Free-Fire Zone Read online

  “Within the hour after your return from a hospital stay for a deeply serious and deeply unpleasant injury that happened while you were doing the business assigned to you in the field under Lt. Jupp.”

  “Yes, sir, I am aware of all that.”

  “And you were not with any of the other men at the time of the incident, is that correct, private?”

  “Correct.”

  “So, you know why I would be asking you such a question.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So then, I will ask you again. Did you kill Lt. Jupp?”

  It doesn’t get any less sickening to be asked a second time. I don’t figure it will get any less sickening if he asks me five million times. It will probably just get worse.

  “No, sir, I did not.”

  He continues, for a minute, to squeeze lemonade from his head. Then he looks up and right at me.

  “I know that, sweetheart,” he says. “Now, can you tell me who did?”

  Cripes. Where to even begin with this? Well, let’s begin with how much I don’t want to be here. Then move on to how much I don’t want to be here.

  Lt. Jupp is dead.

  Somebody here probably killed him.

  My brain is not big enough for this. Who would do this kind of thing? There are plenty of guys around here who seemed at one time or another angry enough at the lieutenant to say or do or not do something stupid, but to kill him? I can’t fit that into my head. I just can’t believe there is any single guy here who would be capable of that.

  We kill, sure. But we’re not killers. That’s a whole ’nother thing, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

  “I have no idea, sir. That’s the truth.”

  “Gillespie could do something like that, couldn’t he, private.”

  I would never say anyone was capable of doing that. If I ever would say such a thing, though, I might say it about Gillespie.

  “No, sir,” I say, “I could not imagine that.”

  “Lt. Jupp was not a popular man, was he, private.”

  “I couldn’t say, sir.”

  “Actually, you could say, son. And you had better say, or risk a charge of obstructing the investigation of a very tired and overworked man who has to cover one-twenty-fourth of a country of sixty-five thousand square miles in which fraggings are currently occurring at the rate of about one per week. Now … from what I can gather so far you were on a list of Lt. Jupp’s favorite subordinates, a list that extended to approximately one. You. The other men mostly hated him and vice versa.”

  “Squid doesn’t hate anybody, sir.”

  “You know, fair enough. Spoke to that Squid fellow and I believe that to be accurate. Am I to gather from this that you are now cooperating by process of elimination and that any of your other squad mates could have been responsible?”

  Every time I say something I feel like I’m in deeper. Every time I say nothing I feel likewise.

  “I don’t think Hunter could have done it, either.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he says.

  And I can’t take it anymore.

  “No, sir, we aren’t getting somewhere. Because I don’t believe any of the guys could have done this. Maybe it was just an accident. They do happen, don’t they? There’s a lot of dangerous stuff around here….”

  Up ’til now, he’s been taking notes. Now, he stops writing. Puts his pen in his pocket, closes his notebook.

  “I’ll give you credit, son,” he says, standing from the card table. “It took you longer to get to that than every other one of ’em. Truth is, unless somebody confesses or rats out somebody else, there is practically nothing we can do these days. This place is all but lawless now. I wish you luck, kid, I really do. Because once it gets to this point … well, good luck, is all. And watch your back.”

  He shakes my hand and walks to the door.

  I sit, alone again, not knowing what to do with myself next.

  The new lieutenant wants to see me. It’s not that I’m special, though — he’s having sit-downs with everybody. One by one the guys go to see him in his hooch, and one by one they come back calling the next guy. There is little exchange of information during the changeover, just as there is little communication at all since Jupp’s killing. It isn’t that nobody trusts anybody. It’s that everybody doesn’t trust somebody. And we are not even sure who that somebody is.

  I have to change that statement. I sort of don’t trust anybody.

  I don’t expect to get shot or blown up by one of our own guys. No, a person has to be important in some way for that to happen, and I am basic-level grunt all the way. What worries me is that, when it comes down to it, I’m beginning to think that the guys here are of a mind to look out for themselves instead of each other. That’s what I’m feeling now, and for a fighting force that’s about as poisonous as it can get.

