Men in Green Faces (18 page)

Brian saw him first. “Those new air-conditioned jeans? Where can we get some?”

The squad burst into laughter.

“Fuck off,” Jim said, and hobbled behind the partition to lie down.

B
Y THE TIME
G
ENE
joined the squad for chow, they’d dubbed the old man Raggedy. Sitting between Brian and Doc, Raggedy seldom raised his eyes from his food. Head lowered, the elder used both hands to shove food into his mouth, eating as fast as he could. When he did look up, he’d smile, baring his rotting teeth, his dark eyes shining. Stuffing his old, frail body with hot, solid food, he seemed very happy and content.

“You hear that Solid Anchor was hit last night?” Cruz asked.

Gene reached for the pepper. “Again? That’s the third time this week.”

“That’s what comes of being on solid ground,” Doc said. “If Seafloat wasn’t a moving target, and going up and down with the tide changes, the damned rockets would have been aimed at us.”

Before Gene had taken his first bite, Raggedy’s tray was almost empty. He was using his fingers to get the last bits and pieces, the last vestige of juices, from his plate. That done, he grabbed his cup of coffee in both hands and downed it all at once.

Brian looked around Raggedy at Doc. “Don’t think Jim’s too pleased with your tailoring job on his jeans,” he said.

“He’s got no reason to bitch,” Doc shot back. “I cut a damned straight line, considering the circumstances. You’d think he’d be grateful to have a little air-conditioning.”

Gene grinned and lifted his fork only to notice a silent Raggedy looking enviously at everyone else’s chow. But whenever one of the squad glanced at him, he smiled.

Alex reached for the ketchup. “Well, Gene,” he said, “it looks like your luck ran out. One of our squad finally got hit.”

Roland looked up.

“Think so?” Gene asked. “Jim got blown up by a claymore and walked away with a minor wound. Not that it didn’t hurt. Doc did the major damage cutting up his jeans. Someone upstairs was surely looking out for us. And remember, no American has ever gotten down into the Twin Rivers area before.”

“That’s the damned truth.” Brian glanced at the old man, who smiled and bobbed his head.

Raggedy was still smiling, but the old man’s concentration was focused on their food. Obviously the old guy wanted more. Though he’d only taken a few bites, Gene pushed his tray across the table. Raggedy dove into it with both hands.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Cruz asked.

“Yeah, but I’ll get another tray and take one back to Jim. He must be starved.” He shoved his chair away from the table. “Brian, keep the old-timer with you. We don’t want him taken to the KCS camp. In fact, let’s keep it down that we have him, especially from NILO. If Johnny finds out, we’ll have to turn him over within seventy-two hours. I’ll clear it with Jim.”

Brian grinned. “Will do.”

Back at their hootch, Gene found Jim on his bunk under mosquito netting. Naked, he lay on his back with a pillow supporting his leg. His jeans were on the floor where he’d dropped them.

“Brought you some chow. How’re you feeling?”

Jim shrugged a shoulder. “Okay. How about you?” He pulled himself to a sitting position and reached for the tray.

“Feel better than I did yesterday.”

“Looks like we’ll both have a few days off.” Jim took a drink of milk.

Gene leaned against the foot of his bed. “When I saw you take point, I tried to stop you. I guess you couldn’t hear the snaps. I wanted to tell you to put the old man in front. He had to know where the booby traps were, and about any guards, if they had some posted.”

“True,” Jim said, picking the milk up again. “I wanted to get in, take a quick look, and get out. Stupid mistake to make. I’ll never make it again.”

“Neither will any of the rest of us who were there. You know,” Gene added, “we can’t go back in for some time.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah. We’ve already run back-to-back ops. They might have missed the first POW, but not the old man and the claymore.”

“They’ll be waiting next time.”

Jim smiled. “Good. Let them wait.”

“About the old man…”

Fork poised in midair, Jim looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“What about keeping him here? If we take him over to the KCS camp, they’ll interrogate him. Probably kill him. We can question him here about the area. There’s always somebody in the hootch to keep an eye on him.”

Chewing, Jim thought about it. “Let me talk it over with Dev, since Delta shares the hootch with us.”

“Sure. Hey, by the way, some of the guys were talking about putting your jeans up for auction.”

“Get out of here!”

He laughed. “See you later.”

