Knives in the Night

KNIVES IN THE NIGHT

by

David Sherman

Knives in the Night

copyright 1987 by David Sherman

Originally published by Ivy Books, an imprint of Ballantine Books, May, 1987

Published as an ebook by the author, December 28, 2011

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

To the memory of all those brave and loyal members of the South Vietnamese Popular Forces who fought alongside U.S. Marines in the Combined Action Program. Most of us made it back home all right. They were already at home and few of them survived the Communist rape of their nation in 1975.

The U.S. Marine Corps' Combined Action Program was real. A small number of Marines—usually one fourteen man rifle squad plus one Navy Medical Corpsman—would be put into a village to train and work with the local Popular Forces (civilian militia) platoon to rid their village of Viet Cong activity and make the people safe. Not many people ever heard of the CAP program and some who did didn't like what we were doing. For example, the U.S. Army didn't think the Marines should be involved in the kind of civic action the CAP units did, and they thought the troops assigned to the program were wasted resources that could be put to better use on battalion operations searching for Main Force VC units and NVA regiments. The Marines believed the way to win the war was to win the people and went with their own program. Another group that didn't like us was corrupt South Vietnamese officials. When we set out to make the villagers safe, we didn't care who we made them safe from. If that meant a corrupt official wasn't allowed to rip off the people, well, Sorry about that. While the events depicted in this novel are fiction, there is nothing in it that could not have happened. Combined Action Platoon Tango Niner is loosely based on the CAP unit the author served with several miles from Chu Lai in the summer of 1966.

CHAPTER ONE

A few days before the beginning

The sun rising over the South China Sea cast long shadows from the tree lines over the long column of Marines that had started humping an hour earlier toward where they would meet the truck convoy on Highway 1 for a ride back to the battalion's company fire bases. Operation Harper's Row had lasted forty-three days and ended with the Marines killing or capturing every man of the two North Vietnamese Army companies they had been sent after.

Forty-three goddamn days, Corporal Tex Randall muttered under his breath. We put a hurting on Charlie, but ... His words trailed off and thoughts drifted through his mind of the buddies he'd never see again. Delaney, whose head was almost blown off by a burst from an AK-47. Tenn, a leg torn from his body by a Bouncing Betty mine—maybe the corpsmen had managed to stop the flow of blood quickly enough to save his life, but they'd never know unless he wrote to them. Nevin, dying slowly in the bottom of a pungi pit with seven of the fire-hardened, feces-covered bamboo stakes sticking through his body.

FREEDOM!

The word shattered the silence that had only been broken by the muffled cursing of Marines who slipped on the slick dike top. Freedom bird, here I come! Mommas hide your daughters, 'cause I'm hornier than a dog with two dicks!

Randall recognized the voice as being that of Lance Corporal Hardy. Hardy's thirteen-month tour in the combat zone had ended a few days before the end of Harper's Row. With any luck his orders to rotate back to the United States would be waiting for him at the fire base—unless the first sergeant forgot to get them cut. Top Jennings was like that sometimes, and he usually had a hair up his ass about Hardy. Be just like the Top to screw him into spending a few more days in this hellhole called Vietnam.

Randall rubbed a filthy hand over his heavily stubbled jaw and gazed across the broad expanse of emerald green paddies the battalion was crossing. Soon these paddies would be crawling with black-pajamaed farmers working in the shade of their shallow cone hats. Hope we're out of here by the time those gooks show up. I'm always uneasy with them watching us, he thought. I always wonder how many of them are Vee Cee when they aren't working the paddies. Half a kilometer ahead the column's point broke through the last tree line and trudged a final hundred meters to the waiting six-bys. Every third vehicle in the waiting convoy mounted a .50-caliber machine gun, a weapon banned by the Geneva Convention for antipersonnel use but used by the Americans anyway. An Amtrac was in the lead position and a 106mm armed Ontos brought up the rear of the convoy. A few hundred meters to the east, beyond a width of white sand thinly covered with scrub brush and a few small trees, was the warm green water of the South China Sea. The scrub covered sand continued a short distance to the west of the highway and ended in the tree lines that protected the rice paddies on their other side.

