“Thanks, Hart” Dan answered with a smile after reading his name tag.
Dan looked at his watch as he watched the Chu Lai runway growing in the pilot’s windshield on their descent. It was just after 1310.
I’ll find a radio and see if Tom can come pick me up and we can go out on the road for a couple hours.
After thanking the crew and especially the loadmaster, Dan headed to where a group of Seabee builders were working on a new Marine building near the terminal.
“Hey, Dave, where did you come from?” A second class builder hollered from where he sat on the new building’s ridgepole.”
“Okinawa, Sam. R & R. You guys got a radio?”
“Sure, I’ll be right down. Meet me out back.”
Dan walked around the new building until he came to a Seabee green painted weapons carrier. Sam stepped off the ladder and pointed at the weps. “It’s in there Dave. You need a ride?”
“Yeah. I want to see if Chief Thomas will come out and pick me up so we can go out on the road.”
Sitting in the driver’s seat the builder started the weps turned on the radio and handed Dan the mike. “I’m presuming you want the vehicle to vehicle, crew to crew channel.” He asked reaching for the knob to change the frequency.
“That I do. Thanks, Sam.”
“There you’re all set.
Any time my friend. Turn off the radio and engine when your through, ok?’
“Sure enough.”
“Golf 1 this is Golf 3.”
It was just seconds when Chief Thomas answered. “Golf 1, go ahead Dan.”
“Chief, I’m at the Marine air terminal, just got in from Da Nang. Can you pick me up?”
“Matter of fact I can. I’m headed back out to the road, want to go?’
“Affirmative. That’s my goal.”
“Good. See ya in about 3 or 4.
Golf 1 out.”
“Golf 3 copy, out.”
“I thought you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow?”
“True. I didn’t want to hang around Da Nang. They shoot at you up there.
We got in from Okinawa so early that I figured that I might get a hop. Which I did.
So what’s the plan? We still a go for rock?”
“Planning has given us a reprieve on the rock. So we can build up the stock pile some more.”
“I know there has to be an ulterior motive. I’m waiting for the shoe to fall.”
“I’ll take it in order of occurrence.
The First Cav’s Huey’s are moving north from the Da Nang area sometime about mid-May. So on May 1 we are going to start building LZs and pads for them at the south end of the fence.”
“Where we started the road? In other words the powers-to-be knew about this two or so weeks ago.”
“Yeah. We’re planning on 10 days to complete them. We’ll open a new laterite pit across the road from the first village after Brigade headquarters. Just this side of your bomb culvert.
You’ll have a 2 1/2 yard loader, the Northwest 6 and as many dumps as we can get to haul. Also the two double barrel Euclids. They’ll build the roads with help from Burgess and your grader.”
“I’m going to run the borrow pit? What about Kramer?”
“He’ll get one of the Eucs. Windy’s in fact.
That borrow pit is going to a tough one and you’ll have to use what resources that you can find.”
“What’s the catch?” Dan asked as Thomas pulled through the gate and started south on Highway 1.
“There are graves scattered all up and down that hill. You’ll have to plan around them because we can’t get permission to move them for a borrow pit. From what I’ve seen we’ll end up with the main pit where the NW6 will be. Then a small hill south of the NW6 the scrapers will load out of. The loader you can move around the edges as you need to. It will depend on how many dumps you have every day which will vary upon the demand for them for other projects.”
“That where we’re going now?
Who’s my shovel operator?”
“Duke. Thought you would like that. Casey has to stay at the quarry because they are going to keep drilling and blowing rock. So I can’t give you a dozer yet. Maybe later.”
“Where’s Ryder?”
“Leaving on R & R to Hong Kong in the morning.
That’s why I’m glad your back. I want you to run the road and quarry the rest of the week. Burgess is on the grader working on shoulders since Kramer got Windy’s scraper.
When Ryder gets back he’ll be running the quarry and we hope to have a grader back on Highway1 to maintain what we have. Any ideas for an operator?”
“No chance of keeping Brad? That was a rhetorical question I know the answer to it. Can I let you know later?”
“Sure. Let’s see if we can find Honcho. I think he’ll be your best bet for a translator and I talked to him yesterday and he seems to know where the graves are. I was on my way out here to meet him and an elder from the village so we can locate and mark the graves when you called.”
Thomas pulled off the road into the small borrow pit that had been used over the years. “Should be able to start the NW6 here. He can develop his own access after a few loads go out.”
Shortly after they got out of the jeep Honcho, with his habitual big smile, walked out of the shade of the banana trees across the road next to the village access road. “Papa-san is working in the rice paddies and cannot leave. He said come back early tomorrow morning. Sorry, but he is an old man and is one of the village elders.”
“That’s okay, Honcho. Tell him I’ll be here at 0900 tomorrow and we can do it then if he wants to.” Dan told him.
