Jungle Rules (14 page)

“Shanghaied them off some army brass in Dong Ha,” McKay said, stopping for a moment to chat with the staff sergeant alongside his pal Jimmy Sanchez. “They had a bunch of enlisted guys sweating their asses off, disembarking it from a C-117 into a truck for some wingding at the Officers’ Club. My insane pilot pal Archie offered the doggies a hundred fifty bucks cold, hard cash for a dozen cases of the beer and four of their fifty-pound boxes of frozen beef paddies. These guys didn’t even stutter step snatching the money, all too happy to screw their fearless leaders out of some of their bounty. They seemed delighted knowing that a bunch of Marine grunts out near Con Thien would get it.”

“Doggies aren’t such bad folks,” Pettigrew said, slurring out the words in his Texas drawl. “It’s their pansy-ass officers that could fuck up a wet dream.”

“Lieutenant Sanchez tells me you’re a Texas boy, too,” McKay said, picking up on the accent in the staff sergeant’s voice.

“I’m an eighter from Decatur,” Pettigrew said, and smiled as he turned his right shoulder toward McKay to show off a lone-star flag he had tattooed there. “Done a couple of night operations with those rickie-recon cowboys you’re strolling with today, back when we kicked off what used to be called Operation Kingfisher, now Operation Kentucky. Anyhow, that’s where Lieutenant Sanchez and I got to knowing each other, fellow Texans and all.”

“Texan here, too, grew up in Dumas,” McKay said, beaming a proud smile for the staff sergeant. “Lieutenant Sanchez and I were classmates at Texas University in Austin. Played a little football there.”

“Shit, I heard of you,” Pettigrew said, and laughed. “Longhorns running back and a hell of a pass catcher, too, back in ’63 and ’64, when they damned near won back-to-back national championships. T. D. McKay, that’s you! Well, shit a brick. Glad to meet you, sir.”

“Now I’m a lawyer down in Da Nang, playing hooky for a few days with you guys,” McKay said, smiling.

“Well, you fucked up, Skipper. I think I would play hooky down there,” Pettigrew said and laughed. “Beer’s cold and women hot. Up here, the beer’s hot, if you can get any, and well, the women may trot, but they do it on four legs.”

“Nervous sheep up here, Sergeant?” McKay said and laughed.

“Can’t say as I’ve seen any ewes running loose in these parts,” Pettigrew drawled, “but they’d be a durn sight prettier than some of these pigs I’ve seen a few of the boys chasing.”

“We’ve gotta shove,” Lieutenant Sanchez said, seeing his platoon sergeant giving him a high sign that he now brought up the rear of the line, and that all of his Marines had moved down the trail leading away from the compound and into the bush.

“Hook ’em horns,” Pettigrew said, and held up his hand with his index and pinky fingers extended, signifying the University of Texas Longhorns hand gesture.

“We”ll catch you in the morning,” Sanchez said, and with McKay made the same Texas Longhorns hand signs back at the staff sergeant.

 
“HERE, TRY SOME beef and rocks,” Major Jack Hembee said to Jon Kirkwood, tossing him a box of C rations. “How you doing with that Beechnut, Skipper?”

“I think I’ve got it under control, now,” O’Connor said, pushing the wad of chewing tobacco around his cheek with his tongue, and then spitting again in the dirt. The three officers squatted in the shade of one of the large green tents where the major dug through what remained of a cardboard case of C-ration meals.

“You got to slinging slobber pretty good for a while, like a kid with a mouthful of hair,” Hembee said and laughed. “I fully expected you to barf up breakfast. Looked like your gills turned a little green back there, walking off the LZ.”

“I have to admit, I felt a little queasy then, but I feel pretty good now. The stuff kind of lifts your spirits, like a little adrenaline charge,” O’Connor said, smiling a brown-toothed grin at Kirkwood and letting fly a slug of Beechnut juice between his feet. “Got any more of those beef and rocks in that box? I’m feeling a little hungry too.”

“I like you, Skipper,” Hembee said, digging around the case of C rations, looking for another beef and potatoes meal. “You jump right in with both feet. Sorry, no more beef and rocks, but I have some ham and motherfuckers. They’re pretty good. That’s what I’m going to eat.”

“Throw it here,” O’Connor said, “I’ll give ham and motherfuckers a whirl.”

“There you go,” Hembee said, tossing the box of canned rations to O’Connor. “Grab yourself one of those lawn chairs and kick back. Meanwhile, I’ll scarf us up some bug juice from the vacuum jug down in the bunker.”

