Drowning in Her Eyes (32 page)

* *
*
*

At 0400, it was still dark. There was a heavy ground mist with a cloudy sky just visible. Jack watched the troops assemble and the two lead platoons file out through the minefield and the gap in the wire. He followed with Company HQ, about ten strong. He was not impressed with what he saw. Many of the men were smoking, and not all of the cigarettes contained tobacco. Some wore brightly coloured bandanas, making them easy targets. He could smell after-
shave on some of the officers. Some were even carrying transistor radios and wearing headphones. Jack remembered his jungle training. The bloody VC would hear and smell these blokes coming a mile away. No wonder they saw no VC and thought there was none. As he followed, he came upon discarded cigarette butts, chewing gum and Hershey bar wrappers. Not only would Charlie know where they were going, he would see where they had been, and how many of them there were.

The sweep continued for hours without incident. Then there was firing from ahead followed by smoke rising from what looked like a village on the right. A runner came back to report to the
c
aptain. All the troops halted, bunched up, and began long loud conversations. Christ, thought Jack, Could this get any worse? Captain White radioed in to ask for instructions. His orders were to detach a squad to investigate, but to keep to his main objective. He should not have needed telling that, it was self-
evident. He called up a squad commanded by a small swarthy
s
ergeant.
“This here
's Sergeant Ruiz,
” said White,
“he
's going to have a look at that fire. Want to go along?
”

Jack thought he saw a challenge in White
's eyes.
“Ok
ay
,
” he said. They moved out.

Right away Jack began to feel better. This squad seemed to know its stuff. There was no noise, no smoking. They appeared alert but relaxed. Good field craft, thought Jack. This bloke should be running the show. It took about half an hour to reach their objective. There was no more firing and the smoke had died down to a small hazy tendril reaching skyward. Ruiz halted his squad just short of the village and sent two scouts ahead. Suddenly they heard screaming and a short burst of gunfire. One of the scouts came running back.
“It
's that Jarhead patrol, Sarge; they
're knocking some gooks around.
”

Quickly, they moved into the village. There was nothing left of the huts, just piles of smoking ashes. Five men in black lay in pools of blood around the central square. There were five AK47s scattered with them. An old woman lay on her back, a line of bullet holes stitched across her chest. Two Marines were holding a young girl, perhaps sixteen years old, by the arms; they were trying to get her to the ground.
“Hold the bitch!
” yelled one of the onlookers. There were six Marines. The leader appeared to be a
c
orporal, a big man
—
more than six feet
tall
and over
two hundred
pounds. He had taken off his helmet, revealing peroxide-
blonde hair above an acne-
scarred face
.

He looked up.
“Howdy, boys.
” He said with a leer,
“We
're about to have us a little poontang, care to join the line?
”

“Let her go,
” said Ruiz.

“Sweet Jesus, we got us a fuckin
' hero. What are you going to do about it, spic?
”

Ruiz said quietly,
“We
're supposed to be here to help these people. I
'm a
s
ergeant
,
you
're a
c
orporal. I
'm giving you a direct order. Let her go.
”

“You think I
'm going to take orders from you. You spic
d
ogface asshole? I think you might be going home to your little
Se
ñorita
early
—
in a body bag.
”

One of the others sniggered.
“You think Karl
's gonna take shit from that little greaser?
”

Jack did not know what to do. Although he was not an American, he was the only officer present and
he couldn
'
t let this go on. He stepped forward.
“Do as he says
,
c
orporal. If you go any further, you will be committing a capital offence. If they don
't hang you first, you
'll spend the rest of your life in a Military Prison.
”

“Who the fuck are you?
”

“I am an Australian Lieutenant attached to the US Army. As such, I have the same authority as any US officer of my rank.
” He looked Karl in the eye, trying not to look like he felt.

“Fuck you, you Aussie son of a bitch
;
you don
't tell me what to do!
”

The other Marines were looking a little doubtful.
“Hey, man, don
't mess with an officer. There
's too many witnesses,
”
said one.

