MATT HELM: The War Years

by Keith Wease

  I smiled back, relaxing a little. Maybe he wasn't such a jackass after all. "Okay, you're the boss. When do we get started?"

  "First thing in the morning. Get a good night's sleep, 'cause you'll need it. I'll be by at six o'clock to take you to breakfast."

  Chapter 4

  They've got a funny damn way of waking you up in that place. First they tell you what time to get up so you can set your alarm clock. Then, about an hour or so before that, they walk into your room and start shooting holes in the ceiling with a cannon. Well, it's not really a cannon, just a little old .45, and he didn't really shoot holes in the ceiling. He used blanks. At least I hoped they were blanks - in that place you never knew for sure.

  That first morning, Vance walked into my room at about four o'clock and fired off three shots. I came out of the bed like a shot - pun intended - and crashed to the floor all wrapped up in the bedclothes. Even then, to my later satisfaction, I had enough presence of mind to crawl under the bed with my shorts unsoiled. That, of course, wasn't the proper response, but at least I was thinking and not just scared shitless. The scatological terminology is Vance's. He told me later that a lot of the recruits actually shit themselves - which I guess, is how the phrase originated.

  When I heard Vance laughing, I crawled out from under the bed as he turned on the light. I didn't hit him - after all I knew he had a gun - I just thought about it. He could tell what I was thinking and, to my amazement, grinned in approval.

  "Good," he said, "you don't scare easily. That's the biggest step."

  I was beginning to realize that this had been part of my training, not just a stupid prank. "The hell I wasn't scared," I yelled. "I damn near had a heart attack."

  "That's permissible, just as long as you're not too scared to act. Some of the kids we get here are on their way back out the first time I pull this trick on them." He was a fine one to talk about kids - he couldn't be more than a year or two older than me - but in dangerous professions, especially the military, the "kid" label is applied more by experience, or lack thereof, than by chronology.

  "Where's your gun?" When I nodded toward the beat-up dresser against the wall, he walked over and picked it up and tossed it to me. I think that scared me more than the shots he'd fired. I'd been taught never to throw a loaded gun - they have a nasty habit of going off when dropped, something you never see in the movies where they're forever pitching pistols around with no loud bangs.

  I caught the .45 with both hands open, cushioning it. You don't grab at it; you might grab the trigger. I quickly checked the pistol since it had been out of my possession for a while. I saw a note of respect in Vance's eyes. It seemed to be my day for compliments, spoken and unspoken.

  "I see you don't go in for loaded guns flying through the air. Neither do I. Just so you don't get the wrong idea, it's not loaded - well not really. Those are blanks." I removed the magazine and looked at it. The bullets looked real to me, not the flat wads that are usually stuffed into the shell in blank cartridges. "Oh, those are real bullets, there's just no powder in the cartridges," he explained as he saw my puzzled expression. "We can't afford to lose any instructors to overanxious or scared recruits."

  He walked over and handed me a new magazine. "Here are some real ones for later. Leave the one with blanks on the dresser so you can put it back in tonight. Get dressed and let's go to breakfast."

  Apparently, the canteen never closed. This time, the counter was filled with scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon and that uniquely military concoction, politely called "SOS" -shit on a shingle for you more vulgar types. Actually, I kind of liked it, although - like every other G.I. - I'd never admit it out loud. Vance preferred the eggs, at least this morning.

  This time, we were the only ones in the place. I decided that the cook must sneak in and out when nobody's around, being the shy sort. Vance seemed to be uncomfortable just eating and continued to talk as we ate. "Rule one, always keep your gun handy, even in bed. Don't put it under the pillow; that's the first place someone will look. Put it down under the covers, alongside your thigh. After a couple nights you get used to it and stop rolling over on top of it or knocking it on the floor."

  "Who do you expect to come looking for it - besides you, I mean?"

  He laughed. "Just anyone in general. You'll be going into combat eventually, of a sort. Just pay attention. Okay if I call you Matt?"

  "Sure, why not?"

  "Okay, Matt. This morning was important and it will continue for a while. The idea is to teach you to wake up ready. The next time you're rudely woken up - awakened? - I want to see you come up with the gun in your hand. We'll continue practicing until it's second nature to you. Until then, keep the blanks in the gun at night. We don't want to lose me, okay?"

  "Gotcha. Grab gun full of blanks."

  "Or a knife. Or any other weapon you can get your hands on. Most people waking up someone from a sound sleep expect him to be groggy and disoriented. If you wake up ready, with a gun in your hand, you may buy those extra seconds that is the difference between you dead and the other guy dead."

  I nodded, more serious this time. I was beginning to get the idea - and liking it.

  After breakfast, we went back to my bungalow and Vance had me practice field stripping the .45 until it got light outside. We then got into the jeep he'd brought with him earlier that morning, and drove out to the practice range - one of them. There seemed to be several. Well, it's a pretty desolate country out there in the southwest and there are lots of wide open spaces. The pistol range had the usual man-sized silhouette targets and Vance had me fire off several dozen practice rounds - with each hand - to get the feel of the .45. I discovered later that practicing with the weak hand was a matter of official policy, not just Vance's idea.

