No Survivors

A light shaft crawled across the Boeing's cabin floor, crept up the seat, and stopped on the soldier's sleeping face. His eyelids fluttered for an instant, then he turned away from the light, hovering just beneath sleep's surreal blanket.

The aircraft's flight leveled and the afternoon sunlight retreated toward the floor. Jesse Edwards swallowed. His ears popped. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking at the brightness, then kneaded them with balled fists and peered out the window.

To the north he could see lush green hills, blending into the mountains beyond. Along the coast, the dark blue sea faded to turquoise as it approached land. From twenty thousand feet the beach resembled a brown thread sandwiched between the jungle and water.

Large white clouds below the jet looked like huge cotton balls hung in the afternoon sky. Their shadows made dark bruises on the earth. The country beneath the clouds was bruised. The assault and battery of Vietnam occurred daily, though Edwards couldn't begin to imagine its ferocity.

The jet banked left. Now the window's view offered only blue sky.

Edwards' ears popped again.

The majority of the 707's other passengers, including Edwards, were "new meat." They peered out windows on both sides of the aircraft. The minority - returning "old meat" - seemed much more interested in snatching a few more moments of shuteye in the air-conditioned cabin than in Vietnam's postcard scenery. The only emotion common to both groups, whether they admitted it or not, was fear. The unknown cultivated anxiety in new meat. Old meat dreaded something worse ... the known.

No matter how the Vietnam virgins went home, none would take their naiveté with them. War indelibly brands the minds of its participants and victims. No mental flak jacket or steel helmet exists to create immunity to combat's horror. Nothing exorcises war's psychological residue. In that sense, in any war, there are: no survivors.

* * *

Far south of the descending 707, a single engine L-19 "Bird-dog" droned incessantly, circling at a thousand feet, over the Mekong Delta.

A ragged line of soldiers moved north across the giant cobweb of cracks covering the paddies - a byproduct of the dry season's relentless heat. On this third day of another fruitless sweep operation, dust and heat were the only enemies they had engaged.

Hunter Morgan and his American partner, Staff Sergeant Small Deer, stayed a few paces behind the loose formation of tired, hot, sweaty South Vietnamese soldiers. For the moment, boredom, the foot soldier's natural enemy, represented their greatest danger.

Morgan's radio handset crackled, and Warrant Officer Wilbur Jackson's familiar voice came through from the Bird-dog above. "Dragon-Fire-Four-One, this is Shotgun-Two-One. Over."

He unhooked the radio handset from his field suspenders. "Four-One. Go," Morgan answered.

"Well, sports fans, looks like a slow day in the war from up here," Jackson said. "A highly sophisticated aircraft jockey like me could lose his edge after a few days of this. How long do you two plan to milk this R and R tour? Over."

"You're surprised we haven't seen anything?" Morgan returned grimly. "We planned this three weeks ago. We'll either see nothing or get our asses kicked royal because the VC have had so much time to set up for us." Morgan feared the latter; he had no direct proof yet, but the Vietcong seemed to be waiting for them around every tactical turn.

A few paces to Morgan's left, Small Deer lifted his own handset. He had a few choice words for Jackson, too. "Three-Eight here. I don't know what you're bitching about. At least you're sitting on your ass with a cool breeze in your face. Over." Small Deer looked in Morgan's direction; the handset only partially concealed his wide grin.

"Hey! Foxtrot-Uniform-ITLITLharlie-Kilo you, Sitting Bull, and that Pinto mare you wish you were riding. Now get off the air so I can talk to Four-One. At least he's a real grunt. Over."

Morgan smiled and pressed his talk switch. "Go easy on the pill pusher. You might need him one of these days. Over."

"You mean the Medicine Man is actually carrying medical supplies today? Over." Jackson's mock disbelief somewhat softened the sarcasm. Small Deer had been asking to become a "real grunt" for some time.

Morgan shrugged, and gave Small Deer an I tried look of surrender. "We're coming up on the last checkpoint. We'll swing back around and head southwest after that." He looked at his watch. "We ought to make the extraction point by 1700 if things stay this quiet. How much time do you have left on station? Over."

"I've got enough fuel for another half hour. After that, I'll have to head back to Bravo-Lima," Jackson said, referring to Bac Lieu, the provincial capital. "As soon as I clear the area, you folks will stumble across the bad guys, and I'll just have to fly back out here and save your gravel-agitating asses - like I always do. Over."

Morgan keyed his microphone. "We can rest easy, Medicine Man. The air farce has us covered."

"I heard that! You know I'm as army as you guys! Over."

"The only thing army about you is the 'Shotgun' in your call sign, and I doubt if you know one end of a real one from the other. Go on. Fly home to the rest of the REMFs," said Small Deer, pronouncing the term rimf. REMF stood for Rear Echelon Mother Fucker - a contemptuous term reserved for anyone involved in a non-combat mission. Joking aside, Small Deer and Morgan had seen Wil Jackson prove his courage too often to ever consider him a REMF.

