Walking Wounded

by Lauren Gilley

  Speaking of the old codger, Luke finds him in, where else, the library, staring into the crackling frames with a mug of what is doubtless spiked coffee.

  “Sitting in here all alone?”

  “Nobody’ll turn off the damn news. Had to get away from it.” Will uses the end of his cane to tap the chair beside his, beckoning Luke to come and sit.

  Luke does, reminded of the first day they met, and this same gesture. Then, though, he’d been sure this old man would hate his guts. He’s learned a lot of things he never expected since then.

  He’s still shuffling, and grimaces as he eases into the chair. “Damn. I feel like I’ve turned into you.”

  “Ha. You wish.”

  Luke grins. “Okay. So. No TV news, but how about some personal news.”

  Will makes the vocal equivalent of a shrug.

  “I’m quitting at the magazine and moving down here with Hal. I’m gonna write books.” It spills out like a confession, leaves him light-headed with giddiness. Shit, he’s really doing this, and he’s delighted by the prospect.

  “What kinda books?” Will asks.

  Luke twists the hem of his sweatshirt around his finger and stares at it. “I was actually hoping you’d let me write a book about you.”

  “Well…duh. What did you think I was telling you all that for?”

  That startles a laugh out of Luke. “You buncha…”

  “Assholes,” Will supplies.

  “…were all trying to set me up this whole time.”

  “Huh. Speak for yourself. I just wanted my damn story in a book and I was fresh outta authors.”

  Luke leans back, gets as comfy as possible, and pulls his voice recorder from the pocket of his hoodie. “Why did you want it as a book anyhow?” he asks. “You seemed awfully reluctant when we first met.”

  Will sighs. “I think it’s something that needed telling. Just wasn’t easy to get started, is all.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I guess you want me to finish it, huh?”

  Luke clicks the recorder on. “I think that’d be nice, Will.”

  “Alright, then.”

  ~*~

  August 1951

  It wasn’t all bloodshed.

  There was a guy named Bill that everyone called Booze. When the division was in reserve, he made the production of alcohol his personal crusade. He pilfered every kind of fruit he could find, from the mess tent, from C-rations, from the care packages of other Marines. No one knew where he’d found his barrel, but he poured fruit and treated water into it. After it stewed in the South Korean heat, fermented, Booze poured the nastiest, strongest drink any of them had ever thrown down the hatch.

  Will had had three cups of the stuff, and somehow, Finn had had more.

  But no one had consumed as much as Murray, who now had an uncontrollable case of the hiccups. Which in turn gave Finn the giggles. Will felt like his head was floating, detached, a good three feet above his neck, a sensation that wasn’t unpleasant, and that he didn’t question.

  “No, see, what you gotta do,” Harcourt said, stepping up behind Murray with his own helmet in his hands. “Is wash the hiccups out.”

  “I thought it was scare them out,” Ski said.

  Harcourt shrugged. “Same thing, really.” He tipped his helmet over and dumped cold water over Murray’s head.

  Poor Murray leapt to his feet like a scalded cat, howling, his thin pale hair plastered to his head, water droplets flying off his big ears and the tip of his nose. Will didn’t want to laugh at the kid, and wouldn’t have under normal circumstances. But three cups in, he couldn’t help it, folding over with laughter like the rest of them, eyes running and chest aching.

  “Shit,” Murray said, but he didn’t look or sound mad. In fact, he smiled, shaking the water off with a laugh of his own.

  “Did it work?” Harcourt asked.

  “It–” Murray started, and a massive hiccup shook his whole frame. He sighed. “Nah, guess not.”

  Harcourt frowned down into his helmet, looking a little cross-eyed. He swayed gently to one side and didn’t seem to notice. “Well. Maybe that wasn’t enough of a shock.”

  “More water,” Murkowski said, and snapped his fingers. “You need more water.”

  “That’s it,” Hertz agreed.

  “Whatcha think, Finn?” Harcourt asked. PFC though he might have been, the other privates had long since detected that magnetic quality in Finn that had always drawn Will so close. His opinion was always looked to for a tie-breaker.

