“Yeah,” Broussard said. “Barrett Browning, right? Elizabeth. That ‘sow the glebe’ thing stuck with me. Had kind of a ‘Jabberwocky’ feel.”
“Do you remember the ending?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Shame. It’s the best part,” Chapel said.
Broussard waited for him to continue, possibly recite the ending of the poem, or give him something to tell the other men, but Chapel offered nothing more, staring into the wizard’s fire and digging into the coals with that glowing tip of iron as the roots gathered up closer around him.
Broussard walked back to his hooch while the rest of the men finished their chow, buried their trash, and prepped for sleep. He tumbled the verses over in his mind, but forget the words each time he did. He didn’t tell the others that he’d tried to talk to Chapel, and had gotten nowhere. That would add to the discontent, and they were all too far out into the wilderness to start whispering—or shouting—about mutiny. Scared minds need a scapegoat, and if the men decided to hang the hooves on Chapel, with only Morganfield in his corner, things could go south in a hurry, for all of them.
In the camp clearing, carved out from the grass and tangle of soaked plants, Darby was lying on his back in the mud, looking up into the patch of darkened sky through a break in the forest canopy. “I think I’m just going to sleep outside tonight,” he said.
“You’ll wake up bones when them ants get to you,” Render said, pounding in a stake for his hooch with the back of his Ka-Bar.
“Bugs don’t like me,” Darby said. “I’m too mean.”
“Shit,” Render said with a chuckle. “You sweet as canned milk, white boy.”
McNulty squatted in his stained skivvies, a mirror in his hand, examining his pudgy body and peeling off leeches with the blade of his knife, then burning them with his Zippo. “I got leeches in places I didn’t even know I had skin.”
“Better watch out that they don’t crawl up inside your peckerwood, peckerwood,” Render said.
McNulty paled. “They can do that?”
“Don’t worry, Chicago,” Darby said, his eyes closed, “They don’t grow leeches that small.”
The other men laughed. McNulty threw a charred leech at Darby.
Medrano was scratching his skin maniacally, leaving red, irritated patches. “Something’s been biting me all day. Bunch of things. Driving me crazy.”
“Everything bites out here,” Render said.
“Different country, same jungle,” Broussard said.
“Same war, too,” Render said.
“I don’t even know what war we’re fighting now,” McNulty said with a grimace as he pulled off an exceptionally long leech. “They didn’t tell us any of this shit in boot camp.”
“They don’t tell boots shit,” Render said, “just what they need to know to kill, kill, kill, right? Ooh-rah and all the good Marine bullshit? Nah, man… Nah. They want to keep us dumb, dying young and full of cum with stars in our eyes, you dig? We fighting the war the big bosses tell us to fight. That Chapel’s just another one of them big bosses. Star Spangled Banner playing a bugle out his ass.”
“He ain’t like that,” Broussard said.
Render shot him a look. “Man, how do you know?”
Broussard pressed the toe of his boot into the mud, making repeated geometric shapes. “I just do.”
“Fuck them big bosses, okay?” Darby said, catching a shooting star arcing across the sky. “I’m fightin’ for y’all.”
“You just fightin’ to fight, with your crazy ass,” Render said. “My daddy always told me that white folk can’t get enough of war. Can’t get enough. Genocide, homicide, land grabbin’…”
“I am who I am,” Darby said, scratching at a rash under his armpit. “A monkey with a club.”
Medrano chuckled. “Albino monkey.”
“We can’t all be born perfectly brown, amigo,” Darby said. “Like a roasted turkey.”
“Our big boss might not know what war we’re fighting, either,” Render said, glancing over to Chapel’s fig tree and the tent now set up where he sat over his fire. No light glowed from inside, like on most nights. He was either asleep, listening in the dark, or gone.
Broussard looked at Render, noticing the nervous way his fingers were pinching and fidgeting.
“We gon fight until we told not to fight no more, and we get sent stateside, either sittin’ in a chair or lyin’ in a box,” Darby said.
“You need to stop saying shit like that,” McNulty said.
“I’m just pontificatin’ the truth, my Union brother,” Darby said. “Believe it or not. The world gon keep spinnin’ either way.”
McNulty angrily pulled up his pants and threw on his shirt. “That negative shit ain’t good for nothin’.”
The men sat in uneasy quiet. The air was hot and damp, the jungle oppressively silent, seeming to crowd in close around the camp. Like those roots around Chapel. Tricks and ruses.
“You think we make it out of here?” Medrano said.
“Shiiit,” Render said, laughing.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Broussard said. The other men looked at him, including Darby, who was sitting up, the entire back part of his body covered in mud. “I don’t think we’re here to fight,” he continued, “Humping these boxes in a small group, traipsin’ around God knows where. Did you see what was in those choppers? What kind of fighting are we doing with cable and boxes? Without artillery or air support? Chapel got something else in mind.”
“Yeah, but what?” Medrano said.
Broussard shrugged.
“Maybe we bait,” Render said.
“Why would we go to so much trouble to be bait in a whole different country?” Broussard said. “Vietnam’s full of it. The whole south.”
“Maybe we’re a sacrifice,” McNulty said quietly.
“Now there’s a dark thought.” Darby smiled. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Chicago.”
“Maybe the moon smashes into the earth tomorrow,” Broussard said. “We keep our heads up, do shit right, and we get out of here. All of us. Doesn’t matter what the mission is. We ain’t here to give orders. We here to take them, and then get the hell out of this place.”
“Look who’s the good soldier now,” Render said, disgust twisting his face. Broussard ignored him.
“But what are we supposed to do?” Medrano said. “No one’s telling us shit, and there’s no one to ask out here. Feels like a fucking setup.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Render said. “Something don’t feel right.” He stood and paced, his hands working faster, twitching and gesturing unconsciously. “Man, I hate this shit. All of it. Don’t none of us belong out here, all by ourselves, without supporting fire, resupply, chain of command. None of us need to be out here.”
“Chapel does,” Broussard said, looking over at the man’s hooch buried within the roots of the tree.
“He don’t neither,” Render said. “He don’t belong, you dig? Ain’t none of us belong here. We outsiders. We in their back yard, like a bunch of stray dogs, and they’re getting the shotgun after us.”
“Everyone hates it, man,” McNulty said. “Not knowing shit. You’re not the only one, so stop acting like you always are.”
“Hate it?” Render said. “This ain’t some inconvenience, white boy. This out here is just life for us. Being told what to do without a reason why. Treated like we not important or worthy of any fucking explanation for nothing’. Hating got nothing to do with it.”