"Thank God the army has something simple for people like you. I'm going to check out the rest of your route. Be back to you in a few minutes. Shotgun-Two-One. Out."

Small Deer shook his head. A thin smile creased his face. "Jackson's bored? That's a hoot! He should come down here and beat feet in this heat for three days. These daylight operations are bullshit! The VC work nights, we should too. Puts all the players on the same field. Sioux warriors don't like sunshine."

"Yeah," Morgan agreed. Like Small Deer, Morgan felt more comfortable on night operations, when his superior night vision game him an edge.

They continued across the field. With each step, the ground cracked and crunched like over-baked pie crust under their jungle boots. Morgan found the sound strangely reassuring, hypnotic, the audio equivalent of white stripes on a flat, deserted highway. Morgan's deliberate, regulated pace allowed him to scan the ground before him in wide arcs. The dry, sunbaked rice paddy resembled a piece of safety glass hit with a brick. The sea of fissures made finding signs of the Vietcong's passage difficult, but Morgan cared more about spotting and avoiding any deadly "seeds" the enemy might have planted on their way.

A hundred meters to their left, birds chirped in a line of trees separating what seemed like the infinite rice fields of the Mekong Delta. Their songs, like the earth crunching beneath dusty jungle boots, created a false sense of security, like lullabies for an abandoned baby.

The trees reminded Morgan of his father's farm in Indiana. The Indiana-front seemed a long way off at the moment. He was much more comfortable with this war than that one.

The death of Morgan's mother during his own birth had robbed him of knowing her. Though it had never been said, he knew his father blamed him for her death.

During the following years an apathetic relationship developed between the father and son. They were bonded by blood, but no more ... certainly not emotion. That fact became painfully obvious after Morgan voluntarily returned to Vietnam for a second tour, also spent in Bac Lieu Province.

While on an operation with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam's 21st Division, Morgan's timely departure from a convoy of Armored Personnel Carriers had saved his life. A massive Vietcong ambush completely destroyed the APC's, killing all aboard. Most of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition.

The helicopter Morgan rode back to headquarters in Bac Lieu had been diverted to another location where he spent the night. By the time he returned to the ARVN 21st Division compound, the army had listed him as: Killed In Action.

As soon as he discovered the error, Morgan raced to the Military Affiliate Radio Station to tell his father of the error. The MARS call to a ham radio operator in Indiana only took minutes to complete, but Morgan had already lost the race against the army by several hours.

When he heard his father through the veil of static, half a world away, he couldn't detect any sign of joy, only tired resignation. The two minute radiotelephone conversation galvanized Morgan's sense of rejection.

Morgan's relationship with his sister Paula had been the warmest element in his family life until Vietnam. She had fulfilled the role of mother, and sibling rivalry never materialized in the Morgan home. As they grew older the bond between Morgan and Paula strengthened, as much due to their father's reaction as their mother's death. The closer Paula got to her brother, the more John Morgan seemed to withdraw from both of them, as if she favored Morgan to spite her father.

Paula Morgan guarded the tenuous household truce, until her brother was drafted and sent to Vietnam. Blind to all concerns but his safety, she opposed the war long before it became fashionable. Each read the other's rejection of their cause as a rejection of themselves and a rift developed.

To Morgan, Paula's attitude was further proof of America's rejection of Vietnam veterans. The rift stretched into a canyon.

Morgan had quit writing to his father after their MARS conversation. He hadn't written to Paula during this tour, but regularly received letters from her. She had long since abandoned the "soft" approach to persuasion. Now her letters - those he opened - were full of Vietnam statistics: Americans killed, wounded, missing; Vietnamese killed, wounded, missing; communists killed. Newspaper pictures of soldiers in firefights, boiling flames of napalm strikes and the frozen, anguished faces of crying women and children spilled out of the letters, as if Morgan had somehow missed the opportunity to experience those aspects of combat firsthand. As pure as Paula's intentions were, they did nothing to darn the frayed hole in the relationship.

Morgan missed their old connection more than he ever admitted ... even to himself. His emotions and theories about what had gone so wrong at home tumbled and thrashed in his clouded mind, leaving the familiar void that always accompanied that thought process.

He found his eyes still locked on the tree line and was grateful for the diversion. Vietnam was a much less confusing place, and he retreated to it eagerly. There was only one rule here: survive.

* * *

At five-nine, Henry Small Deer bore a closer resemblance to a human fire hydrant than a soldier. Though it was not listed in any military publication, Small Deer possessed one of the most valuable skills in the military: Scrounger, General Purpose; and it fed the only passion that rivaled his love of weapons, trading for weapons, of every size and type.

Small Deer had developed a special link to the Vietnamese people during his first tour with a U.S. infantry unit in the Central Highlands. The peasants in the countryside reminded him of his own ancestors trying to scratch out a living on the plains of the American West.

