Sand in the Wind (7 page)

“Okay, poker?”

“No, backalley.”

A tall, slender black lying on the floor a few yards away from Payne sat up and said, “We’ll play.” He nudged a short, pudgy youth with curly blond hair. The blond youth got up and they both walked over to Payne’s cot.

“How’s it going, Prof?”

Chalice turned around to see Forsythe standing behind him. “Hey, who are those guys playing cards with Payne and Hemrick?”

“They’re Skip and Flip, the Bobbsey Twins. They’re in guns.”

“Funny, they don’t look like twins.”

“Most of the guys think they’re identical, but they’re really only Siamese. The tall black one’s name is Skip. He’s been in-country about six months, and he’s a damn good machine gunner. The short, fat one is Flip, his assistant gunner, only been in-country two months. I forget what his real name is. We call him Flip because you never see one without the other.”

“Hey listen, I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you do much reading?”

“I’d like to, but if comic and fuck books aren’t your bag, you’re pretty much out of luck around here.”

“Here’s the story: I’ve got some good books, but I don’t wanna hump them all. If you’re interested in reading some of them, we can each hump a few and trade off when we’re done.”

“Sounds good. What do you have?”

“
Absalom, Absalom!, Invisible Man, The Trial,
and
The Stranger
.”

“I’ve already read
The Stranger.
Let me have the one by Faulkner.” Forsythe picked up the book and walked away.

Roads had overheard the conversation. He walked over to Chalice’s cot and stood looking at the books for a few seconds. “All right if I read
The Trial
when you’re done with it?”

Surprised by the first words he had heard Roads speak to anybody, Chalice said, “I’ve just finished it. You might think it’s a little dry though. I’ve got a book here by Ralph Ellison you might be more interested in.” Roads’s expression changed just enough to let Chalice know he’d made a mistake. He spoke slowly, with no emotion. “I’ve read both of them. I’d like to read
The Trial
again.”

Chalice awkwardly handed the book to Roads, who nodded and immediately turned and left. When he was a few feet away, Chalice called out, “Wait.” Roads turned around without saying anything. “Look, I’m having some more books sent to me and I don’t want to hump them all. Forsythe is gonna hump a few. Maybe you want to also? That way we can have some good stuff to read.” Roads nodded and walked away.

By twelve fifteen, only a few men were left in the barracks, the rest having gone to their working parties. Forsythe walked over to Chalice’s cot. “We better get out of here, Prof, or somebody’ll find something for us to do.”

Hamilton and Payne followed them out the door. They walked over to a lookout bunker on the edge of the barbwire. Two soldiers with flame throwers stood to their left. One of them was helping the other put the fuel pack on his back. Payne walked towards them. “Hey, what are you guys doing?”

“Getting some practice with the flames.”

“What for? We never use the worthless things.” They ignored Payne as they continued to struggle with the fuel pack. “Hey, the straps are too tight.”

Forsythe remarked to Hamilton and Chalice, “The minute I saw that jerk walk over there, I knew he was going to tell them how to use their own flame throwers.”

Hamilton said, “Yeah, everytime we get in a chopper I think he’s gonna go up to the pilot and start telling him how to fly the thing.”

“What are they gonna do, shoot them out in that field?” Chalice asked. “Yeah,” Hamilton answered, “it must be a hundred and ten degrees now, and it’ll be a hundred and fifty when
they
start fucking around. Let’s get outa here.”

They walked over to get Payne who was trying to talk the two into letting him try one of the flames. Hamilton tapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Wait a minute. I wanna see ’em shoot these things.”

Forsythe said to the one ready to shoot his flame thrower, “You know that’s an old French mine field out there?”

Payne had been irritating him, and he snapped back, “So what? I’m just gonna shoot the flame thrower.”

Forsythe stood silently for a moment, seemingly pondering the reply. “Oooooh, I thought you were gonna mow the lawn.” He grabbed Payne’s shirt collar. “Let’s get out of here. We want these guys to be able to concentrate.” After receiving a couple of dirty looks, they walked up the slope towards the road.

