Harold Stempel had been awakened not by the thumping explosions — more felt through the floor of the warm bunker than heard. He’d grown used to them. But he couldn’t sleep through the shouts of the staff sergeant, who’d rousted everyone who could walk out of their sleeping bags. More digging, he thought. He was dead tired. He’d slept most of the first day on the airbase. He’d spent most of his second day digging trenches. Their labor detachments would take cover behind walls. Explosive charges would roar through the trench. The men would then shovel the blasted soil into wheelbarrows.
Before crawling into his gear he took two codeine. They’d given them to him to dull his aches and pains. But they made him constipated. He hadn’t gone to the bathroom in two days.
When Stempel climbed into his blood-covered shell, the sergeant asked if he was wounded. Stempel replied that he wasn’t, but it really wasn’t truthful. He was wounded, you just couldn’t see the wounds. But he could feel them. The unexpected shivering. The panic and paranoia and adrenaline rushes that seized him out of nowhere. The nightmares and sweats. He’d twice woken with a shout.
In the two days and nights since he’d made it inside the perimeter, everyone had left him alone except for the digging. No fighting. ‘Excused duty.’ He’d slept whenever he wasn’t working on the trenches, but still he was tired. Every time he had settled into that bliss of deep sleep something had awakened him. Not the bombs or the firecracker sounds of a firefight, but something in his head. A sudden wakefulness — a fear of imminent danger — that had each time ruined the quality of his sleep.
The sergeant led Stempel and a dozen others out into the cold, night air. The fighting sounded low-level and sporadic. Occasional rips of automatic fire that died down quickly. A grenade. A single shot. Despite the apparent calm, the staff sergeant was bent over at the waist. His rifle was held out in front of him at port arms as he crept through the slit trench — alert to danger. Stempel took his cue from the man. He flicked the selector switch of his M-16 to ‘Burst’ and slipped his trigger finger into its sleeve.
They arrived at a bunker that opened off the slit trench. It was open to the freezing air outside. The staff sergeant poked his head in and asked, ‘How many you need?’ One more, came the reply. The staff sergeant turned to Stempel and said, ‘You.’ He nodded with his head toward the dark and icy entrance.
The bunker was filled with noxious fumes from the single gas stove. Stempel coughed. In the light of a single kerosene lantern, Stempel could make out the large, warmly-clad shapes of nine other men. Eight of them faced the ninth, who held a piece of paper and a ball-point pen awkwardly next to the lantern.
‘Take a seat,’ he said to Stempel. Harold just sank between two men. Their parkas rubbed together noisily. Everyone looked at Stempel. At the caked brown blood coating his parka. ‘You’re now in 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, 1st Provisional Infantry Company.’ The man’s eyes darted from Harold’s face to the dried blood. ‘My name is Harper — Specialist Five. I’m your squad leader.’
‘Stempel, Harold, Private,’ Harold reported.
The squad leader wrote his particulars on his paper. ‘Okay, what about you?’ he asked one of the others — obviously resuming what Stempel’s arrival had interrupted. The man gave him his name and serial number, which the squad leader wrote down. He was having trouble both with the pen, and with his writing surface — his knee. As he shook the pen, he said ‘MOS?’
‘82C,’ the man replied. ‘Field Artillery Surveyor.’
The Spec Five wrote the reply on his makeshift roster. He then moved on to the next soldier.
‘31M — Multichannel Communications Systems Operator.’
It suddenly dawned on the dazed and still sleepy Stempel what was happening. They were forming a squad. He was being added to a squad. To do what? he wondered.
‘63B,’ came a woman’s voice. Stempel’s gaze shot to the dim profile in the corner. ‘Light Wheeled Vehicle Maintenance,’ the African-American woman supplied. Her chin rested on an M-16’s front sight.
The Spec Five continued his inventory of Stempel’s new squadmates.
‘88M — Motor Transportation Operator,’ came the quivering voice of the man next to Stempel. He was Stempel’s age. He wore thick, shatterproof glasses.
‘457XB,’ came the next person.
‘What the hell’s that? the Spec Five asked — his upper lip curled in confusion.
‘Airlift Aircraft Maintenance/C-5,’ the guy replied. ‘I’m Air Force, not Army.’
‘Gre-e-eat,’ somebody mumbled.
The Spec Five was himself incredulous. ‘Is there anybody else here who’s Air Force?’ he asked. The rubbing sounds of fabric drew the bunker’s attention to two others. They’d both raised their hands. ‘Ah, sh-sh-shit? the Spec Five cursed. He got the first Air Force guy to repeat his MOS, then asked the next two for theirs. 551XO-Pavements Maintenance, and 703XO-Administrative/Reprographic were the replies.
The Spec Five huffed loudly as he finished writing. ‘We got any Navy?’ he asked. ‘Coast Guard? Boy Scouts of America?’ There were chuckles. ‘Okay, Army! Who have I missed?’ Again a rubbing sound from the darkness. ‘Speak up!’ the Spec Five barked in irritation.
‘Well, m-m-my official specialty is 02B, sir… sarge… But, well, I was called up as a 92B — Medical Laboratory Specialist — which is my civilian job.’
‘You’re Army Reserves?’ the Spec Five asked.
‘National Guard,’ the guy replied.
There were groans.
‘Shut the fuck up!’ the Spec Five snapped. As he wrote, he asked, ‘What’s an 02B?’
‘Uhm,’ the guy chuckled nervously. Stempel could see his helmet turning from the woman on one side to the man on the other. ‘It’s actually,’ he laughed, ‘you’re gonna get a kick outa…’
‘What the fuck is it?’ the Spec Five said — ready to write.
‘Comet. I’m a Comet player. 02B is for Comet and Trumpet players.’
‘Oh-oh-oh,’ somebody groaned in the darkness. ‘We’re dead meat, man.’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ the Spec Five shouted. ‘Nobody says another Goddamn word unless I tell him to… or her!’ He turned to Stempel. Again he glanced at the blood of the sergeant and PFC from the fighting hole. ‘What about you?’ he asked in an almost deferential tone.
‘11B — Infantryman,’ Harold replied. The man next to him sighed in a show of relief. Another shook Stempel’s hand in a Sixties-style soul shake.
As the Spec Five wrote, a question came from the darkness. ‘What about you?’
The Spec Five looked up — realizing it was directed at him. He busied himself with a recount of the ten names on the list ‘OOJ,’ came his reply.
‘What’s an OOJ?’ came from a different man.
The Spec Five’s patience was again exhausted. ‘Club Activities Manager, okay?
No one groaned, or sighed, or said a word. The only sound came from outside. From high-powered assault rifles popping away in the night.
‘What are we supposed to do?’ the woman driver asked.
‘I’m gonna tell you. But first I’ve got to hand in this roster.’
He left them there.
‘Oh, man,’ the guy next to Stempel said. ‘This is some shit, huh?’ Harold just nodded. ‘Guess you’ve already seen some action, though.’ Harold nodded again. ‘Who were you with?’
‘Second of the two-six-three.’
No one seemed to know what to say. Harold saw something in that reaction. A different perspective on what he’d been through. It had been Hell. Harold appreciated that fact only after seeing their faces. He’d walled it up so tight he hardly knew what had happened.