Fields of Fire

by James Webb

  Baby Cakes. He was a shadow to the front of them, silhouetted by a low illumination flare from another part of the perimeter. He carried Vitelli over his shoulder, butt up in the air. The near paddy dike opened up again, quite suddenly, and Baby Cakes fell hard to the ground.

  Snake's whole squad returned fire anxiously. Baby Cakes struggled up, still carrying Vitelli, and pointed his M-16 absently at the near dike, shooting a few rounds with one arm. He called to the lines.

  “Marine coming in!”

  Snake stared admiringly at the muscled figure that labored into the lines. You crazy bastard, Baby Cakes. With balls like that, how can you walk?

  Baby Cakes dumped Vitelli next to Cat Man's hole. “Doc! Doc!” He turned to Snake, shouting frantically. “Goddamn it, where's Doc?”

  Doc Rabbit trundled over, done with Pierson's squad for the moment. Rabbit was having a busy night. He was almost out of battle dressings.

  He squatted over Vitelli. Vitelli was unconscious. He had a shrapnel hole clear through his chest, up high where the arteries were, and about five pieces in his face and head. Doc wiped his forehead and spoke somberly. “Nothing I can do, except call him an Emergency. Can't shoot him up with morphine, not when he's already out. Might kill him.”

  Baby Cakes was on his knees, looking pleadingly at Rabbit. “Doc. Doc. Do something, man!”

  Snake noticed the blood welling up around Baby Cakes’ neck. “You hit, Baby Cakes?”

  “Got me just a minute ago.”

  Rabbit stripped off the flak jacket. There was a gouge out of Baby Cakes’ upper back, a deep trough where the bullet dug. Priority medevac, mused Snake, categorizing. Rabbit laid Baby Cakes down on his stomach and shot him up. Baby Cakes continued to resist.

  “Don't worry 'bout me, Doc. Help Vitelli, man.”

  Snake crawled over to Baby Cakes when Rabbit was finished. “Where's Homicide and Bagger? They O.K.?”

  Baby Cakes grinned as if he were remembering a joke. The morphine was hitting him good. “Ah, they're O.K. Homicide has a ding up the side of his head. They caught about five grenades out there before Phony cooled that crater. But Bagger's O.K. Don't let him bullshit you.”

  “Where are they?”

  Baby Cakes smiled again. Feeling no pain, Snake noted. “Oh. Yeah. They're in an old fighting hole somebody dug out there by the near dike. Radio's torn to shit. That's how Bagger came out O.K. He was wearing the radio.”

  “But they're O.K.?”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. They said tell you they'll be in at first light.” Baby Cakes drifted smilingly into the land of Nod. “Yeah. They're laying chilly out there. Wouldn't come back with me. Skating mothers …”

  QUIET again. In the distance the loudspeaker droned occasionally. No one listened. Spooky had at last arrived and he circled, pouring down a steady stream of tracers at anything that dared to shoot or move, like a distant fire hose spraying narrow wavy streams of iridescent red water. Spooky's angry gatling guns had a way of calming things. Snake sat down at the edge of his fighting hole, his feet inside it, and took a long swig from his canteen. He scratched a new mosquito bite, then another. He swore and took the squeezebottle of insect repellent from the band around his helmet and spread new bugjuice over his arms and face. It tingled as it ate its way into his pores.

  He checked his watch. Four o'clock. No wonder I'm so goddamned tired. But they only got an hour before they have to make their didi. He grinned tiredly, watching Spooky work out on the treeline. They may be gone already.

  Marston moaned again. Gotta get his ass outa here. Most ricky-tick. He leaned over and cuffed Marston gently up the side of the head. “Hold on, Marston. You gotta be tough. And when you get back I'm gonna name you Stupid. That's right.”

  He walked slowly to the platoon command post. A mortar had hit it dead center. Doc Anderson was dead. He lay in an unceremonial sprawl where the mortar blast left him, one arm reaching, the forearm blown away. Beyond the doc there was a sagging, rended poncho hootch that was supported by only two sticks. Next to the hootch the platoon commander lay somberly, peering, mumbling to the sky. One leg was gone. There was a battle dressing on one arm. The Lieutenant did not acknowledge Snake's greeting. He peered into the night, stroking his belly with both hands.

  And Flaky had disappeared. That figures, mused Snake. That's the luckiest, flakiest puke I ever knew. Only Kerlovic was functioning. He lay on one side, swaddled in battle dressings, both trouser legs ripped all the way to his crotch. Both legs were wrapped, as was one arm. A large dressing covered one side of his head. He was talking on the radio.

