Стефани Перри - SNAFU - Survival of the Fittest

And then what? Factory work? Management? Car sales? He walked slow, his handful of boys strung out in front of him. The gung-ho young West who’d proudly signed up for WWII was long gone, mislaid in the cold winter and spring of 1945 somewhere between Marche and Mauthausen. He’d gone home broken, an old man still in his 20s. Civilian life was a depressing horror show; blind, idiot smiles everywhere he looked. He lost a couple of jobs, drank too much. When Uncle Sam had called him up in ’50 with a better pay grade for a little police action over in Korea, he’d listened. Like a fucking idiot.

At least here you’re doing something useful. Keeping his guys in one piece, that had to count for something.

Burtoni held up his hand and everyone froze. West listened, scanned the stand of trees to the north, the low foothills east; it was rocky, hilly terrain anyway, but this close to the mountains there were spider holes and tunnels. He heard a scratching, rustling sound, low and close…

Young grinned, pointed two o’clock, and then they were all grinning.

“Mole?” drawled Cakes. His real name was Earl Dupree but everyone called him Cakes, short for Jonnycakes. The kid was a hillbilly. He was also a mouth with a temper, and built like a tank. He never got shook, and was a bear cat with an M1 Garand.

Burtoni took a step back, peered at the small, furry ass of whatever creature was clawing into a rise of leaf-strewn dirt near a stunted maple. “Shrew.”

Private Young wrinkled his nose. “It’s a vole.”

“What the fuck’s a vole?” Cakes glared at Young. “You’re shittin’ me, a vole ?”

“I shit you not,” said Young, holding up two fingers. If anyone was still a boy scout, it was Davey Young. “It’s a gray red-backed vole.”

Burtoni chuckled. “You made that up.” His accent was all Brooklyn. That was dat . The voice matched his narrow face and quick eyes. West liked him out front for the walk. “It’s gray an’ red, anybody coulda come up with that.”

The medic, Kelly, raised his eyebrows at Young.

Young shrugged. “My girl sent me a book.”

Addison spoke up. He rarely did, a family man counting the days. Addy had two children already and a third on the way. “A book on voles?”

“On nature of the Korean Peninsula,” Young said. “Like, wildlife and trees.”

“Aw, you and your gook thing,” Cakes sneered, and thumped him on the shoulder.

“Alright, dry up,” West finally interrupted. “We’re standing here like targets.”

They started walking again. West heard birds, the rustling of trees, the shuffle of their feet. Thoughts of the future were set aside; he’d been lulled by the season, the routine, an hour’s walk north and back, uneventful for months. They were reserve and currently too far from the DMZ to have to worry about the hordes attacking, but he should have been paying attention. The commies were a sneaky bunch.

Brilliant red leaves scattered by from a stand of maples a quarter mile away, on a breeze that smelled like smoke. Behind them, a sound, a patter. Footsteps.

West turned, brought up his rifle. Three people had suddenly appeared at the top of a low, rocky rise southwest of their position, not fifty feet away.

Goddamn Korean topo!

“Backs in,” West said. “Burtoni, Addy, watch our six.”

It was two old people and a boy, maybe eight or nine years old. They carried sagging, tattered packs and were filthy, hatless and sunburned. The boy was skinny as a slat cat. When they looked down and saw the soldiers, they froze.

“Hey, Mac,” the boy called, holding up a hand. He spoke briefly to the old people. Grandparents, looked like. They raised their hands, both of them stepping closer to the child.

West relaxed a little bit, trusting his instincts. North Joes sometimes dressed up like refugees, but not these people. “You speak English?”

“Number one, Mac,” said the boy. He lowered his hands slightly. “South Korean. KATUSA, Mac, ROK number one, USA!”

“Anybody see anything?” West said, keeping his voice low, and got a mumbled chorus of negatives. “Keep watch. Cakes, keep these fine people covered. Young, you’re with me.”

“Hooah,” another gentle chorus. Heard, understood, acknowledged. Cakes moved out to flank them.

The threesome hadn’t moved, which meant they had to walk up a slight rise to meet them. West kept his own carbine easy. He smiled up at the boysun, watched him smile back. The kid’s smile was wide but didn’t touch his eyes.

“Sarge, if you think I can talk to them…” Young began.

“Zip it. You’re who we’ve got.” Young was always practicing with the kids in the village southeast of the 33 rd’s base camp. They’d been waiting for a new interpreter since they lost Billy J to Seoul in August, and West couldn’t bring himself to tap one of the ROKs, not with Cakes on the walk.

They stopped in front of the trio. West looked at the elderly couple. The old man blinked. The old woman’s mouth quivered. They looked a thousand years old.

“Where are you coming from?” West asked the boy, gesturing back the way they came.

“Keigu at MASH, GI Joe, eighty-leven,” the boy said. “Clean for you? Take out trash, laundry? All the officers I do. Cheap, Mac, good deal. The best.”

“You know where the 8011 this?” West asked Young.

The PFC shook his head. “They’re supporting 5 thDivision and that regiment from Australia,” he said. “North of Yanggu, maybe? They could be closer.”

Long walk. “Where are you going?” West asked the boy.

He raised one bony arm, pointed northeast. “Ch’alu’un. Home.”

West knew there were a couple of small villages out that way, goat herders or something, locals who’d gradually filtered back since the talks had stalled.

The old man looked over his shoulder, back the way they’d come. He sang his strange tongue at the boy, his tone anxious.

“What’s he saying?”

Young frowned, listened. “Uh, he says they have to go, they have to hurry… they have to get home before the light of… before the moon rises? I think.”

“Where’s the fire?” West leaned down a little, smiled at the boy again. The kid’s shining dark eyes seemed fathomless. “Why now?”

Boysun didn’t answer, and the old woman started talking. West didn’t need an interpreter to catch her desperation, her fear. Her old voice broke as it rose and fell.

Young was frowning. “Something – about a bell? Then, you have to let us go… Jabi, jabi... Mercy? I think mercy.”

West’s adrenaline machine started back up. They were in a hurry, all right. What were they running from?

Young stammered his way through a sentence. The old man said something, Young said something. The old man repeated himself, slowing his words down.

“Come on,” West said, starting to feel impatient. They’d been standing still for too long.

“I don’t know,” Young said. He tilted his helmet back, wiping at his brow. “He says that the priests are waving their lanterns, something like that. Then… gangshi ? I don’t know the word. He says we should go home, too.”

“Try again.”

Another stilted exchange, and Young shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sarge. He just keeps saying it’s not safe and you have to let ‘em go.”

“Some superstitious thing?” It sounded right, home before dark, priests waving lanterns. West remembered when one of the ROKA kids back at base had flipped his wig over someone whistling at night, saying that it attracted spirits.

“You got me, sir.”

Behind them, Burtoni. “Hey! We got—”

The rattle of a burp gun drowned him out and West ducked and spun, saw Kelly go down, saw Addy fall. West raised his weapon, searching. Next to him, Young grabbed his gut and fell to his knees, and then Cakes and Burtoni were firing back, there , two-hundred feet and ten o’clock, movement at the top of a low rock formation. Rock chips flew. West yelled for everyone to get down but his voice was lost to the old woman’s scream, a terrible high wailing, and the deeper rattle of return fire.