Time to Hunt bls-1

by Stephen Hunter

  Conceived as a fort in a ruder and more violent age, it had taken on, with the maturity of its foliage and the replacement of its muddy lanes with cobblestone, the aspect of an old Ivy League campus. An un ironic flag flew above it at the end of a high mast, red, white, blue, rippling in the wind, unashamed. It had a passionate nineteenth century feel to it, it was somehow an encomium of manifest destiny, built on a little chunk of land that was almost an independent duchy of the United States Marine Corps, stuck a mile and a half from and on the same hill as the Capitol, where the unruly processes of democracy were currently being strained to the utmost.

  Now, on a particularly hot, bright April day, under that beating sun, young men drilled or loafed, as the authorities permitted.

  In the shade at the corner of Troop Walk and the South Arcade, seven men--boys, actually--squatted and smoked. They wore the uniform called undressed blues, which consisted of blue trousers, a tan gabardine short-sleeved shirt open at the neck, and white hat--"cover," as the Corps called hats--pulled low over their eyes. The only oddity in their appearance, which to the casual eye separated them from other Marines, was their oxfords, which were not merely shined but spit-shined, and gleamed dazzlingly. The spit shine was a fetish in their culture. Now the young Marines were on a break and, naturally, PFC Crowe, the team comedian, was explaining the nature of things.

  "See," he explained to his audience, as he sucked on a Marlboro, "it'll look great on a resume. I tell 'em, I was in this elite unit. I needed a top-secret security clearance. We trained and rehearsed for our missions, and then when we went on them, in the hot, sweltering weather, men dropped all around me. But I kept going, goddammit.

  I was a hero, a goddamn hero. Of course what I don't tell them is, I'm talking about .. . parades."

  He was rewarded with appropriate blasts of laughter from his cohorts, who regarded him as an amusing and generally harmless character. He had an uncle who was a congressman's chief fund-raiser, which accounted for his presence in Company B, the body-bearer company, as opposed to more rigorous and dangerous duties in WES PAC, as the orders always called it, or what the young Marines had termed the Land of Bad Things. He had no overwhelming desire to go to the Republic of South Vietnam.

  Indeed, in all of Second Casket Team, only one of the seven had seen service in RSVN. This was the noncommissioned officer in charge, Corporal Donny Fenn, twenty-two, of Ajo, Arizona. Donny, a large and almost freakishly handsome blond kid with a year of college behind him, had spent seven months in another B Company, 1/9 Bravo, attached to the III Marine Amphibious Force, in operations near and around An Hoa in I Corps. He had been shot at many times and hit once, in the lungs, for which he was hospitalized for six months. He also had something called, uh, he would mumble, uh, bmzstr, and not look you in the eye.

  But now Donny was short. That is, he had just under thirteen months left to serve and by rumor, at any rate, that meant the Corps would not in its infinite wisdom ship him back to the Land of Bad Things. This was not because the Corps loved his young ass. No, it was because the tour of duty in "Nam was thirteen calendar months, and if you sent anyone over with less than thirteen calendar months, it hopelessly muddied the tidiness of the records, so upsetting to the anal-retentive minds of personnel clerks. So for all intents and purposes, Donny had made it safely through the central conflict of his age.

  "All right," he said, checking his watch as its second hand hurtled toward 1100 to signify the end of break, "put 'em out and strip 'em. Put the filters in your pockets, that is if you're a faggot who smokes filtered cigarettes. If I see any butts out here, I'll PT your asses until morning muster."

  The troops grunted, but obeyed. Of course they knew he didn't mean it, like them, he was no lifer. Like them, he'd go back to the world.

  So as would any listless group of young men in so pitiless an institution as the Marine Corps, they got with the program with something less than total enthusiasm. It was another day at Eighth and I, another day of operations on the parade deck when they weren't on alert or serving cemetery duty: up at O-dark-30, an hour of PT at 0600, morning muster at 0700, chow at 0800, and by 0930, the beginning of long, sometimes endless hours of drill, either of the funeral variety or of the riot-control variety.

