by Tim O'Brien
“It’s terrific,” Doc said. “It really is.”
“And clear? Man! I could hear Ma’s fuckin cuckoo clock, that clear.”
“Technology.”
“Yeah,” Eddie grinned. “Real technology. I say, ‘Hey, Ma,’ and what’s she say? ‘Who’s this?’ Real scared-soundin’, you know? Man, I coulda just—”
“It’s great, Eddie.”
Doc was next, then Oscar. Both of them came out looking a little funny, not quite choked up but trying hard not to be. Very quiet at first, then laughing, then talking fast, then turning quiet again. It made Paul Berlin feel warm to watch them. Even Oscar seemed happy.
“Technology,” Doc said. “You can’t beat technology.”
“No shit. My old man, all he could say was ‘Over.’ Nothin’ else—‘Weather’s fine,’ he’d say, ‘Over,’ “Oscar wagged his head. His father had been an RTO in Italy. “You believe that? All he says is ‘Over,’ and ‘Roger that.’ Crazy.”
They would turn pensive. Then one of them would chuckle or grin.
“Pirates are out of it this year. Not a prayer, Petie says.”
“I bleed.”
“Yeah, but Petie, he goes nuts over the Pirates. It’s all he knows. Thinks we’re over here fightin’ the Russians. The Pirates, that’s all he knows.”
“Crazy,” Oscar said. He kept wagging his head. “Over an’ out.”
It made Paul Berlin feel good. Like buddies. Genuine war buddies, he felt close to all of them. When they laughed, he laughed.
Then the PFC tapped him on the shoulder.
He felt giddy. Everything inside the booth was painted white. Sitting down, he grinned and squeezed his fingers together. He saw Doc wave at him through the plastic window.
“Ease up,” the PFC said. “Pretend it’s a local call.”
The boy helped him with the headset. There was a crisp clicking sound, then a long electric hum like a vacuum cleaner. He remembered how his mother always used the old Hoover on Saturdays. The smell of carpets, a fine powdery dust rising in the yellow window light. An uncluttered house. Things neatly in place.
He felt himself smiling. He pressed the headset tight. What day was it? Sunday, he hoped. His father liked to putz on Sundays. Putzing, he called it, which meant tinkering and dreaming and touching things with his hands, fixing them or building them or tearing them down, studying things. Putzing … He hoped it was Sunday. What would they be doing? What month was it? He pictured the telephone. It was there in the kitchen, to the left of the sink. It was black. Black, because his father hated pastels on his telephones. Then he imagined the ring. He remembered it clearly, both how it sounded in the kitchen and in the basement, where his father had rigged up an extra bell, much louder-sounding against the cement. He pictured the basement. He pictured the living room and den and kitchen. Pink Formica on the counters and speckled pink and white walls. His father always …
The PFC touched his arm. “Speak real clear,” he said. “And after each time you talk you got to say ‘Over,’ it’s in the regs, and the same for your loved ones. Got it?”
Paul Berlin nodded. Immediately the headphones buzzed with a different sort of sound.
