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

his hand, calm, his mind rehearsing the hard work he had to do that day.
The ancient farmer smiled. He saw the frantic children with their fat
burden of death and he felt sorry for us. So he smiled to show that he
understood what we were going through. Then my M-16 was vibrating and
invisible metal missiles were snapping through the ancient farmer's body as
though he were a bag of dry sticks.
The ancient farmer looked at me. As he fell forward into the dark water
his face was tranquil and I could see that he understood.
After my first confirmed kill I began to understand that it was not
necessary to understand. What you do, you become. The insights of one moment
are blotted out by the events of the next. And no amount of insight could
ever alter the cold, black fact of what I had done. I was caught up in a
constricting web of darkness, and, like the ancient farmer, I was suddenly
very calm, just as I had been calm when the mine detonated, because there
was nothing I could do. I was defining myself with bullets; blood had
blemished my Yankee Doodle dream that everything would have a happy ending,
and that I, when the war was over, would return to hometown America in a
white silk uniform, a rainbow of campaign ribbons across my chest, brave
beyond belief, the military Jesus.


I think about my first kill for a long time. At twilight a corpsman
appears. I explain to him that Marines never abandon their dead or wounded.
The corpsman looks at each of Rafter Man's pupils several times.
"What?"
I shrug. I say, "Payback is a motherfucker."
"What?" The corpsman is confused. The corpsman is obviously a New Guy.
"Tanks for the memories..." I say, because I do not know how to tell
him how I feel. You're a machine gunner who has come to the end of his last
belt. You're waiting, staring out through the barbed wire at the little men
who are assaulting your position. You see their tiny toy-soldier bayonets
and their determined, eyeless faces, but you're a machine gunner who has
come to the end of his last belt and there's nothing you can do. The little
men are going to grow and grow and grow-illuminated by the fluid, ghostly
fire of a star flare-and then they're going to run up over you and cut you
up with knives. You see this. You know this. But you're a machine gunner who
has come to the end of his last belt and there's nothing you can do. In
their distant fury the little men are your brothers and you love them more
than you love your friends. So you wait for the little men to come and you
know you'll be waiting for them when they come because you no longer have
anywhere else to go...
The corpsman is confused. He does not understand why I'm smiling. "Are
you okay, Marine?" Yes, he is a New Guy for sure.
I ditty-bop down the road. The corpsman calls after me. I ignore him.
A mile away from the place of fear I stick out my thumb.


I'm dirty, unshaven, and dead tired.
A Mighty Mite slams on its brakes. "MARINE!"
I turn, thinking I've got some slack, thinking I've got a ride.