The exhausted marines, in their tattered uniforms looking more like skid row derelicts than like a conquering army, formed up in platoons and boarded the trucks. They collapsed, squatting in the truck beds, the luckier ones leaning against the sides or the back of the cab. Slowly, their mood brightened and the field tension drained from them. Conversations started hesitantly and, after a while, laughter broke out. It was the strained laughter of survivors.

Tex Randall herded the eight men of his squad onto a truck and took his place standing behind the cab. His eyes stayed on the tree lines the convoy drove past, but his mind was seven days in the past, on the night he became acting squad leader.

*

The platoon had settled into a tight defensive perimeter in the thin scrub forest less than an hour before sunset, eaten an evening meal of cold C rations, and smoked the last cigarettes until dawn. A half hour after dark Sergeant Laumer led the eleven men of his squad silently into the night on an ambush patrol. They followed a high-banked, dry stream bed to a sharp bend four hundred meters away from the platoon's night position and burrowed into the thick brush atop the bank. Thin starlight filtered through the leaves; there would be no moon tonight.

Fifty percent alert, Laumer whispered after seeing that each of his two-man positions had its field of fire. Then he settled into his own position in the middle of the ambush line. He would try to stay awake all night.

Cop some Zs, Randall told Private Ahern, the fire team's automatic rifleman with whom he was positioned. I'll wake you in two hours. Ahern lowered his helmeted head into the crook of his arm and fell asleep immediately.

Randall peered through the brush down into the stream bed. The tunnel of dim light to his left front was the stream bed going back toward the rest of the platoon and received little of his attention. Mostly he watched the lighter area to his right front, which was where the stream bed turned at almost a forty-five degree angle and ran deeper into Indian Country. The NVA had been badly hurt on this operation, but it was still out there and still dangerous.

In the first fifteen minutes of his watch Randall examined and committed to memory every dark spot indicating a water-smoothed stone in the stream bed. The lights and darks of the trees and bushes on the far bank received the same scrutiny. His ears, finely tuned to the nuances of the sounds of danger, analyzed the night noises. If the NVA came into the ambush's killing zone he would see or hear sign of them before they could discover the Marines.

For the rest of the two hours none of the shadows moved or changed, and none of the night sounds varied from their norm. The only movement was that of leaves swaying softly in the light breeze, and the only sound was the rustling of those leaves. At last the luminous hands on the dial of Randall's Omega showed the two hours were up. He reached out a hand and laid it on Ahern's shoulder. Instantly, the burly Marine was awake, his eyes searching the night for enemy.

My turn for some Zs, Randall whispered in his ear.

Ahern stretched his jaw wide in a soundless yawn and rubbed the sleep grit from his eyes with the heel of a grime-thickened hand. He double-checked that the magazine was well seated in his M-14, a round was in the chamber, and the safety was off. He nodded his alertness while reaching for a canteen, then checked the time so he'd know when to wake Randall for the third watch.

Crossing his arms to pillow his head, Randall closed his eyes and was in dreamless sleep in minutes.

Time passed. Minutes before his internal alarm clock went off, while he was beginning to drift upward from the deepest depths of sleep, Randall thought, I gotta teach this guy not to make so much noise when he's waking me for my watch. Then he realized the noise Ahern was making was bursts from his M-14, not his voice or unnecessary body movement. Randall's eyes snapped open and his hands jammed the butt of his rifle into his shoulder.

The fire fight was already over, with the last of the six NVA who had wandered into the ambush's killing zone crashing to the gravel of the stream bed

Campbell, let's go, check them out, Laumer ordered. Randall, keep the area secure. The squad leader led his second team out of the hiding place to search the bodies for documents or souvenirs.

One man from Campbell's team knelt in the gravel ten meters upstream from the bodies, eyes and muzzle pointed in the direction the NVA had come from. Another did the same downstream. Swiftly, Laumer and Campbell rifled the corpses, emptying their pockets and taking their weapons and ammunition.

