One to Count Cadence (22 page)

“Okay, the guards I posted, move out. All the rest of you shitheads, downstairs. Clear your weapons before you try to climb down. I don’t want you shooting your own tender asses off.”

“We’ll back you up, Slag,” Haddad said, slapping me on the shoulder. He could smell trouble for all of them if I got stuck. “All the way.”

“Just move out, shopkeeper. Just move out.”

Downstairs was a mess. Six three-thousand-dollar radios had taken slugs through their respective consoles, and now were bits of wire, plastic, and glass. A couple of typewriters had been hit; type scattered like broken twigs. A swivel chair had been blown over a desk, and the desk’s drawers were hanging out. A sixty-thousand-dollar piece of equipment, our message encoder, had gained a new eye but lost a rectum the size of a basketball.

“Fourteen chickens and a hand grenade,” Cagle chanted. Levenson hammered at a typewriter with a clenched fist and a wide grin, but the mill answered with only a tilted “E.” Haddad was clucking through the radios like an old woman at a fruit stand looking for a rotten tomato she might get for free. I pushed the three guards out, took the weapons from the rest, and started them unplugging equipment before a fire started, and policing up the junk.

“Hey, Cagle,” I said casually on my way to the door, “If Dottlinger asks — we were fired on first, okay?”

“Fuck you, Slag-baby. I ain’t lying to save no lifer’s stripes,” he answered without stopping his broom.

Where would a man be without friends, I wondered on my way out. They keep us from taking ourselves too seriously, keep silly little things from becoming big…

But then there are the Lt. Dottlingers whose worlds are constructed of mountainous molehills. He complained about my slowness, then wouldn’t come in. He wanted a look at these Huks, and also thought I’d best fetch a couple of weapons and another man. I went back, got Morning and two carbines.

“Is Slutfinger very pissed?” Morning asked.

“Who cares.”

“You do. All you fucking lifers do.” He had a deadly stillness to his face.

“Not so much as you think. Besides, he’s too curious to be pissed now. Wants to observe the disaster firsthand, get an eyeful and claim it for a bellyful…”

“And we have to guard him against dead little fuckers. Where was he, when the lights went out?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t go to the Officer’s Club.”

“I hear he has the thing going again with Reid’s wife, the turd.”

“Just be glad Saunders wasn’t here. Trick Two would have charged those jeeps.”

“I thought you might.” He wasn’t smiling.

“Huh?”

“How long have you been waiting for a chance like this.”

“No longer than you, Morning.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, his voice tired, as we followed Dottlinger toward the clustered headlights.

But Morning’s mood couldn’t stop the grin on my face. The carbine seemed very small in my hand, like a toy outgrown. My body was tight, hard, as it was after a workout with the weights, solid. Dottlinger’s nose, Morning’s mood, the lie before — these no longer clouded the night. Not them, nor the sick, greasy nudge of fear. The enemy had risen out of darkness, had stood erect and dared me, and if he paid a price, it seemed only what he owed for the honor of standing. I had been afraid but had acted, and the action transcended, as ever, the emotion. Morality did not matter, nor mortality, only the act, the duty, simple and clear. I could not have chosen otherwise. Hundreds of lines through the space of time had converged in that fire-seared, light-spitted night, and one of the lines was me. Some stopped, some dodged the impact, and others could not have crashed if they wanted to; but mine endured. I too stood and dared, then, now, and forever. The cool night air blessed my face, and whatever throats gagged on the odors of the night, mine didn’t. I breathed only victory as I strode over the gravel into the smoky circle of light.

People moved in all directions: hospital orderlies tended the wounded, gathered the dead; photographers recorded the scene from all angles; a priest with a pale, yearning face blessed friend and foe alike. A tall Air Force captain came over to Dottlinger, smiling, and extended a congratulatory hand.

“Lieutenant! I was just on my way down to thank you and your men for their timely help. Understand your men knocked off the first jeep, the one with the cannon on it,” he said, shaking Dottlinger’s surprised hand. I might have been crazy, but this captain was a fool. What had been, however perversely, salvation for me, became a golf match in his mouth. His voice, prideful voice, sullied the world.

“Sorry, sir, but all the credit goes to Sgt. Krummel here,” Dottlinger answered. I was surprised he didn’t lie. Then he lied. “I was making the courier-run.”

