SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest, Page 2

  The rattle of a burp gun drowned him out and West ducked and spun, saw Kelly go down, saw Addy fall. West raised his weapon, searching. Next to him, Young grabbed his gut and fell to his knees, and then Cakes and Burtoni were firing back, there, two-hundred feet and ten o’clock, movement at the top of a low rock formation. Rock chips flew. West yelled for everyone to get down but his voice was lost to the old woman’s scream, a terrible high wailing, and the deeper rattle of return fire.

  Again, that flash of movement, a head bobbing up – and then the rocks spat up blood, a distinct spray of gore rising into the air. Cakes or Burtoni had gotten the fucker, taken the top of his head off. Cakes fired once more and the Garand’s clip popped, ping! In the ringing aftermath there was only the sound of the old woman, sobbing. Nothing moved but the wind.

  “Call it in!” West shouted, and then Burtoni was on his knees next to Addy, pulling at the radio. Addison wasn’t moving. Kelly had his hands clapped to his throat, blood gushing through his fingers. Cakes grabbed for Kelly’s medkit and dumped it out, his thick fingers rummaging. If there were more shooters, they were all fucked.

  West dropped to his knees next to Young, saw the pool of blood at his gut. Young turned panicky blue eyes up to him, breathing in choppy little gasps. Burtoni babbled their position into the radio, his voice breaking… medevac… three wounded. Cakes cursed, a steady stream of expletives as he held a stack of red gauze to their medic’s throat.

  “Hurts,” Young said.

  “I know it does,” West said, pulling off his shirt, balling it up to press to the kid’s stomach. “Don’t talk. Choppers are coming.”

  The old woman had stopped crying, at least. West looked up and saw that the travelers had disappeared, like they’d never been there at all.

  * * *

  After the eggbeaters came and went, Sarge ordered them back to camp, his face grim. Him and Cakes were both blood-spattered and didn’t talk much, which was a good thing, since PFC Peter Antony Burtoni was point back to base and he didn’t want to miss a mouse farting. They’d been flanked by four gooks without even knowing. Addy and Kelly were dead and who knew about Young? Burtoni was clanked up, edgy, and the whole way back he was bugging his eyes out at everything. How many more lone Joes were out there, creeping behind the low hills, clinging to the shadowy rocks?

  The only conversation was between Cakes and Sarge, about what had happened. Cakes said it was a setup with the kid and his grandparents but the sarge didn’t think so, he said they were running from something. Seemed like a pretty big coincidence in Burtoni’s book, but he was too busy straining to hear and see and smell everything to think too much on it. He was glad that Sarge and Cakes were with him. They were both hard-boiled, but by the time they got back to camp, Burtoni was out of gas.

  He got a shower and ate, and drank enough coffee to give him the squirts, but he couldn’t get his mojo back. He was actually making plans to hit the sack as soon as it got dark but Sarge came over just when the shadows were getting long. Young had made it out of surgery at the 8011th MASH and was doing fine. Sergeant West and Young’s best buddy, PFC Kyle McKay, were heading out in twenty, Cakes was driving… Did Burtoni want in? And how! If anyone deserved to see a few familiar faces when he woke up, it was Young.

  Young was always good for a smoke and a joke, he was always smiling. He was real smart, too, but he wasn’t no high hatter about it. This one time, they’d all been sitting at mess talking about how shitty Korea was and how they never should have come in, and Young had started explaining all the politics, like with Korea being so close to Japan and what the Soviets wanted to do, and how bad that would be for the rest of the world. Burtoni had stopped giving a shit if the commies took over about ten minutes after he’d set foot on Korean soil. The gooks could all take a flying fuck as far as he was concerned, but the way Young told it… He said what they were doing was important, stopping the Reds, and he really believed it. Burtoni still hated the fucking place with his whole heart, and prayed every day to go home. No conversation was going to change that, but it had made him feel a little better, like at least it wasn’t all for nothing.

  Besides which. Burtoni had heard that the MASH units were nice, clean, lots of drafted doctors and support personnel with no interest in mitt flopping to the brass. Decent chow, hot water, less horseshit… and nurses. American women of the Army Nursing Corps. He’d never been to one of the mobile hospitals but the fellas talked, saying that for every battleaxe stomping around there were three Doris Days looking to hold hands and kiss it better. Plus a Jane Russell or two thrown in, for thinking about later.

