Puller could hear the unsureness in the National Guard captain’s voice. It was close to panic.
“Th-there’s a lot of smoke from up ahead, Delta Six,” the man was saying from up on the mountain. “We can’t see too good.”
“Bravo, this is Delta Six,” Puller said, staring in frustration at the white hump a mile before him. “Are you taking fire?”
“No, sir. At least they’re not shooting at us yet. I think they’re waiting to see if the planes are coming back. There was a lot of gunfire on that mountain, Colonel.”
“Bravo, you’ve got to move now. The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be. You’ve got to get your people into the assault line and get them up the hill.”
“Colonel,” said Skazy, “let me get up there. I can—”
“Shut up, Major. Bravo, do you read?”
“Some of the men don’t want to leave the trucks.”
“Christ, he hasn’t even got ’em out of the trucks yet,” Puller said to no one in particular.
“Bravo, this is Delta Six.”
“I copy, Delta.”
“Look, son, let me talk you through this, okay? I’ve been on a few hill jobs in my time.” Dick’s voice was reassuring, authoritative. He’d take this guy in and make him his and make him perform.
“Yes, sir,” came the voice, all thought of Commo protocol having vanished. “We’ve been on exercises for years. It’s just so — so different.”
“In combat, confusion is normal, son. Okay, you want to cross your line of departure, if possible, with platoons abreast and squads abreast within the platoons. You want the squads in column rather than file, so that you can respond instantly with a broad front of heavy fire if you make contact. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your sergeants ought to be able to handle the men,” said Puller, knowing that sergeants may be ornery, bassackwards assholes, but they were the gears that made an army — any army — operate.
“Get your sergeants involved directly. Brief them
“Yes, sir.”
There was silence from the mountain. The seconds ticked by. Dick lit another cigarette. Its harshness somehow soothed him. Around, several of the Delta officers stood with binoculars.
“He should have picked out his LD and hit it from the trucks running,” said one.
“Yeah, and he should have been tied in with Air,” said the other, “and gone on the dime.”
Sure, they were right. But they were wrong too, Puller thought. Unblooded troops need to be coaxed and nudged; nurtured. You need a mother for your first fight, and a daddy for the next hundred. Then you need a body bag or a shrink.
The National Guard officer’s name was Thomas Barnard and he knew he was in way over his head. The volume of gunfire during the aerial attack had upset him greatly. He was, furthermore, not exactly sure who awaited them; the order from the Governor had simply obligated them to emergency duty at the disposal of the United States Army under a phase four (“nuclear emergency”) alert at the specified locale. The unit had been very close to the end of its two weeks of active duty, and the men were not happy to clamber aboard trucks for the hour drive from Fort Richie to this godforsaken spot.
And they were furthermore baffled to detruck and discover themselves in the middle of some movie. These were mainly young blue-collar workers from the Baltimore area who had signed up because the weekend a month and the two weeks a year of low intensity army games added a nice little chunk of bucks to a parched family budget. Now they had stumbled into a little war. It was particularly intimidating to be issued large amounts of live ammunition and grenades. It had put a chill through the men, the grenades especially; in training, live grenades are treated with the awkward care of nuclear weapons because they are so dangerous. Now they were handed out like candy bars by grinning, loosey-goosey commandos. It scared his guys. None of them had a particular desire to be Rambo.
“Okay,” Barnard told his NGOs and his officers with a transparent heartiness, “let’s get ’em spread out, platoons abreast, through the trees.”
The guys just looked at him.
“Tom, the fucking professionals are sitting on their asses down there. Why are we the ones up here? I heard machine guns. Those guys on that mountain have missiles.”
“Phase four nuclear emergency. We’re working for them now, not the Governor. If they say we go, we go. Ours not to etc., etc. Look, the head guy told me those planes laid so much hurt on our friends up the bill, our big problem was going to be matching up body parts. So let’s get humping, huh, guys?”
“Lock and load?”
“Lock and load ’cm up, righto,” sang Barnard. “Full ammo, get the clips into the weapons, get the weapons unslung, have the guys open their clip pouches so they can reload on the double if there’s any kind of a fight and please, puh-lease, tell the boys to be careful. Semiauto. I don’t want any hotshot shooting his foot off.”
Grumblingly, his people started out.
Barnard went back to the radio, a little more confident because his officers and NCOs had obeyed. Around him he could hear them yelling, the men beefing, but, yes, everybody was filing off into the woods.
“Delta Six, this is Bravo, we are deployed and ready to jump.”
“Good work, Captain. Now, you’ve got 60s, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want your 60s in play earliest. We found out in ’Nam it helps the men if their own fire support is emplaced before they move.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get the medics circulating behind the assault line, Don’t let ’em cluster together, get ’em into the open. The men like to see the medics. It’ll help them.”
“Yes, sir,”
“Major, finally, this is important. Don’t wait to take fire. Get your fire support going just as you cross that LD, do you read? I want to hear some noise. If any of these gooks are left alive, I want your boys to blow ’em away as they’re coming up the hill. Plenty of ammo. Okay. You copy?”
“I copy, Delta Six.”
“Okay, son,” Dick cooed. “One last thing. Keep the assault line up and moving forward. Don’t let the men hit the dirt and get pinned down. Keep up a heavy, steady volume of effective fire. And keep that fire low — ricochets kill just as dead as Charlie incoming.”
“Yes, sir,” said Barnard.
He turned to his RTO man.
“Wally, you stay near me, okay?”
“Yes, sir. No sweat.”
“That’s our unit motto,” said Barnard. “No sweat.”
He picked up his own M-16, drew a thirty-round magazine from his pouch, and clicked it into the magazine housing. Up ahead, he could see the trees and he could see his own men spread out through them. It was a bright, white day, the sun on the trees so brilliant it hurt his eyes. The sky was blue as a dream.
Jesus, he thought, I’m thirty-seven years old and I’m a tax accountant. I ought to be sitting at my desk.
“Okay,” he said to his executive officer, “Let’s move ’em out.” The line sounded too John Wayne to be real.
The flame was a silver needle, a blade almost. What it touched, it destroyed. Even through the thick black lenses and amid the showering sparks he could see that its power was absolute. It turned the world to a puddle.
Jack Hummel held the plasma-arc torch against the metal and watched the flame devour the titanium. Down here in the hole the world was serene and logical. He had a job to do, one he knew and almost loved, one he had
