Elmore had begun boring holes in the flat metal plate for a helicopter gun mount when he first noticed the ambling gait of the Marine and the mangy brown mutt lumbering at his side. Even at more than a quarter of a mile distance, the jogger had a haunting look about him that made the tattletale nervous.
His heart started to beat more quickly as his mind began to place this gangly black Marine who drew closer and closer. Could it be him? James Mau Mau Harris?
Then, when the guard vehicle slid to a stop by the running man, and the men had their brief conversation, followed by the runner casually getting a drink of water and then climbing inside the back of the guard vehicle, hitching himself a ride, all of the Marines acting friendly to each other, Elmore relaxed. He focused his attention back to the square hunk of metal and bored more holes where he had drawn red ink marks, laid out from a master template. To him these days, nearly everyone at first looked like James Mau Mau Harris, or worse yet, Brian Snowman Pitts.
Anymore, with so many weeks of worrying about the two notorious deserters finding him, and each time he thought that he saw one of the deadly duo and it always turned out to be just another Marine, he began to more easily discount his fears. He reassured himself as he bored the hole in the steel that had Mau Mau Harris shown his face on the flight line—or at any other American base in the Da Nang and Chu Lai areas, for that matter—military police would have descended on him like a cloud of locusts and clapped him in chains. They certainly would not have had a casual conversation on the flight line with the fugitive, nor would they have offered the scoundrel a ride, much less given him a drink of their water.
“JUMP OUT, SERGEANT Potter, let’s go and get your gunny,” the staff sergeant said, walking into the shade just inside the hangar door.
As James Harris jumped from the back of the truck, he held his hand firmly against his cargo pocket to keep the hand grenade from bouncing out. Then as he walked through the entrance, too, he shoved his hand inside the pouch on his leg and wrapped his fingers around the small fragmentation bomb.
James Elmore stood at the drill press, next to one of the hangar’s large, multipane side windows, the light streaming on him. Mau Mau Harris saw the traitor’s eyes grow wide and his mouth drop open, a high-pitched scream echoing through the high building.
“Grenade!” a voice behind Mau Mau shouted, and Marines everywhere dove for cover. All except James Elmore, who stood wide-eyed, his mouth agape and still screaming.
Mau Mau Harris laughed as he yanked the pin from the hand grenade and threw it like a fast-pitched baseball straight at the pigeon who had ratted him and Brian Pitts out, and had caused the death of Wild Thing.
Instinctively, James Elmore put up his right hand just as the green, explosive ball hurtled at him. The smooth metal stung the palm of his hand as he caught the object, and the sharp edge of the fuse end of the grenade cut two of his fingers as he closed them around it.
For several seconds the shocked Marine stood paralyzed in fear with the explosive device wrapped by his hand. Then his senses came to him and he shrieked.
“Motherfucker!” Elmore screamed, and threw the hand grenade through a glass windowpane behind the drill press and dove flat on the concrete floor.
Seconds passed and nothing happened. Then Marines in the hangar began to stand up and dust off their trousers. The staff sergeant ran full force at Mau Mau Harris, who now fled toward the open door, and knocked the fugitive to the ground while his two assistants wrestled the deserter’s hands behind him.
“Tie this goofy motherfucker up, and somebody call the provost marshal!” the staff sergeant growled.
“Don’t you know who that son of a bitch is?” James Elmore cried, dancing on his toes, pointing at the prisoner.
“He says his name is Sergeant Rufus Potter, and so do his dog tags and ID card,” the staff sergeant said, and looked at Elmore. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“That’s Mau Mau Harris, man,” Elmore wailed. “He come here to murder my ass. Throw that grenade at me. CID look all over Da Nang for him and a dude name Brian Pitts. Pitts be the Snowman, and kill people and sell dope and shit. This guy here, that his main man. He want kill me to shut me the fuck up.”
“Fucking dud grenade,” Harris grumbled with his cheek pressed against the concrete floor. “Someday I still kill your ass, you rat weasel motherfucker. If I don’t do it, Snowman, he do it. Maybe even one his cowboys. You ain’t safe no more, nowhere, Elmore.”
