“Do what?”
“You know damned well what.”
Corva stayed silent. At length he responded, “I did it because I couldn’t sit there and watch you walk jauntily to a firing squad with your fucking stiff upper lip.”
“Well, I did it my way, and you did it your way. And the result was a dog and pony show.” He glanced at his watch and asked, “How long will this take, and how long will I get?”
Corva said, “They have a lot to consider. Sometimes this takes longer than the verdict. It could go on for days.”
Tyson nodded. “Take a guess then. What’s your experience with sentences, or shouldn’t I ask?”
Corva smiled thinly, then said, “I could have fifty years’ experience with sentences, and I couldn’t call this one. It could be anywhere from no jail time to ten . . . fifteen years.”
Tyson sat in a visitor’s chair and looked at the clock. “Eleven-fifteen hours.”
“What is that in real time?”
“Quarter after eleven.”
“Well, be prepared for a wait.”
“Is it your policy to stay with the accused while the sentence is deliberated?”
“I guess. We’re authorized to go back to the lockup if somehow you’d feel more comfortable there.”
“I think we’ll stay here.”
“Right.”
They sat in silence for some time, then Corva began speaking, “You remember what we used to say in Nam—you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. So kill them all and let Saint Peter sort them out. Well, the first time I heard that, I thought it was funny. Then when I saw it happen—the killing of civilians—it wasn’t so funny. But by the time I was ready to go home, it started to make sense, and that scared the hell out of me. I think—I know—that when you’re there, you lose touch with external reality and create your own inner reality. That was the missing piece in your little speech. The gap between knowing what your duty was, deciding not to do it, then feeling fine about deciding not to do it even though it went against what you believed in.”
Tyson lit a cigarette. “I keep going back there in my mind. Trying to experience it again, trying to feel what I felt, think what I thought. But the more I try to do that, the more elusive the whole thing becomes. It’s funny that my most vivid and, I think, accurate memories are of the first days and weeks in Nam. While I was still open to outside reality. But as the weeks went by, with each passing month I began to block, to distort, and especially to deny. We, all of us, got heavily into denial. You could have five men killed in the morning, and by lunch they didn’t exist. You could kill a peasant through carelessness, and before you even reloaded, he was a hard-core VC armed to the teeth. So maybe what happened at the hospital was not what Brandt said or Farley said or what I told you or what Kelly told all of us. Maybe it was something else. Maybe if I’d gone into battalion headquarters and seen the colonel and told him what had happened, he’d have told me I was crazy. He’d wave an after-action report in my face, and show me my proposal for a Silver Star and tell me to get a grip on myself.”
Corva said, “Oh, Christ, Ben, what a place that was. Are we sane now?”
“You bet.”
“Right.” Corva said, “By the way, I have a verbal message for you from a Major Harper. Want to hear it?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Tyson drew on his cigarette. “What’s she want?”
Corva said, “She wants you to know that she’s being released from active duty at midnight tonight. She says she would like to buy you a drink tomorrow at a midtown bar of your choice.”
Tyson thought about that awhile, then said, “There was a woman I could have gone for.”
“You did. But, hey, that’s another story. Make her take you to a hotel bar—then if it’s going right, you just have to point up.”
Tyson smiled. “You’re disgusting. If I meet her, I want you along to chaperon.”
“I’ll be there. And so will you.”
Tyson looked at him but said nothing. After a few minutes he said, “That Sindel woman isn’t bad-looking either. Must be the uniform. Why am I so attracted to uniforms?”
“Don’t know. Ask your shrink.”
“My shrink once said that when a soldier goes to war, all is pre-forgiven.”
“Did he? I wish I had him on the board.”
“He’s dead.”
“Right.”
They both glanced at their watches. Corva said, “Hungry?”
“No.” Tyson lit another cigarette. “Why do you think I will be able to meet Karen Harper in a bar tomorrow?”
Corva replied, “I’m optimistic. So, apparently, is Harper. But I think some of them want to hand you a jail sentence—to show that the military doesn’t give a damn why you failed to act like an officer. That’s the traditional approach. They court-martialed that Captain Bucher who surrendered the Pueblo. They would have court-martialed Custer had he survived the massacre. The military gets off on showing toughness when compassion is called for and compassion when toughness is called for. What they say, in effect, is, ‘We don’t live by civilian concepts of right and wrong. We have our own code and our own requirements.’ Where else can a man get five years in jail for dozing off at the wrong time and wrong place?”
