The Valley of Hope

By David N. Sanders

Set in the early 1970s, The Valley of Hope follows a group of expatriates, predominately Americans and Australians, who are engaged at the forefront of Indonesias ambitious quest for petroleum riches. They work for the Indonesian company NUKINusa Udara Kisaran Indonesia (Island Helicopters Indonesia)the largest helicopter operator in Indonesia. It operates a fleet of venerable Huey helicopters of Vietnam War famethe same helicopter that is being featured daily, along with body-counts from the war, on prime-time TV.

For the multitude of oil field workers and support personnel manning the rigs in the interior of Borneo, the Huey is their only link to civilization and perhaps their only chance for survival if they became injured or afflicted with illness. The Huey is both life and death. Due to the rigorous demands on both the flight crews and the aircraft, accidents are a frequent occurrence. Most NUKI employees approach life with a lighthearted attitude and strive do everything possible to make their existence in Indonesia more enjoyable. Even so, some of them are in the process of coming to terms with the traumas of their wartime experiences, while others are dealing with relationship problems.

The Valley of Hope provides glimpses of Indonesian customs and culture that help to explain how decades of endemic corruption have resulted in the turmoil and political instability that is shattering Indonesia today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Aug 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466927377

David N. Sanders

David N. Sanders was raised in northern New Mexico and enlisted in the US Marine Corps after graduation from high school. During his enlistment, he served all over Asia, including Vietnam; Okinawa, Japan; and the Philippines. He has over thirty-five years of experience flying helicopters in Southeast Asia and currently lives in Singapore.

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Contents

THE VALLEY OF HOPE

Prologue

First Flight

Balikpapan

The Valley of Hope

Sambera Location

Jakarta

Badak One Location

The Infamous

Food Feud

Muaratewe Location

Bali

Kiwi and His

Electric T-bones

The Great Equator Streak

Sebulu South Location

Base Camp

Glossary

Bahasa Indonesia—

Indonesian Language

For Cocotini

If we weren’t here, we’d be somewhere else.

Lance Corporal B. Blesser, USMC. Chu Lai, Vietnam 4 July 1965

THE VALLEY OF HOPE

A famous American WWII aviation hero once said, Show me a hero and I’ll show you a bum. The employees of NUKI, an Indonesian-American helicopter company supporting oil exploration in the rainforests of Borneo, seem determined to prove that, ‘Show me a bum and I’ll show you a hero’, may also be true.

NUKI, an acronym for the Indonesian company Nusa Udara Kisaran Indonesia (Island Helicopters Indonesia), is a joint-venture helicopter company comprised almost entirely of American and Australian Vietnam War veterans. The time period is the early nineteen-seventies and the Americans and their allies are gradually withdrawing from Vietnam. Across America, filling station queues are a daily reality. The shortage of oil and its unprecedented rise in price has encouraged the oil conglomerates to embark on massive wildcat exploration at promising locations throughout the world. Indonesia, especially the island of Borneo, where prolific, pre-WWII Dutch oilfields resulted in occupation by the Imperial Japanese Army, is an area of great potential. The oil companies realize that, due to the primitive conditions existing in the interior of Borneo, large numbers of helicopters will be required to transport the men and the equipment required to support extensive exploration.

For many of the thousands of servicemen and military contract workers of various nationalities who had served in Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia, this was an excellent opportunity to re-experience the seductiveness of Southeast Asia. The Valley of Hope is a novel about a group of these expatriates, predominately Americans and Australians, who are engaged at the forefront of Indonesia’s ambitious quest for petroleum riches. NUKI, the largest helicopter operator in Indonesia, operates a fleet of venerable ‘Huey’ helicopters of Vietnam War fame: The same helicopter, as the Vietnam War continues, that is still being featured daily, along with body-counts, on prime-time TV.

We soon discover that some of NUKI’s employees are still coming to terms with the traumas of their wartime experiences. Others are affected by problems of a more personal nature, such as married couples striving to cope with their husband’s recurring schedule of two weeks of work in Indonesia followed by six days of ‘time-off’ in Singapore and surrounding Asian countries. In the case of single employees, many spend their six-day vacation in frivolous pursuit of the fun-and-money-loving women that work in the bars and massage parlors of Bangkok and Manila.

For the multitude of oil field workers and support personnel manning the rigs in the interior of Borneo, the Huey is their only link to civilization and perhaps their only chance for survival if they became injured or afflicted with illness. The Huey is both life and death. Due to the rigorous demands on both the flight crews and the aircraft, accidents are a frequent occurrence. Poor weather conditions, mechanical failures, and pilot error are common hazards, but despite the inherent dangers of their profession, most NUKI employees approach life with a light-hearted attitude and strive do everything possible to make their existence in Indonesia more enjoyable, hence the title—The Valley of Hope. The Valley of Hope is the largest and by far the best-stocked brothel on the island of Borneo. By experiencing NUKI employee’s trials and tribulations, we discover that, indeed, any of us may be a hero or a bum.

The Valley of Hope, although set in a period thirty-two years ago, provides glimpses of Indonesian customs and culture that help to explain how decades of endemic corruption have resulted in the turmoil and political instability that is shattering Indonesia today.

The Valley of Hope is my first novel. It is based upon 35 years of experience flying helicopters in Southeast Asia. After being discharged from the US Marines, I flew a helicopter for the pilot episode of the Hollywood TV series M*A*S*H prior to returning to Southeast Asia in 1973. I eventually founded an aviation company here in Singapore that specializes in helicopter flight testing and delivery to their respective operators in Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, India, and Bangladesh, as well as other Asian countries. Whereas, I’m still an active pilot, I write primarily as a hobby and a means to entertain my friends and relatives who otherwise would not be able to share my extreme good fortune of a career as a helicopter pilot flying low over the magnificent rain forests, mountains, and beaches of Southeast Asia.

David N. Sanders

BLK. 498A, #09-358

Tampines Street 45

Singapore 520498

[e-mail]

Tel: [phone]

27 April 2012

Prologue

An atmospheric inversion layer lay suspended above the rustic copper-mining town of Globe, Arizona—an invisible blanket trapping below it the spew from numerous smelter chimneys that towered into the air like ancient Egyptian obelisks. The murky discharge combined with the November mist and crept throughout the valley, its minute particles settling from the atmosphere, tainting underlying surfaces with a fine coating of golden-tinted dust.

The early morning serenity was broken by the wail of steam whistles. Miners working the graveyard shift would soon emerge from the gloomy shafts and pits, pause to welcome the sunrise, and inhale the brisk autumn air to purge ore dust from their lungs.

A few miles up the valley, a coral-coloured neon sign blinked into existence Kelley’s Court, a row of Spanish-style motel units whose original brick-red paint had faded to a lifeless pink from years of exposure to the harsh Arizona sun.

