“Roger, Lima-Niner-Mike,” said Arizona-Six-Zulu, “and out.”
“God bless and good luck, Arizona-Six-Zulu, out,” said Lima, and the freak crackled into nothingness.
“Man, those guys are going to get roasted,” said Donny. “This weather ain’t lifting for days.”
“You got that map case?” said Swagger. “Let me see that thing. What were those coordinates?”
“Shit, I don’t remember,” said Donny.
“Well, then,” said Bob, “it’s a good thing I do.”
He opened the case that Donny shoved over, went through the plastic-wrapped sheaves of operational territory 1:50,000s, and at last came to the one he wanted. He studied hard, then looked over.
“You know, goddamn, if I ain’t a fool at map reading, I do believe you and I are the closest unit to them Special Forces fellows. They are west of us, at Kham Duc, ten klicks out of Laos. We are in grid square Whiskey Charlie 155-005; they are up in Whiskey Delta 5120-1802. As I make it, that’s about twenty klicks to the west.”
Donny squinted. His sergeant indeed had located the proper square, and the Special Forces camp would therefore have been, yes, about twenty klicks. But — there were foothills, a wide brown snake of river and a mountain range between here and there, all of it Indian Territory.
“I’m figuring,” Bob said, “one man, moving fast, he might just make it before the main force unit. And those boys would have to move up through this here An Loc valley. You got into those hills, you’d have a hell of a lot of targets.”
“Christ,” said Donny.
“You just might slow ’em up enough so that air could make it in when the weather broke.”
A cold drop of rain deposited itself on Donny’s neck and plummeted down his back. A shiver rose from his bones.
“Raise Dodge again, Pork. Tell ’em I’m going on a little trip.”
“I’m going too,” said Donny.
Bob paused. Then he said, “My ass you are. I won’t have no short-timer with me. You hunker here, call in extraction when the weather clears. Don’t you worry none about me. I’ll get into that camp and extract with Arizona.”
“Bob, I—”
“No! You’re too short. You’d be too worried about getting whacked with three and days till DEROS. And if you weren’t, I would be. Plus, I can move a lot faster on my own. This is a one-man job or it’s no job at all. That’s an order.”
“Sergeant, I—”
“No, goddammit. I told you. This ain’t no goddamned game. I can’t be worrying about you.”
“Goddammit, I’m not sitting here in the fucking rain waiting for extract. You made us a team. You shoot, I spot targets, I handle security. Suppose you have to work at night? Who throws flares? Suppose it’s hot and somebody has to call in air? Who works the map for the coordinates and the radio? Suppose you’re bounced from behind? Who takes out the fast movers? Who rigs the Claymores?”
“You are fixing to git yourself killed, Lance Corporal. And, much worse, you are pissing me off beaucoup.”
“I am not bugging out. I will not bug out!”
Bob’s eyes narrowed. He suspected all heroism and self-sacrifice because his own survival wasn’t based on any sense of them, but rather on shrewd professional combat skills, even shrewder calculation of odds and, shrewdest of all, a sense that to be aggressive in battle was the key to coming out alive on the other side.
“What are you trying to prove, kid? You been a hard-ass to prove something ever since I teamed with you.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything. I want no slack, that’s all. Zero fucking slack. I go all the way, that’s all there is. When I get back to the world, maybe then it’s different. But out here, goddamn it, I go all the way.”
His fierceness softened Swagger, who’d coaxed many a boy through bad times with shit coming in, who’d gotten the grunts moving when the last thing they wanted to do was move, who never lost a spotter to a body bag and lost a hell of a lot fewer young Marines than some could say. But this stubborn boy perplexed him all the way, all the time. Only one of ’em who got up earlier than he did, and who never once made a mistake on the premission equipment checks.
“Donny, ain’t nobody going to ever say you bugged out. I’m trying to cut you some room, boy. No sense dying on this one. This is a Bob show. This is what old Bob was put here to do. It ain’t no college football game.”
“I’m going. Goddamn, we are Sierra-Bravo-Four, and I am going.”
“Man, you sure you were born in the right generation? You belong in the old breed, you salty bastard, with my dead old man. Okay, let’s gear up. Call it in. I’m going to shoot us a goddamn compass reading to that grid square, and when we’re done I’ll buy you a steak and a case of Jack Daniel’s.”
Donny took the moment to peel off his boonie cap and pull out the cellophane-wrapped photo of Julie.
He stared at it as the raindrops collected on the plastic. She looked so dry and far away, and he ached for her. Three and days till DEROS. He would come home. Donny would come marching home again, hurrah, hurrah.
Oh, baby, he said to himself, oh baby, I hope you’re with me on this one. Every step of the way.
“Let’s go, Pork,” sang Bob the Nailer.
CHAPTER TEN
fter a time, Donny stopped hurting. He was beyond pain. He was also, ever so briefly, beyond fear. They traveled from landmark to landmark along Swagger’s charted compass readings over the slippery terrain, the rain so harsh some time you could hardly breathe. At one moment he was somewhat stunned to discover himself on the crest of a low hill. When had they climbed it? He had no memory of the ascent. He just had the sense of the man ahead of him pulling him forward, urging him on, oblivious to both of their pains, oblivious also to fear and to mud and to changes in the elevation.
After a while they came to a valley, to discover the classical Vietnam terrain of rice paddies separated by paddy dikes. The dikes were muddy as shit, and in a few minutes, the going on them proved slow and treacherous. Swagger didn’t even bother to tell him, he just lifted his rifle over his head, stepped off the break and started to fight through the water, churning up mud as he went. What difference could it make? They were so wet it didn’t matter, but the water was thick and muddy and at each step the muddy bottom seemed to suck at Donny’s boots. His feet grew heavier. The rain fell faster. He was wetter, colder, more fatigued, more desperate, more lonely.
At any moment, some lucky kid with a carbine and a yen to impress his local cadre could have greased them. But the rain fell so hard it drove even the VC and the main force NVA units to cover. They moved across a landscape devoid of human occupation. The fog coiled and rolled. Once, from afar, the vapors parted and they saw a village a klick away down a hill, and Donny imagined what was going on in the warm little huts: the boiling soup with its floating sheaves of bible tripe and brisket sliced thin and fish heads floating in it, and the thought of hot food almost made him keel over.
This is nothing, he told himself. Think of football. Think of two-a-days in August. No, no, think of games. Think of … Think of … Think of making the catch against Gilman High; think of third and twelve, we’ve never beaten them, but for some odd reason late in this game we’re close but now we’ve stalled. Think of setting up at tight end instead of running back because you have the best hands on the team. Think of Julie, a cheerleader in those days, the concern on her face.
Think of the silliness of it all! It all seemed so important! Beating Gilman! Why was that so important? It was so silly! Then Donny remembered why it was important. Because it was so silly. It meant so little that it meant so much.