“And, in 1967 the war was still going on?”
“Yes,” he answered, narrowing his eyes.
“So, why did the government all of a sudden decide to send you down here instead of back there?” I got it out and waited for the fallout.
“I don’t ask why the government does anything,” he answered but, somehow, I didn’t think he was telling me everything. “I just know they wanted me down here.”
“How long were you in Vietnam?” I asked.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“I just wanted to know,” I said. “I’ve heard stories of how bad it was over there.”
“Stories?” he laughed, hesitantly and I thought I could see his hand shake just a little. “Who told you stories?”
“I don’t know. We learned in school and there were movies made about it.”
“Movies?” he laughed again but there was no humour behind it. He was upset. “Did you hear that Private? Movies were made. Well, that proves it then; the war in Vietnam was bad. Sweetie, war is always bad.”
“I know,” I said, trying not to let his sarcastic attitude get to me. I asked my questions as tactfully as I could. “But, the Vietnam war was particularly bad wasn’t it?”
“Why are you asking me this?” he asked and I could see some of his bravado cracking.
“I-we wanted to know if your work down here is genuine,” I said.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he looked confused now like I had caught him off guard.
“You know there’s a difference between being sent down here and falling down here,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.
“You don’t believe me,” he said and leaned his head down.
“Maybe you don’t remember how you really got here,” I said. “And that’s okay. Waking up and finding yourself in a whole other dimension when you didn’t even know that other dimensions existed and finding out that no one you know is here really sucks. It’s even worse when you find there’re others here from all over the timeline and that there’s no way back. It plays tricks with your mind; makes you do things you never would have done before.”
“Is that why you killed people?” he asked, turning the tables on me. I didn’t like it.
“People?” I asked. “I only killed Butcher and that was in self-defence.”
“You set fire to an entire camp,” he pointed out. “That caused people to lose their homes, live in the wild and, maybe, die from it.”
“That’s a stretch,” I said but inside I knew he could be right. I struggled with these thoughts everyday.
“Is it?” he looked doubtful. “I think you know better.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s say what I did led to people getting hurt or possibly dying. Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? Don’t you think I live with that everyday? Don’t you think I toss and turn at night, not able to sleep without thinking about it? Believe me, it eats away at me. It makes me question who I am; if I’m even good enough to be alive.” Barker pushed my hand with his nose, making me pat him and feel the warmth he held for me. “But that’s what I mean by it screws with your mind!”
“So, you’ve punished yourself, proving your human.” He got up and put his cup on the table. “I haven’t been able to do that yet.”
“What do you mean?” I said. He didn’t answer. “Tell me more about Vietnam. How long were you there?”
“You’re not going to give this up are you?”
“No.”
“I did three tours,” he answered me, still standing, his back to me. There was no emotion in his voice. “Three very active combat tours.”
“That must have been hard,” I tried to sympathize.
“Hard?” he laughed and spun around to face me. I was surprised by the pain I saw on his face. Had I finally broken through the barrier that held back his emotions? “How they expected anyone to keep returning to a country they knew very little about and command young men to kill...” He stopped himself and did his habitual lift his hat, rub his hand through his hair them return the hat. When he regained his composure, he continued.
“My first two tours went good. My men suffered small losses but nothing that was unusual. I liked my men and felt pain for the losses but it was war and I could accept that men would die. Dying in war is acceptable, honorable.” He was pacing now.
“And your third tour?” I asked.
“I had a platoon of boys,” he said and I could hear the pride in his voice; like a father’s pride for his son. “I say boys because that’s what they were, young, maybe eighteen, just out of high school. Mostly poor and uneducated because those were the ones who couldn’t avoid the draft. It was my job to command their battles; ensure their success and, hopefully, keep them alive.”
“And did you?” I whispered out the question, regretting what I felt the answer would be.
“Almost.” He sat down, his shoulders deflated, ready to tell me everything and emotion dripping out of every word. “I sent them into the jungle, knowing it was probably full of traps. I had no choice; that’s where the Viet Cong bastards hid.” He let out a sigh before continuing. “The boys were making their way through, almost made it too, when it happened.”
“What happened?” I asked, scared of what I might hear.
“The Viet Cong, that’s what!” He looked down at the ground shaking his head; reliving every moment of the memory. I could see sweat forming on the back of his neck. “There was a girl, not much older than seven or eight, sitting at a fire, cooking something. She didn’t look up at the soldiers, she just sat there stirring the pot. She looked scared, lost, alone. The boys tried to get her to talk; they put their weapons down and took off their helmets so they didn’t look so intimidating. Then Private Sanchez reached out to her, offering her a stick of gum. He got so close.” He stopped and looked blankly into nothing but his mind was seeing the scene as if it was being played out right in front of him. Then he took off his cap and crumpled it in his hands, pain contorting his face.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It was so fast,” he went on, the truth obviously still too hard to believe. “Nobody could’ve predicted it.”