At the farthest end of these units, in conflict with its surroundings, squat a road-weary trailer house, its exterior chipped and gouged from toilsome migrations on primitive dirt and gravel roads linking the remote Arizona and New Mexico desert regions of the Navajo Indian Reservation.

A worn-out turquoise-coloured curtain covered the trailer’s door window. The curtain was pushed upwards at the bottom, and a small boy—his eyes still passive with sleep—was peering through the glass. His eyes narrowed in disappointment upon discovering that his wish had not come true—the barren ground was not covered with snow as he had wished. Instead, it was covered with a radiant layer of frost with the monotony of the landscape being broken only by a few leafless trees and isolated drifts of tumbleweeds.

The door eased slowly open, revealing a blond-haired boy wearing red-and-white-striped, hand-me-down pyjamas. He eased his barefeet gingerly downwards to the frost-covered steps, pausing in delight to exhale condensation breath upwards and watch it vanish into the air.

Reaching behind him, he grasped the handle of a white porcelain chamber pot. Dragging it closer to the doorway, he stepped to the ground, giving a little dance of discomfort as the cold earth penetrated the soles of his unprotected feet.

The boy—his hair nearly as white as the frosty ground—hoisted his burden higher and, stepping lively as if he was crossing a pit of fiery coals, hastened towards an unpainted concrete building. After disappearing inside, he emerged a few seconds later just as the sun peered over the rim of the valley to begin its daily earth-keeping chores by sweeping back the shadows that lingered below the slopes of nearby foothills.

With the pot’s contents disposed of, he experimented with centrifugal force by whirling the pot in a vertical circle. The cover suddenly flew off, narrowly missed his head, and then rolled down a slight incline. He chased after it, reaching out in vain as it careened around a corner of the concrete building. He reached out and wrapped his hand around a water pipe that protruded from the side of the building. Using the water pipe as a handhold, he pivoted the corner and almost impaled himself on the hitch of a flatbed trailer that was parked alongside the concrete building.

The cover struck one of the flatbed’s tyres and wobbled to a stop. The boy knelt and grasped it firmly. As he rose, he glanced upwards—his eyes opening wide in astonishment and the cover slipping from his hand.

Easing slowly backwards, he gazed in spellbound fascination at an unearthly looking craft lashed to the top of the flatbed with a blue fibre rope. The front of the craft was round and bulbous and covered with a transparent material that sparkled with frost like an enormous soap bubble sprinkled with sugar. The rear of the bubble was streamlined with sheets of metal, like the panelling on the back of his father’s pickup truck. It was attached to something that looked like a motor. The motor was enclosed in a basket-like framework that was connected to a skeletal tail consisting of tubing, wires, and other confusing objects. At the top of the strange craft, attached to a shaft protruding from what seemed to be its motor, was a long slender object that reminded him of a giant black propeller.

Unable to deny his curiosity any longer, he reached out and touched what he imagined to be its landing gear. The metal felt cold and strange, almost alien, as he stroked its smooth black surface.

‘Wow!’ he whispered, staring at his hand to see if it had been transformed in some mysterious way.

‘Wow!’ he repeated, lowering his hand. Spinning on his heels, he tried to run, but a pair of outstretched arms ensnared him.

The presence of another person so startled him that he cried out in alarm.

‘Yeow! Help!’

‘It’s all right, Son. It’s only me,’ a tall brown-haired man wearing carpenter’s overalls said, lifting the boy in his arms to get his feet off the frozen ground.

The boy threw his arms around the man and hugged him.

‘A spaceship, Dad! It’s a real live spaceship. Look!’ he cried, beaming with excitement while pointing at the machine. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

‘Yes, Son, it is beautiful. But it isn’t a spaceship… at least not like you want it to be.’

‘It’s not?’ the boy said, disappointment in his voice as he gazed into his father’s eyes. ‘What is it then?’

The man lowered his son to let him stand on a wooden cradle at the front of the flatbed. As he did so, the boy reached out and touched the frost-covered bubble that surrounded the front of the machine like a giant glistening fishbowl.

‘Well, Son, it’s what they call a helicopter—a machine that can fly forwards, backwards, sidewards, and turn in circles. It can even hang in the air like a hummingbird.’

The boy brushed at the frost with the sleeve of his pyjamas until a small clearing appeared on the bubble. Leaning forwards, he peered inside. With its frosty crust, it was too dark inside the bubble to see anything more than his reflection on the outside surface. He studied the reflection for a moment and then looked upwards, his eyes tracing the creases in his father’s weathered complexion.

The boy’s eyes were alive with curiosity. ‘Can a helicopter go faster than a race car, Dad?’

‘I’m sure it can, Son,’ the father said with momentary hesitation.

The look of curiosity intensified. ‘What do they call somebody who drives a helicopter, Dad?’

‘He’s a pilot, Son… a helicopter pilot,’ the father said as he lifted the boy from the flatbed.

The boy quickly turned in his father’s arms as if afraid the helicopter was about to disappear. Once again, he reached out to touch the bubble. Satisfied, he gave his father a quick hug. An expression of determination appeared on his face as he leant back and gazed into his father’s eyes.

‘Dad… I’m gonna be a helicopter pilot when I grow up!’

The small two-storey schoolhouse sat in the centre of a barren schoolyard, whose only sign of life was a soiled tetherball swaying at the end of a frayed cotton rope. The ball was bouncing against its metal pole from the blast effect of an Arizona sandstorm. The blowing sand was drifting across a gravel-covered road that faded into obscurity inside the sandstorm. To the west, also cloaked in a veil of sand, the road crossed the width of the great Navajo Indian Reservation. To the east, the road terminated at a T-junction in front of the Tuba City Trading Post.

The interior of the schoolhouse was divided into two large classrooms. The basement classroom was occupied by the first, second, and third grades, and the ground-floor classroom was occupied by the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. The individual grades were separated from each other by imaginary partitions.

A wiry young schoolteacher with slicked-back brown hair, wearing pleated trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt rolled to his elbows, was addressing the second graders. The students in the first and third grades, who were also taught by the same teacher and who were supposed to be studying, were instead listening to the second graders respond to a question posed by the teacher regarding their future ambitions. The majority of the students were from the Navajo and Hopi Indian tribes.

‘This is very interesting, class,’ the teacher remarked, pleased that some of the Indian students had overcome their natural shyness about speaking up in the class. ‘So far we have four future doctors, three nurses, one policeman, one housewife, and one artist.’ His gaze fell momentarily on each individual student until he noticed one who was toying with the pigtailed hair of an attractive Hopi Indian girl who occupied the desk in front of his. The teacher momentarily frowned. ‘What about you, Neal? Stand up and tell the class what occupation you intend to pursue when you become an adult.’

The blond-haired boy, looking out of place among the darker-haired Indians, reached under his desk and rearranged the crotch of his jeans. His face was bright red with embarrassment. Despite this momentary discomfiture, he felt completely at ease in the company of his Indian classmates.

