The Last of the Dogteam Read online

  The young man stood up. "I'll go back to the room, Sarge—maybe try to get some sleep."

  "You can stay and talk to me the rest of the night if you want to."

  "Thank you, Sergeant. I don't think so. But

  I really do appreciate the offer."

  A few minutes after lights-out, Terry walked down the hall of the barracks to a room full of recruits. He heard one of them say: "What's the matter, little boy? Gonna cry yourself to sleep? Little boy got his girl knocked up and she married someone else. What's the matter, Jones: didn't you have a big enough cock to keep her happy?"

  Laughter.

  Wild with fury, Terry savagely kicked open the door and flipped on the lights. Wide eyes, frightened faces, and open mouths mutely expressed the shared sentiment that Drill Instructor Kovak was mightily pissed-off.

  "YOU SHIT-HEADSI" he roared at them. "If I hear one more goddamned word from this room, I'll drag your asses out in the street and we'll do close-order drill the rest of the night. You understand me?"

  The next morning, Jones' letter was missing, stolen. At noon, the weather turned so rotten the day's training was cancelled. At three o'clock the letter was thumbtacked to the bulletin board and the entire Company read it. Terry's Platoon Guide ripped the letter from public inspection and brought it to Terry.

  "Some of the guys are really giving Jones a bad time of it, Sergeant. Especially Jordan. He's saying that tonight Jones can sleep with him. He's saying that ... ah ... he'll ... ah . . . fuck Jones in the ass—that'll take his mind

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  off his girl. Jordan's getting pretty raunchy, Sarge."

  Jordan from Ohio. A college boy jock who flunked out of school and got drafted. An asshole with a capital A. Jordan reminded Terry a great deal of Cater. He was constantly complaining about his knee; an old injury suffered—supposedly—on the gridiron. He bitched about being in the Army.

  "All right, Clark," Terry said, "thanks. Ill take care of it."

  Terry called the Chaplain's office. The man was out for the rest of the evening. He told the Chaplain's assistant about Jones and his troubles.

  Terry walked over to the CO's office, really not expecting the Captain to be there, and he wasn't. Gone home. The XO was a natural born nitwit who couldn't lace up his own boots properly: Second Lieutenant Slate. A Reserve Artillery officer fulfilling his military obligation. Slate had about as much business being the XO in a training company as Daffy Duck. Slate knew it, and admitted it.

  Terry found First Sergeant Deale sitting behind his desk reading a novel. Deale, a fifty year old semi-alcoholic with thirty years in and no place to go if he got out. Deale stayed in because he was scared to death of civilians. First Sergeant Deale had spent thirty years in the Army, through two wars, and had never heard a shot fired in anger. He admitted that violence frightened him.

  "Well, now, Sergeant Kovak," Deale said, after Terry had explained the situation and Deale had reluctantly listened. "It's a sad story, truly depressing, I admit that. But I have great faith in your ability to handle it." He sucked on a cigarette. "However, we must both understand that Jones is now a man—a man among men. The barracks humor—however salty—will die down in a few days, Jones will recover from his sniffles, and all will end happily. Perhaps, Sergeant Kovak, I might arrange for Jones to slip into Louisville and find himself a prostitute. That way he could wet his dipstick and might feel better about the entire dismal matter? During the interim, let's you and I stroll over to the club and have a few beers and some more enlightening conversation."

  Terry looked at the First Sergeant, not believing what he'd just heard. "You know, Deale," he said slowly, "you're a real prickl"

  The First Sergeant did not take offense. At least not visibly. Drill Sergeants—especially DI's such as Kovak—scared him just a little. "Of course, I am," he smiled. "I gather by your most defensive reply, you do not wish to imbibe with me?"

  Terry put his hands on the First Sergeant's desk and glared at him through cold eyes, frustrated in his efforts to help Jones. "Shove it up your ass, Dealel" He walked out of the Orderly Room.

  Terry knew he could not show any

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  favoritism toward Jones; that would be disastrous for both of them. He walked back to the barracks through the heavy snow.

  Jordan was needling Jones as Terry walked past the squad room. He stopped and entered the room. "Get off his butt, Jordan. He doesn't need your smart mouth."