He tried to think of something meaningful to say. Nothing forced: easy and natural, but still loving. Maybe start by saying he was getting along. Tell them things weren’t really so bad. Then ask how his father’s business was. Don’t let on about being afraid. Don’t make them worry—that was Doc Peret’s advice. Make it sound like a vacation, talk about the swell beaches, tell them how you’re getting this spectacular tan. Tell them … hell, tell them you’re getting skin cancer from all the sun, all the booze, a Miami holiday. That was Doc’s advice. Tell them … The PFC swiveled the microphone so that it was facing him. The boy checked his two wristwatches, smiled, whispered something. The kitchen, Paul Berlin thought. He could see it now. The old walnut dining table that his mother had inherited from an aunt in Minnesota. And the big white stove, the refrigerator, stainless-steel cabinets over the sink, the black telephone, the windows looking out on Mrs. Stone’s immaculate backyard. She was nuts, that Mrs. Stone. Something to ask his father about: Was the old lady still out there in winter, using her broom to sweep away the snow, even in blizzards, sweeping and sweeping, and in the autumn was she still sweeping leaves from her yard, and in summer was she sweeping away the dandelion fuzz? Sure! He’d get his father to talk about her. Something fun and cheerful. The time old Mrs. Stone was out there in the rain, sweeping the water off her lawn as fast as it fell, all day long, sweeping it out to the gutter and then sweeping it up the street, but how the street was at a slight angle so that the rainwater kept flowing back down on her, and, Lord, how Mrs. Stone was out there until midnight, ankle-deep, trying to beat gravity with her broom. Lord, his father always said, shaking his head. Neighbors. That was one thing to talk about. And then he’d ask his mother if she’d stopped smoking. There was a joke about that. She’d say, “Sure, I’ve stopped four times this week,” which was a line she’d picked up on TV or someplace. Or she’d say, “No, but at least I’m not smoking tulips anymore, just Luckies.” They’d laugh. He wouldn’t let on how afraid he was; he wouldn’t mention Billy Boy or Frenchie or what happened to Bernie Lynn and the others. Yes, they’d laugh, and afterward, near the end of the conversation, maybe then he’d tell them he loved them. He couldn’t remember ever telling them that, except at the bottom of letters, but this time maybe … The line buzzed again, then clicked, then there was the digital pause that always comes as a connection is completed, then he heard the first ring. He recognized it. Hollow, washed out by distance, but it was still the old ring. He’d heard it ten thousand times. He listened to the ring as he would listen to family voices, his father’s voice and his mother’s voice, older now and changed by what time does to voices, but still the same voice. He stopped thinking of things to say. He concentrated on the ringing. He saw the black phone, heard it ringing. The PFC held up a thumb but Paul Berlin barely noticed, he was smiling to the sound of the ringing.
“Tough luck,” Doc said afterward.
Oscar and Eddie clapped him on the back, and the PFC shrugged and said it happened sometimes.
“What can you do?” Oscar said.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe … Who knows? Maybe they was out takin’ a drive or something. Buying groceries. The world don’ stop.”
Twenty-five
The Way It Mostly Was
Then they went to the mountains.
First, though, Sidney Martin said there would be no malingering. They would march fast and hard. They would do their jobs; if a man fell out he would be left where he fell.
“Trouble,” Oscar Johnson said before the choppers took them to the foot of the mountains. “The man always looks for more trouble. He want it? Is that the story—do the man want trouble?”
Then they went to the mountains.
The road was red. It climbed the mountain at a bad angle for the march, not winding with the mountain’s natural contours but instead going straight up. For hiking or strolling it would have been a good road. The view was magnificent, and along the road grew many forms of tropical foliage, and everywhere it was wild country and pure. It would have been a fine road for a botany field trip, or for a painter to paint, but it was not such a good road for the march.
There had been no rain. The road was cracked like clay pottery, and the grass alongside it was brittle. If the wind had been blowing, the grass would have rustled like straw brooms against an oak floor, but there was no wind and the afternoon was too hot even for birds. There were the sounds of the march. There were the sounds of boots against the red road, the metallic sounds of ammunition and matériel on the move, soldierly sounds. Altogether thirty-eight soldiers marched up the road, plus one native scout who was a boy of thirteen.
The thirty-eight soldiers and the boy marched with their heads down. They leaned forward against the day and the road and the side of the mountain. They we
re tired. Their thoughts were in their legs and feet. Some of the soldiers wore handkerchiefs tied about their necks. Several of them carried military radios with spindly aluminum antennas that bobbed and sparkled as they marched; others carried transistor radios. The strongest among them carried the machine guns, balancing the big guns on their shoulders and gripping the barrels with one hand while using the other for leverage against the grade. All of the soldiers carried fragmentation grenades and mosquito repellent and machine-gun ammunition slung in long belts over their shoulders. All of them carried canteens. Nearly all of them wore bush hats in place of helmets. Their helmets and armored vests were tied to their rucksacks, for it was late August and the battle was still far off. Straggled out along the red clay road, they formed a column that ran from the base of the mountain, where the Third Squad had just begun the ascent, to the top of the mountain, where the First Squad moved plastically along a plateau and toward the west and toward the much higher mountains where the battle was being fought. Most of the soldiers were shirtless. Those who had been longest in the war had the best tans. The most recent arrivals were pasty-skinned, burnt at the shoulder blades and neck; their boots were not yet red with the clay, and they walked more carefully than the rest, and they looked most vulnerable; no one knew their names, for they had been hurried to the war for the battle in the mountains.
