The fetal monitor showed the baby’s pulse at 115, as high as it had been in a week. Probably a response to maternal stress, Liz thought. But the doctors had been fretting over the child’s low heart rate, so any elevation was a good thing. Maybe she should have Betty come by more often.
“So, do you need anything, sweetie?” Betty asked. “Anything I can get for you? Anything I can do?”
“I’m fine, Betty, thanks. I feel very well looked out for. But thank you.”
The formalities completed, there was a beat of silence. The specter of more small talk loomed, but to Liz’s relief the phone on the bedside table rang just then, as it did almost every day at this time. Mike’s mother, no doubt, checking on what vegetables the kids could be persuaded to eat, or Linnell Washington with some fresh plan from Temperance and Kathie. Liz reached for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Mrs. O’Reilly? This is Miranda Simmons.”
“Oh, hello, Miranda.” Liz liked Betty’s daughter, almost in spite of herself. Miranda was a crisp, no-nonsense girl, as energetically good-hearted as her mother but somehow without Betty’s need to rub your nose in it.
“I told her she could reach me here, if she needed to,” Betty said. “I hope that’s okay.”
Liz nodded, no problem. “How are you, Miranda? Congratulations on the scholarship.”
“Thank you, Mrs. O’Reilly. We’ve all been praying for you and the baby.”
“Thank you, honey. That means a lot right now.”
“I’m so sorry to disturb you, but—is my mom there?”
The hair went up on Liz’s forearms, as if she’d been licked by a cold wind. “Of course, sweetheart. She’s right here, I’ll put her on.”
“Hi, honey,” Betty said cheerfully as she took the phone, but her face clouded instantly. After listening a moment, she said, “Are they still there?”
No, God, no, Liz thought.
“Well, just have them wait in the living room, sweetheart…. No, tell them I’ll be right there…. Oh, and Miranda—ask them if they would like something to drink…. No, nothing alcoholic. Coffee, tea, whatever. And some finger food, cookies or something. Use the platter with the flowers around the edge…. Okay, sweetie. I’ll see you soon.”
Betty hung up and looked at the phone for a moment, then composed herself and met Liz’s eyes. She was dry-eyed, and even managed a thin smile of sorts, and for an instant Liz’s hopes went up. But Betty said, “We have visitors, it seems. Two Marines.”
“Oh God, Betty—”
“They won’t tell Miranda anything.”
Liz groped for words, and found nothing. She had a sudden sense what it might mean, under fire, to have the person beside you get hit. One moment you were talking, one moment life went on, however madly, and then there was blood. And even as you moved to help, there was that inescapable instant you would hate yourself for, when you thought, Thank God, it wasn’t me.
In spite of herself, she glanced over at the fetal monitor. The baby’s heart rate was steady at 113.
“He said Da Nang was safe,” Betty said. “He was afraid we’d win the war before he got a regiment.”
CHAPTER 26
FEBRUARY 1968
from: Capt. M. F. O’Reilly
H Co., 2nd Bn., 29th Marines, 6th Mar Div FMF
c/o FPO San Francisco, Calif. 96602
Wed 14 Feb 1968
Hill 851, circa Khe Sanh, RVN
My Dearest Lizzie,
Reports of our demise here are greatly exaggerated. From what I can glean from recent copies of Stars and Stripes, everyone back home, including our beloved commander-in-chief, has gotten a little hysterical about this siege, but here on the ground at Siege Central it’s actually no big deal. We take a few hundred rounds of incoming a day, definitely an attention getter, but let’s face it, when you’ve seen one incoming mortar round, you’ve seen them all. Once you’re in your hole, it really doesn’t matter how many they shoot. Unless one lands on you, of course. And if one lands on you, it really doesn’t matter how many other ones they shoot.
