Why?
She shook her head and refocused. The only decent footing for the Chinese, who would be advancing straight downhill, was down the pebble-strewn creek bed. That was where Stephie’s two machine guns lay dug into the banks.
She spotted the helmet of the new leader of First Squad — her old squad — who commanded both of the guns. She pressed the Push-to-Talk button. “You okay up there…?” she began, but stopped because she had almost said “Sergeant Johnson.” Stephon Johnson was long, long dead. The realization hit her like a fist in the stomach.
What is that new guy’s name? she agonized. The replacement’s name simply wouldn’t come to her, but others came all too easily. Sergeant Kurth. Peter Scott. Tony Massera. Rick Dawson. Patricia Tate. And what was that poor new guy’s name? Oh, yeah, she remembered. Shelton fucking Trulock. Stephie remembered each and every death. The way it had happened. The time of day. How she had felt — tired, stunned, saddened, sickened, indifferent — in the few moments after the tragedies during which her memories were being recorded with utter fidelity and focus.
Through her earbuds, with crystalline digital clarity, she heard, “You talkin’ to me, Sarge’t Roberts?” It was Smith. The guy’s name was Smith. Smith, of course. “Cause I’m good. I’m good to go. Ain’t nobody comin’ past these guns. Like I said, you can count on…”
“All right!” Stephie commanded. He fell quiet.
Smith’s first name was either “Sayed” or “Said.” There had been much debate. The newly arrived Arab-American corporal had just been released from the hospital after recovering from wounds received right after the invasion. To Stephie, he was a combat veteran. She’d put him in command of her old First Squad. Only afterwards had Smith confessed his secret to her. He’d been a raw recruit — a private — when he’d ingloriously received his Purple Heart. Possession of the medal, whose owners had proliferated in the grinding, bloody war, had made Smith a PFC. Then, when he’d reported for duty, the 41st Infantry Division had made him a corporal. But the problem tormenting Smith was that his combat experience had consisted of a grand total of six blood-soaked minutes.
She’d listened, then given an army reply. “Fuck, Smith! Shit! You’re a goddamned seasoned fucking combat veteran, man! A lean, mean killing machine! Jesus! Six minutes! Shit!” She had rocked him with a surprisingly hard blow with the heel of her hand to his body armor. He had smiled. There wasn’t much else he could do. “So you’re my squad leader,”Stephie had said. She had held her hand out for a high five, and he’d given it up with a wrenching slap. But then he’d frowned. She had worried about that frown ever since.
Squad leaders had to be rock-ribbed. They were linebackers. The rebar in concrete. The spine that held the line. Their most important function was simply to stand their ground, for that resolve would hold eight other men in place. But if a squad leader ran, so would his eight soldiers. Then the only retaining wall against the flood were the platoon sergeant and the platoon leader a dozen meters to the panicked herd’s rear.
Stephie had introduced Smith by calling the platoon together. Ever since the days of Ackerman, Third Platoon had been formal. Stephie had said, “Corporal Smith is the new leader of First Squad. He’s returning to the Forty-first after recuperating from wounds suffered in the battle for Birmingham, Alabama.” Her tone had clearly been respectful. Birmingham, the cherries would’ve thought. Those were bad, bad times.
Throughout the introduction, Smith had just stood there, unsmiling. He had said nothing. Acknowledged no one. Betrayed no hint of an expression, all of which was read by the troops to be surliness.
Shortly after the meeting, rumors had begun to spread. Smith was a stone cold warrior man, they whispered. The son of a bitch was fierce. Not just mean. A motherfuckin’ killer. Kinda quiet on R&R, ya know. But really, deep down, he was ruthless. Merciless. Dark. Dangerous. Brooding. His soul was calloused by the chaffing of his memories of the rivers of blood that he had shed. He was, they all finally admitted, a terrifying slayer of all things living.
Smith had been hit early on in the war. They had discussed that fact. Charlie Company had been patrolling the hills and clashing with Chinese patrols for two weeks, and they had lost only eight, two dead. That was nothing like the casualty rates in the early major attacks, although everyone knew that the Chinese were gathering themselves.
Just like Smith, everybody got hit in a major attack. But the key fact was that Smith hadn’t been killed. Nobody even knew where his wound was until a recruit from the shower tent reported that Smith had been hit in the ass. And in his lower back. And in the backs of both thighs and in the left calf. It looked like buckshot, the recruit had reported. “Shrapnel,” Stephie had explained.
Combat, the uninitiated all thought, was natural selection. The fittest, the strongest, the baddest survived. And the baddest of the bad came back for more. It was total bullshit, but Stephie didn’t correct them. It had been she who had started the rumors.
Don’t fuck with Corporal “S.” Fucking Smith. Don’t ask him shit about anything. Try to get outa having to wake him up. Don’t bug him. Don’t tell him anything about yourself. Don’t think that you deserve to know any fucking thing at all about him. Just do what the fuck he says, when he says it, and keep your distance as much as you can.
But. But. But. When the shit gets real deep, stick to him like a second skin. Dig in close by. Sleep close to him. Go on patrols with him. Don’t go on patrols without him. And if you’re going to be overrun, fold back onto him. Rise up from your position, risk death or court-martial, and rally to his side. But whatever you do — no matter how confused the situation — never, ever lose sight of Smith. Your squad leader is your air supply. Your way home.
So Master Sergeant Stephanie Baker had explained in casual one-on-one talks. She wasn’t, just then, the president’s daughter shooting the shit. She was Charlie Company’s first sergeant, the senior NCO. She made the rounds to steady the troops and reminisced about the war. About the legendary battles of the past. Her combat patrol on the beaches of Mobile. The first clashes with Chinese Main For at Atlanta. The stoic stand at the bloody Savannah River. She told stories of infantry warfare to impressionable young infantrymen. To kids fresh from the heartland via ten weeks of accelerated boot camp.
Third Platoon was green. Greener, even, Stephie thought, than the original Third Platoon on its patrol of her hometown. Of the forty-two troops under Stephie command, twenty-six had been with them less than two weeks. Fully half of those had yet to see any combat at all, having been left intentionally behind on combat patrols.
Oftentimes, the replacements’ arrival had been macabre. The cherries climbed down from trucks to see the men and women they were replacing get loaded into the vehicles that had brought them. Some were on bloody litters. Others were in bodybags. Raw recruits thus got the opportunity to see the fate that awaited the guys who stood in line next to them.