by Scott Ely
“Put that fucking rifle down,” Hale ordered.
“I got on a chopper for Vung Tau,” Light said. “Didn’t ask to come here.”
“Ship his fucking ass out,” Leander said.
“I’m in fucking command here,” Hale shouted.
He looked at Leander and said, “Get rid of that gook helmet.”
Jackson had heard Hale tell Leander that on a dozen occasions.
“Already got one hole in it. Bullets are like lightning. Don’t strike twice in the same place,” Leander said.
“Next time I see you there better be a steel pot on your head,” Hale said.
Reynolds sang, “Footprints dressed in red/And the wind whispers Mary.”
Everyone laughed.
“Shut that man up, Sergeant,” Hale said to Leander.
“He don’t belong to me,” Leander said, not paying any attention to Hale’s order.
Jackson noticed Reynolds looking at the starlight like it was made out of gold. Light glanced at him, and Reynolds backed off into the crowd again.
“Men, I made a bargain with Light,” Hale said, talking fast. “He’s leaving in the morning. Won’t set foot on the firebase again. You have my word. Goddamn, Leander, see me in the TOC. That man Reynolds must be drunk. He’ll be brought up on charges.”
Again the men laughed.
“We are going to get the shit tonight because of him,” Leander said, pointing at Light.
Light still had not lowered the rifle.
“Soldier, put that goddamn rifle down,” Hale said. “You have my word nothing will happen to you.”
“Don’t need your word,” Light said.
“Troops are gonna get wasted,” Leander said.
“Shut the fuck up!” Hale yelled. “You open your mouth again and you’re busted.”
Leander continued to mutter to himself but not loud enough for Hale to make out the words.
“Move, all of you!” Hale yelled. “Bunched up like fucking sheep. One mortar round’d get you all.”
“But it won’t get Tom Light,” Leander said to the men. “You’ll be dead. He be back in the world doing any fucking thing he wants.”
The men began to grumble among themselves. Light held up his hand for silence. They grew quiet.
Light said, “Starting right now, anybody comes fucking around this bunker is gonna die. Now get the fuck out of my sight. Bunch of goddamn base camp soldiers.”
The crowd hesitated and then as if on a signal broke up, every man suddenly in a hurry to go somewhere else on the firebase. Only Leander and Reynolds & Raymond stayed.
“I’ll get you, motherfucker,” Leander said.
Light held the rifle and waited.
“Let me look through the starlight?” Raymond asked.
Reynolds played his M-16 with his teeth.
“Get out of here!” Hale yelled.
Then Leander left along with Reynolds & Raymond. Light lowered the rifle.
“Why can’t you go now?” Hale asked.
“Because I’ve been out in the bush for two months,” Light said. “I guess this is all the R&R I’m gonna get.”
Hale said, “Jackson, you make sure he leaves. I’m holding you responsible.”
Then Hale walked off toward the TOC.
Jackson started to gasp for breath and felt Light’s hand on his shoulder.
“Calm down, young trooper. Nothing’s gonna happen to you,” Light said.
Jackson choked and gasped but gradually regained control. He thought of Leander’s prediction, pictured how the mortar shrapnel would tear his body apart, and after it was over, Tom Light would still walk the bush alone.
CHAPTER
3
FROM THE TOP STEP of the bunker, Jackson watched the sun starting to sink behind the mountains, the light falling on the wire, the bunkers, the mortar tubes, and reflecting off the windshields of the ships on the pad. The whole firebase was bathed in a soft, golden glow utterly unlike the glare thrown down on the camp all day.
As the sun disappeared, the sky all red over Laos, Jackson heard an animal give a rasping call from the trees beyond the wire. Jackson took a deep breath. He feared the jungle, a wet, green, stinking place which could swallow up whole battalions of American infantry. But most of all he feared the enemy, who soon would begin probing the firebase’s outer defenses, and the incoming which was sure to fall. Jackson heard Light coming up the steps.
“Young trooper, you ready to write?” Light said.
“In the bunker?” Jackson asked.
