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  Mellas bit his lip, not saying anything. He looked into Kendall’s eyes.

  “Don’t shit me—OK?”

  “No. I won’t, Kendall.”

  Exhausted, Kendall said no more. He went on struggling for air.

  Sheller came over and squatted between Kendall and Genoa, removing the IV fluid bottle from Genoa and transferring it to Kendall. He looked over at Mellas. “We’re running out of this shit. I’ll start losing guys if we do. Where is it on the priority list?”

  “At the top,” Mellas said. “Right up there with ammunition.”

  “It’d better fucking get here soon.”

  Mellas went back to his hole and sat there, Jackson to his left, Doc Fredrickson to his right in another hole. They stared into the fog, listening to the sounds of digging all around them. The NVA weren’t leaving.

  All they could do was sit in the fog and listen to the digging and to Kendall and Genoa panting. Mellas stared at the gray nothingness before him. He kept trying to think of how he was going to work his way back to VCB when they got overrun.

  Mellas again counted machine-gun rounds. Enough for about one minute of firing—and that included the two captured Russian 7.62s. They’d evenly redistributed the rifle ammunition and come up with about one magazine per man. It took only three quick bursts on automatic to empty one. Mellas wondered if he should save all his ammunition, not fire at all, and crawl away through the darkness and terror when the NVA hit them. Marines never leave their dead or wounded. They’d never expect a single Marine to break the code and slip by them. He’d hump right out to VCB and safety. He’d hump right out of the war.

  The fantasy kept returning, with new details. But it remained a fantasy. A more dominant part of him would adhere to the code. He’d die before he’d abandon anyone. Nor would he surrender. The lecture from the Basic School floated into his memory. “A Marine never surrenders as long as he has the means to resist. And we teach you fucking numbies hand-to-hand combat. So if your hands are blown off, you can surrender—only you’ll have to raise your legs.” They had laughed.

  There was no getting out. From time to time, that thought would overwhelm him like a wave. There was no getting out. Worse, he’d choose to stay and fight. He was going to die here in the mud. He was going to die and, unlike Kendall, he would never know what it was like to be married for even four weeks. He too would never have a child, never do work that gave some satisfaction, never see old friends again. Maybe someone would pick up what remained of his body and ship it home, but whatever inhabited that body would end, right here, in this hole, slumped over his rifle or shitting in his pants, just like the rest of them.

  All day the thirst chewed at everyone’s throat, clawed at temples, pounded the head with dehydration. Get me water. All around, fog. Fog is water, but it gave no relief.

  There was a series of loud metallic clanks. The entire hill tensed. The clanks were muted, then stopped. No one knew what they had been.

  Fitch came down and squatted by the hole, asking how everyone was doing. His eyes were sunken and dark from dehydration.

  “We’re thirsty,” Mellas said. “Don’t the troops get beer and ice cream every day in Vietnam?”

  Fitch chuckled. “I got good news and bad news. They’re landing two companies from Two Twenty-Four north of us this morning and two more as soon as they can. Three Twenty-Four is being dropped in east of us. They’ll be taking hills on Mutter’s Ridge and then we’ll get in a couple batteries of one-oh-fives.” He paused. “And Alpha and Charlie hit the valley south of us five minutes ago.”

  “No shit.” Mellas felt excitement and hope stir. “Where?”

  “That’s the bad news. Because of the clouds, they had to land them two days from here—if they don’t run into the shit themselves.”

  “You think they will?”

  “Remember your little number game with the mortar rounds?”

  Mellas said nothing.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Forty minutes later, Charlie Company made contact with the NVA. Murphy’s platoon, on point, was ambushed in the bamboo. The NVA rigged two ten-pound DH-10 directional mines to a tree, waited as long as they dared until the Marines got close, pulled the pins, and ran, covering their retreat with automatic weapons fire. Duck soup, as the old expression goes.

  One Marine died and another lost a leg. Murphy had to leave a squad to medevac them, effectively losing fourteen.

  On the hill, the Marines of Bravo Company heard everything. Mellas ran to the CP to hear Charlie Company’s position report. They were still six kilometers away and 4,000 feet below Bravo, with the NVA in between.

