There was only alive and dead.
From far off came the sound of gunfire, from farther off explosions.
He turned away from the jungle, looking back at the tents of camp.
Where’s Frank? he wondered.
It was a question he’d had to ask a lot lately. The other private was seldom where he was supposed to be at the time he was supposed to be there, and if this had been stateside or anyplace other than Nam, Frank would probably have been court martialed by now. But they were so shorthanded that every man was needed, even the fuckups, and things were tolerated that ordinarily would not have been.
Tex looked at his watch. Frank was supposed to have relieved him from sentry duty forty-five minutes ago.
There was movement in the jungle before him, and he swung his weapon into position, heart in his throat, adrenaline coursing through his system.
This is where I die, he thought.
And then Frank emerged from the wall of green, running out from behind a leaf the shape and size of an elephant’s ear.
Tex lowered his gun, exhaling. “What the fuck were you doing?” he demanded.
“I went out. It’s no big deal.”
“You can’t go out! You have to stay within the perimeter! And what do you mean it’s no big deal? It’s a huge deal! Did you get permission? Were you on some sort of—”
Frank looked at him. “I went out on my own. Nobody knows but you.”
That flat affectless stare made Tex shiver and took some of the intensity out of his tirade. “You could’ve been killed out there. I could’ve killed you.”
Frank shrugged.
“You were also supposed to be on duty almost an hour ago.”
“Thanks for covering for me.”
“This is the last time!” Tex vowed before storming off.
But it probably wouldn’t be the last time. And he suspected Frank knew it, too. Almost anyone else would have cut him loose long ago, but Frank was really his only link to home. Not only had they both gone through Basic together, but they were both from Texas, he from Amarillo, Frank from Plutarch. They had a lot in common.
Or they used to.
Tex trudged over to the mess for breakfast.
Mess.
It was an appropriate word since the slop they were given to eat could not be described, even on its best day, as food. He picked up a cup of coffee and a bowl of some sort of rice porridge, then sat down at a crowded lopsided table next to Jerome Powell, one of the five men who shared a bunk in his tent. “Where you been?” Powell asked. “Damn near done eating.”
“Waiting for Frank.” He took a sip of the bitter coffee.
Powell laughed. “Shit. No wonder.”
Tex leaned in to keep the conversation private. “Thing is, he was out. I almost shot him when he came back in. Thought he was VC.”
“What was he doing?”
“Hell if I know, but it almost got him killed.”
“You ask me,” Powell said, “the fucker’s going native.”
Tex had not considered that, but it was conceivable. It had happened once before, with Jed Balcomb, who’d deserted nearly a month ago, building a lean-to where he lived and a bamboo shrine where he worshipped, until he died in a firefight with the men who’d come to arrest him.
Tex could see Frank doing something like that.
He forced himself to take another bite of the disgusting porridge. He needed to keep closer tabs on Frank, keep him tethered so he didn’t go floating away on his own and do something stupid.
Powell leaned forward, lowered his voice. “Better get some sleep. I heard we’re going out tonight. Recon.”
Tex’s heart was in his throat, and he felt as though he was going to throw up what little porridge he’d swallowed. “Us?”
“The team. So tell that asshole Frank he’d better straighten up and fly right.”
Tex nodded, trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach.
“I’m not going down because he fucks up. If it’s a situation where it’s him or me, it’s gonna be him.”
“Any idea where we’re going?”
“Back to that last village, I heard. Guess it’s not as innocent as we thought.”
“That was a two-day march!”
“This is all thirdhand, nothing official. Maybe it’s not true. We’ll find out what’s what at the meeting.”
Downing the rest of his coffee, Powell left. Tex finished his own coffee, leaving the rest of the porridge. His hands were shaking. He hated recon. Something always went wrong, and he had a gut feeling that Powell’s concerns were legit: with Frank along, the odds of ending up in a shitstorm were probably going to be far higher than they would be otherwise.
Knowing he’d need to catch some Zs if they were going out, he bussed his cup and bowl, then headed back to the tent. Hanging from a wire above his cot was his countdown calendar, and he looked at it before lying down. Three years, five months, two weeks and six days.
If he lasted that long.
The gunfire, which had calmed down sometime while he’d been at breakfast, had started up again, closer. His muscles tensed. He was officially off-duty, but that didn’t mean shit out here. If the gunfire continued, he would be called.
Hoping to at least get a few minutes of sleep, he closed his eyes.
****
The village looked different this time.
It was all perception, Tex knew, but the beleaguered buildings, ramshackle huts and fallen fences seemed ominous now rather than just sad, a false front meant to fool them into thinking it was merely a harmless backwater community rather than a VC refuge. Spying with binoculars from various vantage points, they maintained silence, communicating with each other using only their bastardized version of semaphore. He didn’t know what exactly they were looking for—he doubted any of them did—but the sergeant told them that they’d know it when they saw it.
Powell saw it.