His affection for the Vietnamese and his skill as a wheeler-dealer had gotten him into the army's Presidio of Monterey Language School. He finished at the top of his class. Now, as a result of the training and hard work on his own in Vietnam, Small Deer spoke, read and wrote Vietnamese fluently. His mastery of their language had earned him the respect of the Vietnamese soldiers he worked with, and meant that he never had to rely on anyone for translations in the field.

Unlike many American soldiers, Small Deer had a healthy respect for his enemy. Small Deer respected the way the VC lived off the land; their ability to blend into the landscape; to move silently across any kind of terrain, fashioning weapons from tree limbs, vines, the soil, even American discards became traitorous; trash turned into deadly traps. Of all the advisors, only Morgan shared Small Deer's respect for the VC. But then, Morgan could have been born Sioux.

Small Deer stole a glance at his partner of nearly five months now. He considered Morgan the best grunt, round for round, he'd ever worked with.

Morgan's psychological age could be measured in multiple lifetimes. He carried the eerie self-assurance that often comes from surviving a capricious trauma. A tornado destroys everything in its path, yet leaves a single house without so much as a broken window. Or, a plane crash kills hundreds, but allows a few survivors to walk away unscratched. Wisdom gained from nearly two-and-a-half years experience in Vietnam - knowledge from pain.

The bond between Morgan and Small Deer was tempered by fear, pain and constant uncertainty - a combat kinship. In the old Indian days, such a friendship would have outlived them both and been kept alive by tribal storytellers. But war managed to exploit even ordinary relationships. The dangerous distraction of one person's concern for another offered opportunity to the enemy.

"What are you looking for, Paleface?" Small Deer asked.

Morgan's glance shot to Small Deer and back to the rice paddy before him like a ricochet. "You better take a hit off that canteen of yours. This heat's getting to you. I'm looking for tracks, mines, spider holes. What are you looking for?"

"No, dickhead! I mean," Small Deer hesitated, suddenly less assertive, "what do you want out of life?" The Indian's eyes searched the ground for buried VC surprises like an overzealous prospector.

"Tomorrow's sunrise," Morgan answered promptly, not taking his eyes from the next patch of ground.

"I'm looking for the Badge, man," Small Deer volunteered. Small Deer was a medic, but in name only. He desperately wanted the Combat Infantryman's Badge, in addition to the Combat Medic's Badge he already wore. Small Deer kept trying, unsuccessfully, to have his Military Occupational Specialty changed to Light Weapons Infantry, 11B.

"Jesus! We've been through this a thousand times, Medicine Man. You've already got the badge."

"I want a warrior's badge, not a medicine man's."

Only discipline kept Morgan from rolling his eyes. "Why? You got nothing to prove to anybody. That button necklace you're wearing shows how many coups you've taken off the bad guys."

"The Combat Infantryman's Badge proves you've been tested, Morgan," Small Deer tried to explain. "It's recognized by both our people. Common ground. There's not much of that around."

Small Deer lifted his arm, sore from days under an overstuffed rucksack strap, and fingered the metal button sewn inside his faded jungle hat. This small token of his ancestor's last great victory, taken at the battle of the Little Big Horn, had driven Small Deer to start his own collection.

"Safe ground's in even shorter supply. I hope you got more than bullets in your bag, Medicine Man," Morgan added.

"The usual. Couple of Band-Aids. What's wrong? Your sick sense bothering you again?"

"Just a feeling," Morgan replied, ignoring Small Deer's jab.

"Shit." Small Deer took Morgan's premonitions seriously. Morgan's ability to sense the enemy's presence had provided several lifesaving warnings. He stole a glance at Morgan's face for a brief moment but found no hint of additional detail.

"Keep your eyes peeled, Injun. We've been through enough to know what it means to lose your edge out here."

"I'm up. Thanks." Small Deer touched the button necklace hanging under his sweat-stained jungle shirt and glanced at the sky.

* * *

The light breeze did little to cool the small village's inhabitants. Thatched huts, soaked by monsoon rains and dried in the hot sun countless times, gave off a musty smell the locals no longer noticed. Nor did they notice the aroma of fresh water buffalo droppings.

"Comrade Lieutenant?"

Nguyen Sy Minh stood in the shade of a palm next to the footpath leading east. The communist officer ignored his man momentarily, rubbing a hand across his smooth, almost unmarked face. He cringed, more inwardly than physically, when his fingers reached the scar beneath his right eye. The inverted "V" pointed like an arrowhead to the middle of his lower eyelid. Shrapnel from an American bomb had sliced open his face five years earlier in Tay Ninh Province, northwest of Saigon.

"Comrade Lieutenant?" the supplicant repeated.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from NO SURVIVORS by MIKE SUTTON Copyright © 2004 by MIKE SUTTON. Excerpted by permission.
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