  Jordan grinned. "Yes, Sergeant Kovak." But it was a very greasy reply.

  Terry gave them no time to needle the young man, keeping them busy mopping and waxing the floors, running through inspections, and field stripping and cleaning weapons. It was eleven o'clock before Terry allowed them to hit their bunks, too tired to hassle Jones.

  At one o'clock, Terry woke, went to the latrine, and on his way back looked in on Jones. The young man was wide awake. "Go to sleep, Jones," Terry ordered him in a whisper.

  Sometime during the night Terry thought he heard Jones cry out, but he wasn't certain whether it was a dream or real. He lay in his bed, listening, but heard no more cries.

  He rolled them out at four-forty-five, a little surprised to find Jones up and dressed. His face was pale and he was walking stiffly. Terry started to say something to Jones, but the boy only looked at him with pain-filled eyes and walked away. Terry could not find his Platoon Guide to ask him what had happened.

  It was snowing when Terry lined his men up in front of the barracks, preparing to move them out to breakfast. Jones approached him. "I'm not hungry, Sergeant," he said dully. He looked tired . . . and something else Terry could not pinpoint. "Can I be weapons' guard this morning?"

  "Okay, Jones. Is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

  "No, Sergeant."

  Terry nodded, and the young soldier assumed his lonely position over the packs and weapons of his platoon. Terry looked at him just once more before moving his men to breakfast. Jordan wore a nasty grin.

  Sergeant Kovak was midway through his breakfast when a recruit came running into the mess hall, face white, eyes wide. Flecks of vomit spotted the front of his field jacket.

  "Somebody come quick!" he yelled. "He's deadl Oh, my God, half his head is gone!" The young soldier sat down on the floor of the mess hall and threw up the rest of his breakfast.

  Regimental Sergeant Major Terrian stood up and shouted the mess hall quiet. "You will not leave this building without permission," he told the several hundred recruits. He talked for a moment with the young man on the floor, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. He rose, and turned to Sergeant Deale.

  "Get your lard-ass in gear, Deale. And close your mouth. You're supposed to be a leader of men. You look like Chicken Little. Call Cap-

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  tain Young and then call the MP's. Sergeant Kovak, come with me."

  It was Jones. Terry knew that the instant the recruit came rushing into the mess hall, yelling and puking. Lying face up on crimson snow, fists clenched, the entire, back of his head gone, eyes open in that final shock of death. Blood and brains were scattered over many of the packs.

  "Stuck the barrel of the Ml in his mouth and pulled the trigger," Sergeant Major Ter-rian observed. "Where in the hell did he get the ammunition?"

  "From the range, I would imagine," Terry said. "We fired out there day before yesterday." Then he told Terrian about Jones.

  The Sergeant Major questioned Terry hard. "You did try to see the Chaplain? It's on record?"

  "Yes, Sergeant Major."

  "You did try to see Captain Young?"

  "Yes, Sergeant Major."

  "You did - try to counsel the recruit yourself?"

  "Yes, Sergeant Major."

  "Did you try to see anyone else?"

  "Slate and Deale."

  "A nitwit and an asshole. All right, why did you assign Jones to weapons' guard this morning?"

  "He asked to be a
ssigned; said he wasn't hungry." Terry lit a cigarette.

  "Anything else, Sergeant?"

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  "Yes. I want the Medical Examiner to see if Jones has been . . . to see if Jones might have had anal sex last night."

  "What?/" the Sergeant Major's question was a harsh whisper in the pre-dawn.

  Terry told him of his suspicions. The Sergeant Major's face was pale and hard. "This could get sticky, Terry. Very sticky. We might have all kinds of flack over this. I know the ME; I'll have him do this on the QT. Godl That's disgustingl"

  Captain Young and the Military Police arrived, along with a member of the Provost Marshall's office, all within seconds of each other. Pictures taken and questions asked, over and over. The Commanding General of the base arrived, looked around, shook his head in sorrow and disbelief, then went back home.

  A blanket was tossed over what was left of Private Jones, Edward P.

  For the first time, all present—except for Jones—realized they had an audience. Every window of the barracks was full of young faces, looking out at them, at death, now covered with a blanket, one fist protruding from under the wool.