“How you know I be here, man?” James Elmore squealed, still dancing on his toes. “They rat me out?”
“Yeah, man,” Harris laughed. “They tole me you down here in da Chu Lai, fabricating metal. What else they be doing with your rat ass no way?”
“Who tole you that, man? Who they?” Elmore cried.
“Cops, man, they tole it all,” Harris said with a laugh, the side of his face against the concrete and the staff sergeant’s boot standing squarely between his shoulder blades. “They take payoff like anybody else. Money open doors, show the way. I got me this nice Viet Cong bolo knife that this staff sergeant done took. I sharpen it all up to cut me some pigeon. I guess now Snowman or his buddy Huong be cuttin’ that pigeon. Pigeon name Elmore. Give you what they tole you they do, pull your traitor tongue out your throat. Ain’t no place anybody keep you that we ain’t gonna find your rat ass, you turncoat motherfucker.”
Suddenly a deafening boom erupted outside and blew the entire frame of panes inward from the big window behind the drill press, sending glass shards spraying across the concrete floor. The staff sergeant dove on top of Mau Mau Harris, while everyone else jumped for cover where they could find it.
“Shit, man,” Harris grumbled. “Slow-ass, greasy, nonworking, Viet Cong fuse on that grenade, I guess. You one lucky motherfucker, Elmore, you know that? Only that luck run just so deep. Nobody be forgetting what you done. Ever.”
“Mau Mau!” James Elmore now pled, rising from the concrete to his hands and knees and spreading a wide smile at his prostrate nemesis, his gold front tooth sparkling as his lips quivered around it. “I ain’t saying shit, man. Not now, not no more. You gots to tell Snowman I ain’t saying shit.”
With the culprit’s hands tightly bound with nylon parachute cord, the staff sergeant yanked James Harris to his feet and shoved him at the two Marine guards, who each took an arm. As they led him out the hangar door, Mau Mau looked back at James Elmore and laughed.
“You one dead-rat-motherfucker,” the deserter snarled, and then he hawked a mouthful of spit at the cowering snitch. The glob sailed in a high arc but fell short of the target, splattering on the floor.
For a while, James Elmore only stared at the wet splotch on the concrete. Then his stomach turned from the shock of the morning’s ordeal, and he raced to the head to upchuck his breakfast.
Chapter 13
I GIVES THE BEAST A LIGHT
BY THREE O’CLOCK Thursday afternoon, Terry O’Connor had finally completed his examination of all but one defense witness in the Celestine Anderson murder trial, with only a begrudging wave coming from Charlie Heyster that he had no questions for the last man in the chair. O’Connor asked the judge to recall one of the prosecution’s early witnesses he had reserved to possibly return to testify for the defense, and now wanted him, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Glickman, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the work section that employed Celestine Anderson and Wendell Carter.
Since the gunny had to commute to Da Nang from Chu Lai, Judge Swanson adjourned the court-martial until eight o’clock Friday morning, April 5, 1968. Captain O’Connor had promised the judge that he would have the defense’s case wrapped up by ten o’clock, and they could begin closing arguments.
“I know that you’re a busy man, so thank you for returning to the court this morning, Gunny Glickman,” Terry O’Connor said to the Marine from Binghamton, New York, after the presiding judge reminded the witness that he had earlier sworn to tell the truth and that his affirmation from that
time still held effect. “I just have a few questions, and the prosecution may have some to follow mine. I promise to have you off the stand as quickly as possible.
“Do you recognize these documents?” O’Connor said, holding up a black, three-ring binder filled with lists of names and job assignments noted by them.
“Yes, sir, that’s my duty rosters,” the gunny answered. “You guys had them confiscated a couple of days ago.”
“Correct, gunny, we had them subpoenaed, and taken as evidence,” O’Connor answered, and laid the black binder on the judge’s desk. “Your Honor, please enter this black notebook containing the duty assignments as exhibit twenty-six, and this other binder as exhibit twenty-seven.”
“That green one’s my personnel roster,” the gunny said, seeing the olive binder that the captain had entered as exhibit twenty-seven.
