Murder Key Read online

  “Galis.”

  “Sims.”

  “Craft. I can see Sandifur, Loot. He ain't movin'. Looks like he got it in the head.”

  “Beemis,” I yelled. “Are you okay?” No answer. “Can you see the bastards, Jimbo?”

  “Nossir. But they're all over the place. We're taking fire from all sides.”

  “Aber's hit. I'm going after him. Cover me,” I said to no one in particular.

  The kid was about twenty yards behind me, lying near the middle of the trail. Little puffs of dirt were exploding around him. He was still screaming. I strapped my M-16 across my back and began to crawl toward him, staying as close to the cover of the trees as I could. The jungle was so thick in places I had to crawl onto the trail, and the little puffs of dirt would begin to explode around me. One was close enough to splatter gritty sand into my eyes.

  By the time I reached Abernathy, he had quieted down and was moaning in little short gasps. I rolled him onto his back and stuck a compress over the hole in his belly. I laid on my back on top of him, my rifle between us, put his arms around my neck, and rolled onto my stomach.

  I started crabbing to the nearest cover, about ten yards in front of me. I felt Aber twitch once, and then he was quiet. When I reached the trees he was dead. He had taken one in the back. It entered his side just below his right armpit and came out on his left side about waist level. I was sticky with the boy’s blood.

  I laid him on his back. He was staring at me accusingly, but he wasn't seeing anything. I closed his eyes and started shaking, uncontrollably.

  Suddenly, all the months of futility and terror, the dead and the maimed, the terrible waste of it all, overwhelmed me. I was hyperventilating, gasping in shallow breaths, not getting enough oxygen. A part of my brain told me to snap out of it, but I had no control over my body. It was as if I were standing to one side watching my body dessert me for the first time ever.

  I told myself to slow down, to get hold of my panic. I’d been in situations this bad before, and I’d always handled them. I prided myself on never panicking, no matter what the danger. I told myself that I was in charge, and I owed these guys some leadership. Nothing worked. I couldn’t get control of the panic. It was overwhelming me, and I knew, with absolute and terrible certainty, that it would kill me.

  I remember thinking that this was a lousy place to die. I wasn't ready yet. I had about fifty more years to live according to the insurance tables. I was scared. Bone-shaking, teeth-rattling scared. I curled up in a little ball and said goodbye to the world.

  I wondered how my mother would handle the memorial service. I saw my name on the little plaque that hangs in the main hall of my high school, announcing the names of the alumni who had died in every conflict since World War One.

  Jimbo was shaking me and hollering loud enough to be heard by the staff in Saigon. “Goddammit, Matt. You chickenshit little wimp. You no good goddamn shavetail asshole. You crap out on me now, and I swear to God I'll kick your sorry ass all the way back to Florida and feed the alligators a meal of chickenshit lieutenant.”

  I was still standing there, outside my body, watching the sergeant bring me back. It was like one of those stories you read of near-death experiences, except that I was only near-death emotionally. I wasn’t even hurt, not in the physical sense.

  I’ve read of aborigines in Australia who have been boned. A shaman points a bone at one of them and tells him that he is going to die. The man, even though in the peak of health, dies within a few days, because he believed in the power of the shaman. He had willed himself dead. Maybe that’s what I was trying to do. I never figured it out, and I never had another similar experience.

  I began to pull out of it. I gulped lungfuls of air. I was as tired as I'd ever been. The lack of oxygen in the shallow breaths of the hyperventilation had taken its toll.

  Suddenly, I was back in my body. “I'm all right, Jimbo,” I said. “Thanks. Let’s figure a way to get the hell out of this.” I was lucid and in control and figured I had at least a fighting chance of surviving this mess.

  The big sergeant grinned. “That clearing is about a hundred yards in front of us,” he said. “It’s big enough to bring in choppers if we can get there. We've still got the radio. I hope the chopper boss hasn’t stopped monitoring it.”

  I got the men into a circle, firing into the trees on all sides. The guys were mad and doing their damndest to earn their pay. In the process they were shooting up one hell of a lot of Uncle Sam’s ordinance.

