Keeping Watch (8 page)

“Where you hit, man?” Allen asked him.

“Everywhere, shit, I can't feel my legs. No, wait,” he said, and kicked first one boot, then the other. “Did I move them?”

“Damn right you moved them, asshole, you kicked me in the face,” Mouse objected.

Allen had been running a tentative hand over Chris's body, feeling for breaks in the fabric of the uniform or for warm pools of blood, praying he didn't encounter some really gross protruding organ or bone fragment. The cloth had soaked patches, but seemed to be whole.

“See if you can crawl,” he suggested. “We'll take you down to the medic.”

Instead, Chris braced himself on their shoulders and stood up, swaying but obviously intact. “Shit,” he said. “I thought I was cut in half.”

For some reason, the statement struck Mouse as funny, and he began to emit a gurgling sound. “Really sorry to disappoint you, dude,” he finally choked out, and crawled back over to finish digging out the collapsed fighting hole.

The other two men in Chris's hole, however, made no effort to stand. One would never stand again, since most of his head was gone. The other man lay groaning quietly, one arm twisted and useless. He also seemed to be bleeding, although it was hard to tell what was his and what had belonged to the dead man. Allen patted the guy's good shoulder and told him, “You hang in there, man. I'll get you a medic, he'll give you something that'll make you feel better. Chris, you think you can go find us some kind of stretcher? Tell the medic to come when he has a chance?”

“Sure. Shit, man, I thought I'd get my ass medevacked outta here.”

“We just love you too much to let you go,” Allen told him, and dropped into the hole between the dead and the wounded. The limp corpse in the bottom of the hole was a bitch to move, and would have been impossible if Allen had had to think of it as a person, but treating it as a really awkward wet log with sprawling extremities meant that he could just shove away at the thing, propping his shoulder under it, cursing it all the way up the side of the hole until it flopped onto level ground. He scrubbed his hands on his shirt and left the body lying along the top of the hole; when shooting resumed, he didn't think the guy would mind reinforcing the sandbags for his squad.

It didn't take long for the shooting to start again. He could still hear the rapid clink and scrape of the entrenching tools in Mouse's hole when the rattle of an AK47 brought his M16 up to prop on the body of the dead man. Who the hell was it, anyway? He'd have to check the tags when it was light, he thought, and then he was too busy.

If it hadn't been for the gunships, Second Platoon would have been overrun—give them their due, First Cav might have twitchy fingers when it came to their own side, but the bastards had balls. Near dawn, the besieged platoon was an island in a lake of fire, napalm on one side and mortars on the other, but once the jets came in, ripping the air with the sound of a stupendous bolt of silk tearing and leaving in their wake the superheated mushrooms of serious firepower, Charlie called it quits, and left the shaky GIs to lick their wounds.

They got the emergencies off in the medevacs, then the priorities and the body bags, and when the wounded were safely off their hands they went outside the perimeter to see what the enemy had left for them.

Most of them were NVA, with tire-soled sandals and flat-top haircuts. They went over the dead like ghoulish scavengers, emptying pockets, gloating over information (and, occasionally, souvenirs), feeling nothing at the sight of the dead but satisfaction that it was someone else.

Allen, standing with his M16 in his arms while the sergeant rifled a man's pockets, noticed a patch of something light in the bushes.

“Another one over there, Sarge,” he said. Sergeant Keys used the dead soldier's AK47 to lift up the branch, revealing a crumpled figure even smaller than the men they'd been seeing on the battlefield.

“It's a kid,” Keys said.

Allen went down on one knee.

“Hang on.” The sergeant put out a hand to stop him. “Under the bushes like this, damn thing could be booby-trapped.”

Allen nodded, and bent his head to examine the front of the child's garment without touching it.

The boy wore a long, ragged T-shirt that had once been printed with a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

“Ah, damn it,” Allen said. “This kid followed us from that last ville.”

“Followed us, or came back?”

“He disappeared during the afternoon.”

It was all he needed to say. The two men gazed at the dead child who had brought the enemy to their wire. The Snakeman's words ran through Allen's mind like a song's refrain:
Even the babies'll kill you. Never trust a kid. Even the babies'll kill you.

What remained of Second Platoon was finally lifted out that afternoon, abandoning the hard-fought hill to its dead guardians, one of them a handsome child who had gleefully scrounged chocolate bars from the passing Americans.

But Hill 117 wasn't quite through with them.

