“Lance Corporal Kenny Pierce, Sergeant.”
Goose pushed out his breath and stared down at the arm that stuck out from under the helicopter’s body. The limb was the left arm. A gold band glinted around the ring finger. Married. The realization slammed home to Goose like a hammer falling. Thoughts flickered through his mind, images of Megan, Joey, and Chris. He walled them away with effort. He was a soldier on the battlefield. He would always be a soldier on the battlefield.
“Lance Corporal Pierce,” Goose said, “I want you to put your sidearm down.”
“Done, Sergeant.”
With a quick prayer, Goose heaved off the side of the helicopter, stepped around the dead man’s arm, and hunkered down in the cargo door. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark interior.
The Marine corporal was young with a kid’s features that time in the service hadn’t yet erased. Dark brows hung over pain- and fearfilled eyes set in dark hollows. He sat with his back against the opposite side of the helicopter. Blood stained his BDUs. Dead men lay around him. Fuel stink filled the air and let Goose know they were potentially sitting on top of a bomb.
“They’re dead, Sergeant,” Kenny croaked.
Goose shouldered his rifle and crept forward. The helicopter creaked as the weight shifted but didn’t move more than a couple inches. “I know. I lost a buddy of mine.”
“I lost my whole squad, Sergeant.” The young corporal’s face crumpled. He squeezed his eyes shut. Tears tracked down his bloody cheeks.
The young man was lucky to be alive, but Goose didn’t mention that. He squatted down near the corporal, aware of the corpses of Marines that pressed in against him.
“Where are you hit?” Goose asked. Concentrate on the things that you can do. Not what you’ve lost. That’s what Bill always said. Says! That’s what Bill always says. You’re not going to give up on him, Goose.
“My legs. I can’t move them.”
As gently as he could, Goose rolled the corpses from the young corporal, but he was grimly aware that he was still shifting dead weight. Blood was everywhere. He knew he should have at least put on the rubber gloves from the medkit to protect himself, but to be completely protected he’d have had to have a bodysuit. He concen-trated on the task at hand, knowing he had to hold himself together for the young corporal.
“What happened to the helo?” Goose took his mini-Maglite from his combat harness.
“Don’t know.” The corporal yelled in pain when Goose uncovered one of his legs to reveal shrapnel wounds that had to have come from the shattered rotors. All of the men in front of Kenny Pierce were riddled with the jagged shards. More metal stuck out from the helo’s interior. “Somebody said the pilot disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Goose opened his medkit and took out gauze and tape, added wraparound compresses, and a pair of scissors. He started cutting the man’s pant legs to reveal the wounds. If the metal hadn’t ripped through an artery and caused the young Marine to bleed out before now, he didn’t want to inadvertently cause that.
“That’s what they said.”
Goose started wrapping gauze over the compress he’d wrapped around Pierce’s lower leg. Letting his hands work through the familiar process, he glanced forward.
The cockpit was visible through the gaping hole left where the bulkhead separating the cargo area had been. The pilot’s seat was empty. The copilot lay dead in the other seat with a length of jagged metal thrusting out from under the chin of his flight helmet.
“Did you see it?” Goose asked.
Pierce winced as the bandages were applied. “No.”
“If you need something for the pain,” Goose offered, “let me know.” Shock was sometimes the best pain relief and one of the body’s natural defenses. The cuts on the young Marine’s legs were bad, but his legs were intact. Without a ready transport to ferry in more medical supplies, they had to conserve what they had on hand.
The Marine nodded. “I can deal.”
Goose repacked the medkit. “I’ve got to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
Pierce tried to shove himself to his feet but couldn’t gain enough traction on the tilted, blood-slick metal flooring in his weakened condition. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Ease up, Marine. We’ll all do what we can to see this through. You’ve done your part.” Steeling himself, ignoring the wolf’s jaws that wrenched at his bruised knee, Goose gathered the young man up in his arms and ducked down to step out of the helicopter onto the barren earth. The hot wind slapped him, draining his strength. His injured knee nearly buckled under him, but he made himself stand tall.
You survived for a reason, Goose. You survived for a reason and you’re going to walk and you’re going to do your job. God’s hand is in this. Despite everything you see around you, God’s hand is in this. Now you be the soldier you signed on to be.
Goose knew the words were Bill’s. They must have been from some other time, some other battle when things had looked dark. Goose couldn’t remember when that time was. Bill had always said that human beings were venal and unwilling to reach for anything outside themselves. God was there, but most men wanted to understand the nature of God, to know more things than they were ever meant to believe.
“Life comes down to two choices, Goose,” Bill had always—has always—said. “You believe or you don’t believe. God will test you because He loves you. He will take away everything you think you can know or trust until He reveals that belief to you. One way or another, every one of His children that resist Him is humbled and made to believe again. Look at David. God loved David fiercely, and no matter how many times David turned away from Him, God found a way to turn David back. You can’t learn to believe, Goose. You just do. It’s the most natural thing in the world if you
