Fields of Fire (15 page)

“What?”

“He thought his dick was gone but it was hanging there, all right, but I had to check his balls.” Snake giggled a little. “Hodges come in and Corky's boot was laying there, full of foot. Grossed him out. He made Flaky burn the boot. Bad style.”

Waterbull was incredulous. “With the foot in it?”

“My new man Senator threw up.”

“What is he, crazy?”

“Nah. He made it cool, man.” Snake laughed, remembering. He was tingling comfortably. Bull glowed in the almost-dark. “I was dumping on him for it and he knocked me dead. Don't mess with him, Bull. He's all right. He asked me why I didn't do what I would have done. Oh, wow, I feel good.”

“What?”

“He don't pull any lifer stuff and he calls in artillery. He keeps telling Austin to go easy on the games. Jesus. Austin.”

“Who's Austin?”

“You'll find out. That same old face. Hey. How was it in Bang-clap?”

Waterbull chortled, sifting through his pack. He pulled out a string of pictures stuck inside a plastic accordion-style holder. “My wife.”

Snake laughed for thirty seconds. Tears streamed onto the cot. It was the funniest thing he had ever heard. “No-o-o!”

Waterbull grinned dreamily. “Yeaaahhh.”

Snake still laughed. “They'll never understand in Kansas.” His comment seemed hilarious to him.

“She'll never see Kansas. Ah, we're not really married. I mean married. She just wouldn't screw unless I married her. Religion or something.”

“So you did.”

Waterbull giggled deeply. “I'da killed for a piece of that!” He stared fondly at the pictures, remembering. “Ohh, wow. Some kinda woman. Softest boobs. Quit laughing at me. Just check it out.”

Snake grooved on the pictures in the dark, pondering each one dreamily. The girl smiled to the camera, variously dressed and undressed, shimmering black hair to her waist, rounded breasts inviting, wishing for caresses. Waterbull pointed to a picture of his “wife” sitting cross-legged on a bed, clad in bikini underpants, her breasts standing above crossed, lithe arms.

“Tell me you wouldn't marry that.”

Snake pondered her. “I'm taking R & R in Bang-clap, Bull.” He lay flat on his cot, laughing with anticipation. “I'm gonna marry her too!” He lay motionless, feeling lazy and peaceful. “Hey. You got Bagger's team. He don't groove on all this Marine Corps stuff. Only one other dude in it. Wild Man. He's crazy. Had another man O’Brien, got all screwed up the other day. You didn't know O’Brien. He won't be back. You don't know Wild Man, either. Where you been, Bull?”

“Took shots for two weeks to get rid of that clap. That was some bad shit.”

SERGEANT Austin held the tent flap in one hairy hand, bracing himself before entering the tent. It was three hours later. He took a deep breath, his lips tight, and finally threw the tent flap back and strode inside.

“Tighten-up time, girls.”

He strode slowly down the aisle of the tent, examining its occupants. Four men on a near cot took a quick look up from their card game, then ignored him. Cannonball looked up from a letter as he lay on his cot, then returned to it. Bagger and Wild Man stared solemnly at him, almost insolent. He felt his blood rush. No respect anymore.

He looked around the tent in the semidarkness. Where's that—what's his name? Snake. He mimicked the word silently. Even Hodges calls him Snake. Like he's some kind of celebrity that can't be called by his last name or his rank. Snake. Snake my ass.

Snake was lying back on his cot, recently awakened from a nap. Still feeling pretty good. He noticed Austin and, with effort, rose and walked up to him. Now there's a same old face if I ever saw it, he joked to himself. Trouble, just waiting to unload.

As he neared Austin the Sergeant jerked a thumb in no particular direction, a gesture to indicate everywhere.

“Shaves.”

Snake met his eyes, parroting his seriousness. “Shaves.”

“Right now.”

The entire tent looked at Austin in hostile silence. “I won't have you people walking around the battalion CP like bums. You're bad enough as it is.” Still no response. “And by tomorrow afternoon I want to see skin on the sides of every head in this tent.”

“Skin.”

“Skin, Corporal. Haircuts. There's a gook barber outside the compound.”

Austin strolled the tent, eyeing its sullen occupants. Fight a war with trash, he griped to himself again. He stopped in front of Phony's cot. Phony was chewing a wad of gum, reading a comic book. Batman. Hmmph. Well, it's a wonder he can read at all. Phony looked up from his comic book for one brief glimpse of Austin, then returned to it.

“Hey, Sarge. What's going down, anyway?”

