Pup

by Christopher Slater

  “I do,” she replied. “Aaron . . . Aaron . . .” She couldn’t seem to make herself get past his name. “He said that medics were on the way. We should wait.”

  I looked at the wounded all around us and was hit by a wave of uncertainty. “That smoke grenade gave away our location, and that jet seemed to be waiting. For all that we know, the medics could have been intercepted themselves. What about the mortar crew?”

  Mayumi shook her head. “We had them pull out a while back. They should be a couple of miles west of here by now.”

  That got my mind to thinking. “The Professor,” my voice cracked a bit when I said his name, “mentioned us heading west to meet up with the South Koreans. Maybe we should move the wounded in that direction.”

  Doing a quick count, Mayumi shook her head. “I know that you can run while you carry someone, whether they want you to or not, but there are ten of us here. That’s more than you can carry. I don’t see how we can pull it off.”

  I banged on the bumper we were leaning on with my fist. “These aren’t just paperweights, you know.” Realizing that we might have a solution, new energy flooded our systems. We jumped up and I ran to the driver’s seat. We carefully removed the body of the driver and covered him in a poncho as well. Then I got in and tried to start the vehicle. The engine did not make a single sound. It didn’t even try. “Well, maybe this one is a paperweight.” With considerably less enthusiasm, we approached the second Humvee. Once again, we removed the driver and covered him. This time, when I tried to start it, the engine sputtered for a moment and then roared to life with the most glorious sound I had ever heard. I giggled with delight. I am not kidding. I giggled. I’m man enough to admit my giggling. Just don’t mention it to my friends. “Help me get everyone loaded up!”

  It didn’t take long to see a flaw in our plan. We had a working vehicle, but it was not big enough to carry ten people. In a brain cloudburst (still not big enough to be called a brainstorm) I backed the working Humvee up to the useless one and connected them with tow cables kept in the toolkit. Mayumi seemed impressed. Apparently she held low expectations. It took another ten minutes, but we got everyone loaded into the two vehicles. Mayumi jumped into the seat next to mine, I put the Humvee into gear, and I gave it gas. I guess towing required a lot more power than I expected, because we didn’t go anywhere. I continued to give more throttle until we started moving, but we were moving very slowly and the tires were spinning so much that they were smoking. I allowed this to continue for a few seconds before I stopped and took the vehicle out of gear. I pondered the situation for a moment and then gave myself a face-palm. Getting out of the lead Humvee, I walked to the towed vehicle, reached in, put it in neutral, turned off the hill break, and then walked back to my vehicle. I guess that I should mention that it took me a few tries to pass my driver’s test in high school.

  Once I had taken care of the initial problems, driving with the second vehicle in tow was easy. We stayed on the service road that followed the railroad tracks. We kept our headlights off so that we couldn’t be easily spotted by aircraft or enemy soldiers. Besides, with our night vision gear we didn’t need the lights. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant drive through the countryside. All around us were signs of battles having been fought. There were fields that had managed to catch fire despite the rain. Wreckage of aircraft and helicopters littered the landscape. Large craters left by artillery or bombs were everywhere. Fortunately, none of them had hit the service road, and it allowed us to continue without detour. While all of these things showed that the land had been fought over, we still did not see any sign of allied forces anywhere.

  The decision to follow the service road made sense for two reasons. The first was that although the paving was old and weather worn, it still allowed us to travel at relatively high speeds. The other reason that it made sense was because the road and railroad tracks traveled from east to west at our defensive point. I have no sense of direction, so this gave me an absolute means of making sure I headed west toward allied forces. What no one had told me, probably because I had no reason to know, was that the tracks and service road made a gradual turn to the northwest. A half hour of driving had sent me a few miles into North Korean-held territory. I didn’t know. I told you that I have no sense of direction. There wasn’t a sign or anything. A map might color the area red, but the ground doesn’t change color just because someone else controls it.

  The detrimental thing about headlights is that they allow you to see a few dozen yards in front of you, but others can see those lights from miles away. The headlights on the big deuce-and-a-half truck had blackout covers on them, making them pinpricks of light instead of giant torches, but we could see them easily nonetheless. With almost giddy joy, Mayumi focused on the truck and zoomed in with her goggles to get a better look. “It’s old, but it is definitely an American truck. It is traveling on a dirt road that will cross the train tracks in another mile or so.” She stopped her description for a moment and studied what all she was seeing intently. “Pup, something isn’t right. There are smaller vehicles all around it. There are four of them. They look like . . . what do you Americans call them? Dung buggies?”

  I laughed. It sounded like something that I would say. “You mean dune buggies?”

  “Yes, whatever,” she responded impatiently. Fear had crept into her voice. “Each of them has a gun mounted on top. They . . . they’re wearing North Korean uniforms! They must be trying to capture the truck!”

  “Oh shit!” Sorry, Mom. Sometimes life calls for that kind of reaction. I took stock of our situation. There was no one else nearby. If we didn’t do something, there was no way the driver of that truck would be able to get out of this mess. I made a quick decision. “Take the wheel!” I ordered. Mayumi looked like she was going to argue, but I didn’t give her a choice. I began climbing out of the driver’s seat and up into the gun turret. In the movies, such a change in drivers happens pretty smoothly. What a load of crap! If I didn’t have my helmet on I would have cracked my skull open several times, there was so much swerving and jerking as Mayumi tried to get settled in to drive.

