One to Count Cadence

by James Crumley

  I waited until the line was what seemed close enough, and slid my rifle over the wall. Then I wondered how Pete had climbed the ladder with two weapons, then I worried about not mentioning setting battle sights at three hundred yards. The lights of the first jeep were fuzzy in my peep sight, and I waited, and then I screamed.

  The crash of my shot seemed like an explosion in my hands, loud, too loud, and the recoil knocked me back like an unexpected blow. The whole complexion of the night changed. The walled roof, secure and safe as it had seemed earlier, became a naked, frightened place, as if some unnamed part of me had been launched into the distant battle, leaping across the border between a safe here and an unbelievably dangerous there. It wasn’t like I thought it would be. It wasn’t easy to shoot at men, or a grinding noise and light which betrays where men are. I had never thought that it would be otherwise — but it was so frightening, as if I had to cross that time and space and stand stupid and scared and shooting at myself. I was numb, but all the nerves of my body were on fire, fire.

  The others must have felt the shock too. Novotny and Quinn had fired only one or two rounds, Collins a couple more, and Cagle had split the night with a clip-long burst which had jammed his carbine. But Morning fired steadily, rocking with the recoil, then back into firing position, his rhythm broken only by the ping of his clip as the last round ejected and the click and snap as he loaded another.

  I whipped back to the jeeps, sorry they must be gone, and found they had barely moved. I fired again, and again, and the more times I pulled the trigger, the easier it was, the more numb my nerves became. Quickly the rifle was as light as a wand and magically waved, cleanly leading the first jeep, the recoil gone, and I knew, knew, knew I was hitting the jeep, and fired again. Then we were firing and screaming and laughing and lost.

  The beams of many vehicles now splashed everywhere, up and down and around, swinging and bouncing over the grass as if hundreds of hunting giants were running with flashlights. But some jeeps had stopped, and burned like jubilant bonfires. As the Huks passed the gravel road which led to Ops, the first jeep skidded and the second hit it, turning it over in the road, and it rode its passengers for awhile. The third clipped the left rear of the second, trying to swing around it, so both stalled in opposite ditches near where the first burned. The remaining three whipped off the road in a tight, dusty circle, then came back going in the other direction. They caught an AP three-quarter which was following with its lights out, and knocked it off the road. Other vehicles behind it scattered like frightened quail, flying faster the further away they got from the hunters.

  One down, two stopped, three away, and our side stood up to cheer, to shout and fire off-hand at the cluster of wrecked jeeps. We had drawn only a casual answering fire: once or twice a bass string had been plucked over our heads but who knew where it had been aimed, or even come from. The Huks were busy with the Air Police who now had eight or ten jeeps and three-quarters and two small armored riot cars, but they still had a moment for my bunch. Just a moment, but they hit the front of the building with six .50 caliber rounds. The building rocked as the slugs snipped through the cinder blocks as if they were gingerbread. A brick chip or a ricochet kicked Quinn’s M-l out of his hands, but nothing else was hit on the roof. Quinn cursed and crawled after the weapon. There was noticeably less cheering and absolutely no standing any more. A grunt and gurgle came from the other side of Novotny, followed by Cagle’s surprised voice, “I didn’t know I was scared. I didn’t know.”

  Fewer bursts seared away from the two fallen jeeps, then they stopped completely after the two riot cars fired tear gas grenades with their cannon. Gradually all the firing stopped as three men ran out of the gas cloud. Two had their hands in their faces, but one held a rifle. Single rounds and short, concise bursts rattled again until the one with the rifle and one without did flip-flop dances across the road into the ditches. Morning still rocked and fired until he finished the clip. The ping, as his last round ejected, seemed too small a punctuation to end so much noise.

  But of course the night was not over yet. A grinding crash came from the fence behind us. I ran to the back wall. A jeep had hit the corner of the fence and now sat with its right rear wheel hanging three feet up in the wire like a little dog cocking its leg to pee.

  “Who is it?” I shouted down.

  “Why don’t ya’ll turn your goddamn lights on?” a tired voice drawled.

  “Didn’t want any you dumb-ass airmen shooting us,” Cagle sneered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s all over now.”

