“You have babies at home,” I said. I didn’t want to die there. Not after all we’d been through.
He looked out over the desert. “I’d love to go to the mountains. I know they’re out there beyond the horizon.” He sat down next to me, right on the road. “I bet they’re beautiful.”
In the first light of day a low dark cloud appeared on the road behind us. It was the approaching column. The Army was finally advancing on city. They’d be passing us in a few minutes, and I knew they’d have to stop.
TWELVE
AFTER THE ARMY MOVED THROUGH THEY SET UP A HOSPITAL tent on the outskirts of the city and sent me there to recuperate. They said I’d be sent home as soon as I was better, and when they had a few answers. They sent Santiago to Germany because his wounds were more serious. I heard later that they made a mess of his neck there, and that he lost his voice as a result.
In the afternoons the nurses usually agreed to let me wander off for a while. I often walked down from the hospital to the beach, where I’d sit and watch the waves chase up the shore.
Most nights I’d lie awake in the hospital, listening to the distant rattle of gunfire and the explosion of rockets and mortars in the city. The natives launched mortars at the UN forces and at each other, while the Army went out on raids trying to stop them. People on both sides died.
At the hospital I ran into an old friend from the platoon named Shane. We sat together for hours, talking about California and Kansas and New York and all the other places we planned to visit back in America. We talked about how there had to be women in those towns who would love us deep down to our soul. But then he left and I was alone again, and those thoughts of love were never enough.
One night a dead shark washed ashore near the hospital. The next morning those of us who could went down to look at it after breakfast. The shark was huge and dark gray, with a white belly. Most of us had never seen anything like it, so we kept our distance. I really wanted to look into the dead shark’s eyes, but I never summoned the courage.
One afternoon a nurse from the hospital walked down to the beach with me. We sat on the beach and tried in vain to convince each other to go down and touch the shark.
Soon other soldiers showed up with their cameras and had their pictures taken with it. Then they grew bored with taking pictures and began striking at the shark’s mouth with the butts of their M-16s, trying to knock out its teeth. They wanted to make necklaces with them. They eventually stuck their hands in and tried to pry the teeth loose. When I refused to join them, the nurse called down to the others to ask them for one.
In the evening the tide would carry the shark back out to sea before leaving it on the beach again. After a few days of this the carcass started to smell. Tiny crabs ate its eyes before I could look into them, and before long they were crawling all over its mouth and gills.
Finally a group of engineers brought out a forklift and a flatbed to remove the shark. I watched as the blades of the forklift dug under the shark and lifted it into the air. But when it was just a few feet off the ground its skin burst open and its rotten insides poured to the earth. The stench was something awful.
They called me to the operation tent one morning for a debriefing. They asked me what went wrong. They seemed eager to understand, and they seemed to care. The commander of my division was there, along with a chaplain and a psychologist.
I told them the truth about everything, but somehow I still felt as if I were lying. I told them we’d shot some people and I told them some people had shot at us. And I told them that at this point there was nothing I wanted more than to go home.
They asked about Santiago, and I didn’t tell them what he’d said about us never getting right with the world again. I said simply that he was one of ours, and that he’d done his best by the Army and America as far as I saw it.
When they asked me if there was anything else I wanted to tell them, all I could do was repeat that I just wanted to go home. And to say again that I truly hoped Zeller was on some farther shore, and that wherever he was I hoped he would never remember.
In the end, the chaplain put a hand on my shoulder and asked if I was having nightmares. He looked me in the face as the others waited for my response. He said that the doctors and nurses had reported as much, and that he was worried about me. “Do you think this is something that will stay with you?” he asked.
I smiled back weakly, not knowing what to say. But I also knew I had to answer, or they’d send me to someplace awful.
“No,” I said. “I’ll never remember it all.”
As soon as they set up phone lines I called my parents. When I heard my mother’s voice I felt as if I’d been hit by a powerful wave. I said hello and she called out to my father.
I asked if she’d seen me on the news, but she said they hadn’t even known I was missing until the Army called one night to tell them I’d been found.
“Are you okay?” she asked, the concern evident in her voice.
“I’m fine,”
