Fields of Fire

by James Webb

  But if I ignore this, how can I ever face myself, much less anyone else? The moral purist, who copped out of his one real crisis. I'd be saying, in effect, that two—murders—weren't worth the effort, weren't worth the confrontation. Will Goodrich, moral purist and gutless wonder. And it was wrong. He contemplated the killings. We can't play God. We can't administer street justice—what the hell: bush justice—to every Vietnamese who pisses us off.

  He contemplated the emotions that were transparent in the others, the hot, wronged urge to avenge that rushed from places inside them where he himself had only felt repulsion. For a moment he doubted his right to judge their actions from his own moral referent, since he knew that for some reason he and they reacted as differently as five dobermans and a cocker spaniel. But damn it, he decided, there's no way to justify murder. The rules say kill, O.K. But when the rules say stop, you've got to stop. We're not God. We're not barbarians.

  He returned to the battalion area and found himself standing before the Legal Officer's tent. He immediately grew queasy. Who's his clerk? What if this gets out? Who knows what they'd do to me? They can be such—Oh, God. No way.

  He walked the road for a short space again, feeling trapped, powerless. Then it hit him like a shock. Of course. Regimental Legal. At least they investigated the Sergeant Major. And it won't get back to the company from regiment. Too far removed.

  Regimental command area. He reached a small, square sandbag bunker with a red sign above the door. The sign read REGIMENTAL LEGAL OFFICER. Goodrich checked the dirt road for familiar faces, then bolted inside the door. A Corporal looked up at him, mildly shocked by his dashing entrance.

  “What do you want?”

  “I'd like to see the Legal Officer.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  Goodrich stared exasperatedly at the Corporal. He was tempted to leave on that note, to justify his retreat on those grounds. But not so easily for murder, he decided. “I don't have time for that. We're pulling out tomorrow. Arizona.”

  The Corporal was unmoved. “Have you been to Battalion Legal?”

  “You're kidding. Listen. This is important.”

  “What's it about?”

  “I can't tell you.”

  The Corporal surveyed Goodrich with mild arrogance. “Look. If you can't tell me, how the hell can I figure out if it's important enough to bother the Captain about?”

  Goodrich leaned over the man's desk. “Take my word for it—”

  The Captain appeared from a private portion of the bunker. He was tall and slim, very young, only recently graduated from law school. He nodded to Goodrich, giving him a tentative, embracing smile. “You sure it's that important?”

  Goodrich immediately warmed to the man. “Yes, sir.”

  The Captain smiled, gesturing toward his cubicle. “Then come on in.”

  The Captain indicated a chair, and Goodrich sat obediently. The Captain sat behind his small field desk and lit a pipe after meticulously packing it from a leather pouch. “What can I do for you, Marine? Need a divorce? Been AWOL? Getting busted for pot?” He laughed comfortably. “I've got a whole bag of tricks.”

  Goodrich found himself hesitating to talk about it. It wasn't something a person could just start describing on command. And yet, he felt drawn to the Captain. He smiled tentatively. “Uh. How about a job?” The Captain looked curiously at him, and he leaned forward, toward the man. “I'm highly qualified—for a Lance Corporal, that is. My old man's a lawyer, my brother's a lawyer, and I have almost three years of college. Harvard, better than a B average.” He shrugged, remembering. “Not much better than a B, but what the hell.”

  The Captain almost choked on his pipe. “Harvard? Jesus Christ.” He laughed self-consciously. “I won't even tell you where I went. Not that you'd recognize it. Where do you work now?”

  “I'm a grunt.” Goodrich shook his head at the Captain's amazement. “Oh, shit. Don't even ask. It's worse than it sounds.”

  “Hmmm. I'll bet.” The Captain checked his watch. “Well, to tell you the truth, I don't need an assistant. You noticed Corporal Murphy out front? Well, Corporal Murphy has two years of law school.” The Legal Officer chuckled. “He got drafted. But he does all a man could ask. Now”—he checked his watch again—“I was just getting ready to eat lunch. You didn't hold me up just to apply for a job, did you? You seemed pretty worked up a minute ago.”