“Thank you, gunny,” O’Connor said, turning and smiling at the Marine. “I was about to have you identify it, and you saved me the trouble. For the record, exhibit twenty-seven is the corresponding personnel roster. Now, how many Marines work in your section?”
“Not counting Private Anderson and the three men on legal hold, seventeen,” the gunny said.
“So minus Private Anderson, who has been in the brig since November, but counting the three men on legal hold, you currently have twenty Marines working in your communications electronics repair facility. Correct?” the defense lawyer asked.
“That’s right, sir,” the gunny said, shifting in his seat.
“How many black Marines make up the shop?” O’Connor asked.
“I’m not sure, I never counted noses like that,” the gunny said, shaking his head.
“Seven, gunny,” O’Connor said, opening the personnel roster and showing him the names he had underlined in red ink. “You see how I have marked each name of a black Marine?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll go along with what you say. It sounds about right to me. We have a few, I guess,” the gunny said with a shrug.
“Seven out of twenty is more than just a few,” O’Connor said. “That’s thirty percent of your shop.”
“I guess so, sir,” the gunny smiled.
“My associate and our staff went through your duty rosters and found that these seven Marines, this thirty-percent minority, have stood more than seventy-six percent of all the extra-duty quotas that your squadron and your group have tasked your work section, including those on legal hold. In fact, the three legal hold guys stand twice the number of duty that the others do. How do you account for those figures?” O’Connor said, laying in the gunny’s hands a stack of papers with columns of statistics typed on them.
The Marine staff NCO shook his head as he looked at the sheets and the columns and then looked at the presiding judge and shook his head some more.
“Your Honor, these statistics are exhibit twenty-eight,” O’Connor said, and took the papers from the gunnery sergeant and laid them atop the two binders as Wayne Ebberhardt passed copies to Charlie Heyster, who then frowned as he read the data.
“You do not dispute these numbers then,” O’Connor said, walking toward the jury so that the gunny’s face turned toward the six men.
“I guess I could do the math, too, but then we’d be here until next week,” the gunny shrugged and smiled. “I trust that you’re telling the truth, sir.”
“Oh, they’re true, Gunny Glickman,” O’Connor said, folding his arms. “Why do the black Marines stand so much duty and the white Marines stand so little?”
“Sir, when a guy messes up, I put him on a detail,” the gunny began, now beading sweat. “I never thought about what color the man was who messed up.”
“ ‘Messed up’ meaning what?” O’Connor said, walking toward the gunny.
“We fix communications gear, and a guy doesn’t fix it right, it can cost a pilot or a Marine in the field his life,” the gunny answered and then swallowed hard. “I keep my best men on the job, the guys who fix radios right the first time and don’t mess them up. Men who can’t fix a radio right, I put on the duties, so the good workers keep on the job.”
“I guess that’s one way to look at it, Gunny Glickman,” O’Connor said. “Troublemakers, you put them on duty, too. Right?”
“Absolutely, them more than anyone else,” the gunny said and pursed his lips while nodding. “They don’t just mess up a piece of equipment, but they mess up the shop, too.”
“Private Anderson a troublemaker?” O’Connor asked, walking to the jury.
“Worst in the shop,” Glickman said, shaking his head. “Any of his black brotherhood gets in the slightest difficulty with me, and I can count on Anderson to be right there to tell me all about why I am wrong. So, if for only my peace of mind, I keep him out of the shop as much as I can. He stands a hell of a lot of duty, Captain, and that’s why. Not because he’s black.”
“And these others that stand seventy-six percent of the watches, they troublemakers, too?” O’Connor asked, picking up the pages of statistics.
“No. Take Lance Corporal Carter, for example,” Glickman said, holding his head up proudly. “He’s a good man. He represents colored people well.”
“He stands a lot of duty,” O’Connor countered, holding up the statistics for the jury.
“Sir, he’s not exactly the sharpest tack in the box,” Glickman said and smiled. “Like I said, I keep the qualified technicians in the shop working while the less qualified stand the duties. It’s a matter of life and death, not necessarily what we find politically acceptable. However, I remind the captain that we are at war and do not enjoy the luxuries of some levels of kindness to the inferior races.”
Terry O’Connor blinked and looked at the jury, still blinking, showing his amazement at the gunny’s answer.
