"GET SOME!" Mr. Payback is screaming like a lunatic. "GET SOME! GET SOME!" He chops a rat in half with his machete.
Chili Vendor holds a rat by the tail and, while it shrieks, pounds it do death with a boot.
I throw my K-bar at a rat on the other side of the hootch. The big knife misses the rat, sticks up in the floor.
Rafter Man doesn't know what to do.
Daytona Dave charges around and around with fixed bayonet, zeroing in on a burning rat like a fighter pilot in a dogfight. Daytona follows the rat's crazed, erratic course around and around, over all obstacles, gaining on him with every step. He butt-strokes the rat and then bayonets him, again and again and again. "That's one confirmed!"
And, as suddenly as it began, the battle is over.
After the rat race everyone collapses. Daytona is breathing hard and fast. "Whew. That was a good group. Real hard-core. I thought I was going to have a fucking heart attack."
Mr. Payback coughs, grunts. "Hey, New Guy, how many confirmed did you get?"
Rafter Man is still sitting on his canvas cot with my boot in his hand. "I...none. I mean, it happened so fast."
Mr. Payback laughs. "Well, sometimes it's fun to kill something you can see. You better get squared away, New Guy. Next time the rats will have guns."
Daytona Dave is wiping his face with a dirty green skivvy shirt. "The New Guy will do okay. Cut him some slack. Rafter ain't got the killer instinct, that's all. Now me, I got about fifty confirmed. But everybody knows that gook rats drag off their dead."
We all throw things at Daytona Dave.
We rest for a while and then we gather up the barbecued rats and take them outside to hold a funeral in the dark.
Some guys from utilities platoon who live next door come out of their hootch to pay their respects.
Lance Corporal Winslow Slavin, honcho of the combat plumbers, struts up in a skuzzy green flight suit. The flight suit is ragged, covered with paint stains and oil splotches. "Only six? Shit. Last night my boys got seventeen. Confirmed."
I say, "Sounds like a squad of poges to me. Poges kill poges. These rats are Viet Cong field Marines. Hard-core grunts."
I pick up one of the rats. I turn to the combat plumbers. I hold up the rat and I kiss it.
Mr. Payback laughs, picks up one of the dead rats, bites off the tip of its tail. Then, swallowing, Mr. Payback says, "Ummm....love them crispy critters." He grins. He bends over, picks up another dead rat, offers it to Rafter Man.
Rafter Man is frozen. He can't speak. He just looks at the rat.
Mr. Payback laughs. "What's wrong, New Guy? Don't you want to be a killer?"
We bury the enemy rats with full military honors--we scoop out a shallow grave and we dump them in.
We sing:
So come along and sing our song
And join our fam-i-ly
M.I.C....K.E.Y....M.O.U.S.E.
Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse...
"Dear God," says Mr. Payback, looking up into the ugly sky. "These rats died like Marines. Cut them some slack. Ah-men."
We all say, "Ah-men."
After the funeral we insult the combat plumbers a few more times and then we return to our hootch. We lie awake in our racks. We discuss the battle and the funeral for a long time.
Then we try to sleep.
An hour later. It's raining. We roll up in our poncho liners and pray for morning. The monsoon rain is cold and heavy and comes without warning. Wind-blown water batters the ponchos hung around the hootch to protect us from the weather.
The terrible falling of the shells...
Incoming.
"Oh, shit," somebody says. Nobody moves.
Rafter Man asks, "Is that---"
I say, "There it is."
The crumps start somewhere outside the wire and walk in like the footsteps of a monster. The crumps are becoming thuds. Thud. Thud. THUD. And then it's a whistle and a roar.
BANG.
The rain's rhythmic drumming is broken by the clang and rattle of shrapnel falling on our tin roof.
We're all out of our racks with our weapons in our hands like so many parts of the same body--even Rafter Man, who has begun to pick up on things.
Pounded by cold rain, we double-time to our bunker.
On the perimeter M-60 machine guns are banging and the M-70 grenade launchers are blooping and mortar shells are thumping out of the tubes.
Star flares burst all along the wire, beautiful clusters of green fire.
Inside our damp cave of sandbags we huddle elbow-to-elbow in wet skivvies, feeling the weight of the darkness, as helpless as cavemen hiding from a monster.
"I hope they're just fucking with us," I say. "I hope they're not going to hit the wire. I'm not ready for this shit."
Outside our bunker: BANG, BANG, BANG. And falling rain.
Each of us is waiting for the next shell to nail him right on the head--the mortar as an agent of existential doom.
A scream.
I wait for a time of silence and I crawl out to take a look. Somebody is down. The whistle of an incoming round forces me to retreat into the bunker. I wait for the shell to burst.
BANG.
I crawl out, stand up, and I run to the wounded man. He's one of the combat plumbers. "You utilities platoon? Where's Winslow?"
The man is whining. "I'm dying! I'm dying!" I shake him.
"Where's Winslow?"
"There." He points. "He was coming to help me..."
Rafter Man and Chili Vendor come out and Rafter Man helps me carry the combat plumber to our bunker. Chili Vendor double-times off to get a corpsman.
We leave the combat plumber with Daytona and Mr. Payback and double-time through the rain, looking for Winslow.
He's in the mud outside his hootch, torn to pieces.
The mortar shells stop falling. The machine guns on the perimeter fade to short bursts. Even so, the grunts standing line continue to pop green star clusters in case Victor Charlie plans to launch a ground attack.
Somebody throws a poncho over Winslow. The rain taps the green plastic sheet.
I say, "It took a lot of guts to do what Winslow did. I mean, you can see Winslow's guts and he sure had a lot of them."
Nobody says anything.
After the green ghouls from graves registration stuff Winslow into a body bag and take him away, we go back to our hootch. We flop on our racks, wasted.
I say, "Well, Rafter, now you've heard a shot fired in anger."
Soaking wet in green skivvies, Rafter Man is sitting on his rack. He has something in his hand. He's staring at it.
I sit up. "Hey, Rafter. What's that? You souvenir yourself a piece of shrapnel?" No response. "Rafter? You hit?"
Mr. Payback grunts. "What's wrong, New Guy? Did a few rounds make you nervous?"
Rafter Man looks up with a new face. His lips are twisted into a cold, sardonic smirk. His labored breathing is broken by grunts. He growls. His lips are wet with saliva. He's looking at Mr. Payback. The object in Rafter Man's hand is a piece of flesh, Winslow's flesh, ugly yellow, as big as a John Wayne cookie, wet with blood. We all look at it for a long time.
Rafter Man puts the piece of flesh into his mouth, onto his tongue, and we thing he's going to vomit. Instead, he grits his teeth. Then, closing his eyes, he swallows.
I turn off the lights.
Dawn. The heat of the day comes quickly, burning away the mud puddles left by the monsoon rain. Rafter Man and I ditty-bop down to the Phu Bai landing zone. We wait for a med-evac chopper.
Ten minutes later a Jolly Green Giant comes in loaded.