"Gustav Hasvord. The Short-Timers " - читать интересную книгу автора

I say, "It took a lot of guts to do what Winslow did. I mean, you can
see Winslow's guts and he sure had a lot of them."
Nobody says anything.


After the green ghouls from graves registration stuff Winslow into a
body bag and take him away, we go back to our hootch. We flop on our racks,
wasted.
I say, "Well, Rafter, now you've heard a shot fired in anger."
Soaking wet in green skivvies, Rafter Man is sitting on his rack. He
has something in his hand. He's staring at it.
I sit up. "Hey, Rafter. What's that? You souvenir yourself a piece of
shrapnel?" No response. "Rafter? You hit?"
Mr. Payback grunts. "What's wrong, New Guy? Did a few rounds make you
nervous?"
Rafter Man looks up with a new face. His lips are twisted into a cold,
sardonic smirk. His labored breathing is broken by grunts. He growls. His
lips are wet with saliva. He's looking at Mr. Payback. The object in Rafter
Man's hand is a piece of flesh, Winslow's flesh, ugly yellow, as big as a
John Wayne cookie, wet with blood. We all look at it for a long time.
Rafter Man puts the piece of flesh into his mouth, onto his tongue, and
we thing he's going to vomit. Instead, he grits his teeth. Then, closing his
eyes, he swallows.
I turn off the lights.


Dawn. The heat of the day comes quickly, burning away the mud puddles
left by the monsoon rain. Rafter Man and I ditty-bop down to the Phu Bai
landing zone. We wait for a med-evac chopper.
Ten minutes later a Jolly Green Giant comes in loaded.
Corpsmen run up the ramp at the rear of the vibrating machine and
reappear immediately, carrying canvas stretchers. On the stretchers are
bloody rags with men inside. Rafter Man and I run into the chopper. We lift
a stretcher and run down the metal ramp. The chopper is already beginning to
lift off.
We place the stretcher on the deck with the others, where the corpsmen
are sorting the dead from the living, changing bandages, adjusting plasma
bottles.
Rafter Man and I run into the prop wash, running sideways beneath the
thumping blades into a tornado of hot wind and stinging gravel. We stop,
hunched over, holding up our thumbs.
The chopper pilot is an invading Martian in an orange flame-retardant
flight suit and an olive-drab space helmet. The pilot's face is a shadow
behind a dark green visor. He gives us a thumbs-up. We run around to the
cargo ramp and the door gunner gives us a hand up into the belly of the
vibrating machine just as it lifts off.
The flight to Hue is north eight miles. Far below, Viet Nam is a
patchwork quilt of greens and yellows. It's a beautiful country, especially
when seen from the air. Viet Nam is like a page from a Marco Polo picture
book. The deck is pockmarked with shell holes, and napalm air strikes have