A Dark and Curious Place: Vietnam War Era

By Robert Reynolds

Ride along with a U.S. Navy Security Police unit as the men patrol the dusty streets and narrow alleys of DaNang during the Vietnam conflict.  Experience the odd, the unusual and the dangerous in a very Dark and Curious Place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Reynolds
• Release date: Dec 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393410072

Robert Reynolds

Based in Calgary, Robert is an emerging author who spends his days working in the oil and gas industry but has been a big fan of the spy thriller genre ever since his childhood when he read one of his grandfather's original James Bond paperbacks from the late 50's. He is married with a young daughter and when he's not day dreaming about dangerous adventures in exotic locales he enjoys running and other outdoor pursuits.

Book preview

Forward...

Half a dozen rounds burst from a guard tower along the perimeter of a small military compound near Highway One.  The muzzle flashed and popped rapidly like distant exploding stars as slugs cut through the darkness.  The rounds kicked up dirt a hundred yards out.  Two of the rounds struck the wall of a small shanty, spitting aside wood splinters and frightening the peasants from their sleep.  Another round hit the highway asphalt in an almost flat trajectory and skipped away into the darkness.  Back toward the city the sky was black.

A Navy patrol vehicle quickly pulled to the side of the road, doused its headlights and faded into the night.  The two men in the jeep knew where the firing came from but they did not know where the shots were meant to go or how to avoid them.

From within the compound a searchlight burst on, sweeping wide, vivid arcs across the sand fields making shadows dance.  The men in the patrol vehicle watched nervously into the darkness from where the shots originated.

Moments later a voice came on the radio net. The radio crackled. 

Disregard that gunfire, the voice commanded.  It was only a jumpy young troop firing at shadows.

Firing at shadows?  He should be reprimanded!  The pudgy man riding passenger cowered lower into the safety of his flak jacket. He could have hit us.

He could have, but he didn’t, the driver said.

He pulled his vehicle back onto the roadway and drove the two of them off into the night.

Chapter 1

A short distance beyond Red Beach a magnificent ribbon of white sand separated the emerald mountains from the sapphire sea; a merging of the earth and the ocean. 

What are those buildings? the pudgy man asked, noticing as a twinkle of starlight caught upon the tin roofs of the small houses. The rooftops flashed as if winking

Lepers, Petty Officer 3rd Class Robinson, the jeep’s driver said.  A leprosarium sits down there.  He pointed to somewhere deep in the canopy near the sea.  The place was home for a small enclave of warped and misshapen inhabitants. A society of outcasts missing legs or fingers or toes, ulcerated faces partially eaten away, scarred flesh, limbs awry; the living remains of contaminated beings. He slowed the vehicle trying to make out the silhouettes of the rooftops.  There, below that mountain, alongside the beach. 

The white beach stretched into the night following the contour of the ocean.  If not for the glimmer of starlight off the sea, the blackness of the water might have defined the edge of the world. 

The leper community sat at the base of the mountains, the very ending of the Annamite Cordillera, lying in the shadows of the tangle of jungle that crept to the edge of the sea.  The place was barely visible even during daylight, but when a light shone from within one of the small houses or a beam flickered off a rooftop, one could vaguely see the outline of that desolate settlement.

A C-123 Caribou swung out over the bay, banked around and came in, dropping lower as it neared the Air Base.  Its engines rumbled and wings tilted, rocking gently as it descended over the water, over rooftops.

Do you mean...? the round-faced man said when the plane’s droning abated.  He was not yet able to fully understand there are places for such people.  He was naïve about many realities of life.

Robinson nodded.  He was trying to locate the commune through the thickness of the forest.  He had seen lepers.  A few at least, when they had come up from their isolation to visit the shops in the hamlets.  The merchants were afraid to descend into that dark place below the mountain lest they too become infected, so the ill and rotting souls would venture forth to procure their supplies.  He had seen them scrubbing their tattered clothing on rocks while squatting alongside the creeks that flowed near the highway. The water tumbled over the stones clear, cool and clean as it rushed past the sick on its way to the sea.  The wretched souls appeared no different from the others at that distance.

Even in the shadowy darkness that had crept down the mountainside and hidden the sanctuary, enough light existed to display the sharp drop of the mountains to the rainforest canopy, the iridescence of the curving coastline and the shimmering expanse of the sea.  It was the most pristine setting he had seen during his months in that country. 

Robinson said, I’ve never been down there, but I hear it’s a beautiful place.

A steady thoomp, thoomp, thoomp, thoomp of a helicopter moved in off the sea, having followed the coastline down from Phu Bai.  Its dark silhouette passed like a specter overhead as the UH-1 cut inland and made its way toward the Marble Mountain air facilities. 