“ ‘Inferior races’? ‘Kindness to the inferior races’? Did I hear you correctly, Gunny Glickman?” O’Connor said, walking toward the witness stand and looking at the Marine eye to eye.
“Sir, I don’t mean it to sound like that,” Glickman said, choking on his words. “I’m from New York State. I’m not some southern bigot.”
“No, I agree you are not some southern bigot,” O’Connor said, and smiled, and then looked at Celestine Anderson, who now glared at his former noncommissioned officer in charge. “Binghamton, New York, is truly a far piece from Birmingham or Atlanta. Certainly not in the South.”
BY NINE O’CLOCK Friday morning, Lance Corporal James “Movie Star” Dean had finished two sets of tennis with Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Prunella, had caught a cockroach that measured nearly three inches long while returning from his shower, saved the lively bug inside an envelope that he took from his stationery kit, had then driven the staff judge advocate to a morning-long meeting with the chief of staff at wing headquarters, and now worked at stuffing the frantic insect inside the leather tobacco pouch of Major-Select Charles Heyster, which he had left atop his desk with his pipe. Movie Star had the critter scrambling in the Cherry Blend, kicking shredded leaves out of the bag as the Marine struggled to zip the top of the pouch shut when Staff Sergeant Derek Pride walked through the door and caught him in the act.
“I don’t want to know,” the legal chief said, seeing the lance corporal finally pull the zipper shut and then noticing the soft leather sides of the tobacco container bouncing from the bug trying to dig its way out.
“Hey, Staff Sergeant, its just a joke on the asshole,” Dean said and laughed. “You’ll have to keep watch on Heyster when he goes to load his pipe. Shit, I wish you had a camera, so you could get a picture.”
“No!” Pride said, and grabbed the lance corporal by the arm, leaving the wiggling tobacco pouch on the desk and leading the tan, blond lad out of the prosecutor’s office. “I don’t want any part of any more of this insanity. I see that you have now buddied up with Captain Kirkwood, and you’re helping him loosen the bolts on Major Dickinson’s desk, his chair, his credenza, his side table, and unscrew the lightbulbs in his lamps so that they flicker on and
off anytime someone walks past them. The major pesters me now to order him a whole office of new furniture, and his is perfectly good except for what you idiots do to it. I end up dealing with base maintenance here at least once a week, checking the wiring and outlets because of Major Dickinson’s chronic electrical problems. Then Corporal Farmer and Sergeant Amos, always sabotaging the major’s coffee mess. Did you know I caught Lance Corporal Pounds washing the officers’ pot in the toilet with the john brush? And you guys keep dumping your snuff and tobacco spit cups in it, too. The colonel drank some of it the other day and asked me if we had gotten a Louisiana blend because of the unusual flavor. He loved the taste and wants more of it. What am I supposed to do now? Let him drink shit and tell him it’s chicory?
“I’ve had it, Lance Corporal Dean! Do you hear me?”
“Lighten up, man,” Movie Star said, walking out the door and heading back to his barracks. “You better be glad that we like you so we tell you most of the bad shit. Think about drinking the wrong coffee.”
“Oh, I think about it daily,” Pride said, standing in the doorway, watching the colonel’s driver cut across the grass. “I nearly gag when I see the prosecutors drink their coffee or anyone else get a cup from the major’s pot. I am running out of excuses when I have to cut off Colonel Prunella from pouring his own coffee, so I can fill his cup from the enlisted mess. Is it still safe?”
“Fuck yeah, man,” Movie Star said, walking away. “Best rule is that if you see any of us snuffies getting some of it, most likely it’s safe for consumption.”
Then the lance corporal laughed and turned toward the staff sergeant while still ambling his way to his hooch.
“Oh, I dropped off mail in the barracks,” Pride said, standing on the steps. “I put your new Penthouse on your rack.”
“Fresh jack-off material,” Dean said with a laugh, walking backward. “Thanks.”
“I can’t get over how you just beat your meat right there in the barracks in front of everybody. Doesn’t it ever bother you to be so gross?” Pride said as the driver walked backward, smiling at him and grabbing his crotch.
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