  “I think you’re all fucking crazy,” Finn said, knuckling tears out of his eyes.

  “Alright, that’s settled,” Hertz said. “To the well!”

  “To the well!” the others echoed.

  Obliged to watch the drama to its completion, Will staggered to his feet.

  “Ugh,” Finn grunted, and held up a hand.

  “You old drunk,” Will said, and pulled him upright.

  Finn only swayed a little. “If I had your big ol’ stork legs, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “They come in handy sometimes.”

  They trooped down the hill toward the well, shoving, jostling, and talking too loud. Will and Finn walked a few paces behind, like the parents of overexcited children. That, or maybe it was the liquor, left Will warm inside, content and unworried. It was moments like these, walking side-by-side with Finn, when this all seemed a grand adventure, and he didn’t miss home so much. Being together was more important than their location.

  At the well, Harcourt brought the bucket up, leaning heavily on the stone wall that surrounded it like a stiff wind might blow him right down through the hole. He looked precarious and unsteady – Booze’s hooch would do that to a man – but the bucket finally appeared, slopping water everywhere, to the cheers of drunk Marines.

  Murray shut his eyes, braced himself, and Ski threw the whole bucket of water right at his face. He looked like a drowned puppy.

  “Did it work?” Hertz asked.

  Murray hiccupped.

  “Shit,” Ski said, with great feeling.

  “It’s gotta be more,” Harcourt said.

  “And how’s that gonna work?” Hertz asked.

  The three of them stared at one another, then Ski said, “He’s gotta jump in.”

  Will didn’t know if it was all a joke on Murray, or if the boys were really that drunk. He himself was too drunk to care either way, and could only watch, dumb and loopy, as Murray climbed up onto the wall and jumped feet-first down into the well.

  There was a splash, and a yell. “It’s fucking cold!” he shrieked, and everyone nearly died of laughter again.

  “Come on,” Finn said when the arduous process of getting Murray out of the well began. “I don’t wanna be here when Sergeant chews their ass out.”

  Will agreed, and they turned to begin the walk back up the hill to their tent.

  Away from the others, the smile fell off Finn’s face. He shoved his hands in his pockets and grew contemplative, the full moon bright on his face. Will could tell he was in that strange limbo between too much drink to make sense, and just enough to say something he shouldn’t.

  “Got a letter from Leena this morning.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You know what she said? She said, ‘I hope you don’t have to kill anyone, but if you do, I hope it isn’t terrible.’ She wrote that.” He turned to Will, teeth showing. “I mean, what the hell kinda woman says something like that?”

  One with both feet planted on the ground, Will thought. Leena wasn’t the kind of woman who’d shrink away from the thought of blood or unpleasantness. He thought she could have been on the wagon train, splitting logs for a rough cabin with her husband. But he thought perhaps Finn saw her as more delicate than she was. So he said, “One who’s worried about you.”

  “What would she even know about killing?” Finn kicked a rock that skittered off into the weedy tufts along the camp road.

  Women knew all a
bout bringing life into the world; Will figured they understood the mysteries of taking it too.

  “Why isn’t she out dress shopping?” Finn continued. “She’s writing to me about killing instead.” His voice took on a bitter, angry edge.

  “She’s just worried, that’s all. What, you’d rather hear about dress shopping?”

  “Yes.” And then: “Maybe. I dunno.”

  Then Will understood. If Leena wrote to him about mundane Leesburg business, about shopping, and the gossip at the beauty parlor, and whatever new crazy kick his little sisters were on, the letters were an escape. He needed to lose himself in her tidy script and pretend, for the time it took him to read the letter, that she was far removed from the mud, and bullets, and sweaty smelly roughness of the men. Will hadn’t realized that Finn – king of the Unflappables – had needed such an escape. He felt like a terrible and inadequate friend, suddenly.