Austin raged inwardly. What's going down, Sarge? Like I'm some kind of blood brother to this bullshit. Like I'm his goddamn buddy.

“You're going down, if you try to grow any more sideburns.”

Phony guffawed, rubbing a cheek smooth as a baby's. “Sideburns? Hey, Sarge. I wouldn't know how to grow a sideburn.” The tent filled with muffled laughs.

Austin examined Phony's gear, which lay in a heap by the side of his cot. His flak jacket covered his pack. On the back of the flak jacket Phony had scribbled in tall, black letters, “Fuck it… just fuck it.”

Austin pointed to the flak jacket. “Get rid of that.”

Phony grinned blandly at Austin for a moment, studying him, then emptied the pockets of the flak jacket. “O.K., Sarge.” He picked it up and heaved it down the aisle of the tent, where it landed with a heavy thud near the door.

Everyone in the tent burst out laughing. Austin balled his fists and screamed at Phony: “I'll write you up, goddamn it! You wiseass! Now go get that jacket!”

Phony shrugged calmly, and retrieved the flak jacket. “You said get rid of it.”

“Not the jacket, stupid. The shit you got scribbled on it. Scribble it off it. I thought we went through this the other day. What do you think that jacket is, a letter to a friend? It's a piece of military gear. You treat it that way.”

“O.K., Sarge. Take it easy, huh?”

Take it easy. Jesus. Austin turned to Wild Man, the next cot down, who was fondly stroking the beginnings of a moustache.

“You a Corporal?”

Wild Man glared at Austin.

“When you make Corporal you can grow a moustache. Shave it off.” He pointed to Wild Man's flak jacket, where he had written Peace Through Fire Superiority, and to Ottenburger's, the next cot beyond Wild Man, which said If I die bury me upside down, so the whole world can kiss my ass.

“Those, too. Un-fucking-military, girls. Get that shit off today. Understand?” The tent remained silent, unanswering. The hostility was so permeating that Austin felt his neck skin tingle. These people are Marines, he reassured himself. They're gonna be treated like Marines. He turned back to Snake, who stood expressionless where he had greeted Austin.

“I want this tent to be squared away. I'm coming through here twice a day. I want gear on top of racks, packs outboard.”

Snake winced, holding one hand in the air. Somewhere, in the cobwebs of his memory: “—Outboard.”

Austin shook his head. “Christ. Toward the wall on both sides.” Snake nodded, remembering from boot camp. Ah. Outboard. Austin continued: “And I don't want all these magazines and cock books just laying around. Find a place for 'em. And don't forget. By tomorrow I want white-walls.”

“Whitewalls.”

“Whitewalls. Haircuts.” The tent remained silent.

Finally, Snake shrugged. “That it, Sarge?”

“For the tent. You come with me.”

Austin led Snake out of the tent along the narrow finger that was the top of the J-shaped compound. Bunkers lined both sides of the finger. At the point, underneath the tall observation tower, there were four large bunkers, heavy with sandbags. Each supported a 106-millimeter rifle that jutted long and menacing toward the steep slopes outside the compound. The slopes were blanketed with barbed wire and concertina. Beyond them, on all three sides of the finger, were flat, bushy fields that extended for hundreds of yards.

Austin pointed to a treeline four hundred meters north and east of the compound, near the river. “You got the LP out there.”

Snake squinted across the field. “Where?”

Austin was unspecific. “Out there. Where you can cover the treeline.”

“You're shitting me.”

Austin fixed his brooding eyes on Snake. “No, Corporal. I am not shitting you. Colonel's orders. That's your squad's LP while we're at the Bridge. Every night, one fire team on the LP. Where you put it is up to you. But it better be somewhere near that treeline.”

Snake sat on a bunker and lit a cigarette, peering into the fields. He no longer felt good. His mind felt heavy, sullen. He sensed that Austin was enjoying his discomfort. He turned to the Platoon Sergeant, who had started to leave. “Hey, Sarge.” Austin halted. “Why send an LP on the other side of a hundred meters of goddamn wire? How will it get back if we get hit?”

Austin stared stonily at Snake. “They'll walk.”

“They can't. Hey, look. How're they gonna walk through all this wire, if there's gooners hitting the compound?” Snake shook his head. “They'd have to fly, that's what they'd have to do.” Austin had begun to leave again. “I don't like it, Sarge. The whole thing sucks.”

Austin stared impatiently at Snake. “I didn't ask you if you liked it, Corporal. I told you to do it.”