  Goodrich studied the Captain, feeling nervous, desiring some assurance that, should he reveal the information, it would not merely cause him trouble. “Are you the one who investigated the Sergeant Major?”

  The Captain shook his head ironically. “Yeah, but that's done, unfortunately. We don't need anything else on him. We had so much as it was, he should have hung.”

  “I take it you weren't particularly happy with the outcome, then?”

  The Captain stared at Goodrich with a taut, assessing smile. “No. You might say I was a little disappointed.” He stretched in his chair, still assessing Goodrich. “Sergeant Majors, I have learned, stand somewhere just beneath Jesus Christ, and just above the Colonel. They aren't very fry-able.” He relit his pipe. “But I don't think there would be a similar problem with anyone else. The system's fair, on the whole. Very fair.” He took a final look at his watch. “Now. Are you going to tell me what's on your mind, or do you want to forget it? You seemed to think it was pretty damned important a few minutes ago.”

  “It is. It's really important.” Goodrich pondered it a moment. His hands were sweating, and had taken on a nervous tremor. “It just isn't easy to talk about. It's not something you can just start in and discuss. I have to figure out my obligations, where my loyalties lie—”

  “Maybe you should visit the Chaplain, and see me later.” There was a hint of sardonic impatience in the Captain's voice.

  Goodrich lit a cigarette, gathering himself. “I'm sorry.

  I'm making an ass out of myself. That seems to be the general rule, lately. Listen, Captain. You know how things are in the bush. I'm sure you've heard. Everything's screwed up in the bush. There's no logic to it. At five-thirty if you shoot out a light in a hootch and someone dies, you're in trouble. At six o'clock you can do it and it's all right, because lights are used as signals. Shoot a prisoner from five feet away, it's a kill. Touch him and then shoot him, and you're a murderer. You know how it is. So how can any of it make any sense?”

  The Captain puffed slowly on his pipe, contemplating Goodrich. “So what do you want me to do about it, Corporal? Make it all go away?”

  “No. I mean, yes, but since you can't, no. What I want you to do, sir, is tell me I didn't see a murder. For my own conscience. Tell me I saw something that was gray enough that we should forget it. Could you do that?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It looked like a murder. It sounded like a murder. But maybe it wasn't.”

  “Well, tell me about it.”

  Goodrich described, in intimate detail, the killings of the man and woman on Go Noi. He talked about Baby Cakes and Ogre. The killer-team patrol. Finding the bodies. Cat Man's assault on the man. He emphasized his own resistance, and his removal from the scene as the killings took place.

  He finished, and sat motionless in the chair, emotionally drained. There. I've done it.

  The lawyer studied his notes for several minutes, sucking on a pipe that had gone out without his noticing it. Finally he spoke to Goodrich, reading from his legal pad.

  “I want to get a few things straight. First, you did not participate in any of this.”

  “That's right.”

  “And you were not present at the scene when it all took place.”

  “That's right.”

  “In fact, from your own statement, you didn't even see the incident. You—and I quote, roughly—‘sat on the porch looking out at the field, and heard the woman scream. Then there were shots.’ ”

  Goodrich sighed. He was tired of talking about it. “That's right.”
<
br />   “And finally, from your own statement, you did not see the bodies after the alleged killings.”

  The “alleged” stuck in Goodrich's tired mind. “Well, I—”

  “I read again from my notes.” The Captain sucked on his unlit pipe. “ ‘I heard them spading and then they rejoined me at the hootch. We made stretchers for Baby Cakes and Ogre and returned to the perimeter.’ ”

  “Well, I—I know they were killed, Captain.”

  “They probably were, Goodrich.” The Captain's face was intense, lit. “You asked me to tell that you didn't see a murder. All right. I'm telling you. You didn't see a murder.”

  “But one—two—took place.”

  “Do we know that? Do we have bodies? Do we have witnesses who will swear that people were killed? Were they even civilians? Was there something that happened near the grave site that would have made the homicides—presuming for a moment that there were homicides—justifiable? Did mamasan have a knife? Did papasan reach for someone's weapon?”