“That bunker’s darker than the bottom of Moon Lake at midnight,” Light said. “Won’t be dark up here for awhile.”
Jackson, breathing hard, looked out toward the mountains, the sky above them still faintly streaked with red. Light laughed.
“You won’t die tonight. Now write like you promised,” Light said.
Jackson took out the pen and paper and sitting on one of the steps below ground level waited for Light, who had taken a seat on the top step, to begin.
“Dear Daddy and Mama, I am fine and am glad Mama’s heart is better,” Light said. “There ain’t much to do here in base camp. We all just sit around. Same old easy life. I hope Daddy finds out who stole his new hoop net. It will be spring soon, and the fishing will pick up, and he will have a good year. I have reenlisted. They gave me a $2,000 bonus. I had the army put it in the Greenville bank. You can draw it out anytime. This will be my last year here. I will come home. I will write again soon. Your son.”
Light spoke the words without hesitation as if he had been thinking about the letter for a long time and had memorized what he wanted to say. The sniper was careful to pause at the end of each sentence to give Jackson time to write.
When Light signed the letter with a big scrawl, Jackson was reminded of the way he had written in elementary school. Jackson wrote a Mississippi address, a place called String Town, on the envelope.
“It’s over on the Mississippi River,” Light explained. “Daddy’s a commercial fisherman.”
Someone shot up a parachute flare over the perimeter, and they watched it drift out over the gorge, dropping white sparks, and slowly burn out, leaving the camp in darkness again.
“I can keep you alive,” Light said.
Jackson felt like a wounded man watching a medevac approaching an LZ.
“Sooner or later that lifer Hale is gonna carry you out in the bush,” Light continued. “I’ll be watching. I’ll take care of you. Write my letters. Daddy’ll write his to you. That’s all you have to do.”
“Can I learn how you do it?” Jackson asked.
“Do what?”
“Stay alive.”
“No, you can’t learn. I’m the only one who knows about staying alive. Been doing it since Tet.”
So Light was not going to teach him his secret, Jackson thought. But Light had promised to keep him alive. That was what mattered.
“How often will you be coming in?” Jackson asked.
“After seven kills,” Light replied. “I don’t want to wait that long. I promised Mama I’d write. If I don’t, she’ll worry. Won’t help her heart. I want to know how she’s doing. We’ll meet out in the bush.”
Jackson took one deep breath, thinking that he would not be able to breathe again. Light waited patiently for him to speak.
“I’m not going out there,” Jackson finally said after what seemed to him like a long time, aware that Light was pretending not to notice that he was gasping for air.
“I can’t do much for you here,” Light said. Then he laughed softly. “But out in the bush ’less you step on a cobra snake or a tiger eats you, harm won’t come to you,” he continued. “I guarantee it.”
“Be dead just the same,” Jackson said, who did not think the threat of tigers or cobras was funny.
“I told you I’ll keep you alive. Before I’m out there a week, the dinks’ll be scared shitless of me. I work at night with the starlight. No more to it than spotlighting
deer.”
“Why should I go out there? I’ll get blown away.”
“I already told you. When the major goes out in the bad bush, you go with him. But if you write my letters, I’ll look after you. Keep you alive.”
“I’ll take the chance he won’t go.”
“He’ll go. Lifers can’t make rank sitting in camp. We’ll pick us a frequency. Every night after it gets dark, set the radio and wait.”
“Major Hale won’t let me out of the wire.”
“Volunteer for a listening post. Tell him you’re itching to see the shit. Remember, without me you’re gone. Wait until after tonight. You’ll see. They’ll hit us tonight and men’ll die. I saw it in the starlight. I’ll keep you alive.”
“How did you see?”
“I saw it.”
He’s crazy and so am I for listening to him, Jackson thought.
“You’ll get me wasted,” Jackson said.
But as Jackson spoke he wished he could have the words back, for Light’s face had gone rigid.
“Young trooper, you can’t spend the war panting like a worn-out hound every time a little incoming falls,” Light said in the same tone he had used in his argument with Hale.
