Instead of going to dinner, he walked out to the helipad. Nothing had changed from the night he’d talked to Tyler, and yet everything was different. The sky, the razor wire, the distant mountains no longer seemed to be part of the same landscape. They were isolated, separate one from the other. The order was gone. What had then been a magical landscape was now harsh and unbalanced. Nothing fit together. He saw only edges and boundaries. Even the moon, hanging there on the horizon, looked flat and out of place, as if it were no more than an intruder. It was as if he were looking at one of those puzzles in which when you see the vase you cannot see the faces. He was too weary to fight the new perception, though he had the sense that had it been lighter, he could have picked out a bird a mile away.
It seemed as if years had passed since his talk with Tyler. How long had it been since the chopper crashed? Christ, he thought. Their deaths had made no more sense than his or Tom’s would have. There was no reason for them, unless, David thought for a moment, it was simply because they were there. Maybe that was the answer, just being there. It had all been so innocent. He had chosen Vietnam because the extra year would have held back his career. Not an unreasonable decision. The problem was he hadn’t known what he was deciding. Suddenly he realized he’d been a fool about more than just going back to the village.
At breakfast, Cramer said that he would be leaving in nine days. “Since there is no replacement as yet, Captain Tyler will be acting hospital commander until my replacement arrives. The colonel,” he added pointedly, “should be here within the next three weeks. I’ll be meeting with Captain Tyler to prepare for the transition. If any of you have items you’d like brought up, put them in writing and give them to me before tomorrow morning.”
Breakfast ended without Cramer saying a word about David’s absence from the 40th. On the way out of the mess hall, David pulled Tyler aside.
“I was a little tired when I got back yesterday,” he said. “I just want you to know I appreciate what you did.”
“There’s no need …”
“There is,” David said seriously. Tyler nodded; a small, appreciative smile flickered across his face. They walked together to the dispensary.
“Tell me,” David said, “about Morril. He and Tom did more than just meet in the Delta.”
“There were rumors …”
“Rumors?”
“A few days after Morril got here, he was in the dispensary cleaning out his duff kit and spilled some pills. They weren’t exactly government issue.”
“What were they?”
“Cytoxan.”
“Cytoxan!” David repeated. “That’s pretty deadly stuff. I mean for out here.”
“They were whoppers, too. Five-hundred-milligram capsules.”
“They’re used for killing cancer, or for patients whose immune system you want to poison.”
“And some severe skin problems; that’s how I learned about it.”
“But why?”
“There was some talk in Saigon about physicians working with military intelligence.”
“And you think Morril worked for them. But why the Cytoxan?”
“Well, it’s tasteless. You can dump fifty or sixty into a bucket of water and no one would know they were there.”
“And it’s excreted by the kidney and concentrates in the urine.”
“Yeah.”
“And one of its complications is that in high concentrations it causes the bladder to hemorrhage with no way to stop the bleeding except to surgically remove the bladder.”
“Pretty dramatic,” Tyler said, “to bleed to death pissing blood. Everyone knows.”
“But Morril wouldn’t have needed Tom for that.”
“Dangerous place, the Delta, especially at night. It would be better to go out with someone like Tom. Don’t get me wrong, Morril was a nice guy, but as far as he was concerned, it was them or us. And I mean,” Tyler said without any hint of sarcasm, “just that … them or us.”
“You think Tom knew?”
Tyler didn’t have to answer.
“Well,” David said, “it must have given him a unique perspective on American medicine.”
Chapter 17
THE NEXT DAY TOM sought David out and found him in the dispensary. David was alone.
“Well,” he said when Tom walked in, “don’t tell me you have a rash.”
“No,” Tom said. “I’m okay. I was just wondering how you were doing.”
“Me?” David answered, surprised.
“You were real quiet comin’ in yesterday.”
“I’m okay.”
“You got to put things like that behind you.”
“A little like getting back on a horse after you’ve fallen off.”
“Nothin’ happened,” Tom said seriously. “We’ll just be more careful.”
“I’m all for that.”
“I got to go,” Tom said. “See you tomorrow mornin’.”
“How about lunch.”
“Lunch?”
“Any difference here or out on the flats?”
“No,” Tom said. “Guess there isn’t. Sure, why not. See you at the mess hall.”
Chapter 18
AS USUAL, THE JEEP was ready when david arrived at the motor pool.
“I figured we’d stay on the flats for a while,” Tom said, “till things get sorted out. We can see more out here than in the hills. And hear more, too …”
But even though they could see for miles, David watched everything a bit more closely than usual, and when he dozed off it wasn’t so completely that he ever stopped listening. It wasn’t quite like getting back on a horse. David wasn’t exactly afraid, but he wasn’t as relaxed as he’d been before, either.
At lunch, Tom mentioned Cramer. “I hear they’re replacing him with a full colonel.”
“Maybe only a lieutenant colonel; Cramer was a little vague. Not impressed either way, huh?”
