Fields of Fire (10 page)

Goodrich shrugged resignedly. “Oh, shit. I wish I knew.”

“No, really.”

“I failed philosophy.”

Snake nodded slightly, able to empathize with that. “So how'd you end up in the Corps? Get drafted?”

Goodrich leaned forward and put a cigarette between his teeth. He lit it, grinning fraternally to Snake. “There was this recruiter, see?”

Snake nodded amusedly. “Roger that. They were gonna make you an officer and they screwed you, right?”

“No no no. They were gonna let me play in the band.”

“The band?”

“Yeah. I play French horn.” Goodrich smiled with perverse pride. “I'm really quite good. I was on scholarship. Three years. The guy says, ‘Sure, kid. Sign right here. We got all kinds of bands.’ And the next thing I knew I was a grunt.”

Snake slapped his narrow thigh, laughing. “Oh, Jesus. You are a fucking original, you know that? We never had one of you before.” He scrutinized Goodrich. “I gotta come up with a good nickname for you.”

Goodrich was leery of being branded. “Why don't you hold off for a while, like with O’Brien? Hey, man. I'm full of surprises.”

“Harvard. That's one of the places that gives us all these Senators and Congressmen and Secretaries that never know their ass from first base about what goes on in the street. Or over here. The only time you ever see 'em is in the goddamn papers. They must live under rocks. But you always see 'em in the papers. ‘Senator Goodrich says the war must go on.’ You gonna be one of them Senators some day, Goodrich? I bet you are.”

“Well, my father's a lawyer, but—” Goodrich laughed embarrassedly, realizing he had actually taken Snake's jibe seriously.

“Well, that's it.” Snake grinned devilishly. “Perfect. We got our own Senator now.”

Senator chuckled helplessly and shook his head. “I guess it could be worse. I suppose you could have called me Blimpy, or something.” He considered it. “Senator. Hmmm. It has a nice ring to it. Wait till I write home and tell them how fast promotions are in the Corps.”

Snake put a hand on Goodrich's shoulder. “You go to Speedy's team, Senator. Better speak straight to him, 'cause he don't know much English. Dig?”

Snake turned toward a distant fighting hole and yelled. “Speedy! Ve baca! Got some new meat for ya!”

Speedy jogged to Snake's hole, thick and very dark, his black skivvy shirt stained by patches of dust. He grinned widely to Snake. Snake gestured to Goodrich. “This here is Senator. He's all yours.”

As Goodrich turned to leave, Snake grasped his shoulder, unable to shake one last premonition from his subconscious. “Hey, Senator. You're not a CID, are ya?”

Goodrich was caught off balance. “A what?”

“A CID. You know. C-I-D.”

Goodrich was confused. “I don't even know what a CID is, man.” The only connection he could make was El Cid. That can't be it, he fretted. “Unless it's a status that I'm unaware of, as opposed to a conscious state, I don't think you can say I'm one, no.”

Snake peered at Goodrich as if he'd just spoken Chinese, then slapped his shoulder jocularly. “Whoooeee. They teach you that kind of double-talk at Harvard? Oh, well. You ain't any CID, I know that. Not even a CID could think up that kind of smoke screen. Hey, listen. You better be glad, Senator. We got people who like to do CIDs, know what I mean?”

Goodrich smiled uneasily, getting the general idea. “Yeah, I guess I'm glad I'm not one, too.”

Goodrich walked with Speedy to the fighting hole. Inside it sat a tall, gaunt man with a shock of brilliant blond hair and a wispy yellow moustache, absently scrubbing his M-16 with a toothbrush. He turned a thin face up to Goodrich and quickly measured him, then smiled and wiped the end of his spaded nose with the back of his hand, catching a bead of sweat.

Speedy stood with Goodrich. “Burgie, this here is Senator.”

Burgie raised his eyebrows, a greeting. “What's going down, anyway. Helmut Ottenburger. Don't ask me. It's my real name. Chicago. Dig it. I got drafted. Don't take any shit off the greaser here.”

Speedy suddenly jumped into the fighting hole and threw Ottenburger's fresh-cleaned weapon into the dirt, in three pieces. The bolt rolled down the hill and disappeared inside a mat of grass. The two wrestled furiously, spilling out of the hole onto their gear. They swore at each other. Goodrich was startled, then realized that both were laughing.

Burgie was pinned to the ground. Speedy sat on top of him. “You fucker. I'll kill your ass.”

“Hold it, man. Hey. Enough of this. Let me up.”