  "Sergeant Kovak," Captain Young told him, "tell those men to occupy themselves in some other manner."

  "Yes, sir." Within seconds after Terry entered the building, the windows were empty, blank rectangles of light staring at nothing through sightless eyes of reflection.

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  Terry returned to the snow and the cold and the blood and bits of bone and gray matter and squatted down beside the cooling flesh of Jones. Terry knew he had to keep his shit together; had to play down what he suspected was true.

  "The Dear John letter," he said aloud. "From the bitch up in Pennsylvania." He or Terrian would deal with Jordan.

  "What's that, Sergeant?" an MP asked.

  "Like I told the Lieutenant, his girl back home got herself pregnant and married and sent Jones a Dear-John, 'keep the saddle* let-ter."

  "Guess that's why he zapped himself," the MP said.

  Later, Terry told his story a dozen times, leaving out only one part: Jordan.

  The body was gone, the area cleaned. The sky began to spit snow, light at first, then coming down like a white spotted sheet. The whiteness covered the smudged outline of Jones* death scene and the bootprints surrounding it. The slug that tore the life from Jones had been found embedded in the wall of the barracks. A-white chalk mark circled the spot, standing out in the dim light.

  A Colonel asked Terry—since it was his platoon—what he had planned for that day.

  "I'm going to march them," Terry said bluntly. "March them until they're too tired to think about anything other than their sore feet." As he talked, he looked at Captain

  Young, waiting for him to contradict the orders.

  The Captain looked at First Sergeant Deale, standing around looking very uncomfortable. "Turn the Company out, Sergeant Deale. And change out of those Class-A's and into fatigues—you're going with us.'*

  Deale made five miles with the Company, then dropped out, complaining of a bad head cold. Sergeant Major Terrian, working with Young's Company that week, looked at Deale in disgust.

  "Lard-ass!" he muttered, while the men took a break. He turned to Terry. '"If the M.E.'s report confirms what you told me, you really think it was Jordan?**

  "Yes."

  Late that afternoon, the M.E.'s report was quietly handed to Terrian. The Sergeant Major came to see Terry. "Jordan," he said. "Break him!"

  Jordan slipped in the snow during the second five miles of the march and Terry was on him with the speed and fury of a Pit Viper.

  "Pick up that weapon and clean it!" he barked. "Then give me twenty push-ups for your fumble-butted efforts at being a soldier.*' He turned to his Platoon Guide. "Take the men on. I*m staying here with Jordan."

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  Jordan did his twenty, rose to his feet, and faced Terry. "I can take anything you can dish out, Kovak."

  Terry smiled. "Sure you can, Jordan."

  Three days later, Jordan had just about reached his breaking point. Night, and Terry had him digging holes in the hard, rocky Kentucky earth. Digging them with a small entrenching tool.

  "I want it six by six by six, Jordan," Terry told him. "And that's feet, not inches."

  Jordan looked up from the hole. "You can't do this to me. It's not legal. I'm going to report you."

  "I'm'doing it, hot-shot. If you don't like it, you can crawl out of that hole and come at me."

  "Can I talk off the record?"

  "You can say any goddamned thing you want to say, Jordan."

  "I'm going to kill you, Kovak. I swear to God; I swear on my mother's picture—I'm gonna kill you."

  Terry laughed. "When you make your play, Jordan, do me one favor."

  "What, bastard?"

  "Do it in front of witnesses. That way I can stomp you legally."

  "I didn't do nothing that Jones didn't like—he was a queer. He liked it when I was doing it to him."

  "You're a sorry son-of-a-bitch, Jordan!"

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  Seven days after Jones* death, Jordan broke under the pressure from Terry, Captain Young, and Sergeant Major Terrian.

  Terry had singled Jordan out and was having him do close-order drill in the street in front of the barracks, while the others in the Company stood in lose formation, laughing at him, as Terry barked commands so fast Jordan finally tripped over his boots and sprawled on his face.