  Burtoni needed to see a pretty face, some baby-doll ready to hear some sweet talk from a well-mannered Catholic boy like himself. There had to be at least a few lookers in the pack, but he was entirely prepared to compromise. War was hell. He got his kit together, his exhaustion turning to a kind of wired giddiness. He was famous back home for having a way with the ladies. Maybe he could salvage something from this clusterfuck of a day.

  Full dark and Cakes drove them along a beaten track headed south and west, headlights illuminating a sea of nothing but trees and hills and rocks. The night was cold and damp. The wind whistled through the Jeep’s buttoned flaps, and the heater didn’t work. McKay, a skinny redheaded guy, sat in the back with Burtoni but kindly kept his phiz shut for most of the trip, an hour and a half of ass-cracking potholes and Cakes snapping his cap about them. Sergeant West stared out into the dark, thinking whatever it was he thought about. Burtoni focused himself on the promise of talking up some split-tail Sheba, trying not to see what he kept seeing in his head – Addy, falling, shot in the face, never to see his rugrats again. Kelly bleeding out into the rocks a million miles from home.

  Finally, they crested a low rise and there were lights ahead, lights and shitloads of tents and Quonset huts tucked between two hills. Burtoni studied the place through the smeary window. There were some beat up crash wagons just north of the camp, the white-outlined crosses they wore flocked with mud. He counted three copters parked some distance away. Cakes swung around south, past a couple of long barracks buildings to the motor pool in back. Farther south was a camp village, dark hooches stretching out of sight.

  A short corporal with peepers and a baby face signed them in and gave them the dope on the place, pointing to a hand-drawn map on the wall – mess, guest quarters, post-op, NCO club. The sarge asked where the honcho was and the corporal, name of O’Donnell, said he’d still be in his office; CO was a bottle-cap colonel called Sanderson. The sarge got a sour look at the name. He hid it quick, but Anna Burtoni hadn’t raised no knuckleheads. If Sarge didn’t like the guy, neither did Burtoni.

  Sarge said he was going to talk to Sanderson and sent them ahead to see Young. McKay led the way through the tent town, and Burtoni quickly surmised that the 8011th pretty much beat the living snot out of their Company base. It didn’t smell like shit, for one thing, but also the walkways were packed and smooth, and most of the tents had real floors. Buzzing lamps, swarmed by moths, sent down smooth planes of yellow light, cutting cleanly through the shadows. Someone had planted flowers along the bases of the Quonset huts. Most of ‘em were dying, but still. Some of the guys walking past were regular army, tucked and spiffy, but there were some real slobs, too, and no one saluted. He even saw a pair of Joes walk by wearing nonreg civvies, cackling like hens.

  “Where’s all the gooks?” Cakes asked, and Burtoni finally noticed the most obvious difference. The Koreans who lived in the 33rd’s little camp town went to bed early, but there were always workers and sellers hanging around, kids running errands, the occasional slicky boy looking to boost anything that wasn’t nailed down. At the 8011th, he didn’t see a single Korean face.

  “You got the eagle eye, Cakes,” he said, and Cakes laughed, started to say something back, and then just stood still, his mouth hanging open. Dames, dead ahead.

  Burtoni got an eyeful of the pair. The one on the right was blond but o
lder, probably in her thirties, and had a sharp look to her, like she was just waiting to dish out some knocks. They got closer, passed beneath one of the buzzing lights, and Burtoni caught the gold leaf. Jeez, but she was a major!

  The other one, though. The gal walking with her was soft and curvy and doe-eyed, her dark hair pulled back in a pony-tail. She was a second looey and a bona fide honey.

  “Fazangas,” Cakes breathed, just when they got in earshot.

  “Go chase yourself, Private,” snapped the pretty one, hardly looking at them. Her voice was music. Major Blondie gave them a shriveling glare as they passed.

  “Forget about him, ma’ams,” Burtoni said, turning to call after them. “His mama dropped him on his head.”