  After deciding I was a pretty good shot, at least with my right hand, we got down to serious business. Vance went to the jeep and pulled out a bag of round, white plastic Ping-Pong balls, each a little smaller than a golf ball. He walked downrange about thirty-five feet and dropped several on the ground. Returning, he told me, "See if you can hit one of these. No, don't aim, just point and shoot."

  I got one. It only took me seven shots. The second one only took me five shots. Vance came over and took the gun from me and slipped in a new magazine. Turning quickly, he pulled the trigger four times and four white balls jumped up into the air. He reached into the bag with his left hand and took out two more balls. Throwing them into the air downrange, he hit both before they started back down. I was impressed and said so.

  "It's called trick shooting," he explained. "It is accomplished by just yanking out your gun and firing, not seeing the sights, not seeing the gun, even; not seeing anything but the mark. Wishing the bullet home; and if you do it right, with enough concentration, you can toss a marble into the air and hit it with the pellet from a BB gun held at the hip. It seems like magic. Just how it works, nobody's ever told me, but it works, if you think the slug home. That is, it works if you're in practice. You have to practice, to keep the concentration."

  He paused, letting it sink in. "Try it again. Forget the gun, just concentrate on the ball." I did, getting four out of ten. I kept trying, getting better and better. He was right; the more I concentrated, the more shots went where I wanted them to go. I was enjoying myself and he couldn't get me away from the range until we ran out of balls. Within two weeks, I could even shoot one of them out of the air, but I never did get good enough to match his two.

  In the ensuing days, I practiced with a variety of pistols and found one that fit me perfectly. It was a beautiful - to me - .22 Colt Woodsman and I fell in love. Vance noticed my preference and told me I could keep it if I liked those little toys. I made a few choice remarks about his noisy beast of a .45 and we ended up agreeing to disagree, in a friendly fashion. From pistols we went on to rifles - all kinds of rifles - where I did much better. Not as good as Vance at first, but close enough. He still managed to teach me a few things, and toward the end of my trai
ning we were pretty evenly matched.

  I even got a chance to teach him something about rifles. He came up with a brand new .30-06 and had me sight it in. I got the telescopic sight roughly centered, so the shots would at least go on the paper at a hundred yards. A standard .30-06 is a lot of gun to shoot from rest, prone, where the body can't rock back with the recoil but has to stay and take the punishment. I started shooting for group, five rounds, using a different bullet weight for each target. You never know what bullet a gun is going to like best until you try it. After I'd finished, I went down to inspect the targets. I put a pocket ruler across the best group, the 150-grain load. Four and a quarter inches. A bolt-action rifle that won't group within two inches at a hundred yards isn't worth having, and I ought to get one and a half even with factory ammunition.

  After putting up fresh targets, I got out the tools and took the gun apart. It looked like the stock had warped a little, which they often do on those light rifles. Vance looked at me in amazement.

  "This isn't something they teach in training, is it?" I asked. I pointed at the stock. "It's supposed to be a free-floating barrel without any wood contact, but we seem to be getting some pressure here that's throwing it off. If I ream out the barrel channel a bit I can put in a few cardboard shims to free things up around the action." I finished as he watched in interest.

  "Where did you learn that?" he finally asked.

  "I picked it up as a kid. I always used to be crazy about guns. And knives and swords and all the rest of the stuff that tickles a kid's bloodthirsty imagination. That's probably why they picked me out of the Army after a couple months and put me into this outfit."

  I slipped the bolt back into the rifle and shot another five with the 150-grain load. Satisfied, I sighted it in three inches high at a hundred yards. That'd put her just about on the button at two-fifty.

  I could tell he was impressed. Regardless of any small friction between us, we were developing a healthy respect for one another.

  By the end of the fourth week Vance was satisfied with my "wake-up-ready" responses - he'd vary the time and occasionally skip a night or two - and let me sleep uninterrupted. Not that he actually said anything - he just stopped waking me up and after a few days I assumed he was satisfied. This was a welcome relief because I needed all the sleep I could get at that point - we were into hand-to-hand combat and I was sore all the time.

  It turned out Vance's specialty - aside from pistols - was a particularly lethal sport called Okinawan Karate, as distinguished from the more stylized and less deadly Japanese variety. It was several centuries old and not well-known in the U.S. He told me an immigrant sensei - teacher - from Okinawa had established a Karate school, called a dojo, in his home town and he'd spent several years learning the sport, eventually earning a Black Belt. It was an interesting combination of offense, defense and concentration - which probably explained his success at trick shooting.

  Vance had added a few variations which, he said, would have dismayed his sensei, an essentially peaceful man. Apparently, the original form of Karate, while deadly to various boards and bricks, was less damaging to human beings - you were supposed to "pull" the blow and not actually touch your opponent, in training at least. The version Vance taught was based on the theory, "no pain, no gain." Oh, he pulled his punches, just enough not to really break anything while still getting the point across. For a while I had quite an assortment of bruises, but I learned, in self-defense. I learned over a half-dozen ways to kill a man with my bare hands and at least twenty bones that could be broken with just the edge of my hand.