“Nah. All that rotation stuff does is screw up morale, doesn’t matter whether it’s a full bird or a major. Everyone coming and going. Officers, NCOs, enlisted men. You can’t keep anything straight. One CO wants this and the next one wants that. It’s a mess. Hell, for all we know, this new colonel won’t like gooks or will think med caps aren’t worth a pile of shit and work on some way to cancel ’em or, like Captain Tyler said, just have us pretend we’re goin’ out, dump the pills and have us do somethin’ else. But,” he added, “you got to look at the bright side—the bad ones leave, too. So I guess it all evens out in the end.”
“And if everyone stayed?”
“Stayed?” Tom shrugged. “I heard some officers at the 9th talk like that once, about what would happen if everyone had to stay till the end.” Tom raised an eyebrow. “They were sure we’d win in a year or see a mutiny.”
“And Captain Morril?”
Tom didn’t hesitate. “The captain believed that the one-year tour was nothin’ but a way to keep the enlisted troops in line. He figured the politicians and the generals were afraid to keep everyone here till it was over, so they decided that no one would scream too much about one year.” He gave David a knowing glance. “Besides, it gives the Army a chance to have all its field grade officers get some combat experience.”
“That your idea or Morril’s?”
“Mine.”
“For the next war?”
“It ain’t for this one,” Tom answered flatly. “As soon as they figure out how to get it done right, they’re gone.”
“Get it right?”
“Have us get them without them gettin’ us.”
“And the rest, the enlisted men—would they stay?”
“A lot of guys would, and stay till the end, if there was an end. We can beat the north, but I guess there ain’t no way to make ’em surrender, not with the Chinese and the Russians helpin’ ’em. We probably can’t even make ’em back down, but like the captain said”—David knew he meant Morril—“all we’re supposed to do is save the south; we ain’t supposed
to beat the north. The captain didn’t think winnin’ meant the other side had to surrender; all they had to do was give up.”
“And you agree?”
“Well, we could seal off the infiltration routes from the north, close off the Delta, take the casualties that all that would mean and let the south deal with the nation building, stuff like these med caps, on their own. Hell, we’re down here gettin’ killed anyway. Might as well die for somethin’ that makes sense.”
Chapter 19
FOR THE NEXT FEW days, they ignored the schedule and stayed out on the plateau. Tyler had been right. No one cared.
David had had trouble sleeping. He thought it would pass, but it didn’t. He’d lie there at night thinking, though his thoughts had little to do anymore with what had happened at the village or with the helicopter. He had put those two events behind him, but he did wonder where else he’d been foolish and either not known enough or missed the obvious. He thought of what Tom had said the day after they’d stood at the helipad watching the assault troops of the 25th, not about the small number of troops actually fighting but about the casualties. He’d stayed awake wondering about that for two nights until finally he asked Tyler about the numbers wounded. Tyler said he’d heard it was up to a hundred thousand, at least since the buildup two years before. If Tyler was right about the numbers of casualties and Tom was right about the small percentage of troops actually doing the fighting, then the risk of being killed or wounded in Nam had to be astronomical. Sixty thousand troops fighting, fifty thousand or so casualties in a year. In one year just about everyone in a combat unit had a good chance of being hit.
At the end of the week, he was lying in bed, as usual half in, half out of sleep, when he heard the sounds of an approaching chopper. He lifted his arm and looked at his watch. The dial glowed feebly in the dark. Three-thirty. The roof started to vibrate.
He sat up, quickly pulled on his pants and shoes and went outside. As he passed Cramer’s cot, he noticed that it was empty.
By the time he reached the helipad, his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. He could see the outline of a chopper sitting near the edge of the pad. No one was there. He was about to go back up the path to the dispensary when he saw the shadowy shape of a second chopper further out on the pad. Two, he thought. He must have been asleep when the first one came in. He hurried up the path.
He saw the red glow of the cigarettes as soon as he passed the communications building. They flickered in the air like two tiny beacons. It was only when he was a few feet from the dispensary that he saw the troopers who held them. Bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossed their chests, the bullets glistening in the darkness. They were wearing helmets. David couldn’t make out their features, but there was a heavy, musty smell about them, as if they had been wet for a long time.
The taller one took a long drag. His unblinking eyes reflected the tiny flare of light as if they were glass.
“What’s going on?” David asked.
The cigarette tips dimmed and they were back in darkness again.
“You work here?” The voice, like the eyes, had a metallic quality.
“I’m one of the doctors.”
“Our buddy’s been breathing fast for three days. Couple hours ago he had a fit. The lieutenant called in a med evac.”
“Us four been together from the beginning.” The shorter one was talking. From the tone of his voice, he might well have been speaking of the beginning of the world. “We come along to be sure everything’s okay.”
“He’s inside?” David asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see what’s happening.”
Neither the tall one nor the short one moved. David had to walk around them.
Sergeant Parker was at the desk. He glanced up as the door swung open, looking relieved when he saw who it was.
“Sorry, sir, I thought it might be one of those two geniuses outside.”
“I told ’em I’d check on what’s going on.”
“You talked to ’em?” he said, surprised.
“A little. What’s wrong?”