‘Don’t be modest, Neal. Stand up and face the class.’

Neal eased to his feet and stood in a hunch. Iron-on patches covered the knees of his jeans. These patches had earned him his Indian nickname of Hot Patch. Jerrad Yazzie, Neal’s best friend, had changed it to ‘Hot Pants’ after watching Neal make a fool of himself trying to impress the Hopi girl.

‘I’m going to be a helicopter pilot,’ Neal said, glancing at Jerrad, who also wanted to be a pilot but was too shy to admit it to the class.

The back of Jerrad’s head was flattened near the top. Like most Navajos, his head had conformed to the shape of the backboard his mother had used to carry him in when he was an infant.

‘Well, that’s very surprising, Neal. With your imagination and all the tall tales you’ve been telling, I guessed you wanted to be a writer. Why, pray tell, do you want to be a helicopter pilot?’

Neal’s smile broadened. ‘’Cause I’d never have to grow up.’

First Flight

Sherrard’s childhood desire to be a helicopter pilot had been temporarily sidetracked during Marine Corps boot-camp training. Sherrard and a fellow recruit had gone ‘over the wire’ on a secret midnight mission—to them—to locate a sympathetic hooker who worked the San Diego suburbs bordering the marine base. Returning to base after completing a successful mission, they were ambushed by their senior drill instructor. As a result, Sherrard had been disqualified from Marine Corps flight training. Despite that bitter disappointment, his desire had been revived and reinforced by a significant incident that occurred during his tour in Vietnam.

The dirt-encrusted USMC M60A-1 tank clanked through the hostile terrain at a speed that would place it in certain jeopardy if the tank’s crew failed to heed the warnings implied by the burnt-out hulks of vehicular landmine victims. Plumes of fine red dust spiralled upwards from its tracks. Exhaust fumes trailed like ebony shadows from its armour-plated flanks.

Sherrard gave it an uneasy glance, backed on to the shoulder of the road, and stuck his thumb out. His companion, LCpl. Mike Mottley, followed suit.

If a tank could come to a screeching halt, then this one did. Tremors shook the ground, and dirt piled up in front of its tracks. When it had come to a complete stop, it waited patiently, its engine idling with a pulsating throb. An aura of sinister alertness hovered about its dark-grey exterior as the two weary hitch-hikers trotted up behind it. As they were trying to figure out the best way to climb on top, its turret hatch flew open, and a grinning tanker popped up and flashed them the finger. Roaring with laughter, the tanker, a black handkerchief wrapped around his forehead, slapped the side of the hatch. As if responding to its cue, the tank rumbled onwards, leaving the hitch-hikers choking in dust.

Mottley cursed and unslung his M-14. Jacking a round into the chamber, he took aim at the departing tank.

Sherrard grabbed his arm. ‘Are you outa your fuckin’ mind?’ he asked. ‘Those bastards are crazy enough to shoot back, and we’re seriously outgunned.’

The tankers, as if hearing his words, maintained their speed and cranked the gaping muzzle of its turret cannon ominously rearwards.

Mottley quickly slung his rifle and held his hands in the air. ‘You bastards,’ he muttered under his breath as the tank disappeared over a rise. Turning to Sherrard, he said, ‘It’s your fault that we can’t get a ride, Sherrard. They probably think you’re a damn VC from the state of that sorry-assed uniform you’re wearin’.’

Sherrard glanced down at his uniform. His green-faded-to-grey herringbone utility jacket looked as if it had been worn during the storming of Iwo Jima, whereas it wasn’t that old or worn out; it had, in fact, been worn by his uncle during the Korean War fifteen years earlier. After the war, it had spent the intervening years draped over the block of a partially dismantled Ford flathead engine, which his uncle had never quite got around to finish overhauling. His trousers, although of more recent vintage, had suffered the ravages of the Chu Lai base laundry. The knees were covered with blue-denim, iron-on patches that were such a mismatch to the trouser’s tropical green colour, that Sherrard was suspected of being either colour-blind or blessed with mammoth gonads. Whenever an officer or NCO would confront him about his uniform, he’d grin like he had no idea what the officer was talking about and juggle a fragmentary grenade from one hand to the other as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

‘What the hell’s wrong with my uniform, prick?’ he asked defensively, lifting his helmet to wipe sweat from his brow.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ Mottley said. ‘I’ve seen Tijuana car park attendants with more military bearing than you have.’

A pair of CH-34 helicopters passed low over their heads. A door gunner wearing a flak jacket waved. Sherrard gave him a peace sign and watched the two aircraft bank to a heading that would put them parallel to the coastline and on final approach to their destination, Ky Ha helibase. The marine helibase at Ky Ha just happened to be Sherrard’s and Mottley’s destination, also. They were on their way to VMO-2, a UH-1E helicopter gunship squadron, to volunteer for helicopter door gunner duty.

For the past month, Sherrard and Mottley had been assigned to guard duty. Their post was a musty bunker on the perimeter that smelled worse than the rubbish bins behind the Chu Lai mess hall.

Sherrard was undoubtedly the company’s stealthiest night fighter. Every night after the sergeant of the guard’s midnight bunker check, Sherrard would blacken his face, silence his dog tags with tape, and assault the regimental beer dump that was situated on the beach like an enormous open-air treasure chest. To reach the dump, he had to crawl across fifty metres of sand beneath the beer-impaired gaze of a shotgun-armed sentry. Once there, he would commandeer a case of overheated and overrated Swan Lager beer. On his way back to the bunker, he’d penetrate the tank park’s defenses and liberate a CO2 fire extinguisher from inside the tank. They would later spray the beer with the extinguisher to cool it to an agreeable drinking temperature. The remainder of the night they’d sit on top of their bunker and drink beer and watch nature’s awesome fireworks—thunderstorms—that blast the sky over the South China Sea. When they tired of watching thunderstorms, they would turn in the opposite direction and watch mankind’s awesome fireworks—a battery of self-propelled howitzers—that pound the slopes of a nearby mountain with harassment fire.

‘What the fuck’re we doin’ here?’ Mottley would say every night during the irregular intervals between howitzer blasts, which confirmed their belief that the only people being harassed by harassment fire were themselves.

‘Gettin’ drunk, I hope,’ Sherrard would say with a grin that indicated his hope was well on its way to being fulfilled.

‘That isn’t what I meant… but it sounds as good as that crap they’ve been dumpin’ on us about protecting a democratic society and something about playing dominos and all that other noble bullshit,’ Mottley said.

The guard commander, a second lieutenant, suspected they were stealing beer from the beer dump and drinking on duty but didn’t really give a shit. He had recently returned from R&R with a super dose of bullhead clap. That wouldn’t have been at all unusual if he’d been in Bangkok or Hong Kong, but he’d spent his entire R&R in Hawaii with his wife. Now he spent most of his time sulking around the admin tent requesting emergency home leave when he wasn’t attending sick call to receive his daily injections of procaine penicillin.

