Walter Myers - Fallen Angels

“Somebody get a medic!”

“Jamal!”

Jamal was outside and Monaco got him. Jamal looked at the guy and shook his head. The front of the guy’s flak jacket was dark with either sweat or blood. When the sweat mixed with the mud it was hard to tell. Jamal opened it and saw another wound. The flesh was burned and puffed away from a wound big enough to put a fist into. I looked back at the throat wound, the bubble of blood still rose and fell rhythmically. How was he still alive?

“Do something for him!” The guy from Charlie Company’s voice was menacing.

“He your friend?” Jamal asked.

“Yeah, he’s my friend!” the guy from Charlie Company said.

“Then you do it,” Jamal said. He stood and walked away.

A couple of us stood and walked out behind Jamal. A moment later we heard the shot. We went back in and piled the bodies back up on the guy.

They got a flame thrower and we moved away from the hut. The smell of burning flesh came quickly. I knew the smell wouldn’t leave me quickly. Maybe it never would.

We started off. I didn’t want to look back. I did. The hut was burning furiously.

“Who’s got the tags?” Gearhart asked Walowick.

Walowick turned and looked at him. His lips were swollen, one side of his face was puffed. There was blood in the corner of his mouth. He didn’t answer Gearhart.

A guy from Charlie Company pointed to another guy from Charlie Company who was supposed to have the tags, and Gearhart went over to him. Then he came back.

“He forgot the tags,” Gearhart said. “He left them in the hut.”

“How they gonna let their folks know they dead?” Peewee said.

Gearhart didn’t answer.

What would they do for a body? Would they send home an empty coffin? Would they scrounge pieces from Graves Registration? What would they say to their parents? Their wives? We lost your son, ma’am. Somewhere in the forests he lies, perhaps behind some rock, some tree?

We burned his body, ma’am. In a rite hurried by fear and panic, we burned what was left of him and ran for our own lives.

Yes, and we re sorry.

Perhaps they would tell them nothing. Not having a body in hand, not having the lifeless form to send with the flag, they would not acknowledge that there was a death at all.

Yes, and we re sorry.

The ARVNs were up ahead of us, pushing through the woods. They were moving quickly. I looked for Peewee and found him. He was behind Gearhart. Gearhart had his head up, his flak jacket was open. We went quickly, stumbling, but somehow in control of ourselves. We were looking out for each other, checking each other out. I stayed with Jamal mostly. I asked how he was doing.

“I don’t believe I’m not dead,” he said. “You know I’m not made for this kind of life.”

The ARVNs were headed for the same pickup zone we were. They cut down along the edge of the paddies, and we took a longer route through the wood line.

The branches ripped at us, vines caught at our feet. It was like a nightmare. The forest itself was our enemy, trying to catch us, trying to hold us in its grip.

Small-arms fire. The ARVNs were under fire. We dove for cover.

“Get up! Get up! Keep moving!”

The voice came from behind us. I saw Captain Stewart look back to see who was talking. I turned. It was Johnson.

“Stay down!” Captain Stewart barked out his order. “Look for the sniper.”

“Let’s move it!” Johnson started forward.

“I said stay down, damn it!” Stewart yelled.

I was on my feet. Monaco was up. We were moving again, following Johnson. The hell with Stewart. We broke through the underbrush. We kept moving.

I looked around. Stewart was coming, too.

Suddenly I wasn’t there. It was as if I were out of my body and looking down at us. And then I was back. What the hell was going on? I shook my head. Everything seemed okay again.

We kept moving. I hoped like hell that somebody knew where we were going.

Monaco was up ahead. He held his hand up, and we dropped where we were. I could feel my heart beating in my temples. I was gasping for air, sucking in tiny fleets of flying bugs. Spitting them out. Sucking in another fleet.

Movement to my right. We were moving again.

Peewee was trying to get Jamal up. I went over to them.

“He hit?”

“No,” Peewee said.

Jamal was shaking, tears were running down his face. He was ugly. God, a man could be ugly when he cried. Peewee punched him in the face and started pulling him up. I got his other arm and started pulling him.

Gearhart was over. He jerked Jamal by the collar.

“Move it, soldier!” he spat the words in Jamal’s face.

Jamal was moving again. He was okay. He was one of us again.

Suddenly I wasn’t there. There was somebody running in my boots, but it wasn’t me. The legs moved mechanically, the weapon stayed in front of the body. I could almost see myself running. I could feel myself running, but it wasn’t me running. What the hell was going on? I stopped.

“Move it, Perry!” Gearhart’s voice.

The ground was passing me faster, but it wasn’t me running. It was someone else, perhaps even some thing else. It was a body moving through a nightmare, a nightmare in which everything knew everything, where the ground pushed your feet away and the vines clutched at your legs while the trees chortled and shook with silent laughter.

We stopped. The sweat was cold against my body. Up ahead Monaco was sitting with his back to a tree. His chest was heaving. He gave hand signals. Gearhart moved up. Johnson moved up. Where did they get the strength? I looked at Peewee. Peewee, my main man. Peewee’s face was dark, there were shadows where his eyes should have been.

The shadows moved, Peewee moved. He was getting up. I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to sit there forever. Where the hell was the popcorn machine? Couldn’t I just watch the rest of this damned war? Couldn’t I just be out of it for a few hours, a few minutes?

We moved up. There were voices, Vietnamese. We moved up. The soft pop-pops of the grenade launchers went off. There was screaming, high-pitched whines that died slowly as the life drained from the body. We pushed up. There was a clearing and nearly a platoon of NVAs. We had them in the open. I couldn’t believe it.

We fired as they started scrambling away.

Suddenly I wasn’t there. There was a sight in front of me, and I stared at bodies trying to move across an open field. There was the sensation of vibration in my hands, against my face, and the distant sound of an M-16 firing. I felt a shoulder moving, perhaps mine, reversing clips I had taped together. There were soldiers trying to move away from the forward sights of a sixteen. They weren’t moving nearly fast enough.

“Get the perimeter!” Captain Stewart again. “You two men get to the other side of this clearing, the sixty will cover you.”

“Never happen!” Peewee dug in.

“Soldier!” Captain Stewart swung a forty-five on Peewee.

I didn’t see the sixty move. I heard the impact of the bullets in the ground in front of Captain Stewart’s feet, I saw him leap backward. I saw him dive for cover. The forty-five went back into its case. I looked over my shoulder. Johnson was on his knees, a menacing silhouette.

The sixty swung toward the clearing and raked the far side. Suddenly a figure popped out of the underbrush carrying a tube.

“Get him! Get him!”

The sixty barked. The figure started at first to collapse, and then to expand. It was as if it drew in on itself, gathered the momentum it needed, and then began to grow. The arms flung apart. But it had already fired the RPG.

Down. Sweet Jesus. Please.

Dirt all over me. There was more firing. I looked up. There was something near me. It was flesh. I pushed it away, I wanted to get away from it. I stood and started to run from it.