CHAPTER ONE

 

1964  U.S. Army, 3^rd Radio Research Unit, Davis Station, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, Republic of South Vietnam.  Specialist E-4 Jack Beale, linguist and cryptographer by army designation, has been granted his wish and transferred from the top secret Puzzle Palace at Fort. Meade, Maryland, to South Vietnam where the war is beginning to heat up.  At the time there are only 17,000 G.I. “military advisors” in country (in a year or so there will be hundreds of thousands).  Unfortunately for Jack’s buddies, the three other members of the so-called Dimbo Patrol, they have been reluctantly assigned to the same unit.  Charley Magnolia, Larky Larkspun and Mad Denny Haller blame Beale, in short, for everything.

 

"Get up, get up, and get up, get-up-get-up-get-up -- GET UP!!"  Toady chants over and over like a peeved parrot. 

"Who is it?" Beale groans from under his pillow.  "Check that.  Never mind who it is.  Go away.  I'm not on duty today...."  Jack Beale knows it’s the company orderly, and he couldn’t care less.

Beale has managed to sleep through the Huey's pre-dawn racket as they flupped away toward the bush, and through dozens of thundering flights of jet take-offs on the runway that is less than 300 yards away from his barracks, and then through the general hubris as guys on the first shift struggled into their fatigues and banged their way out the barracks screen door a dozen feet from his bunk  Now it is getting on toward nine and so hot that even the overhead fans aren't much help, and he knows if he wakes one more time, he won't get back to sleep. 

Toady gives Beale's pillow a tug, "Captain Nordoff wants to give you a medal!"

That works.  Beale lets go the pillow, causing Toady to fly back and hit his head against the wall.  Beale sits up and blinks in the light, "A medal?"

Toady angrily rubs his head.  "Yes, you stupido!  For your supposed heroism on the Pan Am flight.”  When Beale had first arrived in-country, his plane was racked with machine gun fire from the ground.  There had been casualties.  There would have been more, but for Beale, in shock but acting on instinct, had saved several lives. Toady wasn’t there, and he doesn’t believe it.

“First Nordoff is going to congratulate you.... and then he's going to ream your ass!"

"What for?"

"It’s a rule: Linguists doth not go up in Otters.  Captain Nordoff, Chapter 1, Verse 6.  You know that.  You heard it at the briefing!"  The sweaty, fat little corporal looks grimy, like he could use a bath, but he also looks happy to be bringing Beale some bad news..  Beale is pretty sure there is something wrong with Toady, there is just the dim edge of something he can’t place that makes him uncomfortable, and he is relieved when the corporal gets up from the edge of his bunk.  Toady eyes his own pimply face in the full length mirror hung from the end of the wall lockers and starts to squeeze the biggest of his zits, "Dost thou not know the law, Specialist?"

"B-but I was ordered -!" Beale says.

"Doesn't count", Toady says, studying the white ooze on his fingers and then smearing it on the back of his pants leg, "Boo-Boo is only a lieutenant.  Captain Nordoff is a captain - and your Commanding Officer."

Beale groans, rubbing his hands through his hair and becoming more aware of his hangover, "Can I at least take a shower?"

"Why?  You're already dressed."

Beale looks down at his rumpled fatigues, "So I am."  He vaguely remembers Ranley and somebody else helping him back from the EMC.  "But I'm a mess...."

Toady hooks a thumb toward the door, "Captain said right now!"

"Bullshit, Toady", a bored and tired voice from the bunk on the other side of the wall lockers speaks up, "Give the nug a chance to clean up, or Nordoff will get him for that too!"

The corporal's voice goes thin and reedy, "The Captain said -"

"Toady...." The voice from under the blankets thickens until it becomes a growl, "Get the fuck out of here, you little faggot!"

The corporal backs toward the screen door, pointing a warning finger at Beale, "All right - ten minutes then, and you take the consequences!"

"There won't be any....", the rough voice mutters with a sigh, drifting back to sleep.

Beale jams his dirty khakis into the clothes sack for the native cleaning girl, grabs his towel and personals kit, and makes a naked dash for the showers.  Toady watches from the shadowy under-hang of a nearby bungalow, watching the easy grace of the new Spec. 4's muscles as he runs.  "There are always consequences," he mutters to nobody in particular. 