One particular night they were watching Marine A-4 Skyhawks strafe the crest of a looming black mountain with twenty-millimetre cannon fire. The cannon shells exploded on impact. In the distance, they looked like strings of firecrackers igniting. As if not wanting to be overshadowed, the eight-inch howitzers opened up with a series of nightmarish salvos that caused the mountain slopes to flicker and burn with dreadful intensity. Then the mortars joined in, sending up parachute flares that twisted and turned like great swinging lanterns as they fell, illuminating the earth below with an eerie white glow. Between the reports of artillery and mortar volleys, they could hear the crackle of small arms fire and the thunder of grenades.

‘Those poor bastards over at One-Four are really gettin’ it tonight,’ Mottley said with a subdued voice that made it absolutely clear he had no desire to be over at One-Four ‘gettin’ it’ with them. ‘It just doesn’t seem real from here.’

A flame-thrower, located in the forefront of One-Four’s positions, belched a silent stream of blazing gasoline at an adversary that, to them, was much too real.

Mottley belched and tossed an empty beer can on to the sand. ‘What’re you gonna do when you get out of the crotch, Hot Pants?’ Mottley asked, using Sherrard’s Navajo nickname.

Sherrard took a sip of beer before he replied. ‘You ask me that every night.’

The muzzle blasts from an eight-inch howitzer salvo flashed across Mottley’s face like a disco strobe that has lost its synchronisation. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but maintaining a conversation with you about a topic other than pussy or helicopters is downright trying. I just can’t believe you wanna be a chopper pilot. It’s not your style. You strike me as the type to train geisha girls how to give head. I know you’re stuck on bein’ a pilot, but why choppers? Wouldn’t you rather fly mustangs or bearcats over the Bolivian rainforest as a mercenary and spend your leisure time surrounded by beautiful senoritas with colossal chichis who will weave ribbons of gold into your pubic hair? Why helicopters?’

Sherrard looked at Mottley with the newly acquired respect. ‘Damn, Mottley, that was quite a speech. That must have had you scrapping the dregs of your vocabulary. In reply to your question, helicopters are required all over the world. I’ll be able to take my pick of places to go to have ribbons of gold weaved into my pubic hair. If nothing more, this war is promoting the useful aspects of helicopters.’

‘Ah, but you don’t even have a license, and if you do get one, who’s going to hire you when they can hire an ex-military pilot with plenty of experience?’

‘Aha, I’ve looked into that. I’ll use my GI Bill to get a license,’ Sherrard said, undaunted by Mottley’s discouraging statements, ‘ . . . and an instructor’s rating. Then I’ll give flight instruction until I have enough experience to get a good flying job. I have less than two years of my enlistment left, and this war looks like it could go on forever. I’ll be discharged and instructing before the market gets flooded with ex-military pilots.’

Mottley held his hand out. ‘I’ll bet you a case of Coors that you never get a license.’

‘You’re on… and I’ll bet a second case that I have a job waiting for me the day I get my license.’

Mottley grinned as they shook on it. ‘Goddamn, marine. You better take a side-job training geisha girls if you’re gonna buy me all that beer.’

‘Have you ever flown in a helicopter, Mike?’

Mottley shook his head. ‘Nope… and I’m not sure I want to.’

‘I haven’t flown in one either, so let’s try it. Let’s hitch-hike up to Ky Ha tomorrow and volunteer to fly as door gunners. A buddy of mine is a gunner with VMO-2. He says they’re always lookin’ for volunteers.’

Mottley hoped that the darkness wouldn’t diminish the intensity of the ‘fuck you!’ expression he was presenting to Sherrard. ‘Doesn’t it make you suspect there’s a reason why they’re always lookin’ for volunteers?’

Sherrard ignored Mottley’s ‘fuck you’ look. ‘So… what the hell? It’s less boring than lyin’ around the beach getting a tan for no reason at all.’

Mottley belched. ‘I just happen to enjoy lyin’ around the beach being bored. In my humble opinion, skin covered with tan looks a whole lot healthier than skin covered with blood.’

‘Yeah, but they fly to Da Nang, Mike,’ Sherrard said, resorting to desperation. ‘We could go up there and get laid.’

Mottley stared in disbelief. ‘Are you completely out of your mind, leather dick? We could go up there and get killed. And if we didn’t get killed, that nickel-and-dime fuckhead we have for a CO would come all over his jungle boots if he could run us up for being AWOL. I’m goin’ on R&R next week… so forget it. I can wait.’

Sherrard moaned. ‘I can’t! I haven’t been laid in six months. I keep havin’ dreams about nipples and asses, nipples and asses. I don’t care—I’ll go to the brig for life if I can just feel some nipples and asses for a day. This is the second horniest I’ve ever been in my life.’

Mottley eyed Sherrard’s moonlit face with suspicion. ‘Second? When was the first?’

‘The period between the ages of one to thirteen,’ Sherrard said with lament in his voice. ‘You know, it’s hard for me to accept that before I left the States I was gettin’ more pussy than I could shake a stick at. Now, I don’t even have a stick.’

Mottley, accepting defeat, put his hand up. ‘Okay! Okay, damn it, okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll go to Ky Ha with you. But if we end up in the brig, you’re gonna be on my shitlist forever. I swear to God, Sherrard. If this goes bad, I’ll come find you wherever you are when we’re both shrivelled-up old men just so I can tell your grandchildren what an arsehole you are.’

Shortly after the CH-34s disappeared beyond a ridge on their approach into Ky Ha, Sherrard and Mottley were picked up by an amtrac, an amphibious assault vehicle designed to transport marines from ships to the beach during combat landings. Rough riding on ground and unstable in water, the kindest complement that could be paid to amtracs was that their crew were refreshingly more sympathetic to the plight of hitch-hikers than tank crewmen were.

The amtrac’s driver was a furloughed Hell’s Angels biker from Sacramento with a ‘Born to Lose’ tattoo on his forearm. Although he’d only been in-country for two months, his major complaint focused on resentment for his lack of opportunities to kill someone.

‘Hey, man, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complainin’,’ the biker complained with a cigarette dangling from his mouth while glancing up at Mottley and Sherrard, who were sitting topside on the amtrac’s heavily sandbagged roof. ‘My horoscope for this week says I’ll have a rewarding experience with strangers and my life will be greatly enriched as a result. I interpret that to mean I’m gonna waste me a fuckin’ dink—or maybe two if it’s a really rewarding experience.’

When they arrived at Ky Ha, shaken but alive, the biker dropped them off at the top of a hill overlooking Ky Ha and the South China Sea.

As they jumped down from atop the amtrac, the biker flipped his cigarette on to the roadside and said, ‘Man, I wish I were in your boots—free to walk around the countryside and kill anybody who fucks with you, you lucky bastards.’

