“Can I learn how you do it?” Jackson asked.
“Do what?”
“Stay alive.”
“No, you can’t learn. I’m the only one who knows about staying alive. Been doing it since Tet.”
So Light was not going to teach him his secret, Jackson thought. But Light had promised to keep him alive. That was what mattered.
“How often will you be coming in?” Jackson asked.
“After seven kills,” Light replied. “I don’t want to wait that long. I promised Mama I’d write. If I don’t, she’ll worry. Won’t help her heart. I want to know how she’s doing. We’ll meet out in the bush.”
Jackson took one deep breath, thinking that he would not be able to breathe again. Light waited patiently for him to speak.
“I’m not going out there,” Jackson finally said after what seemed to him like a long time, aware that Light was pretending not to notice that he was gasping for air.
“I can’t do much for you here,” Light said. Then he laughed softly. “But out in the bush ’less you step on a cobra snake or a tiger eats you, harm won’t come to you,” he continued. “I guarantee it.”
“Be dead just the same,” Jackson said, who did not think the threat of tigers or cobras was funny.
“I told you I’ll keep you alive. Before I’m out there a week, the dinks’ll be scared shitless of me. I work at night with the starlight. No more to it than spotlighting deer.”
“Why should I go out there? I’ll get blown away.”
“I already told you. When the major goes out in the bad bush, you go with him. But if you write my letters, I’ll look after you. Keep you alive.”
“I’ll take the chance he won’t go.”
“He’ll go. Lifers can’t make rank sitting in camp. We’ll pick us a frequency. Every night after it gets dark, set the radio and wait.”
“Major Hale won’t let me out of the wire.”
“Volunteer for a listening post. Tell him you’re itching to see the shit. Remember, without me you’re gone. Wait until after tonight. You’ll see. They’ll hit us tonight and men’ll die. I saw it in the starlight. I’ll keep you alive.”
“How did you see?”
“I saw it.”
He’s crazy and so am I for listening to him, Jackson thought.
“You’ll get me wasted,” Jackson said.
But as Jackson spoke he wished he could have the words back, for Light’s face had gone rigid.
“Young trooper, you can’t spend the war panting like a worn-out hound every time a little incoming falls,” Light said in the same tone he had used in his argument with Hale.
“I got a right to be scared,” Jackson said.
“Being scared’ll kill you quick as not giving a shit,” the sniper said.
Then off on the ridge below the camp Jackson saw a flash followed by the fiery trail of a rocket. “Rocket!” someone shouted. Jackson heard the men running for the bunkers. He started down the steps.
“No need for that,” Light said.
Jackson paid no attention to Light, but then he felt Light’s hand on his arm.
“Sit,” Light said.
And crouching on the steps, gasping for breath, Jackson watched the rocket fall near the TOC, followed by an explosion that shook the firebase.
“See, you’re safe as a rabbit in the briars,” Light said.
“We’ve been hit with rockets before,” Jackson said.
“I knew it wasn’t going to hit us,” Light said. “You won’t ever know.”
And Light was right, Jackson thought to himself. He had never known. Light knew.
“I’m going to sleep. Don’t sleep much out in the bush. Why this place is better than a weekend in Memphis,” Light said.
Jackson sat on the other cot in the dark and listened to Light’s slow, regular breathing. Then the camp began to take mortar rounds, and Jackson heard the thump of the incoming and the replying fire from the firebase’s mortars. Jackson discovered to his amazement that he was breathing easy for the first time during an attack. Light slept soundly through it all.
After the attack was over, he decided to take a look at the rifle, especially the starlight scope Light used to predict the attack.
But maybe Light had only guessed that the firebase would take rounds as it did every night. That was a prediction everyone at the firebase made each night, that incoming would fall on someone else. Yet Light had survived all the ambushes and firefights when other men had died, and the trick to it might be in the scope, a secret Light wanted to keep to himself.
Carefully shielding the flashlight with his hand, he walked over to the cot where Light was sleeping on his side with his back to the rifle.
As Jackson unwrapped the poncho, he kept one eye on Light who still slept peacefully. But as he lifted the rifle off the cot, Light rolled over on his back. Jackson froze, waiting for the sniper’s blue eyes to pop open. Muttering something, Light rolled back over and returned to a deep sleep.
Jackson took the rifle and went up out of the bunker. All the stars were out, but there was no moon. That was OK. The scope would gather enough light to work. He switched on the scope, put the rifle to his shoulder, and pressed his eye to the neoprene eyepiece, the rubber making the scope smell like the snorkeling mask he used at Pensacola every summer. Though the camp was in complete darkness, he could see everything: bunkers, the guard tower, a soldier at a piss tube, all with a green, undersea tint, little sparkles of white light playing around the edges of the outlines.
Mortar rounds began to fall on the firebase again. Flares went up and Jackson turned the scope on one. The glare blinded him. A round hit very close and shrapnel whistled overhead. But he was afraid to move until he could see. He flattened himself out against the sandbags and tried to focus his eyes, gasping for breath. Sparkles of green and purple light appeared before his eyes. He could imagine his death clearly, one round falling on his head, then nothing.
When he could see again, he crawled back down into the bunker. He struggled to breathe, sitting with his back against the wall of the bunker and pressing his hands to his chest. Suddenly the big end of the scope began to glow and an image formed as if on a TV screen. More rounds began to fall, but mesmerized by the green glow of the scope, he remained on the steps trying to make out the image through the dust.
In the scope a soldier Jackson had never seen before walked on a jungle trail. As the soldier stepped over a fallen log, he disappeared in the smoke of an explosion. A mine. Then the image faded and was gone, leaving Jackson gasping for breath and wondering if he had seen anything at all.
The rounds stopped falling. He went down into the bunker and wrapped the rifle back up in the poncho. This time Light did not stir, asleep on his stomach, one arm dangling off the edge of the cot, his breathing smooth and even.
Later Jackson went to sleep in his flak jacket, expecting to be awakened by another attack. He woke suddenly, but there was no thump of incoming. Light’s wooden cot frame creaked, and he realized Light was awake. Pointing the flashlight toward the sound, he saw Light sitting crosslegged on the cot, cleaning the rifle that lay scattered in pieces about him.
“Turn that goddamn thing off!” Light said.
Jackson switched off the flashlight.
“What’d you see in it, young trooper?” Light asked.
Jackson thought about lying but decided against it. Again he found he could not speak, listening to the heavy sound of his own breathing. He could not see Light.
“Talk, goddamn you!” Light said.
“The bunkers, the wire,” Jackson said, the words coming out in a rush.
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“What the fuck did you see?”
The C-rations Jackson had eaten that evening tried to rise out of his stomach, but although he tasted bile, he managed to keep them down. There was nothing to stop Light from killing him for touching the rifle.