Pup

by Christopher Slater

  During the run back to the village we intercepted a runner from another squad who was coming to tell us that the villagers had been evacuated and that we could pull back. Gee, thanks for the permission. We wound up running more or less in a line as fast as we could to get back to the village. I was the fastest, but I wanted to make certain that everyone made it, so I held back a bit. Mayumi was the last in line, and I tucked in front of her and made certain that she was able to keep up and stayed sufficiently far ahead of the artillery. I even saw her shoot me a smile under the goggles. I actually felt happy at that moment.

  I should have known better than that. Now please understand that I am not the biggest fan of low-brow humor. I like a good mindless movie now and again, but mostly I appreciate humor that requires at least some level of thought to enjoy. I point this out because I don’t want you to think that I am trying to entertain you by appealing to the lowest denominator of humor. In fact, kids, if you are reading this, skip the next paragraph or so. I don’t want you discussing this at dinner tonight. I’m just trying to divulge the facts as they occurred.

  We were just getting to the edge of the village and were still running at a pretty good clip. When we had eaten in the mess hall earlier that day, none of us had known we would be going into action that night. If I had, I probably would have eaten less and made different choices. Naturally, I hadn’t, and it came back to haunt me as we entered the village. We had just passed the first building, and it happened. I farted. Loudly. When I say loudly, let me clarify. There were still artillery shells falling a couple hundred yards behind us. I heard myself over those explosions. So did Mayumi. So did the soldiers running in front of me. Everyone slowed down a little and looked back at me. I could feel my face burning with embarrassment. I felt my foot step on something unusual, and I picked it up. It was a teddy bear. “Look what I found,” I said with false cheeriness to try and distract them. It didn’t work. I was mortified.

  Though the teddy bear didn’t distract them, the artillery shells did. The next volley was getting closer to the village. We resumed our run and made it to the other side of the village when the shelling seemed to stop for a moment. We were about three or four hundred yards past the village when we heard the next volley heading toward us. The sound was different this time. The whistling seemed to have a different pitch. The shells passed over the village and then seemed to explode a hundred or so feet in the air with much smaller booms than I would have expected. What looked to be pieces of the artillery shells began to splat down into the mud between us and the village. They must have had their fusing wrong. Their shells were exploding prematurely. I’ve heard that can sometimes happen with age.

  Not wanting to see if they could get their fuses set correctly, we began running again. We didn’t make it three strides before I heard a scream behind me followed by a splat. I looked back and saw Mayumi on the ground cradling her ankle. She had stepped into an overly deep puddle of mud and twisted it. I was about to pick her up and carry her when I saw movement in the village. A little girl stepped out from one of the buildings searching the ground desperately. She found the teddy bear that I had stepped on and picked it up, hugged it, and ran back into the building. “Hannibal!” I called. The big man showed up with amazing speed for someone his size. “Mayumi . . . I mean Lieutenant Ogawa’s hurt, and there’s a little girl back in the village.” He looked toward the village about the same time as another volley of shells exploded prematurely and shell fragment fell to the ground between us and the village again. “You take the lieutenant. I’ll go get the girl.”

  I was already a few steps away when Hannibal yelled out to me, “Get back here, Pup! It’s too late!”

  I ran backward as I replied, “Running while carrying some poor scared person that doesn’t know who I am? This is what I do!” With a smile I started running toward the village again. I ran through the area where the shells were dropping their fragments. In fact, some shells dropped their fragments while I was running through there. They fell with surprisingly solid thuds, and it made me feel like I was running through a hail storm. Rather than frighten me, it just spurred me on.

  I made it to the village in what had to be Olympic record time. I ran straight to the building that I had seen the little girl run into. She was in the corner of the first room, huddled with her teddy bear. “Hi!” I said in my friendliest voice. “Do you speak English?” Did you know that a three-year-old girl can still manage to look at you in a way that makes you feel incredibly stupid? “Of course you don’t. Then I won’t bother introducing myself and telling you why we have to run for our lives.” Instead, I knelt down and opened up my arms and beckoned her over to me. Slowly and reluctantly, she walked up to me. She got near me, looked at me closely, and then punched me in the nose. Is there some kind of newsletter passed around by children in foreign countries that tells them to treat me this way? I tried to keep a smile on my face as my eyes watered and I picked her up, teddy bear and all.

  I stepped out of the home and back into the pouring rain. That was when my goggles became one of the five percent that failed in monsoon conditions. I went from having a nice color picture of the world to pitch black. I pushed the goggles up from my eyes on their swivel and didn’t bother trying to fix them. I was too concerned with getting out of the village before any more advanced patrols arrived. Flares from helicopters and flashes of lightning allowed me to orient myself enough to find the way out of the village. I began to run with the little girl under my arm still clutching her teddy bear. I started to pick up speed and saw that Hannibal and Mayumi were still waiting for me in the distance. They were gesturing and shouting, and I could have sworn that they were telling me to stop, but I figured I would ask them what they were really saying once I got to them. With all of the rain and noise and confusion, there was no telling what they might be going on about.