“Enough is enough.” Snake took a deep breath. “I ain't gonna do it.”

Austin grew livid, walking toward Snake. “Who do you think you are, Chesty Puller? No one in the chain of command would risk your neck without a reason, Corporal. It's necessary to the defense of the perimeter. Nothing like this is exactly dreamed up, you know. It came from the Colonel.”

“I don't see him standing no LP. Let him do it.”

Austin stood very close to Snake, looking down at him. His face seethed with fury. “You're on report.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. I've had enough of this wise-ass talk. You're on report for refusing an order to face the enemy.” Austin pursed his lips, then tightened them. “I'm going to string you so goddamn high, Corporal.”

“I wanna see Lieutenant Hodges.”

“You aren't seeing anybody.”

Snake grinned determinedly. “Oh, no, Sergeant. I got my rights. This is what you call your basic ‘request mast,’ know what I mean? I wanna see my Lieutenant. Right now.”

“WELL, what can I say? It doesn't seem right to me, either.” Hodges sat on the point bunker, looking down into the fields. “I don't know why in hell I didn't figure it out before.”

“Begging the Lieutenant's pardon, sir, it's been considered sound tactics to send listening posts in likely areas of enemy attack for—forever.” Austin spoke flatly, knowing he had lost, but building a record for future arguments.

“Well, I'll tell you the rule I use, Sarge. The rule I use is, would I think it made any sense if I got sent out on it? And I wouldn't. So I don't like it.”

“It didn't make any sense when General Shoup landed the troops at Tarawa, either, and lost two thousand in the first wave. But he did it. In all due respect.”

Snake shook his head exasperatedly. “Come on, Sarge. This is Vietnam.”

Austin peered threateningly at Snake. “This is war. Vietnam, Iwo Jima, the Frozen Chosin Reservoir. The goddamn moon. War is war.”

“All right, Sergeant Austin. You've got the LP tonight.” Hodges stared evenly at his Platoon Sergeant, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned as he suppressed a smile.

“Sir?”

“You take it out tonight. Give me a report on how wise you think it is tomorrow morning.”

Austin stared silently at Hodges for a long moment. Then he gestured to Snake. “I'd like to see the Lieutenant alone for a minute, sir.”

Hodges nodded to Snake, who drifted along the bunkers until he discovered a gun team working on their weapon, and began a discussion with them. Austin watched Snake, waiting until he was out of earshot. Then he turned to Hodges.

“In all due respect, sir, that was a cheap shot. I'm a Platoon Sergeant, and I belong where the bulk of my men are.”

“They're my men, Sergeant Austin. And you belong where I send you.”

Austin's thin lips tightened. He peered across the mass of barbed wire and concertina at the fields below. “I don't make orders, sir. I only carry them out. I owe the Corps my loyalty. If the Colonel decides there should be an LP out there, I execute that order. Now, if the Lieutenant believes the LP shouldn't be out there, I suggest he go talk with the battalion staff.”

SNAKE and Hodges climbed down narrow wooden steps in to the battalion command bunker, and entered a room filled with a mass of radios and maps, built basement-style underneath quintuple layers of sandbags.

Hodges approached a jowly, stocky First Lieutenant, who apparently was running the command center, and attempted to explain Snake's reasoning. The First Lieutenant glowered impatiently as Hodges spoke, alternating his gaze from him to Snake. Finally he raised his eyes to the ceiling of the bunker and lifted a hand, cutting Hodges off.

“How long you been in Vietnam, Lieutenant?” He emphasized the “Lieutenant” in an apparent attempt to distinguish his seniority.

Hodges shrugged unconcernedly. “A month or so.”

The First Lieutenant scowled impatiently. “Well, look. We've got more than four years of Vietnam inside this bunker, just among the officers. We know what we're doing. Don't tell us how to do our job.”

“Look yourself. I don't care if you've been here all your goddamn life.” Hodges smiled calmly. “No disrespect to the Colonel intended, you understand. But that don't mean you can't take a suggestion. I think my man has a good point. LPs on the other side of this wire are crazy as hell.”

The scowling man continued to alternate his gaze between Hodges and Snake. “All right. You made your suggestion. I'll talk it over with the Colonel.”

“When will you let us know?”

“If he changes his mind, I'll let you know.”

“All right.” Hodges did not know how to force his point. “Can't ask for more than having the Big Six consider it, I reckon.”

As they reached the top step of the bunker Snake pushed his hands into his trouser pockets. “Bullshit. He ain't gonna talk to the Colonel about this.”