“After I’d been waiting for you to come.”
“Don’t be dirty,” he said. “I don’t like it when you talk like that.”
“What? — oh, for Heaven’s sake. You’re the limit. You’re the one with the dirty—”
“All right, all right. Forget it.”
“Okay, I will. See you around. When you grow up.”
He flung the bedding aside. “Fucking Stacy. I’d give him notes. Right in the face.”
“Well, if you’re going to use that language, David…” She was tucking her shirt into her jeans.
“Oh Jesus,” he said, “Little Miss Muffet.”
“You’re so stupid,” she shot back. “There’s nothing between Rick and me.”
“God, you’re blind. I can’t believe it. He wants your notes. You really think that’s all he wants?”
She grabbed her satchel. “Well, if you keep this up, Bub, he might just get it.”
“You—”
“Go on, say it.”
“Nevermind—”
“Say it.”
“Bitch!”
“All right, buster,” she said. “That’s it! See you around.” She stopped at the door and swung about. “And those shorts,” she said, glancing contemptuously down at the red and white striped underpants. “You look like a barbershop. Never seen anything so ridiculous.” She walked out and slammed the door.
“You hear the news?” asked Rick Stacy, a fourth-year student majoring in commerce and international relations. “What news?” asked Melissa. “The fighting in Korea.”
“Yes,” she said. “Well, now I know how wars start.”
“What do you mean?” he said as he gathered up his things from the plush but grubby Student Union sofa.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Here are my notes.”
“Oh, I already got them from Linda. Thanks anyway.”
“I could strangle you, Richard.”
“What?” he asked, alarmed. “What’d I do?”
“You started a war.”
“Uh-oh. Davy Brentwood. Right?”
“Right.”
“Hey, don’t sweat it. Really. I’ll have a talk with him. Set him straight. I am in IR.”
“What?”
“International relations. Conflict resolution. My specialty.”
“Maybe we should send you to Korea.”
“Aw, they’re just trying it on,” said Stacy.
“You see the news this morning? Looked pretty bad to me.”
“Sure it does. Right now. Surprise is with the North. Always is with the attacker. You’ll see. It’ll be over by Christmas. Not like it was back in the fifties. Caught the South napping, that’s all. President’ll mobilize the reserve maybe — that sends the message to Moscow and China real quick. End of series. They don’t want a war.”
“Neither did South Korea, but they’re getting it.”
“Stop worrying. It always takes us a little time to react, but when we do, it’s game over. Moscow’ll tell them to get their ass out of there. Russia’s got enough to worry about. Estonia, Latvia-”
“You think the president will mobilize the reserve?” asked Melissa.
“No question. Doesn’t want to seem too weak — not with old Leyland breathing down his neck in the polls. But doesn’t want to be seen as a warmonger. But he won’t send troops in. Happens all the time, Melissa. You call up the reserve or hold maneuvers—that’s another good one. Sends the right messages to Beijing, Moscow.”
“What if they call our bluff?”
“Hey! Are you serious? China’s on overtime just trying to feed itself, and Russia’s had one of the worst harvests in years.”
“Where have I heard that before?” she said, frowning, unable to pin it down exactly.
“What?” asked Stacy as they walked over past the library to the cedar-hidden geography building. Stacy thought for a minute. “Bastogne?” he proffered. “Thought we had it all wrapped up and bam! Out come the Panzers. But we beat them.”
“No,” said Melissa, “it was in Korea. MacArthur or someone said it would be over before Christmas. Then the Chinese came in.”
“History,” said Stacy.
“And history repeats itself, right?”
“Up to a point. That’s an old wives’ tale. It’s always different really.”
“Then it’ll be different now,” she said. “If the president mobilizes the reserve, maybe it won’t work.”
“Listen, Melissa — and don’t take this the wrong way — I’m no male chauvinist.” They kept walking toward the quadrangle, the smell of the cedars strong in the high humidity. “But putting an M-1—that’s a tank—”
“I knew that, Richard.”
“Well, what I’m saying is that putting our M-1s up against what the North Koreans have — hell, like a heavyweight boxer against a bantamweight. No hay compracion. No contest.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Bet you dinner. The Steakhouse,” said Stacy.
“Okay,” she answered, knowing the moment she’d accepted, she shouldn’t have. It would only antagonize David further, but— dam it, his final words had hurt. The ingrate. Anyway, it would probably be weeks before the Korean business was over. She never did see why so many Americans had to stay there — it was up to the South Koreans to protect themselves. Well, in a few weeks everyone would have cooled off. David would have simmered down — he wanted her as much as she wanted him — they both knew that. And Richard would probably win his bet about the Korean thing being over by Christmas and impress his international relations seminar. She’d gladly pay for the steak dinner and invite David to keep the peace.
From his well-camouflaged revetment area, six miles south of Uijongbu, tank commander Lieutenant Clemens no longer felt the slightest pity for the men he was sure he was about to kill. News of the atrocities found its way into the crackle of radio traffic. One of the four who had been beheaded had been from one of the dual-based mechanized infantry support companies out of California, Clemens’s own state. On hearing the news, Clemens steeled himself for vengeance. Now he could see the first of an NKA battalion of PC-76 tanks, the “tin cans,” emerging like parts of a long, segmented green snake on the rain-polished highway. His laser range-finder told Clemens that the distance between his six American tanks and the NKA’s sixty-four was exactly 1,203.4 meters, well within the M-1’s four-thousand-meter range, the range confirmed by the additional thermal sight used in bad weather or at night.
Clemens, elbow resting on the cupola’s 12.7-millimeter machine gun, could also see NKA infantry moving up alongside the dark green PT-76s, the ceremonial red stars normally visible on the turrets painted over with slightly darker green camouflage paint. Clemens gave his orders quietly and unhurriedly to the loader and gunner, the gunner’s integrated computer display verifying the elevation of the 105-millimeter gun and compensating for crosswind and rain-caused deviations as the M-1‘s four-man crew waited patiently for the enemy’s lead PT-76 to come to a thousand meters so that the whole column would then be within killing range. Clemens’s thumb was rubbing the steel guard, ready to press the computerized fire control system that was even now compensating for the effects of wind drift, barrel bend, temperature, and humidity. Clemens had to make the decision whether, at the moment of firing, the tank would be “buttoned up” or he would do what the four men in his tank and the other two tanks of his platoon called an “Israeli,” standing up, his head and shoulders out of the turret. Despite the tank’s state-of-the-art CO2 laser range finder, driver’s thermal viewer, and the rest of it, an “Israeli” would afford him a better all-round view of the road and surrounding paddies. And so Clemens kept standing, careful not to make any move that would shake the camouflage netting around the fifty-four-ton tank, quietly telling his driver the fallback position once the tank’s initial rounds gave its present position away to the enemy column.