Labouf was right. Hale chose to ignore the Tiger, walking about the firebase like it was business as usual and grumbling about the B-52 arclight the air force had refused to give him.
“He’s saving the major for last,” Labouf told Jackson.
“Light could kill that dink easy,” Jackson said.
“Tom Light’s gone.”
“He’s out there. Watching out for my ass. He’s better than any map.”
Labouf laughed and said, “You haven’t died yet, but that don’t mean he has anything to do with it. You’re lucky, that’s all.”
You’ll see, Jackson thought to himself. Tom Light would live up to his end of the bargain.
The men began to grumble that they were all doomed, that one by one the Tiger would kill them. Hale posted an extra guard at the entrance to the TOC and started sleeping with an M-60 machine gun.
Jackson has just finished talking with a radio operator at the fence about the sniper’s latest kill when he heard boots on the stairs. Leander led the mortar squad into the TOC. He had the strap of the pith helmet buckled under his chin.
“Alabama, where’s the major?” Leander asked.
“Asleep,” Jackson said. “How’d you get in here?”
“Those guards want to live too. You wake him up.”
“Come back later.”
“Now.”
The others hung back, letting Leander do all of the talking.
“You come back,” Jackson said.
“We’re not leaving until we talk to the major,” Leander said.
Jackson opened the door of the tiny room where Hale slept at the rear of the bunker. Hale was asleep, snoring. But when Jackson whispered his name, Hale sat upright. His body was in darkness, the light from the TOC blocked by Jackson. Jackson heard Hale draw back the bolt on the machine gun.
“Who’s out there?” Hale asked.
“The mortar squad.”
“What do they want?”
“Talk to you, sir.”
“The Tiger again?”
“Don’t know.”
Hale sighed and swung his legs off the cot. He was wearing his boots.
Too scared to sleep with his boots off, Jackson thought. Maybe as scared as me. Hale walked out of the room with the M-60 under his arm, still sleepy, blinking at the light.
“Soldier, don’t you ever come down here again,” Hale said to Leander.
“Tiger gonna kill us all,” Leander said.
“I’ve got patrols out after him,” Hale said.
“What’s Light doing?” Leander asked.
“Shit, how am I supposed to know,” Hale said talking fast.
“You get him to hunting,” Leander said. “He can kill the Tiger.”
“Soldier, you’re going to be out in the bush humping a baseplate if you don’t watch out.”
“I ain’t humping nothing for you,” Leander said.
Here was the mutiny Hale kept worrying about.
“You can be on the next patrol that goes out after the Tiger,” Hale said. “Get out of here. I don’t want to see any of you in here again.”
“You can’t let my men get picked off and do nothing,” Leander said.
“I thought you men were scared of Light?”
“We want him out in the bush hunting, not here.”
“He hasn’t been killing,” Hale said. “Maybe he’s taking a break. The dinks haven’t been fucking with the fence.”
“He knows that fucking fence is going nowhere,” Leander said. “Goddamn fucking generals.”
“That fence is going up, soldier. Don’t matter to the army whether you like it or not,” Hale said, talking fast.
Then he turned to Jackson, “You heard from Light?”
Jackson said, “He talked about going to live with the mountain people. He—”
But a soldier broke in and said, “You get him back, Major.”
“Probably dead,” Hale said.
Leander shook his head and said, “No way to kill Tom Light.”
“Jackson tries to make contact with him every day,” Hale said.
Leander said, “You get Light to kill the Tiger. We’re not gonna get wasted alone.”
“All of you, out!” Hale yelled, his finger on the trigger of the machine gun.
They shuffled their feet, glared at Hale, and left.
“Leander, I see you with that helmet one more time and I’m going to think you’re a gook,” Hale said. “Hope I have an M-60 in my hands.”
“I’d have a better chance of staying alive if I was a dink,” Leander said as he disappeared up the stairs.
“Go out there, you bastard!” Hale shouted after him.
The only reply was the sound of Leander’s boots on the stairs.
Jackson continued to call Light on the radio but received no response. The Tiger began to shoot men digging post holes, and work on the fence stopped. The engineer CO told Hale he was not going to string any more wire until the sniper was flushed out.
Hale sent out patrols to look for Light. Some did not return, and others came back with nothing to report except contact with the enemy. The major posted new guards at the entrance to the TOC. Now Jackson did not like to work in the TOC while the major was there, for he expected the men were going to frag Hale at the first opportunity.
Jackson had just come off pulling a shift on the big radio when the tower guard called to report movement at the big rock. He followed Hale up into the tower.
Hale snatched the glasses out of the tower guard’s hand and through an observation loophole set in the sandbags focused them on the rock.
“Where?” Hale asked.
“Right in front of the big rock, Sir,” the guard replied. “He’s building something. I think it’s Light.”
“It’s a dink,” Hale said.
The guard said, “No sir, Tom Light.”
“By God, it is Light,” Hale said. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Cutting down trees,” the guard replied.
Hale handed the glasses to Jackson and said, “Look, see what your man’s doing.”
Jackson saw Light dragging a small tree across the open space. He stopped and began lopping off branches with a machete.
He was always out there, Jackson thought. That’s why the Tiger didn’t get me.
“What’s he doing?” Hale asked again.
“Don’t know,” Jackson replied.
Hale said, “He’s already run the Tiger back into Laos.”
“Light’ll waste him,” the tower guard said, mounting the fire-step and looking over the top of the sandbags.
Suddenly the guard fell back across the floor like someone had jerked him with a rope, the crack of the rifle reaching them a moment later. Jackson crawled over to the soldier to help but already knew the man was dead.
“He’s finished. See what Light’s doing,” Hale said.
Jackson found he could not move, his breath coming in short gasps.
“Move, soldier,” Hale said.
Jackson crawled over to the loophole. When he picked up the glasses, he hoped they were broken, but they were all right.
“Move!” Hale said.
With one hand, Jackson placed the glasses in the loophole. He expected, hoped, the Tiger would shoot them.
“They can’t look by themselves,” Hale said.
Jackson rose to his knees and turned the knob to focus the glasses on the rock.
“Light still there?” Hale asked.
“Yeah,” Jackson replied.
“What’s he doing?”
“Cutting trees.”
“And the Tiger is killing my men.”
Hale cursed Light long and eloquently.
Light built a hooch, a small hut roofed with leaves. He spent most of his time at the hut sitting in the doorway with his back to the firebase. At night there was a glow from the hut as if he had built a small fire to keep away the mosquitoes. But nobody wanted to look at the hut for long because that meant exposing themselves to fire from the Tiger.
Jackson tried to contact Light on the radio but got no answer, so Hale sent out a patrol to take Light a new walkie-talkie and instruct him to start hunting again. Hale was unable to sit still as he waited for the patrol to make contact with Light. He tried to work at his map tripod but ended up pacing back and forth. Finally the patrol called him on the radio.