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

I say, "I wouldn't run this squad for a million dollars. I'm just
saying that we can't leave the gook like this."
"I don't care," says Animal Mother. "Go on and waste her."
I say, "No. Not me."
"Then we saddle up and move...now."
I look at the sniper. She whimpers. I try to decide what I would want
if I were down, half dead, hurting bad, surrounded by my enemies. I look
into her eyes, trying to find the answer. She sees me. She recognizes me-I
am the one who will end her life. We share a bloody intimacy. As I lift my
grease gun she is praying in French. I jerk the trigger. Bang. One round
enters the sniper's left eye and as the bullet exits it tears off the back
of her head.
The squad is silent.
Then Alice grunts, flashes a big grin. "Man, you are one hard dude. How
come you ain't a grunt?"
Cowboy and Doc Jay are standing beside me.
Cowboy says, "Mother, I'm serviceable. Joker, that's a well done.
You're hard.'
Animal Mother spits. He takes a step, kneels, zips out his machete.
With one powerful blow he chops off her head. He picks the head up by its
long black hair and holds it high. He laughs and says, "Rest in pieces,
bitch." And he laughs again. He walks around and sticks the bloody ball of
gore into all our faces. "Hard? Now who's hard? Now who's hard,
motherfuckers?"
Cowboy looks at Animal Mother and sighs. "Joker is hard, Mother.
You...you're just mean."
Animal Mother pauses, spits, throws the head into a ditch.
Cowboy says, "Let's move. We done our job."
Animal Mother picks up his M-60 machine gun, lays it across his
shoulders, struts over to me. He smiles. "You know, Shortround never did see
the frag that wasted him, that little kike." Animal Mother unhooks a hand
grenade from the front of his flak jacket and pushes it into my chest-hard.
Mother looks around, then smiles at me again. "Nobody shits on the Animal,
motherfucker. Nobody."
I hook the grenade onto my flak jacket.
Alice picks up the sniper's rifle. "Hey, number one souvenir!"
Rafter Man is standing over the sniper's decapitated corpse. He aims
his M-16 and fires a long burst of automatic fire into the body. Then he
says, "That's mine, Alice." He takes the SKS from Alice and examines it
closely. He looks down and admires his new belt. "I shot her first, Joker.
She'd have died. That's one confirmed for me."
I say, "Sure, Rafter. You wasted her."
Rafter Man says, "I did. I wasted her. I fucking blew her away." He
looks at his NVA rifle belt again. He holds up the SKS. "Wait until Mr.
Payback sees this!"
Alice is down on his knees beside the corpse. With his machete he chops
off the sniper's feet. He puts the feet into his blue canvas shopping bag.
He chops off the sniper's finger and takes her gold ring.
We wait until Rafter Man takes photographs of the dead gook and we wait
until Alice takes photographs of Rafter Man posing with his SKS set in his