“They tell you they requisitioned a supply chopper? Told the pilot they’d kill him if he didn’t bring ’em here to see what was happening to their buddy.”
“That’s the second chopper out on the pad?”
“Stole it right out of the landing zone.”
“Does Thorpe know?”
“No, sir.” The sergeant looked pained. “Maybe it was too dark for you to see, sir, but those guys are armed to the teeth, and believe me, they aren’t the kind that listen. Besides, there’s another genius or two down at the helipad right now making sure the choppers stay requisitioned.”
“Where’s the trooper?”
“In the treatment room with Colonel Cramer, and he ain’t exactly a Mr. IQ either.”
“What was wrong?”
“Something about a friend he sees all the time, talks to him, things like that.”
“And the friend?”
“If you can believe the two crazies outside, at this moment he’s in a bag in the mortuary at the 70th.”
“Dead?”
“Yeah, and for the last week, maybe longer. They’ve been in a kind of running firefight, so they ain’t so good on dates and times.”
“What about the trooper?”
“Well, I ain’t heard no shots yet.”
“What?”
The sergeant lifted his arms in a hopeless gesture. “What could I do, sir? He wasn’t about to be disarmed.”
“And Cramer?” David asked, looking down the hallway.
“There wasn’t much he could do, either. Oh, sir,” the sergeant warned, “I don’t think I’d go down there just yet.” He pointed to the tray on the side of his desk. It contained a vial of medicine and a half-filled syringe. “He ain’t got his Thorazine yet.”
“How long have they been in there?”
The sergeant looked at the clock over the door. “Going on fifteen minutes.”
“Don’t let anyone else down the hallway.”
David hurried down the corridor before the sergeant could stop him, slowing as he neared the treatment area. He could hear voices coming from the first examining room. He slowed the last ten feet and then edged forward to the half-open door.
“I’m telling you, I want to call my parents.”
Cramer was sitting on a stool. He was wearing slippers, and his hair wasn’t combed.
“You’re tired.” Cramer was trying to be casual, but he looked anxious.
“I said I—want—to—call—my parents.”
The trooper’s boots were visible through the doorway. They were muddy, and the tops were torn. David could just see the barrel of the M-16. It was pointed toward the floor but in Cramer’s direction.
“And the dizziness?”
“Dizziness … shit,” the trooper said angrily. “That all anyone fuckin’ cares about? I get dizzy, that’s all!”
“Do you breathe fast before you get dizzy?”
“Breathe fast? How the fuck do I know?”
“It’s important,” Cramer persisted.
“Yeah.” The trooper’s voice sagged so that David could hardly hear it. “I breathe fast.”
He could see Cramer relax. “That’s called hyperventilation.” David moved closer to the doorway. “When people get nervous, they breathe fast. That decreases the carbon dioxide in the body, changes the acid concentration in their blood, and they get dizzy.”
David couldn’t believe that Cramer was discussing the physiology of acid-base balance.
“When the acid changes, the composition of chemicals in the brain changes and—”
“So what!”
Cramer was suddenly more cautious. “If that kind of breathing goes on long enough,” he said, “people get faint. They might see things, and if it goes on too long, they lose consciousness and can even have a seizure.”
“What the fuck does that matter?”
“Well,�
� Cramer went on quickly, “if you’re the one breathing rapidly, you can begin to see things that aren’t there, and a lot of people don’t know they’re breathing fast until someone points it out to them.”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
Cramer sat up straighter.
“The gooks are out there trying to waste us and you talk about carbon something.”
The chair squeaked as it moved. Cramer stiffened.
“You’re a fuckin’ lifer, aren’t you? You ain’t no real doctor!”
“No, no,” Cramer said, trying to sound cheerful. “I’m a draftee just like you, but I’m still a real doctor.” He shifted his feet off the stool. There was a sharp click as the rifle barrel disappeared from David’s view.
Cramer, his eyes wide behind his horn-rimmed glasses, inched his way back onto the stool. David knew Cramer was a little dense, but he hadn’t realized he was so stupid. Still, he might not have known about the two riflemen outside or the stolen chopper. He must have already been in the dispensary when the second chopper came in and figured it was just another evac. David moved a half-step closer to the door.
“Tell you what,” Cramer said, his nerve returning. “You can call home. But first I think you should get some sleep. You don’t want to call home and talk to your parents when you’re all tired and exhausted now, do you?”
“And Frank. What about Frank?”
“Frank?”
Christ, David thought, Cramer must have walked into the room without finding out why the kid had been evaced in. But from the look on his face, he’d finally figured out that both he and the kid were in more trouble than he’d realized. Standing there, David went through the options. There weren’t many.
“Frank!” the trooper mimicked angrily. “What’s he gonna do when I’m asleep, huh? Did you ever think of that? What kind of doctor are you anyway?” The trooper was working himself up. “Who’s gonna take care of him, huh? Think I’m gonna let some candy-assed lifer do that? No, not after all we’ve been through … not a chance.” David could hear the trooper shift his position. “Now get the fuckin’ phone.” The voice was sinister.
Another War, Another Peace Page 9
