The World Played Chess (70)

“Shit yeah,” I say.

“Then Cruz asked, ‘Where’s Forecheck? He was walking lead.’”

I felt nerves in my joints, like I needed to stretch.

“Cruz and I went to the front and started looking for Forecheck, but it was so dark, no moon. We couldn’t see shit. We couldn’t find him anywhere. The lieutenant, he didn’t know shit. So Cruz was telling everybody to be careful because if there’s one booby trap, there’s usually more. The Vietnamese wanted you to think the mines were anywhere and everywhere, so you’d get paranoid.”

He pulled again on the cigarette. It looked to me like his eyes were moist.

“Anyway, it’s like Forecheck vanished, just ran off into the jungle. I was looking at the blast, and I figured out the direction of the force of the explosion based on the guys who got hit and the plants and shit, and I shine my light up into a tree . . .” William looked like a guy who had taken a blow to the gut and had the wind knocked out of him. “I looked up and . . . there was Forecheck . . . pieces of him . . . in the tree.” William looked like he might cry. I didn’t know what to say. After a beat, he continued, “Cruz looked at me. Neither of us said anything. Then the lieutenant, an FNG, he said, ‘Someone needs to climb that tree and bring him down.’” William stubbed out his cigarette and blew out the last breath of smoke. He didn’t look at me anymore.

I felt sick.

“There’s wounded all around, but Cruz and I didn’t get hit, and this lieutenant, he and Cruz didn’t get along. He said, ‘Get him down, so his family has something to bury.’

“Cruz looked at him and said, ‘What’s the point?’

“Lieutenant said, ‘Forecheck is Catholic. Catholics have to bury a body.’

“Cruz said he’d do it, but I was the reason Forecheck was in the tree. I switched point. All of a sudden, I’m not feeling so lucky. I said, ‘No. I’ll go up.’ So I climbed the tree . . . and I peeled Forecheck off the branches . . . what was left of him . . . so we could zip those pieces in a body bag so his family had something to bury.”

William paused. His eyes remained unfocused. I knew he’d gone back to that night. “When I climbed down, I was washing Forecheck’s blood off my hands with water from my canteen, and my cross, which I wore around my neck with my dog tags, was dangling, and I thought that being Catholic didn’t do Forecheck any good, and it just made things worse for me. I snatched the cross, yanked the chain off my neck, and put it in the bag with what was left of Forecheck. Then I told Cruz, ‘Anyone asks, I’m not Catholic. I’m nothing. Nobody has to climb a fucking tree to pull me down.’”

I couldn’t speak. I didn’t say a word. I just sat there, numb to everything, while William stood and walked to his El Camino.





PART V

TAKE ME HOME, TO THE PLACE . . .

I ONCE BELONGED





September 24, 1968

I’m writing this journal entry from a hospital bed. They flew me from the bush to the Ninety-Fifth Evac Hospital at Da Nang. That should tell you two things. One, I got hit. Two, I’m still alive.

We were ambushed, again. It would be easier to write about the days when we weren’t ambushed. It seems so frequent now. We’ve lost so many guys. As for Charlie Company, First Platoon, only five of the original thirteen from my squad were still there. Me, Cruz, Bean, Whippet, and Dominoes, though Whippet isn’t there anymore either.

The NVA hit-and-runs were constant, but they also stood and fought. A week ago the RPGs exploded as we neared a village on the other side of a stream. I lay flat on my stomach behind a downed tree and sprayed on fully automatic until Cruz came down the line yelling for us to shoot semiautomatic—three-round bursts—to save ammunition.

“I’m hit. I’m hit.” The voice coming from my right sounded disbelieving and angry. “Corpsman!” I recognized Whippet’s voice, but heavy and persistent machine gun fire prevented our corpsman from moving up, and we couldn’t provide enough suppression.

I forgot everything my mother told me about not being a hero, about blending in. I guess I reacted on instinct, the way a parent wouldn’t hesitate if his kid got hit. I moved to the sound of Whippet’s voice, firing as I went, and found Mr. Gung Ho, Mr. “I’m going to kill me some Cong,” screaming like his leg was blown off. Not his leg, but a portion of his right boot. I grabbed him and drug him back through the bush. It happened in an instant. The blink of an eye. Before you could snap your fingers. It felt like someone shoved my shoulder and knocked me backward, off my feet. I tumbled down a slope and me and Whippet fell. The bullet probably saved my life. I didn’t even know I’d been hit. It must have been the shock. I got up, went to Whippet, and finished dragging him behind the log.

The corpsman made his way over and I was shocked when he stuck me, not Whippet, with a needle of morphine. That’s when I realized I’d been hit.

Cruz helped to remove my vest. He was kneeling over me, putting pressure on my shoulder until the corpsman could stuff the wound with gauze and put a field dressing on it. The way Cruz was looking at me, I was sure I was going to die.

“You and me have a date in Little Havana, Shutter.”

“Don’t talk about home,” I told him. Strange thing. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t afraid. I felt an odd sense of peace.