“I got a right to be scared,” Jackson said.
“Being scared’ll kill you quick as not giving a shit,” the sniper said.
Then off on the ridge below the camp Jackson saw a flash followed by the fiery trail of a rocket. “Rocket!” someone shouted. Jackson heard the men running for the bunkers. He started down the steps.
“No need for that,” Light said.
Jackson paid no attention to Light, but then he felt Light’s hand on his arm.
“Sit,” Light said.
And crouching on the steps, gasping for breath, Jackson watched the rocket fall near the TOC, followed by an explosion that shook the firebase.
“See, you’re safe as a rabbit in the briars,” Light said.
“We’ve been hit with rockets before,” Jackson said.
“I knew it wasn’t going to hit us,” Light said. “You won’t ever know.”
And Light was right, Jackson thought to himself. He had never known. Light knew.
“I’m going to sleep. Don’t sleep much out in the bush. Why this place is better than a weekend in Memphis,” Light said.
Jackson sat on the other cot in the dark and listened to Light’s slow, regular breathing. Then the camp began to take mortar rounds, and Jackson heard the thump of the incoming and the replying fire from the firebase’s mortars. Jackson discovered to his amazement that he was breathing easy for the first time during an attack. Light slept soundly through it all.
After the attack was over, he decided to take a look at the rifle, especially the starlight scope Light used to predict the attack.
But maybe Light had only guessed that the firebase would take rounds as it did every night. That was a prediction everyone at the firebase made each night, that incoming would fall on someone else. Yet Light had survived all the ambushes and firefights when other men had died, and the trick to it might be in the scope, a secret Light wanted to keep to himself.
Carefully shielding the flashlight with his hand, he walked over to the cot where Light was sleeping on his side with his back to the rifle.
As Jackson unwrapped the poncho, he kept one eye on Light who still slept peacefully. But as he lifted the rifle off the cot, Light rolled over on his back. Jackson froze, waiting for the sniper’s blue eyes to pop open. Muttering something, Light rolled back over and returned to a deep sleep.
Jackson took the rifle and went up out of the bunker. All the stars were out, but there was no moon. That was OK. The scope would gather enough light to work. He switched on the scope, put the rifle to his shoulder, and pressed his eye to the neoprene eyepiece, the rubber making the scope smell like the snorkeling mask he used at Pensacola every summer. Though the camp was in complete darkness, he could see everything: bunkers, the guard tower, a soldier at a piss tube, all with a green, undersea tint, little sparkles of white light playing around the edges of the outlines.
Mortar rounds began to fall on the firebase again. Flares went up and Jackson turned the scope on one. The glare blinded him. A round hit very close and shrapnel whistled overhead. But he was afraid to move until he could see. He flattened himself out against the sandbags and tried to focus his eyes, gasping for breath. Sparkles of green and purple light appeared before his eyes. He could imagine his death clearly, one round falling on his head, then nothing.
When he could see again, he crawled back down into the bunker. He struggled to breathe, sitting with his back against the wall of the bunker and pressing his hands to his chest. Suddenly the big end of the scope began to glow and an image formed as if on a TV screen. More rounds began to fall, but mesmerized by the green glow of the scope, he remained on the steps trying to make out the image through the dust.
In the scope a soldier Jackson had never seen before walked on a jungle trail. As the soldier stepped over a fallen log, he disappeared in the smoke of an explosion. A mine. Then the image faded and was gone, leaving Jackson gasping for breath and wondering if he had seen anything at all.
The rounds stopped falling. He went down into the bunker and wrapped the rifle back up in the poncho. This time Light did not stir, asleep on his stomach, one arm dangling off the edge of the cot, his breathing smooth and even.
Later Jackson went to sleep in his flak jacket, expecting to be awakened by another attack. He woke suddenly, but there was no thump of incoming. Light’s wooden cot frame creaked, and he realized Light was awake. Pointing the flashlight toward the sound, he saw Light sitting crosslegged on the cot, cleaning the rifle that lay scattered in pieces about him.
