The Time Keepers

Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29 Vietnam, 1969

T HREE MONTHS INTO HIS TOUR, J ACK AND TWELVE MEN FROM his platoon were airlifted by helicopter into a wet world of dense jungle, biting insects and fear, thirty miles southwest of Hue. Their mission was a five-day recon patrol of the area to confirm and investigate possible Vietcong presence in the mountains west of Phú L?c.

The men carried everything on their backs: the rolled ponchos, the canteens of water, the belts of ammunition, and their rifles. None had slept more than a couple of hours each day, and their bodies were worn down and hungry.

As they walked, a thick mist enveloped the foliage, and the earthen floor transformed into thick tracks of mud.

Most of the marines had jungle rot on their feet. Endless rain and too many days and nights treading through the tropical rain forest had left their skin with painful, pus-filled red blisters. Doc spent most of his time trying to ensure these ulcers didn’t get infected, for that could lead to more serious complications.

Jack no longer had any dry socks in his pack, and he worried that he, too, might find himself with the dreaded jungle rot. His feet were already pruned and raw from wearing wet boots for days. The radio had also been malfunctioning recently, and he had spent the first hours of that morning drying the connections and replacing the battery to keep it alive. The last thing he wanted was Lieutenant Bates giving him shit about the radio not working. For most of the mission, it seemed as if they had been trekking through steam. It was certainly plausible that the intense humidity, even more extreme than usual, had caused the battery to malfunction. Luckily, the new battery seemed to rectify the problem, and soon communication was restored.

For several hours, the men had been slowly advancing toward Razorback. Corporal Gomez, the squad leader, made sure that Chief alternated positions with Flannery, the two of them taking turns going from the front of the patrol to the back to keep the point man alert.

Chief had discovered a booby trap that morning. While walking up the mountain—as the point man, his knife slicing through ropes of thick vines and brush—he sensed something amiss. He stopped suddenly and jerked his hand up in the halt position, one leg lifted above a low pile of brush. Without speaking a word, he waved for Larini, who was in charge of diffusing explosives, to come and inspect the suspicious covering.

They all stopped and dropped for cover. Above, a large-winged falcon circled over the treetops.

Larini got down on his knees and carefully lifted the thick carpet of leaves. Beneath them was a thin lattice work of twigs. He removed that, too, as the others kept their eyes peeled in surveillance. Underneath the covering was a deep well with a grenade propped in the side wall. One step farther would have ignited the fuse and blown Chief’s leg off.

Larini worked slowly and carefully to disarm the grenade, and then he lay it off to the side. “Fucking hell,” Flannery cursed, peering over at the trap when it was all over. “Chief, thank God you caught that one.”

“I just had a feeling about it.…” His voice was solemn.

Stanley stepped back and steadied himself against a tree. He had been limping all morning and was two men ahead of Jack. His body was sagging underneath the weight of his flak jacket and pack. He’d thrown up near the stream hours earlier when they went to refill their canteens. His pale skin had grown even paler from his bout of sickness, and his lips had started to look a little blue.

Just after the booby trap incident, Doc had called him aside to see if he was drinking enough water. “You’re overheating, Stan. Keep yourself hydrated.” Doc gave a playful smack on his helmet, causing the words Kong Killer to dip over Stanley’s large blue eyes.

“I’m okay, Doc,” he answered politely. “I’m no hotter than everyone else.”

“Do me a favor and finish your canteen. Then go over and refill it like everyone else .”

“Okay, Doc.”

“Still never had a beer, have you?” Doc smiled.

“Nope.” A wide grin emerged on Stanley’s face. “I’m going to wait and save it for the last day of my tour.”

Doc tried to mask his cynicism. “Is that really wise, Private?”

“Yes, sir. I believe it is.”

“You’re a strange kid, Stanley,” he remarked and pushed him toward the stream. “In the meantime, drink more water, will you?”

Stanley knelt by the stream and filled his two canteens, then unbuckled his helmet strap and scooped up some water into his helmet and dumped it over his blond head.