The hill was actually a slug-shaped peninsula with a gently rounded plateau at the summit. Olive-drab tents, resembling a mass of partially collapsed parachutes, encompassed the hill. The summit—the site of operations, flightline parking, and the refuelling area—was covered by an expansive matting of interconnected steel planks larger than the combined area of several football fields. With the exception of the isolated refuelling area, the summit was completely occupied by parked helicopters.

Equipment and support vehicles, tanks, amtracs, and helicopters unable to find parking space on the overcrowded flightline were disbursed everywhere. Men in green uniforms swarmed around the staggering variety of mechanised objects as if theirs were the most important item on the hill.

The appearance of the flightline invited comparison to a used-vehicle parking lot—a huge inventory of well-worn military helicopters parked in one convenient area. There were dozens of helicopters in a space so confined that one rocket, one satchel charge, one mortar round, or simply one suicidal infiltrator armed with a Zippo could have destroyed the entire fleet. In their dull forest-green camouflage with their drooping rotors, they resembled rows of huge overripe zucchini squatting in a sun-baked field patiently awaiting harvest.

Under the cloudless sky, the heat was oppressive—almost suffocating. The sun beat down like an enormous hammer, battering the sweat-drenched men with lethargy and fatigue. There was no wind, no fans, and no air-conditioned tents to seek refuge. To obtain even a small degree of comfort, it was necessary to keep the body moving and hope its passage through the air would provide a few moments of welcome relief.

They found Sherrard’s buddy, ‘Pete’ Peterson, working on a gunship which was parked on the refuelling pad. He was rigging belts of 7.62-millimetre ammunition into the externally mounted machine guns of a UH-1E ‘Huey’ gunship. Peterson was even taller and skinnier than Mottley, who was taller and skinnier than anyone Sherrard had ever known. Peterson’s Adam’s apple protruded from his neck like a wind-sculptured outcropping jutting from the side of a limestone cliff.

‘What? They aren’t takin’ volunteers?’ Sherrard asked, his face reflecting his disappointment after informing Peterson of the purpose of their visit.

Peterson didn’t appear to be pleased. ‘Volunteers? That’s the problem—nobody volunteered. Now the maintenance crew are required to fly as gunners. Since there’re more maintenance crew than door gunner positions, they stopped accepting volunteers. Figure that one out, devil dog.’

Sherrard tapped the ground with the butt of his M-14. ‘That isn’t fair,’ he said.

Peterson fixed him with a frown. ‘How long have you been in the crotch, boot?’ he asked sourly. ‘You’re so damn gung-ho. I wish you could have my job.’

Sherrard figured that he was going to have to reply on his flair for connivance. ‘Look, Pete,’ he said as he followed Peterson around the Huey as Peterson started filling it with fuel. ‘If we can’t be gunners, we’d at least like to hitch a ride to Da Nang to get laid.’

Peterson stopped the fuel flow and glanced into the filler neck. He remained silent as he withdrew the nozzle from the helicopter’s filler neck and coiled the hose on the ground.

Wiping his hands, he looked at Mottley, who’d been following their conversation with half-hearted interest. ‘If I were you,’ he said to Mottley, ‘I wouldn’t listen to another word this guy says. He’s trouble.’

Mottley nodded in agreement. ‘You ain’t wrong there.’

Sherrard’s face reddened. ‘What the hell, Pete? We’ve been buddies for a long time. I thought I could count on you.’

Peterson sat down in the doorway of the helicopter and fixed Sherrard with a wilting glare. ‘Yeah? You mean like the time I counted on you that night in boot camp when you talked me into goin’ AWOL over the fence to visit that whorehouse with you?’ A wistful look came over Peterson’s face. ‘You know… I could be on embassy duty in Sweden now and you could be a pilot if we hadn’t of had to spend that week in the brig back at basic training in San Diego.’

Sherrard shuffled his feet. ‘Jesus, Pete, I told you before I was sorry ’bout that.’

‘Sure you did. Just like you told the whole platoon you were sorry that afternoon when the company gunnery sergeant concluded his gung-ho speech about Marine Corps tradition by repeating his favourite sayin’, To die a marine is to live again. And you had to stand up and tell him. No gunny, the saying goes, To live a marine is to die again, which made everyone laugh except the gunny. He saved his laughter until we straggled in from that ten-mile punishment run he sent the platoon on for being insubordinate in class. Yeah, you’re sorry, all right. You’re a sorry shit, Sherrard.’

Peterson slapped his thigh and then stood. ‘But… forget it,’ he said sullenly. ‘I’ll lie to the pilots and tell ’em you’re a friend of mine—just to get your arse offa, my hill.’

Sherrard broke out in a grin. ‘Thanks, Pete… you’re a buddy.’

Peterson shot him a glance that would have made a voodoo doll break out in a cold sweat. ‘We’ll drop you off at Marble Mountain, and you can hitch-hike over to Da Nang. We’ll pick you up the following afternoon on our way back from Dong Ha.’

‘The following afternoon?’ Sherrard asked with despair in his voice. ‘We’ve got duty tonight. We have to be back by twenty-one-hundred hours.’

Peterson scowled as if Sherrard had just asked to marry Peterson’s sister. ‘Sorry ’bout that, boot, but if you just wanna get laid, why don’t you just go over to An Tan? It’s only a few klicks from here.’

‘An Tan!’ Mottley said. ‘Are you nuts? That’s charlie’s village.’

Peterson shook his head negatively. ‘Only at night. During the day, One-Four mans a checkpost in front of a bridge at the northern end of the village. I heard their guys talkin’ about drinkin’ beer and knockin’ back a little tail at a little dive called Number Ten’s Place.’

Mottley started rubbing the back of his neck. ‘I don’t know about this,’ he said.

‘What the hell, Mike. Let’s go,’ Sherrard said. ‘If One-Four lets their men go in, it must be secure… as long as we’re out by dark.’

‘Yeah? And how do we get there and back? Fly?’

Sherrard gave Peterson a hopeful smile.

Peterson was ready to promise anything to get rid of them. ‘Yeah, okay,’ he said grudgingly. ‘But if the pilots ask, you belong to One-Four. And don’t forget, this evening there’ll be a couple of birds dropping in at eighteen hundred sharp to extract the bridge guards. Be at the LZ thirty minutes prior to that time, or you might miss ’em.’

‘Thanks again, Pete,’ Sherrard said, his face beaming with anticipation. ‘We appreciate this. If there’s anything I can do for you in the future, just let me know.’

‘In the future, show your appreciation by forgetting we ever knew each other.’

From the air, the village of An Tan looked dirty and neglected—but peaceful. It snuggled like a green oasis in the midst of scrub-brush salt flats that extended from the sea to the foothills of a foreboding range of heavily forested mountains. A treelined river passed to one side of the village as it wound through the flatlands on its way to Ky Ha Bay.

