‘Sure,’ Eddie snorted, left alone at his table.
CHAPTER 24
Hellos
‘People, that went very well,’ Captain Albie announced, finishing his critique of the exercise. There had been various minor deficiencies on the approach march, but nothing serious, and even his sharp eye had failed to notice anything of consequence on the simulated assault phase. Marksmanship especially had been almost inhumanly accurate, and his men had sufficient confidence in one another that they were now running within mere feet of fire streams in order to get to their assigned places. The Cobra crews were in the back of the room, going over their own performance. The pilots and gunners were treated with great respect by the men they supported, as were the Navy flight crews of the rescue birds. The normal us-them antipathy found among disparate units was down to the level of friendly joshing, so closely had the men trained and dedicated themselves. That antipathy was about to disappear entirely.
‘Gentlemen,’ Albie concluded, ‘you’re about to learn what this little picnic outing is all about.’
‘Ten-hut!’ Irvin called.
Vice Admiral Winslow Holland Maxwell walked up the center of the room, accompanied by Major General Martin Young. Both flag officers were in their best undress uniforms. Maxwell’s whites positively glistened in the incandescent lights of the building, and Young’s Marine khakis were starched so stiff that they might well have been made of plywood. A Marine lieutenant carried a briefing board that nearly dragged on the floor. This he set on an easel as Maxwell took his place behind the lectern. From his place on the corner of the stage, Master Gunnery Sergeant Irvin watched the young faces in the audience, reminding himself that he had to pretend surprise at the announcement.
‘Take your seats, Marines,’ Maxwell began pleasantly, waiting for them to do so. ‘First of all, I want to tell you for myself how proud I am to be associated with you. We’ve watched your training closely. You came here without knowing why, and you’ve worked as hard as any people I have ever seen. Here’s what it’s all about.’ The Lieutenant flipped the cover off the briefing board, exposing an aerial photograph.
‘Gentlemen, this mission is called BOXWOOD GREEN. Your objective is to rescue twenty men, fellow Americans who are now in the hands of the enemy.’
John Kelly was standing next to Irvin, and he, too, was watching faces instead of the Admiral. Most were younger than his, but not by much. Their eyes were locked on the reconnaissance photographs – an exotic dancer would not have drawn the sort of focus that was aimed at the blowups from the Buffalo Hunter drone. The faces were initially devoid of emotion. They were like young, fit, handsome statues, scarcely breathing, sitting at attention while the Admiral spoke to them.
‘This man here is Colonel Robin Zacharias, US Air Force,’ Maxwell went on, using a yard-long wooden pointer. ‘You can see what the Vietnamese did to him just for looking at the asset that snapped the picture.’ The pointer traced over to the camp guard about to strike the American from behind. ‘Just for looking up.’
Eyes narrowed at that, all of them, Kelly saw. It was a quiet, determined kind of anger, highly disciplined, but that was the deadliest kind of all, Kelly thought, suppressing a smile that only he would have understood. And so it was for the young Marines in the audience. It wasn’t a time for smiles. Each of the people in the room knew about the dangers. Each had survived a minimum of thirteen months of combat operations. Each had seen friends die in the most terrible and noisy way that the blackest of nightmares could create. But there was more to life than fear. Perhaps it was a quest. A sense of duty that few could articulate but which all of them felt. A vision of the world that men shared without actually seeing. Every man in the room had seen death in all its dreadful majesty, knowing that all life came to an end. But all knew there was more to life than the avoidance of death. Life had to have a purpose, and one such purpose was the service of others. While no man in the room would willingly give his life away, every one of them would run the risk, trusting to God or luck or fate in the knowledge that each of the others would do the same. The men in these pictures were unknown to the Marines, but they were comrades – more than friends – to whom loyalty was owed. And so they would risk their lives for them.
‘I don’t have to tell you how dangerous the mission is,’ the Admiral concluded. ‘The fact of the matter is, you know those dangers better than I do, but these people are Americans, and they have the right to expect us to come for them.’
‘Fuckin’ A, sir!’ a voice called from the floor, surprising the rest of the Marines.
Maxwell almost lost it then. It’s all true, he told himself. It realty does matter. Mistakes and all, we’re still what we are.
‘Thank you, Dutch,’ Marty Young said, walking to center stage. ‘Okay, Marines, now you know. You volunteered to be here. You have to volunteer again to deploy. Some of you have families, sweethearts. We won’t make you go. Some of you might have second thoughts,’ he went on, examining the faces, and seeing the insult he had caused them, not by accident. ‘You have today to think it over. Dismissed.’
The Marines got to their feet, to the accompaniment of the grating sound of chairs scraping on the tile floor, and when all were at attention, their voices boomed as one:
‘RECON!’
It was clear to those who saw the faces. They could no more shrink from the mission than they could deny their manhood. There were smiles now. Most of the Marines traded remarks with their friends, and it wasn’t glory they saw before their eyes. It was purpose, and perhaps the look to be seen in the eyes of the men whose lives they would redeem. We’re Americans and we’re here to take you home.
‘Well, Mr Clark, your admiral makes a pretty good speech. I wish we recorded it.’
‘You’re old enough to know better. Guns. It’s going to be a dicey one.’
Irvin smiled in a surprisingly playful way. ‘Yeah, I know. But if you think ifs a crock, why the hell are you going in alone?’
‘Somebody asked me to.’ Kelly shook his head and went off to join the Admiral with a request of his own.
She made it all the way down the steps, holding on to the banister, her head still hurting, but not so badly this morning, following the smell of the coffee to the sound of conversation.
Sandy’s face broke into a smile. ‘Well, good morning!’
‘Hi,’ Doris said, still pale and weak, but she smiled back as she walked through the doorway, still holding on. ‘I’m real hungry.’
‘I hope you like eggs.’ Sandy helped her to a chair and got her a glass of orange juice.
‘I’ll eat the shells,’ Doris replied, showing her first sign of humor.
‘You can start with these, and don’t worry about the shells,’ Sarah Rosen told her, shoveling the beginnings of a normal breakfast from the frying pan onto a plate.
She had turned the corner. Doris’s movements were painfully slow, and her coordination was that of a small child, but the improvement from only twenty-four hours before was miraculous. Blood drawn the day before showed still more favorable signs. The massive doses of antibiotics had obliterated her infections, and the lingering signs of barbiturates were almost completely gone – the remnants were from the palliative doses Sarah had prescribed and injected, which would not be repeated. But the most encouraging sign of all was how she ate. Awkwardness and all, she unfolded her napkin and sat it in the lap of the terrycloth robe. She didn’t shovel the food in. Instead she consumed her first real breakfast in months in as dignified a manner as her condition and hunger allowed. Doris was turning back into a person.
But they still didn’t know anything about her except her name – Doris Brown. Sandy got a cup of coffee for herself and sat down at the table.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked in as innocent a voice as she could manage.
‘Pittsburgh.’ A place as distant to her house guest as the back end of the moon.
‘Family?’
‘Just my father. Mom died in ’65, breast cancer,’ Doris said slowly, then unconsciously felt inside her robe. For the first time she could remember, her breasts didn’t hurt from Billy’s attention. Sandy saw the movement and guessed what it meant.
‘Nobody else?’ the nurse asked evenly.
‘My brother … Vietnam.’
Tm sorry, Doris.’
‘It’s okay -‘
‘Sandy’s my name, remember?’