In the months since Woolf had died, the platoon had been reshaped into a fighting machine so self-contained, the rest of the world just bounced off its sides. Whenever new men came on board, they spent their first few days looking a bit stunned. Some of them requested a transfer out; those requests were always granted within twenty-four hours. Brenda’s platoon was a reflection of its commander—hard, clean, violent, and more than a little deranged. The men polished their boots as if rubbing dirt into Charlie’s face. The members of the Second Platoon had very little to do with the rest of the company. And every man there collected ears.
Except Allen.
Funny, his mind tossed out, how The Wolf as an officer was aloof and casual, yet had brought his men together like a band of brothers, whereas the ever-present paternalist Brenda took the same platoon, declared them his family, hammered them into a disciplined unit, and had somehow managed to turn them into a rabble of wolves, shaggy and sharp-toothed under the polish. Wolf—brothers; brother—wolves. There must be a lesson in that somewhere. He stirred, thinking of saying something to Mouse, but then the Huey lurched tail-up, and he didn’t bother.
In moments the helicopter was high above the lush green landscape, and the air rushing through the tight-packed interior was delicious. As one, the young men raised their sweaty faces to the wind, and breathed deeply.
It was late June, a temporary break in the monsoon, and down there the heat was enormous. The post-Tet lull was but a memory, the Army wanted a victory to give the people at home, and men like Brennan were only too happy to go out there after it, chasing the enemy down in his lair, hunting him through his tunnels and hills, wielding the platoon like a bludgeon.
Brennan really was, Allen had begun to suspect, quite insane. The man glittered with a manic energy, first goading his platoon, then riding on their blood lust, a spiral that had brought him in front of the CO twice now for excessive use of force against civilians. He carried with him the smell of smoke, and of desperation, the need to stay on top, to be in control, to win his little section of war.
Then again, maybe it was all in Allen’s imagination. He seemed to be the only man in the platoon aware of Brennan’s edginess, the only one to question and object. Or, not object, but simply turn a deaf ear to certain orders. The kinds of orders that led to burning hooches and the taking of trophies.
He had thought for a while that this was why Brennan had begun to hassle him, but in truth, those black glasses had sought him out from the very beginning. The lieutenant had picked Allen out of the platoon that first morning, and hadn’t let up since. Every time Allen turned around, it seemed, the lieutenant was already looking at him. Allen had developed a sixth sense about the man almost as sure as his sense for Charlie, a sensitivity that was weirdly akin to a schoolboy crush: He always knew where Brennan was, often felt the touch of Brennan’s glance on the back of his neck. He’d tried once or twice to talk to Mouse or ThreeG about Brenda’s peculiar attentions, but the others had scoffed, saying that every grunt in the Army thought his LT had it in for him. And invariably, the day following one of these conversations, Brenda seemed to look over at Allen with that infuriating smirk as if to say, “I know what you were talking about, but this is between us.”
And it was a private war, with rules that took some figuring, but seemed to involve challenges. Not to talk to others about it, that was one of them. This extended to a general agreement not to involve the others: Brennan didn’t try to make the rest of the platoon uncomfortable over Allen’s holier-than-thou attitude, while Allen wouldn’t try to undermine the platoon’s leadership by pointing out Brennan’s growing instability. Another rule was that Allen’s refusal to burn innocent villages or commit violence on civilians would be permitted, as long as he never refused an order that merely put him in danger: crap jobs in exchange for moral purity; his ass on the line the price for his personal shield. So Allen shut up, even though he always seemed to be maneuvered into volunteering for recon and point duty, and he tried like hell to ignore those damned eyes on his back. It was making him more than a little crazy, too. He had recently found himself imitating Brenda’s smile, both as a challenge and an assertion of victory. He had also begun to wonder of late if Brennan intended to allow the hostilities to remain at this level.
A private war, just him and Brenda out in the green, winner being the last man to break.
