If I Die in a Combat Zone Read Online Free Page B

off.
    It didn’t last long.
    A blond-headed soldier ran over when the shooting ended. “Jesus, I got me a hunk of grenade shrapnel in my fuckin hand,” he said. He sucked the wound. It didn’t seem bad.
    Mad Mark inspected the cut under a flashlight. “Will it kill you before morning?”
    “Nope, I guess not. Have to get a tetanus shot, I suppose. Christ, those tetanus shots hurt don’t they?”
    As it turned out, the fire fight had not been a fire fight. The blond soldier and a few others had been bored. Bored all day. Bored that night. So they’d synchronized watches, set a time, agreed to toss hand grenades outside our perimeter at 2200 sharp, and when 2200 came, they did it, staging the battle. They shouted and squealed and fired their weapons and threw hand grenades and had a good time, making noise, scaring hell out of everyone. Something to talk about in the morning.
    “Great little spat,” they said the next day, slyly.
    “Great?” I couldn’t believe it.
    “Ah, you know. Little action livens up everything, right? Gets the ol’ blood boiling.”
    “You crazy?”
    “Mad as a hatter.”
    “You like getting shot, for God’s sake? You like Charlie trying to chuck grenades into your foxhole? You like that stuff?”
    “Some got it, some don’t. Me, I’m mad as a hatter.”
    “Don’t let him shit you,” Chip said. “That whole thing last night was a fake. They planned it, beginning to end.”
    “Except for old Turnip Head getting a piece of his own grenade,” Bates said. “They didn’t plan that.” Bates walked along beside me, the platoon straggled out across a wide rice paddy. “Turnip Head threw his grenade and it hit a tree and bounced right back at him. Lucky he didn’t blow his head off.”
    Chip shook his head. He was a short, skinny soldier from Orlando, Florida, a black guy. “Me, I don’t take chances like that. You’re right, they’re nutty,” he said.
    We walked along. Forward with the left leg, plant the foot, lock the knee, arch the ankle. Push the leg into the paddy, stiffen the spine. Let the war rest there atop the left leg: the rucksack, the radio, the hand grenades, the magazines of golden ammo, the rifle, the steel helmet, the jingling dogtags, the body’s own fat and water and meat, the whole contingent of warring artifacts and flesh. Let it all perch there, rocking on top of the left leg, fastened and tied and anchored by latches and zippers and snaps and nylon cord.
    Packhorse for the soul. The left leg does it all. Scolded and trained. The left leg stretches with magnificent energy, long muscle. Lumbers ahead. It’s the strongest leg, the pivot. The right leg comes along, too, but only a companion. The right leg unfolds, swings out, and the right foot touches the ground for a moment, just quickly enough to keep pace with the left, then it weakens and raises on the soil a pattern of desolation.
    Arms move about, taking up the rhythm.
    Eyes sweep the rice paddy. Don’t walk there, too soft. Not there, dangerous, mines. Step there and there and there, not there, step there and there and there, careful, careful, watch. Green ahead. Green lights, go. Eyes roll in the sockets. Protect the legs, no chances, watch for the fuckin’ snipers, watch for ambushes and punji pits. Eyes roll about, looking for mines and pieces of stray cloth and bombs and threads and things. Never blink the eyes, tape them open.
    The stomach is on simmer, low flame. Fire down inside, down in the pit, just above the balls.
    “Watch where you sit, now,” the squad leader said. We stopped for shade. “Eat up quick, we’re stopping for five minutes, no more.”
    “Five minutes? Where’s the whips and chains?” Bates picked a piece of ground to sit on.
    “Look,” the squad leader sighed. “Don’t get smart ass. I take orders, you know. Sooner we get to the night position, sooner we get resupplied, sooner we get to sleep, sooner we get this day over with. Sooner everything.” The squad