  I lost a lot of respect for the North Koreans as a fighting force when I saw that they had not corrected their fusing issues. I saw another volley of shells explode in the air and rain chunks down onto the ground. Some of their smaller shells must have been fused properly because there were small explosions at random places throughout the field of debris, and if any of that debris were to hit me it could certainly be deadly, but it seemed like nothing compared to the massive artillery explosions I had seen earlier. The girl I was carrying seemed to think otherwise. The closer to the field we got, the more agitated she became. By the time I entered the debris field, she was kicking and screaming and wailing. It was all that I could do keep a grip on her. Another volley of shells caused debris to rain down around us, and I heard more random small explosions. Sure, it was scary, but that little girl was acting like it was the end of the world. Of course, for a girl that young, it probably did seem like it.

  I made it through the debris field, and the girl stopped kicking and screaming. I guess the most immediate fear was gone. Both Mayumi and Hannibal were wearing astonished looks as I approached. I would have loved to have asked them why, but I didn’t want to meet up with advancing enemy forces because I was curious about someone’s mood. “Come on, guys! Let’s go!” I jogged past them at a slower pace to give them time to catch up. They gave each other a look of surprise, then decided to pursue the matter later. Against her objections, Hannibal picked Mayumi up in a fireman’s carry and began running with her. We kept up a fast pace all the way to the road.

  When we arrived at the road, we found most of the platoon providing security as the trucks were loading. A fairly young couple were trying their best to speak to the Professor, but his Korean was limited and they were in such a distressed state that I doubt that he could have understood them anyway. When they saw me carrying the little girl, they stopped talking and ran toward me. The little girl tried to squirm loose, and this time I let her. I couldn’t help but smile as she ran to her parents, both of whom hugged her tightly with tears visible even in the pouring rain. After a few minutes, the little
girl moved away from her parents and walked to me. I was still grinning like an idiot and squatted down so that I would be at her level. She walked up to me, and then kicked me in the shin. I howled in pain as she ran back to her parents and then boarded a truck.

  I was still grasping my shin when Hannibal walked over to me and Mayumi hobbled up behind him. “You deserved that, you know?” Hannibal said.

  “Why?” I asked. “Because I passed gas?”

  “That was you? I thought someone had tripped a booby trap!” He shook his head. “You still don’t know what you did, do you?”

  “I ran back to the village and got a girl that stayed behind to find her teddy bear. The North Koreans couldn’t seem to get the fusing right on their artillery. As long as their shells were blowing up prematurely, it was possible to get to the village and back. I know it was a little dangerous, but since they couldn’t get the range right, I figured I was OK.”

  Mayumi sat down next to me in the mud. She was already covered in it, so I guess it didn’t bother her any. “Pup, those shells weren’t exploding prematurely. They were dropping submunitions.”

  The Professor had been listening in on the conversation and stepped forward, addressing Hannibal. “You mean to tell me that Pup ran into the village and back again after the NoKos started dropping submunitions?” Hannibal nodded. “That’s decoration-worthy.”

  “What’s the big deal?” I found myself asking in an almost whining voice. “Parts of the shells were dropping, and I’m sure that wasn’t safe, but I’m sure anyone else would have done it.”

  Mayumi put her hand on my shoulder. “Those weren’t parts of the shells dropping, Pup. They were submunitions. They were mines. The North Koreans were cutting us off from the village.”

  I sat there for a minute trying to comprehend what I was being told. Some of my questions wound up vocalizing themselves. “So . . . I ran through a minefield?” Everyone nodded. “I picked up the girl and carried her back through a minefield?” More nodding. “The girl knew it was a minefield, and that’s why she acted like she did?” Smiles and nods. “And that is why you guys tried to stop me?” They didn’t bother nodding now. Their eyes said it all. “I ran through a minefield twice in the middle of a rainstorm. Wow.” I don’t know if anyone else was as impressed with that realization as I was because it was at that moment that I decided to pass out. It seemed like the smart thing to do.

  Intelligent choices . . . wonder what those are like?

  җ

  I regained consciousness just a few seconds later and stumbled through the rest of the evening in a haze. We marched along the road for a couple of miles before some trucks were dispatched to pick us up. I climbed in the back and ended up falling asleep almost as soon as I sat down. I don’t think that I snored. I honestly didn’t care. The rising sun brought an end to the rain for a time. We drove into Camp Wildcat, and I got to see my world actually coming apart.

  While we were gone, the non-combat soldiers had begun the process of dismantling the camp. Wood frames stood where most of the tents had been. A steady stream of trucks and helicopters were ferrying equipment, furniture, food, and everything else that we had needed for our daily life away from the camp. “Are they that close?” I asked to no one in particular.