  Then the duty day was done: those who had assignments did them, and otherwise the boys could secure (the married could live off base with wives, many of the unmarried shared unofficial cheap places available on Capitol Hill) or lounge about, playing pool, drinking 3.2 in the enlisted men's bar or going to the movies on the Washington PX circuit or even trying their luck with women in the bars of Capitol Hill.

  But the luck was always bad, a source of much bitterness.

  This was only partially because Marines were thought of as baby killers. The real reason was hair: it was, in the outside world, the era of hair. Men wore their locks long and puffed up, usually overwhelming their ears in the process. The poor jarheads--and all the ceremonial troopers of the Military District of Washington--were expected to be acolytes to the temple of military discipline.

  Thus they offered nearly naked skulls to the world--white sidewalls, it was called--except for a permitted patch no more than three-quarters of an inch up top. Their ears stood out like radar bowls. Some of them looked like Howdy Doody, and no self-respecting hippie chick would deign spit at them, and since all American girls had become hippie chicks, they were, in Crowe's memorable term, shit out of luck.

  "Gloves on," Donny commanded, and his men, as they rose, pulled on their white gloves.

  Donny started them through another long fifty minutes of casket drill. As body bearers, all were on the husky side. As body bearers, none could make a mistake. It seemed meaningless, but a few--Donny, for one--understood that they did in fact have an important job: to anesthetize the pain of death with stultifying ritual. They had to hide the actual fact--there was a boy in the box going into the ground of Arlington National Cemetery forever, years before his time, and to what end?--with pomp and precision. And Donny, though an easygoing guy in most respects, was determined that in this one aspect, they would be the best.

  So the team turned to, under his guidance and soft but forcefully uttered commands: they walked through the precisely choreographed steps by which a flag-draped box of boy was smartly removed from the hearse, which in the rehearsal was only a steel rack, aligned by its bearers, carried with utter calm dignity to the grave site, laid upon a bier. Next came the tricky flag folding: the flag was snapped off the box by six pairs of disciplined hands and, beginning with the man at the boot of the casket, broken into a triangle which grew thicker with each rigid fold as it passed from man to man. If the folding went right, what was finally deposited in Corporal Fenn's hands was a per feet triangle, a tricorn, festooned on either side with stars, with no red stripe showing anywhere. This was not easy, and it took weeks for a good team to get it right and even longer to break in a new guy.

  At this point, Corporal Fenn took the triangle of stars, marched with stiff precision to the seated mother or father or whoever, and in his white gloves presented it to her. An odd moment, always: some recipients were too stunned to respond. Some were too shattered to notice.

  Some were awkward, some even a little star struck for a Marine as good-looking as Donny, with a chestful of medals hanging heavily from his dress tunic, his hair gone, his hat as white as his gloves, his dignity impenetrable, his theater craft immaculate, is indeed an awesome sight--almost like a movie star--and that charisma frequently cut through the grief of the moment. One broken mom even took his picture with an Instamatic as he approached.

  But on this run-through, the corporal was not pleased with the performance of his squad. Of course it was PFC Crowe, not the best man on the team.

  "All right, Crowe," he said, after the sweat-soaked boys had stood down from the ritual, "I saw you. You were out of step on the walk-to and you were half a beat behind on the left face-out of the wagon."

  "Ah," said Crowe, searc
hing for a quip to memorialize the moment, "my damn knee. It's the junk I picked up at Khe Sahn."

  This did bring a chuckle, for as close as Crowe had come to Khe Sahn was reading about it in the New Haven Register.

  "I forgot you were such a hero," Donny said.

  "So only drop and give me twenty-five, not fifty. Out of commemoration for your great sacrifice."

  Crowe muttered darkly but harmlessly and the other team members drew back to give him room to perform his absolution. He peeled off his gloves, dropped to the prone and banged out twenty-five Marine-regulation pushups.

  The last six were somewhat sloppy.

  "Excellent," said Donny.

  "Maybe you're not a girl after all. All right, let's--" But at this moment, the company commander's orderly, the bespectacled PFC Welch, suddenly appeared at Donny's right shoulder.