  The little radio was working, and I called the chopper boys. Our group was code-named Riding Hood for some unknown reason. Probably a little joke dreamed up by the staff boys back in Saigon. I called for Bald Eagle, another ridiculous name, but one that could save our butts if they were listening, and if they were in position as they were supposed to be.

  “Riding Hood, this is Bald Eagle. What are your coordinates?”

  I gave him our map coordinates and told him that we were up to our asses in Charlies. I described the situation and asked for a lot of fire power to be laid in between us and the clearing. I suggested he have a gunship make a pass and then hold off until we called again. We’d move as soon as the chopper passed, and we’d come out shooting.

  I told the men that as soon as the area was strafed, we’d move ahead about ten yards firing everything we had in all directions.

  The gun ship came in low, firing all those big machine guns. As he was angling up, our little group, still in a tight circle firing on all points of the compass, moved ten yards down the trail. On the fourth move my leg went out from under me. As I hit the ground I felt the hot pinpoint of pain in my calf. I reached down and brought back a bloody hand. The bone seemed all right. I got back to my feet and could walk, but every step felt as if a hot poker were being stuck into my lower leg.

  Suddenly, we were at the edge of the clearing. Jimbo was next to me, and Galis and Sims had their backs to us firing into the jungle.

  “Where are the others?” I asked.

  “Dead,” muttered Sims.

  “Are the choppers still with us?” I asked.

  “I saw one of the gunships go in,” said Jimbo. “He took a direct hit from some sort of heavy weapon.”

  I grabbed the radio. “Bald Eagle, we're on the edge of the clearing. If you can get a slick in, we can make a run for it. There’re only four of us left.”

  The radio crackled. “That's a mighty hot LZ,” said the helicopter unit commander. “I've lost two guns and another is heading back to base with a shot up crew and a smoking engine. I'm gonna put a slick in there, but you guys better be aboard before he sets down or you ain't gonna get out. Bald Eagle three, see if you can get those boys out of there.”

  Bald Eagle three came lumbering down at a sharp angle. We burst from cover, running full-out for the place where our ride home would set down. He was about twenty feet off the ground when he exploded in a huge red fireball. He flipped over on his side and bounced off the ground like a gut-shot turkey. Bald Eagle three wasn’t going home.

  As we started back to the cover, Galis fell. He was a little guy, about five foot six and 130 pounds, prematurely balding. I was six feet, one-hundred-eighty pounds at playing weight and had spent four years of high school running up and down a field with a football. As I ran by Galis I leaned over and scooped him up like a fumble. I don't think I even broke stride. The coach would have been proud of me.

  It didn’t do any good. Galis was dead. I later wondered how I did that with a bullet hole in my calf. Funny, I don't even remember feeling the leg. I was scared, and the old adrenaline was pumping. I guess there is some ancient memory we all have that reminds us to forget everything else and get away from the carnivore as quickly as possible. Whatever it was, I didn't spend much time in that little clearing thinking about my leg.

  The radio was talking as I laid Galis on the ground. “Riding Hood, on your word Bald Eagle two is going to take a shot at you. Same drill.”

  This chop
per boss didn't give up easy.

  I remember thinking that those pilots were one bunch of heroes. They kept coming for us, and they kept getting it up the ass from Charlie. There were already more dead air crewman in that little bit of hell than there were dead grunts.

  I gave the word, and in came another chopper. Sims, Jimbo and I were running as fast as we could toward the spot where the helicopter would land. Suddenly, machine gun fire was plowing into the aircraft. I saw the door gunner take one in the face and fall forward, his safety harness holding him half-in and half-out of the side door. The chopper veered up. I learned later that the co-pilot had taken a slug through the chest and was as dead as the gunner. The pilot caught one through the shoulder and another through his thigh.

  We could see Charlie or the North Vietnamese, whoever they were, coming out of the jungle. We couldn't go back. The three of us fell behind a coconut log in the clearing.

