“Yeah, I heard that too, but I don’t want to count on anything the Marine Corps wants to give me. I’m still locked onto DEROS. I make DEROS and I’m home free. Back to city streets, NYC, the Big Apple.”
“Cool,” said Donny, “you’ll have a good time.”
“I’d ask you what it felt like to be so short and I’d buy you a beer, but I know you want to go to bed and make tomorrow come earlier. All that processing out.” It was company policy that no man went into the field on his last day.
“Well, sometime back in the world, you can buy me a beer and we’ll have a big laugh over this one.”
“We will. You’re staying in, right? You’re not going out with Swagger tomorrow.”
“Huh?”
“You’re not going out with Swagger tomorrow?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw him hunched up with Feamster and Brophy and a couple of the lifer NCOs in the S-2 bunker. Like he was going on a mission.”
“Shit,” said Donny.
“Hey, you sit tight. If they didn’t ask you, you don’t got to go. Just be cool. Time to take the golden bird back to the land of honeys and Milky Ways.”
“Yeah.”
“Go in peace, bro.”
“Peace,” said Donny, and Mahoney dipped out of the hootch.
Donny lay back. He checked his watch. It was 2200 hours. He tried to forget. He tried to relax. Everything was cool, everything was calm, he was home free.
But what the fuck was Swagger up to?
It ate at him. What deal was this?
It bothered him.
He can’t go out. He promised.
Shit.
He rose, slipped out the hootch and walked across the compound to the dark bunker of the S-2 shop, where he found Bob, Feamster and Brophy bent over maps.
“Sir, permission to enter,” he said, entering.
“Fenn, what the hell are you doing here? You should be checking your gear to turn in to supply tomorrow,” said Feamster.
“Is something going on with Sierra-Bravo-Four?”
“Sierra-Bravo-Four is going back to the world; that’s what’s going on with Sierra-Bravo-Four,” said Bob.
“Looks like a mission briefing to me.”
“It ain’t nothing that concerns you.”
“That’s a map. I see route markers pinned on it and coordinates penciled in. You going on a job, Sierra-Bravo?”
“Negative,” said Bob.
“You are too,” said Donny.
“It ain’t a goddamn thing. Now, you git your young ass out of here, got that? You got work you should be doing. This ain’t no time for screwing off, even if you’re down to a day and a wake-up.”
“What is it?” Donny said.
“Nothing. No big deal.”
“Sir?”
“Sergeant,” said Feamster, “you ought to tell him.”
“It’s a rinky-dink recon, that’s all, a one-man thing. We haven’t covered the north in a couple of weeks. They could have infiltrated in, gone through the trees and have set up in the north, a few klicks out. I’m just going to mosey out to see if I cut tracks to the north. A couple klicks out, a couple klicks in. I’ll be back by nightfall.”
“I’m going.”
“My ass, you are. You have to spend tomorrow processing out. Nobody goes into the field on the last day.”
“That’s right, Fenn,” said Captain Feamster. “Company policy.”
“Sir, I can process out in an hour. Just this one last mission.”
“Christ,” said Swagger.
“I’ll worry about it all the way back.”
“Man, can’t you take no slack at all? Nobody goes out with just a wake-up left. It’s a Marine Corps policy.”
“It is, my ass. It’s the same deal, a guy to spot, a guy to talk on the radio. A guy to work security if it comes to that.”
“Christ,” said Swagger. He looked over at Feamster and Brophy.
“It really is a two-man job,” said Brophy.
“If we go, we go. Full field packs, Claymores, cocked and locked. I would hate to get caught short on the last day.”
“Cocked and locked, rock and roll, the whole goddamn nine yards,” Donny said.
“When did you take over this outfit?”
“I’m only doing my job.”
“You are a stubborn crazy bastard and I hope that poor girl knows what a hardhead she’s looped up with.”
At O-dark-30, Donny rose and found Bob already up. He slipped into his camouflages for the last time, pulled the pack on. Canteens ready. Claymores ready. Grenades ready. He painted his face jungle green and brown. Last time, he told himself in the mirror. He smiled, showing white teeth against the earthy colors.
He checked his weapons: .45, three mags, M14, eight mags. There was a ritual here, a natural order, checking one thing then the next, then checking it all again. It was all ready.
He crawled from his hootch, went to the S-2 bunker, where Bob, similarly accoutred except that he had the Remington rifle instead of an M14, waited, sipping coffee, talking quietly with Brophy over the map.
“You don’t have to go, Fenn,” said Bob, looking over to him.
“I’m going,” said Donny.
“Check your weapons, then do a commo check.”
Donny examined his M14, pulling the bolt to seat a round in the chamber, then letting it fly forward. He put the safety on, then took out the .45, ascertained that the mag was full but the chamber empty, as Swagger had instructed him to carry the piece. He ran the quick commo check, and all systems were functioning.
“Okay,” said Bob, “last briefing. Up here, toward Hoi An. We go a straight northward course, through heavy bush, across a paddy dike. We should hit Hill 840 by 1000 hours. We’ll set up there, glass the paddies below in the valley for a couple of hours, and head back by 1400 hours. We’ll be in by 1800 at the latest. We’ll stay in PRC range the whole time.”
“Good work,” said Brophy.
“You all set, Fenn?” Bob asked.
“Gung ho, Semper Fi and all that good shit,” said Donny, at last strapping the radio on, getting it set just right. He picked up his M14 and left the bunker. The light was beginning to seep over the horizon.
“I don’t want to go out the north,” said Bob. “Just in case. I want to break our pattern. We go out the east this time, just like we did before. We ain’t never repeated ourself; anybody tracking us couldn’t anticipate that.”
“He’s gone, he’s dead, you got him,” said Brophy.
“Yeah, well.”
They reached the parapet wall. A sentry came over from the guard post down the way.
“All clear?” Swagger asked.
“Sarge, I been working the night vision scope the past few hours. Ain’t nothing out there.”
Bob slipped his head over the sandbags, looked out into the defoliated zone, which was lightening in the rising sun. He couldn’t see much. The sun was directly in his eyes.
“Okay,” he said, “last day-time to hunt.”
He set his rifle on the sandbag berm, pulled himself over, gathered the rifle and rolled off. Donny made ready to follow.
How many days now? Four, five? He didn’t know. The canteen had bled its last drop of water into his throat yesterday before noon. He was so thirsty he thought he’d die. He hallucinated through the night: he saw men he had killed, he saw Sydney, where he won the gold, he saw women he had fucked, he saw his mother, he saw Africa, he saw Cuba, he saw China, he saw it all.
I am losing my mind, he thought.
Everything was etched in neon. His nerves fired, his stomach heaved, he had starvation fantasies. I should have brought more food. Something in his blood sugar made him twitch uncontrollably.