That Allen had already broken once, that he’d stood with the others at Truc Tho and raised his rifle at civilians, was both a danger and a protection: Like a broken bone, once healed it was stronger than the bones around it; like that broken bone, it would be vulnerable until it had healed. In the meantime, Allen held the knowledge of that act before him, forging his defenses from the raw material of weakness. Never again, he would chant to himself. You won’t get me to do it again, you bastard; not this time.
The Huey made a sharp pull upward, sending the stomachs of all the passengers lurching and giving them all the brief thrill of knowing that someone had been shooting at them from the ground, and had missed. Allen hugged his rifle to him. The cooler air made him glad for the warmth of the men sandwiching him, and he thought back to the episode on the last patrol, puzzling over Brennan’s apparent escalation of hostilities.
It had started when Brennan noticed Allen walking away from his squad as they were lining up the inhabitants of a tiny ville, softening them up for the interrogation to follow. The sequence of events was so standard by now—take the ville, then slap them around, while “Crazy” Carmichael found something else to do—that no one even thought about it, but this time, Brennan shouted Allen’s name and ordered him to get back to his squad.
Allen glanced over his shoulder in time to see ThreeG lower his gun to the forehead of a man old enough to be his great-grandfather; he straightened out and told the lieutenant, “Sir, I didn’t sign on to beat up civilians.”
“They’re VC, soldier.”
“No guns, no food stores, and the kids half-starved. They’re not VC.”
“And I say they are.”
“Yes, sir.” Allen stood facing the distance, shutting his ears to the sounds behind him.
“Go back to your squad, Carmichael.”
“All respect, sir, no. You can report me if you like, but I’ll rejoin them when they’re finished.”
At that, Brenda came up to Allen, stopping inches from his chest, and pulled the lenses from those pale eyes. He stared up at Allen, that weird smile on his full lips, and murmured, “You turning into a communist, Carmichael? Maybe some kind of contentious objector hippie? Queer boy, maybe? I always wondered why you got so hot when pretty little deRosa went missing.”
Allen’s hands clenched white, wanting to strangle the bastard, pound those blue eyes with the butt of his M16, but he worked to keep it from his face. A reaction was just what Brenda wanted. When he thought he had his voice under control, he replied, “No sir, I’m here to kill the enemy. These people are just farmers.”
“They’re VC,” the loot repeated, although by now Allen could hear in Brennan’s voice that he didn’t believe it himself.
Allen said nothing.
“I can shoot you if I like, for disobeying an order.”
“Yes sir,” Allen repeated, adding under his breath, Not this time, you bastard; I will not give in this time. He didn’t actually think Brennan could shoot him, not without risking his career—or his neck—but he could almost believe that the man was crazy enough not to care. Allen stood as if he was back in boot camp with a drill sergeant cursing him out, gazing stony-faced over the top of the small man’s head. After a long time, the glasses went back on.
“You’re an interesting case, Carmichael,” Brenda said, and walked away. It felt less like a reprieve than a declaration of open war.
Penroy had been standing within earshot; after watching Brennan stalk off toward the villagers, he said, “Christ, Carmichael, why don’t you just do as you’re told for once?”
“These people
are not VC.”
“What the fuck does it matter? He’s your lieutenant, Crazy. You’d just be following orders.”
“Yeah, that’s what they said in Nazi Germany, too,” Allen answered.
But the truth of the matter was, by now morality had little to do with his refusals. The game itself, the unacknowledged battle for superiority, was all. He wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but he was having the time of his life. Every minute felt so intense, so alive, it was like being half-drunk all the time. He moved in an electric sea, tingling with awareness and with the sheer reality of things, his senses so finely tuned, they seemed near to clairvoyance. Colors vibrated, odors intoxicated, and even the more repulsive types of C-rations hit his palate like a blast.
