Donny walked back, dipped into the hootch. Four bunks, the fraternity squalor of young men living together, the stink of rotting burlap, the shine of various Playmates of the Month pinned to whatever surface would absorb a tack and, of course, the smell, sweet and dense, of marijuana.
Featherstone sat amid a dark circle of fellow martyrs, all stoned. He was so still and depressed he seemed almost dead. But it was clear he wasn't the ringleader here, another Marine was doing all the talking, a bitter rant about 'We don't mean shit,'
'It's all a game,'
'Fucking lifers just getting their tickets punched,' that sort of thing.
Donny butted in.
'Hey, Featherstone, you wanna go light on that stuff.
You may have to move fast tomorrow, you don't want that shit still in your head.'
Featherstone didn't seem to hear him. He didn't look up.
'He's gonna be dead tomorrow. What difference does it make?' the smart guy said.
'Who invited you here, anyhow?'
'I just came by to check on Featherstone,' said Donny.
'He ought to pull himself out of this funk or he's gonna get wasted, and if you guys claim to be his buds, you ought to help him.'
'He's gonna get zapped tomorrow, no matter what.
We who are not about to die salute him.'
'Nothing's going to happen to him. He's going to go for a walk, then hide in the bush. A plane will come and shoot the fuck out of a zone
250 yards ahead of him. He'll probably get a Bronze Star out of it and go back to the world a hero.'
'Nobody cares about heroes back in the world.'
'Well, he just has to keep his head. That's--' 'Do you even know what this is all about?'
'Yes.'
'What is it?'
'I can't tell you. Classified.'
'No, not the shit about the Russian sniper. That's just shit. You know what this is really about?'
'What are you talking about?'
'It's about the championship.'
'The what?'
'The championship,' said the man, fixing Donny in a bitter, dark gaze.
'Of what?'
'Of snipers.'
'What?'
'In 1967, a gunny named Carl Hitchcock went home with ninety-three kills. The most so far. Now along comes this guy Swagger. He's in the fifties till that stunt you pulled off in the valley. They gave him credit for thirty-odd kills. I hear he's up to eighty-seven in one whack.
Now, he gets six more, he ties. He gets seven more, he's the champ. It doesn't mean shit to me and it doesn't mean shit in the world, but for these lifers, let me tell you, something like that gets you noticed and you end up the fucking command sergeant major of the whole United States Marine Corps. So what if a couple of grunts get wasted to get you your last few kills? Who the fuck cares about that?'
'That's shit,' said Donny. He looked at his antagonist's name, saw that it was one Mahoney, and then recalled, yes, another college guy, Mahoney, always riding the line, dozens of Article 15s, angry and pissed off and just desperate to get out of there.
'It's not shit. It's how military cultures operate if you knew anything about it at all.'
'I've been with Swagger in the bush for six months.
I've never, ever seen him claim credit for a kill. I record the kills in a book, as per regs. I have to do that, it's the rule. The sniper employment officer writes up the kills. I just write down what I see. Swagger's never asked me to claim kills for him. He doesn't give a shit about that. On top of that, the number thirty-seven or whatever is completely made up, he had eighty rounds, he probably hit seventy-five of those, if he missed at all. The record doesn't mean a thing. That's a load of crap.'
'He just likes the killing. Man, he must like to squeeze that little trigger and watch some gook dot go still. It's as close to being God as you can get. There's something so psychotic about it, you--' Donny hit him, left side of the face, hard. It was stupid. In seconds, h& was down, pinned, and somebody kicked him in the head, and his eyes filled with stars. He squirmed and yelped, but more body blows came, and he felt the pressure of many hands pressing him down, and still more punches driving through. At last someone pulled his antagonists off him. Of course it was the pacifist Mahoney.
'Settle down, settle down,' Mahoney screamed.
'Man, you'll get lifers in here, and we are cooked!'
Donny's head flared. Someone had really nailed him.