The third body Laumer checked wasn't a corpse yet. The dying North Vietnamese soldier's hands were under his body. He waited until he heard footsteps approaching him before pulling the pin and easing off the spoon of the captured American hand grenade he held. Laumer grabbed him by his sandaled feet and flipped the small man over. The grenade rolled free and exploded before the Marine could react to it. The NVA used the last of his living energy to smile. He knew he took an American devil to hell with him.

*

Twenty minutes later Randall led the squad back into the platoon's night position. Two of the men carried poncho-bags slung over their shoulders. These ponchos held the weapons and documents taken from the dead NVA. Four other men carried a poncho spread between them. Laumer's body was in that poncho. One Marine casualty, six NVA killed. That was a pretty good ratio—except that Laumer was a good squad leader and a good man. He would be badly missed by everyone.

You're the senior team leader in the squad, Tex, Lieutenant Pournell said when Randall reported in. You've got the squad now.

Thanks, Randall said with a lump in his throat. But this is a hell of a way to get it. Eddie Laumer had been a friend of his. Eight months earlier they had been in the same squad back at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. They were the same age, but Laumer had been in the Corps a half year longer and took the Texan under his wing. Together they had found all the night spots in nearby Riverside and San Clemente where their IDs wouldn't be checked too closely, allowing them to drink under age. They had taken a leave together right before their battalion shipped out for Vietnam. Everyone thought Laumer and Randall were inseparable. A dying NVA had just separated them.

You'll do okay. Pournell slapped Randall's shoulder. Let's get the rest of these gooks and then go back to Da Nang for a rest.

*

The long convoy trundled rapidly to Highway 1, dodging potholes and mortar craters. Young men brightly dressed in western-style clothes sped past the trucks on small Honda motorcycles, barely missing vehicles going the other way. Vespas and microbuses overloaded with black-clad people, their belongings, and livestock pulled off to the side of the highway along with the three wheeled Lambretas to avoid being run off by the American six-bys.

About halfway to Da Nang, the Americans came upon a small school bus that showed splotches of aqua and white paint around the rust and rust-colored primer that covered most of its chassis. Its door and most of its windows were missing, and it chugged along, swaying back and forth across the roadway, in front of the Amtrac leading the convoy, preventing the Marines from passing. The Amtrac's crew chief instructed his driver to close up and bump the bus from the rear. The only thing that accomplished was that the bus driver shook his fist at the Marines from the driver's window. The eyes of the passengers in the rear of the bus grew wide with fear from the wall of steel nudging the bus and they retreated as close to the front as they could get. The crew chief could see that some of the passengers were pleading with the driver to let the convoy pass. But the driver still refused to give way.

Stupid fucking gook, swore the crew chief.

Want me to tune him up? the gunner asked over the intercom.

Make sure you don't hit anybody. The crew chief grinned above his throat mike.

The gunner gave the driver careful directions and aimed his .30-caliber gun at the school bus. Then he pulled the trigger and a ten-round burst shattered the rear window of the bus and blew out the windshield, narrowly missing several passengers. The driver of the rusty bus pulled hard on the steering wheel and stomped hard on the accelerator, causing the ancient vehicle to rattle onto the scrub-covered white sand alongside the highway.

Didn't hit anybody, Chief, the gunner said as the Amtrac's driver sped up, pulling the rest of the convoy along with him.

The bus sat crookedly in the sand with steam billowing from under its hood and the driver dancing madly around it. Its passengers gathered their belongings and started walking along the roadbed. The Marines in the trucks jeered and shook their fists at the bus as they sped past.

Tex Randall didn't turn his head from the tree lines to look at the bus. He was still thinking about the week he spent as squad leader.

*

The NVA were mostly dead, and only a few remained to be mopped up. Pournell put the platoon on line for a sweep through a banana grove where some of the survivors were thought to be holed up. Randall's squad was on the left side of the line.