By the time Beale gets to the C.O.’s office, Ranley is already there with Larky.  Ranley is the guy Beale reports to, a sergeant who knows how the system works.  He is idly fidgeting with a brass ashtray that features a twin-boom World War II fighter plane.  He has detached the plane from the round base and is making little engine noises as he loops and dives the little brass toy in neat figures.  Nordoff makes a show of ignoring Ranley and Larky, turning instead to Beale as he comes in through the screen door, "Specialist, you have a Top Secret security clearance.  My strict and specific orders are that you may never, NEVER under any circumstances leave the secure areas of this base or the Saigon city limits."

"Counter-manded, Sir", Ranley says mildly, putting his little plane through a fancy Immelmann turn.

"Not accepted!", the Captain explodes, pounding both fists on his table-desk and glaring at the sergeant.

“Then where's Boo Boo Boudreaux?  Ask him!"  Ranley has the plane execute a neat four-point roll, then brings it in for a touch-and-go on the edge of Nordoff's desk.  

"See these, Mister?"  Nordoff angrily points to the two metal bars on his shoulder.

"Yes, you outrank Boo  Boo, but, if you'll pardon my saying so, you should have been there to counter-mand his counter-mand, sir.  I need not remind you, sir, that the lieutenant's one bar beats my four of a kind every time."  Ranley buzzes the four hard-stripes on his own sleeve patch with the little brass plane to illustrate his point. "And, of course, Boo-Boo and I both get our orders from a two-star half way around the world."

Ranley knows that is the final word.  Orders from the White Shack come from God himself, or at least from his anointed men at the Puzzle Palace back at Meade. 

"Do you know", the captain shouts angrily, "that little toy you are fooling around with is entirely hand-made from old artillery casings - and took one of the finest skilled Korean craftsmen over a year to create!"

"Really a beauty, sir.  It's a P-38, isn't it?"

"WOULD YOU PUT MY AIRPLANE DOWN AND GET OUT OF HERE!!"  The C.O. yells so loud that the room seems to shake.  Beale and Larky get up to leave with Ranley; but they take only two steps before Nordoff roars, "NOT YOU TWO DIMBOS - HIM!"

The two of them sit down again, Beale sitting as inconspicuously as possible on his hands. They have started to shake.  The C.O. doesn’t notice Beale’s hands, or maybe he doesn’t care.  He shouts for five minutes, but he has to let them go. 

Beale and Larky walk to the mess hall, reeling from the noise.  Beale splatters a half a cup before he gets enough coffee into his mug to put it on a tray.  Larky loads up on a plate-full of combined breakfast and lunch, and takes a seat across from Beale in the nearly deserted cafeteria, "If that don't beat all!  All that yelling, and in the end we don't get nothing!"

Beale shakes his head, "I still can't believe it.  You notice the way the C.O. changed the subject?  One moment he was railing about our major infraction of his rules, and then he started yelling at Ranley for playing with his little brass airplane!"

Larky gives him an amused glance, "You mean, the same way like you done, talking about the wiggly weeds when Charley blamed you for getting us into this mess?”

“That wasn’t my fault.”

Larky’s smile broadens,  “An’ then he started in on how he smacked up your car?"

"Well, that was different . . . "

"No it weren't.  If you're going to be a great writer, Ong Be, you got to stop denying what is real and what ain’t!"  Larky gives him a look so wide-eyed and full of righteous enthusiasm that Beale can’t find any way to be angry.  He takes an extra fork from Larky's tray, waves it in the air, and spears a french-fried scallop from his friend's plate,  "So what should I do, oh great guru from the sagebrush plains?"

"I'll tell you one thing.  We all got to stay away from that Toady.  You see the way he was staring at you?"

"No, I didn't notice."

"Good thing.  He lusts to jump your bones.”

“That’s crazy talk.”

“He gave me this brochure while we was waiting for you.  I got him figured out, Ong Be.  He's the worst kind of pre-vert in the universe - a devout an’ dedicated queer!"

"A what?"

"Guy like that brings a whole new meaning to the song, I'm going to sleep with Jesus."

They both laugh, but later, thinking about it, Beale had to admit Larky had put his finger on something.  It wasn’t that Toady was gay.  Toady reminded Beale of something he'd heard about the true believers being the most dangerous class of people in the world.  Nothing they do counts for nothing, so they got nothing to lose.