  The gals kept walking but the angel glanced back. Burtoni smiled his best smile and her lips were twitching when she turned away.

  “What are you, stupid?” Burtoni asked Cakes, who was inspecting their departing back sides, his mouth still hanging open. “You gotta be a gentleman you wanna make time.”

  “I got time UTA,” Cakes said, in his ridiculous accent: ah got tahm. “All I need’s a share crop.”

  Cakes was disgusting. Burtoni shook his head. He’d make a point of asking around about the dark-haired angel, though they’d likely be on their way back to camp early in the morning. Even seeing her again was a long shot.

  “Fazangas,” Burtoni muttered darkly, and slapped the back of his hand against Cakes’ chest. “You should shut up more, you know that?”

  “You shut up, ya wop,” Cakes rumbled.

  McKay had stopped and was waiting for them, his face somber. Right, Young. Burtoni sighed and started walking again. His heart had been stolen away for a minute, but he was recovered. There’d be more nurses in with the patients and it was still early, barely 19:30. After they saw Young, he’d ditch Cakes ASAP and see if he couldn’t make some magic happen.

  * * *

  Admin was behind the surgery at the southwest corner of the compound and West headed that direction, wondering if Sanderson had changed. Anything was possible. He wasn’t keen on seeing the man again but wanted to ask about the refugees they’d run across earlier. Common sense told him that Cakes was right; either the whole thing had been a setup or the North Joe had threatened the ragtag family, made ‘em target bait… but his gut still said something else. If he didn’t ask, he wouldn’t sleep. Addison and Kelly had been his guys, they’d been good men.

  Robert Sanderson. Eight years before, West had been a PFC to Robert’s silver eagle for a brief but memorable push in the first weeks of 1945, taking territory back from the German army after their Christmas offensive. More than half of the guys West had started out with were KIA by then and the rest of ‘em got assigned to a command under Captain Sanderson, who’d had his ranks blown to shit on Boxing Day. Thanks to the captain, West lost three more buddies on a frozen street in some nameless little village east of Weiler. Sanderson ordered them to check the bodies of some dead soldiers and blammo.

  West could understand a mistake – could sympathize, even, having made a few of his own – but Sanderson hadn’t owned up. In fact, he had fallen all over himself to pass the buck to one of the dead men, a sergeant called Richie Mullens. West had respected the hell out of Sergeant Richie, who’d been with him since near the beginning, who’d literally kept him alive when he was still Johnny Raw. Sanderson had insisted that he’d given the order based on the sergeant’s advice, which everyone knew was applesauce; the Sarge would have known better. Before anyone could get too worked up, Captain Sanderson had discovered some pressing business at the rear line and West had been folded into an infantry division headed southwest.

  The camp lights hummed, illuminating the few people he passed in murky yellow-white – a young man on crutches with his left lower leg missing, a trio of nurses, a slouching doctor in a Hawaiian shirt. The cool air felt good, waking him up a little, but it smelled like ashes.

  Admin was in the last Quonset hut, ahead and on his right. As he approached, a tall, balding man in fatigues stepped out, a tiny silver leaf pinned to his collar. He had the same broad, clueless face that West remembered. All the lines were etched deeper.

  West stopped in front of him and saluted.

  “At ease,” Sanderson said. “What’s your name, Sergeant?”

  “West, sir.”

  “Did you need something, son?”

  Sanderson wasn’t ten years older than West, which put him at forty, maybe. He was still a big time operator, all right, real officer material.

  “Sir, I’m over at the 33rd under Colonel Swift. We were on a patrol today and ran across some locals, said they came from the 8011th. A boy and his grandparents. We were ambushed and one of my guys ended up here, shot in the stomach.”

  Sanderson nodded. “You’ll want to talk to Captain Anthony, he’s our chief surgeon. He oversees all of the patients.”

  “Yes, sir. I was wondering if you noticed them leave the camp, though. The boy said he did cleaning for the officers.”

  Sanderson made an impatient sound. “They’re all gone, son. The whole village bugged out two days ago. Every last one of ‘em.”

  West blinked. “Why?”

  Sanderson shook his head. “Why do these people do anything? They said there were lights on the hill, they packed their kits and started walking.”