The two Marines reclined in lounge chairs made of tubular aluminum with green and white plastic webbing while they took the cans of food from their meals’ cardboard boxes. Kirkwood noticed on the white plastic armrest of his chair the words “Property of First MAW Officers’ Club” stenciled in black.

“I thought these chairs looked familiar,” he said, lifting the freshly cut lid from the can of his beef and potatoes and handing the thumb-size, P-7 can opener he had just used to O’Connor.

“Go ahead and string that John Wayne on your dog-tag chain, Terry,” the major said, returning with a three-gallon thermos jug filled with Kool-Aid, and seeing Kirkwood handing off the can opener. Then he rummaged in the C-ration case and took out a small brown paper packet, tore it open, and removed a new P-7 from the package.

“One for you too, Kirkwood,” Hembee said, and tossed the opener to the lawyer. “Like spare socks and boot laces, you need to have one of those with you at all times in the bush.”

“Major Danger, sir,” a lanky, blond-haired staff sergeant wearing a faded green T-shirt said, ducking under the tent where Kirkwood, O’Connor, and Hembee now sat, eating in the shade.

“What ya got, Goose?” Hembee said, looking up at the Marine who held a yellow slip of paper in his hand.

“Good news and bad news, sir,” the staff NCO replied.

“Shoot,” Hembee said, working the lid off his ham and motherfuckers.

“Good news first,” the sergeant said. “All eight of our wounded got aboard the Huey, now inbound to Charlie Med. The three worst ones still have their eyes blinking and hearts pumping. Looks like they have a chance if that chopper doesn’t go down first.”

“Doesn’t go down?” Hembee said, sitting up and looking at the staff sergeant he called Goose.

“That’s the bad news, sir,” the blond Marine said. “Inbound here, your luncheon guests took a few dings from the NVA. A hydraulic line or connection must have gotten creased or cracked by one of the rounds. At any rate, they sprung a leak. Got a warning light just after takeoff from the bush with the wounded aboard. If he makes it to Charlie Med, the pilot’s shutting it down there for repairs. One way or the other, he sure as hell ain’t gonna make it back here today. So your house guests may have to spend the night.”

“Logistics bird usually drops on our doorstep about zero eight,” Hembee said, looking at Kirkwood and O’Connor. “You can catch that to Chu Lai tomorrow, or you can try to ride out of here this afternoon on one of the supply trucks. They convoy to Chu Lai at about two o’clock, get you there by five or six this evening. I don’t recommend going by truck, though, unless you like gunplay.”

“Ambushes, you mean?” Kirkwood said.

“Lots of opportunity for them,” Hembee said, now digging into his canned lunch with a spoon. “Mines and booby traps, too. We have guys clear them every day, but they still keep springing up like daisies each morning. Charlie’s an industrious little bastard.”

“We’ll wait for the chopper,” Kirkwood said, relaxing in his chair and focusing back on his meal.

“You’re Hembee, right?” O’Connor said, spooning out ham and lima beans from his can.

“Right, Jack Hembee,” the major said. “Born and raised on the family cattle ranch near Cody, Wyoming.”

“That staff sergeant addressed you by another name,” O’Connor said.

“You mean what Goose called me?” the major said and smiled. “Major Danger. That’s the nickname my Marines assigned to me. Sooner or later, everybody gets one out here. Kind of a family thing. Could have gotten one like Major Disaster or Major Fuckup, just to name a couple that come to mind.”

“Your men must think a lot of you,” O’Connor said, smiling at the major.

“I hope so,” Hembee said. “Even though I’m just the operations officer, they know I’d put my life on the line for any one of them. I trust they’d do the same for me, or any of the other guys in our battalion. Meanwhile, since you combat virgins will spend the night, we got to get you some accommodations.”

The major sat up in his chair, looked in several directions, and then shouted, “Rat! Elvis! Henry! Front and center!”

In less than a minute a short, black Marine flanked by a tall, dark-haired man that looked strikingly like Elvis Presley, and a pug-nosed fellow with big ears whose shaved head glistened in the bright sunshine, looking like Henry from the Sunday newspaper comic strip, appeared under the tent.

“Yes, sir,” the black Marine who answered to the name King Rat spoke to the major.