In his own way, he knew he was as mad as his lieutenant, egging him on, carrying out their dialogue of death and domination, as if the whole war came down to him and Brenda in the green. Sure, sooner or later his luck would run out, and after one too many patrols on point he’d sit down on the mouth of a VC spider hole or walk into a trip wire and get himself shipped home in a box.
Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except not letting Brennan win.
The Huey lurched and dropped down from the sky, going in fast in case the LZ was hot, rearing back when its runners were skimming the vegetation. The heavy-laden men jumped awkwardly, jogging through knee-high grass toward the bushes.
One by one the Hueys emptied, their door gunners giving the grunts a farewell wave, and the machines dipped their noses and rose, making for base like a line of dun-colored dragonflies. The thunder of their passing faded into the distance, and when the beating had passed, the jungle noises began tentatively to return.
Back in the green again.
It was to be a patrol of two, at the most three, days. Five days later, they were still out, high in the mountains, within shouting distance of the Laotian border. Radio contact had been spotty all that day, supplies were getting low, ammunition was down to one good firefight, and Brennan appeared to have given up sleeping. Eyes had begun to shift this morning, when the loot had folded his maps away and told them to prepare to move out.
Allen’s squad leader had been the one to ask. “Sir, aren’t we supposed to be lifting out from here?”
“Change of plans, Penroy,” he replied. The grin on Brennan’s face would have looked at home above a straitjacket—but then, by this time half the platoon wore that same grin. He raised his voice to shout, “Men, I am your mama and your papa. Let’s go kill us some gooks.”
“Sir, I thought—”
“The Army pays you to shoot, Penroy, not to think. Let’s move out. That okay with you, Carmichael?”
“Oh yes sir,” Allen answered, continuing their dance. He felt as if he hadn’t slept in days. A small part of his mind warned him that he was going to crash sooner or later, that if he didn’t attend to his body pretty soon he’d stroll blindly off a cliff, but he didn’t listen, just bared his teeth at Brenda and kicked the remains of his breakfast into the dust.
The others glanced at Sergeant Keys to see what he thought about this unannounced change of plans, but they saw only his usual stoic expression as he stood to toss his C-rat cans into the bushes. So they followed his example, and set out due west, into the hills.
Four hours later they stopped for lunch, on the bald side of a hill with the wind whistling around them. The shade was cooler than their heat-thinned blood found comfortable, and a number of them huddled into the patches of sun, spooning down their cold rations and lighting up a quick cigarette. None of them were inclined to linger; they shouldered their packs without regret.
The ridge they had been following dipped into a sheltered valley, where they picked up the telltale odors of a village, shit and smoke and fish sauce. The men brought their rifles up across their chests, and walked quietly.
The platoon was practically inside the ville before being spotted. It was a scattered village, built around an outcrop of rock with jungle rising behind it and terraces of vegetables stepping down the hill. A shout went up from very close, sweeping like a breeze through the hooches and shelters, the cries of women, the hoarse calls of old men. An M16 sounded, down the line to Allen’s right; a running man tumbled into the vegetables. Figures could be seen darting through the bamboo and trees into the rocky area; guns picked some of them off, and the platoon moved to secure the ville.
The villagers came out of their hooches with hands in the air and fear on their faces. Perhaps two dozen women and old men, and one young man missing his right leg and half his fingers. Most of them clutched papers in their upraised hands, and Allen felt his tension loose a notch. Brenda generally looked for some token resistance before committing his platoon to aggression; there was none here.
Then somebody said, “Why aren’t there any kids?”
There were children, but only a handful, and none older than about three. Allen had never seen a farming village where the children didn’t at least match the adults in number. Had there been some kind of childhood epidemic here?
Brenda called up his translator, an ill-tempered local named Lo Don, whom everyone called Lowdown. He translated Brenda’s query about the village’s children, and received only loud protestations and demonstrative fingers pointed at the babies.
“They say, these only children.”
“I suppose the Cong are recruiting five-year-olds now?” Brenda said in a mild voice.
“You want I ask them that?”