  Bald Eagle came up on the radio. “Riding Hood, we can't make it in. It's too hot. We can't get you.”

  There was an ineffable sadness in his voice, and a tinge of resignation at the imminent death of men he had so desperately tried to save.

  “This is Bald Eagle two. I'm going back in.”

  “Take your position Bald Eagle two. There's nothing else we can do,” said the air boss.

  I saw the chopper that had made the last try coming our way. His door gunner was still hanging out the door. The pilot was coming toward the clearing at a sharp angle, bow down.

  “Goddamnit, Scholfield, get back up here. Do you hear me, Scholfield? I'll have your ass Scholfield,” screamed the little radio.

  I guessed the pilot of Bald Eagle two had to be Scholfield, and he wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to his flight leader. Scholfield dumped his shot-up chopper right in the middle of the landing zone, about twenty yards from us. Bullets were flying toward the aircraft, tracers, even in the daylight looking like Fourth of July fireworks at the big shopping center back home.

  We were running at a speed that would have awed Walter Payton. I’d completely forgotten the little devil sticking the pitchfork in my leg. Jimbo was in the lead, holding his wounded left arm close to his body, then Sims. I was tail end Charlie. Sims took a hit in the back, ran two or three steps, stumbled, and went down. I stopped to pick him up.

  Jimbo was on the chopper and got the machine gun in the door working. He was spraying in a ninety-degree arc and hollering at me to keep my head down. I began to sidestroke my way toward the chopper, pulling Sims in a life-saving grasp that I had learned a long time ago in the Boy Scouts. I don't think they recommended it except in the water.

  As I reached the helicopter, Jimbo climbed down to help me load Sims. I got in and was tugging on his arms. Merryman was on the ground using his good arm to push on the wounded man’s backside. Suddenly, Jimbo dropped. He had taken a shot in the back. The chopper was no more than ten feet off the ground.

  In the microsecond it took me to think it out, I saw my mother meeting me at the airport and taking me home for one of her fried chicken dinners. I’d probably attend the memorial service for Jimbo, and tell his wife and kids what a great guy he had been. Maybe I’d even tell them how he saved my ass back there when I was so scared I‘d caved. I could tell them about all he’d taught me, and how I was alive today because of him.

  I dropped the ten feet to the ground. I put Jimbo’s head in my lap, and for the second time in an hour, waited to die. Then I saw that ridiculous looking shot-up chopper with the maniac driver crab over and land not ten feet from where we were sitting.

  I grabbed Jimbo under his arms and started backing toward my taxi as fast as I could. His feet were dragging, and he wasn't moving at all. I got under him and loaded him onto the chopper and started to climb aboard. I heard the pilot scream over the roar of the engine. He was taking the old bag of bolts up. I had my knees on the edge of the door frame when a sledgehammer hit me in the side, and suddenly there was nothing.

  * * * * *

  I came swimming up out of a black pit. I could see a haze, gray with tinges of red. I tried to wipe it away, but couldn’t move my arms. If this was heaven, it sure wasn't like the Baptist preacher of my childhood had described it. I smelled orange blossoms, reminding me of those soft Florida evenings in the warmth of early spring when the trees are in bloom and the air is saturated with the sweet scent of citrus blossoms.

  A soft lady voice told me to take it easy. She told me everything was going to be all right. The blackness returned.

  * * * * *

  I was staring at a fluorescent light. The orange blossoms were back in bloom. A face came into focus, a soft face with the deepest blue eyes I’d ever seen. It was surrounded by soft red hair, cut short. It had a mouth of full lips with a trace of lipstick. The nose was short, turned up, with a fine spray of freckles across the top. The mouth was moving.

  “Can you hear me, Lieutenant?”

  “Am I in Florida?”

  “No. You're in Saigon. In the 97th General Hospital.”

  “I smell orange blossoms.”

  “Oh, it’s just that silly perfume one of the men gave me.”

  “I can't move my arms.”

  “We've got them taped down, Lieutenant, so you won't tear out the I.V.”

  “Is Jimbo dead?”

