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

wobble stick and the tank lurches forward, bouncing, grinding, faster and
faster and faster. The roar of an eight-hundred-horsepower diesel engine
accelerates to a rhythmic rumble of mechanical power.
Rafter Man and I fall back against the hot turret. We are hanging onto
the long ninety-millimeter gun like monkeys. The cool air of speed is
delicious after hours in Viet Nam's one-hundred-and-twenty- degree yellow
furnace. Our sweat-soaked shirts are cold. Flashing by: Vietnamese hootches,
ponds with white ducks in them, circular graves with chipped and faded
paint, and endless shimmering pieces of emerald water newly planted with
rice.
It's a wonderful day. I'm so happy that I am alive, in one piece, and
short. I'm in a world of shit, yes, but I am alive. And I am not afraid.
Riding the tank gives me a thrilling sense of power and well-being. Who
dares to shoot at the man who rides the tiger?
It's a beautiful tank. Painted on the long barrel: BLACK FLAG-We
Exterminate Household Pests. Flying on a radio antenna, a ragged Confederate
flag. Military vehicles are beautiful because they are built from functional
designs which make them real, solid, without artifice. The tank possesses
the beauty of its hard lines; it is fifty tons of rolling armor on tracks
like steel watchbands. The tank is our protection, rolling on and on
forever, clanking out the dark mechanical poetry of iron and guns.
Suddenly the tank shifts to the left. Rafter Man and I are thrown hard
into the turret. Metal grinds metal. The tank hits a bump, shifting sharply
to the right and jerking to a halt, throwing us forward. Rafter Man and I
hang onto the gun and say, "Son-of-a-bitch..."
The blond tank commander climbs out of the turret hatch and jumps off
the back of the tank.
The tank driver has run the tank off the road.
Fifty yards back a water buffalo is down on its back, legs out
straight. The water bo bellows, tosses its curved horns. On the deck, in the
center of the road, I see a tiny body, facedown.
Chattering Vietnamese civilians pour out of the roadside hootches,
staring and pointing. The Vietnamese civilians crowd around to see how their
American saviors have crushed the guts out of a child.
The blond tank commander speaks to the Vietnamese civilians in French.
Then, walking back to the tanks, the blond tank commander is pursued by an
ancient papasan. There are tears in the papasan's eyes. The withered old man
shakes his bony little fists and throws Asian curses at the tank commander's
back. The Vietnamese civilians grow silent. Another child is dead, and,
although it is very sad and painful, they accept it.
The blond tank commander climbs up onto his tank and reinserts his legs
into the turret hatch. "Iron Man, you fucking shitbird. You will drive this
machine like it's a tank and not a goddamn sports car. You hit that little
girl, you blind idiot. Hell, I could see her through the fucking vision
blocks. She was standing on that water bo's back..."
The driver turns, his face hard. "I didn't see them, skipper. What do
they think they're doing, crossing in front of me like that? Don't these
zipperheads know that tanks got the right-of-way?" The driver's face is
coated with a thin film of oil and sweat; iron has entered into his soul and
he has become a component of the tank, sweating oil to lubricate its meshing