A flicker of lightning momentarily brightened the sky, but it was far out along a cloudbank that had brought an earlier rain to the city.  In that instant, the men could see the outline of the storm clouds above the sea; a sudden glimmer and then the clouds were gone. Torrential downpours were common during the monsoon season, but not now. Not this time of year. 

The rain had since moved out to sea, opening vast patches of clear, black sky.  Pinpoints of starlight were beginning to emerge in the cloud breaks and heavenly constellations began taking shape.  But these were different constellations than he was accustomed to, as this was a different sky and a different part of the world. 

If that place is so beautiful, why do they let those people have it? his partner PO2 Linderman said, gazing out over the increasingly starlit ocean.  He meant nothing bad by it, but it did seem such a waste.  He peered toward where his partner had pointed but was not sure if he saw the colony or not. 

Down the forested hillside, beneath the leafy canopy, along the sands of that hidden cove, beside the azure sea, those grotesquely deformed beings lived out their remaining days. They had done nothing in their lives to deserve their fate and there was no known reason why they had been chosen to suffer in such dreadful ways.  It was no act of retribution or revenge. It was simply misfortune, as so much of life and death is. Perhaps this beautiful place was God’s final reward for those who had experienced such wretched lives. 

Linderman could not bring himself to say the word lepers and it seemed logical to not waste such lovely real estate on a collection of oddities and misfits who would hardly enjoy it.

Why not put those creatures somewhere else? 

Everyone must be somewhere, Robinson shrugged. He had never heard them referred to as creatures.  It did not seem like something the man would say. We ended up here.

I didn’t ask to come, the red-cheeked Linderman said. 

I did ask, Robinson said.  He was young then.  He had grown much wiser during months here.  I don’t know why.  I didn’t want to be in the military in the first place.

So why did you enlist?

The tires rolled over the wet pavement with a hiss, as if the tires were losing air. 

I received my draft notice, so I joined up to make sure I’d get a service school. It’s better that than wasting a couple years with nothing to show for it.

The lights of DaNang reflected off the underbelly of a band of low clouds, brightening the sky above the city; brightening it and casting it in a soft yellow glow. Resting in the Han River Valley, DaNang was Quang Nam Province’s largest city and South Vietnam’s second most populated. A large American military presence occupied the city and surrounding countryside; Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force installations abounded.  It was not far to the city lights, but here was a very dark place. 

And you asked to come to Vietnam?  It’s a curious place.  Linderman’s eyes darted this way and that into the darkness, like he was watching a tennis match.

I got my school.  I had to go somewhere, so why not here? Robinson fiddled with the tuning on his transistor radio, which hung off a knob on the dash.  The reception came and went.

My orders gave me no choice.  I wanted stateside or a ship. Something caught Linderman’s eye, but when he looked, it was only movement from the wind.

I would have ended up here anyway.  Most in my class did sooner or later.  It was no big deal.

Robinson gave up on trying to tune in AFVN and switched off the tiny radio. Reception was often poor along this part of the highway and there was little point in wasting the battery.  They were getting farther away from the city and with it being after curfew, the highway was deserted.  They had passed beyond any military installation.  He drove slowly, catching the breeze blowing in off the sea. 

A tiny hamlet rested on the sand fields across Highway One from Red Beach.  The roofs of the shanties consisted of rusty tin or tattered canvas tarp that tore away after a storm.  It was that movement that had caught Linderman’s attention and now he could hear the flapping of the fabric. 

Someone should fix that thing, he said, relieved to discover the fluttering was harmless.

I’ll find you a hammer and a handful of nails.

There’s no way I would go into one of these villages at night, Linderman said with total seriousness. 

If you think about it, you are in the villages whenever we come through here.

I’d rather not think of it. 

A Seabee by training, Robinson marveled at the construction of the ramshackle hovels.  Scraps of old wooden pallets, pieces of discarded lumber and driftwood, and salvaged lumber made up the shack frames.  The outer walls were made from wax-coated cardboard sleeves that protected shiploads of beverages from harsh sea elements on their voyage across the ocean from America to military PXs, armed forces clubs, and, ultimately in many cases, black-market schemers.  The poorly crafted, but surprisingly water-resistant paper houses were propped one against another, running in jagged rows across the sand, as if their layout were designed by a poorly skilled designer.  The tottering makeshift dwellings provided shelter from the elements and allowed an equally false security when the peasants slept at night.

A half dozen black-clad young men and women materialized out of the shadows and trudged across the sand.

Look! VC! Linderman reached for his weapon.

Robinson reached over and eased the barrel down. 

They’re local militia, Popular Forces.  They’re on our side.

But they’re wearing black and they look so young, his anxious partner said.

They are young, Robinson agreed.  I can’t imagine doing that when I was their age.

