Three In The Morning Gathering

Normally I would avoid shooting the M-50 unless we were under severe attack.  First of all, If you fired it long, you needed someone to hold the band of ammo.  Second, the damn thing made so much noise you needed ear plugs.

On nights in the damp foxhole, coffee was a must, conversation was a second necessity.  But, usually, everyone went to sleep except the CQ or charge of quarters who had to stay up all night.  Without talk, all I used to look forward to was the moon because it lit up the barb wire perimeter enough to make visible any enemy encroachments.

Barrel Ass, the adopted dog of the Battalion, had no fear of the barb wire and we had to be careful that we did not shot him when he took a trip to see the lady dogs in the Viet Cong camp.  He never chose sides in the war, he would have done well living in Switzerland.  I know the other guys loved him as much as we did cause he always came back to us well fed.

The OIC (Officer In Charge) would inspect the gap on the fifty caliber and make sure I was awake before he would go back to his hooch and sleep.  Captain Ivy was on duty one night when there was no moon and Barrel Ass had gone to sleep.  The dark invisible night always had sounds that stirred my heart.  Shifting, grating, maybe the fall of a branch, even the crinkle of a leaf was enough to pique my body to danger.  My hand was always either near the fifty or near the grenades or my rifle. 

A lot of my buddies had personal side arms like cowboys and the upper brass ignored the rules except, I never had one.  At night they would show off their P-38s and such, bragging how they could blow a hole in the side of a barn.  Yea, well we did not have any barns near us, only sandbagged bunkers looking like mud prehistoric houses, and, of course, foxholes.  Lonely, smelly, cold foxholes.  I swear, sometimes I could smell urine in several foxholes I had to use along the camp boundary.

This particular night with the camp so quiet that even an angel would become suspicious, I was feeling like I needed to break the silence and talk to someone.  Along the hazy shadowed barb wire, the wind was dead and the darkness made the fence seem even more foreboding. 

It was in this mood that I did what my instincts told me to do.  I pointed the fifty at the inky wire and let loose ten or twelve rounds that shook the night with frigid stillness.  What a racket that gun made.  The whole camp came alive and, of course, the OIC - Ivy came running into the foxhole in his underwear.  It was cold.  He jumped down and putting his helmet on, tried to look over the foxhole while asking me what happened.  Of course, for the first time in my life, I lied.  I said, "Sir, I saw some movement along the line and I was not going to take a chance."  He went on and on about did I see any enemy soldiers and how many and I made up a plausible story that kept him shivering and unable to feel safe enough to go back to his barracks.  I had him out there in that empty night to talk to and I heard, in the morning, in formation, him coughing hard.