Sergeant Dickinson (8 page)

“Okay. Tell him okay. I agree.”

Mr. Hoang spoke to Sergeant Huk. Then Sergeant Huk spoke to Mr. Hoang. Mr. Hoang turned to me. “He say it be safer just shoot machine guns. He say he no want anybody get shot.”

“Okay. Listen. Tell him I agree with him. Tell him I think he is a fine sergeant. Tell him I would make the same decision if I were patrol leader. Tell him something like that.”

Mr. Hoang studied me. Then he turned and spoke to
Sergeant Huk at length. Sergeant Huk grinned ingenuously. He saluted me, turned on his heel and returned to his men.

Mr. Hoang says: “That give him confidence, what you say.” Then Mr. Hoang says: “He's a
moi
.”

I do not respond.

The machine guns stopped. A light flashed along gray metal. Sergeant Huk and another man were inspecting a gun's breach.

“What is it?”

I went down on one knee and bent over the butt of the gun.

“Hold that gun steady.”

A round had been driven past the chamber rim. The soft brass cartridge peeped out of the chamber at me like a tired yellow eye.

“Hasn't it fired?” I look at Mr. Hoang. “Ask him.”

Mr. Hoang and Sergeant Huk spoke.

“He say it shoot one round, then one other round.”

There must already have been a round in the chamber when the belt started to feed. They'd been using each round to fire the one before it. They should have had a double explosion in the breach, but they hadn't. Luck. I should have checked the weapon before we crossed the road. But I hadn't.

“Tell him not to fire this gun anymore. Shoot off all the ammunition with the other one. Be careful that your men don't burn out the barrel. I'm sure they're in a hurry to get this damned problem over.”

I looked at the sky. The stars seemed permanently fixed. The wind, frost-cold, was coming up again. The single machine gun started.

“Well, we missed it again. Mr. Hoang, tell Sergeant Huk I want to talk to him.”

We were in the drainage on the return march. I stepped out of the column and watched it pass. Then it stopped. Sergeant Huk returned with Mr. Hoang. Sergeant Huk looked apprehensive.

“Sergeant Huk, I have to do something here. There is a booby trap up the hill that I must do something about. I want you to take your men down to the road and wait for me there. Do not worry if you hear an explosion.”

I waited while Mr. Hoang explained it. I returned Sergeant Huk's salute and he went back to the head of the column. Mr. Hoang hung back.

“You go with him, Mr. Hoang. I'll be only a few minutes.”

When Mr. Hoang had gone I walked up the wash. I found the two bushes I had picked as markers when I set out the trip wire and I walked between them. Nothing happened. I turned around and walked back. Again nothing. I started back up the ravine. My eyes searched the ground in front of my boots as I walked but I knew that I would not be able to see the transparent line against the rime. The last thing I wanted to do was dismantle that bomb. I walked back down again, then stopped and looked at the sky. There was no indication that dawn would ever come.

I clambered up the right-hand side of the wash. My feet slid on the frost, and I concentrated on keeping my balance. When I reached the top I turned and faced each direction. In the east beyond the mountains where eventually the sea was, the sky was lightening behind thin gray clouds.

Now it comes, I thought. Now that I'm here the sun comes. I took my flashlight out of my pocket and turned it on.

I found the tree with the battery behind it. I inspected the copper leads. The charge was still in place, the blasting cap inside. The monofilament fishing line I had used as a trip wire was tied to a lead from the blasting cap. Four or five inches down from the tie the bared tips of the wire faced each other on either side of a sliding knot. There was not as much distance between the tips as I remembered having left. Someone must have snagged it. The line must have slipped off his boot. He must have caught it with his heel and it slipped off, I thought.

Oh Christ. I've forgotten my crimpers. I'll have to cut the leads with my knife.

I passed the flashlight to my left hand and took out my pocketknife.

I stopped. I had intended to pull the blasting cap out of the TNT, then cut the leads to the battery. But maybe it would be better to cut the leads first. I did not want to try to pull the leads from the pole connections. I was cold, and my hands were cold, and I was afraid of shivering the leads together, completing the circuit. I decided to pull the blasting cap first.