One by one the Hueys lifted off. Someone on the ground gave them a farewell fusillade, pings off their side that made the men inside cringe, but which did no harm.

Except for the round that passed through one small but vital part of the last chopper off the ground.

Allen was in the air when he felt the man beside him go stiff, and he whirled around, thinking his companion had taken a bullet through the floor. But the man's face and outstretched hand had Allen whipping back the other way, leaning to see out the Huey's open door, past the gunner to the copter behind them. The last Huey leaving the LZ was in trouble; every man there knew it was the one in which Lieutenant Woolf was riding. It faltered and tipped in the air, its stuttering rotors fighting for control, then tipped farther. A figure separated from the dying ship, jumped or shaken loose, and then the machine gave a shrug and dove after him, falling from the sky like a dropped house. The jungle where it came down erupted, a huge paw of flame that reached up for anything else it might grab, stretching out and out—until with an inaudible
pop
the cloud of flame collapsed back on itself and winked out, leaving only a wide circle of black vegetation and the first exploratory tendrils of smoke.

The body of the door gunner was the only one later recovered from the smoldering wreckage. Even it was charred beyond recognition by the heat of the fire.

Chapter 10

Bravo Company's captain came to the platoon that night, offering up his words of praise for their valiant actions and the company's mourning for one of its fallen leaders. Second Platoon stood in silence while he talked to them, because The Wolf would expect them to show respect, but that was as far as it went. The captain looked at their closed faces and their postures of reserve, and saw insolence.

Chris dug out his stash and they all got hammered, so high that they were still buzzed the next morning. Sitting in a tight group in the mess tent, the squad chowed down mechanically until Mouse threw down his fork.

“I'm gonna go find me that fuckin' Huey gunner. Anyone wanna come?”

“Mouse, you can't do that, they're based about ninety miles away from here, you can't just take off,” Allen told him.

“You gonna try an' stop me?”

“Mouse, you'll get your ass thrown in the brig. You'll get a dishonorable discharge.”

“Fuck 'em. And fuck you. I'll go myself.”

“I'll go with you,” Chris offered. Allen stared at the pacific surfer in surprise. “Hey, I can't let my bro' here go alone.”

“You ain't no brother ‘a mine, man,” Mouse retorted.

“Sure as shit, man. I'm turning into a black man,” Chris declared, and lifted his shirt to display the purple-plum blotches that covered half his torso. “I'm even darker under my pants. Dig it—I'm gonna be as black as you, Mouse. Want to see?” He stood and laid his hand on his belt buckle, but the table was loud and unanimous in discouraging the display. He sat down to finish his eggs.

“Come on, guys,” Allen pleaded. “You two do this, that's the end of the whole damn squad. No offense,” he said to the new guys.

“Then you better come too, Crazy. Keep us outta trouble.”

Allen looked from the black face to the suntanned one, and saw only conviction. “Shit,” he said, with feeling.

“That's my man,” Mouse said. It was the first time he'd grinned in days.

They would have to wait until night to be relatively certain of finding their crew at base instead of in the air. Mouse had found out that the gunner's name was Perry, which could have been either a first or a last name, and he knew where Perry was serving—one of First Platoon's soul brothers had caught a ride in the man's gunship a month or two before and had recognized the face looking out the door over the streambed. Mouse dug up a friend in the transport crew who would allow them to stow into the back of his deuce-and-a-half, so long as they left him out of it if they were caught. To Allen's relief, talk of fragmentation grenades had been replaced by plans for a good old-fashioned beating: The threat of discharge was one thing; the brig for life was another.

However, as the day wore on, Mouse took on a mood of expansive gaiety. Allen, watching him joke with men he would have cut dead the week before, began to wonder if this was the big man's way of dealing with the loss of their lieutenant, and his apprehension grew, along with the conviction that when the time came, Mouse was not going to stop at a mere beating. He hoped that some hitch would come to delay the plans for revenge, even that one of the squad would rat on them, but when afternoon came and the night convoy set off, there was room for the three of them in the last truck.
Shit,
Allen said to himself.
Shit, shit, shit.
And went to borrow a handgun from Flores, just in case.

No operation laid out in Army headquarters went off more smoothly than Mouse's ill-conceived plan. No one challenged them as they left the company perimeter, checkpoint guards seemed blind, and the three strangers slipped into the First Cav base as slick as wet trout, where they asked a few questions, then walked straight into gunner Perry's tent.