  “I don't know any Jimbo.”

  “He was my sergeant.”

  “If you mean that big bald headed brute with six stripes named Merryman, he's alive and well and driving everybody nuts. He apparently doesn't think we know how to take care of you. He's in here every hour or so telling us what treatment you need.”

  “Thank God. I want to see him.”

  “You get back to sleep now. You can see him tomorrow.”

  I felt a prick in my shoulder, and the blackness returned.

  * * * * *

  When I awoke, the morning sun was streaming in the window, and Master Sergeant James B. Merryman was sitting by my bed. He was dressed in a crisp green class A uniform with five rows of ribbons between his breast pocket and the paratrooper jump wings. He was a squatty man, about five feet eight inches and 200 pounds of muscle and bone. His hair was brown, turning to gray and receding up his skull. His remaining hair was cut a quarter-inch off his head. He assured us all that baldness was a sign of virility, and in that department his wife was the envy of every NCO wives club she had ever joined. I always figured he spoke the truth.

  He was grinning. “It’s about goddamned time you woke up, you sack rat. How are you, kid?”

  “I feel like the whole Miami Dolphin defense fell on me, Top,” I said, using the title all U.S. Army first sergeants were given by their men.

  There was a look of tender concern in that beat up old face. “You're going to be okay, son. I have it on good authority that you're going to be good as new. That pretty little Lieutenant Sloan said you'd be playing football in a few months.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Two weeks yesterday.”

  “What happened?”

  “Best I can piece it together, when we were trying to get Sims in the bird, I caught one in the back. It was a clean shot and didn't hit anything of importance. That slug had to have come from a long way off and was about out of juice when it got me.

  “When I fell, I cracked my old noggin and got knocked out. That crazy pilot was taking off, and you come jumping outta that crate and picked me up. Scholfield set her back down, and you dragged me over and put me in. While you were loading me, you caught one. Except yours was hot, and it kinda tore up your insides. Nothing that can't be fixed, though.

  “Then that crazy Scholfield brings that shot up crate back to O'Conner and bounced us around pretty good getting it down. The medics loaded you and me and Sims in a Medevac along with the crazy pilot and flew us down here. The gunner and the co-pilot bought it.”

  “What about the other two?”

  “Sims made it, but he's gonna spend the rest of his life in a wheelcha
ir. Scholfield's over in the next ward with the other Warrants trying to figure out how to screw some of the nurses.”

  “We lost some good men, Top. Maybe they'll let us go home now. Any word on when we can get out of here?”

  “Well, sir, I guess some good comes out of all the shit. Scholfield got hit in the leg and shoulder, and just as he was pulling out of there, he got one in the gut. It wasn't as serious as it could have been, but I sure don't know how he got us back. Mine wasn't bad at all, and I'll be going back to duty.

  “The Army must figure my number’s coming up, because they're sending me back to Bragg as an instructor. A year in Korea in '52 shooting at Chicoms and two tours here, I think they're right.

  “I’ve only got two more years before I can take my pension and quit. Scholfield will be going home for discharge, and in about two weeks they're gonna send you back to the world to a real hospital. And while you were laying around here doing nothing you got promoted to First Lieutenant, and next week they're cutting orders promoting me to Sergeant Major. With any luck, I'll retire in a couple of years and move to Florida."

  My war was over. After a couple of months at Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco, I was discharged from the service and came home to Florida to start college.

  I kept up with Jimbo Merryman for a few years, and then, for no reason I can think of, our correspondence just drifted off. The last I heard from him was that he was planning to retire to Florida. It’s a shame to lose contact with old friends, but it happens too often.

  Yeah. I knew Jimbo Merryman.

  37

  Murder Key

  TWENTY-SIX

  “I know him,” I said to the sheriff.

  “Uncuff them,” said the sheriff. “This man won the Distinguished Service Cross in Vietnam. Do you know what that is?” “No, sir,” the deputy replied.

  “It’s the second highest award the U.S. Army gives for valor in combat,” said the sheriff. “Take those cuffs off.”