  "Hey, Corporal," he whispered, "CO wants to see you."

  Shit, thought Donny, what the hell have I done now?

  "Ohhh," somebody sang, "somebody's in trouble. ""Hey Donny, maybe they're going to give you another medal."

  "It's his Hollywood contract, it's finally come."

  "You know what it's about?" asked Donny of Welch, who was a prime source of scuttlebutt.

  "No idea. Some Navy guys, that's all I know. It's ASAP, though."

  "I'm on my way. Bascombe, you take over. Another twenty minutes. Focus on the face-out of the hearse that seems to have Crowe so baffled. Then take 'em to chow.

  I'll catch up when I can."

  "Yes, Corporal."

  Donny straightened his starched shirt, adjusted the gig line, wondered if he had time to change shirts, decided he didn't, and took off.

  He headed across the parade deck, passing among other drilling Marines. The show boats of Company A, the silent drill rifle team, were going through their elaborate pantomime, the color guard people were mastering the intricacies of flag work, another platoon had moved on to riot control and was stomping furiously down Troop Walk, bent double under combat gear.

  Donny reached Center Walk, turned and headed into the barracks proper, only crossing paths with half a dozen officers in the salute-crazed Corps and having to toss up a stiff right hand for their response. He entered the building, turned right and went through the open hatch (Marine for "door") and down the hall. It was dark and the gleamy swirls of good buffer work on the wax of the linoleum shone up at him. Along the green government bulkheads were photos of various Marine activities supplied by an aggressive Public Information Office for morale purposes, at which they utterly failed. At last, he turned into the door marked commanding officer, and under that captain m. c. dogwood, usmc. The outer office was empty, because PFC Welch was still running errands.

  "Fenn?" came the call from the inner office.

  "In here."

  Donny stepped into the office, a kind of ghostly crypt to the joint vanities of Marine machismo and bureaucratic efficiency, to discover the ramrod-stiff Captain Morton Dogwood sitting with a slender young man in the summer tans of a lieutenant commander in the Navy and an even younger man in an ensign's uniform.

  "Sir," said Donny, going to attention, "Corporal Fenn reporting as ordered, sir."

  As he was unarmed, he did not salute.

  "Fenn, this is Commander Bonson and Ensign Weber," said Dogwood.

  "Sirs," said Donny to the naval officers.

  "Commander Bonson and his associate are from the Naval Investigative Service," said Dogwood.

  Oh, shit, thought Donny.

  The room was dark, the shades drawn. The captain's meager assembly of service medals hung in a frame on the wall behind him, as well as an announcement of his degree in International Finance from George Washington University. His desk was shiny and almost clear except for the polished 105mm howitzer shell that had been cut down to a paper clip cup and was everybody's souvenir from service in RSVN, and pictures of a pretty wife and two baby girls.

  "Sit down, Fenn," said Bonson, not looking up from documents he was studying, which, as Donny saw, were his own jacket, or personnel records.

  "Aye, aye, sir," said Donny. He found a chair and set himself into it stiffly, facing the three men who seemed to hold his destiny in their hands. Outside, the shouts of drill came through the windows, outside it was bright and hot and the day was filled with duty. Donny felt in murky waters here, what the hell was this all about?

  "Good record," said Bonson.

  "Excellent job in country.

  Good record here in the barracks. Your hitch is up when, Fenn?"

  "Sir, May seventy-two."

  "Hate to see you leave, Fenn. The Corps needs good men like you."

  "Yes, sir," said Donny, wondering if this was some-no, no, it couldn't be a recruiting pitch. NIS was the Navy and the Corps's own, tinny version of the FBI: they investigated, they didn't recruit.

  "I'm engaged to be married.

  I've already been accepted back at the University of Arizona."

  "What will you study?" asked the commander.

  "Sir, pre-law, I think."

  "You know, Fenn, you'll probably get out a corporal.

  Rank is hard to come by in the Corps, because it's so small and there just aren't the positions available, no matter the talent and the commitment."

  "Yes, sir," said Donny.