I squatted on my heels and set the flashlight on the ground. It was light enough now not to need it to see the tape securing the blasting cap in the capewell of the charge. Gingerly, I grasped the block of TNT in my left hand and cut the tape from around the capewell. I slid the TNT away from the blasting cap and tossed it underhand toward a tree about fifteen feet away. I let go of the blasting cap and sat down. I was sweating.

I'll take a break. just a minute or two. I'll relax.

When I set the booby trap the afternoon before I tried to ensure that no one would be hurt when it exploded. I placed the charge behind a tree at the top of the hill and strung the trip line down the slope. I took the wrapper off the TNT, for the ends of the wrapper were metal and I wanted to be certain that even if someone placed himself on the wrong side of the tree, the side the charge would explode out toward, there would be no fragmentation to injure him; the TNT itself would absorb the shrapnel from the blasting cap. I had used this device before, in Okinawa in war games with the Marines. The worst anyone had ever gotten from it was a bruised ankle, and that particular fool had had the bad luck to be standing beside it when someone else tripped it.

The afternoon had gone fine, everything had gone as it had gone before. But that cartridge jammed in the machine gun's chamber was a bad sign. And leaving my crimpers behind was another. I put this thought out of my mind.

All that was left to do was disconnect the leads. I picked up the flashlight and inspected the poles of the battery again. I wanted to pull the leads out and be done with it, but I was
cold, and there was too much copper showing below the insulation, and it would be too easy to touch the leads together accidentally.

The blasting cap hung lightly from the wires. I took it in my left hand to ease off the tension between it and the battery connections. Fuck it, I thought. I'll cut'em.

When the blasting cap exploded it sounded like a large firecracker had gone off next to my ear. It gave off a peach-colored light and my mouth felt suddenly dry with the taste of adrenaline and I thought, this can't be happening to me, and I sat down and then I lay down on my side.

After a moment I made up my mind to get up, and I sat up and found the flashlight on the ground beside me and I shined the light on my left hand. I was not certain that the explosion and the falling down had not been simply a mistake of my mind, that my mind was not playing some malevolent trick on me. And when I shined the light on my hand and I could see no blood but only the puckered and shiny white, like the white of piano keys, of my split fingers, and the deeper obscene white of bone and tendon, and turned off the light and turned away from the hand and sat down again, I still did not entirely believe that it was not a hideous mistake of vision and memory. But then, turning the light again on my hand and seeing the shredded sleeve at my wrist and the welling of blood begin from what was left of the hand, I forced myself to believe that I was not dreaming and I made myself stand up.

I felt dizzy and I bent at the waist, trying to get my head between my knees and at the same time to keep my hand
raised, and I fell to one knee. When I stood up again I was not so confused and I pressed the thumb of my good hand into the artery on the inside of my left elbow and I started walking toward the road. The direction the road lay in was to the right of where the sun was coming up.

I wanted to sleep and I thought that I could sleep while I walked but when my eyes closed I became afraid, death was like sleeping, but my eyes wanted to close and I willed them to stay open but tiny spots like gnats were closing in from the sides of my vision and I had to squint in order to see and I remembered that I had dropped my flashlight back where I had got hurt when I was dizzy and had fallen down and I lost my knife, damned knife, back there too. I tried to visualize where the knife would be, the spot of frost-wet ground where it had fallen, the lay of trees and shrub around it. I thought that it must be to the right of the tree as you faced into the ravine, toward where I had thrown the block of TNT. For a moment I thought to go back to get my knife and my flashlight, I didn't think that I had severed an artery, I probably had more time than I had thought initially. But my feet began to stumble on lumps of things on the ground, and I fell without trying to see where I was falling.