  “Trust me,” McClean says as he steps into the hooch and points that I’m up next, “this guy’s gonna be an even bigger pain than Jupp.”

  I get off my bunk and walk past him on the way to the door.

  “Know who I trusted?” I say. “I trusted Lieutenant Jupp.”

  I did. Despite it all, I did.

  All those kissy-kissy noises follow me out the door and I don’t know who’s doing it and I don’t even care to look.

  Lieutenant Silva’s hooch is like an indoor cloud. It’s as if somebody has let off a white phosphorus flare in there, except maybe more like a blue-gray phosphorus flare. He is lighting one cigarette off of another one when I enter, and he’s sitting on one folding canvas chair, with his feet propped up on a second and his overflowing ashtray on a third. Looks like a fire hazard.

  I remain standing.

  “No beating around any bushes with me, kid, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “I like you,” he says.

  “Thank you, sir. I didn’t even realize you knew me.”

  “I know you by record and reputation, private. Mind if I call you Rudi?”

  “Most guys around here call me Cabbage, lieutenant.”

  “Uh-huh. Mind if I call you Rudi?”

  “I don’t mind at all, sir.”

  “Good. Now here is the way I figure we’re gonna understand each other. I will give out orders and assignments. And you will follow those orders and assignments. I will hold up my end of the bargain by not making any unreasonable demands of the soldiers under me as far as I can help it, and I will fight shoulder to shoulder with those soldiers like the partners in crime that we actually are. In exchange for this respect I offer you, you will agree not to kill me or to maim me, nor to attempt to kill or maim me. How’s that sound to you? Because it sounds eminently fair and reasonable to me.”

  Lt. Silva has sucked down that cigarette in about the time it would take most people to suck down a Dixie cup of soda. He lights another one.

  “Sounds fair and reasonable, lieutenant.”

  “Good,” he says. “Good. Rudi, my man, here is what I understand about you. You are the prototype of a loyal and dedicated Marine. Would you say that is fair?”

  “I like to think it is.” I’d also like to think I knew what a prototype is, but I’ll settle for the other good words I recognize in there.

  “Good. Fair is good. I am a fair man, and fairness is never far from my thoughts. I am guessing you feel likewise. Fair enough?”

  I did not expect to smile in this meeting at all. I am pleasantly surprised.

  “Fair enough,” I say.

  “And while you have the aforementioned invaluable qualities and probably a whole lot more, I think it is equally fair to state that you are not the brightest booby in the trap. Is that true, and does that hurt your feelings, Rudi?”

  “It certainly is, and it certainly does not, sir,” I say, and it’s probably extra stupid now to be grinning like I am, but so what since I won’t be fooling anybody here about my brightness or lack thereof, anyway.

  He is smiling now, too, and smoking and nodding. “We’
re going to be able to work together just fine, son. You will learn that you get a lot of slack from me, a lot of free-run if you just give me honesty and effort. You will be on a long leash. Free-fire means free-fire now. The brass want body counts. They do not want American body counts. Our job is to make those two wishes come true.”

  This is making me smile too hard.

  “I see you are smiling. That’s a good thing. But in light of this squad’s history I don’t encourage you to get too giddy there, Rudi. It’s a fact of life that the people you think you know, you do not know. The people you think you could never know, you may well know them all too well. What you think is most likely always wrong. Do you see a lesson in there somewhere, private?”

  I was really hoping I had left lessons back in high school, which was about fifty years ago now. But I believe I know what he’s getting at.

  “Don’t think, sir?”

  “Perfect. You are the perfect soldier, son.”

  Wow. Is that the key? I wish I knew that before. I would have enlisted when I was nine. I’d have General Westmoreland’s job by now.

  “Unless you have any questions, you can go now, Rudi. But I want you to know that you can come and ask me anything at any time. Communication is key. Understood?”

  “Understood,” I say.