  Snake sat down next to him, waiting for him to finish. Kerlovic had been platoon guide until two days before, when the platoon sergeant was wounded and he took over for him. He had ten months in Vietnam, the only one in the platoon with more time than Snake. Snake looked at him, almost envious. And now he's going back to the World.

  “How you feeling?”

  Kerlovic managed a pained, sly grin. “Won't be able to use either leg till they discharge my young ass. How's the lines?”

  “Number Ten, man. My squad's half gone. Think I got seven medevacs. Vitelli's dead. Don't tell Baby Cakes. Got another dude—that new dude, Marston—he's gonna die if we don't get him out most ricky-tick. Got a sucking chest.”

  “Wow, man. What a bust. Well, we got medevacs in the air. For emergencies, anyway. Priorities gotta wait till first light.”

  “You an emergency?”

  Kervolic tapped the battle dressing that wrapped his head and managed another pained, conspiratorial grin. “Head wound. What do you think?”

  Snake shrugged, indulging him. “You owe it to yourself. Ain't nobody else gonna give a shit.” The Lieutenant droned on into the black, ten feet away from them. “Hey. What's with Corky?”

  “He's gone a little dinky-dau, man. Lost his leg pretty high up. I tied it off for him. He's O.K., but he keeps on asking me if his dick is all right! What can I say, man? I told him, ‘Lieutenant, if it was all right when you got here, it's all right now. You didn't lose none of it tonight.’ He keeps bugging me, says it don't feel right, would I check it out. Told him to check it himself. I'm sick enough with all these goddamn holes in me. Look at me. What if it's gone? You know what that would look like? What if his balls are gone? I'd barf. How could I tell him that?”

  Snake nodded, commiserating. “You ain't in any shape for that.” He walked over to the Lieutenant and sat down next to him, scratching a mosquito bite. “Hey, Lieutenant. Looks like you'll be skying out on us, huh?”

  The Lieutenant looked up, focusing through sweet veils of morphine. “Yeah. It's my leg. Won't be back.” He gazed uneasily toward the treeline. “If I get out. Won't be back, though.” He seemed to forget Snake for one floating moment, caressing his middle tentatively, dreamily. He reached his pubic hair and froze again. “Snake. Is my dick all right?” He stared at Snake through his needled peace. “Tell me the truth. Is it?”

  “ ’Course it is. Unless you're hung halfway to your knees.”

  “It doesn't feel right.” He clasped Snake's calf. “Check it out. Would you?”

  Snake stared unemotionally at him for a moment, then shrugged. “All right, Lieutenant.” He pulled the trousers open and down. The oozing stump plopped out, joining a pool where other parts of the Lieutenant had soaked into the dry dust. His groin was slippery and dark with blood. Snake noticed the penis intact, but could not tell about the balls. “Dick's fine, Lieutenant.” He found a canteen and washed the middle parts. “So's your balls.”

  He eased the trousers back over the stump. The Lieutenant grimaced. “You're good as ever up there, sir. Couple months you'll be out there busting cherries with the best of 'em. Think about us sitting out here in the bush. O.K.?”

  The Lieutenant was no longer listening. His face was almost ecstatic with relief. “Thank God. Thank the fucking Lord.”

  Snake sat back down next to Kerlovic. Both shook their heads. “Where's Flaky? He's s'posed to
be on the net, not you.”

  Kerlovic shrugged, accustomed to such vanishings. “He beat feet when the first mortar round landed down the hill. I ain't seen him since.” Kerlovic stared mysteriously at Snake. “Flaky just knows, man. I never seen anything like it. He's so gaddamn flaky I feel like killing him, doing him myself. But he sure as hell knows, don't he?”

  Snake nodded absently, scanning the blackened, bushy hillside. Finally he shouted. “Fairchild, get your ass up here or I'm gonna do you. I shit you not.”

  Kerlovic eyed Snake tentatively. “You better watch it, man. That's one sneaky little dude. He just might do you.”

  “Nah. He don't have the balls. And I do. And he knows it.”

  Flaky appeared, rising from the dust as if a phoenix. He had found an old fighting hole in the middle of the perimeter, left months or years ago by some other warring unit, and had tucked himself in for the duration.

  Snake called to him in a harsh mimic. “You can come out now, Flaky. The Boogey Man is gone.”