  "Only about eight percent of four-year enlistees come out higher than corporal. That is, as a sergeant or higher."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Fenn, think how it would help your law career if you made sergeant. You'd be one of an incredibly small number of men to do so. You'd truly be in an elite."

  "Ah--" Donny hardly knew what to say.

  "The officers have a tremendous opportunity for you, Fenn," said Captain Dogwood.

  "You'd do well to hear them out."

  "Yes, sir," said Donny.

  "Corporal Fenn, we have a leak. A bad leak. We want you to plug it."

  "A leak, sir?" said Donny.

  "Yes. You know we have sources into most of the major peace groups. And you've heard rumors that on May Day, they're going to try to shut the city down and bring the war to a halt by destroying the head of the machine."

  Rumors like that flew through the air. The Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, SNICC, they were going to close down Washington, levitate the Pentagon or bury it in rose petals, break into the armories and lead armed insurrection. It just meant that Bravo Company was always on alert status and nobody could get any serious liberty time.

  "I've heard." His girlfriend was headed in for the May Day weekend. It would be great to see her, if he wasn't stuck on alert or, worse, sleeping under a desk in some building near the White House.

  "Well, it's true. May Day. The communist holiday.

  They have the biggest mobilization of the war planned.

  They really mean to close us down and keep us closed down."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Our job is simple," said Lieutenant Commander Bonson.

  "It's to stop them."

  Such determination in the man's voice, even a little tremble. His eyes seemed to burn with old-fashioned Iwo Jima-style zeal. At the same time, Donny couldn't help notice the lack of an RSVN service ribbon on the khaki of his chest.

  "Remember November?" asked Bonson.

  "Yes, sir," said Donny, and indeed he did. It stuck in his mind, not the whole thing, really, but one ludicrous moment.

  It was late, near 2400, midnight in the American soul, and the Marines of Bravo in full combat gear were filing into the Treasury Building, adjacent to the White House, for protective duties against the possibilities of the next morning in a city where 200,000 angry kids had camped on the mall. A bone-dry moon shone above, the weather was crisp but not yet brutal. The Marines debarked from their trucks, holding their M14s at the high port, bayonets fixed, but still wearing their metal scabbards.

  As Donny led his men downward toward the entrance, his eye was caught by light and he looked up. The abutment at the
end of the ramp was brick and, being situated between the oh-so-white White House on the left and the oh-so-dark Treasury on the right, yielded a perspective on Pennsylvania Avenue, where the architects of the crusade for peace had organized a silent candlelight vigil.

  So one line of young Americans carried rifles into a government building, under tin pots and thirty-five pounds of gear, while twenty-odd feet above them, at a perfect right angle, another line of young Americans filed along the deserted street, cupping candles, the light of which weirdly illuminated and flickered on their tender faces. Donny's epiphany came at that moment: no matter what the fiery lifers said or the screaming-head peaceniks, both groups of Americans were pretty much the same.

  "Yes, sir," said Donny.

  "I remember."

  "Were you aware, Corporal, that radical elements anticipated the movements of only one military unit, Company B of Marine Barracks, and that just by the hairiest of coincidences did a Washington policeman discover a bomb that was set to take out the phone junction into the Treasury, thereby effectively cutting off B Company and leaving the White House and the president defenseless?

  Think of it, Corporal. Defenseless!"

  He seemed to get a weird charge out of saying Defenseless!, his nostrils flaring, his eyes lit up.

  Donny had no idea what to say. He hadn't heard a thing about a bomb in a phone junction.

  "How did they know you were there? How did they know that's where you'd be?" demanded the lieutenant commander.

  It occurred to Donny: There are two buildings next to the White House. One is the Executive Office Building, one is the Treasury. If you were going to move troops in, wouldn't you move them into one of the two buildings?

  Where else could they be?

  "I don't--" he stammered and almost ended his career right there by blowing up in a big laugh.

  "That's when my team began to investigate. That's when NIS got on the case!" proclaimed the lieutenant commander.

  "Yes, sir."

  "We've run exhaustive background checks on everyone in the three line companies at the Marine Barracks. And we think we've found our man."