“Turn that goddamn thing off!” Light said.
Jackson switched off the flashlight.
“What’d you see in it, young trooper?” Light asked.
Jackson thought about lying but decided against it. Again he found he could not speak, listening to the heavy sound of his own breathing. He could not see Light.
“Talk, goddamn you!” Light said.
“The bunkers, the wire,” Jackson said, the words coming out in a rush.
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“What the fuck did you see?”
The C-rations Jackson had eaten that evening tried to rise out of his stomach, but although he tasted bile, he managed to keep them down. There was nothing to stop Light from killing him for touching the rifle.
“A green light,” Jackson said.
“That all, just green light?” Light asked. “Didn’t see troops getting blown away? They’re gonna die all right. You saw them in the starlight.”
“I didn’t see anything,” Jackson said.
Click, click, click, came a sound from the cot, and Jackson realized that Light was reassembling the rifle in the dark and doing it faster than Jackson had ever imagined possible. Now that Jackson’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness he could see movement from Light’s cot, but no shape he could say for sure was an arm or a leg.
“This ain’t a cheap ass M-16,” Light said. “Every part is milled, not stamped.”
He heard a series of clicks which meant Light was running a round through the action and then the single, sharp click as the firing pin came forward to strike an empty chamber.
“Weird through the starlight, ain’t it?” said Light.
Jackson decided to say nothing.
“When you look at the dinks through the scope, they look like men shined up on a wall with a green carbide lantern,” Light continued. “And sometimes I see things through it I’d just as soon not. What’d you see?”
Light was not much older than him, but Jackson had a feeling Light was ancient. He talked old.
“Nothing. Just green light.” Jackson said. “I’m not as dumb as the Yards. You raised any dead soldiers with it lately?”
“I might as well talk to a sandbag as to you,” Light s
aid. “I thought you were smart,”
“I didn’t see—” Jackson began.
“Maybe you didn’t,” Light said, cutting him off. “One of these nights you will. Then we can talk.” Then Light continued, “Remember, set your radio long about sundown every day. Don’t you forget.”
“How will I find you?” Jackson asked.
“I saw a big rock up on the ridge when I was flying in today. That’ll be the place.”
“They’ll kill me. Hale don’t even like to send recon out there. The air force has napalmed the shit out of it, and the dinks haven’t left.”
“Dinks won’t touch you. I promise. Just remember, you’ll be out there anyhow with the major before it’s over. Without me you’re a dead man. You coming out?”
Maybe Light knew, Jackson thought. Maybe Light could watch the pictures in the scope and tell who was going to die.
Jackson took a deep breath and said, “I’ll be there,” but thinking at the same time, Goddamn war, fucking crazy Tom Light.
“Calm down, young trooper,” Light said. “You’ll be shooting dinks through the starlight ’fore long.”
Jackson lay down on the cot and tried to go to sleep, listening to a series of clicks as Light ran another round through the action.
CHAPTER
4
JACKSON OFTEN CLIMBED THE guard tower next to the TOC and through a pair of glasses watched the men at the engineer camp completing the final circle of wire around their perimeter. The men called the mountain on which the engineer camp was built Little Tit and the mountain they lived on Big Tit while the narrow valley between the two was known as the Cunt. Sometimes, as he stood in the tower, he imagined that he was atop a gigantic reclining woman who lay with her head in Laos and her legs stretching toward the South China Sea.
When he tired of watching the engineers, he turned the glasses toward Laos. As he looked at the green mountains, their outlines indistinct in the haze of the dry season, he often thought of Tom Light who was wandering through the jungle somewhere on the woman. Already he had accumulated a stack of letters from Mississippi, the addresses on the envelopes neatly typed.
In the ammo bunker that morning he had awakened before dawn and turned the flashlight on Light’s empty cot. The guards at the gate and on the perimeter had not seen Light leave, and the pilots swore they had not taken him out by chopper. No one at the outpost ever mentioned Light’s name. At night he would set the radio on the frequency they had agreed on and wait for Light to call, but so far had heard nothing.