Something struck Tyreen a sharp blow in the shoulder blade. He felt his legs give way; he was halfway to the ground when a giant arm swept him up. His face turned an arc through the air; he felt himself being overturned. Saville’s big shoulder butted into the pit of his stomach and Saville ran on, carrying him that way over one shoulder.
They came past Hooker, and Hooker said crankily, “You people coming? Or do we wait and have tea?”
“You’re punchy,” Saville told him.
“What about the peckerhead?”
“He’s dead.”
“I didn’t figure you’d leave him, otherwise,” Hooker said grudgingly. He snapped his gun up past Saville’s thigh, but held his fire: “Lieutenant McKuen. That damn fool — what’s he think he’s doing?”
“Go after him.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll catch up. Go on.”
Tyreen heard the talk through a veil of red agony. The big shoulder rocked under him while they pushed downslope through the jungle; Tyreen could hear Hooker plunging ahead and Saville, carrying Tyreen’s weight, was keeping up. A blast of fire echoed behind them, and Saville made a ponderous turn to answer it. The gun ran empty, and Saville threw it aside. “Hang on, David,” he said, and broke into a run.
A gun hammered ahead of them, offering cover. Tyreen could see nothing but the ground lurching past underneath. Dizzy waves washed through him; red curtains opened and closed across his eyes. There was a distant rattle of automatic rifle fire, an answering volley from somewhere ahead, and then another gun opened up closer by, off to the left. Tyreen felt Saville jerk under him. The big man halted for a moment, and Tyreen heard the sawing sigh of his breath. Then Saville picked up the pace again. Tyreen tried to speak; finally he husked out the words: “Are you hurt?”
Saville made no answer. He ran at sprint-pace, dodging trees. McKuen was up there, shouting something. Saville started to slow down; his pace became uneven. Tyreen said, “For Christ’s sake, put me down.” Saville kept lumbering on. Tyreen heard Hooker calling to McKuen:
“The Captain’s hit.”
Boots pounded the earth, and there was a surge of gunfire. Saville moved on, staggering, and finally the splendid body faltered. Saville went to his knees and coughed. Tyreen broke the man’s hold on him and fell away. When he rolled upright, he saw Saville pitching slowly forward like a falling redwood. He had a stitching of wounds across his belly and chest. Tyreen spoke and reached out, but Saville was dead before he fell.
Hooker plunged forward. Tyreen heard him dimly: “Jesus — Jesus. He was dead a quarter-mile back. And he got this far!”
There was a ragged after-volley of fire. McKuen spoke somewhere in the thickening fog: “They’ve lost us. Running around with their bloody noses to the ground.”
Tyreen pried his eyes wide open and burned a path through dizzy mists. He stared at the mound of Theodore Saville’s body. Another life guttered out. By a terrible effort of will, he got on his feet and lifted his hand in a slow salute. He held the salute until McKuen grabbed him by the arm. He shook McKuen off savagely; he turned and tried to explain:
“He was a friend of mine.”
“Sure,” McKuen said. “Let’s find some cover and bandage you up before you irrigate the whole bloody mountainside.”
Tyreen opened his mouth to speak. A red blanket climbed up over the surfaces of his eyes. It turned black, and he lost his balance. He did not feel himself fall.
Chapter Forty-nine
1800 Hours
After dark they found a lonely fisherman poling a sampan down the river toward the sea. J. D. Hooker threw the fisherman overboard, and McKuen placed Colonel Tyreen gently in the bow and watched the angry fisherman swim to shore. He climbed over the gunwales and watched Hooker take the pole. McKuen was tired and hungry and scratched-up, bruised and banged-around. Hooker’s face was sour, and he had nothing to say until McKuen said, “Seems a bleedin’ shame to bust down such a pretty bridge, now I think of it.”
“Christ,” Hooker replied.
Tyreen heard their talk vaguely. He twisted his head. Water lapped the bow. His ears rang, and he felt afloat on a feather cushion. He said drowsily, “McKuen.”
“Sir.”
“Map in my pocket pouch. Rendezvous with the submarine at coordinates HL385748. Midnight.”
“Holy Mother of God. How d’you remember that after all we’ve suffered?”
“It’s my job, Lieutenant.”
“Colonel,” said McKuen, “you are a bastard and a son of a bitch and a fine figure of a man.”
There was no more talk for a while. Hooker’s long pole squelched in and out of the mud bottom. The sampan swayed, and Tyreen lay half awake, buoyed up on a cushion of morphine. He heard McKuen say, “It took a bloody long time to build that bridge, and a couple of stinking seconds to wipe it all out.”
Just like Theodore, Tyreen thought. Just like any of them. He thought vaguely about McKuen. McKuen had been battered and shocked; he had seen it all, he had ridden the tiger; but McKuen was innocent. What he had lived through seemed to have failed to touch his soul. Dig down, Tyreen thought, and underneath McKuen’s Irish skin you would find a solid armor of innocence.
It was the same with Hooker. Hooker said, “My time’s up in a few days. Ain’t gonna see me for grease. I only learned one thing in this Army. If you can move it, pick it up. If you can’t move it, paint it. And if it moves by itself, salute it.”
McKuen laughed. “I never heard you make a joke before, Sergeant.”
“You think that’s a Goddamn joke, Lieutenant? Listen, I get back and you know what they’ll do to me? Court-martial me and throw the book at me. That’s what I lived through this for. You tell me why it was that Captain Saville bought one, and I didn’t. You tell me that, Lieutenant.”
McKuen answered, “There is no rest for the wicked, Sergeant.”
Tyreen thought about Eddie Kreizler. He was still thinking about what Kreizler had said when they reached the delta and Hooker poled silently into the ocean tide. McKuen watched his compass and gave quiet directions. It began to rain lightly. Tyreen lay in the bottom of the sampan and listened to water splash around in the hull. His feet were puffy and splitting. His lips pushed rhythmically out and down; his fevered eyes burned. He thought about a desk job in the States. He thought about his ex-wife and all the dead men who littered his backtrail. McKuen sat softly talking, making jokes; in time he ran out of things to say and sat brooding out onto the sea. Small waves rocked the sampan. A piece of a smile shaped Tyreen’s mouth, and his body loosened; strain ran out of him as though he had pulled a drainplug.
Hooker said, “It’s past midnight, Lieutenant.” And Hooker started cursing.
Tyreen looked around. “Shut up, Hooker.”
“Colonel, all the past two days you been doing nothing but telling me to shut up. If you’re court-martialing me anyway, I figure to hell with you.”
“Hooker, there wouldn’t be any point at all in court-martialing you.”
“Huh?”
“Go home, Hooker,” Tyreen said.
“Well, I—” Hooker shook his head. “I’d do that, sir, if that Goddamn puking submarine would show up. Trust the fat-ass Navy not to be here. Bastard sailor boys.”
McKuen was chuckling, and Hooker said, “Okay. Goddamn it, I’ll shut up. I’ll shut up, Colonel.”