"Oh, you"ve found her." He plucked at his uniform. "You already married her a.s.s. Two years, anyhow."

He grinned. "She f.u.c.kin" you all day and night."

A man who was evidently Freeling came out of the woods, earning an M16 and a shovel, looking agitated. "Sarge?" He swiveled to stare at him. "Look, I don"t wanta be chickens.h.i.t. But I"m, I"m too short for this f.u.c.kin" detail."

"How short is that?"

"Twelve. f.u.c.kin". days."

"Hmm." Sarge squeezed his eyes shut and kneaded his forehead, as if trying to imagine such a state. "We don"t expect any contact. But okay. You go help X-Ray, you know Batman?" The man nodded. "Tell him I detailed you over. They"re puttin" out wire today."

"Wire?" Homer said. "We"re gonna stay in this G.o.dd.a.m.n place?"

"Think they tell me anything? I just heard a confirm on four strands of concertina." He took a pair of reading gla.s.ses out of a plastic hag and unfolded a topographical map. "Gather round if you want to see where you"re goin"."

He tapped two places that had Xs penciled in. "This is us and this is where the mortar position was.

Bearing"s one-forty-two degrees, but we won"t hardly need a compa.s.s. We just go downhill until we cross the little stream, and then go uphill until we get to the mortar position. Shouldn"t take but two hours, maybe three."

"It"s pretty thick," the RTO said. "No trails?"

"Huh uh." His finger traced a pencil line halfway around the other hill. "This here"s a game trail some lurpsfound a couple of months ago. "We could follow the stream around until we find it. But that wouldn"t be too smart."

"Is this just a f.u.c.kin" body count?" someone asked.

"Yeah, and "confiscate or DX enemy ordnance." Plus we"re humpin" three AP mines to put up there in case Charles comes back." He folded up the map and checked his watch. "Let"s saddle up. We hustle, maybe we get back by 1500." He put his arms through the straps and kneeled forward to lift the rucksack onto his back. Something heavy inside clanked; the anti-personnel mines. He stood gracefully.

"Single file, I"ll take point. Everybody lock an" load when you pa.s.s the perimeter."

"s.h.i.t," Homer said. "Charlie"s Country."

"Nah. A walk in the park," the sergeant said, and ambled off on a bearing of 142 degrees. Spider cheeked the time: exactly ten.

All you need is love The clock downstairs chimed ten. Beverly looked at Lee"s handsome features, silhouetted against the night-light. He took a drag on the joint and his face glowed orange.

"I wonder what Spider"s doing," she whispered. "It"s ten in the morning there."

He paused. "I wonder," he said. "Nothing much fun."

"I don"t know what to do."

"Take a toke." He held the joint out.

"Not now." Her throat was sore. The banana was easier, symmetrical; Lee"s p.e.n.i.s hooked to the left.

She took another sip of water. "I can"t send him a Dear John letter. He"s too depressed already."

"That"s true. But writing him"s not the problem."

"No. it"s if he-it"swhen. " She sobbed once and tears ran down her cheeks. She groped for a tissue and couldn"t find a dry one; blew her nose into s.e.m.e.n musk.

"You can say "if." If he comes back."

"Oh, yuck." She wiped her chin and mouth with the back of her hand. "I don"t want to say it. Seems like bad luck."

"You got freaked out by that f.u.c.king bulletin."

"Didn"t you?"

"Yeah." An American company had been boxed in by an NVA division. After fighting all night, all but 24 of the 103 GIs had been killed, wounded, or captured. "If they tell us about that, G.o.d knows what worse things are going on."

"Oh, don"t start. Sometimes they must tell the truth.""When it suits them or when they get caught," he said harshly. "Sorry. I shouldn"t bring politics into bed with me."

"That"s all right; I shouldn"t bring another man. But you"re right. That film got to me." She knuckled her eyes. "I don"t evenlove him. Or I do, but like a brother-sister thing, y"know?"

"You can"t tell him that, though."

"No."

Lee took a deep drag and held it in, thinking. There was no doubt in his mind that Spider was going to die in Vietnam. Karma, kismet. "Look, he comes back,when he comes back, I just fade for a couple of months. You make sure he meets lots of girls, let him down easy."

"You. you"d wait for me?"