“Tell Senator you're sorry.”

Burgie laughed, trying to roll Speedy off him. “Hey, Senator. Use your influence. Get this greaser off my chest.”

Goodrich stood awkwardly, watching them. He had not even set his pack down yet. Finally the burly Puerto Rican cuffed Ottenburger on the side of the head and let him up, then turned and smiled to Goodrich.

“Thinks 'cause he's six-three he's tough. Put your gear here, man. You know how to make a hootch?”

“Not like that.”

“Get your poncho out. I'll show you.”

THEY approached Hodges slowly, singly or in twos and threes, like hesitant, wild animals inspecting their latest zookeeper. It occurred to him, as he watched them pay a sort of reluctant homage to his poncho hootch, that he really did have the power of life and death over them. If I'm bad, he mused, while making small talk and tentative attempts at humor with them, they die. It's that simple. Remembering the stories from Basic School, he understood immediately why an individual would want to wound an incompetent officer with a grenade. It's not vindictiveness, he reasoned. It's self-preservation.

But he felt an immediate, visceral kinship with most of them, and sensed that it was mutual. He perceived the autocratic excellence of Snake from their first meeting. The small, hostile man with the large tattoos on each arm seemed driven by a need to dominate this weed-filled existence that the others were merely submitting to. Snake was the least friendly to Hodges, and yet Hodges sensed that he was potentially a natural ally. Snake's self-image was at stake. For the others, it was merely their lives.

Hodges had asked Snake where he was from. Snake had shrugged, peering unemotionally into the center of Hodges’ face.

“I ain't from anywhere, Lieutenant. It's me and Mother Green, the Killing Machine. Till death do us part.”

Then the others, as in a procession. They were rough and wild and dirty, and they spoke a dialect that was geographically undiscernible, with minor variations of tone and pitch, as if they had all been recruited out of the same small town. Groovy. Wow. Number One. Number Ten. There it is, man. A bust for your dust. What a bummer. But it don't mean nothing.

And yet, with most of them it was an unconvincing toughness. Beyond the talk and the antics they appeared confused and vulnerable, unsure of their own existence and thus as malleable as clay.

Pierson's squad approached and left, in twos and threes. Then both machine-gun teams, curious and not yet willing to accept him. Doc Rabbit and Flaky, who comprised his entire command post after the action of the preceding weeks, languished near him. Flaky was ingratiating. Rabbit moodily ignored him.

And also Snake's squad. Speedy and Burgie paid him a perfunctory visit. They were a study in opposites: Ottenburger tall and thin, with white-blond hair and a careless, laughing manner, talking in quick sentences about truck driving, his great passion. Ramirez short, thickly muscled, and as dark as his black skivvy shirt, a contained, serious man who carefully measured his words and movements. Goodrich, who had come out in the re-supply helicopter with Hodges, accompanied them but said nothing. He appeared deeply confused by his new surroundings.

Cat Man ambled past after picking up ammunition from Flaky for his fire team. He walked with a feline delicacy, and yet each of his movements conveyed a sure, muscular firmness. Like a mountain lion, Hodges mused, trying to categorize the small Mexican according to his nickname.

Cat Man had a quick smile, and said almost nothing, but his eyes measured Hodges continuously. They examined his face. They took in the muscle tone along his arms and back. They noted the calluses on his hands, and even the way he had laced and tied his boots. They missed nothing, and in a two-minute visit, without so much as a dozen words, Hodges knew that Cat Man had gone over his new platoon commander with the completeness of an enemy intelligence expert.

Some stayed longer than others. Bagger, who seemed to require Hodges’ attention and approval, insisted on inspecting Hodges’ poncho hootch for him, supposedly to ensure that it would not collapse. Bagger had a squatty, powerful build, with thick shoulders and arms that drooped apelike in front of him as he walked. His toes pointed too far outward, giving him a curious, swaying waddle each time he stepped. From a distance he appeared ominous, but his face gave him away. It was wide and confused, a squinting child's, as if the world's riddles were a continual bafflement.

Bagger brought Hodges a cookie from a package his wife had sent, and then used the occasion to display a whole string of pictures. In five minutes Hodges had a history of their whole love affair, beginning with their first date after a football game his junior year in high school.

Bagger grew increasingly frustrated as he showed Hodges the pictures. He finished by shaking his head and stuffing the pictures back into the plastic bag he carried. “Lieutenant, she knows how bad I am. I ain't kidding, sir. I'll do my best, Lieutenant. You can count on that. But I ain't any team leader.”