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

Four olive colored jeeps with big white stars on their sides sit in the middle of the 3rd's motor pool, waiting to take their riders one hundred miles northwest to Tay Ninh, a middle sized town located up against the Cambodian border.  Beale arrives first, making his careful way around the puddles and across the muddy gravel.  He finds a convenient spot for his M-14, sliding it half way under his seat.  He throws his heavy duffle bag in back and climbs into the driver's seat.  Two clips of ammo ride heavily in his jacket pockets.  He wants to load one in his rifle, but Nordoff had warned they were "advisors in the host country of Vietnam" and were to fire only if fired on.  Ranley hadn't said anything, but Beale saw him roll his eyes and look at the ceiling in a funny way. 

Larky shows up a few minutes later, sloshing his way happily through the mud puddles.  He'd just been to the arms room, picked up his pappy’s old .45 and had it strapped to his waist.  He carries his M-14 upside down as if he knows what he is doing, and easily swings his duffle in back with Beale's.  He pulls his poncho top back from his head, pops a big piece of Double Bubble in his mouth and squints bare-headed up into the rain.  "Howdy, Ong Be!" he says as if they don’t have a care in the world.  "What a day for a picnic, huh?"

"That bag looks awful light, Larky...."

"One pair of civvies, one pair of underwear, and a bag of possibles...." Larky's grin is ear to ear, "I ain't planning on a month's journey."

"You never know....", Beale gives him a doubtful look..

"Oh bullcrappers, Mister Be!"  Mad Denny says.  He has snuck up behind and startles Beale by shouting in his ear.  He tosses his bag, which looks lighter than Larky's, in a second jeep, and climbs in.  "Ya gots to leave room for booze and silk panties and other trophies of war!"

"Where's Charley?"

"Probably hiding under his bed.  He don’t take to kindly to all this, particularly when I told him it was your idea."

"Oh, great; just what I needed."

"Just kidding, Ong Be, just kidding."

The rest of the party arrives in a clump, walking slowly through the warm afternoon rain.  Toady is carrying his own and the Captain's bags.  Charley comes last, talking earnestly with Ranley about the down-side possibilities of their trip into the bush. 

Seeing Charley’s nervousness, Beale tries to push the guilty feeling from his mind; he'd had more to do with instigating their trip than any of the Dimbos know.  By working long hours since the other three had arrived, he had almost single-handedly caught up with all the decodes at the White Shack.  And then he'd started to bug Ranley for something to do. 

Saigon is still off-limits, due to new rumors of a government shake-up and another bloody Buddhist riot.  Ranley and the other NCO's who live downtown seem unconcerned, but for the lower ranks there is nothing to do but work and wait for things to change.  Charley spent hours scraping webs of fungus in his damp boots.  Larky got rot in his damp clothes.  Mad Denny suffered athletes foot and jock itch and jungle dandruff, all at the same time.  They all got mad and swore at Beale, who didn't seem to get infected with anything. 

Beale brought it up for at least the tenth time at the NCO's table at the EMC.

"Well....", Ranley thinks it over while sipping his scotch-and-water, "about this time of year we sometimes take a run out to Nui Ba Den."

"Black - Lady - Mountain?"

Greggs, the E-7 who usually tracked freqs in Maisy-the-flying-beaver, nods, "Black Lady Peak.  A little pimple of a mountain about ten klicks north of the Tay Ninh city proper.  The 114th RRU out of Tay Ninh takes a mobile unit up there in the dry season.  They monitor the whole delta, and it's a great view."

"Why do we go out there?"

"Nelson an' Ranley set up the station in the old days when Nelson was still a lingie.  This was before he went civvie and became the little big shit he is at the Puzzle Palace."

Ranley nods, "Yeah.  It being Little Brush-head's claim to fame, he wants to make sure it's 100% operational.  Since he doesn't trust the C.O. of the 114th, he gets us to go out there."

Beale is ready to pack his bags, "Great!  When do we leave?"

Ranley shakes his head, "Well.... that's what Nelson keeps asking.  But I don't think Nordoff is in the right frame of mind for it after our recent heroics."

Beale shows his disgust, "Sure.  The same thing is going to happen to us that happened to the French.  I see it coming."  He takes a drag at his Marlboro and tries to puff some smoke rings.  He's seen Lieutenant Boo-Boo do four or five in a row, and he thinks it looks sophisticated, like in the movies.  He gets one decent ring out, and then his throat backs up and he has a coughing fit. 

