Free War Baby by Colin Falconer Page B

also.’
    ‘Where did he go?’
    ‘Everywhere.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘He was with an ARVN company in the Delta. The guy in front of him stepped on a three-hundred-pound mine, man. They say there wasn’t enough left of him to fit into a helmet.’
    ‘Oh, Christ.’
    ‘He didn’t have to be here. None of us has to be here.’ He blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘Oh, man, I am going to miss him, though.’
    Webb threw his duffel bag and cameras on the bed. He sat down, took the joint from Crosby and drew on it.
    ‘We moved your gear into Cochrane’s pad. If I rotate or step on a mine, the AC is yours.’
    ‘I can live without air conditioning.’
    ‘Easy to say this time of year.’ He leaned forward. Webb could make out the thready streaks of the capillaries in his eyes. ‘Ryan sure was pissed about Prescott. Said he owed him three hundred bucks and now he’ll never collect.’
    ‘Three hundred bucks? What for?’
    ‘The nun, man. That bastard, he really made it with the nun!’
     
    * * *
     
    Webb hitched a ride out to Bien Hoa, got there just before sunset. He walked across the compound to the hospital. The tech from Georgia was busy changing wound dressings. Webb asked him where he could find Mickey, was told she was still over at the ER.
    There was an orderly row of body bags outside the Emergency Room, laid out under a scraggly banana palm. Webb felt sullied just walking past them as if they were just so much cordwood. He felt an insane impulse to salute, to bow his head, anything but just ignore them. They should get some respect, he thought, whatever good it would do them now.
    It was quiet inside; the afternoon’s casualties had been processed, two nurses were monitoring the last of the post-ops. Webb found Mickey in another room with the expectants - those too badly wounded to save. There was just one soldier left in there; he still had his fatigues and jungle boots on, his head was swathed in so many blood-soaked bandages that it appeared to be almost twice its normal size. Mickey stood next to the gurney, holding his hand.
    She saw Webb in the doorway. ‘Another day in paradise,’ she said. She looked down at the boy on the litter. ‘We gave him one hundred and twenty units of blood. In the end he had so much new blood in him it just wouldn’t clot. Now his whole head is leaking.’
    She doesn’t have to do this, Webb thought. The kid would be snowed with so much morphine he wouldn’t even know she was there.
    ‘It’s not long now.’
    ‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said.
     
    * * *
     
    When she came out, the quick tropical dark had fallen. There were flashes on the horizon, and Webb could feel the shaking underfoot as the B-52s carpet-bombed the jungle near the Cambodian border. Lights blazed on the apron as a Chinook dropped down from the night.
    ‘Well. Long time no see.’
    ‘Been up at Pleiku and the Highlands.’
    ‘Get around, huh?’
    ‘You know how it is. You have to hustle or you can miss some of the war.’ He had meant it as a joke and it came out sounding hollow. ‘You okay?’
    ‘Sure. Walk me to the mess hall?’ She reached for his hand, gripped it. ‘So. How have you been?’
    ‘Cold and wet and muddy. How about you?’
    ‘Hot and dry and clean. Want to change places?’
    He thought about the young soldier in the expectants’ room. ‘Not really.’
    ‘I got thirty-three days and a wake-up to go.’
    He felt relieved for her, disappointed for himself. He couldn’t see her face in the darkness and he wished he could. She stopped walking. ‘Hugh, this isn’t a good idea.’
    ‘What isn’t?’
    ‘You and me.’
    He felt sick. He knew whatever she wanted to say he didn’t want to hear. ‘I thought... I thought we were kind of good for each other.’
    ‘Yeah, I feel that way too. But you know what’s going to happen next. I’m going to get feelings for you, not just when I’m horny, the other stuff, the stuff guys like you hate. Then before you know it, I’m back in