  “How’s the leg, by the way?”

  “Good,” I say. “Perfect. Ready to go out and do some stomping.” Then, I turn to go.

  “And hey,” he calls just as I get through the doorway.

  “Yes?”

  “You are the finest Marine in the whole outfit. That’s the word, and I believe the word.”

  I don’t say anything to Silva, because what are you supposed to say to that? I do say something to myself, though, inside. I say: How much you want to bet he said that same thing to each guy, one by one by one by whoever? Okay, maybe not every one, but still.

  As I make my way back to our quarters, I have to shake my head in disbelief at how Cpl. McClean could come away from a conversation with that man thinking that we were going to have difficulties ahead. Makes me realize just how far away I feel from grasping this situation right now.

  I hear, as I near the hooch, a lot of commotion. It is angry commotion, and the kind you quick-up your step to see.

  I rush around to the side of our hooch, the narrow strip of dirt that runs between it and the corrugated metal wall of the storage building behind us. There’s a fight going on. It’s between Marquette and Gillespie, and it is furious. I’ve never seen so many punches thrown in such a short span of time in my life, and I grew up watching ice hockey. Both guys are shirtless, so they can’t get a grip on each other. They are slippery with sweat and blood, so there’s not much to do but punch.

  And they are hammering, while all the other guys stand around them, watching and murmuring low enough to not attract a whole big lot of attention. It’s also like hockey in that the authorities will let a lot of this go on without intervening, to let the boys get it out, as long as they’re not too public about it. The thinking is they will get it out, and that will be that.

  They are getting it out all right. Especially Gillespie. He is taking some hits, but he is dishing out probably two-for-one in the punching, and it seems like every shot he gets through gets there with a fire and precision and hate that is already making him the winner though he has not finished yet with the punishment.

  Marquette’s forehead is bleeding from a massive gash over his left eye, and his mouth is so pulpy it looks like somebody is force-feeding him overripe tomatoes. Sunshine has a shiner for a left eye, but not much else for damage. As Marquette loses steam and drops his hands some, Gillespie finds new inspiration and throws his whole self behind a vicious left hand that knows just exactly what its mission is.

  I am about five feet away, and I can hear the crisp snap as Marquette’s nose is broken.

  It is, truly, stomach churning, in a way that catches me completely by surprise. My stomach is doing flips and my knees are shaky, seeing one of our own guys destroying another, watching the blood puddle up in the sand between them. The corporals are both loving it, but Hunter looks shocked into numbness.

  Squid, though, is a picture of horror. His right hand is covering his mouth, and his eyes are all soupy with near-tears.

  The punching stops. With Gillespie, it is voluntary, but for Marquette’s part there is no choice involved. There is a brief pause, then Sunshine takes two steps straight back, just in time for Marquette to fall almost right onto the winner’s toes.

  You know what that was? That was violence. Real violence. More than the other war stuff.

  “Yours’ll come, Gillespie,” Marquette says from face-down in the mud. He sounds like he’s talking through Jell-O and grit and lumpy mashed potatoes.

  Gillespie leans down over him, says in a rasp, “Call me Sunshine.”

  He turns, picks up his shirt, and leaves without another word, headed, I would guess, for the showers. The corporals huddle-walk in the opposite direction, talking all low and excited. Hunter inches over and crouches down near Marquette as he tries to get up. Marquette makes it to his hands and knees, then just stays there for several seconds until Hunter helps him the rest of the way to his feet. They make their way around to the door of the hooch, where Hunter will for sure be the good man nurse until he can talk Marquette into visiting the good gal nurse.

  Squid stands there, like he’s petrified. Standing, staring at the stupid bloody mud on the ground. Flies are on it already, which seems both repulsive and perfect to me.

  I step over to Squid, push his hand down from his mouth. “Don’t be a baby,” I say. “Or, at least, don’t let anybody see you being a baby.”