"You have to ask?" He barely got the joint out of the way as she enveloped him in a crushing, desperate hug.

Her warm tears trickled down his neck. "You"re the most loving man," she said, m.u.f.fled.

"Where it"s at, baby," he said, not consciously mocking himself. He stared at the glowing ember. "Love is all we have."

A walk in the park (2) Spider tried to be conscientious about not bunching up; he tried to keep at least three meters between him and Homer, the grenadier in front of him. The rationale was inarguable. The first enemy grenade or mortar round or spray of machine-gun fire ought not to kill more than one person. Still, he could usually see only one person beyond Homer, and if he fell back and lost both of them, he wouldn"t have any idea of which way to go, except downhill, and he might lead the five or six people behind him straight into doom. He tried to fight rising panic, tried not to make noise, strained to hear the noise from the people behind him.

Every now and then, he thought of the phrase "a walk in the park." Under other circ.u.mstances, this could be a lot of fun. He had sort of liked Boy Scouts, enjoyed hiking and camping, and could remember a time when being allowed to carry a gun while hiking would have been the ultimate in cool. (His parents hadn"t even let him own an air rifle.) But none of the scenarios he"d acted out in his childhood had covered the situations of gagging over rotting flesh, screaming with indescribable pain, having your p.e.c.k.e.r shot off.

He tried not to make any noise but felt like a walking symphony of clanks, snaps, and sc.r.a.pes. The guys behind and in front of him seemed to be moving as silently as Indian scouts. Guess who the enemy would zero in on. His skin was cold and greasy in the jungle heat.

They made it down to the stream without being blown to bits. Spider checked his watch and was surprised to read 10:44. He visualized the map and revised his estimate of the scale. It might not be too bad.

The stream was about two meters of black water, too wide to jump. The water was tepid and came upto his knees. When he got out, he"d added the sound of socks squishing to his repertoire.

He realized he had it pretty easy, being about tenth in line. The other guys had worn down a temporary path by the time he came along. Sarge was probably making more noise than anybody, breaking trail.

But then of course they don"t shoot the point man. He studied the thick forest around him and remembered the camouflage demonstration at Fort Leonard Wood. That had been familiar scrub pine and berry bushes, but the trainees had all walked right by a machine-gun position with two men. It opened up on them with blanks, enough to kill everybody, and then they were marched back by it again.

Knowing where to look, you could see the two men. But you could have walked by them a dozen times.

What could be hiding in this thick welter of vines and brambles? A tank, if they could get it down here.

The going was easier at first, uphill, because it was easier to keep your balance, leaning slightly forward with the pack on your back. But it got steeper. Spider had to use his free hand sometimes to haul himself up, trying to grab a root or vine rather than a venomous snake.

The extra physical effort was distracting, though, and after an hour or so Spider was less nervous, even though they were working ever deeper into Charlie"s Country. There were occasional sparkles of blue sky in the canopy overhead, so they must be getting close.

Then suddenly Homer flopped to the ground and stared silently back at Spider, making a patting motion: get down! Spider repeated the actions.

G.o.d, his body was making a racket. Breath rasping, heart hammering. He strained to hear what was going on up ahead, but knew that was futile. Anything important that happened would be plenty loud.

He felt a bug on his calf, under the pants leg, and quietly flicked it. It wiggled but didn"t move away. He carefully raised up the loose fabric and sickened when he saw a leech, gorged with black blood, the size of his finger. He must have picked it up in the water.

He"d heard that you were supposed to apply the end of a cigarette to the thing"s head, to make it let go, but n.o.body"d been smoking. He eased the Zippo out of his pocket and spun up a flame and held it to the creature, which slid off with no agility and tried to wiggle into the brush. Spider crushed it with his boot heel. Blood trickled from where it had been attached.

Homer was whispering, "Cool it! Cool it, a.s.shole," and Spider realized how much noise he"d been making in his panic. Just a bloodsucking worm, nothing to get all dramatic about. He looked down for the thing"s squashed remains and was not happy to see that it wasn"t there anymore.

Homer eased to his feet and Spider followed suit. The blood was still trickling but he didn"t feel the wound. The thing must inject some sort of anesthetic before it bites.