  “Lights? Sir?”

  Sanderson gestured to the north. “The trees, up on that ridge. Last few nights there have been lanterns up there, those yellow paper jobs, swinging back and forth. I sent some of the boys out to look-see, but all they found was footprints in the mud. HQ says it’s nothing, a superstition.”

  The priests are waving their lanterns.

  “Did they say what the superstition was?”

  Sanderson looked at his watch, his demeanor telling West that their reunion was almost over.

  “Oh, some gobbledygook about going home,” Sanderson said. “Seems like it worked.”

  The lieutenant colonel looked at West, seemed to see him for the first time. He narrowed his eyes. For the briefest of seconds, West imagined punching his teeth in.

  “Well, I hope your boy makes it,” Sanderson said, dismissive, gave a brief, false smile and then walked past him.

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” West said automatically. He didn’t fully trust himself to turn around and follow Sanderson so he kept walking south, past the last camp structures, a storage unit, a supply shed. The village behind the MASH was close, less than a quarter mile away.

  West passed the last string of security lights and stepped into the dark but went no further, studying the sad clusters of huts. No fires burned beneath the little houses, no lamps were lit; nothing stirred. Empty doorways yawned like black eyes. Scant light from a rising moon cast an eerie, pale ripple across the thatched roofs.

  He turned and looked north – and saw the lanterns. There were at least a dozen specks of dim, glowing yellow on the dark upslope in front of the hospital, maybe a half mile away. They were spread out at different heights and distances. The way they swung and shifted, they were being carried. Easy targets if anyone got nervous.

  A warning? A curse? Sanderson was no help, big surprise, but there had to be someone around who knew what was happening. He thought about the kid, his unsmiling eyes, the grandmother’s frantic speech. What had the old man said, the word that Young hadn’t known? Gangshi, something like that.

  West walked back into the light of the camp. It was nothing, sure, a nothing little mystery that he’d locked onto because he was dog-tired and heart-sore… but then, why did the perfectly clear night have that electric, unstable feeling that preceded action, or a storm? Something was coming.

  Maybe he’d see if he could find a ROK with some English, to explain what had scared the villagers away.

  * * *

  Fourteen-year-old Lee Mal-Chin was sanitizing bedpans when the three soldiers came in, two PFCs and a single stripe. Of the sixty beds in Post-Op 1 only
a third were taken, mostly ROKA enlisted from a small skirmish near the DMZ the day before. Lee saw the trio stop and talk to Doctor Jimmy, who spoke at length before gesturing them towards one of the beds… the American man who’d been shot in the stomach, brought in by helicopter in the afternoon.

  Lee went on with his work more slowly, listening to the soldiers talk as they made their way to the cot. He understood most of what they said. He had spent the last two years learning English with anyone who would talk to him. Mostly he talked with Father Maloney now. The father was a good teacher. There was also Corporal Timmy with the ordnance, he told Lee what Father Maloney would not say – the bad words. That Timmy was jaemi, a real gas.

  The big soldier towhead was full of bad words (shit and asshole and fuck) and loudly told his buddies how he bet these gooks had never had it so good. Lee wiped out a pan with bleach water and kept his expression perfectly blank. It did not pay to draw attention, for any reason. Many of the UN gun-in hated Korea, and didn’t much like Koreans, either, for their poor and simple ways. Lee could even understand, a little. He had grown up near Seoul, the son of a shopkeeper, and his father had taken pains to see that his children were educated. Out here in the hills they didn’t have radios or newspapers. They worked the land and told traditional stories to explain the world. The village behind the 8011th had bugged out only two days ago, when they’d seen lanterns on the hill. Choi Yeo, a man from the village, had come to warn them, telling stories of gangshi and the bad temple to the north. Nearly everyone laughed. Lee had laughed, too. The villagers were smisin-ui, they believed in magic and ghosts. Was it any wonder that the Americans treated them like children?

  The three soldiers settled around the bed of the wounded man, speaking gently. The injured soldier opened his eyes and managed to smile at them. A single tear leaked from his eye. Lee was so struck by the simple joy of their meeting that he didn’t realize the big soldier had turned and was glaring at him.

  “What are you looking at?”