  “Finn.” He came to a halt and Finn did a half-step later, turning back to face him. His eyes were shiny. Not tears, but emotion helped along with alcohol. “Is it…are you…” He couldn’t ask if his friend was afraid, or if he regretted this. “I’m sorry,” he said instead.

  Finn smiled and shook his head. “Shit, Will. Don’t be sorry. That’s just the thing – I like this.”

  “But…”

  Finn took his elbow and shoved him the last few paces to their tent. They were the only ones inside, and the small space looked larger with just the two of them.

  “Look,” Finn said, sitting down on his cot and leaning forward, tone confidential. “I’m good at being a Marine.” He wasn’t bragging; it was a simple fact. “And I think there was a part of me, back home, that always worried – even though I knew I wanted to join up, I wanted it more than anything – that I might not be as ready as I thought. That I might not be cut out for it, you know?”

  Will nodded.

  “But it’s – God, will, it’s so easy. I don’t even have to think about it. I don’t…” He bit his lip. In a small voice, he said, “The killing doesn’t bother me. Isn’t it supposed to bother me?” His gaze lifted to Will’s, pleading.

  “I don’t know,” Will admitted. “I don’t think it doesn’t bother you. I think it’s more setting aside the way it makes you feel for now, so you can do it.”

  “What if I like it?”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Will swallowed, once and then again, throat too dry. “It was different for me after we got here. After I saw what the South Koreans had been through. It’s evil what the North did to them. That’s what you’re feeling,” Will said. “You know that, and so you don’t feel bad about shooting them.”

  Finn didn’t respond.

  “You’re a good Marine,” Will said, firmly. “Our country needs good Marines.”

  “But what happens when we stop being Marines?”

  “That’s just it, though: there’s no such thing as an ex-Marine.”

  Finn smiled, a small scrap of a true smile, and reached, unconsciously, to cover the picture he carried against his heart.

  September 1951

  Showers and laundry service were infrequent. The last stop, they’d stripped off their filthy dungarees and added them to the vat; they’d come out on the other side of the showers to dungarees with other men’s names and serial numbers on them. Finn marched in front of Will wearing someone named Lindsey’s clothes. Thank God for dog tags, Will kept thinking, morbidly, or else someone might mistake their corpses for those of other men.

  The dirt kicked up by their boots crusted their salty skin until they looked like scaled and textured undersea creatures. So when the river drew into view, it was met with joyous shouts.

  “Thank Jesus,” someone said.

  Will set down his pack and propped his rifle carefully against it. Beside him, Finn was already tugging off his boots. Will saw him fold his shirt up very carefully, the breast pocket situated on top to protect the photo of Leena.

  Naked, they all waded out into the cold, dark water, shivering a little, but sighing in relief.

  Will sank down deep, blowing bubbles, letting the cool surface close over the top of his head. He felt it sift through his hair and caress his grimy skin, stripping off the road dust. He opened his mouth and let it pass across his parched tongue, spitting it back out without swallowing. He just wanted the wetness around his teeth.

  They swam for a half hour, and stretched out in the grass to let the sun dry them. It was the best he’d felt in miles, warm and relaxed.

  After, they dressed, packed up, filled their canteens and started upstream.

  “Makes you feel human again,” Ski said, and there were murmurs of agreement.

  Will took a deep breath and let the oxygen fill his lungs, chasing away the last of his soreness. He felt like he could march all night.

  They humped through the deep brush along the river, turned a long slow corner…

  And there were the bodies. Bloated and grossly white, tattered clothes caught in the current like streamers. Two dozen dead North Koreans, stiff limbs locked together to form a grisly raft, the whole mass of them caught between the banks and on protruding rocks. Vacant holes where eyes had been. Silver flashes beneath the water: fish nibbling.

  Will thought about the cool relief of the water flowing on his tongue.

  His stomach surged…but he managed to keep the bile down.

  Murray staggered over into the bushes and vomited noisily.

  Bradshaw wasn’t Catholic, but he made the sign of the cross and marched on.

  November 1951

  “What the fuck do you mean the fucking door came off?!”

