"Joe Haldeman - 1968" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

He returned to the others and Batman handed him his M16. "Always take a weapon. Never can tell."
That would be a hell of a way to die, caught with your pants down.

Moses laid out the proper amounts of C-4 by each tree. The five-pounder was two of the packages,
which looked like vanilla saltwater taffy. Then he tore open a package and broke the stick into thirds,
saving the plastic wrapper. The broken C-4 had a sweet chemical smell. He set the chunks of explosive
next to the three smaller trees and then paced around from one to the other, unrolling det cord from a
reel. Detonation cord was just plastic tubing filled with an explosive similar to C-4. Once properly
connected, all four trees would blow up simultaneously.

Murphy watched them with growing nervousness. "This sucks, man. You want to hurry up with the
fuckin' lesson?"

"He's right," Batman said. "We're pretty exposed."

Moses finished explaining about the blasting caps, where and how to put them, and all four retired out of
the clearing, back into the relative safety of the bush. At Murphy's suggestion, they went far enough back
so that he could see a couple of the right-flank riflemen. Batman stayed within sight of the clearing. Spider
and Moses took up intermediate positions, hiding behind trees.

Spider tried to relax. The worst thing that could happen would be that the gooks come running down the
trail and hit the ambush. That was hundreds of yards away. He looked around at the quietly rustling rain
forest. No, the worst that could happen would be a thousand VC popping out from behind all those trees
and killing everybody. Spider scrunched down a little more and waited, smoking, trying to look at
everything at once.

Murphy was studying a book titledThongs, whose cover featured a naked woman tied spreadeagled to
an old-fashioned brass bed. He moved his lips while he read. Spider took out his Heinlein book and tried
to read it. He couldn't concentrate. He could feel a thousand eyes on him, aiming. He put it away.

"That your real name, Spider?" Murphy asked.

"No, Speidel. Not supposed to use our real names."

"Oh yeah. Buncha happy horseshit."

Names (2)

Every person was given a code name for use in radio transmissions. The medic was always Doc. A
person with a college degree was usually Professor. (Spider's platoon had had a Prof until a couple of
weeks before Spider arrived. He'd gotten his educated kneecap ruined in a chainsaw accident.)

Sometimes, as in Spider's case, they asked you what code name you wanted. Sometimes you were given
one based on appearance or ethnicity: Ears, Moses, and Tonto. Sometimes circumstances prompted the
platoon sergeant to change your name. Spaz had been named Frosty at first, since he came from Alaska.
Then one day he stepped out of a helicopter carrying a flat of two and a half dozen very precious fresh
eggs, and dropped them.

In some outfits, like Spider's, you were encouraged to forget your comrades' actual names, and only use
code names even in everyday conversation. Then you couldn't slip up and use a person's real name in