Robert Stone - Dog Soldiers

They rolled on the floor of the flashing forest and around them erupted what sounded like an artillery barrage. Smitty was struggling for freedom now; Converse clung to him afraid to let go. Marge and her light had disappeared.

Smitty and Converse together rolled down a bank and landed on the packed earth of the trail. The din of battle swelled over them — bazookas, mortars, rockets, tank guns — it was Dienbienphu, Stalingrad. They scrambled to opposite sides of the trail, Converse moving on his elbows toward cover and low ground. As he crawled into the brush it occurred to him that there was something wrong with the artillery noises. Breath. Spit. There were loud speakers in the trees. It was someone doing it, someone playing games with a microphone.

But the column of white flame down the hill rose higher; at its core was the dark outline of a truck. Danskin stood in the firelight without his rifle, he was searching for something inside his jacket. A few feet from him a burning Stet son hat marked the trail.

The roar of mock battle coming from the trees subsided into drunken laughter — but there was a machine gun firing now, a real one and close by. Converse struggled farther from the trail — shells pounded into the earth around him, peppered the trees, chewing up leaf and branch. He shoved himself farther along, trying to put at least a tree trunk between himself and the automatic fire. The flashing lights blinded him and oppressed his brain.

As he huddled against the roots of a great oak tree, from the dazzle of lights above his head there sounded a great voice, louder than the weaponry. “Form is Not Different From Nothingness,” the voice declared.

Converse shut his eyes and cringed.

“Nothingness Is Not Different From Form.”

“They Are the Same.”

Converse was compelled to wonder if nothingness and form were not, in fact, the same. He kept his head down.

When the voice came again, it rose above rifle fire up the trail that was answered by another burst from the machine gun. Converse became aware that the flashing lights above him were revealing his position. As he prepared to crawl again, he saw Smitty run past him along the trail, in the direction of the village. Twenty feet on, Smitty stopped suddenly, sliding on his heels, turned round as though he had forgotten something of importance and charged headlong into a stand of pine saplings; his feet left the ground as though he intended to jump over them.

A network of violet lights flashed from the face of a sheer rock higher up the hill and Converse saw Angel and Antheil crouching back to back at its base. They had hunting rifles like Danskin’s. A pistol went off somewhere near the burning truck sounding thin and tinny after the heavier weapons; they turned toward the sound and Bred together, composed against their illuminated rock like figures in a sculptured frieze commemorating their own valor. Angel fired and loaded with a speed that baffled vision.

“They Are the Same,” the voice said.

The machine gun opened up again, first near Converse, spraying the earth and foliage around him, then dusting the trail, finally finding the rock face. The shells rang a demented steel band’s tattoo off its violet surface, and shattered the lights and wires in a phantasmal burst of stinking smoke and electrical flame.

Raising his head Converse caught a glimpse of Antheil’s figure rolling across the trail. But he had not been hit, his roll was coordinated and calculated, as different — even at a glance — from the sickening spin of a dying man as anything could be. Two figures crashed through the brush behind him, heading downward; he saw them cross the dirt road and disappear into the darkness of the flat ground at the foot of the hill. The machine gun fired on after them. From the flying twigs and leaf meal, Converse judged its angle to be a few feet above his head. The gunner changed clips and went at it again, setting up a line of constant fire that closed off access to the village.

“They Are the Same,” the voice in the trees declared.

When the firing stopped, he looked up and saw that all along the range, empty forest was bursting into light. The flashing illuminations lit rank on rank of motionless pine, on remote silent ridges far above them. On the lower slopes, baubles danced and gleamed. He stared in wonder.

Darkness settled on the place where he hid until the only light close by came from the flames that licked about the hulk of Antheil’s pickup truck and the branches nearest it which had taken fire. The air was thick with smoke.

Converse crawled along over holly. The gunner had changed position but he kept firing. The darkness into which Angel and Antheil had retreated flickered with licks of flame as dry leaf caught and sputtered out.

Converse rolled over on his side and urinated sideways into the brush. After a few more rounds, he decided to attempt communication.

“Chieu hoi,” he shouted to the gunner.

The firing stopped for a moment, then resumed.

“Where are you?” Hicks called back.

“Out in front of you.”

“You’re in the way, man.”

Converse got to his feet and approached the trail at a crouch. He moved along the edge of it for several yards until he was even with the smoldering truck. A package wrapped in plastic lay on the ground just in front of him; he picked it up.

“I’m coming in,” he called ahead of him. He thrust the package under his arm like a football and rolled into the stand of pine saplings on the other side of the trail. A shadowy figure recoiled from his advance.

“Marge?”

She was sitting on the ground at the base of a rock; there were hot M-16 cartridges and broken glass bulbs all around her. Hicks was sprawled across the rock itself, with the smoking weapon under him. His breath sounded far back in his throat, almost a moan.

“He’s been shot,” Marge said. “He keeps passing out”

Converse reached up and touched Hicks’ arm. He felt blood on it. “What happened?” Hicks’ body stiffened in a sudden spasm. He raised himself on his elbows and brought up the weapon.

“For Christ’s sake. Are you alone?”

“At the moment,” Converse said. “How are you?”

Instead of answering, he swung the piece around and nudged Converse aside with the barrel and Bred a round at the rock wall across the canyon. Marge and Converse bent away from the noise, dodging the cartridges.

“There’s two of them,” Hicks declared. “I got them boxed. I can keep them out there all night.”

Converse lifted himself to the rock on which Hicks was lying; he could see nothing beyond the burned truck but dark trees and the mass of the rock wall.

“That fucking guy,” Hicks said. “Who is he?”

“He’s some sort of cop. He’s not straight.”

“No shit,” Hicks said.

“There are more of them,” Converse told him. “Two others.”

Hicks shook his head. “I got one. I guess he got the other.” He leaned his head on the rock and his shoulders trembled. “He was gonna peel everybody’s potatoes, that guy.”

“Figures,” Converse said.

“How are you?” Marge asked Hicks.

He took a deep breath and swallowed.

“This is what you do. You get down there and get my four-wheel drive. Drive it out to the highway while I keep them in here. Then you’re gonna pick me up on the other side. I have to go back up and cop.”

“And cop?” Converse asked. “Are you crazy?”

Marge took the bag that Converse had carried in and tossed it between them.

“This? This is here. Who needs it now?” Hicks reached down into it, took a handful of the stuff that was inside and flung it in their laps. Marge and Converse picked up the grains and sniffed at them.

“‘The pellet with the poison’s in the chalice from the palace,’ “ he recited, “‘but the flagon with the dragon has the brew that is true.’ ”