are boors, some men think the war is proper and just and others don’t and most don’t care. Is that the stuff for a morality lesson, even for a theme?
Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyse them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.
‘Incoming,’ the lieutenant shouted.
We dived for a foxhole. I was first in, the ground taking care of my belly, then the lieutenant and some others were in, stacked on my back.
Grenades burst around the perimeter, a few rifle shots.
‘Wow, like a sandwich,’ I said. ‘Just stay where you are.’
‘Yep, we’re nothing but sandbags for O’Brien,’ Mad Mark said, peering up to watch the explosions go off.
‘Protect the College Joe,’ Barney said, nestled down by my feet.
It didn’t last long.
A blond-headed soldier ran over when the shooting ended. ‘Jesus, I got me a hunk of grenade shrapnel in my fuckin’ hand,’ he said. He sucked the wound. It didn’t seem bad.
Mad Mark inspected the cut under a flashlight. ‘Will it kill you before morning?’
‘Nope, I guess not. Have to get a tetanus shot, I suppose. Christ, those tetanus shots hurt don’t they? I don’t want a fuckin’ tetanus shot.’
As it turned out, the first fight had not been a fire fight. The blond soldier and a few others had been bored. Bored all day. Bored that night. So they’d synchronized watches, set a time, agreed to toss hand grenades outside our little perimeter at 2200 sharp, and when 2200 came, they did it, staging the battle. They shouted and squealed and fired their weapons and threw hand grenades and had a good time, making noise, scaring hell out of everyone. Something to talk about in the morning.
‘Great little spat,’ they said the next day, slyly.
‘Great?’ I couldn’t believe it.
‘Ah, you know. Little action livens up everything, right? Gets the ol’ blood boiling.’ ‘You crazy?’ ‘Mad as a hatter.’
‘You like getting shot, for God’s sake? You like Charlie trying to chuck grenades into your foxhole? You like that stuff?’
‘Some got it, some don’t. Me, I’m mad as a hatter.’
‘Don’t let him shit you,’ Chip said. ‘That whole thing last night was a fake. They planned it, beginning to end.’
‘Except for old Turnip Head getting a piece of his own grenade,’ Bates said. ‘They didn’t plan that.’ Bates walked along beside me, the platoon straggled out across a wide rice paddy. ‘Turnip Head threw his grenade and it hit a tree and bounced right back at him. Lucky he didn’t blow his head off.’
Chip shook his head, a short, skinny soldier from Orlando, Florida, a black guy. ‘Me, I don’t take chances like that. You’re right, they’re nutty,’ he said.
We walked along. Forward with the left leg, plant the foot, lock the knee, arch the ankle. Push the leg into the paddy, stiffen the spine. Let the war rest there atop the left leg: the rucksack, the radio, the hand grenades, the magazines of golden bullets, the rifle, the steel helmet, the jingling dogtags, the body’s own fat and water and meat, the whole contingent of warring artifacts and flesh. Let it all perch there, rocking on top of that left leg, fastened and tied and anchored by latches and zippers and snaps and nylon cord.
Packhorse for the soul. The left leg does it all. Scolded and trained. The left leg stretches with magnificent energy, long muscle. Lumbers ahead. It’s the strongest leg, the pivot. The right leg comes along, too, but only a companion. The right leg unfolds, swings out, and the right foot touches the ground for a moment, just quickly enough to keep pace with the left, then it weakens and raises on the soil a pattern of desolation.
Arms move about, taking up the rhythm.
Eyes sweep the rice paddy. Don’t walk there, too soft. Not there, dangerous, mines. Step there and there and there, not there, step there and there and there, careful, careful, watch. Green ahead. Green lights, go. Eyes roll in the sockets. Protect the legs, no chances, watch for the fuckin’ snipers, watch for ambushes and punji pits. Eyes roll about, looking for mines and pieces of stray cloth and bombs and threads and things. Never blink the eyes, tape them open.
The stomach burns on simmer, low flame. Fire down inside, down in the pit, just above the balls.
‘Watch where you sit, now,’ the squad leader said. We stopped for shade. ‘Eat up quick, we’re stopping for five minutes, no more.’
‘Five minutes? My lord, it’s ninety degrees. Where’s the whips and chains?’ Bates picked a piece of ground to sit on.
‘Look,’ the squad leader sighed. ‘Don’t get smart ass. I take orders, you know. Sooner we get to the night position, sooner we get resupplied, sooner we get to sleep, sooner we get this day over with. Sooner everything.’ The squad leader cleaned his face with a rag, rubbed his neck with it.
Barney sat down. ‘Why we stopping now?’
‘Good,’ the squad leader said. ‘Someone here understands it’s better to keep moving.’
Bates laughed, an aristocrat. ‘I don’t know about Buddy Barney, but actually, I was dreaming on the march. I was right in the middle of one. Daughter of this famous politician and me. Had her undressed on a beach down in the Bahamas. Jesus.’ He gestured vaguely, trying to make us see, sweeping away the heat-fog with his hand. ‘Had her undressed, see? Her feet were just in the water, these luscious waves lapping up all around her toes and through the cracks between them, and she had this beach towel under her. The only thing she was wearing was sunglasses.’
‘You really think about politicians’ daughters out here?’ Barney asked.
‘Lovely,’ Bates said. He closed his eyes.
We ate our noon C rations, then walked up a trail until the end of day.
We dug foxholes and laid our ponchos out for when it was time to sleep.
‘Look at this,’ Barney said. ‘It’s a starlight scope. Mad Mark gave it to me to hump. Must weigh twenty-five pounds, lift the damn thing.’
It weighed twenty-five pounds, counting the black case with its silver handle.
‘We’ll try it out tonight,’ Barney said. ‘Damn thing better work for twenty-five pounds.’
‘You look like a New York businessman on the way to work,’ Bates muttered. ‘Looks like a briefcase or something.’
‘What you got?’ Chip sat with us.
‘Starlight scope.’
‘Something to look at stars through, right? Good