  Fitch looked at Mellas. They both knew that without Charlie Company’s ammunition, there would be about one minute of fire. Then it would be knives. Then it would be over. Fitch hung his head between his knees momentarily, then looked up. “We might not make it,” he said.

  “I know,” Mellas answered.

  They couldn’t express what they were feeling. It had to do with eternity, friendship, lost opportunities—with the end.

  “You ever get down around Los Angeles?” Fitch asked.

  “Sure.”

  “If we make it out of here, why don’t you look me up? I’ll buy you a beer.”

  Mellas said he would.

  “God,” Fitch whispered. “A beer.”

  Fitch pulled the company into the smaller circle of holes. There were no longer enough Marines to defend the outer perimeter. Mellas tried to ease the pain in his throat and tongue by licking the dew on his rifle barrel. It didn’t work.

  “Imagine dying of thirst in a monsoon,” Mellas wisecracked to himself as he walked up the hill to see how Kendall and the other wounded were getting along. He passed the growing stack of bodies.

  Genoa was gone. Mellas knelt beside Kendall, who was panting like a runner, staring into empty space, and concentrating everything he had on keeping up the relentless pace of his breathing. He was clearly in pain. Sheller had decided against morphine for fear that it would sedate his breathing and kill him. Kendall nodded toward the clay, wet with blood and spume, where Genoa had lain.

  “You’re nowhere near as bad as Genoa was,” Mellas said.

  “My fault,” Kendall gasped.

  “We’ve already been through that. It wasn’t,” Mellas said. He hesitated, struggling with himself, wondering if he could help or if he would just be indulging in self-pity. Then he took the plunge, hoping for the best. “Hell, I may have been the one who shot Pollini.”

  Kendall stared at him for several seconds, taking it in, breathing hard. “Tough one—hell—tough ones—bring home with us.” Then he fell silent again except for the tortured rapid panting. But he had a slight smile on his face.

  Mellas smiled back. “The skipper says they’ve got two birds on standby at VCB and another bird waiting on Sherpa.”

  Kendall nodded. Mellas crawled out into the daylight before he could break down in front of him. He hurried over to the CP. When he got there Fitch and Sheller were huddled intently, away from the radio operators. Mellas joined them. Fitch pursed his lips, then motioned Mellas to sit down.

  “You tell him, Sheller.”

  The senior squid, his face no longer round, turned to Mellas. “It’s the water, sir. I’ve got kids going down with dehydration. They’re starting to lose blood pressure and faint. We’re losing effectives.”

  “So?” Mellas opened his hands and spread his arms, leaving his elbows at his ribs. What the fuck can we do about it?

  Fitch broke in. “We can take the IV fluid we’re giving to the wounded and give it to the effectives to keep them effective.”

  Mellas was silent, conscious of what that meant for the wounded. He swallowed. “Who’s going to decide who doesn’t get the IV fluid?”

  “It’ll be me,” Fitch said grimly. “No one else.”

  Sheller looked at Mellas, then down at Fitch’s hands, which were trembling.

  “Fuck, Jim. You don’t get paid enough to make choices like that.”

  “Yeah, and I’m too young and inexperienced.” Fitch laughed, on t
he edge of losing control. He put his hands underneath his armpits, probably to hide the trembling. “You’re the numbers guy, Mellas. If we can’t see, and our fucking heads hurt too much to think, and every time we stand up to shoot we feel like fainting, how the fuck are we going to defend the wounded? How many wounded live this way versus that way?”

  Mellas shook his head. “Jim, it ain’t about numbers. How are you going to decide?”

  “I’ll start with the worst off.”

  “Like Kendall?”

  “Like Kendall.”

  “Jesus Christ, Jim,” Mellas said. He was suddenly near tears, but crying was impossible. He felt his jaw tremble and hoped the others wouldn’t notice. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Then, to his shame, he hoped to hell Fitch wouldn’t die so he himself wouldn’t have to take over.