Gene left Jim and Dev’s quarters and walked across the hootch to his bunk. After stripping off his clothes, he jumped up in his rack, pulled the mosquito netting down, and opened his Bible. He had about three books of the Old Testament left to read, but he turned first to the Twenty-third Psalm.

He’d always loved that chapter. It had meant a lot to him before he joined the service, but now, over here in this shithole where they really walked through valleys of death, it meant even more. He finished it, turned back to where he’d left off, began to read, and fell asleep before the first sentence ended.

Noise woke him, four hours later. Packed with men, the hootch resounded with music, laughter, yells, and arguments over the poker games going on. He crawled out of bed and pulled on his blue-and-gold over his swim trunks. He felt lousy, as if he were burning up. He went looking for Doc.

Gene found him playing poker. “Can I bother you a minute?”

“Sure. I’m wiped out anyway.” Doc threw his hand in and scratched at his mustache. “You’re not going out and want me to go again, are you?”

“No. I’m just not feeling well and my throat is sore. I think I’ve got a temp.”

“Come on.”

Gene followed him to his rack. Doc’s hand was cool and reassuring on his forehead.

“Yeah, you’re hot.” He got out a tongue depressor and a small flashlight. “Okay, open up.”

Head tipped back, Gene watched the corpsman’s face, trying to see whether what he had was serious. Doc never changed expression.

“Yep.” He stepped back. “You’ve got tonsillitis. Some pus pockets back there. Let’s take your temp.”

It turned out to be not quite 102 degrees, but Gene felt like it was 110. He coughed again. Probably from being wet and muddy all the damned time.

Doc handed him some pills. “Take these three times a day. Don’t drink any milk or eat dairy products. Here are some aspirins for the temp and some throat lozenges.” He closed his bag. “Take it easy for a while. I’ll tell Jim you’ll be down for a few days.”

“Doc, I’ve already asked for a few days off. Jim said okay.”

“You’ll be able to keep him company. He’s out for seven to ten days. That should give him time to try and sew his jeans up.”

Gene laughed and stood up. “You’re going to really rub it in, aren’t you?”

“Yep.” He picked up his scissors and snipped the air. “Got to get even some way.”

Gene took Doc’s empty seat in the poker game. There wasn’t much to do, stuck out in the middle of the river between ops. Kill time, don’t think too much. Drink or play cards.

Things were slowing down in the hootch when he stood and stretched. Time to hit the rack, say his evening prayers, and get some sleep. Minutes later, stretched out, eyes closed, he wondered what Karen was doing, how she felt, and whether their baby was all right. He ached to see her. He wanted, so much, to know how she would feel, pregnant, in his arms. Would he even be able to get his arms around…

Gene woke disoriented, feeling worse than the day before. It was almost 1000 hours when he took his meds. He regretted missing breakfast, but he’d go to the chow hall anyway. Usually they kept coffee on, and if they still had any fruit left, he’d ask the cook for some.

Sitting alone, he drank coffee and ate three oranges. The juice felt cool and crisp against the hot soreness of his throat.

The hootch was full of people when he got back. Neither Delta nor Lima Platoon would be going out within the next twenty-four hours. The cooks’ info had been right. In training, Tommy Blade had said, “If you want to know if anybody’s going out, just ask a cook. If someone’s going, their PL or APL will set up special chow.”

Just as well, thought Gene, stretching out on his bunk again. Lima needed a break, and Delta had three people in the hospital at Binh Thuy as well as another four still recovering from the wounds they’d received on the Mighty Mo op. Lima’s second squad had been out the last two days, running a recon in the area where the Mo was hit. But they’d done as Gene’s squad had—inserted three rivers away from their AO. He stared up at the plywood ceiling. Every little opportunity to lower the odds and come back, they’d taken.

Back, he thought, to a plywood packing crate—the hootch they called home. But back alive, all the same.

He woke, sweating, two hours later, to the sound of You-O’s voice.

“Gene! You guys! I’ve got a Boston Whaler. Anybody want to go water-skiing?”

Did he ever. “Sure, you bet,” Gene yelled back. He coughed, then jumped down from his bunk, determined to ignore his sore throat. He remembered the last time he’d had the chance to water-ski.

