The beams of many vehicles now splashed everywhere, up and down and around, swinging and bouncing over the grass as if hundreds of hunting giants were running with flashlights. But some jeeps had stopped, and burned like jubilant bonfires. As the Huks passed the gravel road which led to Ops, the first jeep skidded and the second hit it, turning it over in the road, and it rode its passengers for awhile. The third clipped the left rear of the second, trying to swing around it, so both stalled in opposite ditches near where the first burned. The remaining three whipped off the road in a tight, dusty circle, then came back going in the other direction. They caught an AP three-quarter which was following with its lights out, and knocked it off the road. Other vehicles behind it scattered like frightened quail, flying faster the further away they got from the hunters.
One down, two stopped, three away, and our side stood up to cheer, to shout and fire off-hand at the cluster of wrecked jeeps. We had drawn only a casual answering fire: once or twice a bass string had been plucked over our heads but who knew where it had been aimed, or even come from. The Huks were busy with the Air Police who now had eight or ten jeeps and three-quarters and two small armored riot cars, but they still had a moment for my bunch. Just a moment, but they hit the front of the building with six.50 caliber rounds. The building rocked as the slugs snipped through the cinder blocks as if they were gingerbread. A brick chip or a ricochet kicked Quinn's M-l out of his hands, but nothing else was hit on the roof. Quinn cursed and crawled after the weapon. There was noticeably less cheering and absolutely no standing any more. A grunt and gurgle came from the other side of Novotny, followed by Cagle's surprised voice, "I didn't know I was scared. I didn't know."
Fewer bursts seared away from the two fallen jeeps, then they stopped completely after the two riot cars fired tear gas grenades with their cannon. Gradually all the firing stopped as three men ran out of the gas cloud. Two had their hands in their faces, but one held a rifle. Single rounds and short, concise bursts rattled again until the one with the rifle and one without did flip-flop dances across the road into the ditches. Morning still rocked and fired until he finished the clip. The ping, as his last round ejected, seemed too small a punctuation to end so much noise.
But of course the night was not over yet. A grinding crash came from the fence behind us. I ran to the back wall. A jeep had hit the corner of the fence and now sat with its right rear wheel hanging three feet up in the wire like a little dog cocking its leg to pee.
"Who is it?" I shouted down.
"Why don't ya'll turn your goddamn lights on?" a tired voice drawled.
"Didn't want any you dumb-ass airmen shooting us," Cagle sneered.
"Doesn't matter," I said. "It's all over now."
"She-it," the voice said from behind the tilted headlights, "She-it." Two APs climbed out the driver's side, then walked toward the road. "Fuckin' ground-pounders hidin' in the dark like a bunch a fuckin' niggers."
"Might jes be a might careful callin' a man that when he got a gun pointed right at ya'll's lily white ass," Morning sang out. "'Member ya'll can't see my ass in th' dark." The airmen hurried on.
I stopped the laughter and chatter before it could start. "Cagle, downstairs and turn on the floodlights. Novotny, Quinn, stay up here. You spot anyone in the grass, don't fire, but sing out so I'll know. Collins, Levenson, Haddad, take the inside of the compound, one by the jeep, one at the gate, and one walking." The lights came on; most of the fires around the wrecks were being extinguished, and headlights were bounding down our road. Things were trying to reach normal, when the jeep slid up behind our three-quarter, and Lt. Dottlinger leaped out and ran for the gate and shouted, "Open up!" as if he were under fire.
"Of all the bastards in the world…" Morning mused.
"You didn't show your badge, sir," I answered, agreeing with Morning. I had forgotten that Dottlinger was the OD, but I should have known.
"I haven't got it. Is that you Krummel? What are you doing on the roof? Sightseeing?"
"No sir. The Trick is up here." Jesus, I thought, here we go again, around the chickenshitberry bush.
"What for?" He peered harder into the lights, a muddled, myopic chicken. "Are those weapons loaded, sergeant?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you fire? Did you? I want to know. I'll have to report this."
"Yes, sir."
"Who authorized you to open the ammunition locker? Who ordered you to open fire? Just who, Sgt. Krummel?"
"Good question," I muttered. Levenson giggled.
"What's that, sergeant? Damn those lights, anyway," he said, shielding his eyes.
"He must really be pissed," Morning whispered. "He cursed."
"We were fired upon, sir. I assumed in an emergency that I was authorized to answer. I couldn't reach the major, Capt. Saunders, or you, so I assumed responsibility myself."
"Oh," he said, tugging at his ear to let us know he was thinking. "All right," he said, obviously disappointed. "I suppose we can find a regulation to cover the situation for our report. Open the gate."
"Sir, I can't unlock the gate from here unless you put your badge in the key-box."
"I told you, I didn't have it. I didn't have time to get it."
"Then I'll have to come down to let you in." It curdled my blood to lie to the bastard about being fired upon first, changed me from a man to a kid with his fly open. And I didn't really have to. I had said that I was not worrying about my stripes any more. There must have been guilt on that Apple Tree instead of knowledge – or maybe they are the same. Take two men, stick them in uniforms, tack bars on one, and the other one will find himself guilty. To hell with this man's army, I thought, Just to hell with it.
"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.