side with his knees hiked up and his arms pulled inside his flak jacket in an attempt to preserve body heat. He lay still and tried to keep his eyes closed, but he couldn’t sleep. It was his first night in the bush. The end of his first day, his first long, miserable day, and it was so new and alien that he couldn’t imagine a year of days like it. His occasional glances at Tanner and the Chief weren’t meant to reassure himself that he wasn’t alone, but to have visual proof that becoming accustomed to the life of a grunt was possible. He tried not to move, so the others wouldn’t know he was awake. Spending the night on a lonely LP in a Vietnam jungle shouldn’t be something that would make a Marine lose sleep, even if it was a first night, on his first LP, in his first jungle.
The five men spaced themselves in an irregular line and, on Sau’s command, faded slowly into the undergrowth. They would feel their way with their fingers and toes, slipping through the leafy stalks and branches with no more disturbance than a slight breeze would make. Since plants were less forgiving at their bases, they would remain on their feet for as long as possible. When they were close to the enemy they would be forced to crawl, slicing the plant stalks close to the ground with their knives. It was a game of inches. The closer they got to the target, the slower they would move; in the end, their progress would barely be measurable.
Though Sau was certain how this night would unfold, he had no doubt that he had selected men who knew what to do and how to do it.
After two hours Sau’s men had covered half the estimated distance to their target, but they suddenly stopped and squatted in unison when a distant exchange of small arms fire erupted to the north. To the educated ear, the pops and cracks of the battle told the story. The gunfire echoed across the valley from some dark spot beyond the terminus of the Ong Thu. That nothing larger was introduced told Sau that the clash was taking place some distance from any American compound. He suspected that elements of the R-20th Doc Lap were plying their trade against Marines from one of the outposts at the bridge. The moisture-laden air and the thick foliage made it difficult to determine a precise distance. What sounded far away might be deceptively close. All the five could do was sit on their heels and wait for a reaction from below.
After giving the Chief a furtive nudge with the barrel of his rifle, Tanner weathered a contemptuous glare and then handed over DeLong’s watch. The two sat together listening to the gunfire.
“Sounds like Hotel Company out at Phu Loc,” Tanner whispered.
The Chief looked at the watch then stuffed it into the breast pocket on his flak jacket. “Maybe.”
Tanner leaned back against the tree and tilted his helmet down over his eyes. “Get some, Hotel,” he said to no one in particular.
DeLong thought that pretending to sleep through a firefight, even a distant one, might be a bit transparent, so he raised his head a little and looked at the Chief.
The Chief turned his head slowly. “It don’t mean nothin’ to us,” he said and turned back to the mountain.
DeLong wanted to remind the Chief to take care of his watch, but instead he lowered his head and went back to his make-believe sleep.
Bronsky sat with the radio handset to his ear monitoring the frequencies bouncing around north of their position. The sporadic chatter of gunfire interrupted the quiet slumber of the valley. The lieutenant knelt at his side.
“What’s going on?” Diehl said.
Bronsky listened intently to the handset then turned to the lieutenant. “A night ambush out of Phu Loc made contact. Sounds like a squad of Hotel’s 3rd Platoon.”
“How serious?”
“I think it’s all one-sided now. They’re on the horn to An Hoa, but they ain’t requesting any medevac.”
The distant firing petered out and was followed almost immediately by the boom of man-made thunder. A hushed swish and a loud pop left an illumination flare dangling from its parachute over the valley. The empty canister spun in whooping somersaults on its fall to earth as the harsh glare like an arc welder’s torch stabbed through the trees, pushing in piercing shafts of artificial light at oblique angles. The upper valley was a stark, gray tableau with the only movement the flare rocking peacefully under its silk canopy. Anything in the open that moved would be picked out by the eerie light and become a target for Hotel’s squad. But there was no firing. As the flare’s light began to fade, a second round sailed north from An Hoa, bathing the valley in a fresh glare, and a new parachute began its tranquil descent.
“I think the VC broke contact, sir,” Bronsky said.
The lieutenant moved back to his sleeping position and stretched out. “Switch back to our freq, and stay sharp. Our LP below may get some movement later.”
“Yes, sir,” Bronsky said, and clipped the handset to the strap ring on his helmet to keep it close to his ear.
The artillery compound at An Hoa was far enough from the barracks area that the voice alert for a fire mission wasn’t audible, but the report of the big 155-mm guns jolted the earth and the concussion shook the screening on the huts. Strader was asleep under a poncho liner on his corner cot when the first round slapped him awake. He was on his feet looking across the runway before the shot was halfway to its target. Being awakened by the muzzle blast of a 155 was akin to being struck by lightning, and Strader stood vibrating from his scalp to his toenails. When the flare burst open he could see from the distant glow that it had been called in far north of his 1st Platoon and he relaxed. There were other sleepers in the building, and a voice came out of the darkness. “Reach, you think your guys stepped in some shit?” The first flare dimmed and the second round’s shockwave swept over the building.
“No. It’s just illumes headed out toward the bridge.” He waited to see if the illumination rounds were followed by a flurry of high explosive rounds, but the base was quiet, and after a while he knew that the gun crews were standing down. Strader flopped back on the cot and pulled the poncho liner up under his chin. “I think they’re okay,” he said.
After the last flare extinguished, the five NVA waited until they were sure there would be no response from the Americans on the hill below them. Finally, they raised themselves up as one and began inching downward again. Their progress was now being determined by the density of the clouds that drifted across the face of the moon. When their surroundings were plunged into total darkness, they chanced movement. When the nimbus clouds thinned to a wispy translucency, the five stayed frozen in their spots, reluctant to even blink their eyes. They were close now, and their progress was agonizingly slow. Each man fought against the adrenaline trying to gain control of his system and the searing pain from back muscles crying out for relief.
With no way to pinpoint the enemy position, their fear was that they would stumble into it without warning, so each time they stopped, they strained their ears in hope of picking up any sound that could provide direction. But each time they heard only the voices of the jungle. After a particularly long period of obstructed moonlight allowed a few tentative paces in succession, the cloud cover ended abruptly and the five turned to stone.