Watch out for snakes, called out Lance Corporal Silverberg, the third fire team leader. Any snakes in here are bamboo vipers. One of them bites you, you're dead before you know you've been bit.

No one else said anything as the platoon edged into the murky light inside the grove. The once-cultivated banana trees were growing wild, and weeds and small bushes were beginning to choke the ground between the trees.

Keep it on line. Watch your dress and stagger it, Pournell half-whispered to the men at his flanks. Pass the word. Those men repeated the orders and the instructions eddied to the ends of the lines. The Marines checked their positions and moved forward as a unit.

The silence under the trees was broken only by twigs and leaves crunching underfoot. The quiet and dim light combined to create an eerie sensation. The short hairs on the back of Randall's neck stood up and his pupils dilated to pull in every bit of light. The silence was almost deafening to his straining ears.

Heads up! PFC Barth's scream on Randall's left was almost drowned out by the booming of his M-14 and the answering burst from an AK-47.

Hit the deck! Randall yelled and his squad dropped to the grove's floor. Where are they, Barth? There was no answer.

The Marines fired randomly to the front and were answered by bursts from several enemy weapons. Randall listened carefully. All of the enemy fire seemed to be coming from his left front.

Varley, Ellison, Randall called softly to his light. Come with me, we'll flank them.

Staying on their bellies, the three Marines started crawling forward until they were parallel to the sound of the fire fight raging on their left side. Let's get as close as we can, Randall whispered. The three Marines closed ranks and eased through the brush toward the enemy. When they were less than ten meters away Randall stopped. He pulled a grenade off his cartridge belt, yanked the pin out, let the spoon fly, held it for a count of three, and tossed it toward the shooting.

The roar of the exploding grenade was magnified by the interior of the cave-like banana grove. Fragments zipped their deadly way through the brush overhead and screams of pain came from the NVA.

Randall leaped to his feet yelling, Cease fire! Cease fire! at his squad. Varley and Ellison jumped up with him and the three charged the NVA position firing rapidly from the hip.

Five tan-uniformed North Vietnamese soldiers huddled in a shallow trench. One of them was already dead from gunfire. Another one, his arm hanging by a shred of flesh, was quickly bleeding to death from Randall's grenade, and a third was bleeding from too many wounds to count. The other two spun toward the charging Marines. One of them was slammed in the chest by heavy rounds from two M- I4s and flipped over backward, landing with his legs outside the trench, his head hanging inside it.

The last Communist pulled his trigger and held it back until his banana clip was empty. Then he straightened up and stood at attention while Varley carefully sighted on him and pulled the trigger. A black-rimmed red eye spat blood in the middle of the NVA's forehead and he slowly folded over and died.

Six feet behind Randall, Ellison lay in a pool of blood. A dozen rounds had burst into his face, throat, and chest. Barth had been killed by the NVA he had seen and shot at to begin the firefight. The entire action, from Barth's opening shout until Varley killed the last Communist, had lasted less than three minutes. Two Marines and five North Vietnamese were killed. The platoon didn't find any more enemy in the grove.

*

Forty-five minutes after the convoy started off, the Amtrac in the lead turned off Highway I onto a one-lane, bulldozed, red dirt road that led to a low hill circled by concertina wire. Five of the trucks followed it.

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home, muttered Sergeant Zelazney, one of the other squad leaders in the platoon. The road led through an opening in the wire. The Amtrac pulled off the road just outside the opening and the trucks roared through it raising a cloud of red dust that settled on everything on the hill.

Two bunkers, one with a machine gun, the other holding a recoilless rifle, flanked the opening on the inside of the wire. Twenty-five more bunkers ringed the hilltop. A burly, middle-aged Marine in a starched and pressed utility uniform with spit-shined boots on his feet and a 45 flapping on his hip marched briskly to the lead truck and smartly saluted the company commander when he dismounted from the cab. Then he marched to an open area and bellowed, Company, fall in on me! 'Toon sergeants, get your men in parade formation.

The company's officers stood off to the side in a tired group.

The Top sure knows how to brighten a man's day, one Marine