advised on the smoke.”
“Reach. What color smoke grenades do you have?” the lieutenant said.
Strader swung his pack to the ground. “One red and one yellow.”
Lieutenant Diehl held out his hand. “Bronsky, tell Highball the smoke will be yellow.” He stood waiting, arm extended, until Strader handed over the canister. “I’m glad we’re using one of yours, Reach,” he said. “It’s kind of poetic.”
“Why is that, sir?”
“Because a Marine should hail his own cab.”
The lieutenant handed the smoke grenade to Franklin, who was standing off to the side with the Chief, and urged him toward the clearing. “When I signal, pop the smoke and start the fuses. And don’t take your time getting back here. We won’t be waiting for Doc to pull splinters out of your ass.”
Franklin headed into the clearing, pulling on his flak jacket as he went. The Chief squatted where he was, always conscious of the size of the target he made.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Strader said. “What cab?”
The lieutenant looked up at the cloudless blue sky above the clearing, appreciating the view generally denied him in the Arizona. “What is your DEROS, Reach?”
Strader looked at Bronsky, but the radioman turned away, busying himself with an imaginary problem with the handset.
Strader didn’t need to calculate his date of expected return from overseas. “I’ve got three days and a wake-up,” Strader answered.
“Hear that, Doc?” the lieutenant said. “Three days and a wake-up.”
The corpsman was sitting on the ground, using his pack for a backrest. “Don’t look for sympathy here. I’ve got five months and a wake-up.”
The lieutenant stopped looking at the sky and turned to Strader. “This is your ride coming. When we get the supplies off the chopper, you get on.”
Strader let his pack fall to the ground. His eyes darted about like an animal’s looking for a way out of a trap. “I can’t leave, sir. My squad’s short two rifles now. The ones I have are a headache when we’re in the rear. Out here in the boonies . . .” His mind raced to find some piece of logic that would dissuade the lieutenant, even though experience told him that two stripes never overruled one bar in the Corps. In the hierarchy of Marine Corps firepower, he was a mere peashooter.
Lieutenant Diehl put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll be back in a couple of days. You’ll have plenty of time to buy everybody in An Hoa a beer before you go. You can even buy me one. So grab your gear. That’s an order.”
“Sir, I can’t go.”
“You can, and you will.” The lieutenant tried to soften his authoritarian voice; he’d grown to like Strader. “Look,” he said, “you should never have come on this operation. The Arizona has always been a nightmare, and the captain was sure we were going to step in it, like always, and you would be needed. But for some reason Charley is doing his best to avoid us—too busy doing something else, I guess—so you’re just here for the exercise. There’s no point.”
“I can stay and still have a day left to get squared away after we get back.”
Argument from subordinates wasn’t tolerated in the Corps, but the lieutenant’s fondness for Strader tempered his frustration. “You may not be familiar with military law concerning disobeying orders in the field. Chief! Get over here.”
The Chief stood and jogged the few steps to where they stood, feeling oddly self-conscious. “Sir,” he said.
“You ever shoot a white man, Chief?”
The Chief seemed stunned by the question. He wasn’t at all sure what the lieutenant expected him to answer. “No, sir,” he said, slowly and with caution.
Bronsky moved over beside Doc Garver. “Not that we know of,” he whispered.
“Would you like to?” Lieutenant Diehl asked.
A broad smile spread over the Chief’s face. He was trailing his M16 by the front stock and slowly raised it up with both hands. That Strader was his squad leader made the prospect even sweeter. “It would make my ancestors very happy,” he said.
“Your choice, Reach. You go out on the supply chopper or on a medevac.”
Strader could see that further resistance was not only futile but, judging from the twisted grin on the Chief’s face, probably dangerous. He was sure the lieutenant was being facetious, but the look in the Chief’s eyes left little doubt that if the order was given, he might enjoy pulling the trigger.
“Chief, please don’t shoot Reach,” Doc said. “I just got comfortable.”
A distant pounding interrupted the farce. Every Marine in 1st Platoon sensed it; the sound seemed to emanate from their core, subtle thuds that punched the chest in rapid succession like little concussion grenades. At the lieutenant’s command, Franklin pulled the pin on the smoke and tossed it into the tall grass a few yards away. It pinged, sending the spoon spinning into the air, and the canister spewed clouds of yellow smoke that billowed up from the clearing on columns of hot air like a drawing chimney. In seconds an H-34 helicopter streaked over the clearing at ninety miles per hour, just above treetop level. Anyone who wanted to take a shot at it would have to be quick on the draw. The huge radial piston engine staggered the trees and made the ground quiver as the helicopter banked to starboard and climbed.
The H-34, officially designated the UH-34 D, was the workhorse of the Marines in the northern provinces of I Corps. While the Army flooded the southern provinces with the UH-IE, which looked like a scorpion and became universally known as the “Huey,” in the north, the Marines’ mainstay was a flying truck that looked like a grasshopper. The H-34 was forgiving, it could outcarry the Huey, and it could absorb enough punishment to sink a battleship and still stay in the air.
Bronsky held the radio handset out to the lieutenant. He had to shout to be heard. “Highball wants a sit rep, sir.”
Lieutenant Diehl grabbed the handset. “Highball, this is Pounder One. The LZ is secure, over. Do you read? The LZ is secure.”
“That’s good, Pounder. I’ll just set down on top of one of those trees and you can climb up and get your supplies, over.”
As Lieutenant Diehl watched, Franklin pulled the rings on the igniters and started running back to the CP screaming “Fire in the hole” at the top of his lungs.
Lieutenant Diehl grabbed Bronsky by the shoulder strap and pulled him toward the embankment. “Bring it in now, Highball. We’re throwing out the welcome mat. Over and out.”
Marines scrambled over the edge of the embankment, ducked behind high ground, and crouched behind any tree with enough girth to provide cover.
As the escort 34 swept away and banked steeply to port, the door gunner looked straight down on the jungle’s canopy, a roiling green sea. The supply 34 started a straight descent toward the clearing.
The copilot signaled the crew chief that they were going in, and the chief and the