Only problem was, the gunner wasn't there, just three men playing cards and drinking beer to the Mamas and the Papas.

“Little Greggie? He's not here,” the dealer told them.

“Shoot himself in the foot, did he?” Chris asked.

“What? No, he's fine. Came back from the last mission, cleaned himself up, took off. In a truck, not taking off, you know.” The card players snickered at the joke; the grunts did not.

“Where did he go?” Allen asked, feeling Mouse bristle.

“See a man about a dog,” the first player replied, and took a swig of the beer—or started to take a swig of the beer, except that Mouse was suddenly at the guy's throat. Cards and beer flew in all directions as the others upturned the makeshift table and went for their weapons—but Allen was there first, fumbling the borrowed sidearm out of his clothing.

“Hold it,” he shouted, keeping the heavy revolver pointed halfway between the two men. “We just want to know where your buddy went, and then we'll be gone. Mouse, the guy can't answer if you don't give him some air.”

The big hand relaxed a fraction under the clawing fingernails, and the man choked out, “I don't know where he went. I swear. He's been moping around here for days, I told him to go get himself laid or something.”

“So he's gone down to the camp for a whore?”

“Why'd he clean up for that, put on his good shirt and ribbons, for Christ sake? He was looking for a ride, said if he wasn't back in the morning to cover for him if I could.”

“Fucker's gone AWOL?” Mouse said incredulously.

“Fuck if I know, I'm not his baby-sitter.”

Mouse looked about to shake the man like a dog with a rat, but Allen grabbed his shoulder. “This isn't getting us anywhere, man. Let go.”

After a minute, Mouse did so. The man stumbled rapidly backwards out of reach, his hands nursing his throat, coughing. “You bastards are in real trouble here. I'll have your heads for this—”

Allen put his gun away and started pulling Mouse and Chris back. At the tent flap he gave the two men a firm push, then turned back to say, “Before you go reporting us, maybe you should have a conversation with your friend the gunner, find out what this was all about. Tell him the guys he met crossing the river the other morning want to have a word with him.”

The three invaders walked away with dignity, certain the card players would come after them, but they made it without incident through the camp and to the gate. At Mouse's insistence, they ripped through the Vietnamese encampment, from one end to the other, ignoring the cries of outrage and the offers of “Boom-boom, GI?” and “Good fucky-sucky, okay here.” Their target was not to be found in any noodle shop or boom-boom girl's bed, and none of the vendors or customers would admit to having seen him. It was frustrating, particularly for Mouse, who ached to beat up an enemy, any enemy. Allen and Chris had to haul him away from two confrontations; the third time, when he stood in a bar full of First Cav men and called them cowards, even Chris had to admit they were getting nowhere but into the promise of full-body casts, and they made their exit. It took them most of the night to hitch their way home, trudging through the company wires to the smell of breakfast cooking. Allen was famished. As they walked back toward their hooches, they passed one of their platoon going in the other direction. He raised an eyebrow at their condition, but said merely, “There's somebody looking for you, Carmichael. I think he's in your hooch.”

“Who is it?”

“Don't know. Kid in a First Cav uniform, looks like the mascot.”

The grunt walked on, leaving Allen staring at Mouse and Chris. They marched across the camp to Allen's hooch, jostled to get into the small space, and woke their visitor.

He was just a kid—as full of fresh-faced innocence as Farmboy had been, small enough to have given his recruiting officer pause. The gunner stumbled up from where he had been sitting against the wall, blinking at their entrance, all but rubbing the sleep from his eyes like a child. Even Mouse, who had come to the hooch with his fists clenched in readiness, hesitated.

The boy straightened his jacket and his shoulders, and stepped forward with his hand out. “My name is Greg Perry. I'm the guy who shot at your squad Tuesday morning. It was a terrible mistake. I have no excuse for my actions. I've admitted full responsibility, but my CO gave me permission to come here and tell you myself how sorry I am before I'm taken into custody.”

He stood before them, hand out but clearly braced for their rejection. He was practically on the edge of tears.

What else could they do? Allen stared at the outstretched hand, let out a deep breath, and shook it. After a minute, Chris followed. Mouse looked at it, but in the end screwed up his face and muttered, “I can't, man. Friend of mine died in that river. I can't tell you that's okay.”

“I understand. If you want to hit me, go ahead. I won't report you.”

In the face of that, even Mouse had to retreat.

“Nah, man. You gonna have problems enough, don't need a broken jaw on top of 'em.”