  “It fucking came off!”

  The helicopter was a Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw, and its door had indeed fucking come off. Something had gone wrong with the hinges, either a malfunction, or maybe Ski had been lifting more than he thought and just ripped the damn thing clean off. In any event, there was no way to fix it now, and they needed to get off the mountain.

  Prior to leaving for Camp Pendleton, Will had never flown in a plane before. He’d white-knuckled his armrests the entire time. But the helicopter? That was a whole new kind of terror.

  They’d needed to engage with an advancing regiment of Chinese that were trying to cross almost impassable, rocky, mountainous terrain. Rather than make the hike to meet them, the Marines had been air-lifted in and were now being air-lifted out.

  Then Ski had to go and pull the door off.

  “Just get the hell in!” Corporal Caldwell had to shout to be heard above the droning of the blades.

  It was a tight squeeze with all their gear. Will perched with his knees jacked up to his chin. The concentrated stink of them – grungy dungarees, BO, fresh sweat, and mud – was so commonplace at this point that it didn’t register; it was just the way the world around him smelled. He noticed brown flecks on Finn’s pants that looked like blood. The sight didn’t faze him anymore.

  When they were all secure, Caldwell shouted for the pilot to “go!” and the thrumming beat of the blades shifted, its tone changing. The ugly, bulbous little craft shuddered and lurched, and then began its climb.

  The door gaped open.

  “Ah, Jesus, I’m gonna fall out,” Murray said. “I just know it.”

  “Don’t shut up and I’ll throw you out,” Ski offered.

  The ground below them grew flatter and farther away as the chopper rose. Will felt his head spin; his lungs tightened in his chest. The door…that damn open door…

  A gust of cold air funneled into it, sharp as jagged glass against their skin. The chopper bucked. Murray yelled and grabbed frantically at his seat. Full-on vertigo threatened to claim Will.

  He felt a hand in his, suddenly, rough and strong, lacing its fingers with his own. Finn.

  “If we fall out,” he shouted, “we’ll fall out together!” His laugh was fractured and crazy, and undeniably joyful.

  “Thanksgiving dinner,” Caldwell chan
ted. “Just think about Thanksgiving dinner.” A hot holiday dinner had been promised them back at camp.

  Will closed his eyes and thought of turkey and gravy. He gripped Finn’s hand until he thought he might break it. Together. Together, together, together, his mantra.

  ///

  Winter of 1951

  They knew to expect the cold this year. Back in February, it had been the single most shocking aspect of the war: the untenable cold. This year, they had better boots: solid rubber thermal numbers with spaces between multiple layers to help with insulation. December brought a stalemate, and so when the snows fell, they were all hunkered down at camp, drinking as much hot coffee as they were allotted, sitting close together around fires and the hot little coal stoves in the tents.

  The Big Snow started one morning and just didn’t stop, dumping foot after foot onto camp, a total whiteout beyond the tent flap that Michigan-born Ski whistled and exclaimed over. “Never like that back home,” he insisted. “These Koreans don’t fuck around when it comes to snow.”

  Will pulled his knee-length coat on and snugged his fur cap down low over his ears the next morning. With the collar turned up, all that was visible was his eyes, and even that felt too cold. He put a hand on Finn’s shoulder; his friend was still curled up in his mummy bag on top of his cot, huddled up like a fat gray worm.

  “Snow’s stopped,” he said, quietly. “And they’ve got hot food flying up this morning. Let’s go.”

  Finn rolled toward him with a weak little sniffle and the problem became immediately apparent. Finn’s eyes were at half-mast, the tip of his nose red. He sniffled again and said, voice congested, “Gimme a minute.”

  “Finn.” Will clucked with concern, just the way his mother used to when he was sick as a boy. He pressed his palm to Finn’s forehead and found it alarmingly hot. “Jesus, you’re burning up.”

  “’M fine,” he muttered. “Jus’ need coffee.”

  “And maybe some soup, yeah?”

  “What’s wrong with that maniac?” Harcourt asked.