The young Vietnamese smiled happily his mission accomplished. He had done as the elders told him to. Turning, he started back across the road. Half way across he stopped and turned part way around. “Lai Mai Linh was looking for you.” Smiling he turned away and continued towards the village.
“Lai Mai Linh?” Tom asked.
“Linh. The good looking Vietnamese girl. You know, they put their family name first.”
“White silk pants?”
“Yes.”
“Every Seabee who has ever worked out here talks about the white silk pants.”
EIGHTEEN
It was mid-morning on Tuesday before Dan could talk to Brad Burgess. They had agreed to meet at the crew’s trailer for coffee and a C-rats snack. Brad was there already and Dan saw the grader parked there as he came south on Highway 1 from the quarry access road.
“Waiting long?”
“No, just a couple of minutes. Long enough to heat some coffee water. Here. The cup on the stove will be ready in a second.”
Dan thanked him as he ripped open a packet of C-rat instant coffee and started to stir it. “I got back together with Suzie.”
“Good. She’s a nice lady. You wouldn’t have ever stood a chance with her if I hadn’t met Tomi.”
“I know. Right. You weren’t taking your relationship with her seriously. She was just a bunch of one night stands and a sure thing to get laid when you got horny. Sorry old friend, but I know you. Dan thought as he sipped the hot brew and looked Brad in the eye with a smile.
We’re getting married.”
“Really! I for one would never expect it of either one of you. I can see you living together as long as you were on the island, but for her to marry an American never occurred to me. She thought a lot of you but I didn’t think she would never want to marry you.”
“I told you when I left the island that her goodbye was basically ‘go home to America and find a blonde, blue eyed caucasian and live happily ever after.’ ” Dan said.
“Yeah, you did. Instead you go back to Okinawa and find a tall gorgeous green eyed Eurasian that you lived with before. True?”
“Got that right. I found her in Koza the first night I was there. All by accident.” Dan started to tell
his best friend the details of their meeting and how they had both changed some attitudes along the way.
“We went to see Tomi also.”
Brad’s face lit up and his almost perpetual smile spread across his face.
“How is she? I get three or four letters a week. But it isn’t the same as seeing her face to face or having you tell me how she is.”
“Gorgeous as ever. Happy as she can be considering the fact you’re here and she’s there. She misses you very much.”
“I put in for R & R on May 26 and nobody can see any reason I shouldn’t get it. Most guys in this battalion were never on Okinawa so they want to go to Taiwan or Hong Kong. I can’t wait to see her again. It helps getting and writing letters and best of all knowing when I will see her again.
She isn’t working too hard is she? You and Suzie would see if she was quicker than I can in letters.”
“No. She seems fine. Looks great if I can say so.”
“Thanks Dan. I appreciate you and Suzie going to see her.”
“Hey, she’s our friend too. Suzie’s and mine. We hung out in the Kokusai Coffee House when we were living together.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Thomas is trying to keep you on the road after we finish the pads, but doesn’t think the chances are very good.
What we need to know is, do you want to stay out here? After the pads are done that is. You and I could swap off between the loader loading rock at the quarry and the grader spreading the rock. We’ll have the belly dump Athey wagons. So it should be easy grading the windrows from them.”
“I think I would. You got most of it all ready blue topped except the road bed itself which will be no big deal. Now what?”
“Play it by ear and see what Operations says. Lt. Roberts will go along with what ever the Chief wants to do. But he has to answer to them.”
After Brad went back to work Dan took the crew’s weps south with the intention of going to the site where they were going to build the 1st Cav helicopter pads and the new establish the laterite pit. About a quarter mile north of the pads, before he reached the Brigade gate, he saw Linh walking north on the right side of the highway. She was alone and he could see in the distance the other girls near the Brigade gate clustered where they usually where.
He pulled off the highway and onto the sandy shoulder. Got out of the weapons carrier and waited for her to come to him. He had to admit that he was attracted to her and from all signs she was also attracted to him. He also thought about Suzie almost constantly and it was not his way to be able to have any kind of close or sexual relationship with more than one woman at a time.
I have to love or at least really care for a woman to have and enjoy good love making.. Sex aside. I know myself well enough to know that I couldn’t just have sex with either of these women. I care too much for each of them to have casual sex. I’ve really admitted to myself that I am completely committed to Suzie now. Dan was thinking while watching Linh walk up to him.
“Hi you. I missed you before I went on R & R.”
“I wanted to see you and was worried until Honcho told me that the Seabees told him you had gone to Okinawa for a week. Is that true?”
“Yes. I was going to tell you but you weren’t here before I left.”
She came up close to him as they walked around the front of the weps and onto the built up sand shoulder of the road. Their shoulders touched and neither pulled away. She set her basket down before raising her face to be kissed. It was more than a light touching of their lips but without the passion of their first kisses.
“Do you have a girl friend or wife on Okinawa?”
“A girl friend. I have known her for a long time, but when I came to Vietnam she broke it off.”