It had been his senior year in high school. He and Karen, very much in love, had gone with their church group and two married couples for a three-day weekend on the Colorado River. God, he could see them now, on their way to Parker Dam for breakfast. He’d been in the boat watching Karen ski. At five-thirty in the morning, the sun was just up. Karen was wearing her new two-piece suit when she hit the wake of another boat. She’d dropped the nose of the ski in the wake and went head over heels into the water. When she broke the surface, the top of the suit was around her waist, and he’d seen her breasts for the first time.

Standing in the hootch, pulling his blue-and-gold over his head, he closed his eyes for a moment, picturing her screaming for his T-shirt. Because she’d worn a blue float, she’d had one helluva time trying to stay low enough in the water to hide herself. He’d been laughing so hard, he hadn’t been able to tell her that her red bathing suit top was right there, on the float around her waist.

“Leaving in about thirty minutes,” Cruz yelled on his way out the door.

“Count me in,” Gene yelled back, and winced with the pain in his throat.

Raggedy was still on his assigned bunk at the end of the hootch. Brian had told him he’d be staying for a while, and that if he touched anything, looked at a weapon, or tried to escape, he’d be killed. The ancient, Gene realized, had no problem with that. Old and tired, he was dry, clean, and well fed now. In addition, he’d been given a bottle of Jack Daniel’s the night before. Obviously he liked it. About half an inch remained.

Gene, walking toward him, called one of the Vietnamese SEALs over. The old man smiled largely, nodding his head up and down.

“Ask him if he’s had any breakfast,” Gene said.

Raggedy answered, “Yes. The small man brought me some.”

Gene grinned. He could only mean Brian, who was five foot three. “Do you want anything?”

The old man smiled, lifted the bottle of JD, and finished what was left. Handing Gene the empty, he asked for more.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Gene said, and left, bottle in hand. You-O would be out getting the boat ready. If any JD was around, he’d know where to get some.

“Bet your ass I can,” Cruz said, “but it will cost you.”

“How much?”

“We’ll work something out later.”

In less than two minutes, Gene accepted a new bottle. “Thanks, You-O. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Gene, bring your 60 for the boat and tell Brian to bring his Stoner.”

Gene waved, indicating that he would. Cruz would use his M-16 to secure the skier. It was SOP.

“You number one, you number one.”

The old man had seen the bottle as soon as he’d cleared the door of the hootch. He sat grinning, every blackened tooth exposed. When Gene tossed the bottle to him, Raggedy immediately took off the top and chugged about a fifth of the liquor before hiding it under his pillow. Then he lay down and put his head on it. Gene laughed and left him there.

All the SEALs in the hootch knew who the old man was and none feared he’d take a grenade or weapon. His war had ended years before. Because of his age, they all treated him with respect, even though, as Brian put it, he was a kick to watch.

Gene pulled off his shorts and put on his bathing trunks before picking up the 60 and heading for the door.

“Where in hell do you think you’re going?”

He stared at Doc, coming in. Caught in the act. Shit. “You-O’s got a Whaler.”

“And you’ve got tonsillitis.”

Gene coughed, trying not to, without success.

“Just listen to yourself.”

“But the meds really helped, and Doc, we’re going water-skiing. There’s just no way I’m going to miss the chance to do something fun.”

“So go.” Doc stepped aside. “Be damned if I’m going to waste my breath arguing with somebody dumb enough to get in that river when they’re already sick. No, by God, I won’t fuckin’ do it.” He stomped away.

Gene hurried to the boat, glad to see that You-O had thought to bring a PRC-77 radio. Brian and Alex, with a skim board, were already aboard. The Whaler had twin forty-horsepower motors on it. Plenty of power.

“Ready?” Cruz called.

“Hoo-Ya!” they yelled back.

About one hundred meters away from Seafloat, You-O powered the boat to a crawl. Alex went into the water and lay flat on the skim board. “Hit it!” he yelled, and Cruz did.

Alex got to his knees, then to his feet, on the board.

“He’s really something to watch,” Gene said.

“Ain’t he, though.” Brian whooped. “Look at that!”

Alex was making 180-degree turns, going backward and turning forward again, alternating with complete 360-degree turns.

For half an hour, You-O guided the boat up and down the Son Ku Lon, with Alex skiing behind. Most of the time, Seafloat was within sight. Occasionally they went farther, knowing they had the radio and some firepower.