  I think to really get into the hand-to-hand stuff, you've got to start as a kid. I'd always been big enough to avoid most of the fights kids get into - not that I had that many opportunities, being brought up on a ranch outside town - and my father discouraged fist-fighting in any case. I really didn't think I could do much damage to anyone with any training, but I could handle any 90-pound weakling who wasn't looking. Apparently, Vance felt the same way. The last thing he said, disgusted, at the end of that phase of training was, "For Christ's sake, Matt, the idea is to disable or kill your opponent, not just get him pissed off. We'd better teach you to use a knife."

  And that's what we did next, fortunately for my ego. Even from the start, Vance was no match for me with a knife - any kind of knife, even the long ones. Toward the end we had reversed roles and I was teaching him the finer points of fencing. Although I tried to conceal it, he could tell I was pleased with myself. What he said at that point stayed with me. "Matt," he said, "Don't worry about hurting my feelings. I learned a long time ago, when you come across a real expert who wants to help you, don't be proud, let him. Or her. En Garde."

  I still think that the most important things Vance taught me had to do with attitude, not skill. Well, maybe that was the idea. We might never really be friends, but if he ever wants to tell me anything, I'll listen.

  Shortly after that, Vance told me we were done with the first phase of my training and I was being sent to Washington D.C. for psychological testing and he hoped to see me back in a week or so for the final phase. Frank's brother picked me up - I suppose he really wasn't the brother of the driver who brought me to the Ranch, but he was as sparse with words and emotion as Frank - and drove me to the nearest airport, never mind the exact location. The next day I was starting the battery of tests designed to find out if I was really outrageously insane enough to join the outfit or just moderately crazy and only fitted for the Army. At least that was my impression. It didn't have to be right.

  Chapter 5

  Even after the training and the tests, I'll admit that I found the idea a little startling, even in wartime, when Mac first explained to me exactly what this group was that I'd been picked to join. I could still remember, very distinctly, the pep talk we'd got from Mac, each one of us new recruits, the first time we actually saw him. At least I suppose the others all got it, too, but I can't really speak for anyone but myself.

  I remember the shabby little office - like all the subsequent shabby little offices in which I was to make my reports and receive my orders - and the compact, gray-haired man with the cold gray eyes, and the speech he gave while I stood before him at attention. The man was, I judged, a well-preserved forty-five, with the rangy, powerful build of a college football star who'd put on a little middle-aged weight and would have put on more if it hadn't been for the rowing machine and the handball court. His face had a hint of Lincolnesque angularity, of which he was aware. It was the only angularity about him. In all other respects he was a real smoothie. He was in civvies, and he hadn't called for any military courtesies. I didn't know his rank if he had any, but I wasn't taking any chances.

  Somehow, I already knew this outfit was for me if they'd have me; and I wasn't too proud to take what advantage I could get from a good stiff back and liberal use of the word "sir." I'd already been in the Army long enough to know they'd practically give the joint to anybody who could shoot, salute and say "sir." Anyway, when you're six feet four, even if kind of skinny and bony, the word doesn't sound humble, merely nice and respectful.

  "Yes, sir," I said, "I wouldn't mind learning why I've been assigned here, sir, if it's time for me to know."

  He said, "You've got a good record, Helm. Handy with weapons. Westerner, aren't you?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Hunter?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Upland game?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Waterfowl?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Big game?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Deer?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Elk?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Bear?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Dress them out yourself?"

  "Yes, sir. When I can't get somebody to help me."

  "That's fine," he said. "For this job we need a man who isn't scared of getting his hands bloody."

  He was looking at me in a measuring and weighing man
ner as he went into his talk. As he explained it, it was merely a matter of degree. I was in the Army anyway. If the enemy attacked my unit, I'd shoot back, wouldn't I? And when the orders came through for us to attack, I'd jump up and do my damnedest to kill some more. I'd be dealing with them en masse under these conditions; but I was known to be pretty good with a rifle, so in spite of my commission it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that one day I'd find myself squinting through a telescopic sight, waiting for some individual poor dope to expose himself four or five hundred yards away. But I'd still just be selecting my victims by blind chance. What if I were offered the opportunity to serve my country in a less haphazard way?

  Mac paused here, long enough to indicate that I was supposed to say something. I said, "You mean, go over and stalk them in their native habitat, sir?"

  Chapter 6

  My second trip to the ranch was more relaxed. Good old Frank was waiting at the airport to pick us up - I'd acquired a companion on the trip down from Washington, a guy called Daryl. That was his code name, as mine was Eric. After I'd failed to walk out in horror following my first meeting with Mac, I'd been assigned the name and instructed to use it exclusively on official business, including training. It wasn't really so much a cloak and dagger tactic as it was a means of giving each of us something to call the other without giving away unnecessary information such as our real names and ranks.