  That afternoon Fitch ordered half of the remaining IV fluid to be distributed evenly to everyone in the company. The order was disobeyed. No one would take it. Fitch called the squids together and ordered each of them to pick five kids from every platoon who were already ineffective or about to go ineffective because of thirst. They submitted the names. Fitch and Sheller scurried from hole to hole, ordering those kids to drink, checking their names off the list. Others watched with very mixed feelings.

  Mellas was among the others. Thirst was driving him mad, but he hadn’t been picked. There was nothing to do but sit in his fighting hole with Jackson, who also hadn’t been picked, and pray for a break in the weather. But the fog stayed, cloaking them like wet gray wool.

  A little later, when it became apparent that the choppers wouldn’t be able to get in, Fitch called for Goodwin and Mellas. They found him sitting cross-legged, staring into the fog to the south. He had combed his hair and neatly rolled his muddy shirtsleeves to his upper arms.

  He motioned for them to sit. “We’re going to get the fuck out of here.” There was a mischievous glint in his eye and Mellas couldn’t help smiling.

  “How, Jack?” Goodwin asked.

  “I’ve been counting bodies,” Fitch said. “Warm, cold, you name it. We pair up the walking wounded so they can help each other. We sling the stretcher cases between four guys, one for each leg and arm. The wounded that can’t walk but can hang on will go piggyback on the biggest guys we got. The smaller guys take the dead over their shoulders. That’ll leave us with eight guys free, not counting the three of us, so that makes eleven.” He was looking down into the fog. “We stay here and it’s hand to hand for sure. The wounded will get slaughtered. I say fuck that bullshit.”

  He looked at each of them, trying to judge their reaction. Both of his lieutenants were steady, listening. “Scar, you and I and four machine guns will go in front with all the gun ammo. The walking wounded get most of the rest of the ammo. They’ll form a wedge behind us. Mellas and two others are tail-end Charlie with M-79s and all the fucking grenades in the company to keep the gooks off our backs. Everyone else gets half a magazine and stays on semiautomatic. We’ll be going downhill and it’ll be balls to the wall until we hit Charlie Company. The sides of the wedges will hold ground while we hustle the wounded through. Mellas, you’ll be the plug at the other end as we collapse the funnel.” He looked at the two lieutenants. “What do you think?”

  There was a long pause.

  “It isn’t exactly what strategists would call elegant,” Mellas finally said.

  Fitch laughed.

  “When we gonna leave, Jack?” Goodwin asked. “This place is getting on my nerves.”

  “Just after dark. The gooners’ll be getting ready to attack and won’t expect it.”

  “And if someone gets separated?” Mellas asked.

  “We’ll wait for him. We’re all going out together.”

  “You know what that means?”

  “You’re goddamned right I do. And you’re tail-end Charlie, so it’s most likely you we’ll be waiting for.”

  “Hell of a good policy, Jim.”

  “Next to Column in the Defense, the Funnel Breakaway could be my greatest contribution to military science yet,” Fitch said. There was a smile around the corners of his mouth. They all broke into laughter.

  The laughter fed on itself. Soon the three of them were roaring, making up outrageous tactical theories. They were still laughing when the first of the rockets came slashing up from the fog below. They scrambled for the bottom of Fitch’s hole, jumping in together, still laughing. “Rockets,” Mellas said. “What’ll they think of next?” They all broke out laughing again. At least the mystery of the strange clanks had been solved.

  Fitch told Sheller to save just enough IV fluid for the wounded for that night, knowing that either they would be low enough under the cloud cover to get medevaced or it would be raining. Or they’d be overrun and dead and they wouldn’t need it. So he ordered all the rest to be given out. Everyone got about four gulps of the flat, salty liquid. It tasted of rubber stoppers.

  Mellas stayed with Fitch, listening to the radios. At one point Fitch stiffened and his head jerked up. Then Mellas too heard the sounds of a firefight, far off to the east.

  “It’s got to be someone from Three Twenty-Four,” Fitch said. On Daniels’s radio they could hear Mike Company’s forward observer calling for everything he could get.

  “The mission grid is coming now, sir,” Daniels said excitedly. “Seven-four-three-five-seven-one.”

  Fitch jabbed his finger at the coordinates. More than six kilometers. Forever.

  “We can’t do a fucking thing here,” Mellas said helplessly.

