Andre looked out across the snow-covered field ahead. Trees had been felled by great violence. Otherwise all seemed natural.
‘You part of the reinforcements?’ the guy asked Andre. He was nervously gripping and regripping the forward plastic guard of his rifle. He didn’t take his eyes off the woods in front.
‘Naw, man. I’m lookin’ for 3rd Platoon, С Company, 2nd Battalion.’ The soldier glanced at him. He wouldn’t quite look Andre in the eye. ‘You know where they are?’ Andre asked. The guy didn’t respond. He just lowered his helmet to the front edge of the hole. ‘Say, man.’ Andre reached up and shook his shoulder gently. ‘Can you at least tell me where Charlie Company is?’
He mumbled something that Andre didn’t understand.
‘Say what?’
‘This is Charlie Company!’ he snapped.
‘Take it easy. Jeeze. Can you point me to 2nd Platoon, then?’
The man looked like he was going to be sick. His head wobbled. His chin was covered in black stubble. Tiny beads of ice dangled from each follicle. His eyes were red. They’d sunken into swollen sockets above black bags. His jaw drooped, leaving his mouth open. Andre looked around the desolate defensive line in search of someone else. The guy seemed to be the lone defender.
The soldier raised his head and looked at Andre. ‘You got a truck or somethin’, man?’ He spoke in a whisper. ‘Take me back with you.’
Andre snorted and half-grinned. Then what he was asking sunk in, Andre shook his head. ‘Man, you gotta be kiddin’. Shit.’ He was still shaking his head, but he noticed the change in the man. He grew nervous, almost hyper. He looked back through the woods toward the supply road. Back toward where the Humvee was parked. He held his rifle in both hands as if ready to use it.
‘Say,’ Andre reasoned, ‘man… listen! I rode in here with a Spec Four, and… you know.’ He didn’t seem to be listening. ‘He’d fuckin’… I dunno! He’s carryin’ a Goddamn grenade launcher. And he’s got about eight mags on his skinny-assed chest. He’d pro’bly shoot you or something if you…’
‘Not if I greased his ass first, man.’ The guy turned to Andre. His face changed completely. ‘Please, ma-a-an! Jesus Christ! Do you know what this shit is like up here? Motherfuckin’ goddamn hell!’ he shouted. There was a faint echo. ‘It can’t get any worse’n hell, man!’
‘Hey… get yer shit together, man. Get a fuckin’ grip.’
The guy sort of rolled over onto his back. Andre watched his rifle, which he hugged against his chest. The white cloth cover of his helmet rolled through the snow. He just lay there now with his head on its side, staring right at Andre.
‘You want 3rd Platoon, С Company, man?’ The abrupt change took Andre by surprise. After a moment, he nodded. ‘They’re out there,’ was all he said. It wasn’t much, but Andre understood that there was ‘in,’ and there was ‘out.’ He raised his head to look toward No Man’s Land. There were no friendlies beyond this line. He saw nothing but trees, snow. Here and there he saw…
An arm. Frozen at a right angle as if its owner were trying to push the dead torso upright. A helmet half covered in snow. The boot of a soldier fallen face forward that was draped over a log. It was a cemetery, with all the bodies sloppily buried in shallow snow. But they were Chinese soldiers, not American. Andre could tell from the shape of the helmets. Third Platoon lay somewhere beyond.
‘What do you mean, you couldn’t find them?’ the lieutenant asked.
Andre stood in front of his desk — wondering why the lieutenant didn’t get it. ‘3rd Platoon, sir. They’re all MIA, HQ included.’
The entire office was silent, listening. ‘Jesus,’ the lieutenant muttered. ‘But you still should’ve left their parcels with the company headquarters section.’
‘Couldn’t find them, either.’
The lieutenant again seemed surprised. ‘But who was in charge then?’
Andre shrugged. ‘I dunno. Nobody I talked to knew either.’
The lieutenant sent Andre off to process the undelivered mail. He sat in a windowless room no bigger than a closet. There was barely room for a small table and a chair. A single bulb still hung from the end of a wire. He pulled out a thick stack of letters, took the rubber band off, and stared at the first letter.
The envelope was pink. It was addressed to ‘Aguire, Todd C., Pvt. USA’ in a woman’s hand. Andre’s eyes flooded with moisture, and it angered him. He picked up the red felt-tip pen that the lieutenant had handed him and held it poised over Aguire’s name. The tip left a red splotch where it rested against the absorbent paper.
‘Return to Sender,’ Andre scrawled across the neat hand of some woman named ‘Laney Aguire.’ He dropped it in the outgoing bag. ‘Alvarez.’ The return address was a stick-on label — Christmas holly swirling around the corners. Letter by letter the job grew more difficult. Andre ground his teeth, angrily smearing the words he was writing over the cards, envelopes and packages. By the time he was finished, it had come to him. Somewhere between ‘Aguire’ and ‘Wolfson,’ he realized he knew each of those men.
He decided what to do then and there. He went to his quarters, got the letter, and marched straight to the LT’s office. Andre spent fifteen minutes arguing, holding his ground, not backing down. He waved the letter in the air.
‘All right, already!’ the lieutenant said finally. ‘Jeeze! It’s your funeral.’ He got on the telephone.
Half an hour later, he emerged from his office. ‘Can’t get you into airborne school. Classes are all full. But a buddy at Fort Campbell said they got a spot for you in Air Assault School. It lasts ten days, and it’s supposed to be absolute hell.’ Andre said nothing. ‘The next class starts in three days. I’ll give you the papers, but you’ll have to wrangle your own transport.’ He waited. ‘Look, Andre, the 101st Airborne is pouring into Vladivostok right now. If you think this is a ticket home or something, I mean…’ He was shaking his head. ‘You’re gonna be right back over here, and the shit’s gonna be thick. The real thing. Those guys are the fire brigade. They’re bein’ choppered in when the Chinese punch through. Dropped smack dab in their line of advance and told to hold.’
Andre was trying to imagine what it must be like. The noise. The confusion. Not knowing what to do, where to go, everything fucked up…
‘Okay!’ the frustrated lieutenant said. He called his secretary into his office. ‘Andre, here, wants to part company with our happy band. He has a letter from his AIT school commander recommending him for airborne. Type up some travel orders for Fort Campbell and call the Air Assault School. Tell them he’s on his way.’ Both men were looking at Andre. ‘Right, Private Faulk?’
Andre never did answer. The lieutenant shrugged, and the secretary went to his typewriter.
Chapter Sixteen
Clark had left his British Deputy Commander in charge of UNRUSFOR. With him he’d brought his J-l, J-2, J-3 and J-4 — all generals — and Major Reed. Once again it was Reed’s study that had yielded the basis for Nate Clark’s plan. ‘In 1939, the Japanese Army in China attacked Georgi Zhukov’s Russian forces in Mongolia. Zhukov ordered his front-line troops to hold while he marshaled arriving reinforcements for a counterattack. He’d mustered overwhelming force under strict operational security and obtained air superiority. He concentrated his armor and lavishly employed swift-striking forces. When he counterattacked, he drove the Japanese back deep into China.’