The swooshing sound of the flames was suddenly cut short by a loud explosion. Hamilton and Forsythe dove to the ground. Chalice followed their example; but Payne, who had been the only one looking back, just stood there and said, “Holy shit! Those guys must have got knocked twenty feet.” Chalice looked back in time to see a dark cloud of smoke envelop the area where they had been. Hamilton ran towards it and the others followed. One of the men sat up, covered with soot. He checked himself for wounds, which to his amazement he couldn’t find. The other man merely lay on his back repeating, “Sonofabitch! Sonofabitch!”

“Are you all right?” Payne asked.

“Yeah.”

“I think so.”

As they got to their feet, Forsythe said, “I thought you were just gonna use your flame throwers.”

They ignored him as they checked their equipment. By this time about ten more people had come over to find out what had happened. Hamilton and Chalice started walking back up to the road and Forsythe followed. Before they had gotten twenty yards, Hamilton said, “Walk faster, here comes Preston.”

“What a down,” Forsythe moaned.

“Hey, wait up,” Preston called.

“Too late.”

A skinny, awkward-looking corporal approached. Chalice was struck by the dark brown color of his buck teeth as they protruded from a large, sarcastic grin. “Well, just who I wanted to see.” Hamilton and Forsythe looked at each other with disgusted expressions. “C’mon back to the hootch with me. The gunny wants a working party.”

“How ’bout it, Preston? Why don’t you find somebody else?” Hamilton asked.

“I’ve got somebody else. They’ll help you. C’mon, let’s go.”

They followed him back to the company area without speaking except for the times Forsythe repeated, “What a fucking bummer.”

While they waited outside, Preston got eight men from inside the hootch. “The gunny wants these moved up there,” he said, pointing from a stack of seventy or eighty ammo boxes to some higher ground on the edge of the barbwire.

Hamilton protested, “We just moved the fucking things down from there two days ago.”

“The gunny changed his mind,” Preston replied with a self-satisfied look on his face.

“
Jesus Christ!
Tell him to move them himself.”

“I’m telling you to do it. If you wanna tell him something, that’s your business, Hamilton.”

“Thanks, pal.”

The boxes were full of sand and rocks, and it took two men to carry each box. Plodding through the softer earth near the top of the knoll, they would often stumble to their knees or chests, then struggle to their feet again with a new coating of dry sand against their sweaty skin. The heat alone was enough to make just sitting in the sun exhausting. Before the job was finished, over three hours later, the rest of the platoon had straggled back from their working parties.

Chalice trudged down from the knoll towards the platoon hootch, hands rubbed raw and dirt completely covering his face except where sweat had etched it away. After a few minutes of rest in the hootch, the men headed for the mess hall. The food was overcooked and bland. All Chalice could taste was the dirt that covered his hands and face. Right after chow, he trudged to his bunker. He was still exhausted when his watch started. Though he could hardly stand, the soreness of his body helped him to stay awake.

Chalice had lost track of the days and was surprised when somebody mentioned it was Sunday. “At least we don’t have to go on any working parties today,” he remarked at breakfast. Everyone stopped eating and stared at him until Forsythe finally droned, “In the bush, Sunday’s like any other day, except you get a little present.” Nobody mentioned what the present was, and he figured he’d find out soon enough so he didn’t ask.

After chow there was a company formation. The four platoons lined up separately and in order. Sergeant Kovacs, the platoon sergeant, and Preston, the right guide, stood in front of Second Platoon. Each platoon was divided into four ranks; the three rifle squads in front and the guns and rocket squad in the rear. Being in Alpha, Chalice stood in the front rank. Kovacs yelled for everybody to cover down and shut up. Hearing a lot of laughter and talking behind him, Chalice looked over his shoulder. A few of the men were shoving each other, somebody in Charlie Squad was trying to get his hat back while it was being tossed from man to man, and Ski, oblivious to everything else going on around him, was playing with a Yo-Yo.

“KNOCK IT OFF!” Kovacs shouted, and shouted again until everybody quieted down. He continued to glare at his men, sure that someone was missing. “
Hemrick?
”

“Here.”

“Get in the right rank.
  
.
 
.
 
.
Ramirez?"

“Here.”

“
Payne
?”

No one answered until Ski said, “I saw him sleeping behind the air tower a half hour ago.”

“JESUS CHRIST!”

“
Here,"
Forsythe answered, sending off a new round of laughter and shoving.