Having gotten their asses handed to them the first time, the NVA don’t seem inclined to charge up the hill again and try to take us, so essentially we’re just waiting them out. They shoot at us, we shoot back, then our planes come in and ruin their day. I sure wouldn’t want to be on the other side of our wire when those B-52s drop a load. We’ve got them right where they want us, and it’s just a matter of time before they run out of ammunition and people. We’ve actually got some loudspeakers set up down at the Khe Sanh Combat Base, to try to talk the NVA into surrendering, though I don’t know what we’ll do if all 20,000 of them chieu-hoi at once, as we really have nowhere to put them.
Meanwhile, the C-ration trade is brisk. In the Marine Corps, every day is a holiday and every meal’s a feast, even on one-third rations. The beef and potatoes meals are going at a premium, with pork slices a close second. The spaghetti and meatballs are tolerable, but ham and lima beans are out of the question. With the ham-and-eggs meals, so-called, we take out the cigarettes, instant coffee, toilet paper, and pound cake, and throw the cans down the hill unopened, in hopes that the bad guys try to eat them. This is probably some kind of Geneva Convention violation. But war is hell.
Aside from the unending array of culinary delights, our days are fairly routine. Every day at dawn, we have a little colors ceremony, which consists of two insane Marines running out with a flag and attaching it to the radio antenna. This really pisses the bad guys off—as soon as our guys are out in the open, you can hear the mortar tubes pop. We’ve got it down to a science, at this point: you’ve got twenty-three seconds to get the flag up, salute, and get back in your hole before the rounds land. Strangely enough, everyone wants to do it—there’s a waiting list for who gets to raise the colors every morning. No casualties yet, except Charlie’s pride.
The rest of the day is more of the same—mortar barrages at ten and two, rocket attacks for lunch and dinner. At four o’clock every afternoon, some skinny little gook with a rifle he seems to have stolen from Daniel Boone pops up on our neighboring hill and cranks off a couple of ineffective rounds. We call him Sixteen-Hundred Charlie, a.k.a. Luke the Gook. Luke is an endearingly bad shot, and no one has the heart to kill him. Besides, we’re afraid his replacement might be a better shot. So we just leave him alone.
In the absence of water, no one has shaved or bathed for about a month at this point. I look a little like Ernest Hemingway with my beard, if I do say so myself, except that the beard is full of beans and bread crumbs. You can easily tell the new arrivals on our little hilltop, not just because they do not smell and are clean shaven, but because their uniforms are green. Anyone who’s been here more than a day and a half is colored orange-red, the precise shade of the Khe Sanh dirt. An upside of the nonbathing is that we stink too much even for the rats—no one has been bitten in weeks. No wonder the NVA won’t attack.
That’s about all the news that’s fit to print from us history makers here. The Third Platoon’s mortars are firing, and I guess I’d better do the Khe Sanh Shuffle and go see who is the lucky recipient of our attentions. I love you, my precious Lizzie. More every day, more every minute. I promise to have showered before I see you again.
your loving,
Mike
P.S. One recent casualty of note: Hotel Henry, our company parrot, unfortunately bought the farm the other day. His cage took a mortar hit, nothing left but three green feathers and a claw. Poor bastard. I’ve put him in for a Bronze Star. Hotel Henry’s indomitable courage, selfless devotion to duty, and ability to swear fluently in three languages were an inspiration to all who served with him and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country. Don’t tell the kids.
THE RESUPPLY CHOPPER was hit by a rocket and 12.7mm machine gun fire just as it started its run toward 851, and it dropped like a rock in Indian country, about two hundred meters down the h
ill. There was an almost palpable collective groan from the Marines in the trenches, and everyone in Hotel Company opened up with everything they had, to cover the crew, and out of sheer frustration. The hill had been socked in by bad weather for three days, nothing coming in or going out, and men were foraging in the garbage dump, looking for the little containers of jelly and cheese left in discarded rations. They were sneaking out to the wire at night in the hope of finding rice bags on the dead bodies of the NVA. A can of spaghetti and meatballs could bring you as much as fifty dollars, but no one was selling.
The pilots and the door gunner made it in through the wire, to cheers; and moments later two fast-movers came in low and dropped bombs and napalm on the downed Huey. The men of Hotel Company watched in silence as the chopper burned.