"See what coming, nug?"  One of the short-timers raises a shot-glass full of brandy and gives him a friendly pat on the back, winking at the other lifers.

"We’re gonna be tied down,” Beale says, swallowing a big gulp of beer from a bottle somebody hands him..  “We get the cities, they get the rest.  We lose the war."

The short-timer chugs his brandy, and washes it down with a healthy swig of Schlitz, drinking from the brown bottle.  "Hell, they can have the rest, sonny-boy!  There's heat out there that'll fry your brains.  Bugs and rot and leeches and snakes -"

The comments run around the table like an amiable litany.

"Head high elephant grass, sticky mud up to your ass."

"Punji stakes dipped in shit."

"Bamboo Bouncing Bettys to blow off your balls."

"Don't go alone, nug.  Take along some ARVNs, a bunch of simple-minded peacenik Buddhist monkey-fuckers who'll dedicate all their rounds to Mother Sky before they'll kill anybody." 

Another lifer holds out his thumb, "Imagine a leech as big as your dick, on your dick!"

"That happened to me", Ranley muses, eyeing the massive red-gold dragon-ring on one of his fingers, "floating down the Mekong, on a Sunday afternoon...."  He turns it into a melody, "The sky above was made for love, the flowers was in bloom...."  He pushes his drink away, "Seriously though, brothers of the olive cloth, in this case I happen to agree with the nug. I don't want to sit around waiting for the Russian rockets to drop in on us."

"You're going to stop that with a fling in Tay Ninh?"

Ranley gives them his lopsided grin, "Hey, it's a start."

"You be the one to tell Nordoff."

"I'll do better than that - I'll get Nelson to tell him."

"Oh, he's going to love that . . .!"

And so, a few days after their conversation in the EMC, the convoy of four jeeps pull out at two in the afternoon, the canvas jeep tops drumming in the heavy rain; they head into the unknown, into that wide area outside the city known to the Dimbos simply as 'the bush'.  Ranley’s jeep leads, followed by the Dimbos in the two middle jeeps, with a jittery Toady bringing up the rear with a very angry Captain Nordoff. 

They leave the ramshackle outskirts of Saigon and make their way west on Route 1, a two-lane asphalt highway that cuts through the drenched flat squares of fields and paddies.  They drive at a fairly constant 45 miles per hour from checkpoint to checkpoint.  Route 1 continues west through Cambodia to Phnom Penh, but they leave it a few miles before the border, turning right on Route 22, a much narrower road that heads in a northwesterly direction to Tay Ninh with the tree-lined, muddy Van Co Dong river visible on their right for much of the way.

Beale drives along happy as a clam, unmindful of the continuing downpour except for the fogging that he has to wipe from his glasses.  That irritates him a little bit.  Rain drums on the jeep's canvas top, working its way in any opening it can find.  Beale and Larky are closed in by plastic side flaps, and their breathing fogs up all but a small patch of windshield.  So in addition to his glasses, Beale has to rub the window area he can reach in front of him, wiping it clear as he can every thirty seconds or so.  After a while, he gives up on that; he opens the side flaps; figuring he and Larky are wet anyway, and the stream of moist, heavy air will at least keep the center of his windshield clear.  There isn't much to see but paddies, which gradually give way to brush covered hills.  The elusive Viet Cong guerillas seem to have taken the day off.

Late in the afternoon, Ranley, still forging ahead in the lead jeep, blinks his lights and pulls over to the side of the road.  He walks back toward the tail jeep with a map under his arm, and Beale hops out and follows him.  One by one, the three other Dimbos trickle back to gather around Ranley and the Captain.

Nordoff stares at the group, his hotly accusing eyes shifting from Ranley and resting for a moment on Beale.  He’d heard about Beale's zealous ways, and had little doubt about who and what had inspired their mission.  The captain opens his fatigue jacket, and wipes his glasses on his damp t-shirt.  Beale sees the soft, little paunch under his shirt, shakes his head.  Nordoff is out of shape, a soft little man who doesn’t belong in Vietnam, much less in the bush.  He alone has put on his helmet, and he looks odd peeping out from under the rim of  his dull olive tin pot.... odd, and a little scared. 

Mad Denny pokes Larky and whispers, "Cappy-baby looks like a civvy lawyer or banker playing weekend warrior."  Intent on stirring up as much mischief as possible, Denny grins at Toady, "Hey, ya little creep, got a proverb for us?"