At the rear of the column, last of thirty-nine, Private First Class Paul Berlin felt the full labor of the march. He did not think about the mountains, or the coming battle, or what might happen there. He watched the road pass beneath his boots, the way the boots appeared and reappeared, the strain mostly in his hips. The road was very dry. It did not kick up dust as he climbed. Solid like summer cement. He did not want to think. The upward climb took energy from his thoughts and sent it to his legs and hips and back, and he climbed without thinking, just climbed, just kept climbing, but then he felt himself slipping. It happened first on the climb to the mountains, slipping out of himself, and, still climbing, he looked up at the summit of the small mountain, climbing but also slipping quietly out of himself, looked up to see the blond-headed lieutenant looking down.
Lieutenant Sidney Martin stood alone. His arms were folded as he watched the ascension of his men. He wore his shirt. It was dark under the armpits and at the hollow of his back, and the sleeves were rolled up over his elbows. In profile, his face was young; straight on, it was not so young. His lips moved as he counted to himself the number of soldiers still climbing. He counted to twenty-one, plus the scout.
His sergeants came to him, and they too wore their shirts. The sergeants conferred, then one of them faced west and took out the binoculars and surveyed the higher mountains where the battle would be. The sergeant with the binoculars then turned and spoke to the blond-headed lieutenant, who nodded but did not answer, then the sergeants left him and the lieutenant stood alone and watched his men climb. Once he looked west. The green of the mountains was splendid. Many shades of green, and colors not quite green but influenced by it, and the greens gave the impression, which the lieutenant knew to be false, of great coolness and removal and peace. He saw no signs of the battle. He knew he would hear the battle before he saw it, but he knew he would not hear it for many hours. He knew he must conserve the strength of his men for the fighting. He also knew he must get his men to the fighting before it ended. He had many problems to consider: whether to stay on the road, with its danger of land mines but with its advantage of speed, or whether to move instead through the rough country, with less danger but with less speed. He had the problem of the heat. He had the problem of sending tired men into the battle. He had other problems, too, but he was a leader, working through his sergeants according to the old rules of command. This kept his sergeants happy, and it would eventually build respect for him among the men and boys. The lieutenant had been trained in common sense and military strategy. He had read Thucydides and von Clausewitz, and he considered war a means to ends, with a potential for both good and bad, but his interest was in effectiveness and not goodness. A soldier’s interest is in means, not ends. So the young lieutenant prided himself on his knowledge of tactics and strategy and history, his fluency in German and Spanish, his West Point training, his ability to maximize a unit’s potential. He believed in mission. He believed in men, too, but he believed in mission first. He hoped that someday the men would come to understand this; that effectiveness requires an emphasis on mission over men, and that in war it is necessary to make hard sacrifices. He hoped the men would someday understand why it was required that they search tunnels before blowing them, and why they must march to the mountains without rest. He hoped for this understanding, but he did not worry about it. He did not coddle the men or seek their friendship. And he did not try to fool them. Before starting the march, he had told them that he cared for their lives and would not squander them, but he also explained that he cared for the mission as a soldier must, otherwise every life lost is lost dumbly. He told the platoon he would not tolerate malingering on the march, even though the day was hot. “We will be soldiers,” he told them, “and we will march steadily, and we will not be late for the battle. Any man who falls out will be left where he falls, even if it’s sunstroke.” The men hadn’t cheered his speech, but this did not matter to the young lieutenant.
Standing bare-headed at the summit, Sidney Martin decided to stay on the road. He spoke the decision as a declarative sentence, saying, “We’ll stay to the road until I hear the battle,” and when the decision was spoken he did not think about it again. Instead he looked up for clouds, hoping they would come to break the sun, but the sky was clear and unmoving. All over, the country was baked still. The lieutenant folded his arms. He watched the remaining soldiers come up the road, counting them as they reached the top and moved off along the plateau toward the higher mountains.
