Aidan.
"And one thing you better realize right here, mate, is if this was Britain, the garbo could be you," emphasized with jabbing forefinger, "standing there in your own country, ignored by the Yanks, with all their goodies. Think about it. Now, we gotta get back and drop these bloody maps at BHQ. Hop in."
"Well, it never struck me before, ya know. Do the Yanks really need all this stuff? Can't they do their job without all that milk and ice cream, and stereo gear?"
"Aw, ya know, they're a strange mob," said Ricky, flicking glances left and right as he edged onto the road surface, "but Aidan, as the bishop said to the actress when the elephant came into the bedroom, 'It's bigger than both of us,' so don't let it get ya down. Your worries are Veronica an' the kids."
"Yeah, I know, but that sad lookin' little bastard really got to me, old chap."468Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsC4LSXmOtX
The first weeks passed in a rush of digging, getting used to the heat, erecting tents, moving them, observing the Americans and commenting on their methods, and establishing domination over the area to the north by patrolling and ambushing. Then the move out into jungle believed to be held by the VC.
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