Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel (4 page)

At the end of the mission, when word came over the horn that J. D.’s team was safely aboard the helicopter and flying home to the Lurp compound, Wolverine put down his canteen cup and lit a cigarette—his first that morning—out of sympathy with the men on the field team, who were certainly all lighting up now in the extraction ship, for such seemed to be the custom on every recon team in the Army.

“Not bad,” he admitted with an embarrassed grin and a fond shake of his head. “Not bad at all. Here I was all worried that crazy nigger would do something brave and stupid, but he kept his cool right nicely. That’s the way to run a recon mission—all sneaky and cool. It’s not that hard, you know. But if you don’t get wise, you don’t survive—and by the time I’m through with you, we’re gonna have the wisest and sneakiest Lurp team this man’s Army has ever seen. That’s an ironclad promise I’m giving you now, troops. An ironclad promise.”

T
HE MAJOR IN CHARGE
of the Two Shop was rather fond of the Lurps. Sure, they tried hard to live up to their reputation as troublemakers and mavericks, but they were unquestionably the elite of the Brigade, and without them the Two Shop would have to depend on the notoriously unreliable Red Agent reports of indigenous spies and the murky conjecture of the Aerial Photo Examination Section in order to prepare intelligence summaries for the general. Without the Lurps there would even be a paucity of Electronically Derived Intelligence, for who else was there to plant the Black Boxes and other sensing devices along suspected enemy infiltration routes?

The Lurps were the only combat element of Brigade Headquarters, and without them the major would be just another staff officer, like all the other majors in the Brigade. But with the Lurps under operational command of the Two Shop, the major was at least in nominal command of American combat troops, and that would surely improve his chances of an early promotion to lieutenant colonel.

The major was so fond of the Lurps that he worried about their safety. It didn’t bother him to lose an occasional man, or even an occasional team in the field—that young maverick lieutenant of theirs wrote all the letters to the next of kin. But the major was determined not to lose anybody, whether a Lurp or an intelligence analyst, to an enemy rocket. He hated to think what would happen if a 122-millimeter rocket should impact on the chopper pad while the Lurps were waiting for insertion or practicing their rappelling. So he directed the lieutenant to have his men build a bunker alongside the rigging shed by their chopper pad.

Because Team Two-Four was still understrength and unable to go to the field, the task of filling the first batch of sandbags for the bunker fell to Mopar and Marvel and Gonzales, and the supervision of the detail was assigned to Staff Sergeant Wolverine. But because Wolverine had spent too many years in the egalitarian camaraderie of Special Forces to allow himself to stand idly by as his men did all the work, the overall supervision of the sandbag detail fell to that lazy little mutt, Tiger the Lurp Dog.

“Look at him, stretched out on top of the sandpile just as comfortable as can be while we’re sweatin’ our asses off, breakin’ our backs to fill sandbags,” Mopar said, shaking his head in admiration. “Tiger ain’t done a lick of work in his life, and he’s a damn sight happier than we’ll ever be.”

Tiger perked his ears forward at the mention of his name, but he didn’t bother to move—not even when Gonzales scooped a shovelful of sand from beneath his tail.

“It ain’t that he can’t dig—hell, I’ve seen him throw more dirt than a backhoe when he wants to bury a bone. But that was fun, and this is work. And Tiger, he don’t never confuse the two.”

Mopar tilted his shovel over the empty sandbag that Marvel was holding open for him, dumping the sand half in the bag and half over Marvel’s hands.

“Next time around, I’m puttin’ in to come back as a dog. They might not live as long as we do, but they have more fun, and I can see the advantages of a shorter tour of duty.”

Marvel brushed the sand off his hands and wiped them on his pantlegs. He’d been in the Airborne Infantry for five months and in the Lurp platoon for five and a half now, but he was just getting to where he could listen to this talk about short tours without getting depressed, or pissed off and nervous. But he still wasn’t to the point where he could hear too much of it and keep smiling. He was determined to live to be a hundred and six years old, topping his grandfather by twenty years to make up for his father’s early death, and he would have felt a great deal safer if everyone on the team shared his lofty ambition. It was dangerous and foolish to talk about the advantages of a short tour of duty. But as he’d already pointed that out to Mopar at least a dozen times without effect, he contented himself with a frown and a grunt of disapproval. Mopar refused to admit that it was unlucky to make jokes about short tours and reincarnation, so there was nothing for Marvel to do but change the subject before it brought him down.