After a couple of minutes the compost rot smell of the forest took on a new component, sickening, that Spider recognized immediately. Add a little Lysol and you"d have the holding room at Graves. Homer stopped as the man in front of him worked his way back and whispered in his ear. Then Homer backed down and transferred the message: "We"re gonna move into a circle around this clearing. Watch out for b.o.o.bytraps." Spider pa.s.sed it on down. Homer was clambering off to the left, so he did too, trying to maintain an interval and study every square inch of ground at the same time. He pa.s.sed by two sh.e.l.lholes, raw craters of fresh dirt.

He heard it before he saw it, flies buzzing. The roadkill stench was suffocating in the still air. He moved toward the light.The clearing was like something out of a gruesome fifties EC comic, the kind he"d hid from his parents.

The bottom part of a man"s body lay next to a rifle. Animals had been disputing over it, and intestines were strung all over the clearing. Spider"s practiced eye identified a gnawed liver and heart. He could only locate one arm, fingers chewed off. A head with the cheeks torn out stared at the sky, eyes clotted with insects. He heard two people retching and had to swallow hard himself. Pretty f.u.c.king gross.

The sergeant broke into the clearing, looking at the ground, and lit a cigarette. "Smoke "em if you got "em," he said. Spider fumbled for a Camel.

"RTO?" The radioman came up behind him, pale. "Tell "em we got two November Victor Alpha Kappa India Alpha." Two NVA killed in action. "Enough blood an" guts for two, anyhow." He looked around, picked up the dead man"s AK-47, tossed it to the ground, and inspected the mortar tube, which was still standing but was full of holes. "Tell "em we got a mortar, I guess 82 Mike Mike Sov or Chicom, and a Alpha Kappa Four Seven, both inoperable." He took a deep drag, looking around. When the RTO stopped transmitting, he said, "Request permission to place mines and withdraw. Let"s get outa this f.u.c.kin" place."

The rush of nicotine, combined with everything else, almost made Spider faint. The clearing glowed and shimmered. The revolting smell changed, still a little sickening but sort of like food, like pork chops frying.

The sergeant did a remarkable thing: unb.u.t.toning his fly, he walked over to the corpse"s head; he pulled out a big stiff black d.i.c.k and picked up the head, rotated it, and found the mouth. Spider clenched his eyes shut and shook his head violently.

When he opened his eyes, the sergeant was toeing the head, hands in his pockets. "Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said.

s.h.i.t, I"m losing it, Spider thought. A couple of puff"s of marijuana could do that? Better stay away from it.

"Sarge, they say we gotta DX the enemy ordnance, or hump it back."

"Sure, we"re gonna hump this s.h.i.t back." The mortar with its plate weighed more than a hundred pounds.

"X-Ray? Get your a.s.s up here."

Spider moved into the clearing, stepping carefully over dirt-crusted intestines.

"You wanna blow this s.h.i.t? Give it about a two-minute fuse." He threw down his cigarette after using it to light another one. "Homer and Stick, get a couple shovels and get up here." To Spider: "You set up the plastic and I"ll check it out after we do the mines."

Spider slid out of his rucksack and opened the demo bag. He had only a vague idea of what to do, but he supposed a stick of C-4, one kilogram, would be enough. No way they could reuse that mortar anyhow. He jammed the top end full of the white stuff.

He took the coil of red time fuse out of the demo bag, measured off two feet, and cut it. Then he took a deep breath and opened the green cardboard box of blasting caps.

Blasting caps made him nervous. The one part of his demolition training that really stuck with him was the pictures they pa.s.sed around of hands with freshly missing fingers and one guy with his jaw and nose blown off from crimping a cap with his teeth.The box was full. He had to pick one out with his fingernails. The cold touch of the clean metal was electric. He had a vision of his hands as b.l.o.o.d.y stumps, and almost dropped the box. That would be cool. He folded the box closed and returned it to the bag.

He tried to remember the ritual. Inspect the open end of the cap, tap it over your wrist, blow into itgently, slip the fuse into itgently, make sure it"s all the way in, andgently squeeze it closed with the crimpers. Then poke a hole in the plastic explosive with the pointy end of the crimpers and slide the cap in.

The AK-47 was covered with blood and had most of a lung sticking to the stock. He picked it up by the magazine, which was reasonably clean, sc.r.a.ped the lung tissue off with his foot, and was able to balance it on top of the muzzle of the mortar. That would surely blow it in two.