They watched the boy put on his hat and set it straight. When he saluted them, it was all Allen could do not to return it. Greg Perry walked past them out of the hooch. His hat came to Mouse's chin.

“Ah, fuck it,” Mouse said when the kid had left them. “Just fuck this whole fucking war, anyway.”

Three days later, at a quarter after nine on the first sunny morning in some time, Second Platoon's new lieutenant arrived. The jeep passed through the gates and climbed the hill, and the man in the razor-creased uniform dismounted from the vehicle to plant two shiny boots on the worn soil. The sergeant was nowhere in sight, and the officer surveyed his new command from behind a pair of impenetrable black lenses. The men were sprawled around the compound, soaking in the warmth like so many large, grubby lizards. The Beach Boys extolled the virtues of California from several speakers, courtesy of the Armed Forces radio, with a Hendrix guitar solo beating their harmony back from the corner where the black troopers congregated and Frank Zappa doing his thing from inside the next bunker. The newly arrived officer seemed to expect his platoon to leap instantly to its collective feet, but after the last week, the platoon would take its revenge where it could, and it ignored him. One corner of the newcomer's mouth pulled up briefly, then relaxed.

As chance would have it, Allen was among the soldiers nearest to him. He'd been trying to figure out why Chris's rifle kept jamming whenever it heated up, and was so closely involved with the project—prodding delicately with the cleaning rod, searching for rust—that he was unaware of the arrival of Authority until its polished boots intruded themselves into his line of vision. He blinked, looked up into his own reflection in the dark glasses, and was struck by an irrational crawling sensation up the nape of his neck—what his grandmother would call someone walking on his grave.

“Soldier, do you know where your sergeant is?” The man's voice was light, educated, and quiet, which might have made for a pleasing combination but for the indefinable quality of scorn that it carried, as if the person he was addressing had all the intelligence and self-awareness of an ape. Allen got to his feet, more from wariness than from the respect due an officer, and held on to the gun with his right hand.

“Yes, sir. I think he went to see about our shipment of LAWs.”

“Well, you go find him. Tell him I want him in my quarters at ten hundred hours.”

Allen looked over at the other men, who were doing nothing more strenuous than writing letters, and mentally shrugged. “Okay, sir. Ten hundred hours.”

“Did no one teach you how to salute, soldier?” the quiet voice asked. It sounded as if he was asking,
Did no one teach you to wipe your ass, moron?

Allen stiffened. He was already in an irritable mood, even more so than usual, a combination of frustration at the damned gun, the underlying suspicion that in the hands of a more enthusiastic owner the thing wouldn't be jamming, and the fact that Chris himself was just sitting there watching and crunching his way through the M&Ms from about ten sundry packs, to say nothing of the dose of malaria prophylaxis they'd swallowed that morning, singing through his teeth and skull like feedback. And now to find they'd sent as The Wolf's replacement a man like this—for one brief fraction of an instant, his hand felt the urge to raise Chris's gun and try out its firing mechanism on the man, but he squelched the feeling before it started, smoothly and obediently transferring both cleaning rod and M16 to his left hand so he could snap out a salute. If the guy wanted his rank pointed out for a nearby sniper, who was Allen to argue?

The new lieutenant studied Allen. He surely couldn't have been aware of Allen's brief flare of animosity—Allen himself had hardly known it was there—but still, he stood for a moment, smiling oddly at Allen, before he turned on his heel and walked back to the jeep.

Allen let out a breath, glanced at his watch, then squatted down to show Chris the suspect point in the feed; halfway through his demonstration, he felt a cool tickle up the back of his neck. He looked around. The officer was sitting motionless in the jeep, watching him—waiting, it seemed, for his order to be carried out. It was oh-nine-twenty; it would take Allen five minutes to hunt down the sergeant and thirty seconds to deliver the order, which left him more than half an hour of leeway before ten hundred hours. But the lieutenant sat waiting and so Allen pushed the gun into Chris's hands, telling him that he'd be back to finish it in a minute. As he walked off up the hill, he heard the jeep start up and move away.

He found the Sarge gassing in the cook tent, and told him their new loot wanted to see him at ten hundred hours. Allen hesitated; he got along fine with Sergeant Keys, but he couldn't exactly tell him that their new loot had made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The Sarge'd think he was nuts. In the end, he just added weakly, “The guy's got real pretty polished boots.”

“Figures.”

“You know him?”