“Broke it off?” Linh asked with a frown on her face.
“Didn’t want to be with me anymore. So I was looking for a girl friend.
I like you as much as I can knowing very little about you and we have never been together long enough to really get to know each other or to make love.”
“But now?” She asked.
“Suzie, that is her name, and I saw each other, stayed together all the time I was on Okinawa and made promises to each other.”
“She was sorry she had let you go?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“You slept together?” Linh’s eyes had become sadder with each answer.
Dan felt though very little had happened between them, he owed her some compassion and understanding.
“At the very least, we’re friends Linh. And I will always want to see you and talk to you.”
“I was not here on that day because I had to go to Hue and just came back yesterday. I’ll be going back around the middle of May. The 14th or 15th I think then I will have to go. I’d like to see you and talk to you until I must leave. Is that all right?”
“Yes. I’d like that. I’ll be out here every day except on Sundays. Next week I’ll be down by the first village after the Army gate. Know it?”
“Oh yes. You will be there on Monday?”
“Yeah.”
She stepped closer to him. Almost touching his chest and for the first time he noticed her breasts barely touching him. Not big, but great shape. She’s wearing a new bra I think or she never wore one before.
“Where are you going now?”
“I have to go back to Chu Lai. I stayed with Honcho’s mother last night. I brought some family things to her from Hue so I rode the bus to her village instead of getting off in Chu Lai last night.”
“I have to go back to work. Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, I’ll be here.”
“You know the road to the laterite pit. Where the big trucks get loaded?”
“I’ll see you there. Our trailer with the C-rations and water on it will be there as soon as the Marine minesweeper goes through.”
“All right.” She again raised up and kissed him lightly on his lips. “Bye.”She said and waved after picking up her basket and turning away.
Dan watched her walk away and when she was about a hundred yards down the road she turned and waved her small hand away from her basket wave.
He returned her wave then slid into the driver’s seat of the weps.
NINETEEN
Monday May 1st was spent making sure that everybody knew their jobs and what they hoped to accomplish over the next ten days. The most important was to start the three different sections of the laterite pit off on their right foot. Duke moved the NW6 into the small existing pit and immediately started to enlarge it to give himself room to swing the big shovel. Adamson and Kramer with their big double barrel Eucs scrapers had to make several passes each up and down the hill to gain access to the top of the pit and then figure how to stay within the flagged boundaries that Dan and Honcho had put in to keep the scrapers clear of the Vietnamese graves. To make it easier and faster he told them not to be fussy trying to slope the shoulders of the cut. Just load the pans in the cut. He also told Duke to go into the hill flat from the road and hold the same grade throughout where ever he was loading out. Again, don’t worry about having a sheer face. The Seabee on the loader had been running the loader on the road off and on since February whenever they had the need to load dump trucks. Dan didn’t have to watch him too closely and best of all didn’t have to worry about his operating skills. Dan asked him to improve the access for the dump trucks and scrapers to the pit. By quitting time on Monday he had added a separate access for each piece of heavy equipment so they would only be sharing the highway back and forth to the helicopter pads.
Just before 1800 hours the job’s quitting time, Chief Thomas came by to see how it was going. Pulling in behind the NW6 what he saw brought a smile to his face. Dan had walked across the pit from where a cargo truck for the crew was waiting to take the crew to camp, to talk to Thomas.
“I see you got creative today.”
“What, Tom?” He asked in all innocence.
“You’re assuming that you’ll be able to have a Cat and time to shape the hill after we’ve finished the pads.” He said smiling and obviously pleased that Dan was taking that approach. “Operations brought that up before the final plan but never made an issue of it.”
“You told me to get the fill to you as quick as I could. This is the quickest way. I don’t want them wasting time dressing it all up pretty-like when that can be done anytime and lots quicker if that is all one cat skinner has to deal with.”
“It’s all right Dan. I just don’t know what Operations attitude towards it will be when they see it. Except for Mr. Roberts none of the officers that will be out here know anything about actually running this kind of operation.
Be prepared in case they say something or question it. Then tell them how fast you, and I do mean you, can shape it up after we pull all this equipment out of here.”
“Do you actually mean that I get to actually run a Cat to shape it?”
“Yes.”
“You need Casey’s Cat in the quarry.”
“We, or rather you, will be getting a used D8 from RMK on the 9th of May. We’re supposed to be finished hauling for the pads on the 10th. You can start shaping up the pit on the 11th.
Chief Marks wants two days to get the D8 serviced and inspected before he’ll sign off on the acceptance.”
“So If it’s in good shape I’ll have it out here on the 11th?”
“You got it.”
“Thanks Tom. It’s definitely something to look forward to.”
“You now know why we have to figure out who Ryder can have as a grader operator. I have to give Brad back to the crew putting in the access roads to MAG 36’s warehouses. I’m going to try to hang on to him until the middle of the month since the roads are on hold until then.”