by Robert Roth
“Okay.”
“Did you guys shoot off a star cluster?”
“No, I think it came from behind us,” Forsythe answered.
“Yeah, I’ll bet. How ’bout cuttin’ the shit? The Captain of the Guard tonight is a real asshole. . . . How’s Chalice doing?”
“All right, we’ve been keeping him away from Payne.”
“That’s good. What watch does Payne have tonight?”
“Second.”
“Good. I’m gonna stay up just to see if I can catch him crashing again. If I do, I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.”
“Good idea. Wake me up first if you do. I wanna watch.”
“Okay, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Don:t fuck around anymore.”
As Harmon walked back up the slope, Chalice asked, “What type of guy is he?”
“Damn straight. Him and Hunky — that’s Kovacs — don’t kiss anybody’s ass. Watch out for Preston though.”
“Who’s he?”
“The right guide. Don’t ever trust him. He’s fairly harmless though. Anytime he starts his shit, Harmon gets Hunky to get him off our backs. If he pulls anything with you, just tell Harmon. . . . I’m gonna crash. See you tomorrow.”
At daybreak Tony 5 woke his fire team. Chalice was collecting his gear when Forsythe stopped him. “Just leave it in the bunker. We’ll pick it up after chow. . . . Did you bring a soft cover?”
“No. You mean we have to wear covers even in the bush?”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t get ten feet before some lifer’d stop you. Take the liner out of your helmet and wear it.”
“Where can I get a bush cover?” Chalice asked, referring to the broad-brimmed camouflage hats.
“Our battalion doesn’t issue them. You can’t wear them on the hill anyway. C’mon, let’s go to chow.”
“Man, this is as bad as stateside. What do we do after chow?”
“They’ll split us up into different working parties.”
“What type of working parties?”
“Everything you can think of — building bunkers, unloading supplies, burning shitters, policing the area, you name it.”
“You really make it sound great.”
“Oh yeah, I can’t help but get enthused when I talk about it. See the sign?” Forsythe pointed to a reenlistment poster nailed on the side of a building.
Chalice read it aloud. “ ‘Mac Marine says, It’s a great career, stick with it.’ Well, you know a million Marines can’t be wrong.”
“Oh, they’re not wrong now all right, but that’s because they know how wrong they were when they signed that little white paper.” Forsythe changed the subject. “Did the 105’s bother you much?”
“Those big guns were 105’s. They didn’t start fucking with ’em till I got halfway asleep, then boom. I didn’t know what the hell happened, so I grabbed my rifle and headed for the bunker. Tony was sleeping right in back of it and when I ran by he asked me where the fuck I was going. He said he didn’t hear anything, but that it was probably the 105’s. I can’t believe he heard me walking by, but didn’t hear those guns.”
“You’ll get like that too. You usually hear everything whether you’re asleep or not. If it means danger, then you’ll wake up; but sometimes when you should, you don’t. There’re a lot of dead Marines that’d tell you that if they could.”
When they reached the mess hall, Forsythe walked over to two men, Chalice following behind him. “Professor, no platoon in the Corps is complete unless it’s got a Polack everybody calls Ski, a Mexican named Ramirez or Gonzales, and an Indian called Chief. Here’s Ski and Ramirez. You’ll meet Chief later.”
The darker one stuck out his hand first. He was about five feet two and slender, with a swarthy, exuberant face and large white teeth. “Glad to meet you, Prof. I’m Julio Ramirez from Charlie Squad. This is Ski.” He pointed to a light-haired Marine next to him.
“I’m Dan Ojusinski. Ski’s good enough. I’m in Bravo. . . . Where you from?”
“Silver Springs, Maryland. Where you guys from?”
“Pittsburgh,” Ski answered. “You can guess where Ramirez is from.”
“Laredo,” Chalice guessed.
“There it is,” Ski laughed.