The helicopter dropped them on a grassy schoolyard next to a deserted one-room schoolhouse. The outside walls of the schoolhouse were chipped and gouged by bullets and shrapnel fragments.

Yelling their thanks at the crew, Sherrard and Mottley hurried away in a stoop; their helmets clasped to their heads. When they were clear of the helicopter’s rotor blades, they slung their rifles and proceeded to a nearby road.

A group of kids who had seen the helicopter land, were waiting on the road. Several were on bicycles, but most were on foot. They were dressed in baggy black shorts and dirty T-shirts. They immediately started clamouring for C-rations and chocolate.

Mottley waded into their midst and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Sorry, no C-rations and no chocolate but have a smoke,’ he said as they pushed and shoved to grab the cigarettes. He grinned, enjoying the attention.

‘Say, do any of you kids have an elder sister who might want to boom boom for a pack of cigarettes?’ he said half-jokingly.

‘C’mon, Mike,’ Sherrard said as he shouldered his M-14 rifle and started down the potholed road towards the village entrance. ‘Stop fuckin’ around, and let’s find Number Ten’s Place.’

Across the road from the schoolhouse sat a weathered concrete sign inscribed with the words, ‘Sach Dong Viet Cong’.

Sherrard was no longer smiling. ‘What do you suppose that means?’

‘No idea, but what I hope it doesn’t mean is that this is a Viet Cong-controlled village,’ Mottley said as he glanced around the area with an uneasy frown on his face.

The road passed under a crumbling red-brick archway that appeared to have been a perfectly good archway prior to being blasted with automatic weapons fire.

Mottley glanced skywards as if checking weather conditions for a possible helicopter extraction.

Sherrard walked under the archway and entered the village—at a rather reckless pace, Mottley reckoned.

Accompanied by their entourage of children, they stopped at a tiny kiosk and examined a shabby selection of bush hats and Air Vietnam bags. The shop attendant was a young girl of about seventeen years of age who started giggling when Sherrard tried to explain that he was looking for a woman to go to bed with, preferably one—he took great pains to explain—who didn’t giggle when approached with the suggestion.

‘Why’s she laughing? Did you show her that little wart you call a pecker?’ Mottley said.

Sherrard smiled and backed outside, checking both sides of the street as he emerged. A group of villagers gathered around a fruit kiosk were staring at them in an unkindly manner.

After a leisurely stroll through the village, they reached the bridge and the checkpost bunker. They were shocked to discover that they were the only marines in town—the checkpost had been abandoned.

Sherrard unslung his rifle and ducked inside the bunker. He came out a moment later, an anxious frown on his face. ‘Looks like these guys had one hell of a firefight recently. The inside is thick with seven-six-two and grenade launcher brass. There’s also a lot of fresh holes in these sandbags,’ he added, slapping the sandbagged wall below a firing slot. A stream of sand gushed out.

Mottley cradled his rifle in his arms and glanced warily up the street. ‘Let’s get the fuck outa here.’

‘How? The chopper won’t be here until this evening,’ Sherrard said, trying to conceal his apprehension.

‘You’re dreamin’, marine,’ Mottley said, pulling the bolt of his rifle slightly to the rear and glancing into the breech to ensure there was a round in the chamber. ‘What makes you think they’re still comin’ since One-Four is no longer here?’

‘There’s us,’ Sherrard pointed out—rather weakly, Mottley thought.

‘Ah, yes, there is us, isn’t there? The pride of the Marine Corps. I’d almost forgotten. Surely, they’ll send the VIP chopper.’

Sherrard couldn’t put his finger on the exact words, but he received the impression that Mottley was being derisive. ‘Well, you don’t have to be unpleasant about it,’ he said.

Mottley was wishing this conversation would go away. If he didn’t need Sherrard at the moment, he would have wished him to go away also. ‘Unpleasant? Look… if Peterson didn’t know this place has been abandoned, then he doesn’t know there isn’t going to be a chopper this afternoon, right?’

‘As much as my ego despises me for admitting to this breach of judgement, I believe you do have a point there,’ Sherrard said.

Mottley took an eager stride backwards. ‘Good… then let’s split.’

‘I wonder why they pulled out of here?’ Sherrard said as he chambered a round into his rifle.

‘Why? Because people with violent homicidal tendencies were trying to punch little holes in their bodies so their blood could drain out, that’s why!’ Mottley said, suddenly coming to the realisation that he was speaking with a very loud voice.

They started back through the village, their heads swivelling from side to side in an effort to keep everything under observation.

Sherrard thought maybe it was only his imagination, but there seemed to be fewer villagers on the street than a few minutes before.

‘What d’ya reckon’s the best way to get back to Chu Lai?’ Mottley asked.

‘Inside the crew compartment of an M-60 tank surrounded by a regiment of Force Recon,’ Sherrard said wishfully. ‘Unfortunately, they all seem to be fighting a war elsewhere at the moment. I guess we’re stuck with takin’ a short cut through the boonies, Mike.’

Mottley was not keen on ‘takin’ a short cut through the boonies’ and would have told Sherrard so if Sherrard didn’t look so unhappy already. Mottley sighed. ‘Okay, I guess we’re stuck with a short cut through the boonies,’ he said.

At the midway point on their return through the village, Sherrard suddenly grabbed Mottley’s arm, causing Mottley’s heart to beat so hard that the hand grenades hanging from his web suspenders felt like they were beating his ribs in.

‘Mike, look!’ Sherrard said, pointing to a wood-and-plaster shack. ‘That must be Number Ten’s Place.’ A white sign with the numeral ‘10’ painted on it was nailed above the shack’s doorway.

‘Piss on it—let’s keep movin’,’ Mottley said. ‘We can drink beer at the bunker tonight.’

Sherrard stepped up to the doorway and glanced inside. A mirror splotched by fungus with a row of beer bottles sitting below it was held against the farthest wall by a pair of bayonets sunk to their attachment rings into the wall. A yellowed porcelain sink sat on top of an upended footlocker below the mirror. Sherrard’s face brightened when he saw a woman sitting at a scarred wooden table.

Sherrard motioned Mottley to the doorway. ‘Hey, Mike. See that woman sitting in the corner? She’s beautiful. I’ve got to see if she’s available.’

‘You what?’ Mottley said. ‘We’re in danger of gettin’ shot, and you wanna see if she’s available? What kind of a lunatic are you?’

‘A second-horniest-time-of-my-lifetime lunatic,’ Sherrard said, removing his helmet to smooth his sweaty blond hair back. ‘I can’t go back to camp without at least talking to a woman.’

‘Maybe she doesn’t wanna talk to a horny prick like you. And besides, she looks old enough to be your mother.’

‘Damn it, Mike, I don’t care if she’s old enough to be my grandmother. I have to get laid—and for Chrissake, wait for me. I’m afraid you’ll get lost if you try makin’ it back to base by yourself.’