  Goodrich shook his head, grimacing with a mix of disgust and disbelief. “Did mamasan have a knife. Holy shit. That's weak, Captain.”

  “You say the Vietnamese Scout identified them both as VC?”

  “Dan? Everybody's a VC to Dan.”

  The Captain laughed, tossing his head and shrugging. “Well, he should know. He's probably pretty close to being right, around here. Who killed them, Goodrich? Again presuming they were killed?”

  “They were. I know that. And Snake was the man who gave the orders. I was there for that much.”

  “But who killed them? Did the Vietnamese Scout do it? Do you realize that we have no authority over him? If he did the actual shooting, there's no murder.”

  “There were a lot of shots, Captain. A lot of shots.”

  The Captain shook his head, exasperated. “Haven't I convinced you yet? Isn't all that enough to quell your goddamn conscience? I'll tell you how I feel. Best friends murdered like that. For God's sake, there's been enough tragedy without compounding it. If they did kill the people, they'll have to live with it. It was a mistake. They're kids. They're fucked up and confused. You said it yourself. Nothing makes sense out here.”

  Goodrich felt his eyes narrow. “Boys will be boys, eh, Captain?”

  “You know that's not what I mean.” The lawyer scrutinized Goodrich, tamping out his pipe and repacking it. He lit it again, still staring. “All right. What do you suggest I do?”

  “I don't know.” Goodrich held both hands over his head. “Jesus Christ. I came here to ask you and now you're asking me.”

  “It's not exactly your clear-cut case.” The Captain smoked pensively. “Well. We'll have to do an Article Thirty-two investigation. If it ever hit the press that this event occurred, and we let it go by without investigating it, the shit—would—hit—the—fan.” He continued to eye Goodrich, as if he were attempting to solve a puzzle that sat fragmented in the middle of Goodrich's face. “We won't indict. We'd never convict. No, I won't say that. With this My Lai thing in the press, we're going to be catching hell. Anything's possible. But I doubt it.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Write me a statement. Just as you told it to me. Do it right now.”

  Goodrich hesitated. “All right. But, Captain—I hope you realize what could happen to me if this got out.”

  “It won't get out.” The lawyer shook his head again, totally confused. “What the hell do you want? You just pushed me into this, now you don't want to cooperate?”

  “I didn't push you into it. I just asked a question.”

  “All right, all right.” The Captain seemed somewhat irritated with Goodrich. “I'll get you out of the company. It won't be that hard. We do it for our CIDs all the time.”

  “Your CIDs?” The full impact was hitting Goodrich.

  “Yeah. Criminal Investiga—”

  “I know, I know. When can you do it?”

  “A couple days. I'll get orders for you when Division approves the Article Thirty-two.” The Captain sighed.

  “You may end up working for me, after all.”

  33

  Hodges met a classmate from his Basic School platoon in the mess hall when he went to eat his last hot meal before departing on the operation. It was lunch: B-ration freeze-dried hamburgers topped with brown gravy made from powder, a dirt-filled lettuce salad, and Kool-Aid. The classmate had only recently arrived in Vietnam, after finishing combat engineer's school. They had not been close in Basic School, yet Hodges greeted him as a long-lost friend, the man's enthusiastic awe a reminder of how it had begun for him five months before. Grasping the man's hand and staring into rested, curious eyes, Hodges sensed an innocence that was as far away as his own childhood. He thought of the advice of Major Otto, who had spoken so honestly to him the day he departed for the bush, and again lamented the fact that the Major was in Da Nang, on the Division staff. His friend's face convinced him that he and Otto now shared a jealous ethos, gained in fear and dirt and blood and hassle, that would have made it possible to talk, really talk, for the first time. This was me, mused Hodges, listening to his friend's questions. But it isn't any more.

  The classmate had kept up with the doings of all the other Lieutenants who had graduated with them. He knew who had washed out of flight school. He knew who was up for medals. He knew who had died.