Toady is in no mood for joking, "Leave me alone, Specialist Haller!"

"How about, I will fear no evil, cause I'm the meanest ass-grabber in the valley!"

Charley sets aside his own concerns for a moment and adds, "The Chicken-shits shall inherit the earth."

"You smart-ass people are going to end up in hell!"

"Will you men shut up for at least one moment!"  Nordoff gives them a warning look, and Toady, who'd had the misfortune to be the last person speaking, could do nothing but glower at his tormentors.  The captain turns his attention to Ranley, "Now just what is it, sergeant?  Why are we stopping here?"

"We’re coming up on the last checkpoint before Tay Ninh, sir."

"Yes, I know that.  But I don't feel good stopping here!  It's not a proper procedure, standing here on a raised road in the middle of nowhere.  I can see at least 15 places where snipers could be aiming at us right now!  We should get back in our jeeps and move out smartly; we can have this discussion in Tay Ninh."

Ranley opens the map and holds it out of the rain under the Jeep’s canvas roof.  "That's what I wanted to talk to you about, sir.  Rather than stay in some gringy and unsecured hotel in Tay Ninh, why don't we spend the night in Long Chu?  We can show the nugs the other side of Vietnam."

Nordoff frowns.  "Personally, I've never been to Long Chu.  I don't know about your men, but I've seen enough of your other side of Vietnam around Tan Son Nhut!"

Ranley points out a small dot on the map, a spot located about ten miles north of Tay Ninh city, "It's right here, sir.  A fortified hamlet."

"God, it's out in the middle of nowhere!  Count us out!  You can't expect me to take men with security clearances out there!"

"Our own ambassador was quoted in Newsweek just last week, the great man assured all of America that the situation throughout Nam is completely under control."

"Don't get smart with me, Sergeant!"

Toady, who had been listening to the conversation with lidded eyes, puts his hand up like a schoolboy, "Permission to speak, sir.  I suggest that if Sergeant Ranley is so confident of the success of the Hamlet Pacification Program, he take his own men out there - and may the grace of God go with him."

Ranley nods, happy to get this unexpected support from Toady, "That makes sense, sir!  My orders are to check the station at Nui Ba Den - and the surrounding area.  You can monitor our progress from the Tay Ninh RRU.  You'll be our safety valve, and we'll join back up with you in three days, on our way back." 

Given his way out, the C.O. grinds his teeth, makes up his mind and waves them away.  "I don't like it, but - very well.  Now let's get moving - I won't just sit here all day talking about it!"

At first glance, Tay Ninh seems like a nice enough place, with a sprinkle of temples, bars and hotels.  But Ranley and the Dimbos soon are leaving it, and as they head out of town the soggy afternoon light begins to fail.  The rain continues and their tires whine on the long stretches of deserted two-lane road.  Beale drums his fingers on the steering wheel, eager to get to Long Chu.  He fumbles in his pocket for a Marlboro. 

"Hey, man," Larky drawls from the seat next to him, "I didn't know you smoked all the time."

"Yeah.  It keeps the twitches down."

Larky yawns and stretches, "I don't get the twitches, pard.  An' I still got 98 women to go."

"Ninety Eight?!"

"Yeah.  You know that little Zip chick picks up the laundry?  Look out, great gran'pappy, here I come!"

Beale laughs and settles back with his smoke in his lips, his hands firmly wrapped around the wheel.  Larky tells him how he'd been visited by the girl, who only cost a dollar and a half my-kim, while he was taking a shower one morning, and then he cheerily fills Beale in on his adventures with the French Ambassador's daughter back in D.C.  His conversation happily bubbles on as Beale puts the miles behind them, and Beale finds himself thinking Vietnam isn't always such a bad place after all.  He is hopeful that if he is very, very careful they might all get through their tour okay.   

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

The Americans pull into Long Chu, sliding their three jeeps to a halt in a muddy area at the center of the compound where they are surrounded by a gang of screaming, half naked kids who don’t seem to notice they are being soaked by the warm rain. 

As he unclamps his stiff fingers from the steering wheel, Beale looks around the fortified village.  He is not happy with what he sees.  People are jammed close together in little bamboo huts with thatched palm-leaf roofs.  The settlement is plain and mud seems everywhere.  Raindrops disturb the long pools of water caught in the deep tire ruts that serve as roads  He can't help voicing his disappointment, "I hope this isn't the real Vietnam, Larky."

