LITMIR.BIZ

      Far back under the jungle canopy, 1st Platoon was stopped. Nearly every man was squatting or down on one knee, taking advantage of the delay to grab whatever rest was offered. The column stretched well over three hundred feet, with each man able to see only the man ahead and the one behind; heavy undergrowth obscured all else. In the center of the column Lieutenant Diehl stood beside his radioman and watched the shorter man try to hop the heavy radio into a more comfortable position on his back, the blade antenna whipping wildly.

      “Stand still, Bronsky,” the lieutenant said. He checked the notations written on the edge of his plastic-covered map. “We need to change freqs.”

      Bronsky dropped to one knee and leaned forward so the lieutenant could see the top of the radio. Two large knobs controlled the tactical frequencies, and Lieutenant Diehl turned them until the numbers matched those written on his map. He squeezed the handset. “Pounder One to Highball, over.” He released the lever and listened to the static: nothing. He squeezed again. “Pounder One to Highball. Come in, over.” The radio hissed and gurgled, and hissed again.

      “Maybe we need the whip, sir,” Bronsky said, pointing to the auxiliary antenna collapsed inside the narrow canvas case on the side of the radio.

      “Maybe, maybe not,” the lieutenant said, squeezing the handset again. “Pounder One to Highball.” He turned the volume knob, making the static louder.

      “Are you on the right freq, sir?”

      “What do you think?” the lieutenant said. “Have you changed the battery lately?”

      “Fresh this morning. Anyway, Clyde just came in loud and clear.”

      Birds flitted through the jungle canopy, feeding and squawking and ignoring the men below.

      The lieutenant sighed. “Pounder One to Highball.”

      The instant he released the handset lever, a voice jumped back at him. “This is Highball, over.”

      Diehl extended a hand, pulling Bronsky back to his feet. “Highball, this is Pounder One. You busy?”

      “Negative, Pounder. We’re in the air. Your wish is our command.”

      “Be advised, our ETA at WL 477336 is zero five minutes. Copy?”

      “Roger, Pounder One. Contact you this net, over.”

      “Roger, Highball. Pounder One out.” Lieutenant Diehl held the handset out to Bronsky and pushed the folded map back into the bag slung around his neck. “I need Four,” he said.

      Bronsky turned to the man squatting ten feet behind him. “Papa Sierra up,” he said just above a whisper.

      The Marine spoke into the shadows behind him. “The lieutenant wants the platoon sergeant.”

      Receding voices called, “Blackwell up.”

      In less than a minute a tall, black Marine pushed through the brush, mopping his face with an issue towel. The elastic band around his helmet held a bottle of insect repellant and a waterproof cigarette case with a pack of Marlboros inside. Perspiration darkened the waistband of his jungle pants, even soaking his web belt. “Sir?”

      “Who has the demo bags, Sergeant?”

      Staff Sergeant Blackwell squinted as though the answer had to be forced out into the heat. “The Chief has one back in 3rd Squad, and Franklin has the other one up ahead.”

      “Okay,” Diehl said, putting a hand on Blackwell’s shoulder and walking him toward a kneeling man further ahead in the column, whispering instructions like a football coach sending a man in from the bench. “Tell Franklin to put charges on every obstruction in the LZ. I don’t want anything standing higher than his ass.” He stopped and looked back. “Make that Bronsky’s ass. He’s shorter.”

      Bronsky toyed absently with the cord on the radio handset. “That hurt, sir. I’m sensitive about my height.”

      Sergeant Blackwell had learned his tact and diplomacy as a drill instructor at Parris Island. “Both your feet reach the ground. You’re fuckin’ tall enough.” He pushed through the foliage and disappeared.

      The lieutenant got the attention of the man resting at the spot where his sergeant had just disappeared. “Move out,” he said. The word spread up the column. After a few groans, the Marines rose and began moving again.

      By the time the lieutenant’s spot in the column reached the clearing, the embankment across the stream was slick with the mud of dozens of boots, and knee and hand prints decorated the slope where lost footing had been saved. Sergeant Blackwell already had the first half of the platoon setting up defensive positions around the LZ, and Franklin was busy placing a C-4 charge at the base of one of the tall trees.

      When the lieutenant got to the top of the embankment, he turned and gave Bronsky a hand up. “Find Sergeant Blackwell,” he said.

      Before Bronsky could move, the sergeant came from the shadowed edge of the clearing. “Sir?”

      “Sergeant, I want a couple of fire teams and one of the guns where they can cover this stream and the path we cut through the bush.”

      “Will do. I put the other 60 on the rise to the right of the clearing just beyond the tree line.”

      Bronsky extended a hand to the next man struggling up the embankment. Besides his pack the man carried two bags with straps that crisscrossed his flak jacket under a bandolier holding one hundred rounds of M60 ammunition. He had no rifle, but his web belt held a .45-caliber automatic pistol and four magazines. To the untrained eye he looked like all the other Marines, but he was one of two Navy hospital corpsmen assigned to 1st Platoon. As prime targets for snipers the corpsmen made a special effort to blend in, carrying their medical supplies in old demolition bags and occasionally trading their .45s for M16s, but the trip through any village, no matter how remote, would usually burst their bubble of invisibility when children would point and yell “bac-si,” the Vietnamese word for doctor. If a five-year-old could pick you out, how difficult could it be for a trained eye behind a rifle?

      Doc Garver, just under six feet tall, had always been thin, but the diet of C rations combined with long hours and little sleep had pared his weight to less than 150. His fair skin seemed incapable of tanning, and ruptured sun blisters on his forearms gave him the appearance of a pox sufferer.

      “Doc, the lieutenant says the command post is here. Doc Brede can stay with 1st Squad.”

      Bronsky moved over near the lieutenant, and Doc Garver went to the shadows by the edge of the clearing. CPs tended to get crowded, and crowds tended to draw fire. Doc Garver’s survival strategy was to be where the bullets weren’t. He might have to go there after their arrival, but it was always wise to avoid the initial salvo.

      Every few seconds a Marine came out of the jungle and crossed the stream. Each carried a bandolier of ammunition for the M60s, and some carried two hundred rounds, the linked cartridges strapping their chests like those on Mexican banditos in old westerns. One Marine hacked a branch from a tree with his machete and used it to haul new arrivals up the mucky incline. Lieutenant Diehl signaled one to wait, directing the others to break off to the left side of the clearing. The waiting man was a stocky lance corporal with a barrel chest. His face and arms were deep bronze, and his high cheekbones and broad nose framed piercingly clear eyes that could fix a man with a stare the way a mountain lion looked at its next meal. His

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