‘Your concern for my welfare is only exceeded by your insincerity,’ Mottley said. ‘But I’ll never hear the last of this if I don’t humour you. You got five minutes, prick.’

Mottley glanced at his watch and then propped himself against the doorway.

Within two minutes Sherrard returned. He was beaming with happiness. ‘Hold my rifle—she said okay.’

Mottley was truly astonished. ‘No, shit? What’d you say?’

‘I mentioned the magic words.’

His opinion of Sherrard faltered. ‘You rotten bastard, you told her you loved her?’

Sherrard cocked his eyebrows. ‘Naw… I asked, How much?’

Mottley watched them disappear into a back room. Despite what he considered to be a very real danger if they remained there any longer, he sat down at a table and ordered a beer. The bartender, an obese broad-faced man with Teflon-white dentures, set a bottle of warm 333 beer on the table and popped its cap with a flick of his wrist.

As he drank, Mottley found himself becoming aroused by the sounds of passion coming from the back room.

He let ten tense minutes pass. ‘Sherrard, hurry up!’ he called impatiently.

Another five minutes slipped by before Sherrard reappeared, a grin spanning his face. ‘She’s in love with me, Mike,’ he said as he emerged buttoning his fly. ‘She can’t get enough. She wants you, too. I told her she could get more satisfaction from a box of C-rations, but she wouldn’t listen.’

‘You bastard,’ Mottley said, managing to smile as he passed their weapons to Sherrard. ‘She’ll think you were using your little pinky after I get through with her.’

Sherrard raised his arm to order a beer. ‘Take your time, Mike. Patience is my only virtue.’

‘Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth?’

What seemed like only minutes later, Mottley came out with his fatigue jacket in his hands. His grin spread well beyond the confines of his face.

‘What a woman! What a great lay!’ Mottley said a few minutes later as they pushed their way through a thicket of feathery scrub brush on their trek back to base.

Sherrard gave him an immodest smile. ‘Thanks, Mike,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you appreciated that training session I gave her before you hopped on and hopped off.’

Mottley purposely let a branch spring back and slap Sherrard across the chest. ‘You’re a prick, Sherrard. She told me how you bargained for a thirty-minute screw. You used more than twenty-five and left the rest for me. That didn’t exactly give me much time to develop a lasting relationship, did it? And then you had the nerve to tell her I’d be the one to pay her. What kind of a buddy are you?’

Sherrard started to protest.

Mottley stopped walking and turned around to face Sherrard. He raised his hand to interrupt Sherrard’s protest. ‘No, don’t answer that. Your buddy over at Group Guard answered it for you when he told me about him having duty aboard the troopship you guys came from the States on when it stopped in Honolulu. He couldn’t go on liberty, so he gave you his last twenty bucks to buy souvenirs to send to his family. Remember that? And how you spent the money gettin’ a blow job from a hotel street hooker? Then you had the balls to bring him back a couple of postcards to send to his family? What was the term he used? Was it buddy-fucker? Yes… that’s it—buddy-fucker. That’s you, Sherrard. You’re a buddy-fucker.’

‘Hey, Mike… what’re buddies for if not to fuck over?’ Sherrard said, attempting to pacify Mottley with witty humour.

Mottley failed to recognise Sherrard’s witty humour. His face turned a shade of crimson slightly lighter than the colour of Chu Lai mud. His mind whipped into action to formulate a scathing retort, but before he could start to reply, a burst of automatic weapons fire swept through the brush.

They instantly dropped to the ground and took up firing positions.

Sherrard released the safety lever of his M-14.

Mottley squinted over his sights. A 300-metre open stretch of sand and brush separated them from the most likely origin of the small arms fire—a large mound of sand overgrown with weeds and thinly leafed bushes.

‘Can you see ’em, Sherrard?’

‘It’s probably that hooker from Number Ten’s Place unhappy with the servicing you gave her,’ Sherrard said. ‘In reply to your other question, I don’t see ’em, but it sounds like two AK-47s firing from that clump of brush.’ He turned and glanced longingly in the direction of Chu Lai base. ‘I think they’re not too bright to be firing on us this close to the base perimeter.’

Mottley nodded his head in the direction of the bushes where the rifle fire was coming from. ‘And just what do you think they’re thinking over there? How devilishly clever we are over here to be wandering around their neighbourhood like we were their best buddies?’ he said.

‘Are you going to start blaming me for this already? Can’t you at least wait until beer time? Right now, let’s just worry about getting the hell outa here,’ Sherrard said with sudden urgency.

‘There ain’t much cover out there to hide behind,’ Mottley said.

‘Look at the bright side, Mike,’ Sherrard said weakly. ‘If there isn’t cover for us, then there isn’t cover for them. That gives you the advantage.’

‘Me? What advantage?’

‘The advantage of seeing them first if they try to cross that stretch of sand while I’m making my way back to base under your protective fire.’

‘Very funny, Sherrard,’ Mottley said.

‘Okay, then you go first and I’ll cover. But don’t shoot me by accident when I pull back.’

Mottley raised himself to his knees. ‘No, sweat, Sherrard, I’m a qualified marksman.’

‘A marksman? A toilet-seat marine?’ Sherrard said, bemoaning the fact that a marksman was the lowest shooter’s classification in the Marine Corps. ‘Shit, I’d be safer over there with the VC.’

‘Don’t worry, marine,’ Mottley said. ‘You owe me too much beer to get off that easy.’ Clutching his rifle, he jumped to his feet and sprinted towards the perimeter. He ran in a low crouch, changing directions every few steps and his canteens bouncing on his hips. The tread on the soles of his jungle boots threw sand into the air.

Sherrard fired a short burst. The M-14 slammed his shoulder. Shifting his aim to a second thicket, he fired again.

A muzzle flash a few metres from the impact area of his rounds drew his attention. He concentrated his fire at that point until he heard Mottley open fire behind him.

Gripping his rifle in one hand while using the other to balance himself, he leapt to his feet and ran in a zigzag pattern. AK-47 rounds kicked up sand around his feet. Pivoting to the right, he ran another twenty metres and then dove behind Mottley’s cover.

Mottley wasn’t happy. ‘Whoever said, Blessed is he who lay down his life for a friend, obviously never had a friend like you, Sherrard,’ he said as he changed magazines.

Sherrard, with little success, tried to grin. ‘Dammit, Mike, stop picking on me—you know how sensitive I am.’

Mottley rolled on to his side and removed a pair of grenades from his web suspenders.

‘What the fuck’re you gonna do with those?’ Sherrard said. ‘Not even John Wayne could throw a grenade that far.’

Mottley peeled a strip of electrical tape from around each of the grenades’ safety handles. ‘I’m not tryin’ to throw ’em that far… I’m tryin’ to attract attention. After I throw ’em, take-off.’ He pulled the pin on one and threw it in the direction of the AK-47 fire. Before the first grenade exploded, he threw the other.

