Duquel heard strained, loud field radio chatter. Radioman Thadeus Thibodaux desperately requested a Dust-off for the wounded at Bao Cat.

It was of little hope. Ulises had sat in enough Battalion staff meetings with Cardenas at Da Nang headquarters to know better. Colonel Harry Maguire advised the captain there would be no protective support if he insisted on the Quyet Thang operation. 

Instead, Duquel did his best to feel comfortable on the hard, dry ground. The clay was gruesomely tinged with his spilled blood. He did not even bother to scan the sky above the elephant grass around him for a rescue chopper. To ease the pain deep in his chest, he turned his attention to inner thoughts. Musings about battlefield existentialism. How does a mortally wounded soldier at war transfigure into a different being? Why do newly cast warriors feel so much solitude amid the battle crowd? Isolation and defenselessness are suddenly at odds with the badass killer they are trained to be. Bravado becomes realization. Bullets and shrapnel are more convincing on skin and bone than calls for glory and duty. 

On a higher realm, when death stalks a combatant, once unimportant endearments gain overpowering significance. Simple, almost forgotten events become tainted with meaning. The flow of existence distorts. A long time ago becomes a recent moment. What was once ordinary is now crucial and essential.  

Ulises felt how lull moments on the battlefield bring silent exasperation. Every instant is converted to a precious memory. Loyalty to a lover becomes obsessive. A forsaken friend back home, a teenage girlfriend, the young wife… Habitual affections take on significant meanings. Does a young wife still long for an overseas soldier?  For how long? How pliable is love at a distance?

The craving for a letter from home is now imperial. Guilt trips flood the soul. Cries about unfulfilled filial piety emerge from the shadows of an unsentimental past. The suffering of a despairing mother back at home, praying for her son’s safety, becomes latent. Gratitude solidifies for a father expressing pride to unknown folks about his son’s military adventures. Has the baby sister begun hunting for boys? 

A cute little miss waking up to love and its schemes? Duquel sang the song in his mind because he had three younger sisters.

Fond nostalgia sets in for the old buddies drinking at the local tavern. Memories of high school pranks feel priceless. Omens stack up. Sad presentiments about which chums at war remained alive. Every letter, photograph, any souvenir from home brings the need to endear. Yearnings for acceptance and affection. Every thought dressed up in raw, stained sentiment, like the blood on a dusty path.

At the war front, flaky events gain a rotund gravity. The commanders insisted that Tango Company was not a garrison unit and should go on long patrols. Join the daily fray. Ulises remembered one search-and-destroy patrol at Tak Do late that summer. Cardenas had temporarily attached the Tango platoon to the 196th Infantry Brigade. They were set for a seven-day patrol into the westernmost fringes of the A Shau Valley via helicopter delivery.

Practice, Headquarters announced, for future excursions deeper into the Annamite jungle. Duquel recalled it was an uneventful patrol along the edges of the Rao Lao River. They dug in at night. Walked along the tree line during day hours. Set up a loose perimeter during each rest stop. At night, they armed claymores and flares for nonexistent ambushes. A nerve-wracking strategy for the troop. Everyone knew the guerrillas were in the vicinity but, strangely, chose not to attack on that occasion. The non-battle situation pumped up the infantry with an unexpected adrenaline surge. Every day, every hour, every minute. 

The operational area was a dangerous place to be. The Viet Cong owned the A Shau Valley. A soldier felt coiled up, tense, and in anticipation of attack at each moment. Though actionless, everyone felt the danger of lethal traps waiting along the thick jungle waylay.

Each day of the mission, Ulises noticed the personal habits of a young artillery forward observer. The officer kept a tiny swab of a rare material hanging from his neck in a sachet. First Lieutenant Josheck Carlsbad would sniff on it continually. Snort it upon awakening. He smelled it during a patrol, even in the dikes with water up to the chest. He sniffed many times during a cat walk over the paddy levees. These were dangerous areas around the small, remote villages. Explosives would be buried in the trail. The troops sidestepped these hazards by wading alongside murky water dikes. The muddy and wet marches of a war in the tropics

More snorts a few times during the night watch when staring into the dark thickets of the camp perimeter. Josheck had a thin, bony face and fingers. His hollow gaze sat under a thick mat of blondish, shriveled hair. He was always in a decent mood. Like any soldier deep into distress location, he was scared but collected.

Back at the Chu Lai base camp a week later, Duque found Carlsbad in the grub line. All ranks below captain ate in the same makeshift mess hall.  

“What’s the ingredient in the wad you sniff on, Sir? You got some Laotian weed?”

“No. And it’s not snuff tobacco. Nor pot, Dude. Why do you wanna know?”  Carlsbad questioned without hesitation. The easygoing officer was affable and accessible. Duquel constantly did document runs for him at Hill 54 base. Carlsbad reciprocated with respect and friendship. The artillery officer had a small observation post west of the hill, bunking up with Lieutenant Piper. 

“Whatever that stuff is, it keeps you cool, man. I see how it keeps you all together. I don’t sniff at anything but would like to try that wedge.” 

Josheck laughed. “You can’t, guy. It’s exclusive medicine.” 

“Common, buddy,” Duquel insisted, “Help a fellow soldier.” 

Josheck looked over his shoulder and felt his chest pocket with a full, open hand. He lowered his voice to a boyish whisper. 

“It’s a tuft of lower-latitude hair from my wife’s geography. A talisman from our intimacy. Reeking of her favorite perfume. It gives me new energy every day. Keeps me so wanting to return home in one piece. I manifest it with every snuffle.”

Months later, Duquel saw Josheck at Da Nang’s Out-Processing Station. He was dressed in a starched khaki dress uniform. The officer was ready to board the commercial Freedom Bird parked at Da Nang’s main airfield. He held the tiny satchel in his hand and smiled happily. 

Duquel, his life spilling away at Bao Cat, longed for a talisman. A lucky charm from Kikei Santos that would stretch his life a few more moments. But there was none in his chest pocket. And there was no air ambulance on the way to pick him up. Only vultures on the tree limbs.

♠ 

NEXT CHAPTER: RUMBA HILL