  Hodges downed his meal without enthusiasm, listening absently while thinking of the operation he would embark on in only a few hours. There was a tickle in the back of his head that mildly resented this new arrival's knowledge. From the man's perch in engineer's school, in the calm of a Fort Belvoir building, he had kept score, as if it were a basketball game, while Hodges and the other grunts had slugged it out in isolation from each other.

  But it was irrelevant, anyway, at least right then. Basic School, with all its earnestness and idealism, was an unreachable part of his life, blocked off from him by combat's warp of terror. Flight school was for other people. Medals were for heroes. Relevance was Snake and Cat Man and Cannonball. Importance was keeping them alive through another week.

  Twenty dead, his friend was saying, giving the numbers with the careless abandon of one who had never experienced the quick death of a friend, then commenting in the same breath on the unbearable heat and dust of An Hoa. Seventy grunt lieutenants in our Basic Class, and twenty dead in five months.

  The deaths reached Hodges, brought him from his moody contemplation of the coming operation. The twenty dead would not pass through his mind like the other chatter from his classmate. He chewed a piece of gritty lettuce, considering it a luxury, and remembered Basic School, only a half-year removed, yet like a dream from innocent childhood. The platoon runs, the feisty chants, the nights they would return to O’Bannon Hall after field problems and climb three flights of steps to the floor that held their rooms, leaving thick mud trails from their boots and camouflage smears along the handrails. Singing in loud unison:

  “Fuck, fuck fuck this TBS shit,

  Three more weeks and we'll be home.

  Then it's off to Vietnam, lose a leg or lose an arm,

  And be pensioned by the Corps forever more!”

  But not believing it.

  Twenty dead. His friend continued, giving all the details of how each man had died, seemingly more amazed that so many were capable of dying in such a dirty little war than with the fact that they had actually died. He knew all the details, and was able to transfer each death neatly into a lesson, a comment on the character of the man who had died. The family man died on the day his son was born. The super-hero assaulted a North Vietnamese bunker and caught a grenade in the stomach (it had never happened to John Wayne). The best athlete willed his own death after losing both legs to a mine. The salty ex-enlisted wiseass refused to listen to the advice of a Kit Carson Scout and walked his platoon into an ambush. The class jokester's helicopter had caught vicious fire going into a hot landing zone, and had crashed, then blew up, the ammunition
inside the helicopter detonating and killing every man (a most ironic way to go, the jokester would have agreed).

  On and on, as if they were textbook deaths. The lessons irritated Hodges. His friend had no right to package them so neatly, to make them sensible.

  And how would he characterize mine, Hodges wondered again and again as the man issued his examples. He knows I came from Okinawa by my own free will. Oh, God. I'd be the gungy one. Hodges shrugged. Ah. What the hell does he know, anyway. And who the fuck cares.

  Hodges drained his last bit of Kool-Aid. It was time to round up his platoon. He stood and shook his classmate's hand, feeling he had little in common with the man any more. “Remember how we all were afraid it would end before we got a chance to get a piece of it?”

  The man clasped Hodges’ hand. It was the eyes, Hodges finally decided. Too—enthusiastic. “We can still win it, I think. Don't you?”

  Hodges heard himself issue a surprised chuckle. “I don't know anything about it anymore.”

  34

  They poured in trickles from the tents until, in minutes, the road became a teeming teenage wasteland. They were fully burdened. Packs bulged on each back as if every man carried a fat, hidden papoose. Men were strapped with three and four bandoleers of ammunition, and counterstrapped with thin cylinders of LAAWs. One in four carried a heavy square bag containing a claymore mine. Machine-gun teams sported boxes upon boxes of ammo on long green straps. Mortarmen carried tubes and base plates and pack-boards laced with ominous, dull-green mortar rounds, looking like small, fin-tailed bombs.

  They gathered on the dirt road as if at a convention on some hotel floor, chatting in small groups, filled with mixed moods, suppressing the electric anticipation that coursed through all of them. A few brooded alone at the edges of the mob, miserable with fear.

  Staff Sergeant Sadler strutted through the platoon troop tent, fully burdened also. His helmet was low in front, down over his eyes. He urged the remainder of the platoon out onto the road. “Come on! Come on! Git it on the road! We got a war to fight!”