Kovacs stood glaring at him, teeth clenched and eyes appearing even more slanted than usual, finally yelling, “
Forsythe,
you motherfucker, why do you always have to be the biggest shitbird in the platoon?”

Forsythe returned the stare, and said in a serious, determined tone, “It’s a dirty job, Sarge; but somebody’s got to do it.” Kovacs spun around before it became too obvious that he was about to laugh.

A stocky, ruggedly built man came out of the company office and walked briskly toward the front of the formation. He appeared to be about thirty-five and his ruddy face was the scowling type that can be found brooding over a glass of beer in practically any rundown bar. He held a large brown bottle in the stubby finger of his right hand.

Forsythe nudged Chalice. “Here comes your Sunday Surprise.”

“I’ve noticed you men have been getting a little slack,” Gunny Martin shouted in a whiskey tenor. “Yesterday I caught two of you walking around without covers. Not only don’t I like to see men ignoring a Marine Corps tradition like keeping covered at all times, but I also don’t like to see anybody with hair longer than mine.” He took off his cover, exposing a red scalp with just enough hair on it to keep it from shining. “And as long as we’re on this fucking hill, you will
not
wear bush covers or rain hats. If you don’t have a utility cover, wear your helmet liner. Another goddamn thing: no one, except squad leaders and above, can have mustaches; and you
will
shave everyday as long as there’s water.

“It seems we can’t trust you men to take your malaria tabs every week, so we’re starting a new system. From now on we’ll all take our tabs together. I don’t care if they do give you the shits. Which would you rather have, the shits or malaria?” There were numerous mumblings of “malaria” from the ranks. Martin ignored them and continued, “Now you know why you were told to bring canteens to this formation. Platoon Sergeants, come up here and get the tabs for your men.”

When each man had been given a tablet, the gunny continued, “All right, I want everybody to hold their tabs in their right hands and their canteens in their left.” Chalice did so, but noticed that both Payne and Forsythe had theirs in the opposite hands. He started to switch before realizing that they were just fooling around. “Okay, now swallow them.” Chalice did so in time to see Forsythe flip his past his ear. Somebody behind them said in an irritated voice, “Goddamn you, Forsythe. That hit me right in the face. How ’bout droppin’ ’em on the ground like everybody else?”

“All right,” the Gunny shouted, “church call goes in fifteen minutes. I wanna see most of you there. A little religion never hurt anybody.
  
.
 
.
 
.
DISmissed
!”

“Never did ’em much good,” somebody in the back mumbled.

The members of the company broke formation and milled around the area. The ground was sprinkled with orange malaria tablets. Harmon walked around pressing them into the dirt with the toe of his boot.

Chalice grabbed Forsythe’s arm, “Hey, how come nobody takes the malaria tabs?” Before Forsythe could reply, a knowing look came across Chalice’s face and he answered his own question. “Oh, I get it. Malaria’s a ticket outa this place.”

“You shiftin’ me? You can’t get outa here with malaria, not unless you get it for the third time.”

“Then how come no —”

“Cause they don’t do any fucking good. Just give ya the shits. There’s one type of malaria they don’t prevent. It just so happens that’s the type everybody gets around here.”

“Can’t they fix the pill up?”

“They got another one, a white one.”

“When do we get it?”

“We don’t.”

“Why not?”

Forsythe shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. The captain and the rest of of the CP get it.” He looked past Chalice and yelled, “
Childs, you mother
fucker.
”

Tony 5 added, “Well,
no
shit, look who’s here.”

They were referring to a skinny Marine approaching them wearing a pack, helmet, and the rest of his fighting gear. He had obviously just gotten off a convoy or a helicopter. Childs shook hands with a few of the men while Chalice stood ignored off to the side. His skinny neck tilted forward, making him appear slightly hunchbacked, and his eyes squinted from behind a pair of thick, dirty glasses. He removed them, exposing two large, blanched circles, spat on the lenses, and wiped them on his shirt.

Forsythe reached out and jabbed Childs’s shoulder. “You sonofabitch, are you just visiting or do you plan to stay a while?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. I was getting kind of bored in the rear. Let’s go inside so I can drop this gear.” They followed him into the hootch and sat down around him.