“I hope it was all just ham-and-motherfuckers,” Ike Tibbetts said. “I hope there weren’t no cake or somethin’ in there.”
“It’s probably just Valentine’s cards,” Mike said, but he was thinking of the three dead Marines and the half dozen wounded men he had at the landing zone waiting to get out on that chopper. The dead men were wrapped in ponchos because they were out of body bags, and the wounded men lay on ponchos because they were out of stretchers. Soon they would be out of ponchos. And they were out of socks. Everyone’s socks had rotted off their feet, and half the company had trench foot. Mike had been begging the battalion logistics officer for socks every day, to no avail. The guy had told him to have his men wash the socks they had, which was a joke, because they didn’t have enough water to brush their teeth, much less do laundry. Everyone knew by now that Lyndon Johnson had a scale model of Khe Sanh set up in the White House basement, that their commander-in-chief was obsessed with the siege and following every detail of the battle closely. Mike just wondered if the president knew how much they needed socks.
“I don’t want them goddamned gooks reading my Valentine’s cards,” Tibbetts said. “Ain’t none of their motherfuckin’ business what my baby say to me.”
WHEN THEY HAD EATEN, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?” And Peter answered, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.” And Jesus said unto him, “Feed my lambs.”
“B–7,” Father Germaine said. He sneaked a look at Mrs. Malewich, in the back row. The old woman was squinting dutifully at her array of three cards, her dauber poised, but she made no mark. This meant nothing; Mrs. Malewich seldom heard the call clearly, and her marking patterns tended toward the random.
“B–7,” Priscilla Starkey echoed. “God’s in heaven.”
She posted the number on the big board. All through the parish hall, gray heads bent over cards laid out in lucky patterns, and daubers danced. It was Wednesday evening, and St. Jude’s weekly Bingo Night was in full swing on Game 14. Beside Mrs. Malewich, Donna Palmer marked at least half of her ten cards. Donna was looking a bit smug at this point, Germaine noted, and would probably win again. She had two rosaries, a St. Anthony medal, a small statue of the Virgin Mary, and a bit of bone purported to be from the tibia of St. Paul surrounding her cards, which were arranged in a Celtic cross. Germaine thought the bone was overkill, but there was no denying Donna Palmer’s methods. The woman won three or four times a night.
He turned to the air blower and touched the button, and the balls whirled within the glass case like a swarm of bloated white locusts. The state-of-the-art machine played a rousing version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” and delivered the next numbered ball into a tray precisely on the exclamation point. It had cost several thousand dollars, but Wednesday nights were the parish’s money cow and no one begrudged the expense. Nothing but the best, for St. Jude’s Bingo.
And Jesus said to him again a second time, “Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” And again Peter answered, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.” And Jesus said unto him, “Feed my sheep.”
“I–23,” Germaine said.
“I–23,” Priscilla intoned. “The Lord is my shepherd.”
She posted the number. Mrs. Malewich made a mark and then tried to erase it, with consequent smearing. That card would be useless. In the second row, Mr. Shoenfelder was peering at his single card as if the numbers might change, his USS Pennsylvania cap slightly askew. Mr. Shoenfelder always played card number 12741, the date of Pearl Harbor, and he liked to make a little whistling noise, ending in an explosion, as his marks landed. Somehow this kept him happy, despite the fact that he had not won a single game in the year and a half since Germaine had been calling on Bingo nights. It was not about winning, for Mr. Shoenfelder.
“O–76,” Germaine said.
“O–76,” Priscilla said. “Trombones.”
Mrs. Malewich sang out, “Bingo!” and everyone relaxed. Mrs. Malewich’s bingos amounted to a break, as they never held up. Priscilla went to check the old woman’s card. Germaine waited resignedly. He had used to check the cards himself, until he had validated one of Mrs. Malewich’s fanciful bingos the previous October out of uncontrollable compassion and gotten caught. He had argued at the time that the occasional mercy bingo should be allowed, that the last should be first at least once in a while, and blessed were the poor in spirit, but all that New Testament reasoning had accomplished was that he’d been relieved of his validation duties and now had Priscilla Starkey permanently attached to him to check the numbers he called. Bingo was Old Testament.
