LITMIR.BIZ

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shook his head and moved on. When he passed a Marine sitting against a tree and opening a small cigarette pack from his C rations, he stopped long enough to say, “The smoking lamp is not lit, Laney. And get your fire team squared away. We’re deep in the Arizona. Charley owns this place, and he don’t like visitors. We got less than two days left on this op, and if we can get back across the river with our asses intact, I’ll consider it a victory.”

      Laney snapped the cigarette pack under the band around his helmet.

      Strader waited. “You think you can do that?” he said.

      Laney shrugged and said, “Kohng biet.” Like most Marines he had no practical knowledge of the Vietnamese language, but he had heard those words a thousand times in dozens of villages in the Quang Nams. Whenever a Marine asked for the location of any VC, the nervous villagers would nod their heads and repeat the phrase over and over. Marines new to the boonies thought they were saying, “Cong bad,” affirming that these villagers were friendly—or at least sympathetic—instead of the words’ actual meaning, which was simply, “I don’t know.”

      “Well, you better find out before Chuck rains beaucoup shit on our heads.”

      “Don’t sweat it, Reach. We got it together.”

      Strader knew there was no time now to put Laney’s head right, so he went on, wondering what the young Marine’s parents were going to buy with his military life insurance.

      Beyond his squad Strader passed into Corporal Middleton’s 2nd Squad. Middleton stood at the top of the embankment and watched as two of his men filled canteens in the creek. “Put halizone in those canteens,” Middleton was saying. “If you don’t have enough, ask one of the docs for more.”

      The innocuous-looking little pills changed the local water into a medicinal-tasting fluid, palatable only if extreme thirst forced your hand. Given enough time, halizone pills could kill the microorganisms that racked your bowels and played havoc with your internal thermostat, but they also killed any desire to put the liquid into your mouth. Strader once asked Doc Garver if the pills made the water sterile. The corpsman laughed and said that the only thing sterile to drink in the bush was your own urine. Strader thought that was a disgusting concept, but from then on he couldn’t help looking at his own stream as though he were pissing lemonade.

      Middleton caught Strader as he passed. “Reach, can you smell that?” Middleton had a little over nine months in-country and considered himself short. Over six months gave you delusions of shortness, but over nine made it official for purposes of bragging. You were on the home stretch, short for sure.

      “What?” Strader said.

      Middleton tipped his head back and sniffed the air. Strader did the same.

      “I don’t smell anything,” Strader said.

      Middleton sniffed again. “Yep, I can smell your woman’s panties.”

      “You’re not that short, and keep you nose out of my love life.”

      Middleton had once been a member of Strader’s squad, and he credited his old squad leader for teaching him the ropes and keeping him alive when he was too new to do it himself. He was closer to Strader than to anyone else in the platoon.

      “You know what I’m going to do first when I get home, Reach?” Middleton said.

      “No, what?”

      “I’m going to fuck for six solid hours,” Middleton said.

      “Sounds like a plan. What will you do second?”

      Middleton seemed lost in thought. “Probably put down my seabag.” He slapped Strader on the shoulder as he left.

      Strader reached the CP as Bronsky pushed the radio handset up under the rim of his helmet and clapped a hand over the other ear to block out the ten million invertebrate voices that made the jungle seem to vibrate. The radioman stepped a little closer to the clearing so the short antenna would grab as much reception as it could from the sea of vegetation all around them. “Sir,” he said to Lieutenant Diehl. “Highball says they’re about a minute out. They want to be advised on the smoke.”

      “Reach. What color smoke grenades do you have?” the lieutenant said.

      Strader swung his pack to the ground. “One red and one yellow.”

      Lieutenant Diehl held out his hand. “Bronsky, tell Highball the smoke will be yellow.” He stood waiting, arm extended, until Strader handed over the canister. “I’m glad we’re using one of yours, Reach,” he said. “It’s kind of poetic.”

      “Why is that, sir?”

      “Because a Marine should hail his own cab.”

      The lieutenant handed the smoke grenade to Franklin, who was standing off to the side with the Chief, and urged him toward the clearing. “When I signal, pop the smoke and start the fuses. And don’t take your time getting back here. We won’t be waiting for Doc to pull splinters out of your ass.”

      Franklin headed into the clearing, pulling on his flak jacket as he went. The Chief squatted where he was, always conscious of the size of the target he made.

      “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Strader said. “What cab?”

      The lieutenant looked up at the cloudless blue sky above the clearing, appreciating the view generally denied him in the Arizona. “What is your DEROS, Reach?”

      Strader looked at Bronsky, but the radioman turned away, busying himself with an imaginary problem with the handset.

      Strader didn’t need to calculate his date of expected return from overseas. “I’ve got three days and a wake-up,” Strader answered.

      “Hear that, Doc?” the lieutenant said. “Three days and a wake-up.”

      The corpsman was sitting on the ground, using his pack for a backrest. “Don’t look for sympathy here. I’ve got five months and a wake-up.”

      The lieutenant stopped looking at the sky and turned to Strader. “This is your ride coming. When we get the supplies off the chopper, you get on.”

      Strader let his pack fall to the ground. His eyes darted about like an animal’s looking for a way out of a trap. “I can’t leave, sir. My squad’s short two rifles now. The ones I have are a headache when we’re in the rear. Out here in the boonies . . .” His mind raced to find some piece of logic that would dissuade the lieutenant, even though experience told him that two stripes never overruled one bar in the Corps. In the hierarchy of Marine Corps firepower, he was a mere peashooter.

      Lieutenant Diehl put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll be back in a couple of days. You’ll have plenty of time to buy everybody in An Hoa a beer before you go. You can even buy me one. So grab your gear. That’s an order.”

      “Sir, I can’t go.”

      “You can, and you will.” The lieutenant tried to soften his authoritarian voice; he’d grown to like Strader. “Look,” he said, “you should never have come on this operation. The Arizona has always been a nightmare, and the captain was sure we were going to step in it, like always, and you would be needed. But for some reason Charley is doing his best to avoid us—too busy doing something else, I guess—so you’re just here for the exercise. There’s no point.”

      “I can stay and still have a day left to get squared away after we get back.”

      Argument from subordinates wasn’t tolerated in the Corps, but the lieutenant’s fondness for Strader tempered his frustration. “You may not be familiar with military law concerning disobeying orders in the field. Chief! Get over here.”

      The Chief stood and jogged the few steps to where they stood, feeling oddly self-conscious. “Sir,” he said.

      “You ever shoot a white man, Chief?”

      The Chief seemed stunned by the question.

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