Someone popped a hand-held flare from over towards the beach.  The flare flew skyward and burst a brilliant crimson, followed quickly by two green flares, a white phosphorous and a couple of tracer rounds flying off into space. 

What’s that?  Why are flares going up? the pudgy man asked nervously. 

The flares cast an eerie, psychedelic pall as they drifted down over the paper village. 

It’s nothing, Robinson assured him.  It’s just ARVN troops wasting ammunition.

Farther out, in the direction of the leper colony, another green flare spit into the sky bursting into a cluster of glowing pieces.  Their reflection shimmered on the surface of the bay.

I don’t like it, Linderman said.  I don’t like it one bit.

It’s not this mischief we have to fear, Robinson said. He eased the jeep along, but was not overly concerned with the makeshift fireworks.  These were common events in the countryside where there was little control over the unauthorized actions of ARVN soldiers or inexperienced Popular Forces. They were common occurrences perhaps, but very disturbing for his partner.

Linderman scanned where he believed the flares had come from, but he saw no one.  His weapon was still cradled in his arms. This was his first nighttime venture so deep into the countryside where the truly poor lived.

Out over the valley a medevac chopper was ferrying wounded to the Navy hospital. 

The machine was too far out to hear, but the men momentarily could see a glint of light off the fuselage.  The chopper came in north of the air base, banked right as it approached the city and headed toward the hospital. 

A few meters past the hamlet, a graveyard emerged from the sand fields. Sometime in the distant past, a small, tile-roofed temple had been erected.  It was the sole concrete structure in that pitiful enclave of wood and cardboard shacks.  The temple had been ornate in its time, but it was now slowly eroding away. A broken terra cotta urn, stuffed with the stems of burnt incense sticks crumbled away inside the shadows of the shrine. Fragments of broken red tiles speckled the sand like rubies. Perhaps a time would come when the last small piece of the structure would finally disappear altogether into the sand.  But it stood now, watching over the graves and keeping silent vigil over the village. 

A young boy came up from the plain, out of the shadows, leading a water buffalo across the sand.  They were out late past curfew and were heading home after a day laboring in the rice paddies. The mud-caked animal crossed in front of the patrol unit, plodding across the pavement with methodic, determined hoof beats.

The lad glanced impassively at the two Americans, neither smiling nor frowning. He gestured as if holding a weapon pointed their way, but it was merely the switch he used to move the animal along.  They crossed and disappeared down the other side.

This place gives me the creeps, Linderman said. 

In places across the sand fields were erected joss houses.

What are those church-looking things, Linderman asked. He had seen them before; elaborate little shrines in front of houses or alongside streets and alleys.  But these adorned the fields of sand, the fields of the dead. 

In the evenings bare-chested children played in the graveyard, darting about like apparitions, hiding among the markers then springing forth as if having materialized from nowhere.  Dusk turned the urchins into darkened silhouettes, ghostly in appearance, but merry in the sounds they made.  They were too innocent to have yet learned to fear poverty and death.

A gray Navy pickup with US Naval Support Activity DaNang stenciled on the side passed, coming up from the opposite direction and headed to the Seabee base at Red Beach.  The driver flashed his lights as he passed.

Do we know him? Linderman hoped.  He felt safer knowing other friendlies were along this stretch of highway at this time of night.  The red taillights of the pickup turned into the Seabee base.

This was an isolated, perilous place for the Americans when the sun had gone and night fallen.  They were alone on this narrow highway and were easy targets should a sniper hide among the headstones.  A shot could ring out and no one would see the person behind the weapon.  It would be as if the assassin were not even there. 

The pudgy man in the passenger seat saw the shadows of the children as they moved here and darted there.  Another flare popped behind the paper village and flew out over the graveyard.

Let’s get out of here, he said.

Chapter 2

PO3 Robinson guided the jeep through the maze of rubbish-littered lanes, pot-holed streets and dusty back alleys.  The thoroughfares intersected, crisscrossed and came together at odd angles, like a spider’s web.  There was no rush, no hurry to his driving, and, until it came time to deliver the Security Guard’s C-ration meals, no specific route for him to follow so he drove along the river where he could watch the skiffs bobbing on the water and see the pretty girls coming up the street. 

Are you trying to get us lost? his partner asked.

I don’t as I need to try, Robinson joked.

Robinson knew the city well having worked the stationary posts, city patrol and more recently patrolling the truck routes out to Red Beach and POL.  He had finished his first year in country and had voluntarily extended for a second tour; he had his reasons. He was already well into this extension.  There weren’t many roads he hadn’t explored on this side of the river.

With one of the jeeps deadlined in the motor pool, he and his partner were pulling double duty, patrolling both the city posts and the truck