Then Cannonball, Bagger's sidekick, who had accompanied the squatty Georgian on the visit to Hodges’ hootch. Cannonball wore only his camouflage tiger shorts and his jungle boots. He smiled good-humoredly to Hodges, and sat down in the shade next to his hootch, quietly watching as Bagger showed Hodges the pictures.

Cannonball was built tightly onto a tall, thin frame. A humorous, almost apologetic smile dominated his expression, as if he had just pulled off a highly successful practical joke. And the smile lit his hazel eyes: they too laughed. His hair was in a modified Afro, but was colored with mixed tints of brown, not black. His skin was creamy, the color of dry grass.

Cannonball seemed shy, almost painfully sensitive. Most of his remarks to Hodges were indirect, through a running, chiding criticism of Bagger.

And in a moment Phony, whom Bagger had identified as the coolest in the squad with a grenade—the “frag man.” He had sauntered up, appearing to be anything but the cold-nerved battler that Bagger had made him out to be. He was the wearer of an angel's face: innocent warm brown eyes behind long lashes that batted almost effeminately when he blinked, a flawless, unbearded complexion, and the gentlest of smiles. His limbs and body were unmarked by muscle tone, covered with a prepubescent smoothness, a form of baby fat that seemingly blanketed his bones, even in his thinned-out bush condition.

As he walked toward them, Bagger whispered confidentially to Hodges, “Don't get uptight, Lieutenant, but Phony don't call nobody ‘sir.’ We had a dude, Wild Man Number One, who was in boot camp with him, and he never called any DI sir. That's what Wild Man said. He don't mean nothing, Lieutenant. He'll call you ‘Lieutenant.’ But don't let it get to you. He's been in more jails than I ever heard of, but he's solid when the shit hits the fan. He just don't like to call people ‘sir.’ ”

Cannonball nodded, smiling wryly. “Yeah, you know, like Snake always says. Old Phony don't argue with nobody. You piss him off, he just do you.”

On one smooth arm there was a red-devil tattoo. Born to Raise Hell, the devil intoned. Hodges grinned weakly, wondering how much of Bagger's and Cannonball's talk was hype.

Phony waved to Bagger. “What's happening, Bagman?” He waved again, to Hodges. “Well, hey, Lieutenant. You see my gooks?”

Hodges squinted. “Your gooks.”

“Yeah. The ones in the crater. I done 'em. Boom-boom.”

Cannonball pointed toward the crater. “Yeah, Lieutenant. You should have seen it. Snake, he figured it, but old Phony done it. Ain't nobody can chuck a frag like Phony.”

Phony smiled, chewing a wad of C-ration gum. “Boom-boom.”

Cannonball nodded, grinning. “Boom-boom.”

THE sun began to fall into the western mountains. The perimeter of men gathered in small clumps about their four-man fighting holes, making dinner and preparing for another night in hell.

Goodrich sat in a tight circle with Speedy and Burgie, cooking his dinner. Finally he garnered the courage to ask.

“Burgie. What the hell is a CID?”

“A CID? A CID is a snoop, man.”

“Is that all?”

“Yeah. Works for Criminal Investigation Division, something like that. Turns dudes in for stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Oh. Just about anything. We don't like CIDs.”

Bagger and Cannonball sat together, surveying the three prospective victims of his immaturity, his new fire team. Bagger appeared bewildered.

“Cannonball. Tell these poor bastards what the hell they're in for, with stupid me as team leader.”

Cannonball addressed the group, again by chiding Bagger. “What can I say, Bag-Man? All that shit las’ night, and you the only one in your team come away clean. You must be doin’ somethin’ right!”

Bagger shook his head miserably. “Aw, Cannonball. That ain't even funny.”

Wild Man leaned forward eagerly. “Man, that must have been some real shit. That cat Baby Cakes—what a dude, man! Everybody's talking about him today. And the other one—Ogre, crawling in to get him. Then him running out there into all the gooks—I saw the crater—he must be some kind of cool, man.”

Bagger agreed, a bit mournfully. “There it is. But you'll see. He'll be back. Him and Ogre. Then they'll get their teams back, and you'll see what it means to have a team leader. Shee-it. I wouldn't make a pimple on that man's ass.”

Wild Man was still curious. “So Phony did the gooks in the crater, with the team on the other side. Some shot, man.”

Phony was sitting twenty feet away, listening to his transistor radio and cooking up some C-rats. He called to Wild Man. “Ain't nothing to it.”