After chow everybody headed back to the platoon hootch. When working parties were assigned, Forsythe saw to it that Chalice got the same party as he and Hamilton. The three of them and two others, Roads from Hamilton’s fire team and Hemrick from Bravo Squad, were sent to a corporal in one of the offices at the center of the hill. He loaded them on a six-by and directed it towards the LZ. The choppers hadn’t arrived yet, so they sprawled out in the sand near one of the bunkers and waited.
Chalice found himself staring at Roads, a tall, dark black with Caucasian features. His back propped up against the bunker, Roads ignored the rest of the men, the expression on his face too aloof to be belligerent. Chalice had noticed him in the platoon hootch and guessed he was some type of athlete, probably a basketball player. He moved about with effortless power, seemingly in control of every muscle in his body. No one had bothered to introduce Roads to him, and Chalice could see why. Roads was the only member of the platoon that had given him the impression of outward coldness. Though Roads had only been in the bush two months his self-assurance belied this, as it had on his first day in-country. One of his long slender hands held a cigarette. A stiff breeze kept the ash glowing red. He slowly drew the cigarette towards his lips and inhaled. Chalice sat staring, waiting for the stream of smoke to emerge. Just as Roads seemed ready to exhale, his half-closed eyes opened as if he sensed something — the wind had stopped. Effortlessly, he blew a large smoke ring that traveled over a foot in front of him before the wind picked up again and blew it away. Roads half smiled as he let the rest of the smoke flow from the corner of his closed lips.
A conversation among the others drew Chalice’s attention away from Roads. Hemrick, a skinny kid with large ears, had remarked that he’d rather be in the bush than on the hill. The corporal in charge of the working party asked him what he thought Hill 65 was. Hemrick replied testily, “I mean the bad bush. I’m tired of getting fucked with. You’ve always got to have a cover, but you can’t wear a bush cover. You can’t take your shirt off even though it smells like a jockstrap because they never get you clean ones. These working parties are a real pain. The food in the mess hall is as bad as C-rats. Shit, it is C-rats only it comes in larger cans. The only thing better about it is that you get a cold drink to wash the taste out of your mouth. The office poags up here have their own showers, and we aren’t even allowed to use them. At least in the bush you come across a stream every once in a while that you can take a bath in, and — ”
Hamilton interrupted, “Yeah, I can’t stand the cheap shit either, but sometimes the bush ain’t no bargain. Since you’ve been here, we’ve never been camped with the whole company for more than a few days, and it’s even worse when you’re set-in with the captain and the gunny. You get all the disadvantages and none of the advantages.
“I’ll still take the bush.”
“I will too,” said Forsythe, “but it’s not the bargain you make it out to be. When you’re in the bush, you want Hill 65. When you’re on Hill 65, you want the bush. That’s the way the Marine Corps works. They get you to eat their shit because you’re so tired of eating it one way you jump at the chance to eat it dished up some other way.”
Hemrick started to say something, but the corporal called out, “Here’s the choppers.” One was circling the LZ while the other approached it, both with huge nets dangling from their fuselages. As the first chopper neared the ground, the men in the working party turned their backs to the LZ, protecting themselves from the sand whipped up by the copter blades. Chalice looked over his shoulder and watched the ground crew unhook the cargo-laden nets. After the second copter’s net was detached, the working party moved onto the LZ and loaded the cargo, mostly C-rations, into the truck. It drove back down the road, stopping in front of
a bunker. The men jumped down and formed a line between it and the truck. After a few minutes, the whole operation became one big joke. They were throwing the heavy cartons to each other as fast as they could. When somebody would drop one, the others yelled at him in mock anger. Two hours later, the men unloaded the last carton and sat down exhausted. Forsythe had the only pack of cigarettes. He passed it around. Whoever took one made some sort of derogatory remark about the brand.
“Hey Corporal, can we get out of here?” Hamilton asked.
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean?” Hemrick cut in. “We’re done unloading the truck.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m supposed to drop you off at the S-2 office.”
Hemrick cried out, “Are you shiftin’ me? We worked our asses off to get through with this in a hurry.”
“Yeah, why didn’t you tell us that before?” Forsythe added.
“Look man, don’t blame me. C’mon, let’s get in the six-by.”