The Texan seems to take it in stride, "Yeah.  Well, Ong Be, let's make the best of it....at least it looks safe."

"Safety isn't everything."

Ranley bangs the front fender of Beale’s jeep with the palm of his hand as he walks by, "Get your gear, boys, and meet me at the front gate."

Larky squints out into the gathering twilight gloom.  "Oh, no - we goin' back out there, man?"

Beale, who has already hopped out of the jeep, slings his duffle over his shoulder with a grunt, "Good Old Red Dog - I knew he had something better than this!"

But the Self-Defense Commander of Long Chu holds them up by insisting they tour the hamlet.  After walking around in the mud and taking in the cramped living quarters for a half-hour, Ranley gives the dapper Vietnamese man an elegant half-bow, bending slightly from the waist.  He says politely in English, "Buddha is good, and your fortified hamlet is an abomination on the face of the earth, and I thank you for showing it to us."

The Commander bows in return, with a quiet, self-satisfied smile, "Sssank you, sir.  We have much help from A-melicans."

"Yes, I'm sure you did."

Ranley and the Dimbos stand with the serious little man, who, though soaked, is dressed in spotless dress khakis, knee length pants, a bright yellow beret, and yellow and red braid on the left shoulder of his short sleeve shirt.  He carries a leather-handled, chrome plated crop, a rigid whip made from a shortened golf club with markings indicating it had once been a Spaulding 9-iron, and he decapitates nearby weeds and touches the shoulders of his listeners with it to illustrate his points. 

It was true that everything about the fort was new.  Even the barbed wire hadn't lost its dark shine.  The nearby walls were 12 feet high, and made of spiked bamboo.  These walls had interior standing platforms for firing out over the top, much like forts in the frontier days of the American West.  There were staked pits around the outside of the walls, and thick rolls of barbed wire beyond the pits.  But inside, it was more like a crowded pigpen than a place where people lived.

The Commander points out a small hut, "We like invite you stay for night."

"What an abominable little hut for us all to sleep in!", Mad Denny replies agreeably, picking up on Ranley's earlier conversation.

"Sssank you so much, Sir....", the little man purrs.

"Why, we'd be packed like sardines in there!"

"I ssink so, yes!", the little man nods cheerfully.

"We regret," Ranley speaks with a show of sadness, "but we must go now.  Our important mission takes us out there."  He waves a vague hand down the way they had come.  "In honor of the Republic of South Vietnam."  He salutes the twin flags, the yellow of the republic slashed with three parallel red bars, and the stars and stripes.

"Yesss.  The lepublic....", the Commandant repeats sadly.  ".... We use very-much tonight your extra shooting-fingers here."

"There never are enough shooting-fingers, are there?", Ranley replies sympathetically. "Still, our mission is clear.  Come on, nugs - we've got to hike."

Charley throws down his heavy duffle bag.  "This is crazy!  I don't want to go out there!"

Ranley nods, and gives him a little smile, speaking low so he won't be overheard, "The truth is, you don't want to stay here, either.  They're going to be attacked tonight."

"You don't know that!"

"Sure I do.  They get attacked every night.  Sometimes it's just a carefully aimed rifle shot or two.  Or a sapper will try to crawl in over the punji stakes and set an explosives charge against the wall.  But tonight there's something even better to look forward to.  You can bet the VC agents are already spreading the word we're camping here for the night; do you want to be in that little hut a few hours from now when the mortars start coming in?" 

The Vietnamese commander has shuffled over to where he can hear the conversation.  Ranley, seeing he hwas overheard, speaks to him directly, "Is that right, Commander?"

The little man nods unhappily, "VC come al-lite.  But we have good fighting mans.  VC no take Long Chu.  We die to last woman and child."

Ranley pats his shoulder, "I know you'll do alright."

"Sssank you, sir."

Ranley turns his skeptical gaze on Charley, "You can stay if you want, Specialist; I recommend you put your M-14 on single-shot - that way your ammo might last until midnight."  He starts toward the gate,  heading back the way they had come. 

After a fast look at the other Dimbos and the wretched little fort, Charley picks up his bag and starts after him.  He looks back over his shoulder at the Dimbos.

"Just you wait - I'll get you for this, Beale!"