“Colonel Al?” I wanted to comfort him, let him know that it was over and he was safe now. I went to get up but Barker sat up, wagging his tail and laid his head on my lap. I pat behind the ears and stayed sitting.
“It was the pot,” he said. “It had to be.”
“What was the pot?”
“The pot was where the explosives were, of course,” he looked at me matter-of-factly, like I should know what he was talking about.
“Explosives?” I asked.
“When Sanchez leaned forward with the gum he tripped a wire and the whole thing blew up,” he laughed in a crazy sort of way. “The pot, the girl, Sanchez and anyone who was within ten feet of that fire and got blown into pieces. Then everything became a blur.”
“Tell me,” I urged. I felt like it was helping him to talk about it.
“Well, my boys panicked of course,” he said. “They were so young, you see. For most of them it was their first tour. How could they possibly know that a little girl would lure them into a trap?” He looked at me like he wanted me to answer. I shrugged my shoulders in a silent ‘I don’t know.’
“Well she did all right, and it caused all hell to break loose. The Viet Cong were there, you see. They were hiding, waiting for someone to approach the girl. They wanted to catch soldiers off guard and they did.” He looked at me and smiled.
“They came from everywhere,” he continued, “from the trees, the ground, the sky; everywhere you looked was a VC. My boys started shooting. Every sound, every movement became a target.” He got up and squeezed his head, trying to block out the noise that only sounded in his head.
“They were so young! Fresh out of high school, and out of their mama’s arms. Christ, some of them didn’t even shave yet!” He wiped the back of his arm across his sweating forehead, turning
his back to me. “Bullets were flying and men were falling quicker than blinking your eyes. My men, their men; what did it matter? Death doesn’t give a rat’s ass. There’re no sides, no colour, no country, no race in death. There’s only you and whatever god you pray to and the rest of the universe doesn’t matter.
“Then, as quickly as the craziness started, it ended. Do you know what that means?” he asked and I shook my head even though I knew he couldn’t see me with his back turned. “It means that all the men from one side, every single one, was dead because men that are still alive make sound. They moan or groan or curse but I heard nothing. That kind of silence can be deafening. I asked myself why? What the hell were we doing there? How could we hate a human being so much that we could kill them like that?” He snapped his fingers. “Especially ones we had never even met. We knew nothing of their lives, their dreams, their families, the women they loved and the ones they didn’t and they knew nothing of ours. Yet, we pulled out guns and knives and slaughtered one another without even batting an eye.”
“What happened next?” I asked, knowing there was more to the story.
“The heat was so intense and the smoke from all the gunfire and explosives was thick as it settled onto the jungle floor. You could barely breathe. The putrid smell of blood from the fallen made you nauseous, wanting to puke up whatever was in your stomach.” He stopped and put his hands on his hips and lowered his head. I could see his body shake and I felt for him. When the personal stories of war are told it’s hard to imagine that anyone could live through the nastiness of it.
“And then what?” I asked.
“There was a sudden rustle of the bushes in front of us,” he said. I could hear the turmoil in his voice; he didn’t want to go on.
“And...”
“The bushes rattled, I raised my gun and fired without thinking.” His face twisted in torturous memory and I could see tears forming in his eyes. “I fired and two little girls about five and six lay on the ground in front of me; I had killed them.”
“Oh my god!” I put my hand to my mouth, not knowing what to say. I never expected this.
“I could only think of one thing; one reason why there were now three dead little girls.”
“What?” I asked.
“The little girl by the fire was not a willing participant. The VC used her as bait and, if she didn’t cooperate, they threatened to kill what must have been her sisters. So, she sacrificed her life believing it would spare her sisters. She would have, too, if I hadn’t killed them.” He finished his confession and looked like he had run a marathon with a thousand pounds strapped to his back. I got up and reached out to him. Barker stood to let me up. I wrapped my arms around Colonel Al and held him like I held Robert when Madge died. At first he stood rigid, not knowing how to accept my compassion.
“I killed them, two little girls!” he said as he broke my embrace and tried to regain his composure. “I didn’t even look; I just blindly pointed my gun and shot. What kind of commander was I?”
“You didn’t know,” I tried to console him. “How could you ever know that there would be two more girls in the bushes. It was war and so many crazy things happen in war. Just like down here; I didn’t know Butcher and I just walked up to him and shot him.”
“But he was an evil man intent on killing you. He deserved to die,” he said. “These were two innocent children. They didn’t deserve to die.”
“It doesn’t matter who you kill,” I said. “It’s the act of killing, itself, that destroys us. To actually believe, even for a second, that you have the power to decide that a life should end is arrogant and selfish of us no matter what you believe in.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” he continued. “I told the men that survived to go back and I ordered them not to tell anyone. I didn’t want the government to know what I had done; to know what they had trained me to do. They knew what it was like there and yet they persisted in sending more and more men to fight their war. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction that they could use my horrible crime to force me back into battle.”
“So what did you do?” I asked as I sat back down at the table.