They took their time getting on the truck, complaining as they did so. When it reached the S-2 hootch, another corporal led them to some brooms and told them they had to field day the office. It was ten o’clock when they finished, and they again asked to leave. The corporal said the area had to be policed first. That took five minutes. Hamilton again asked if they could leave.
“No man, I’m sorry. I can’t let you go to chow till eleven. Just wait till then.” They sat around doing nothing for almost an hour. At eleven o’clock, as they walked away, the corporal called out, “Don’t forget to be back at twelve. You’ve got some more stuff to do.”
“Did you hear anything, Forsythe?”
“Not a thing, Hamilton. Did you?”
The platoon hootch grew noisier as the men straggled back from the mess hall. It was too much trouble to clear off the cots, so most of them lay down on the floor. Payne held up a deck of cards and yelled across the room, “Hey Professor, you wanna play?”
“Okay, poker?”
“No, backalley.”
A tall, slender black lying on the floor a few yards away from Payne sat up and said, “We’ll play.” He nudged a short, pudgy youth with curly blond hair. The blond youth got up and they both walked over to Payne’s cot.
“How’s it going, Prof?”
Chalice turned around to see Forsythe standing behind him. “Hey, who are those guys playing cards with Payne and Hemrick?”
“They’re Skip and Flip, the Bobbsey Twins. They’re in guns.”
“Funny, they don’t look like twins.”
“Most of the guys think they’re identical, but they’re really only Siamese. The tall black one’s name is Skip. He’s been in-country about six months, and he’s a damn good machine gunner. The short, fat one is Flip, his assistant gunner, only been in-country two months. I forget what his real name is. We call him Flip because you never see one without the other.”
“Hey listen, I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you do much reading?”
“I’d like to, but if comic and fuck books aren’t your bag, you’re pretty much out of luck around here.”
“Here’s the story: I’ve got some good books, but I don’t wanna hump them all. If you’re interested in reading some of them, we can each hump a few and trade off when we’re done.”
“Sounds good. What do you have?”
“Absalom, Absalom!, Invisible Man, The Trial, and The Stranger.”
“I’ve already read The Stranger. Let me have the one by Faulkner.” Forsythe picked up the book and walked away.
Roads had overheard the conversation. He walked over to Chalice’s cot and stood looking at the books for a few seconds. “All right if I read The Trial when you’re done with it?”
Surprised by the first words he had heard Roads speak to anybody, Chalice said, “I’ve just finished it. You might think it’s a little dry though. I’ve got a book here by Ralph Ellison you might be more interested in.” Roads’s expression changed just enough to let Chalice know he’d made a mistake. He spoke slowly, with no emotion. “I’ve read both of them. I’d like to read The Trial again.”
Chalice awkwardly handed the book to Roads, who nodded and immediately turned and left. When he was a few feet away, Chalice called out, “Wait.” Roads turned around without saying anything. “Look, I’m having some more books sent to me and I don’t want to hump them all. Forsythe is gonna hump a few. Maybe you want to also? That way we can have some good stuff to read.” Roads nodded and walked away.
By twelve fifteen, only a few men were left in the barracks, the rest having gone to their working parties. Forsythe walked over to Chalice’s cot. “We better get out of here, Prof, or somebody’ll find something for us to do.”
Hamilton and Payne followed them out the door. They walked over to a lookout bunker on the edge of the barbwire. Two soldiers with flame throwers stood to their left. One of them was helping the other put the fuel pack on his back. Payne walked towards them. “Hey, what are you guys doing?”
“Getting some practice with the flames.”
“What for? We never use the worthless things.” They ignored Payne as they continued to struggle with the fuel pack. “Hey, the straps are too tight.”
Forsythe remarked to Hamilton and Chalice, “The minute I saw that jerk walk over there, I knew he was going to tell them how to use their own flame throwers.”
Hamilton said, “Yeah, everytime we get in a chopper I think he’s gonna go up to the pilot and start telling him how to fly the thing.”
“What are they gonna do, shoot them out in that field?” Chalice asked. “Yeah,” Hamilton answered, “it must be a hundred and ten degrees now, and it’ll be a hundred and fifty when they start fucking around. Let’s get outa here.”