  He walked slowly to them, not the least bit embarrassed at his cowardice, so accustomed to self-deprecation that it was his natural state. It was his key to survival. Flaky had cultivated his unreliability, honed it until he became a nonentity during crisis, able to cringe by himself in the nearest ditch.

  The too-large trouser legs scraped baggily as he approached. Mildly frightened eyes surveyed the wreckage of the command post. The voice came high-pitched and patronizing. “Jesus. That was some real shit. You know?”

  Kerlovic tightened one of his battle dressings. “Yeah. I know. How the fuck do you know?”

  Snake spoke commandingly. “Flaky.”

  Ingratiating response: Flaky was indeed afraid of Snake. “Yeah, Snake?”

  “Go take a casualty count. Emergencies and priorities. Hurry up.”

  There were still sniper rounds, occasional bursts from the treeline. Flaky stared for another moment at Snake, almost daring to be sullen. Snake reached over and picked up the dead corpsman's medical kit, then threw it into Flaky's gut. “And give that to Doc Rabbit. He needs some more morphine sticks.”

  Snake and Kerlovic sat motionless for three minutes. Snake was dreaming of the cigarette he would light at dawn. There was a chatter on the radio, and Kerlovic put the handset lazily to his ear. “This is three. Go, six.” He listened. “Roger that. Thank you much.” He looked over to Snake, grinning expectantly. “Bird's on the way, man. Emergencies to the zone.” He shook his head, staring up into the black. “Christ. I can't believe I'm out of this shithole.”

  “You ain't. Yet.” Snake surveyed the darkness. Spooky had gone home. “Tell six we need some headquarters people to carry medevacs to the zone. I got five men left, not counting two out on the LP. And three holes.”

  Sawgrass swished along the hill. Flaky was crawling back to the command post. He appeared deeply shaken. Snake shook his head in wonderment when he saw the bugeyes and the tight circle of mouth reappear. How does that dude keep making it?

  “Jesus. Four dead. Two in Pierson's squad. Two in yours—Vitelli and that new dude, what's his—”

  “C'mon Flaky, knock it off. I can do without it. Now, who we got for emergencies?”

  “Doc says six in the platoon, counting Lieutenant and Kerlovic. And three priorities.” Flaky's eyes bulged nervously. “Jesus. That's half of us gone, just tonight.”

  “Any routines?”

  “Couple nonevacs.” Flaky looked suspiciously at Snake, sizing him up. Far to the east a helicopter popped toward them. Another. “I got me a little piece of shrap-metal. Uh-huh. Got me a tee-tee Heart tonight.”

  Four men from the company command post jogged cautiously toward the lines. Kerlovic hailed them and pointed them toward where the wounded were lying. Snake walked up to Flaky. “Let me see.”

  Flaky held his upper arm tentatively toward Snake. There was a tiny cut on it. Snake guffawed. “How many times did you poke yourself with your C-rat opener to come up with that?”

  Flaky blanched in the dark. “Don't know what you mean.”

  “Like hell you don't. Gonna call in your own Zulu, too. Ain't ya?”

  Flaky defended himself meekly. “ ’Course. I'm radioman. I gotta call in casualties.” He paused, studying Snake with practiced, apologetic deference. “Doc says it's O.K. Rabbit says it's a Heart.”

  “Yeah, but we know, don't we?” Snake shrugged, dismissing Flaky. There were more important things to worry about. “Hurry up and get two more so they'll send your young ass home, Fairchild. I'm sick of looking at you.”

  Flaky would never get shell shock: this way was easier.

  Up the hill, in the center of the perimeter, a strobe light flashed, beckoning the medevac helicopters. The choppers circled widely, still very high, lightless to avoid gunfire. Two faceless headquarters people came and picked up Kerlovic. Snake hurried to him, grasping his hand tightly. “You lucky prick.”

  Kerlovic handed the radio handset to Snake. “Yeah, yeah. I feel lucky. Hey. Take care of yourself, Snake-man.”

  The helicopter spiraled down toward them as if it were caught in a tight, giant whirlpool, and then hovered above the strobe light. As it settled into the landing zone its shuddering rotors beat the dead night air and the perimeter was swept by angry turbulence. Snake turned his head away and down, protecting his eyes, and heard the scattered cracks of AK rifles. He looked up toward the treeline just in time to catch the sparkling flash of mortar tubes firing.