Priscilla spoke sternly with Mrs. Malewich, who looked duly chastened and leaned back in her wheelchair dispiritedly. She would make no more marks this game, Germaine knew. Mrs. Malewich always lost faith in her hearing for a while after a false bingo.
And a third time, Jesus said unto him, “Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” And Peter was grieved, that he had asked him a third time. And he said unto Jesus, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.” And Jesus said unto him, “Feed my sheep.”
Priscilla returned to her post, and the balls milled in the blower.
“I–28,” Germaine said.
Verily, verily, Simon Peter, I say unto you, “When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst wither thou wouldst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.”
“I–28,” Priscilla said. “Heaven’s gate.”
Donna Palmer covered half a dozen cards in a flurry, pecking her marks like a hungry chicken snapping up grain. Everyone held their breath in anticipation, but Donna didn’t call out.
It didn’t matter; they all knew she had this one in hand. It was just a matter of time. Germaine punched the button and the white balls whirled.
THE FEBRUARY NIGHT was chill and crisp, a relief after the stuffiness of the parish hall. Many of the Bingo regulars were relentless smokers, and Germaine always emerged with his lungs raw and the smell of smoke on his clothes. It was strangely like coming out of combat, though his battlefield ministry at this point amounted to praying for Mrs. Malewich to get a card right; he bore steadfast witness to the reality of God under a weekly mortar barrage of plastic balls and laid his life on the line to the carnival blare of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” comforting the obsessed, the lonely, and the disappointed through the carnage of the progressive jackpot, amid the savage haze from Mr. Shoenfelder’s cigar.
Germaine sat down in front of the church, on the stone rim of the shrine beneath the statue of St. Jude. It was too early to go back to the rectory, and much too early to go back sober. It was his birthday, and he suspected that Sarah, the rectory housekeeper, had arranged a celebration. Blowing out pink candles and eating birthday cake with Father Winters struck Germaine as too much to ask, even of a religious professional. The vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience only went so far. He was thirty-five years old, halfway through his threescore and ten, two years older than Christ had been when he died. Germaine wondered, yet again, why God had let him live so long.
A crash from the side of the
church startled him. Germaine hurried around the corner in time to spot a dark figure running across the parking lot. In the weak light from the bulb above the side entrance, a jagged hole gaped in one of the stained-glass windows. The new St. Christopher panel, Germaine noted with a pang, the memorial to Sergeant Martin Truman.
He went into the darkened church and swept up the glass by the light from the rack of candles beside the memorial plaque, his heart hurting with every crunch. The stone that had shattered the glass had a note attached, Fuck the war, which Germaine tore into small pieces and discarded with the rest of the rubble. It seemed to him that it would hurt Martin Truman’s parents less to believe the act had been simple vandalism.
SURE ENOUGH, Sarah had made a chocolate cake, which looked oddly liturgical, ablaze with six squat votive candles and a thin purple taper left over from the Advent wreath. Apparently they were out of regular birthday candles. The housekeeper and Father Winters sang “Happy Birthday,” a little painfully, and Germaine feigned surprise, if not delight. He dutifully donned the shiny party hat Sarah had provided as he and Winters sat down and blew out the candles, wishing the ceremony over swiftly.
Sarah poured them coffee, with a discreet birthday shot of Jameson’s in Germaine’s and a splash of schnapps in Father Winters’s. The woman knew her priests.
Germaine gave the housekeeper a wink, then settled in to the ordeal of time at the table with his pastor. Winters reacted with predictable outrage to the news of the broken window, which he clearly felt to be symptomatic of a more general societal breakdown. He wanted to call the police, but it was almost time for Green Acres, and in the end the pastor decided to let it go. Winters had a thing for Eva Gabor.
“How did Bingo go?” he asked Germaine, one eye on the clock as he helped himself to a second piece of cake.
“Donna Palmer hit the Coverall Jackpot on a purple card.”
Lizzie's War Page 26