“This is Captain Kirkwood and Captain O’Connor,” the major said to the three enlisted Marines. “They will remain overnight with us. Set up two cots in my hooch, and see if you can round up a canteen full of that raisin jack that your cannon-cocker buddies over at Golf battery cooked up last night. You might make sure that the sergeant major gets a taste, too; otherwise he’ll go snooping.”

“How did you know they made a batch last night?” King Rat said, grinning wide at the major.

“I’ve got a nose, Rat-man,” Hembee said. “I’d have to have one bad sinus problem not to smell that shit cooking. You might bullshit the bull-shitter, but you can’t snow the snowman.”

“You know, that shit’s illegal, sir,” Rat said, offering a sarcastic smile to go with the reminder.

“We have no tax stamps in Vietnam, so its up to the commander’s discretion,” the major said. “Besides, I have my defense counsel sitting right here. Now disappear.”

Quickly the three Marines ducked from the tent in three different directions.

“I think making distilled spirits does violate a few regulations, Major,” Kirkwood said, finishing his can of beef and rocks.

“You tell on us, and I won’t give you any,” Hembee said, grinning at Kirkwood.

Terry O’Connor spit in the dust. “Hell, I’m game for a little rotgut raisin jack.”

“You have any rounds to fit these rifles?” Kirkwood asked, picking up the M14 he had taken from the helicopter.

“One thing we have lots of, Skipper, that’s rounds,” Hembee said.

 
AT FIRST, TURD did not recognize James Harris as he stepped from the bathroom, showered, stinking of cologne and his hair cut slick on the sides and nearly to the scalp on top. The dog slouched under the coffee table and gave the man a second glance before finally seeing that his friend had merely changed his appearance and now smelled much differently. Turd blew his nose, sneezing the way dogs do, the new scent of his master irritating the membranes inside his nostrils.

“At least I look better than you do after a bath,” Harris said to the dog, admiring himself in the full-length mirror and slipping on the brownish-green T-shirt and white boxer shorts that Brian T. Pitts had given him. He then forked his toes into a pair of yellow and white rubber shower shoes and flip-flopped out of his bedroom.

Turd, who had gotten his skin drenched in motor oil and then endured a fitful soap and water scrubbing in a metal tub on the patio, slunk in step behind Harris.

“That has got to be the ugliest fucking dog in the world,” Brian Pitts proclaimed in a boisterous voice from the living room where he sat flanked by two young Vietnamese females, neither hardly more than sixteen years old. Huong and two other cowboys sat in chairs at the dining table, paying little attention to their new cohort and his companion beast whose tan skin was now shown in the hairless gaps where mangy scales used to exist.

“That dog look like shit now, but you wait,” Huong spoke as he slammed mah-jongg tiles onto the tabletop, playing the game with his partners. “That dog he look pretty good, pretty soon. Don’t worry. He plenty smart, too. He see thing come when we not see. We keep him. I think he good luck. So why you call him shit?”

“Turd,” Harris said. “Not shit.”

“Turd is shit,” Huong said, throwing down another mah-jongg tile. “So why you name a good dog like this one such a bad name like that?”

“He brown like a turd, man,” Harris said, and smiled, hoping to raise some sense of humor from Huong. “Then when I spend the night under that concrete with his nasty ass, he smell like a turd, too. His breath even smell like shit.”

“Why not call him Joe?” Huong said, taking a sip of his tea and looking at the other two cowboys studying their game pieces. “I like name like Joe. Not like shit name.”

“Man, he’s Turd, and that’s that,” Harris said, flopping in a velvet upholstered sofa chair and spreading out his legs. The two girls cuddled next to Brian Pitts giggled as they looked at the view the black man had given them up his boxer shorts’ legs.

Seeing the two young hookers taking notice of his somewhat exposed genitals, Mau Mau grabbed his crotch with his right hand and shook it hard as he spoke.

“You want some of this?” he said, pumping his hand back and forth and laughing at them. “You never go back to that slinky white thing once you had a taste of this Chicago black snake.”

The two girls hid their faces in Brian Pitts’s shoulders and giggled harder.

“You could wear a robe, you know,” Pitts said, also noticing the billowing open legs of Harris’s underwear and his exposed nether regions. “What I see is not a pretty sight.”

“Then don’t look, motherfucker,” Harris retorted, and flopped his legs up and down, shaking what he had. Both girls giggled harder.

“With you beaming your ass in my face, it’s hard not to get an eyeful,” Pitts said. “What if I was queer? How would you feel then?”