  Gunships washed every inch of the treeline then, miniguns fanning through the trees, saturating it with spurts of luminescent tracers. But the mortar rounds were already in the air. Snake lay flat and heard the rounds impact behind him. BoomBoom. BoomBoom. BoomBoom. They landed on the far side of the hill, overshooting the zone.

  Only two tubes firing. AK rifles instead of the big gun. Snake grunted knowledgeably in the helicopter's gale. The gooners have skyed out. That's just their rear.

  Dust and poncho liners whipped through the air in the helicopter's wind. It shuddered out of the zone and disappeared into the black. The eerie, postmedevac silence hung like an extra burden on the ones left in the perimeter. Alone again.

  Another hour leaked slowly from the night, like the last stale air from a punctured tire. The other medevacs were carried to the landing zone, those two extremes, the nonemergency and the dead. Snake sat dreaming of his cigarette, and finally could not resist. He lit it under a helmet and cupped it as he smoked, enjoying the smoky pain after hours of abstinence as much as a connoisseur enjoys a good cigar.

  Ogre was carried past him, on the way to the LZ. Baby Cakes walked next to Ogre, refusing to be helped or carried. Snake grinned affectionately, waving to them. That, he remarked to himself, is one tough mother. Ain't anybody can outlast Baby Cakes. Ogre was talking with his high-pitched, languid words about eating pussy. Baby Cakes nodded drowsily, smiling to Ogre, mumbling a bit uncertainly. There it is, man. Uh huh. Gonna get some, too. Yeah.

  There was a quick whoosh from outside the lines and a Green Star Cluster burst above them, casting the perimeter in a sickly haze for five quick seconds. The listening post was coming in. Homicide and Bagger crept toward the lines, exhausted, weighted down with poncho-liner blankets and a broken radio, in addition to their combat gear.

  Then a sudden, echoing boom shook the predawn air. Snake sprinted to his fighting hole, meeting Homicide and Bagger as they reached the lines. Both were smirking vindictively. Homicide had a long, oozing slice along the side of his head. Hours of ooze had soaked the left side of his flak jacket. Nonetheless, he grinned comfortably.

  Snake searched outside the lines. “What the hell was that?”

  Homicide's black eyes flashed. “Them mohfuckas in that crater like to blow my ass away las’ night. Jis’ hadda kill 'em one more time, man.” He scowled fiercely. “They's four of 'em in that crater. They all fucked up.” He remembered. “How's Vitelli?”

  “KIA.”

  Down the perimeter there were
mutterings, lazy clunks of metal, silhouettes of tired figures in the bluing sky. First platoon was mounting out to check the tree-line for kills and weapons. Bagger moved up beside Homicide, a stark contrast to him, short and meaty-thick, sandy hair almost to his eyes as he tossed his helmet to the ground. He spoke in a deep, syrupy Georgia drawl.

  “Goddamn! Did they hit him again on the way in? We saw 'em open up on Cakes. Where's Baby Cakes?”

  They stared silently at him. “Oh, no. Him?” Bagger stared down at his helmet, muttering. “I gotta get out of here.”

  Snake shook his head, in no mood to baby-sit. “Wrong. You gotta start thinking about what kind of team leader you're gonna make.”

  Bagger frowned morosely. “Come on, man. I ain't any team leader. I ain't anybody's boss. Besides, I only been here six weeks.”

  “You're the only one left in your team.”

  Bagger mulled it. “Well, can't get around that, can I? But I'm telling you right now I'll fuck it up.”

  “I already know that.”

  Snake collected his own gear and took it to the command post. What do you know, he thought, not altogether unpleasurably. And I'm platoon commander. For a little while. I can do it. Seven months of this and I can do it as good as any boot Lieutenant. Better.

  At the command post Flaky was now dutifully manning the radio net. He looked up to Snake. “Six says we getting a new Actual today. Brand new Looey who just got into the rear.”

  “Groovy.” Snake took his letter-writing gear from his pack, and opened the tablet. He wrote quickly in a tightly lettered scrawl.

  “What you doing, Snake?”

  “Writing a letter.”

  “That didn't take long.”

  “Didn't have much to say.”

  He found a can of C-ration fruit cocktail and opened it, eating hungrily. The sun was peeping over brown, rended earth, over fields scarred like an acned face, pocked and ripped by years of bombs and mortars. In another hour the sun would be so angry that it would not let them eat. He shed his flak jacket, pulled out a heat tablet from his low trouser pocket, and cooked up some cocoa in his canteen cup.