"Damn it, Magnolia - "

Beale would like to reason with him, but Charley is already past him, head down and making his way to the front gate.

Larky picks up his own bag, "Wait, Charley.  I'll walk with you."

Mad Denny nods, "Go ahead next, Ong Be.  I'll bring up the rear." 

They had no sooner retreated over the drawbridge when the people inside began to pull it up, isolating Long Chu from the surrounding countryside for the night.  Ranley led them single-file, walking through the light rain and the failing light for a quarter of a mile back along the gravel road the way they had come.  This area had been bulldozed flat, to provide a field of fire for the sharpshooters behind the bamboo walls. 

Ranley paused on the road, waiting for his straggling Dimbos to catch up.  When they gathered in a semi-circle around him, he saw that Charley and Beale were panting heavily.  "Here, give me that."  Ranley swung Charley's bag on his own shoulder.  He grinned, "You're all going to like it a lot better from now on."  He took a right angle off the road onto a dim footpath that none of them had noticed.  The Dimbos followed, one by one, and as they did so they left the Western World and civilization, as they knew it, behind.

In less than thirty seconds they are surrounded by dense forest.  Dim light still filters through the high canopy overhead.  Here the rain drips from the branches, and they smell the rich, earthy odor of the jungle.  Beale sees a patch of huge, white flowers - or is it fungus, clinging to the side of a tree?  Some little animal scurries across the ground in front of them.  The footpath is firm under their feet, and they hike along in silence, overwhelmed by the gloomy majesty of the rain forest. 

Charley drops back alongside Beale, "I'm sorry I yelled, Ong Be.  I know intellectually it's not your fault."

Beale shifts his bag to his other shoulder, and his M-14 to his other hand. "Ong Nha - I've been thinking a lot about this.  I think you really are going to be okay.  We all are."

"Maybe.  But one thing's sure; I'm no good at this shit, Ong Be."

Beale doesn’t want to get into how it had come about, "What are you guys doing in Vietnam, anyway?  You never told me exactly what happened back at Meade."

 Charley gives him a long look, "Who knows the real reason?  We did piss off Captain James.  But maybe they wanted to get everybody out of town who'd been on burn bags the night Drunk Sarge hit the blender.  It's the army way."  They march along in silence, continuing on the path for another ten minutes until they come to the bank of a shallow brook. 

On the other side, the Dimbos gather around Ranley, who talks to them with quiet confidence, "We're coming to the hamlet village of Thong Nhet.  The government hasn't gotten around to relocating it into one of those spiked pig-sty horrors you saw back there.  These people are why we're really over here.  Try to remember if you have any manners."  His critical eye lingers on each of them.

As they move forward the jungle foliage gives way to a clearing.  There is a group of houses built of logs and bamboo.  They hear children laughing and playing.  A gong rings once, a heavy bong and again a sweet, high ping, the trembling notes hanging in the moist, heavy air.  There is a pleasant smell of food.  Through the trees, they see cooking fires going in the center of a village square.  They hadn’t realized how hungry they were.

Beale is overcome with an unexpected awe.  The hamlet is natural to the area, \ it belongs here.  It is warm and familiar, like a well-worn farm in the Mid-western United States, and it seems this is its natural place, here in the middle of the rain forest.  

"Anh, oiiiiii!", someone calls in a friendly hail.  Ranley motions for them to wait while he goes on ahead. 

Beale’s heart is singing with a strange madness, he can hardly contain his amazement and joy.  After the grinding year at language school, after the months at the Puzzle Palace, after the bustle, flap and roar of Tan Son Nhut, he has finally arrived at what back at language school he always visualized as the real Vietnam!  No muddy, rut filled streets.  No people jammed behind high walls for protection.  No soldiers with rifles and lives interrupted by fear and terror. 

He gazes with pleasure at the tightly-woven bamboo and thatch roofs and the men robed in simple peasant's pajamas and the women and young girls in plain ao dai, flowing dresses slit to the waist, with cotton pantaloons underneath.  The gong rings again, and he makes out a small open-air temple at one end of the hamlet, the only structure with a tile roof.

The Dimbos link arms, each unconsciously throwing a hand over the other's shoulder, and they all stare.  Larky whispers, "So it ain’t just made up lessons, or a movie thing...."

"Or pictures in National Geographic...." Mad Denny adds.

Beale says it all for them, "There really is a Vietnam..."