I had fallen on my shoulder and I lay now on my left side thinking that I would rest for a moment, I was tired and sleepy and I had time, and I felt myself fall asleep and I was very comfortable and warm. But then I stopped thinking and I stood up very easily and I continued walking toward where the road would be. My mouth was dry but I felt good. I felt light of body and I was warm inside my shirt and I did
not know what to think of my feeling so contented. But even though I felt very buoyant and eager, my feet were becoming detached from my body and stumbled awkwardly of their own accord. I watched my feet and I was amazed that they should be so clumsy when I felt so graceful.

I tripped again and fell and when I hit the ground it rolled away from me and I thought that it would be a good idea to roll with it. I rolled over one time and then I lay on my back and I said: “Medic.” I said it quietly, as though telling myself that there was such a thing as a medic. When no one answered or came to help me I said it more loudly: “Medic.” But I knew that no one had heard, and I had not expected anyone to hear, and I stood up.

I was standing now just beneath the crest of a hill. I could see the vehicles in stationary convoy below, the deuce-and-a-halves in front, the three-quarter next, a jeep at the rear. There should have been another jeep, but I did not dwell on this.

The deuce-and-a-half in front had its headlights on; men were talking inside it and inside the other one and the three-quarter. One of the trucks revved its engine. They wanted to go home. They were waiting for me.

I shouted: “Medic!”

I started down the hill.

“Medic!”

Someone shouted: “Leave him!”

Someone else shouted: “Let's go!”

The forward deuce-and-a-half revved its engine. The gears gnashed and it began to move.

“I'm hurt!”

I felt suddenly stronger and I started to run. I fell and rolled, and when I got up I was much closer to the trucks. I did not understand why they would want to leave me. I could not imagine what I might have done to antagonize them. I thought I recognized Percival's voice as one that wanted to leave.

“Come on, let's leave him,” someone in the nearer distance said. Now I heard the attempt at humor in the voice. They were not taking me seriously, that was it.

“I'm hurt. I need a medic.”

Someone approached in the dim light coming from the headlights.

“Seriously?”

It was the lieutenant, Percival's executive officer.

“I think I've blown off my hand.”

I held it up to his face.

“Oh Christ.” The lieutenant gagged and turned his face away.

“I'm a medic, Sarge.” It was someone behind me. I had not heard him approach. Turning, I caught the headlights of the other jeep, the one I had not been able to account for, in my eyes. There was a red cross on a white background painted on its side. I had forgotten that an ambulance had accompanied us to the field.

“Is anyone else hurt?” I was trying to figure out why the ambulance was so late in joining the other vehicles. I thought that perhaps someone else had been injured and the ambulance had had to pick him up.

“No.” The medic seemed uncertain as to why I would ask. He was a tall, dark-haired boy. No, he wasn't a boy. He was about my age. When he took off his knit cap I saw that his hair was receding above his temples. He put his cap over my hand. I couldn't feel it.

“Does that hurt?”

“No.”

“It'll protect your hand from the cold. Do you need help getting into the jeep?”

“I've got my thumb on a pressure point. I'm afraid I may have busted an artery.”

“I don't think so, Sarge. You've about stopped bleeding.”

“That's good,” I said.

“How did it happen?” the medic asked when we were in the ambulance.

“Blasting cap exploded.”

The medic shook his head. “You're lucky. It could have been your eyes.”

The driver got in and the ambulance started off. It went around the trucks which had pulled off to the side of the road.

I began to shiver. My teeth chattered. It came in waves, the cold and the shivering and the teeth chattering. The medic looked concerned.

“I'm all right. What's your name?” I asked the driver.

“Williams.”

“Ah. Uh huh. Williams.”

The medic looked concerned. Outside it was almost too light to keep the headlights on.

I was almost asleep when I heard Jeff throwing up. It was a reaction to the anesthetic. Jeff had been operated on today for the twenty-second time in two years (one more, and he'd have had one operation for each year of his life, he joked). They had transplanted a nerve from somewhere to his left arm. His left eye was gone and his palate had been lost but had been restored and the teeth that had gone with the palate had been replaced and some of the metal that was in him was still working its way in pus-y oozings out of the purple-gray holes in his buttocks but he could use his right leg and right arm again now and soon he would be able to use his left arm and everybody was happy for him.