They walked over to get Payne who was trying to talk the two into letting him try one of the flames. Hamilton tapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go.”
“Wait a minute. I wanna see ’em shoot these things.”
Forsythe said to the one ready to shoot his flame thrower, “You know that’s an old French mine field out there?”
Payne had been irritating him, and he snapped back, “So what? I’m just gonna shoot the flame thrower.”
Forsythe stood silently for a moment, seemingly pondering the reply. “Oooooh, I thought you were gonna mow the lawn.” He grabbed Payne’s shirt collar. “Let’s get out of here. We want these guys to be able to concentrate.” After receiving a couple of dirty looks, they walked up the slope towards the road.
The swooshing sound of the flames was suddenly cut short by a loud explosion. Hamilton and Forsythe dove to the ground. Chalice followed their example; but Payne, who had been the only one looking back, just stood there and said, “Holy shit! Those guys must have got knocked twenty feet.” Chalice looked back in time to see a dark cloud of smoke envelop the area where they had been. Hamilton ran towards it and the others followed. One of the men sat up, covered with soot. He checked himself for wounds, which to his amazement he couldn’t find. The other man merely lay on his back repeating, “Sonofabitch! Sonofabitch!”
“Are you all right?” Payne asked.
“Yeah.”
“I think so.”
As they got to their feet, Forsythe said, “I thought you were just gonna use your flame throwers.”
They ignored him as they checked their equipment. By this time about ten more people had come over to find out what had happened. Hamilton and Chalice started walking back up to the road and Forsythe followed. Before they had gotten twenty yards, Hamilton said, “Walk faster, here comes Preston.”
“What a down,” Forsythe moaned.
“Hey, wait up,” Preston called.
“Too late.”
A skinny, awkward-looking corporal approached. Chalice was struck by the dark brown color of his buck teeth as they protruded from a large, sarcastic grin. “Well, just who I wanted to see.” Hamilton and Forsythe looked at each other with disgusted expressions. “C’mon back to the hoo
tch with me. The gunny wants a working party.”
“How ’bout it, Preston? Why don’t you find somebody else?” Hamilton asked.
“I’ve got somebody else. They’ll help you. C’mon, let’s go.”
They followed him back to the company area without speaking except for the times Forsythe repeated, “What a fucking bummer.”
While they waited outside, Preston got eight men from inside the hootch. “The gunny wants these moved up there,” he said, pointing from a stack of seventy or eighty ammo boxes to some higher ground on the edge of the barbwire.
Hamilton protested, “We just moved the fucking things down from there two days ago.”
“The gunny changed his mind,” Preston replied with a self-satisfied look on his face.
“Jesus Christ! Tell him to move them himself.”
“I’m telling you to do it. If you wanna tell him something, that’s your business, Hamilton.”
“Thanks, pal.”
The boxes were full of sand and rocks, and it took two men to carry each box. Plodding through the softer earth near the top of the knoll, they would often stumble to their knees or chests, then struggle to their feet again with a new coating of dry sand against their sweaty skin. The heat alone was enough to make just sitting in the sun exhausting. Before the job was finished, over three hours later, the rest of the platoon had straggled back from their working parties.
Chalice trudged down from the knoll towards the platoon hootch, hands rubbed raw and dirt completely covering his face except where sweat had etched it away. After a few minutes of rest in the hootch, the men headed for the mess hall. The food was overcooked and bland. All Chalice could taste was the dirt that covered his hands and face. Right after chow, he trudged to his bunker. He was still exhausted when his watch started. Though he could hardly stand, the soreness of his body helped him to stay awake.
Chalice had lost track of the days and was surprised when somebody mentioned it was Sunday. “At least we don’t have to go on any working parties today,” he remarked at breakfast. Everyone stopped eating and stared at him until Forsythe finally droned, “In the bush, Sunday’s like any other day, except you get a little present.” Nobody mentioned what the present was, and he figured he’d find out soon enough so he didn’t ask.