  Once Mayumi did get settled in to drive, things didn’t get much better. There was still an unbelievable amount of swerving and overcorrecting, and she couldn’t seem to decide on a speed. The vehicle we were towing was going crazy, being thrown from one side to the other and hitting our rear bumper as we kept changing speed. The wounded in both of the vehicles should all be glad that they were unconscious. It was better for them that way. I steadied my vision enough to find the dune buggies. They were almost in range. I made sure that the electric traverse was still working on the gun, and as soon as they were in range, I unleashed hell.

  The first gun that I had ever fired in the Hiss had been the machine gun when I was on sentry duty with Rabbit. Part of the reason I had fired so much was because I thought that I should protect the base. The other part was because I had found something about the raw power of firing it enjoyable. It turned out that I still did. I could hear myself whooping, hollering, and even growling as I pumped round after round of high-powered projectiles at my targets. The first dune buggy never had a chance. The rounds went straight through its engine, causing it to seize. The buggy flipped in a spectacular crash. The other buggies responded quickly. Although we had no headlights on, the muzzle flash from a heavy machine gun was like a giant beacon. There was no mistaking where we were. That was when Mayumi’s very erratic driving became useful. There was no pattern, rhyme, or reason to her driving, which made us a nearly impossible target to hit. It also made it very difficult for me to aim, but I did my best. It surprised me that the dune buggies fought to the very last man, but in the end determination and a little touch of crazy won out. The truck was safe.

  Throughout the entire fight, the truck had remained on its course. Then again, where else could it go? Mayumi brought the Humvee to a stop directly in front of it. For a moment, I thought
that the truck was going to ram us. Finally, I heard the squeal of the truck’s breaks and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I squirmed down out of the cupola. “Where did you learn to drive like that?” I asked. My neck was still trying to recover from her maneuvers.

  “I didn’t,” she replied sheepishly. “You told me to take the wheel. You never asked if I had learned how to drive.” I guess what they say about assuming is true.

  “I’ll check on the driver, Mayumi. You check on the passenger. Let’s see if they can give us a ride to a medic station.”

  We dismounted from the Humvee and began to approach the truck. Something didn’t quite seem right. The occupants seemed to be watching us with more concern than appreciation. You would think that if we just saved their lives that they would be all smiles. The passenger pulled out some small electronic device, punched a few buttons on it, and then put it away again. Their uniforms were correct, but something about the way that they wore them seemed wrong. It was like they weren’t comfortable in them. And then there was the driver pulling out a pistol and shooting at me. That was the final giveaway that not everything was what it seemed. Just call me Sherlock.

  I dove and rolled away. Mud covered my goggles and I ripped them off. The driver had opened his door and begun to step out so that he would have a clearer field of fire. I realized that I had committed a cardinal military sin by leaving my carbine in the Humvee. I grabbed a rock and hurled it with all of my might. It hit the driver in the shoulder. It elicited little more than an ow from him. He raised his pistol and aimed at me. I thought about closing my eyes but then wondered what that would accomplish. My eyelids wouldn’t stop the bullet. Multiple shots were fired, and then the driver crumpled over, dead. I looked over at the Humvees and saw Rabbit in the turret, giving me a thumbs-up, a morphine induced giggle, and then passing out again.

  The passenger must not have been carrying a sidearm because instead of shooting at Mayumi, he had leaped out of the truck and tackled her. He had managed to catch her by surprise and had her pinned to the ground. I saw him punch her, and my vision went red. I heard him draw a knife, but it didn’t make me pause a single heartbeat. I ran up and tackled him with the ferocity of an NFL linebacker during a goal line defense in the Super Bowl. At least I assume that it was something like that. I don’t really watch sports. It just sounded good. We hit the ground, and his knife went flying out of his hand. I put my knees in his chest, pinned him down, and snarled, “Don’t touch my girlfriend again!” punctuating each word with a vicious punch to the face. I watched his eyes roll back in his head and realized that I had just knocked someone out. Boy if that bully from my high school gym class could just see me now. Steal my deodorant, huh? I heard a squish of footsteps and jumped up ready to fight again. It was Mayumi. She already had swelling around her cheekbone, but she looked to be all right. She looked at me, then looked down at the unconscious man at my feet. Almost as an afterthought, she gave him a vicious kick in the crotch. I cringed. I don’t care if a man is friend or enemy, that just hurts! “Are you OK?”

  She gave a slight nod. “So I’m your girlfriend? Shouldn’t you check with me about that? After all, you still haven’t seen my booty.” Jethro! Can’t you keep your mouth shut?

