The World Played Chess (30)

Someone said, “We killed six Gooks,” like it was a badge of honor.

I looked over at Cruz, who walked beside me as I snapped photographs. Cruz just rolled his eyes. He didn’t buy it, either, but he wasn’t about to say that. “Get used to it, Shutter. The military keeps on us about the body count. Westmoreland said this is going to be a war of attrition and we’re winning, but I’ll tell you this, it don’t matter how many we kill, Charlie just keeps coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.” He considered the bodies. “Most likely VC, not NVA,” meaning the Viet Cong guerilla army which first formed to fight the French, and not the North Vietnamese Army.

The sixth confirmed kill still hung from the concertina wire, like a puppet whose puppet master has dropped the strings. A marine found a hole in the razor wire almost directly in line with my foxhole. I wondered if the bullet that killed the guy hanging from the wire came from my gun, or maybe Kenny’s.

Eye for an eye.

“That boy is mine.” A marine named Harris spit a brown wad of chewing tobacco juice in the direction of the dangling body. His nickname, I’ve been told, is Hard-On because he has a hard-on for killing Charlie. Hard-On kept saying the kill on the wire was his kill. I’d have been glad to let him have it, to not think that I had taken another life, but that kill belongs to Kenny, maybe because his dying makes some sense that way.

Eye for an eye.

I heard myself say, “No. He isn’t.”

“The hell he ain’t, FNG. What do you know?” He laughed and looked at the others to join him. No one did. They looked to me.

“Kenny shot him,” I said.

“Haybale? Haybale’s dead.”

“Shot him before he could get through the wire. I saw him do it. He hunted. In Kentucky.”

Hard-On spit another wad of brown syrup. “Saw him do it? Bullshit. Not last night. You couldn’t see your hand on your pecker.”

“Saw the kill when the flare went up, the illumination.” I hadn’t, but Hard-On didn’t know that.

“Yeah, well, I’m taking credit.”

“No.” I took a step forward. “You’re not.”

He stepped toward me, turned his head, and spit. “What’d you say, FNG?”

“You heard me. That kill belongs to Kenny.” The argument was ridiculous since the marines don’t give kill credits to individual marines, only to companies, but it meant something to me, to think that Kenny killed one of the enemy before he got shot. I don’t know.

Hard-On looked me up and down, like he was contemplating a go. He outweighs me, but I figured I could take him down in a few moves. He smiled, but I’d seen that smile before on the wrestling mats. He was unsure of himself, nervous. Finally, he said, “Whatever you say, Shutter. No matter. Plenty more where he came from anyways.” He spit and walked off.

Cruz looked at me and nodded.

Some of the other FNGs eventually pulled the body from the wire and laid him in line with the others. I have no idea what the military does with enemy bodies. Somebody said they douse them with gas and diesel and burn them with the shit. I didn’t want to think about that, and I really didn’t want to snap any photographs, but that’s my job, and I figured if I didn’t do it, they’d keep putting an M-16 in my hands.

I placed the camera to my eye and lost reality in the lens.

Cruz took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and offered me one. “How you doing, Shutter?”

I shook my head at the cigarette. Having been an all-state wrestler, I’d never smoked, except a little weed. I’d figured if smoking was going to take years off my life, I might as well get high doing it. “I don’t smoke,” I said.

Cruz chuckled. “Yeah, Shutter, you do. Trust me, you do. The nicotine helps take the edge off.”

I took a cigarette and Cruz lit it, then lit one for himself. The cigarette was like drinking a tall glass of cool water. I felt the nicotine melt away the tension.

“Why didn’t more come?” I asked. “Why didn’t they send more than half a dozen?”

Cruz gave me a sideways glance, let out smoke, and pointed with the cigarette. “That isn’t half a dozen, Shutter. Can’t you count? That’s twelve.” He smiled. “Comprende?”

I nodded.

“Never take a photograph that allows them to count the actual number. You make us out to be liars.” He said the last sentence smiling.

Cruz blew smoke from the corner of his mouth. “This is a psychological war, Shutter. We let Charlie control the tempo even though we got the better firepower, better artillery, and better air support. We don’t get to invade Cambodia or Laos. If we could, we could end this war in a month. No. We announce these ‘truces’ and halt the bombings and the patrols, but Charlie? He don’t pay no attention. He just keeps on keeping on. You get me?”

“So what was the point of last night? What was the point of sending just six?”

“To probe our defenses, see if we’re alert or asleep. Charlie wants to know what kind of manpower and firepower we have, how mentally prepared we are. They’re testing our resolve.”

“So, what then?” I motioned to the six bodies. “These guys were just bait?”

“No different than when we’re out humping, Shutter. See, initially we were supposed to protect the cities to free the ARVN to fight, but they don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. So now we go outside the wire, but not to win terrain or seize positions. Our mission is simply to kill as many VC as possible, Viet Cong, NVA. It don’t matter. If it’s Vietnamese, then it must be VC.” He cackled. “The military thinks they’re sending us out to wear down Charlie, but that’s just what Charlie wants. He’s wearing us out. We go out and kill Charlie, and twice as many come down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They’re like the rats in New York City; they multiply faster than we can exterminate them. Charlie has an endless supply and the stomach to wait us out. This is his country. He’s been fighting for it for almost thirty years. Charlie knows the bush, where he can snipe at us, set booby traps, detonate ambush mines. He tries to create chaos, to break down our training. Then he slips out like he was never here. He leaves nothing behind. He leaves nothing for us to follow. You’ll see. Soon enough.” Cruz toed the ground with his boot, blew out cigarette smoke, and looked up at me. “Search and destroy. We search. Charlie destroys.”