  “We passed a convoy of our soldiers hell-bent for leather heading north to try and stop the advance,” Jethro responded. “Even if they stop it, we are awfully close for some of their long-range tubes. It seems like a good time to skedaddle.” And that was that. I found myself holding back a few tears. I had been living at Camp Wildcat for about ten months, and somewhere along the way I had started seeing it as a home. I can’t imagine why. I had to shower in my boxers there. If my mother had cooked like the mess hall did, I would have run away when I was five years old. I still couldn’t look at the latrine without feeling phantom burning on my buttocks. Still, I had settled there. I didn’t want to see it go.

  There wasn’t any time for a tearful farewell to our old digs. As soon as we got off the trucks we were instructed to collect any personal belongings that remained and get back to the trucks within fifteen minutes. I ran to where my bunk had once been and grabbed my duffle bag. I began stuffing everything that I could into the bag and was startled when my hands got tangled up in someone else’s. I looked up and saw Mayumi. She was still hobbling a little, but she was smiling at me. “I never really settled in,” she explained. “I figured that I would lend you a hand. My ankle is still a little tender, but my arms still work fine.” I was too tired and on too much of an emotional roller coaster to feel either thankful or concerned. I just nodded and continued packing. She grabbed my pack of snore strips and asked, “What are these?”

  I glanced at the package and responded, “Personal safety equipment.”

  Mayumi shrugged and continued helping me pick up my personal things. She grabbed a stack of letters and stuffed them into my duffel, but an empty envelope fell out of the stack. She picked it up, glancing at the return address. “I don’t recognize this name. Who is Korika?”

  I guess that I never got around to throwing away the envelope that the latrine-destroying picture was sent in. I grabbed the envelope and stuffed it into the duffle bag. “Wrong number,” was my lame explanation. My imagination disappears when I’m stressed.

  The rest of the packing went on in silence. I guess that Mayumi realized that I was far too preoccupied to be chatty. Looking back on the situation, I realize that she, too, was under a lot of stress. She had just returned from her baptism by fire. Maybe she was like me and had a habit of becoming very talkative when she got nervous. Part of me feels like a jerk for not being there for her when she needed someone to talk to. Another part of me says that I’d needed to take care of my own issues at that moment. I’m really not sure which side is right.

  Fifteen minutes later I was back in the truck and watching the skeletal remains of Camp Wildcat disappear behind us. I was still very taken aback by how attached I had become to the place. The Professor had been right. We were really starting to see what war is. It isn’t just fighting the enemy and protecting your brothers- and sisters-in-arms. Sometimes it means letting go of things that you didn’t even know you cared about. The movies and video games never seemed to point that out to me.

  We were relocated to a small town several miles farther south. Our platoon was temporarily assigned an elementary school building as our new camp. After spending the better part of a year being surrounded by olive drab everywhere I looked, the riot of bright primary colors that dominated the school hurt my eyes. I found cots set up in the gymnasium and library and grabbed an empty one near the rest of my squad. I had seen cots lining the hallways as well and really didn’t want to try to sleep as people walked past me. After claiming the cot and putting a few things from my duffle bag on there in order to make certain that everyone knew it was mine, I went to find the Professor. For some reason I felt lost ,and I really needed him to provide some clarity. It didn’t surprise me to find out that he had claimed the principal’s office. I informed his clerk that I wanted to speak to him and then had a seat in the outer office. I felt a little shiver of familiarity to the situation. I had rarely gotten in trouble at school, but the one time I did, it was principal-worthy. I had just wanted to make certain that my chemistry teacher wasn’t exaggerating about how some different chemicals reacted with each other. It turned out that he was actually understating the reactions. It took a month for my eyebrows to grow back. The chemistry teacher’s toupee didn’t make it.

  I was fortunate that I didn’t have to relive that memory for long. It only took about three minutes before the clerk informed me that the Professor could see me. I walked into the office and was impressed with how quickly the lieutenant had managed to transform the principal’s office into his own command center. Multiple radios filled the desks ,and a detailed map of the area with suspected enemy locations covered one wall. The one thi
ng that he did leave on the desk from the office’s previous occupant was a name plate. It was written in Korean, but someone had decided to put a translation under it. It read “The Boss.” It was obvious that the Professor had been receiving overwhelming amounts of information, orders, stress, and underwhelming amounts of sleep. Put simply, he was looking haggard for the first time since I’d met him. Despite this, he smiled when he looked up at me. “Pup! Come in. Have a seat.”

  My feelings of being lost paled in comparison to what the Professor was obviously going through. I suddenly felt very silly. “Never mind, sir. It’s not important. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “Stay, Pup, and shut the door.” His voice was still friendly, but it also had another tone mixed in. It sounded like desperation. Maybe he needed to talk as much as I did. I closed the door and sat down. “I thought that you would like to know that based on the reports given to me by your squad leader and Lieutenant Ogawa concerning your actions during the evacuation of the village, I am submitting your name to receive the Bronze Star. I don’t know how long it will take before we hear back about it, but I have no doubt that you will receive it.” He offered to shake my hand.