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

holes into an empty C rations can. He strikes a match and lights the C-4. He
fills a second can with water from his canteen and then holds the can of
water over the blue flame. "Mother, you know what I told you last week."
A Phantom F-4 jet roars over and unloads a few rocket pods into the
Citadel. Explosions rock the deck.
T.H.E. Rock looks at Animal Mother as he explains: "She was just a
baby, sir. Thirteen or fourteen."
Animal Mother grins, spits. "If she's old enough to bleed, she's old
enough to butcher."
Mr. Shortround looks at Animal Mother, but doesn't say anything. He
takes a white plastic spoon out of his shirt pocket and puts it into the can
of boiling water. Then he takes a tinfoil packet of cocoa out of his thigh
pocket, tears it open, pours the brown powder into the can of boiling water.
He takes hold of the white plastic spoon and begins to stir the hot
chocolate slowly. "Animal Mother? Do you hear me? I'm talking to you."
Animal Mother glares at the lieutenant. Then, "Oh, I was just fooling
around, Lieutenant."
Mr. Shortround stirs his hot chocolate.
I say, "Animal Mother, how come you think you're so bad?"
Animal Mother looks at me, surprised. "Hey, motherfucker, don't even
talk to me. You ain't a grunt. You want your face stomped in? Huh? You want
to battle?"
I pick up my M-16.
Animal Mother reaches for his M-60.
Cowboy says, "Man, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's violence. I
mean, if you got to blow Mother away, that's outstanding. Nobody likes
Mother anyway. Shit, he don't even like himself. But you got to get a real
gun, not that toy M-16. If it's Mattel, it's swell." Cowboy unhooks a frag
from his flak jacket and tosses it to me. "Here. Use this."
I catch the hand grenade. I toss it up into the air a few times,
catching it, still looking at Animal Mother. "No, I'm going to get me an
M-60 and then me and this motherfucker are going to have one duel-"
"Stow it, Joker," Mr. Shortround interrupts: "Animal Mother, listen up.
You harass one more little girl and I'm going to put my little silver bar in
my pocket and then you and I are going to throw some hands."
Animal Mother grunts, spits, picks up a bottle of tiger piss. He hooks
a tooth into the metal cap and forces the bottle up. The cap pops off. He
takes a swallow, then looks at me. He mutter, "Fucking poge..." He takes
another couple of swallows and then says very loud, "Cowboy, you remember
when we was set up in that L-shaped ambush up by Khe Sanh and blew away that
NVA rifle squad? You remember that little gook bitch that was guiding them?
She was a lot younger than the one I saw today." He takes another swallow.
"I didn't get to fuck that one either. But that's okay. That's okay. I shot
her motherfucking face off." Animal Mother burps. He looks at me and smirks.
"That's affirmative, poge. I shot her motherfucking face off."
Alice shows me a necklace of little bones and tries to convince me that
they're magic Voodoo bones from New Orleans, but they look like dry old
chicken bones to me.
"We...are animals," I say.
After a couple of minutes Crazy Earl says, "Grunts ain't animals. We