Tompkins noticed Powell’s frantic gesturing first, and he stole around the edge of the village, gathering the rest of them until they were all assembled at Powell’s position. “What’d you find?” the sergeant whispered.
Powell raised his binoculars. “First building on the left. That barn thing next to the corral or whatever the fuck it is. Old woman brought food over, and when the door opened the guy had VC pajamas. Not only that, but there’re weapons in there. Couldn’t see what, but the light was reflecting off a lot of black metal.”
“What do we do?” Carrera asked. “Take ’em?”
The sergeant shook his head. “We don’t know how many are in there or how many are nearby.” He glanced over his shoulder at the jungle. “Could be an even bigger cache within a click in any direction.”
“Call it in?” Tex asked.
The sergeant nodded. “But we pull back first. Get to a safe vantage point. A defensible vantage point.”
Stealthily, they retreated. The land here was flat, so Tex wasn’t sure what sort of vantage point they were supposed to find, but the sergeant obviously knew the region better than he did, because they were soon on a hill overlooking the section of jungle they’d just passed through and the small village beyond. Frank had the radio, and he called in the strike coordinates.
They waited.
And waited.
The bombers weren’t close, but they weren’t far, and Tex was beginning to worry that the message hadn’t gotten through. There’d been no confirmation, as per regulation, so it was impossible to tell whether or not—
There they were.
The team heard the planes before they saw them—and the villagers did, too. There was a sudden scrambling as men and women, many of them holding onto children, dashed in different directions, trying to lose themselves in the jungle and get as far away from their homes as possible. The VC came running
not just out of the first building but nearly every building, carrying weapons. Two of them attempted to set up an anti-aircraft gun. Carrera, their designated sniper, took both men out. Thrown into panic, the VC began firing indiscriminately into the air, into the trees, and Carrera calmly took aim and managed to hit two others, killing one and sending the other crawling off into the underbrush using the single arm he had left.
After all that, the bombers missed.
Instead of hitting the buildings, bombs were dropped on the cemetery and an uninhabited area just south of the village. From their vantage point, they could see everything, the rush of villagers and VC in the opposite direction, the utter destruction of the cemetery and a wide swath of jungle. Before smoke and dust obscured the scene, Tex saw through his binoculars how bodies—or pieces of bodies—flew out from graves once they were hit. They were everywhere: hands, arms, feet, heads. A lot of the corpses were new, because of the war, and blood the consistency of poached egg yolk rained down from the sky.
Frank was trying to contact a pilot to let him know that the village was still standing, but the radio was unable to get through, and suddenly, with a tip of the wing, the lead bomber was gone, the other two following.
“Disaster!” the sergeant was fuming. “Fucking disaster!” He twirled his arm, motioning for them to gather everything up. “We’re going down there,” he ordered. “Clean ’em out. Move!”
The villagers and VC had fled to the north, so the team moved quickly in single file around the side of the hill, intending to approach the village from the south. This was exactly the sort of thing Tex had been afraid was going to happen, and he was filled with panic. He felt as though he had to take a shit but held it in as they followed the sergeant through the jungle, wishing he had written to his mom before leaving camp, wondering if his previous letter to her would be his last. How would she find out about his death? he wondered. Would she get a letter, a telegram or a phone call? Or would they dispatch someone to inform her in person? What about his body? Would someone come back for it or would they just leave him out here? If they did try to retrieve his body, how would anyone from camp be able to find him?
And then they were there.
Weapons drawn, they stood within the green perimeter, hiding behind oversized leaves, trees and bushes near the bombed-out cemetery. The VC fighters were the first ones back in. No one had kept track of their numbers, so the team waited in position for nearly two hours, until sure that most or all of the fighters had returned, before cutting them down in the road.
The women of the village were wailing, running out to the bloody bodies heedless of potential gunfire. The team waited in place for what seemed like forever just in case more fighters emerged, and when none of them did, the sergeant sent Powell and Carrera out to canvas the village. They knew they were targets, there to draw fire, but they went in regulation style, covering each other, both covered by the men who remained in the brush, and when neither of them were fired upon, they knew it was over.
The rest of them broke cover.
Frank kicked aside a glop of bloody flesh at his feet, a fragment of the recent dead blown out of the cemetery ground. “Where do they go now?” he asked. There was curiosity in his voice and also a sense of wonder.
Tex frowned. “Who?”
“The dead. Where do they go now?”
“To hell,” Tompkins said with a laugh.
“They’re dead,” Tex said. “They’re not going anywhere.” He motioned toward an isolated hand on the ground in front of them. “Especially not now.”
“This was their home,” Frank said, looking toward what had been the graveyard. “Now they have no home.”
“They’re dead,” Tex repeated. “Jesus, Frank, get ahold of yourself.”
But he seemed distracted by the blasted graves, and while the rest of them moved through the village, Frank wandered about on his own.
They took as many weapons as they could carry from the barnlike VC hideout, torching the building when they were through, scattering villagers in front of them and escaping into the jungle as the explosions rocketed behind them.