“Well, I guess I owe you a great big ‘thanks,’ sergeant,” he gleamed.

“Don’t forget God,” Morning whispered in my ear.

“No telling how many lives you saved.”

“Or took,” came the whisper.

“We really broke their backs this time,” the captain continued. “Three jeeps and ten men here, and another jeep and four men at the gate.” He smiled. “We were waiting for them, all right.”

“Sir?” I asked.

“Trap,” he answered, quickly, proudly. “But they pulled a fast one on us.” He frowned slightly. “Came through the gate instead of busting the fence as we expected. But we broke their back, all right.”

Morning whispered again. “Who the fuck trapped whom?” I heard him walk away. Looking around the field, I couldn’t answer him.

The captain discussed the Communist problem in Asia, and Dottlinger agreed, but before they resolved it, Tetrick and Capt. Saunders, just back from the States, came wandering across the crowd in civilian clothes. They looked like Town. Capt. Harry smiled as if he loved the entire concept of humanity, and Tetrick frowned as if he were worried about it.

“Any of our men hurt?” he asked as soon as he saw me. I shook my head but he kept frowning.

“Everyone all right?” Capt. Harry asked. “Looks like the men got a little action tonight.” He rocked his large body, smiled and slapped me on the shoulder as if I were his brother.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, goddamnit, that’s all right. Trick Two’s a good bunch, and I knew they would do all right.” Dottlinger stopped trying to get his attention, and huffed off. “But wish to hell I’d been here. We’d have run right out and knocked the bastards right off the road. Yes, sir, by God.”

“Sgt. Rummel did a fine job, Harry. One hell of a fine job,” the airman captain said. Morning was gone, but I heard him whisper, “Yeah, yeah.”

“Sir,” I asked while he still remembered me, “You don’t need my men for anything tomorrow, do you?”

“Why?” He and I were no longer comrades-at-arms, but were returned to suspicious officer and crafty sergeant.

“Well, sir, they’ve had a trip planned for over a month, and I’d hate to see them miss it, after doing such a good job tonight, and they planned to leave tomorrow morning.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know…”

“Come on, Fred,” Capt. Harry interrupted the captain, “Ease up. You know you slice the ball when you tighten up.” He laughed and slapped the captain on the back.

“Oh, all right. Take off. We can get statements from you later. You’ve earned a break,” he said. “And thanks again, sergeant.”

“And thank you, sir.” I excused myself, thanked Capt. Harry, reassured Tetrick, and went to find Morning. The kiss was off the flesh now, and I wanted very much to get to the beach tomorrow and forget… or remember.

I found Morning squatting in the ditch, watching some debris, a gutted jeep and a half-naked body lying on its face. Exit wounds covered the back like black roses with an occasional gristle petal. But for all the poetry of death, he looked no different than the charred jeep. Morning was alone. The crowd hadn’t found this body yet.

“Maybe that’s why man invented God,” he said as I walked up behind him. “They saw dead men and understood that dead men weren’t men any more. They had to have something in man they couldn’t kill, something holy in man alive, someplace for man dead to go, something that couldn’t die. Couldn’t die.” He had been waiting for me.

“Don’t eat on it, Joe.”

“A man needs to know what the hell he’s done.”

“You won’t find out eating his liver. Or yours.”

“You smug son of a bitch. You’ve got all the answers, don’t you?” He stood up. He was crying. No sobs, just tears. We both remembered who had had the last shots.

“I only know what questions not to ask,” I said.

“Slick, smooth counter-puncher, aren’t you? You take all the shots on your shoulders. But you never miss, do you? You fucking bastard.” His voice was quiet and grim. I could only wait.

“Come on let’s go back to Ops.”

“Shit,” he sighed. “Shit.”

Neither of us spoke as he followed me through the high thick grass toward the lights of our building. The air hung warm and heavy in the grass, and the insects swarmed up about our legs, circling and rising to our faces. The tough roots clutched at our feet, and we stumbled and cursed the heat, the bugs, the grass scratching at our eyes, and the darkness. And later we cursed the light when it blinded us.

Trick Two packed itself into the Air Force bus with the rented Filipino driver before seven-thirty the next morning. As I came out of the barracks, they greeted me with hoots and jeers for being so foolish as to want breakfast, then booed when I sent half of them back to the Orderly Room to sign out. When they came back, I climbed aboard behind them, swung down the aisle over the stacked K-rations, the garbage can of iced beer, the four cases of beer and six cases of Chianti and Rhine wine, and finally dropped into the rear seat between Morning and Novotny.