“I finished my tour and went back home to Fort Lewis in Washington,” he said. “My tour was over and I could finally be at home.”
“And...?” I knew there was more.
“And they ordered me to go on a fourth tour,” he said.
“Another tour?” I couldn’t believe they would do that to him. He had already served three tours. Was that not enough?
“Yes,” he said, “but I didn’t go.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I came here,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Is that how you got the assignment to come down here to rescue us?”
“No,” he paused and then let out a sigh. “It means I left the army. I packed up a duffel bag and headed north to Canada.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. I was having a hard time understanding what this all meant. “You mean you didn’t tell anyone? You just up and left the army? Are you allowed to do that?”
“No,” he said. “I went AWOL and I’m pretty sure that I’ll probably go to jail if I were to go back.”
“So, you weren’t sent down here?” I asked, knowing that he wasn’t. Knowing that he had come up here to escape his government’s orders to go back to war. I knew now that those orders were what was typed on that paper that Robert found. But I still wanted some of it to be true. “Everything you told us about your mission is a lie? There is no secret government department and there are no people up there trying to get us out?”
“I think you know that I made that all up,” he said, with just a tiny hint of regret.
“Then all these experiments, this mine it’s just a lie?” I asked. “Then why’d you stay hidden? Why did you lie about finding a way back home?”
“I didn’t lie!” he exclaimed. “This is a mission, my mission and I am trying to find a way home. I thought I was close a few times, too. I stayed hidden, at first, because I thought I had to. I didn’t realize that I’d even entered another dimension. I was hiding from my government. I didn’t leave the woods for months. I had no idea everything I knew was gone. I thought I would be arrested if I ever showed my face.”
“So, why’d you finally come out to see this new world? Who explained to you where you are?” I asked.
“It was the Private,” he said, pointing at Barker. “He found me about five years after I came here. He showed me the tunnels and told me about my mission.”
“Colonel Al,” I started, “you know that the Private is a dog! He can’t talk, he can’t give you orders. He can only bark and growl and that’s about it.”
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“I’m not wrong,” I was angry that he still insisted that Barker was some kind of Private in his army telling him what to do. He’d admitted to all his other lies, why not tell the truth about Barker? “I’m pretty sure dogs don’t talk.”
“What if he’s not a dog? What if he’s only disguised as a dog?” he asked.
“What else could he be?” I asked. “I think you’ve been through some traumatic things and your mind plays tricks with you sometimes. It’s okay, well, I mean it’s not really okay. You lied to me and all my friends but we can forgive that. But this belief that Barker, this dog, can talk and is giving you missions to accomplish has to stop.”
“Ask him!” he said.
“I’m not going to...”
“Ask him!”
“Fine!” I turned to my dog who was sitting in the middle of the room, watching us argue. “Barker, can you talk?” Nothing.
“Call him Private.”
“Private?” I rolled my eyes and let out a sigh. “Can you tell me why you gave this mission to the colonel?” Barker looked at me and tilted his head with his ears cocked. He let out a small whine and came and started licking my fingers. I looked at Colonel Al, “See? He’s ju
st a dog.”
“Very well, Private,” he stood up, “if that’s the way it’s going to be then I suggest the two of you leave. I need time to assess the situation.”
“You want us to leave?”
“That’s what I said isn’t it? Or can you not understand English all of a sudden?” He was angry now.
“Okay, I’ll leave,” I stood up and made my way to the tunnels. I turned to say goodbye. “I’m sorry for what happened to you in Vietnam. I hope you can learn to forgive yourself because you can’t change it. It was an accident and it’s over, you have to go on.”
“I will try to heed your advice but it’s going to be hard,” he said and I found myself feeling sorry for him again. He had to stop punishing himself.
“I hope so,” I said. I still thought that his pursuit of finding a way out of here was not so crazy. Maybe we could do it. We came down here, didn’t we? That proves that somewhere, somehow, there is a way to cross the line between dimensions and we needed to work together to find it.
“Thank you,” he cleared his throat and pulled on the skip of his cap. “Will you be back to work on the experiments?”
“Probably,” I said. “I think Marshal enjoyed himself. Maybe, despite all the lies, we can find a way home.” I made my way through the tunnels with Barker leading the way.
Chapter 8
Max
Max left Marshal’s over a week ago and, surprisingly, he actually missed being there. It shouldn’t be too much of a shock to him. After all, it was the only place he was able to call home since he had dropped down to this hell world. Oh, sure he had spent long periods of time in one place or another but they were all just temporary; a place to sleep until he grew tired of it or whoever was there grew tired of him. Marshal’s was different. He felt a sense of belonging there. He was a part of something. He worked hard with the others over the past few months. They built an addition onto Marshal’s house so there was room for everyone. He fished and hunted for food for everyone and he spent hours bent over in the hot sun tending to the crops and gardens. He didn’t help much with the canning and preserving of the vegetables but he did help with the harvest.
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