He looked around. Sarge and the other two had buried their mines and were camouflaging them. The RTO was over at the corpse"s head, sawing an ear off with his knife. He put it in his pocket. Then the second ear, which he licked and put into his mouth.

Spider sat down hard, his face in his hands. Cold sweat trickled down his ribs. He looked at the RTO again and he was just pushing the head around with a stick. It still had both its ears.

"Pretty tough s.h.i.t for a new guy," Sarge said, inspecting Spider"s handiwork. "Funny arrangement, but I guess it"ll work. Why don"t you go on down and get in line. I"ll light the fuse when we get clearance."

"Thanks." Spider saddled up and headed for the treeline, not looking back. G.o.d knows what he"d see.

The men had lined up in the same order as before, facing downhill. Spider found his place behind Homer and sat down, leaning back against the rucksack in a half-comfortable position, and lit a fresh cigarette off his old one. He opened a c.o.ke to help settle his stomach. Only one left now. He"d heard two slicks come in to the LZ while they were humping, though; maybe they brought fours and fives.

Was he going nuts? There wasn"t anybody he dared talk to about it. The sergeant f.u.c.king that head and the RTO eating the ear were just as real-looking as anything around him now. Maybe all this would go away, too, if he could close his eyes long enough.

Sarge hustled down the line saying laconically, "Fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole. Let"s get the f.u.c.k outa here." Everybody got to their feet and followed him fast.

After a couple of minutes a loudbang echoed through the valley, along with a whirring sound that must have been the AK, or part of it, trying for orbit. They worked their way downhill for about ten minutes more and then the word came up to stop, take a five-minute break in place. Spider could hear four or five people working out to the right and left, he supposed as listening posts.

He gratefully slumped to the ground and sorted through his rucksack. Beans and franks would be okay cold. He opened the can and mixed in some Tabasco sauce.

"G.o.d, you can eat after that?" Homer whispered.

"Hungry."

"Yeah, you"re the guy from Graves. That must do something to ya."

"I guess it does." He looked straight at Homer because he didn"t like what he"d glanced in the can. s.h.i.tand crawling worms. "You gotta eat, though." He took a bite and it tasted like beans and franks.

"Not as bad as that up there," Spider continued, nodding uphill. "You can get used to almost anything, I guess. But we never had anybody get his d.i.c.k shot off or lose both legs."

"Yeah, well, those are the first two casualties we"ve had in weeks. I guess the law of averages ought to keep us safe for a while."

Spider knew from readinga.n.a.log that there was no such thing as a "law of averages"; that the probability of one independent event didn"t affect the probability of another. If they had killed a few thousand enemy soldiers, that would reduce the probability of an attack tonight. Killing one, and making as much noise as the bombing of London, might have the opposite effect. It could draw attention to them.

But he didn"t say anything. n.o.body likes a smarta.s.s.

Some day he ought to make a list of the valuable things he"d learned in the army. n.o.body likes a smarta.s.s. How to use a floor waxer. How to break an egg with one hand. How to burn s.h.i.t; just knowing that youcould burn s.h.i.t. Hospital corners on a tight bunk.

How to roll socks. All that stuff about guns and knives was interesting, but wouldn"t be very useful in civilian life, unless you took a job with the Mafia.

The humping back to camp was more relaxed, though Spider had a feeling it shouldn"t have been. If the enemy hadn"t heard them crashing through the woods, he certainly would have heard the C-4 blowing up.

Of course, Charlie didn"t usually come out during the day. Sneaky little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.Smart little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!

All the way down one hill and up the next, Spider intermittently felt a sniper"s sights on his back. But at least he didn"t see anything else interesting.

Schizophrenia (1) 1968 was not a simple time for people to be seeing things that weren"t there. There were legions of people going out of their way, breaking laws while building bridges, or walls, seeking out constructive, revealing hallucinations-but others who were just plain nuts. Or mentally ill. Or temporarily unable to cope with stress in a socially acceptable way.

The medic who gave Spider a couple of tokes from his joint may or may not have been smoking straight marijuana; he may or may not have known exactly what he was smoking. A lot of dope in Vietnam was seasoned with opium, horse tranquilizer, speed, or heroin, any of which might cause one to see odd things. Twelve hours later? Who knows? Every body"s different.