“What are you? an ape?” Cagle sneered, puffing on a huge cigar.

“Naw. What are you? a forest fart?”

“Ah, all you fucking Jews are the same,” he answered, blowing smoke my way. “Have a gas attack, you…”

“Oh, no we’re not,” Levenson simpered at him, waving a limp wrist over the seat as the bus pulled out of the drive.

“Vhy, there hasn’t been a single Jew in de same house mit a Slagsted-Krummel in twenty-five venerations.”

“Nazi,” Morning said. “Gary Cooper’s queer.”

“Genet isn’t.”

Et cetera.

It was a good morning. The air still held a trace of dew and a cool wind eased the fatigue left over from the night before. All faces bloomed, brown, bright, and happy, all voices bubbled. Even Franklin’s acne was better. No one mentioned the raid, until Pete came out of his perpetual daze long enough to remark in a surprised voice, “Geez, somebody might have got killed last night. If we hadn’t been on the roof. Geez.”

No one spoke for several minutes, and then the bus was at the Main Gate. Filipino carpenters were already cleaning up the two piles of lumber which had been the sentry box and guard shack. Several gaping black circles marked where vehicles had burned. The Air Policemen who came aboard to check passes and search for black-market goods were quiet and methodical about their work, without any of the usual GI-airman banter, nor did they check as closely. Their faces showed the loss of friends, and ours the guilt of going out to play.

Every man on the Trick had a legal quart of Dewar’s Scotch and one legal carton of Chesterfields in his AWOL bag. Twenty new classical records were stacked on a new portable record player. Everyone understood that these things were going to the market, but nothing could be done. The APs had to let the goods out the gate, since it only became criminal when you sold them, and no one, except fools and children, ever got caught in the act of selling. The big operators like Haddad paid certain Air Policemen a high tariff, so they weren’t usually caught either. As the APs left the bus, one knocked over a K-ration carton. Morning jumped slightly, but let the AP pick it up. The gate routine was always unpleasant, and everyone was glad to get down the highway toward Tarlac.

Just past the nearby barrio of Dau, the driver turned on a dirt track which led behind a clump of banana trees.

“Where’s he going?” I asked.

“Meet the man,” Novotny answered.

“What man?”

“Breadman.”

The bus halted beside a jeepny with two men in it. Packs of cigarettes suddenly appeared from socks and shirts. The top four K-rations were opened to reveal tobacco instead of food. Cartons were collected from under seats and hood and behind a false fire wall. It was a black-market Merry Christmas, and everyone streamed off the bus to barter with the breadman except Haddad and me. After the sale Morning collected expenses for the bus, driver and beer, then waving the pesos, shouted “Hallelujah” and passed out the beer.

North of Tarlac the bus swung left toward the Lingayan Gulf, sweeping past small barefoot boys attending lethargic water buffalo sprawled in the ditches like forgotten mounds of tar. The sun had burned all memory of the morning from the air, and we raced toward a glassy, shimmering haze as it in turn ran from us. The metal edge of the windows burned your arm when you propped it up to catch the hot breeze, and sweat ran in crazy rivers down your ribs. In a second the fatigue and beer would make you forget the hot window and your arm would slip back up, then be cursed and jerked back again. The beer was cold and biting in your throat, but not cold enough. Novotny’s drunken voice buzzed in the heat; near, then far away in the drowsy haze.

“That was all right last night. After you got over being scared, it was all right.” He sat easily in the bumping seat, his body loose and fluid with the swaying, jolting bus, while a perfect gyroscope balanced him. The beer in his bottle stirred, but the rest of us were busy wiping beer out of our faces. “Maybe we all need a couple of good wars for Christmas.”

“Yeah, but what if somebody had gotten their ass shot off,” Morning growled from across the aisle. “Wouldn’t be quite so much fun then, would it?”

“Oh hell, there aren’t any more good wars,” I said. “Not since the cannon was invented and airplanes started firing on ground troops. No more. Now there’s the bomb. How can a man enjoy a good war, if he knows there’s a chance that some silly bastard who believes in things will push the funny button and wipe up the whole works. There’s no sense in it any more.”