“No, there’s little point. I think we’ll need to be a little more direct.” Brenda looked around at his platoon of wolves, his eyes coming to rest, as always, on Allen. Then they shifted to the man standing next to Allen, and the amused smile came onto his lips.
“Tobin.”
Mouse straightened. “Yessir?”
“How about you taking charge of this interrogation?”
Oh, shit, thought Allen. The fucking bastard, here it comes. Brenda must’ve decided that using Allen’s squad-mates was the only way of levering up Allen’s defenses. Damn it all, he thought, looking at Mouse’s startled face. How do I get us out of this one?
“Me?” Mouse asked apprehensively.
“Yes, soldier. You bring your sixteen over here and shoot a couple of these kids, see if their mothers will tell us where the others are hiding.”
Mouse stared down at the naked, round-bellied infants, appalled. “I can’t do that, sir. They just babies.”
“We’re at war with the babies, too, Tobin. Shoot them.”
He was talking to Mouse, but he was looking at Allen.
Allen felt as if the ground was falling out from under him. His private war had just moved to encompass the others, and he reached out to grab the only solution he could find. He cleared his throat and said, “I’ll do it, sir.”
The platoon turned as one to stare at him. Allen thumbed his safety on, handed the rifle to Mouse, and walked up to the villagers, gesturing to Lowdown to follow him.
At the cook-fire outside one of the hooches, Allen squatted on his boots. The people on the other side of the fire were a man and a woman, both looking about a hundred and twenty years old, toothless, terrified. He met their eyes, first hers, then his, before he spoke over his shoulder to the translator.
“You tell these people that we don’t want to hurt their children. We just need to be sure they aren’t hiding VC. Tell them that.” He waited until Lowdown’s voice had stopped, and he saw the disbelief on the old faces. “Now you tell them that the man with the dark glasses is crazy. Dinky-dau, you understand? Crazy as a rabid dog. That’s right,” he said when both wrinkled faces glanced with apprehension at the lieutenant’s glasses. “That man will shoot everyone, including the children. Then he will find your other children and shoot them, unless they come out now. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
They understood, and they believed him. The villagers murmured among themselves for several minutes, the younger women protesting, one of them wailing in
terror. The old man finally looked into Allen’s eyes.
“They come out, you not hurt?” the ancient voice asked.
Allen swiveled his head to look at Brenda. “He wants to know, if their kids come out, you promise you won’t hurt them?”
“ ’Course not, unless they’re VC.”
“No VC,” the old man declared.
“I have your word?” Allen persisted, holding the lieutenant’s gaze. I’m not giving in, not this time, you bastard.
“Carmichael, get on with it.”
Allen got to his feet and surveyed the platoon. “You heard Lieutenant Brennan. We’ve just promised that we’re not going to shoot this ville’s kids.”
When he was sure, he looked down at the old man. He said, “We won’t shoot your children.”
The old man unfolded until he was on his feet and led the way, most of the ville trailing behind, the women’s voices providing a chorus of apprehension as they went up the worn path. Two hundred yards away, the man stopped and pointed to some bushes. “There.”
The bunker was a cave, its entrance hidden by vegetation and rocks. The old man rattled a singsong phrase, and in a moment two children came out, then three more. Soon ten kids were blinking in front of the cave, all under the age of nine.
Brenda nodded, satisfied, and walked over to examine the nearly invisible opening of the bunker. Allen let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, the other soldiers relaxed, and the villagers, reacting to the change in their stances, began to chatter. Then Brenda said casually, his voice echoing from the open space below him, “Tobin, shoot the old man.”
As one, the platoon turned to look at their lieutenant, who chose that moment to step down into the cave. After a moment, Brennan’s head reemerged, to fix Mouse with a look of mild surprise. “I gave you an order, soldier.”
“Sir, the old guy—”
“You let them get away with this, next time they’ll think it’s okay to shoot at us. Waste him, Tobin. Hell, he’s half-dead anyway.”