  He keeps staring, shaking his head a little. So I grab him by the front tail of his shirt, and I tow him, tugging him along behind me all the way back to Lt. Silva’s hooch. I knock on the door frame. We enter the fog.

  “You said I could ask you anything, sir?”

  “You can always ask.”

  “Could you send Squid home, sir? He has less than two weeks left as it is. He’s already done enough and seen enough, and the truth is that I won’t be letting him do anything dangerous or useful or anything that will put him within spitting distance of sniffing distance of harm’s way, so he’s no more use to us and could even be a hindrance, what with me having to look out for him and all. And his dad’s not doing so good and he really needs to get back and see him. And … no beating around any bushes, sir?”

  “Absolutely none, private.”

  “This is frankly not a situation that can benefit the boy at all now.”

  Silva lights a cigarette off a cigarette, blows smoke straight up into the air as if there is a free space up there anywhere.

  “And if I say you will have to put in twice the effort over the coming weeks to make up for Squid’s lost manpower?”

  “I say, fair enough,” I say.

  Squid says nothing. Doesn’t appear quite capable at the moment.

  “Rudi, do you think young Squid here might do something drastic if he can’t get away from this place ASAP?” He has a comically earnest look on his face as he asks this.

  “I wouldn’t care to speculate on such a thing, lieutenant,” I say. “At this point, I wouldn’t speculate on anything or anyone in Vietnam.”

  I may well go down as the soldier who went through the greatest number of nicknames during his tour of Vietnam.

  There is no more play left in this squad, and that is beyond dispute. Nicknames don’t come with the same bounce they did before. Even when we call Gillespie Sunshine to his face now, it’s not because it’s a funny joke — which it is — but more because we’re almost afraid not to.

  Mine is something wildly different now, and it comes, in fact, from Sunshine.

  We are out on patrol, which we do nearly every morning now with Lt. Silva. He refuses to let us hang day after day at the base, getting somehow both bored and tense, like we did before. He d
oes his research, his homework, and somehow manages to get us assignments that more or less straddle the line between dangerous and pointless. Most of the time we visit villages that intelligence suggests are swinging in the breeze between friendly and hostile. To do this day after day is a guarantee that you don’t lose your edge, because dropping your guard is well known to be the express route to dead.

  I have never yet worked out a reliable method for deciding which of the local people are innocently going about the business of living and which are hoping to skin me like a rabbit supper. Really, I have seen families floating by on a river in a sampan and they couldn’t look any more innocent if they had Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and Christopher Robin on board serving cupcakes. Then, twenty meters downstream, those same people unload a handful of grenades at an American River Monitor like the boat my pal Morris is on and half the crew are dead. Of course, the family winds up dead, too, but that hardly makes it all worthwhile, does it?

  It makes you tense, is what it does. It makes you possibly not all the way sane. You have to find a way to deal with it. Every single guy here has to find a way.

  I guess I found a way without even knowing it.

  “Holy moly,” Cpl. McClean says when he kicks at what looks like a suitcase handle sticking out of the dirt. It is just outside a hut, a hut like a hundred other huts we’ve seen, in a tiny abandoned village we have just combed for personnel and weapons. He reaches down, brushes away some leaf cover, and we find the handle attached to a door.

  Which, we realize, is attached to a tunnel.

  “Oh boy, oh boy,” Lt. Silva says. “I have been looking for these things forever. There are said to be thousands of miles of these tunnels, men. Mostly up in the central highlands, but all over the rest of the country as well, and yet my luck’s so rotten I never ever come across them.”

  “Until now,” Hunter says.

  “Until now,” Silva says excitedly.

  “So what do you suppose is in there?” Cherry asks.

  “Anything and everything,” Silva says. “The more extensive ones I’ve heard about are built over two or even three levels. They got kitchens down there, and bathrooms, workshops for building stuff, and room after room for storing weapons and ammunition. Some of these things are so sophisticated they really contain whole miniature cities, and can serve as delivery depots for stuff arriving here all the way from the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia.”