The explosions threw sand and dirt high into the air. Sherrard jumped up and ran to a mound of sand with low underbrush growing around its crest.

Mottley leant into his rifle and fired. As he readied himself to make a break, he heard a familiar sound. Glancing up, he saw two Huey gunships coming in at low level. Their door gunners were firing into the brush. Taking advantage of the distraction, he withdrew to Sherrard’s position.

One of the helicopters continued to circle overhead and provide covering fire while the other started to descend.

Both gunners on the approaching aircraft were holding upraised fists in the air—the arm-and-hand signal to hold position.

Sherrard and Mottley exchanged puzzled glances as the helicopter came to a shoulder-high hover. One of the gunners motioned them to immediately climb aboard. Wrapping their arms and legs around the aircraft’s skid gear, they managed to pull themselves into the cabin and collapse on the rough metal floor.

The starboard gunner, a black marine, pushed the visor of his helmet up and gave them a look of contempt. ‘You motherfuckin’ honkies, got a death wish goin’?’ he shouted over the beat of the rotors and the whine of the transmission.

‘Sorry ’bout that!’ Sherrard said as the helicopter vibrations increased as it transitioned into forward flight. ‘Goin’ to the ville was a big mistake!’

‘No, shit, jack,’ the gunner said. ‘If you think the ville was a big mistake, you should’ve gone just a little bit farther. We just pulled you sorry-arse motherfuckers out of a minefield!’

That night, Sherrard was lying on his back staring up at the moon. It was full and porcelain white. He discovered that if he concentrated on its intricate web-like patterns hard enough, he could easily imagine he was somewhere else. Like laying on a moonlit beach in Southern California with that uninhibited blonde from Newport Beach that had kept urging him to ‘put your tongue there… oh yes! There!’ He smiled as he recalled trying to keep it there, but she’d moved her pelvis up and down so rapidly that he’d entangled his teeth in her pubic hair. He chuckled at the memory.

Mottley was leaning back against the bunker, sipping a beer. ‘I humbled myself today, Sherrard,’ he said musingly. ‘I learnt that I can be wrong on occasion. Not often, mind you… but occasionally. I’m forced to admit that you may be right about helicopters. I was truly impressed today. I also learnt that your dick is like a pussy-seeking missile, and your brain is just along for the ride. I suspect it isn’t very selective about the pussy it homes in on either.’

Sherrard suspected Mottley was right when, a few days later, they both came down with the clap so bad that they had to stuff gauze bandages in the front of their skivvies to absorb the discharge. Mottley was outraged. He was put on medical restriction, and his Bangkok R&R cancelled. Sherrard, as usual, was more fortunate. As punishment for deliberately entering an off-limits area, he was assigned to mess duty. However, while taking his mess physical, he made a point in drawing the medic’s attention to his afflicted member and was promptly rejected. Instead, he was reassigned to guard duty in a bunker, where the platoon commander could keep a close watch on him and Mottley. By an uncanny quirk of fate, their new position was directly in front of the beach-side beer dump.

Within hours on their first night of duty, they managed to dig through the rear of their bunker and undermine the beer stack. The beer just seemed to ‘fall’ into their laps. It was paradise, but like any other paradise it presented anxieties—they were worried that the war would end before they could drink the beer dump dry.

Eventually, following his discharge from active duty, Sherrard, despite Mottley’s prediction, attended and successfully completed civilian flight training, achieving his goal of becoming a commercial helicopter pilot. His first job as a pilot exposed the sobering reality that perhaps it wasn’t going to be as glamorous a profession as he had envisioned it to be during those intervening years.

‘Oh no,’ Sherrard moaned as he stepped into the flight operations room and glanced at the schedule board. ‘Not another Santa Claus delivery flight. Can’t Spooner fly this one?’

Sherrard was a flight instructor at Fly By Night Helicopters of Long Beach, California. Fly By Night was a helicopter flight school and aerial banner advertising service that specialised in training ex-GI’s at night-time in addition to flying ‘night signs’ over the LA basin. FBN catered to ex-GI’s with GI Bill of Rights benefits that held daytime jobs and could only attend training after nightfall. Sherrard had taken his own training at the school and, after graduation, had been hired as an instructor with the understanding that he would provide his own students. This provision forced him to spend several nights a week hanging out at Little Abner’s and other topless bars in the Long Beach area, recruiting trainee pilots from among off-duty McDonnell Douglas Aircraft factory day-shift workers.

Mary—the secretary, the boss’s wife—looked at him in that peculiar way she had of glaring at any employee who may be about to request payment of his overdue salary. ‘Because,’ she said huffily, ‘you are now the company’s only helicopter pilot.’

Sherrard was surprised. ‘Since when? What happened to Spooner?’

Mary picked up a file of papers and gave them a furious chop with a rubber stamp that left a blood-red impression of the word ‘overdue’ on them. She didn’t enjoy conversations with pilots. They always seemed to end at the same topic—a demand for their salaries.

‘He quit,’ Mary admitted with a shrug.

‘Why?’

She sniffed as if the mere act of repeating Spooner’s words would cause her half-inch false eyelashes to flutter skywards. ‘He said that he was sick and tired of delivering drunks and perverts dressed up in Santa Claus suits.’

Sherrard was stepping into a fur-trimmed red-and-white flight suit. ‘See. I’m not the only one that’s fed up with Santa. The one I delivered yesterday had feet that smelled like they’d been in his boots since last Christmas. I had to remove the cockpit doors before I could stand to get inside. Not only that, for Chrissake, he had anchovies stuck to his beard. What kind of Santa Claus is that? Smelly feet and little fish clinging to his beard like dingleberries hangin’ on a sheep’s arse? What do you suppose the kids are thinking? That he hangs out at pizza parlours and never takes baths?’

He gave a dejected sigh and read the schedule board’s notation out loud. ‘Pick up Santa at Fullerton Airport and deliver him to Cerritos Mall.’ ‘Is that right? Are you sure I shouldn’t be dropping him at the Cerritos Police Department drunk tank?’

‘Your distasteful sarcasm is uncalled for, Neal. Today’s Santa just happens to be my nephew.’

Sherrard grabbed his headset and started for the door. ‘Wonderful’ was his half-hearted response. ‘Maybe I’ll at least get a free lunch out of this flight.’

‘You be polite to him, Neal. He’s a nice young man.’

Sherrard paused with the door slightly ajar and turned to face her. ‘Did Spooner really quit because he didn’t want to fly Santa flights?’

‘No. He said he wasn’t going to fly any flights until he receives last month’s salary.’

‘Hey, far out, man!’ Santa said for the fifth, or was it the sixth time?

Whatever the number, it was getting on Sherrard’s nerves.

‘This is really far out!’

Sherrard grimaced and started the helicopter’s engine. Just my luck, he thought. My previous flight was a cirrhotic boozer, and this flight a spaced out drug freak. He began to suspect that