  “Well, you weren’t there to argue at the time.” I knelt down and began removing the shoelaces from the passenger’s boots. I didn’t happen to carry handcuffs on me, so I figured I could bind him with those until we could turn him in as a prisoner. As I was doing that, I took a good look at him. He seemed familiar. I ran through all of the movies that I had seen, but he didn’t fit into any of them. I thought of all of the stupid commercials that got stuck in my head and forced me to sing jingles out loud whenever I thought no one could hear me, but I couldn’t picture him singing any of those, either. For some reason I kept thinking about playing solitaire on a cell phone. That’s almost a way of life, you know. That’s when it hit me. Cards. “He’s the King of Spades!” I realized that he was one of the men on the “capture cards” that the military used to familiarize troops with high-value targets. “He’s one of the generals in the military junta that took over North Korea. That’s a funny word, ‘junta.’”

  “Focus, Pup.”

  I guess that meant that I shouldn’t point out that I would have thought he would be tougher than that. Oh, well. “I wonder what he was doing out here in a plain old truck?”

  “Who cares?” Mayumi replied. “We can fit all of the wounded in here and get everyone back to the American lines.” I couldn’t argue with that logic, so I bound the still unconscious general with his own shoelaces and then accompanied Mayumi to the back of the truck. It was already partially occupied by a large wooden crate. “I wonder what this is.” Mayumi said.

  “As long as it’s not beeping or ticking, I don’t care.” Sometimes you can’t sweat the small stuff . . . or even the large, crated stuff.

  Mayumi climbed into the back of the truck and approached the box carefully. She stood there studying it for a moment before she announced, “Well do you care that it is beeping?”

  I thought about that one for a second. Then I returned to the general and searched his pockets. In one pocket I found a small electronic device with a few buttons covered in Korean symbols. I looked at it for a moment and decided not to overthink it. I pressed the red button near the top. Nothing happened. “Did it stop beeping?” I yelled.

  Mayumi continued listening for a moment, then replied, “It stopped.”

  “Good. I can go back to not caring now. Let’s get everyone loaded in.” Ten minutes later I was driving a deuce-and-a-half southbound with a general tied up in the back being guarded by a Japanese woman whose specialty was electronics next to a giant crate that stops beeping when you push a red button on what looks like a really old cell phone. Perfectly normal night in the Hiss, right?

  And I’m still trying to figure it all out . . .

  җ

  Most of you should know the rest of the story. Of course, if you are anything like my children, that would mean that you would have had to study something, and they would rather get a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it than do that. Let me save you the Internet search. The Professor was right. That battle was the final death throes of the North Korean military junta. They’d put everything that they had into one final assault. Their allies weren’t well trained in large-scale warfare, so they didn’t fare well. The North Korean military had been fighting a long and drawn out war with very limited resources, so they didn’t have much of a chance to begin with. The generals had decided that they would go down fighting, though. Naturally, with the exception of the general in the truck, the rest of the leaders had been far away while they’d expected their soldiers to go down fighting. There was a lot of celebrating when the junta members were captured three days later in a Special Forces assault. A lot of that celebrating was done by North Koreans.

  My platoon had been involved in some of the lightest fighting. The biggest thrust had been several miles east of us. However, our end of the battlefield turned out to be the most significant. The North Korean generals weren’t under the delusion that they had a good chance of winning the battle that they had started. What they had needed it for was a diversion. With a huge infantry battle taking place, surely no one would notice a plain old covered truck driving south. No one would have tried to intercept it as it drove toward the docks at Incheon. Then the only other nuclear bomb in North Korea’s inventory would have ripped through that city. Even if the North had lost the battle, the threat of being able to deliver another nuclear bomb unnoticed to somewhere like Seoul may have helped them win the war. What they didn’t plan on was one lost idiot who wasn’t afraid to push buttons. Good thing I didn’t try the green button.

  The truck wasn’t easy to drive. While Mayumi had never learned to drive, I had never learned to drive a manual transmission. I’m pretty sure that this truck had been captured
during the First Korean War. Everything about it was old, rusty, and cantankerous. (I think I used that word correctly.) I ground the gears a lot, and I’m pretty sure that the clutch was never the same again, but I finally got us going. I’m pretty sure that I never broke fifteen miles per hour. Changing gears was difficult enough. Changing gears in a large truck that had tiny headlights in a nighttime downpour when I’d been spoiled by full-color night vision goggles was damn near impossible!

  I managed to make contact with American forces without getting us shot. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a close thing, mind you. Most soldiers tend to be a little more observant than I am. They noticed that the truck was of an older vintage, an older paint scheme, and the driver didn’t seem to know what he was doing. However, after getting screamed at a lot, I was finally able to identify myself and inform them of the prisoner and casualties in the back of the truck. They worked quickly to secure the general properly and cart off the wounded and dead from the back. Someone asked me what was in the crate. I proclaimed ignorance, and they believed me. Some people just give off that air. When they opened it with a crowbar, many curses were uttered and a few pants were wetted. I spent days afterward being interviewed by every intelligence agent in the Hiss, and a few more that I believe were imported, about where I obtained a nuclear warhead.

  I was able to attend the Professor’s service at Arlington. It was the playing of “Taps” that finally did me in. I had managed to hold back the tears until that moment. It was the only time I’ve ever cried when no one told me that I needed to “man up.” I still visit him whenever I can.