“Good mission,” the sergeant kept repeating. “Good mission. Good mission.”
It was on the way back to camp that they were ambushed.
They were completely unprepared. Although they were walking with their weapons drawn, as always, they weren’t on alert. They’d come through here on the way over, and there’d been no sign of anyone in the area, VC or otherwise. It must have been escapees from the village, because less than two clicks out, they were fired upon. Powell was hit and instantly down, but the rest of them were miraculously spared in that first burst and immediately crouched into firing position, back-to-back, facing outward and firing round after round in every direction. Within seconds, all return fire had stopped, and by the time they stopped shooting more than a minute later, the only sound was a man screaming in agony from the jungle off to the left. Without saying a word, without even looking at each other, they turned as one and fired in the direction of the screams, tearing apart leaves and bark and everything in their way. When they stopped again, the jungle was silent.
A bullet had grazed the sergeant’s chin, and Tompkins had been hit in the right shoulder, but they’d gotten off impossibly light. Powell was the only casualty, and when Tex looked down, he saw that his friend’s body had been shot to pieces. Chunks of this morning’s breakfast rations floated on top of a puddle of blood in his midsection where the contents of his stomach had been blown out.
Lurching to the edge of the path, Tex threw up.
“Alright, ladies!” the sergeant announced. “Let’s pick him up and keep moving!”
“But it’s—” Carrera began.
“Pick. Him. Up. And keep moving.”
They nodded. They had no body bag with them, but Tompkins took the tarp out of Powell’s pack, and they wrapped him in it, tying it up. Tompkins and Carrera used ropes to carry Powell’s bound body between them. It was awkward and heavy, the terrain was tough, and they had to keep switching off with the rest of the team until, sixteen hours later, completely exhausted, they staggered back into camp.
****
A week later, Tex was on sentry duty, waiting to be relieved by Armando Serra, the one man in camp he truly hated, when he heard Frank call his name. He turned to look behind him, but there was no sign of the man. Swiveling back around, he saw Frank emerging from the jungle.
“What the fuck?” Tex demanded. “I told you—”
“I need you to come with me,” Frank said, walking up to him.
“No way. Nuh-uh. I’m not getting busted for something that stupid.”
“Powell wants to see you.”
Tex just stared at him.
“Come on. Come with me.”
Armando was suddenly there on his left, and, startled, Tex jumped at the sight of him. Armando laughed disdainfully. “Pussy.” He nodded. “Hey, Frank.”
Officially relieved of sentry duty, Tex hoisted his gun over his shoulder and, without a word, started back toward his tent. Frank followed close behind, speaking lowly. “Powell wants—”
“Powell’s dead!” Tex shouted, too loudly. “Jesus, Frank!”
“I have his body.”
Tex stopped walking, staring at him. “What do you mean you have his body?”
“I kept it. What was left of it.” There was a pause. “His head.”
“Holy shit! You could be court-martialed for this!”
“I can talk to him, Tex. And he talks back.”
Everything stopped. Whatever he had been about to say fled his brain and never made it anywhere near his lips. He was suddenly aware of the heat of the day, the humidity of the jungle, the low drone of the soldiers in camp doing what they did.
Frank’s gone crazy.
That one thought superseded all els
e, and his brain raced, trying to calculate when eccentricity had escalated into madness, and wondering what he should do about it, who he should inform. He liked Frank, and he owed the man something, but this…body snatching was beyond the pale, and if Frank really believed that he could talk to Powell’s ghost, he was a danger to himself and others and needed to be stopped.
“Powell said he was right, he went first, and you owe him a hundred dollars.”
Tex blinked. “What?”
“Powell says you owe him a hundred dollars.”
There was no way Frank could know that. It was a joke between the two of them, a bet as to who would die first, and it had been said as they were gathering their gear together for the trip to the village. They’d been completely alone in the tent, and Frank and the rest of the team had been eating in the mess. There was no way Frank could have heard them. No way anyone could have heard them.
So how…?
“Powell wants to see you,” Frank said again.
Tex looked at the other private more carefully. He noticed, for the first time, that Frank seemed to be quite a bit older than the other soldiers, even most of the enlisted men. Since Basic, he’d thought of Frank as a peer, but he looked more like a parent, and he wondered how he could have not picked up on that before.
“Powell’s dead,” Tex rebutted him again, but there was no shouting this time, and he was not even sure he believed it.
No, he did believe it.
He knew Powell was dead.
But he no longer entirely disbelieved Frank when he said that he’d talked to the man.
“It’s close by,” Frank said. “It’ll only take ten minutes.”
The camp was technically in a combat zone, but not a hot zone, so it was possible to get permission to go outside the perimeter. Tex chose to go through proper channels rather than follow Frank’s example and just wander about indiscriminately. It took him half the morning, but he petitioned his way up the ladder until a sergeant major able to make an executive decision granted him permission to leave the camp for an hour. Frank followed no such protocol but simply waited on his bunk for Tex to return.
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