“Yeah,
” said another
“Let
's get the fuck outta here.
”

Karl turned on them, but it was too late. They had released the girl who scuttled away. One by one, they picked up their gear and moved off. Karl called out after them.
“You chicken shit yellow assholes.
” He turned on Jack.
“I
'm going to beat the shit out of you, you Aussie bastard!
”

Karl came at him in a shambling run. Like many big men, he was accustomed to using his size to overpower smaller opponents. This one was going to be easy. He bunched a big fist and swung a haymaker at Jack. That was his first mistake. Jack moved inside the punch, and grabbing the arm, used Karl
's momentum to throw him aside. Before Karl could fully regain his feet, Jack delivered a massive horizontal kick to the side of his left knee. He put almost three-
year
's pain, anguish, and frustration into that kick. Karl screamed and went down, ligaments torn, cartilage ripped, bones dislocated. It would be a long time before he walked without a stick.

“
Madre de Dios
,
” breathed one of Ruiz
's squad.

Jack turned to the remaining Marines.
“Get him far away from us. We do not want you giving away our position. Then get on your radio and have him dusted off.
”

The Marines looked stunned.
“Yes, sir!
” said one. They all saluted. Jack looked back at Karl. Only then did he see the look of insane hatred on his face. He was fumbling with an automatic. It pointed at Jack
's stomach. Jack drew his Browning and shot him between the eyes.

The Americans stood, stunned. Jack looked at them. He said,
“Let
's get back to the company, men. We
'll let the
c
aptain sort out this incident.
”

“What incident, sir?
” said Sergeant Ruiz.

“Yeah,
” said one of his men,
“What incident?
”

“I didn
't see anything,
” said another,
“What about you guys?
”

There was a chorus of
,
“No,
nada
, we saw nothing,
¡
No vi nada!
”

They headed back. Jack felt ice cold. He had just gotten rid of another feral pig. The word passed around. There were no details, but the message was
,
‘Don
't fuck with the Aussie Lootenant!
'

* *
*
*

That night he sought out Sergeant Ruiz and his squad. They occupied a bunker on the north side of Fire Base Romeo. As he entered the bunker, someone called out,
“ten
' hut!
” The soldiers stopped talking and rose to their feet. One of the men switched off the radio. Jack was surprised. From what he had seen, these men did not pay the same respect to their own officers.
“At ease,
” he said,
“enough of that bullshit! I wanted to talk to you about what happened today.
”

The
s
ergeant stepped forward.
“You don
't have to worry about that, sir. We saw nothing, heard nothing.
”

“I
'm
not
worried about that, Sergeant; I want to talk to you blokes. I want an enlisted man
's point of view. I
'm Jack Riordan, and not so long ago, I was a Private too. Now, introduce me to your men
.
”

“Juan Ruiz, I come from Texas.
” He introduced Jack to his men. There were more than a few Hispanic names among them. Jack remarked on this.

“We tend to stick together, like the Negros. Don
't believe all you hear about the
‘land of the free
', and we
're regulars, not conscripts. We have a certain amount of professional pride.
”

“Fuckin
' A,
” said one of the others.

“I saw that today,
” said Jack,
“How would you rate the rest of your troops?
”

“It
's hard to be critical, so many are conscripts; they don
't want to be here and they don
't give a shit about winning. All they want to do is smoke dope, chase the local pussy, and live long enough to make it home; on the whole, they don
't rate well.
”

“What about today, those Marines were about to rape that girl, and they thought you would join them. Is that sort of thing a regular occurrence?
”

“More often than you would like to think.
”

“Ok
ay
,
” said Jack.
“Let
's talk about your patrolling.
” The conversation began to spread through the squad. Someone turned the music back on. After a while, one of the men held up his hand.
“Listen up, guys, here
's that new Van Morrison song.
” They fell quiet; the strains of
‘Brown Eyed Girl
' filled the night. Jack listened. He had not heard the song before. Now, the lyrics clawed at his heart. Tears began to run down his face. The others watched him, embarrassed. When the song ended, someone turned the radio way down. One of them softly said,
“Hit a nerve there, sir?
”