  “She-it,” the voice said from behind the tilted headlights, “She-it.” Two APs climbed out the driver’s side, then walked toward the road. “Fuckin’ ground-pounders hidin’ in the dark like a bunch a fuckin’ niggers.”

  “Might jes be a might careful callin’ a man that when he got a gun pointed right at ya’ll’s lily white ass,” Morning sang out. “‘Member ya’ll can’t see my ass in th’ dark.” The airmen hurried on.

  I stopped the laughter and chatter before it could start. “Cagle, downstairs and turn on the floodlights. Novotny, Quinn, stay up here. You spot anyone in the grass, don’t fire, but sing out so I’ll know. Collins, Levenson, Haddad, take the inside of the compound, one by the jeep, one at the gate, and one walking.” The lights came on; most of the fires around the wrecks were being extinguished, and headlights were bounding down our road. Things were trying to reach normal, when the jeep slid up behind our three-quarter, and Lt. Dottlinger leaped out and ran for the gate and shouted, “Open up!” as if he were under fire.

  “Of all the bastards in the world…” Morning mused.

  “You didn’t show your badge, sir,” I answered, agreeing with Morning. I had forgotten that Dottlinger was the OD, but I should have known.

  “I haven’t got it. Is that you Krummel? What are you doing on the roof? Sightseeing?”

  “No sir. The Trick is up here.” Jesus, I thought, here we go again, around the chickenshitberry bush.

  “What for?” He peered harder into the lights, a muddled, myopic chicken. “Are those weapons loaded, sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you fire? Did you? I want to know. I’ll have to report this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who authorized you to open the ammunition locker? Who ordered you to open fire? Just who, Sgt. Krummel?”

  “Good question,” I muttered. Levenson giggled.

  “What’s that, sergeant? Damn those lights, anyway,” he said, shielding his eyes.

  “He must really be pissed,” Morning whispered. “He cursed.”

  “We were fired upon, sir. I assumed in an emergency that I was authorized to answer. I couldn’t reach the major, Capt. Saunders, or you, so I assumed responsibility myself.”

  “Oh,” he said, tugging at his ear to let us know he was thinking. “All right,” he said, obviously disappointed. “I suppose we can find a regulation to cover the situation for our report. Open the gate.”

  “Sir, I can’t unlock the gate from here unless you put your badge in the key-box.”

  “I told you, I didn’t have it. I didn’t have time to get it.”

  “Then I’ll have to come down to let you in.” It curdled my blood to lie to the bastard about being fired upon first, changed me from a man to a kid with his fly open. And I didn’t really have to. I had said that I was not worrying about my stripes any more. There must have been guilt on that Apple Tree instead of knowledge — or maybe they are the same. Take two men, stick them in uniforms, tack bars on one, and the other one will find himself guilty. To hell with this man’s army, I thought, Just to hell with it.

  “Okay, the guards I posted, move out. All the rest of you shitheads, downstairs. Clear your weapons before you try to climb down. I don’t want you shooting your own tender asses off.”

  “We’ll back you up, Slag,” Haddad said, slapping me on the shoulder. He could smell trouble for all of them if I got stuck
. “All the way.”

  “Just move out, shopkeeper. Just move out.”

  Downstairs was a mess. Six three-thousand-dollar radios had taken slugs through their respective consoles, and now were bits of wire, plastic, and glass. A couple of typewriters had been hit; type scattered like broken twigs. A swivel chair had been blown over a desk, and the desk’s drawers were hanging out. A sixty-thousand-dollar piece of equipment, our message encoder, had gained a new eye but lost a rectum the size of a basketball.

  “Fourteen chickens and a hand grenade,” Cagle chanted. Levenson hammered at a typewriter with a clenched fist and a wide grin, but the mill answered with only a tilted “E.” Haddad was clucking through the radios like an old woman at a fruit stand looking for a rotten tomato she might get for free. I pushed the three guards out, took the weapons from the rest, and started them unplugging equipment before a fire started, and policing up the junk.

  “Hey, Cagle,” I said casually on my way to the door, “If Dottlinger asks — we were fired on first, okay?”

