by Tim O'Brien
Now, rushing through the German dark, Paul Berlin felt full of this same desire for order and harmony and justice and quiet. A craving. Good intention made good by good deeds. Civility on street corners and courtesy at the borders between nations. He could feel it coming.
At dawn the train crossed the Rhine.
There was a twenty-minute wait in Bonn—he considered getting off but decided against it—then they were moving again through the hilly country that rolled south toward Luxembourg. Things were familiar. Lightheaded and eager, he couldn’t get over how easy it was. He felt he was riding on ice.
Forty-one
Getting Shot
The battle flowed down the ditch. It turned into the village, through the eastern paddies, then north into the next village. It was a running battle. Gunfire came in bursts separated by long hollows of silence. There was no enemy. There were flashes, shreds of foliage, a bright glare. Heavy machine-gun fire rattled behind the hedges along the ditch, then later from a grove beyond the second village. Then it ended. It ended like the end of rain. There were dripping sounds succeeded by an immense silence.
Afterward, Paul Berlin and Cacciato and Eddie Lazzutti patrolled the ditch, slowly retracing the course of the battle. They moved carefully. It was a wide, shallow-cut ditch that during the rainy season overflowed to feed the paddies on either side. Now it was dry. Its bed was cracked with fissures deep enough to put a hand into, and along the banks elephant grass grew in crisp powdered tangles. Cacciato found Buff.
They dragged him from the ditch and laid him in the grass and covered him with a poncho, then Eddie used the radio to call in a dustoff.
Later Doc Peret came by.
“It’s Buff,” Eddie said.
He pulled back the poncho and Doc bent down to examine the body.
“We found him like that,” Eddie said. “Unpretty.”
Doc took the grenades and ammo off the body. Then he went through the pockets. He removed a pack of Luckies and a wallet and chewing gum and a penknife and the dog tags. He dropped everything into a plastic sack, clipped the sack shut, and tied it to Buff’s wrist.
“You forgot something,” Eddie said.
“Cover him up.”
“Sure, but don’t you want what’s in his helmet?”
“Just cover him up,” Doc said.
Behind them, Paul Berlin’s eyes were closed. He sat with Cacciato at the lip of the ditch. Cacciato was opening a can of peaches. The peach smell was sweet. Eyes closed, Paul Berlin pretended he was at the bottom of a chlorinated pool. Pressing silence on his ears, breathing through a snorkel, fuzzy green images swimming in his head. He tried not to think. He concentrated on the silence, but then he was thinking. Buff’s shirts—the way they stuck to his shoulders in the heat. Or when he wasn’t wearing a shirt, the way his belly hung over his belt, jiggling as he walked. A big guy, Buff was. All that blood and flesh and fat. On hot days he would sweat and stink. They called him Buff, which was short for Buffalo, which was short for Water Buffalo. Paul Berlin tried not to think about it. When they died, they died. He pretended he was deep in a green pool in summertime.
“On his knees,” Eddie was saying. “Cacciato found him like that, all hunched up on his knees, ass stickin’ up in the air, and his face … you had to see it. Hunched up like the way Arabs pray, all tight, facedown in his fuckin helmet. You had to see it.”
“No I didn’t.”
“You did. Just like a prayin’ Arab.”
“Arabs don’t pray that way,” Doc said.
“Hell, they don’t. I seen it on TV, man. Asses in the air, all hunched up like that.”
“Okay.”
“I seen it.”
“I said okay.”
There was a muffled explosion, a slight shaking of the earth. Two more explosions followed. In the village beyond the ditch the First and Second Platoons were blowing bunkers. Paul Berlin kept his eyes closed. What could you do? It wasn’t really sadness. Or only partly sadness. Embarrassment, that was a big part of it. Noise and confusion, and then silence. You peek up. You feel the embarrassment.
He listened to Eddie and Doc talking softly behind him. Cacciato was still eating his peaches, and the smell mixed with the smells of the burning village.
