He carried the heavy barrel into the old operations centre and booted the door closed behind him.
They were still partying. The room was large and now almost empty, apart from the group of Sky Devils over in one corner. They danced, spilled beer, changed records on Slivko’s record player, and generally revelled in these new, post-war times. There was an air of hysteria about them that he’d never seen before. Usually the hysteria was because any one of them might be killed on their next mission. Now, it was because they were safe. Mills thought that fact might take a very long time to sink in.
He paused for a moment and glanced across at one long wall. It was still lined with photographs of friends they’d lost, along with their citations and medals ready to ship home to their families. Sometimes they were whole crews, pictures taken beside the aircraft that had gone down with them inside. Many of them were still missing, hidden out there in the jungle, rotting sculptures of metal and bone. Sometimes there was just one guy, unlucky enough to catch a bullet whilst airborne. Mills couldn’t recall how many times he’d helped clean bodies and blood from a Huey’s interior after an assault.
“Hey, Mills!” Specialist Joe Reles shouted. “You got your girl a present?”
“This is for you, numb-nut,” Mills said.
“Oh, that’s right. You think there’s no point taking a gift home for your sweetheart.” Reles helped him with the barrel and slapped him playfully around the shoulder. Other guys whooped and cheered as they popped the barrel and started filling their beer funnels. The brew even smelled toxic.
“All I’m saying is, we ain’t exactly been angels while we were over here,” Mills said. “So now that the war’s over, don’t go home expecting to find your women right where you left ’em.”
“I left mine in bed, worn out and aching for my loving touch.” Slivko laughed. He laughed at everything, though now Mills thought the young Detroit hipster’s laughter carried a tint of desperation. He was a good soldier, but he’d lost it a couple of times, partaking too frequently of the drugs so easily come by out here. Slivko had believed that they’d numb him to the pain, but he’d learnt the hard way that they only brought another form of hurt. He was okay now, though. Mills hoped he’d take that level-headedness back home with him.
Cole just stared through his aviator glasses. Cole stared a lot and spoke very little.
“All except Cole,” Mills said, staring back. “His woman’s right where he left her, in the crawlspace under his house.”
Cole didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
“Smile, brother,” Slivko said. “Pizza and hamburgers, man, and cold nights with warm girls.”
“At least curl your lip so we know you’re alive,” Mills said, moving closer to Cole. They’d been on countless missions together, and on one memorable mission they had both saved each other’s lives. You couldn’t put a price on that. Yet he still didn’t understand the guy. “You’ll end up being shipped back on the wrong plane, in one of those coffins with the flag over it.”
“Leave him alone,” Reles said. “He’s still in shock.”
“Still in shock from being born?” Mills asked. “I ain’t seen his expression change this whole war.”
The sounds of the Sky Devils’ aircraft being broken down for scrap increased as the hangar’s side door opened. Mills glanced around to see Major Chapman enter, and behind him came Lieutenant Colonel Packard. Mills sighed. Just when things were about to get messy, here came the old man to spoil things.
“Atten-shun!” Chapman ordered. “Look alive.”
Mills and the other guys stood and gathered to attention, swaying slightly in the heat. Mills’s stomach churned. Damn, well, maybe he’d had enough to drink already, anyway. None of them really needed this new barrel of badness.
“At ease, you assholes,” Packard said. “You look like idiots. This is a celebration!”
Chapman’s stern face broke into a grin as he produced a big bottle of champagne from behind his back and popped the cork. Mills and the guys cheered and whooped, and Chapman came forward with a roll of paper cups and started pouring. A major serving champagne to the grunts. Mills grinned, but still struggled not to salute when it was his turn.
“I just want to say one thing,” Packard said as the Sky Devils drank. “It has been an absolute honour to serve with you men. I know you’re all happy to go home, but you’ll realise in ten, twenty years… you’ll look back at this time and miss it. The family we became out here. We’re brothers. I know I’m gonna miss you. You all served in the most decorated chopper assault unit in air-cav history.” Packard looked directly at Mills, and the barrel of toxicity he’d brought in. “If that doesn’t rate tying one on, I don’t know what the hell does.”
Mills and the others cheered, even as Packard about-faced and walked towards the hangar’s far corner. As he entered the small office there, Mills saw the smile drop from the colonel’s face.
The sound of breaking aircraft increased again. Mills didn’t think he’d ever get used to that, and with every crack or impact he felt a little bit of himself being broken off. It was like they were chipping away at his history. Some things are best left behind, he kept telling himself, hoping that one day soon he’d believe it.
The side door opened, and a couple of guys from the demolition crew looked in, as if searching for something else to take apart.
“Hey, man,” Mills shouted, “can’t you see we’re in the middle of a meeting!”
The two breakdown crew retreated quickly and closed the door. Mills looked across at the small office, the door now closed. Then he turned back to his brothers and their party continued.
Packard leaned back and rested his feet on his desk. He stared. He wasn’t even sure what he was staring at. Previously there would have been maps on the walls around him, marked up with red and blue pins, tape, marker pens displaying LZs and enemy targets. He’d known those places, even though much of the time he’d never flown there himself. He’d pored over those maps with Chapman and some of his better pilots, getting to know the lie of the land before sending his Sky Devils into combat. He’d always found it important to know as much about the missions as he could before committing his men, and that was why he often went against tradition and flew an occasional mission himself. Some believed that being in command was about giving orders from a place of safety, but he would never send his men to do something he wouldn’t do himself. He knew that they appreciated that, but it was more about him than his men. It was because it made him feel strong.
Now there was only bare wood around him, snapped staples the only evidence of what had been there before. The office bore silent witness to the plans once made here, the deaths sanctioned. Buried in these wooden walls were echoes of conversations he might never have again. Most men would have been pleased.
Most men had more to go home to than they had out here.
The stripped-down office made him feel sad. If there were ghosts, they would surely inhabit somewhere like this. It was a place where violence, fear, and death were once planned, and now he could only sit and stare at an empty wall.
“Sir?”
The voice startled him, and Packard jumped. He didn’t like being surprised, but this was his fault, not Chapman’s. The major stood at the open door, one hand still on the handle.