I Pledge Allegiance Page 12

  Not that I’m insulting Vietnam’s sense of humor. On the contrary, I bet it’s particularly sharp.

  The situation, however, the scenario, the status of life as they are currently desperately trying to live it here, is as unfunny as it could be.

  Funny, how you can be in one place of absolute fire-and-brimstone horror and a few days later find the same place to be a frightening and unnatural beast of quiet.

  It’s an unusually cool day as we curl around that same corner that brought us to the firefight of the gods the other day. Clouds — thick, white, benevolent — help out by breaking up the sky, allowing a breeze, painting pictures for distraction. Will I say that one puffy cloud looks like Smokey the Bear?

  Beck tells me in another letter that one of the great morbid jokes of the Operation Ranch Hand flyers is based on Smokey’s motto, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

  “Only you can prevent forests” is what they laugh about here.

  They’re preventing them right now, as we approach the scene of the fighting. In the distance — but not much of a distance — C-123 Ranch Handers spray the jungle canopy up and down either side of the Mekong at such a leisurely pace, you could imagine yourself in some Indiana wheat field where the crop dusters protect the fields. If you can forget the Agent Orange part and focus on those fluffy clouds.

  That could be Beck, right there, right now. It could very well be.

  I could tell you one of those clouds looks like Richard Petty’s number 43 Dodge Charger and another looks like Muhammad Ali teaching Cleveland Williams a little respect.

  I could tell you that long, sharp battleship gray cloud looks like a US Navy cruiser with a tiny little projectile flying off the back.

  None of that would be true, but untruth should not be a barrier to saying what you want to, right? Say what you want, say what you need, say what makes you feel better, say whatever you say that gets you to the delicious part of the day where you can get your couple hours of sleep. Three if things are going particularly swell.

  The clouds don’t look like any of those things. The clouds look like clouds, which is all I need from them. We don’t get enough of clouds around here. Not enough of the fluffy, harmless clouds, anyway.

  I like clouds.

  Ivan would beat me up if he heard that.

  We stop behind the Baby, where the crew get to work pulling up the remains of that blasted PBR.

  A whole chunk of the Ninth Division, Second Brigade, Thirty-fourth Artillery is trooping up and down this section of riverbank. Putting out smoldering fires of enemy activity, appropriately enough. The Armored Troop Carrier is parked right there, right near the charred and still-reeking results of our Zippo work, like a limo after a party.

  But here’s the thing with Charlie: You can shoot him and stomp him and blow up his tunnel, shoot him and stab him and wipe out his whole bloodline. Then he seems to get right back up again.

  You have to kill him again and again, and it seems to me like you have to kill the very same guy forever, because he’s not staying dead like he’s supposed to.

  The Army’s right. Check under every ash, boys.

  We get a wave from the bank. Then another one.

  It could very well be Ivan. Right there. I could be looking at him.

  While Beck flies over, right there.

  It won’t often get as calm as it is right now. Weather-wise, action-wise, duty-wise. Escorting The Baby Giant is a sweet assignment right now. Guys are cleaning and tuning and oiling and fine-tuning their weapons at every station. Taking care of the gear that takes care of you, is what they call it. Moses, tinkering away happily, is so in love with his new sweetheart that it’s almost embarrassing to be around. And I do not, unfortunately, mean his infant child.

  “You all seem to have it covered,” I say to nobody special.

  I get my phone, retire to The Patio. I have to make a call.

  I’m working at it, determined to bridge the small-yet-profound communications gap between the Navy and their junior partner, the Marines.

  I hear a single shot ring up and down the river.

  Snipers’ rifles are unlike anything used by anybody else in the military. Finely tuned, scoped, calibrated, they are nearly identical to civilian hunting rifles. They don’t have the boom factor of other weapons. It’s a modest but crisp slash in the fabric of the air.

  And it can slip a round into a man’s earhole from six hundred yards.

  “Moses!” somebody shouts. There’s a thump and a splash, just like a dead human hitting the sharp lip of a boat on its way to the water.

  I hear running all over the boat, shouting. Eventually, off somewhere, there’s more gunfire.

  I guess Charlie didn’t appreciate my friend’s zest for his duty.

  The enemy does not stop, and he does not forget.

  I stay on The Patio, keep my head down, concentrate harder on making my call successfully.

  I have to make a call.

  I have a call to make.

  If friendship has an opposite, it’s war.

  About the Author

  Chris Lynch is the author of numerous acclaimed books for middle-grade and teen readers, including the Cyberia series and the National Book Award finalist Inexcusable. He teaches in the Lesley University creative writing MFA program, and divides his time between Massachusetts and Scotland.

  Copyright

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  Copyright © 2011 by Chris Lynch

  Cover art © 2011 by Tim Bradstreet

  Cover design by Christopher Stengel

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

  First edition, November 2011

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

  eISBN: 978-0-545-38849-8