“Hey Sarge,” he said, grinning over at Wolverine, who was holding sandbags for Gonzales, “I may be wrong, but it seems I remember you saying we’d spend ninety percent of our time in the field. Now, I can take an exaggeration as well as the next man, but here it’s been two weeks and we haven’t gone out yet. It isn’t safe back here, and it’s even less safe on radio relay—and while I think the field’s generally pretty safe, I don’t like going out on someone else’s team.”

Wolverine tied shut the sandbag Gonzales had just filled and tossed it onto the pile with one hand. He’d been trying to get two more men to fill out the team. He’d begged Pappy Stagg to break up one of the other teams—preferably J. D.’s team, because they all seemed to be good men—and he’d even offered to go recruit some new men into the platoon. But all Pappy ever did was say “Patience. You’ve got to have patience,” and follow up with the suggestion that he use the dead time to train the men he already had.

Wolverine wiped his forehead with his sweat rag.

“We haven’t been half-stepping these last few weeks, you know. We just about got our immediate action drills down, and as soon as I can convince you that slackmen aren’t supposed to carry radios, we’ll be ready for anything. I’ve run a four-man team before, and I can do it again.”

Wolverine had tried to persuade Pappy Stagg to let him go with the team he had. Four men could move faster and quieter than six could, and Pappy Stagg knew it, but didn’t want to admit that he did, citing the Table of Organization and Equipment of a Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol team, which specified six men.

Marvel smiled. He tied the sandbag that Mopar had just filled and lifted it to the top of the pile. He wasn’t as strong as Wolverine was and didn’t want to risk a dislocated shoulder tossing sandbags around, so he used both hands. He had to suppress a giggle at the vigor with which Mopar jumped into the debate on his side.

“Bullshit! You can’t put the blame on Marvel for walking slack with a radio and then turn around and say we can go as a four-man team!”

Wolverine hadn’t intended to blame Marvel, and he couldn’t imagine how Mopar had come to that conclusion, but he kept his mouth shut and let Mopar rave on, because it was best to let things come out. He didn’t want Mopar to go off into a full-blown snit.

“I’m the ATL, right?” Mopar tapped his own chest with his index finger and favored Wolverine with a defiant stare so righteous and fierce Wolverine had to turn his face to keep from laughing.

“I’m the ATL, and I walk point, right? ATLs don’t often walk point, but I don’t hear you saying anything about that. Marvel might be a silly gook most of the time, but he’s good in the field, and I don’t want no one else walkin’ my slack or carrying the radio! We got four men only because you can’t round up anyone else, and unless you want me to strap a radio on Tiger and have him bark in our situation reports, you better just lay off Marvel. It ain’t his fault we only got four men, but you sound like he’s trying to hog things!”

Marvel giggled, Gonzales spat, and Wolverine shook his head but didn’t bother to defend himself because he, too, was hot, and tired, and bored with sandbags, and didn’t trust his own temper.

“You want to take Marvel’s radio away, then you can give it to Tiger for all I care!”

Once again Tiger perked his ears, but this time it wasn’t at the mention of his name. He lifted his head off his forepaws, glanced off in the direction of the operations bunker, and wagged his tail lazily. Pappy Stagg was coming down to the chopper pad with a clipboard and sealed manila envelope in his hands, and behind him, on the drive beneath the bunker, stood the Two Shop major’s jeep, although the major himself was nowhere to be seen. Tiger stood up slowly, shook the sand off his coat, then trotted off to meet Pappy and escort him down to the chopper pad.

Pappy looked at the pile of sandbags and nodded his approval, then glanced at his clipboard and frowned.

“You hoodlums think you’re ready for a mission?” he asked, and immediately everyone threw down his shovel or dropped his sandbag and turned expectantly to hear the good news.

Pappy Stagg had to smile. He knew he had a good crew in this platoon. Sure, they didn’t care too much about shaving and breaking starch, but they were good field troops, and that’s what really counted.

