Sand in the Wind Read Online Free Page A

took off, I gave the order to move-out — back down to the lowlands and the rest of our company. It took us four hours to get there and my orders were the last words I heard. We marched slowly, and with our heads down — even the point man, and I didn’t tell him to do otherwise. When we got back, nobody from the other platoons came up to us, they knew better. Usually my men would break up into groups. Not this time. Everyone just went his own way.”
    Hyatt took his arm from the door jamb, lowered one foot to the top step, hesitated, and then walked out the door without looking back.
    Kramer’s eyes followed him. He was still staring out the door when Forest came through it shaking his head. Upon seeing Kramer, he mumbled, “That Hyatt’s a weird one. Can’t get as much as a nod out of him.” Kramer made no reply, still wondering why Hyatt had chosen to tell the story to him. “You wanna go to chow?”
    Kramer looked up, for the first time seeming to notice Forest. “In a few minutes.” He slowly pulled out a cigarette and leaned back on the cot, feet still touching the floor.

2. Hill 65
    The convoy left An Hoa for Da Nang at eight in the morning. An hour and a half later a jeep, a six-by carrying troops, and two more six-bys carrying supplies, separated from the main body of the convoy as it passed Hill 65. The four vehicles proceeded up a steep dirt road that ran the length of one side of the hill. Just before it reached the top, the road hair-pinned to the left and was bordered by a row of six 105-millimeter guns set under large sheets of camouflage netting. A cliff of sand rose fifteen feet above the opposite side of the road. The backs of five wood-and-screen barracks were visible atop it. The vehicles followed the curve to the left and passed in front of the barracks. Twenty yards farther down the road, a long line of Marines passed sandbags to the edge of a barbwire fence where other Marines were building bunkers and gun emplacements. At the crest of a sharp rise, two six-inch guns sat upon their tanklike vehicles. The crews of both guns lethargically uncrated huge shells and piled them in pyramids against a dirt embankment. The newly arrived vehicles proceeded another fifty yards before stopping at the center of the hill where wooden buildings clustered along both sides of the road.
    As soon as the six-by stopped, the Marines in it jumped down and plodded off in various directions. A jeep sped by honking its horn at a lanky Marine with a bushy mustache. He waved to the driver and called out, “Delaney,” then turned around to the two men walking behind him. “That’s Delaney. He used to be in Third Platoon, but after his second Purple Heart he got pulled out of the bush and they made him a jeep driver. It’s a skating job.    .   .   . We’ve got to go back to the hootches we passed on the way up here. I’ll show you the gunny’s hootch when we get there.”
    The taller of the two men in back of him nodded, and the other said, “Corporal Harmon, I better get my knee checked. It’s killing me.”
    Harmon turned around thinking, ‘Hope I don’t get this worthless motherfucker in my squad.’ “Listen Graham, the first thing you and Chalice got to do is check in with the company gunnery sergeant, then you can start worrying about your knee.”
    When the three of them reached the hootches at the far end of the hill, Harmon pointed to the second one and told Chalice and Graham they would find the gunny inside. He then walked over to a powerfully built soldier sitting on the steps of the next hootch cleaning his rifle. “Sarge, did you miss me?”
    The sergeant glanced up, and answered gruffly, “It’s about fucking time you got back.” As he stared at Harmon he began to smile and his eyes took on a slightly Asiatic cast.
    Harmon reached down and started playing with the sergeant’s light brown hair. “Did you really miss me that much, Hunky?”
    The sergeant looked up sneering, “If I