He tried to concentrate on better things. His father raking leaves—red-gold piles to be jumped into, then taken to the incinerator behind the house, the smoke and bonfire smells, acorns popping. That was the smell. Bonfires and burning villages and dried crackling grass. It wasn’t really sadness.
“Hey, man.”
“Hey, Oscar.”
Oscar Johnson dropped his pack. There was the sound of a canteen being opened, then quiet, then a rustling.
“Who is it?”
“Big Buff,” Eddie said. “Who else?”
“Buff.”
“There it is. You want to look?”
“No,” Oscar said.
They were quiet for a time.
“Shot,” Eddie said. “You had to see it. Found him down there in the ditch. Hunched up like a praying Arab in Mecca.”
“Eddie’s our Arab expert,” Doc said. “And I wish to hell he’d shut up.”
“I never said I was no expert.”
“Then—”
“But I seen how Arabs pray, just like that. Like in Lawrence of Arabia.”
“Yeah.”
“A billion fuckin Arabs blowin’ up trains.”
“Buff. You wouldn’t think it.”
Paul Berlin listened with his eyes closed. Life after death, he thought. And what could you do? Beside him, Cacciato was opening a can of boned chicken. Brine smells, the click of the P-38, salt and fat. Cacciato, he’d eat anything. Ham and eggs from a can, tropical chocolate bars, anything. He’d eat it. Dumb, all right. Just dumb. You couldn’t fake sadness. It had to be there. If it wasn’t there you couldn’t fake it. You were glad it wasn’t you. There was relief—it was Buff and not you. You couldn’t pretend away the relief. The salty smell of the chicken made him dizzy and he turned away.
The earth was shaking again. Two hundred meters up the ditch, the others were still blowing bunkers. The explosions came in groups of three. It was Stink’s steady hand: tight, neat charges that left no stains against the sky. There was smoke, but the smoke came from the burning huts. Paul Berlin let himself slide to the bottom of his warm deep pool.
“Any kills?” Eddie asked.
There was silence. Paul Berlin could picture Oscar shaking his head.
“One-zip, huh? The gooks shut us out, one-zip.”
“That’s enough, man.”
“I’m just—”
“Have some respect and shut the fuck up.”
“What can you do? You can’t—”
“You can have respect.”
They were smoking now. Paul Berlin smelled it. He paid attention to the ritual. Quiet, then voices.
“He was okay.”
“Sure, he was. I wish the hell they’d hurry.”
“What time you got?”
“Noon,” Doc said. “Almost noon. I wish they’d hurry.”
“Buff don’t care. He was pretty slow anyhow. Jesus, that time in the mountains. Remember that?”
“What?”
“In the mountains.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“He was okay, though. He was—you know—he was okay.”
“Pass the smoke, man.”
“And, shoot, he was good with the gun, I’ll say that. He knew that big gun.”
“Pass it”
“He knew that M-60 like … like, he really knew it. Take it apart in twenty seconds, remember that? Twenty fuckin seconds.”
“Sure.”
“Zip, pow. Just like that. Take it apart so fast you’d shit. I mean, he really knew that gun.”
“I guess Murphy gets it now.”
“I guess so,” Eddie said.
“Unless Paul Berlin wants it.” There was a pause. It was Oscar. “Hey, Berlin. You want the b
ig gun now? You want it, it’s yours.”
Paul Berlin, whose eyes were closed, shook his head.
“He don’ want it.”
“I guess not.”
“Maybe Cacciato wants it.”
“No, Cacciato don’t want it neither. Harold Murphy’s elected.”
“Thank God for democracy,” said Doc Peret.
“Amen.”
Oscar sighed. “Buff,” he said. “No lie, the dude was good with that gun.”
“Tell it.”
“He was okay.”
They waited another fifteen minutes.