  “Yeah,” Fitch said. “We’re the princess and they’re the dragon slayers.”

  Mellas looked at Fitch. “The fucking bastards,” he said. “We’re nothing but fucking bait. Bait.” Mellas whirled and stalked off down the hill.

  An hour passed, and with it his anger. He reached down and grabbed some damp clay, making a fist, squeezing it into a ball until his forearm trembled. Then he let the earth go, watching it plop down to the wet clay of his fighting hole. He began to stroke the clay, moving his fingers over it lightly, caressing it. He felt a sense of beauty and longing for the damp muddy ground that would have moved him to tears, but he was too dehydrated to cry. He yearned with all his heart to be able to see that clay for just one more day and then one more day after that.

  Jackson knew what Mellas was thinking and stared quietly ahead, not wanting to embarrass the lieutenant by watching him. Mellas stopped feeling the ground and folded his arms over the chest of his two flak jackets. “I’m a hell of an inspiration, aren’t I?” He gazed down at the backs of his muddy hands. He tried to wipe away tears that hadn’t come, smearing more dirt on his face.

  “We can’t all be Chesty Puller, sir,” Jackson said.

  Mellas took a deep sigh, then another, blowing the air out with puffed cheeks. “Hey, Jackson, will you show me how you brothers shake hands?”

  “Huh?”

  “You know. All that bap bap bap shit.”

  Jackson looked at Mellas, not sure if he was serious. When Mellas didn’t look away, Jackson rolled his eyes upward and said, “You just never tell anyone how you learned this, OK?”

  Mellas grinned and held his fist out. After five times Mellas still hadn’t mastered the intricate movements.

  “Almost there, Lieutenant,” Jackson said, fist out again. “Almost there.”

  Mellas sighed. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

  Jackson smiled. “It never will.”

  “Why not?”

  “You ain’t black.”

  Mellas suddenly felt self-conscious, even stupid, for asking Jackson to show him the handshake. “I always thought deep down we were the same,” he said.

  “We are the same. Hell, I got two white great-grandpas, just like you. It’s just that we seen things differently so long we ain’t able to talk about it much.”

  “Try me.”

  “No way, Lieutenant.” Jackson folded his arms. “You think someone’s going to understand how you feel about being in the bush? I mean even if they’re like you in every way, you really think they’re going to understand what it’s like out here? Really u
nderstand?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well, it’s like that being black. Unless you’ve been there, ain’t no way.”

  Mellas shifted his feet, pulling one boot out of the muck with a sucking sound. He saw Mole, down on the lines, stand up next to his hole to try to piss. It wasn’t going well. Mellas couldn’t remember when he had last peed, but he did remember that then it had been a brown dribble. He heard the sound of tubing. Mole hurriedly zipped up his fly and scrambled into his hole. Three shells blasted the top of the landing zone. Mellas removed his hands from his ears and waited. Mole got up again to finish trying to pee. Mellas watched him idly, along with Jackson, wondering if anything would come out.

  When Mole gave up, Mellas turned to Jackson. “Hey, Jackson. Before we get split up, I want to ask you something. If you think I’m an asshole for asking it, just try not to get mad at me for it.”

  Jackson didn’t say anything.

  Mellas plunged in. “I think guys like China, and maybe even Mole, are sending weapons home. Mole can’t lose as many machine-gun parts as he says he does.”

  Jackson chuckled. “I think that operation got shut down.” He looked out at the fog, his eyes twinkling. “Let’s say by better business practices.”

  “What?”

  “The word among the brothers is that they’re not doing it any more, sir.”

  Mellas wanted to probe but held back. It was sufficient to know that the rumor was true and that no action needed to be taken. After a brief silence Mellas asked,“Is there going to be serious trouble? I mean back home. You know, with serious weapons.”

  Jackson said nothing.

  “I got this feeling that somehow I should be involved, but I can’t do a fucking thing.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Just leave us the fuck alone.” Jackson was looking him right in the eye and had spoken with kindness. Even though Mellas was an officer, and white, at that moment Jackson was just someone close to his own age who shared the same hole. “You really don’t understand it, do you?” Jackson said.