  “Fuck you, Slag-baby. I ain’t lying to save no lifer’s stripes,” he answered without stopping his broom.

  Where would a man be without friends, I wondered on my way out. They keep us from taking ourselves too seriously, keep silly little things from becoming big…

  But then there are the Lt. Dottlingers whose worlds are constructed of mountainous molehills. He complained about my slowness, then wouldn’t come in. He wanted a look at these Huks, and also thought I’d best fetch a couple of weapons and another man. I went back, got Morning and two carbines.

  “Is Slutfinger very pissed?” Morning asked.

  “Who cares.”

  “You do. All you fucking lifers do.” He had a deadly stillness to his face.

  “Not so much as you think. Besides, he’s too curious to be pissed now. Wants to observe the disaster firsthand, get an eyeful and claim it for a bellyful…”

  “And we have to guard him against dead little fuckers. Where was he, when the lights went out?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t go to the Officer’s Club.”

  “I hear he has the thing going again with Reid’s wife, the turd.”

  “Just be glad Saunders wasn’t here. Trick Two would have charged those jeeps.”

  “I thought you might.” He wasn’t smiling.

  “Huh?”

  “How long have you been waiting for a chance like this.”

  “No longer than you, Morning.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered, his voice tired, as we followed Dottlinger toward the clustered headlights.

  But Morning’s mood couldn’t stop the grin on my face. The carbine seemed very small in my hand, like a toy outgrown. My body was tight, hard, as it was after a workout with the weights, solid. Dottlinger’s nose, Morning’s mood, the lie before — these no longer clouded the night. Not them, nor the sick, greasy nudge of fear. The enemy had risen out of darkness, had stood erect and dared me, and if he paid a price, it seemed only what he owed for the honor of standing. I had been afraid but had acted, and the action transcended, as ever, the emotion. Morality did not matter, nor mortality, only the act, the duty, simple and clear. I could not have chosen otherwise. Hundreds of lines through the space of time had converged in that fire-seared, light-spitted night, and one of the lines was me. Some stopped, some dodged the impact, and others could not have crashed if they wanted to; but mine endured. I too stood and dared, then, now, and forever. The cool night air blessed my face, and whatever throats gagged on the odors of the night, mine didn’t. I breathed only victory as I strode over the gravel into the smoky circle of light.

  People moved in all directions: hospital orderlies tended the wounded, gathered the dead; photographers recorded the scene from all angles; a priest with a pale, yearning face blessed friend and foe alike. A tall Air Force captain came over to Dottlinger, smiling, and extended a congratulatory hand.

  “Lieutenant! I was just on my way down to thank you and your men for their timely help. Understand your men knocked off the first jeep, the one with the cannon on it,” he said, shaking Dottlinger’s surprised hand. I might have been crazy, but this captain was a fool. What had been, however perversely, salvation for me, became a golf match in his mouth. His voice, prideful voice, sullied the world.

  “Sorry, sir, but all the credit goes to Sgt. Krummel here,” Dottlinger answered. I was surprised he didn’t lie. Then he lied. “I was making the courier-run.”

  “Well, I guess I owe you a great big ‘thanks,’ sergeant,” he gleamed.

  “Don’t forget God,” Morning whispered in my ear.

  “No telling how many lives you saved.”

  “Or took,” came the whisper.

  “We really broke their backs this time,” the captain continued. “Three jeeps and ten men here, and another jeep and four men at the gate.” He smiled. “We were waiting for them, all right.”

  “Sir?” I asked.

  “Trap,” he answered, quickly, proudly. “But they pulled a fast one on us.” He frowned slightly. “Came through the gate instead of busting the fence as we expected. But we broke their back, all right.”

  Morning whispered again. “Who the fuck trapped whom?” I heard him walk away. Looking around the field, I couldn’t answer him.

  The captain discussed the Communist problem in Asia, and Dottlinger agreed, but before they resolved it, Tetrick and Capt. Saunders, just back from the States, came wandering across the crowd in civilian clothes. They looked like Town. Capt. Harry smiled as if he loved the entire concept of humanity, and Tetrick frowned as if he were worried about it.