  Jordan slowly picked himself up, looking at Sergeant Major Terrian. Terrian stood smiling at him. Then Jordan made the biggest mistake of his life. A soldier may curse Cod if he so desires. A soldier may loose his cool and take a swing at his CO—that will cost him a little time in the stockade. But a soldier must never, ever, get a Sergeant Major down on his case. To make matters worse, Terrian was a Command Sergeant Major, and a Command Sergeant Major sits directly by the feet of God. A CSM has friends of all ranks, all services, all over the world. One will never, ever, escape the wrath of a CSM.

  "You goddamn mother-fucker!" Jordan cursed Terrian.

  Captain Young visibly paled. Second Lieutenant Slate—who was deathly afraid of CSM Terrian—doubled up and ran into the barracks and into the latrine, where he lost his lunch. First Sergeant Deale, who had about as much chance as making CSM as Andy Gump did of becoming President of the United

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  States, walked back to his office and said a very short and sincere prayer for the ass of Private Jordan—for it now belonged to Ter-rian.

  Jordan wouldn't shut up. "Son-of-a-bitch!" he screamed. "I'm gonna tear those pretty stripes off your jacket and shove 'em up your assl"

  Terrian's expression did not change, only a slight narrowing of his eyes indicated he even heard Jordan. He slowly fieldstripped his cigarette and scattered the tobacco, putting the balled-up paper in his pocket.

  No one heard Terrian when he muttered, "You belong to me, Jordan." He spun on his heel and walked away.

  Terry smiled, knowing he could now ease up on Jock Jordan, for Jordan was through. When Jordan completed basic training he would have twenty-two months left in the Army, and they would be the most miserable months he would ever spend—if he lived through them. The papers assigning him to radio school would vanish. Jordan would go on to Infantry School, then, in all probability, to a Line Outfit. There, he would draw every shit-detail known to man. He would never make any rank. Or, if Terrian was feeling especially ornery, Jordan would be sent to Guam or Wake Island, where he could spend his time cleaning Gooney Bird shit off the runways. Or, as it eventually happened, he was sent to the rugged country around Vicenza,

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  Italy, where a small detachment of Army Rangers are stationed. CSM Terrian was one of Colonel Darby's original Rangers.

  Terry was still smiling as he walked up to Jordan, the recruit's face still white with anger. "Now, Jordan, you'll pay for what you did to Jones."

  "I didn't loll him I" Jorda
n snarled.

  "You didn't pull the trigger," Terry corrected.

  Months later, Jordan fell out of a helicopter, falling fifteen hundred feet to his death. "How regrettable," Terry said.

  In the years to come, Terry would look back and wonder: If I hadn't put Jones on weapons' guard, would he still be alive?

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  TWELVE

  "Interesting scar you picked up, Sally," Terry ran his fingers over her belly to touch the puckered scar that marred the skin on her left side. "Little bit more to the center and you wouldn't be here." His fingers left small traces in the sweat on her body.

  "I turned just as the dude pulled the trigger—lucky for me. The bullet bounced off my hipbone and knocked me flat on the ground. I really thought I was gut-shot."

  "Did you get him?" Terry lit two cigarettes and handed one to Sally.

  "I got him," she replied nonchalantly. "With the second shot. God, I hate those ham-merless .38's!"

  The sounds of Saigon drifted up to them: the jingling bells of bicycles and the noisy horns of small cars. The street vendors calling out their wares. A not unpleasant mixture of smells and sounds from a country soon to be

  ripped apart by a full-scale war; a country already war-weary from years of bloody guerrilla war.

  The sweat cooled and dried on their bodies, the warm air blowing in through the open window fanning them as day began to separate from dusk and night gently covered the city.

  "Funny we should meet here in Nam," she said. "I heard you were in Germany. Something to do with knocking off some doubleagent." She ran her hand along his leg, touching an old bullet scar on his thigh. When Terry did not reply, she said, "I want out, Terry. I've had enough."

  "Take it up with Colonel Ferret."

  "I did. He said to take a few weeks off and think about it. I took a few weeks off. I thought about it. But I still want out and I told him so. That's when he sent me over here. Now I meet you."

  A chill moved over Terry, the unfriendly sensation ignoring the warmth of the climate. "Have you met some guy? Are you in love, Sally?"