He shook off the water, sending droplets through the air that landed on Flannery. They were so damn hot, any water on their bodies, aside from their feet, was a welcome relief.

“Saddle up,” Lieutenant Bates ordered. He rolled up his map inside his pack, checked his compass from his belt, and signaled for the squad to move out. The men inspected their M16 rifles, making sure they were locked and loaded. Jack hoisted the radio onto his back. Slowly, like a line of ants, they began to move again up the hill.

Chief and Flannery were walking point when they heard the first enemy gunshot.

Within seconds, the men opened fire in the direction of the attack.

“Corpsman up! Corpsman up!” Larini cried out. It was Murphy, who had been hit in the leg. Doc ran to attend to the wounded man as the firefight continued.

On his belly, Jack was manning the radio as Bates held the handset to his mouth and began shouting in their location and calling for backup. The jungle, once dark and green, was now illuminated in a thousand rays of orange and red.

The spray of bullets seemed to stretch for hours, but in reality, the exchange only lasted a few minutes. Two Vietcong were shot dead, and Murphy appeared to be the only man wounded, until Chief noticed that the Stanley wasn’t behind him as he originally thought.

“No!” Flannery yelled when he came across Stanley’s body a few yards away from the others. He was lying on his back, his blue eyes staring up at the sky.

Doc came running and ripped open Stanley’s jacket. “You’re okay, man. You’re okay,” he repeated as his hands became soaked in Stanley’s blood. The bullet had entered in the worst possible place, right through his chest, rupturing his aorta. Doc immediately tried to stymie the bleeding with some thick gauze.

Stanley was gurgling now, trying to say something that Doc couldn’t understand. He was choking on his own blood as he struggled to get out his words.

It was Jack who realized what he was trying to say with his last breaths. “He’s asking for his Bible, man. His Bible.” Jack worked quickly. He pulled the pack off his dying friend’s shoulders, digging his hands into its interior until he found the small leather-bound book he’d seen Stanley read from every morning of his tour.

“Here you go, buddy. Here it is.…” Jack took Stanley’s arm that was struggling to move and helped adjust it just as Doc gave him a dose of morphine to ease his pain.

Jack had placed the Bible on top of his chest. The last thing Stanley did was cover the book with his hand.

Silence enveloped the squad when they all realized Stanley was dead. Jack and Flannery helped wrap his body in his poncho, his blood staining their hands and clothes. The smell of death already filled the air.

“Fuck, this smells like hell,” Flannery cursed as they wrapped up Stanley’s bloody corpse.

Jack had been wanting to retch since seeing Stanley’s vacant eyes and shattered chest but had fought it off. “Just shut up and do it,” he snapped.

When the two were finished, Chief then lifted Stanley’s body into his strong arms, first to his chest and then slung over his shoulder.

For the next hour, he climbed the mountain to reach the ridge where the helicopter was due to land to take Murphy and Stanley away.

Chief refused to let anyone else carry the body. He told the others that night when they set up camp that carrying Stanley’s 150-pound body was not a burden, it was an honor.

“One of us would have helped you,” Larini insisted as Lieutenant Bates handed out warm beers. After his platoon had returned to camp, he snagged a case of beer in honor of Stanley’s memory.

“That boy was better than all of us.” Chief turned his head and looked away. “I didn’t want even his head to touch the ground … not a single part of him to graze the dirt. Couldn’t trust anyone to do that but me.”

Jack reached for a beer. He still could not erase the last image of Stanley from his mind. Due to the poor visibility, the chopper had to send a special piercing instrument to penetrate the fog. When the stretcher finally emerged through the clouds, it dangled as though it had been delivered from the heavens.

He watched as Chief lifted Stanley’s enshrouded body from his shoulder and laid it down on the stretcher like an offering. Slowly, it was then carried back up through the mists.

Now, as they all drank beer in Stanley’s honor, Jack realized the squad had lost something that had made them unique from the others. They had lost their innocent. The purity of Stanley was gone.