Tyson nodded. “I thought about that. Sproule was telling them to go easy. But he’s a judge. He’s not really part of the corps. Those infantry officers are coming from someplace else. Aren’t they?”
“We’ll see.”
“Tell me a war story, Corva. I’m bored. Tell me about the tunnel and the Bronze Star they gave you.”
“Okay,” Corva began with enthusiasm. “I crawled into this tunnel, and it narrowed and narrowed until I had less than a foot of free space around me.”
“I know that.”
“Right. So I flip on the miner’s lamp, and there’s this Oriental gentleman there who I assumed was a member of the People’s Liberation Army, though I saw no shoulder or collar insignia on his black pajamas. So I reach back into my pocket—it was a tight space, remember—and pull out my little plastic card and quickly peruse the Rules of Engagement—”
Tyson laughed.
“Don’t laugh at me. This is serious. So I’m up to rule six or seven now, and I think I find what I’m looking for—‘Meeting a gook face-to-face in a dark tunnel.’ And it says, ‘Shoot first and issue a challenge afterward.’ So—”
There was a knock on the door, and Tyson looked at the wall clock. Five after noon. Lunch. The door opened, and Sergeant Larson stepped into the office and, remembering last time, said immediately, “The board has reached a sentence. Will you come with me, sir?”
Tyson stood quickly, snatched his hat off the desk, and was out the door, followed by Corva and Larson. They strode quickly down the corridor, turned, and entered the chapel. Tyson walked directly to the defense desk and stood behind it. Corva caught up and took his place beside Tyson.
Tyson glanced out over the pews and saw they were half empty. Obviously no one expected this so soon. But Marcy, David, and his mother were being escorted up the aisle by an MP. Other people were hurrying in.
Pierce, Weinroth, and Longo sat at their table, but for the first time the table was clear of papers.
The board sat stoically in their seats, not speaking to one another as they’d sometimes done before Sproule arrived.
The sergeant at arms marched to the middle of the floor and called out, “All rise.”
Colonel Sproule strode in and went to the pulpit. He squinted out over the pews, hesitated, then said, “The court will come to order.”
Pierce stood. “All parties to the trial who were present when the court closed are now present.”
Sproule turned to Colonel Moore. “I have a communication that you have reached a sentence. Is that correct?”
Moore replied from his seat. “That is correct.”
Sproule turned to Tyson. “Lieutenant Benjamin Tyson, will you report to the presid
ent of the court?”
Tyson stood, and Corva stood with him.
There were still people coming into the chapel, but there was no noise beyond the sound of soft footsteps and from the open doors, the occasional splash of a car going through the wet street.
Tyson walked across the red-carpeted floor and stood again directly in front of Colonel Moore, who rose. Tyson saluted and stood at attention.
Colonel Moore looked him squarely in the eye, as he said, “Lieutenant Benjamin Tyson, it is my duty as president of this court to inform you that the court, in closed session, in full and open discussion, and upon secret written ballot, all of the members concurring, sentence you to dismissal from the Army of the United States and to forfeit all pay and allowances that may be due you or have accrued as a result of your past and present service as a commissioned officer in the Army of the United States.”
There was no sound in the chapel, as if, Tyson thought, someone had turned off the audio portion. He waited for a sound, but there was none, and Colonel Moore seemed to have finished, but he couldn’t have, and Tyson stood there until finally Colonel Moore sat down.
Someone in the pews was weeping, everyone was standing. Tyson found Corva beside him. Corva said, “Well, are you going to stand there, or do you want to go home?”
“Home. I want to go home.”
Colonel Sproule looked at Colonel Pierce and asked the required question, “Has the prosecution any other case to try at this time?”
Pierce already had his briefcase in his hand and in a breach of military etiquette spoke as he was on his way to the side door, “No, your honor, I have nothing further.”
Colonel Sproule announced, “The court will adjourn to meet on future call.”
Tyson turned toward the side door, and Corva gently turned him toward the communion rail. “We’re leaving through the front door this time. Lots of people out there want to say hello.”
Two lines of MPs had formed up the wide center aisle, and Tyson and Corva walked between them joined by Marcy, then David, and his mother, who kissed him. No one spoke as they headed out into the October rain. Marcy took his hand and squeezed it as they entered the vestibule.
Out on the rain-splashed steps, Tyson was greeted by the sight of umbrellas, hundreds of umbrellas, and as he walked down the steps with his family, the umbrellas tilted to cover them from the rain. Tyson kept his hand in Marcy’s and put his arm around his son. “Let’s go home,” he said.
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