When he heard the dustoff coming, Paul Berlin opened his eyes. The day was bright without clouds. A single willow tree shaded part of the ditch. This surprised him. He hadn’t noticed the tree before; in all these months, it was the first willow he’d seen. A fine white powder covered the tree and the grass beneath it. Maybe it was the powder that gave the air the smell of sulfur. It wasn’t a pleasant smell, but it was pleasant to smell it. It was pleasant to see the bright light, and the tree, and the long shallow ditch.
No, he couldn’t pretend to be sad.
He sat up and looked for the chopper. Eddie was on the radio now, talking to the pilot, and Doc and Oscar sat smoking beneath the willow.
“Yellow,” Eddie said.
Doc threw out yellow smoke.
They didn’t see the chopper until it was right on them, settling down in the brown grass beside the ditch, then there was a long blind struggle to get Buff aboard. The plastic sack fell off the wrist, and Doc swore and quickly tied it back on, and the noise was fierce, and white powder filled the air, and then it was done. The pilot held up two fingers; the chopper rose, dipped, and took Buff away.
“So,” Doc said.
They smoked again, a serious and quiet smoke, then they stood up and put on their packs and pulled the straps tight. Cacciato was finishing a chocolate bar.
“So,” Doc said. He tried to smile. “What about the helmet?”
It lay at the bottom of the ditch. They looked down on it, then looked away.
“We can’t like—you know—just leave it there,” Doc said. “It’s not decent.”
“True,” Oscar said, but he did not move.
“Not decent.”
“True enough.”
Eddie knelt down, pretending to have trouble with his radio.
“And, look, the big gun’s down there, too. We can’t—”
“Yeah.”
“Somebody’s got to,” Doc said softly. “It’s not respectful to let it stay. Somebody’s got to do it.”
Cacciato did it.
He shrugged and smiled at Paul Berlin. There was chocolate all over his face. He dropped his pack and weapon, slid down the bank to the bed of the ditch, picked up the machine gun, and carried it up to Oscar.
Then, again, he slid down into the ditch.
Very carefully, keeping it steady and close to his stomach, Cacciato picked up the helmet and carried it down the ditch to a patch of high grass.
Life after death, Paul Berlin thought. It was a stupid thought. How could it be? Eyes and nose, an expression of dumb surprise—how could this promise anything? He wanted to feel grief, or at least pity, but all he could feel was curiosity.
He watched as Cacciato stepped over a log, stopped, and then, like a woman emptying her wash basin, heaved Buff’s face into the tall, crisp grass.
Then Cacciato climbed the bank. He rinsed the helmet under his canteen, wiped it with his shirt, and tied it to his rucksack. Smiling, he took out a stick of gum and unwrapped it and began chewing.
“That’s better,” Doc said.
“Sure, that’s lots better.” Oscar shouldered Buff’s big gun, gripping the barrel with one hand. “Enough of this shit, let’s go.”
And they moved down the ditch toward the burning village. There were no more explosions. The battle was over, and the day was hot and bright, and white powder covered the land.
“There’s a lesson in this,” Oscar said. “The lesson’s simple. Don’ never get shot.”
“There it is,” said Eddie Lazzutti.
“Never. Don’ never get shot.”
“Tell it, man.”
“I told it. Never.”
Forty-two
The Observation Post
That was all of them. Frenchie, Pederson, Rudy Chassler, Billy Boy Watkins, Bernie Lynn, Ready Mix, Sidney Martin, and Buff. Six months. A few half-remembered faces. That was the curious thing about it. Out of all that time, time aching itself away, his memory sputtered around those scant hours of horror. The real war was forgotten. The dullness and the heat and the endless tracts of time and the tired villages and petty conversations and warmed-over jokes and rivalries and rumors and hole-digging and hole-filling and the long marches without incident or foul play—all this was blurred and fuzzy like a far-off summer day. Odd, because what he remembered was so trivial, so obvious and corny, that to speak of it was embarrassing. War stories. That was what remained: a few stupid war stories, hackneyed and unprofound. Even the lessons were commonplace. It hurts to be shot. Dead men are heavy. Don’t seek trouble, it’ll find you soon enough. You hear the shot that gets you. Scared to death on the field of battle. Life after death. These were hard lessons, true, but they were lessons of ignorance; ignorant men, trite truths. What remained was simple event. The facts, the physical things. A war like any war. No new messages. Stories that began and ended without transition. No developing drama or tension or direction. No order.