  “Any of our men hurt?” he asked as soon as he saw me. I shook my head but he kept frowning.

  “Everyone all right?” Capt. Harry asked. “Looks like the men got a little action tonight.” He rocked his large body, smiled and slapped me on the shoulder as if I were his brother.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, goddamnit, that’s all right. Trick Two’s a good bunch, and I knew they would do all right.” Dottlinger stopped trying to get his attention, and huffed off. “But wish to hell I’d been here. We’d have run right out and knocked the bastards right off the road. Yes, sir, by God.”

  “Sgt. Rummel did a fine job, Harry. One hell of a fine job,” the airman captain said. Morning was gone, but I heard him whisper, “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Sir,” I asked while he still remembered me, “You don’t need my men for anything tomorrow, do you?”

  “Why?” He and I were no longer comrades-at-arms, but were returned to suspicious officer and crafty sergeant.

  “Well, sir, they’ve had a trip planned for over a month, and I’d hate to see them miss it, after doing such a good job tonight, and they planned to leave tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t know…”

  “Come on, Fred,” Capt. Harry interrupted the captain, “Ease up. You know you slice the ball when you tighten up.” He laughed and slapped the captain on the back.

  “Oh, all right. Take off. We can get statements from you later. You’ve earned a break,” he said. “And thanks again, sergeant.”

  “And thank you, sir.” I excused myself, thanked Capt. Harry, reassured Tetrick, and went to find Morning. The kiss was off the flesh now, and I wanted very much to get to the beach tomorrow and forget… or remember.

  I found Morning squatting in the ditch, watching some debris, a gutted jeep and a half-naked body lying on its face. Exit wounds covered the back like black roses with an occasional gristle petal. But for all the poetry of death, he looked no different than the charred jeep. Morning was alone. The crowd hadn’t found this body yet.

  “Maybe that’s why man invented God,” he said as I walked up behind him. “They saw dead men and understood that dead men weren’t men any more. They had to have something in man they couldn’t kill, something holy in man alive, someplace for man dead to go, something that couldn’t die. Couldn’t die.” He had been waiting for me.
<
br />   “Don’t eat on it, Joe.”

  “A man needs to know what the hell he’s done.”

  “You won’t find out eating his liver. Or yours.”

  “You smug son of a bitch. You’ve got all the answers, don’t you?” He stood up. He was crying. No sobs, just tears. We both remembered who had had the last shots.

  “I only know what questions not to ask,” I said.

  “Slick, smooth counter-puncher, aren’t you? You take all the shots on your shoulders. But you never miss, do you? You fucking bastard.” His voice was quiet and grim. I could only wait.

  “Come on let’s go back to Ops.”

  “Shit,” he sighed. “Shit.”

  Neither of us spoke as he followed me through the high thick grass toward the lights of our building. The air hung warm and heavy in the grass, and the insects swarmed up about our legs, circling and rising to our faces. The tough roots clutched at our feet, and we stumbled and cursed the heat, the bugs, the grass scratching at our eyes, and the darkness. And later we cursed the light when it blinded us.

  7

  Dagupan

  Trick Two packed itself into the Air Force bus with the rented Filipino driver before seven-thirty the next morning. As I came out of the barracks, they greeted me with hoots and jeers for being so foolish as to want breakfast, then booed when I sent half of them back to the Orderly Room to sign out. When they came back, I climbed aboard behind them, swung down the aisle over the stacked K-rations, the garbage can of iced beer, the four cases of beer and six cases of Chianti and Rhine wine, and finally dropped into the rear seat between Morning and Novotny.

  “What are you? an ape?” Cagle sneered, puffing on a huge cigar.

  “Naw. What are you? a forest fart?”

  “Ah, all you fucking Jews are the same,” he answered, blowing smoke my way. “Have a gas attack, you…”

  “Oh, no we’re not,” Levenson simpered at him, waving a limp wrist over the seat as the bus pulled out of the drive.

  “Vhy, there hasn’t been a single Jew in de same house mit a Slagsted-Krummel in twenty-five venerations.”