On the road and still climbing, Private First Class Paul Berlin easily slipped back into himself, not losing a step. He was comfortable in his climbing, motion corresponding to the passage of time, a sense of continuity and purpose. He walked with his head down, bent forward to balance his rucksack an inch or so below the neck, at the top of the spine, distributing the weight evenly and high and transferring it to his legs and from his legs to the upward-going road. He did not think. Above him, he saw the blond-headed lieutenant standing with folded arms. The lieutenant’s belt buckle sparkled and his lips seemed to move as if talking to himself, or as if counting, but counting what, or why? Private First Class Paul Berlin did not know. He knew the road. He knew the pull at his back, and the feel of the black rifle in his hands, and the weight of his gear, and the heat.
There were no villages along the road. It was not farming country, nor was it jungle. It was the country that connects the paddies to the jungle; poor, beautiful country. The grass grew thick and uncut, no wind to brush it, and the only motion was the steady marching of the thirty-eight soldiers and the scout, a boy of thirteen. Paul Berlin did not think. The march connected him to the road, and the climb was everything. An anatomy lesson, the feel of the tendons stretching, the muscles and fluids and tissues moving like a machine. He would climb until the machine stopped. And when the time came he would stop the way a machine stops, just stopping. He would simply stop, rest, tumble. He wiped his sweaty forehead with his sweaty forearm. When the time came, he told himself, he would stop. Slipping again …
The blond-headed lieutenant watched him climb. Though he did not know the soldier’s name, this did not matter much, for the soldiers whose names he did not know he simply called Soldier or Trooper, whichever came to him first, and there was nothing impersonal or degrading about either word. He watched the boy’s strange mechanical walk, the lazy obscurity of each step, the ploddingness, and he felt both sadness and pride. He saw the boy as a soldier. Maybe not yet a good soldier, but still a soldier. He saw him as part of a whole, as one of many soldiers pressed together by the force of mission. The lieutenant was not stupid. He knew these beliefs
were unpopular. He knew that his society, and many of the men under his own command, did not share them. But he did not ask his men to share his views, only to comport themselves like soldiers. So watching Paul Berlin’s dogged climb, its steadiness and persistence, the lieutenant felt great admiration for the boy, admiration and love combined. He secretly urged him on. For the sake of mission, yes, and for the welfare of the platoon. But also for the boy’s own well-being, so that he might feel the imperative to join the battle and to win it.
The lieutenant did not enjoy fighting battles. Neither bloodthirsty nor bloodshy, he had not enjoyed the few battles of his career, nor the feeling that had come to his stomach when the fighting ended. But the battles had to be fought.
Watching the boy come up the road, the lieutenant was struck by a sense of great urgency and great pride. He was young, yes, but he was a serious man. Pride, for the lieutenant, was strength of will. And watching his platoon, watching the boy climb, the lieutenant now felt very proud. Though they did not know it, and never would, he loved these men. Even those whose names he did not know, even Paul Berlin, who walked last in the column—he loved them all.
But he was not stupid. He knew something was wrong with his war. The absence of a common purpose. He would rather have fought his battles in France or at Hastings or Austerlitz. He would rather have fought at St. Vith. But the lieutenant knew that in war purpose is never paramount, neither purpose nor cause, and that battles are always fought among human beings, not purposes. He could not imagine dying for a purpose. Death was its own purpose, no qualification or restraint. He did not celebrate war. He did not believe in glory. But he recognized the enduring appeal of battle: the chance to confront death many times, as often as there were battles. Secretly the lieutenant believed that war had been invented for just that reason—so that through repetition men might try to do better, so that lessons might be learned and applied the next time, so that men might not be robbed of their own deaths. In this sense alone, Sidney Martin believed in war as a means to ends. A means of confronting ending itself, many repeated endings. He was a modest, thoughtful man. He was quiet. He had blue eyes and fine blond hair and strong teeth. He was a professional soldier, but unlike other professionals he believed that the overriding mission was the inner mission, the mission of every man to learn the important things about himself. He did not say these things to other officers. He did not say them to anyone. But he believed them. He believed that the mission to the mountains, important in itself, was even more important as a reflection of a man’s personal duty to exercise his full capacities of courage and endurance and willpower.
