Читать книгу If I Die in a Combat Zone - Tim O’Brien - Страница 11

‘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 idea.’ Chip wore a bush hat in place of a helmet; claimed he didn’t take a good picture in a helmet.

‘How does it work?’

‘Fucking kaleidoscope or something,’ Barney said. ‘Damned if I know.’

‘Supposed to let you see in the dark. They mentioned the thing back in boot camp, but that’s the last I heard of it till now.’ Bates squatted down, opened the case, and hefted the starlight scope out of its black box.

‘Star light, star bright,’ Chip chanted, ‘first star I see tonight.’

‘Look at the size of this mother! What’s the dial for? Need a law degree and two Ph.D.s to figure out how to work the thing.’ Bates fiddled with the dial. He took the rubber protective cap off the lens, put the starlight scope to his eyes.

‘Wish I may, wish I might,’ Chip chanted, ‘have the wish I wish tonight.’

‘Shit,’ Bates said.

Barney put his hand before the lens. ‘What do you see?’

Bates giggled. He scanned the sky.

‘What the hell you see there, Bates?’

‘Wow, it’s a peep show, man.’

‘Dream on, dream on.’

‘Here, let me look,’ Chip said. Bates handed it over. Chip played with the scope. ‘Dancing soul sisters,’ he said. He giggled and stared into the machine. ‘Star light, star bright.’

Barney tried it. ‘Christ, you can’t see a thing.’

‘Certainly not, it’s not dark yet. No stars. You need stars for a starlight scope.’

We waited until dark, then tried it again. Tinkering with the dial, Bates got the scope to work.

The machine’s insides were secret, but the principle seemed simple enough: use the night’s orphan light – stars, moonglow, reflections, faraway fires – to turn night into day. It contained a heavy battery, somehow juicing up the starlight, magically exposing form and giving sight.

‘Fairytale land,’ Chip murmured. ‘I see at night.’

‘Any gooks?’

‘I see a circus,’ Chip whispered. ‘Like the colours in a jet plane at night, up in the cockpit where the instrument panel is kind of shimmering green. All the rocks and trees out there is green at night. I didn’t know that.’

‘You aren’t supposed to see the night,’ Bates said, taking his turn. ‘Trees, you can see them. The hooches over there, just as quiet as can be, not a movement. God, everything’s dead through this thing.’

We sat on the lip of a foxhole, using the starlight scope.

‘Really,’ Bates said softly, ‘you aren’t supposed to see the night. It’s unnatural. I don’t trust this thing.’ He gave it to me.

‘Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.’ Chip went to sleep.

I looked out at the green, dancing night.

‘I wish for peace,’ Bates said.

‘Me, too.’

‘What do you see?’

‘A green fire. The countryside is on fire at night.’

‘Anything moving?’

‘Nope.’ I pointed the scope at a thicket outside our perimeter. The bushes sparkled in strange, luminous colour. I pointed it at the stars. ‘I can see the clouds,’ I said. ‘They’re moving, you can see them moving, bright as day.’

‘Well, for God’s sake, you’re not supposed to stare at the damn stars with that thing,’ Bates said. ‘You’re supposed to look for Charlie.’

Mad Mark came over. ‘Hey, shut the hell up, you two.’ He left.

‘Here, I’ll take the first watch,’ Bates said. I gave him the starlight scope, but he put it aside and cradled his rifle in his arms and peered out at the dark. ‘Night,’ he said.