“Now this team leader of yours …” Pappy rolled his eyes in Wolverine’s direction. “… He’s been bugging me all week to get you bums out in the field—feeding me so much bullshit about how sharp you are I was goin’ to have him arrested for false reporting. But the lieutenant wouldn’t go along with me on that, so here we are.”

He handed the manila envelope to Wolverine.

“Now the TO and E of a Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol team is six men, and don’t you bums go writin’ home tellin’ your mothers I’m sending you out understrength, ’cause it wasn’t my idea. But Staff Sergeant Wolverine here assures me you can handle it, and the major wants a team, so it looks like you’re going.”

Pappy Stagg shrugged helplessly and shook his head.

“May the mothers of America forgive me!” he said, while Marvel giggled, Gonzales nodded, and Mopar rubbed his hands in anticipation.

“There’s a map and some aerial photos in the envelope, and Sergeant Johnson will have your codebooks and commo information as soon as he gets back from the relay site. Now you better get a move-on—overflight is set for 1700 hours, and insertion is first light tomorrow, so get your shit in order.”

He looked down at his wristwatch, and Tiger cocked his head and perked his ears and stood at full alert because he knew what it meant when Pappy Stagg glanced at his watch.

“All right, move on out!” Pappy Stagg barked, and Tiger took a frisky leap to the side and pawed the ground in delight. “I said a
four-man
team! The dog stays here!”

Mopar, Marvel, and Gonzales sprinted off to return the shovels and extra sandbags to supply, and Tiger the Lurp Dog bounded along behind them, then raced merrily on ahead, hoping someone would chase him.

W
OLVERINE HAD WORKED THIS
part of the country before. He’d been running missions for the innocuously named Study and Observation Group then, he and an American lieutenant and a team of six Nung Chinese. He had no trouble now following the river to the Recon Zone without even glancing at his map. When the helicopter approached the RZ, he unfolded his map and studied it carefully, relating the contour lines to the ridges and mountains below him. But as soon as the ship moved on past the western boundary of the RZ, he folded his map and stuffed it back in his thigh pocket.

There was a waterfall out there somewhere, a waterfall that didn’t appear on any map, and he was determined to find it if he could. He’d seen it before, on other overflights, and once he’d caught a glimpse of it through a curtain of rain when riding back from a mission across the border. It was a beautiful waterfall—tall and thin, wispy as Ho Chi Minh’s beard, yet as graceful as something from an old Chinese landscape painting. But he hadn’t been able to find it on a map, and every time he’d ever seen it, he was either too nervous about insertion, too relieved at being extracted safely, or too involved in some upcoming mission to get a good fix on its location. He did know that it wasn’t on any of the map sheets for this entire area because he’d checked them all, and he’d never been able to find anyone else who had seen it.

Still, he knew it was there. He’d seen it more than once, and he was certain that he’d seen the same thing each time. It was a waterfall all right, and not a rainbow, not a wispy cloud, and certainly not an optical illusion. Of course, he knew that there was no way for there to be a stream high enough in the mountains to produce a waterfall—the water flowed through the lowlands here—but he knew he’d seen it, and he knew it wasn’t a seasonal feature brought on by the monsoon rains, because he’d seen it in the summer, in the winter, and again in the early autumn.

But those sightings had been spread out over a period of two years, and there was a chance—just the slightest chance—that he had seen a different plume of water each time. It wasn’t on the maps; it had never been reported as a map correction; and as far as Wolverine knew, no one else had ever seen it. He took the binoculars from Pappy Stagg and leaned out the door of the helicopter to scan the distant mountains.

“Hey, Sarge,” Mopar nudged him with his elbow and leaned close to holler over the roar of the rotors, the engine, and the wind, “our RZ is back there. What’re you looking for? You see smoke or something?”

Wolverine shrugged and lowered the binoculars. “No,” he said. “I don’t see no smoke. Just taking a look, that’s all.”

Mopar nodded. “If you see a waterfall, let me know. That crazy gook Marvel says there’s one out there, but I think he’s fulla shit. He ain’t never seen it himself, but he says he can feel it, and it’s got some luck to it.”

Wolverine turned away from the door and handed the binoculars back to Pappy Stagg. “Did he say whether it was good luck or bad?”

Mopar shrugged. “Even Marvel can’t figure that out until he sees the damn thing, and you and I know it ain’t there.”