Paul Berlin gazed down at the beach. There was enough light now to make out the contours of miniature sand dunes rolling inland like ripples in a pond. Squinting hard, he could see the iron posts that anchored the heavy concertina wire circling the tower. There were other shapes, still obscure, that would soon be turning solid and sharp.
He checked his wristwatch. Five o’clock. Barely half an hour until dawn.
Already he saw a spreading yellow glow at the horizon. The glow would turn pink. The pink would soften. The sea would run with color and the day would start. They would climb down from the tower. Breakfast would be eaten from cans, they would swim, they would bicker over bits of shade. Later in the day there would be patrols. Following the beach, they would trudge up to where the Batangan curved sharply eastward, then they would turn inland, circling, returning to the tower for lunch. If they were lucky, if the day went as most days went, there would be nothing but heat and flies and boredom.
But now, dawn still coming, Paul Berlin let himself wonder how things might have been: the ease of running, lightness of head and foot. How far could Cacciato take him? And what would he find?
Five o’clock sharp—he had to hurry.
Forty-three
The Peace of Paris
Luxembourg, the first day of April. They board the Train Rouge for Paris. A four-hour ride. Four hours, Paul Berlin thinks—four hours out of … what? Six months on the march, eight thousand six hundred miles, continents piled on subcontinents. And now Paris. He wants to yell. Shatter the grimy windows, put his head out and open his eyes, let civilization suck him in, splash over him like a waterfall. Already he sees it coming. Paris, he feels it.
For two hours the train rattles south through a string of small towns, then crosses into France, then turns straight west at Metz.
The speed increases. He can feel it now. Greased tracks, a steady rumbling beneath the floor. He feels the acceleration.
He concentrates. He wants to see cleanly. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he spits into it and carefully wipes his window. It is not rich country. The farms are old and small and broken-looking; many villages still show the damage of a war twenty years over. Scars, pocked buildings. But what does it matter? He ignores it. He ignores the soot and coal dust, all the artifacts of industry strewn like a child’s toys along the tracks—rusting flatbeds and switching gear, timbers, heaps of mangled iron, incinerators, tin cans, crushed old automobiles, tank cars and abandoned warehouses
and barbed wire. He sees beyond this. The season is spring. The trees are making leaves, and among all the junk he sees dainty white flowers. To the north the sky is swirling with a huge black thunderhead. Already dots of rain splatter the windows. Just a sprinkle, but the promise is there.
He feels himself grinning. Glancing across the aisle, he winks at Doc Peret, shakes his head as if baffled, tries to think of something meaningful to say. Instead he just grins. Even the lieutenant is smiling. The old man sits with Sarkin Aung Wan, nodding and looking up when she points things out to him: a passing bridge, a valley, a village. Behind them, Eddie and Oscar are drinking wine, making toasts, joking, ogling a pair of girls in the seat behind them. Paul Berlin wishes they would quiet down. Sit still, watch the unfolding spectacle, pay attention.
Faster now. The train sweeps along the curve of a river, rattles over an iron viaduct, through wet meadows and woods, past an old farmhouse with a rolled red-tile roof and sagging walls, past cattle herding together against the coming storm, past flooded streams and graveyards and broken fences. It is a blur. Speed pressing objects together, momentum turning everything slippery and gray. Detail, he keeps thinking. What would Cacciato see? What would Cacciato want them to see?
“Boom!”
Eddie has crept up behind the two girls, jabs the point of his finger into the air, pretends to execute them for their indifference.
“Boom! Boom!”
