Matterhorn_ A Novel of the Vietnam War Part 16

Mellas turned to look at Hamilton. 'Hi, Lieutenant,' he says.' He shook his head and turned to Robertson. 'See anything?' he asked.

Robertson shook his head, obviously unfazed by Mellas's sarcastic tone. 'I got the feeling, though, that they're just in front of us keeping tabs somehow.'

Mellas became serious. 'Why do you feel that?'

'I don't know. Little things. I just feel it.'

Mellas reached for the handset. 'Bravo Six, this is Bravo One Actual. We checked out negative up here. I'll be rotating squads and then we'll be moving. I'm sending Arran back. Pat's done and we'll have big Victor'-he meant Vancouver-'on point anyway. Over.' Fitch acknowledged and Mellas stood up in the trail. 'Pa.s.s the word back for Conman's squad to move up. You guys take tail-end Charlie,' he told Jake. 'Tell Arran to wait on the CP group.'

Pretty soon Vancouver's large frame could be seen moving up the trail, his modified M-60 hanging from his neck. Connolly was just two men behind him. Mellas told the lead fire team and Connolly about the situation and the need for haste. 'But don't go any faster than feels OK, Vancouver,' he added. 'I don't care how much of a hurry the colonel is in to move his little pins in the map.'

'I got you, sir.'

Vancouver stared down the trail, constantly scanning it, his eyes jerking with tension. Walking down a trail to save time, he knew, was an invitation for an ambush. Also, Robertson had smelled something. He was a good fire team leader and had been around a while. If Robertson was being cautious, there was good reason. But on point there are always good reasons to be cautious, even if there's no hurry. The point man is all alone. It makes no difference if there's a fire team or an entire battalion behind him. He sees no one-only shadows. At every turn lurks the possible ambush-and the point man is the first to go. Or, if the ambushers are particularly successful, they let the point man by and cut him off when they open up on the lieutenant and the radio operator. It's like walking a hundred feet up on a bending two-by-four with the wind blowing in sporatic gusts from different directions. There's no help. No rope. No friend to lean on. The point man is also blindfolded by the jungle. His ears are confused by every tiny sound behind him, obscuring the one sound that might save him. He wants to scream for the whole world to shut up. His hands sweat, making him worry that he won't be able to pull the trigger. He wants to p.i.s.s even if he just p.i.s.sed five minutes ago. His heart thumps in his throat and chest. He waits out the eternity before the squad leader says it's time to rotate back into safety.

Vancouver stopped thinking. Fear and exposure drove thought from his head. Only survival remained.

It was the oddly bent piece of bamboo about ten meters down the trail that caused the rush of dread that saved him. Vancouver dropped to his knees and opened up. The roar of the machine gun and the spewing of hot casings turned the silent world of the jungle upside down. Everything was motion-Marines rolling off the trail, seeking cover in the foliage, scrambling, praying, crawling for their lives. Vancouver saw only shadows, but the shadows were screaming back at him with AK-47 automatic rifles. Bullets spun past him in the trail, kicking up mud, churning the place where the Marines had been a split second before. Connolly rolled into the brush, coming faceup on his back, his M-16 clutched to his chest. He was holding his fire, just as they had discussed so many times.

The sawed-off M-60 stopped firing. The belt had run out. Vancouver dived for the side of the trail, and Connolly rolled over into it on his stomach. He let loose on automatic just as an NVA soldier emerged from the wall of jungle to finish Vancouver off. Connolly's bullets caught the NVA soldier full in the chest and face. The back of the man's head exploded. Connolly rolled over again, fumbling wildly for another magazine. An M-16 opened up on Vancouver's right, almost on top of him, the bullets screaming past his right ear. Then another M-16 followed almost immediately to his left. Vancouver was crawling backward, along with Connolly, as fast as he could. Connolly was pushing a second magazine into place, shouting for Mole. 'Gun up! Gun up! Mole! G.o.dd.a.m.n it!'

Vancouver pulled another belt of ammunition from the metal box on his chest and slapped it into the gun's receiver. He heard Connolly shouting for Gambaccini, the M-79 man, and Rider, his first fire team leader. He saw the lieutenant, who'd moved forward and was shouting something at Hamilton and reloading a magazine himself. Then Gambaccini popped up and let loose with a grenade over Vancouver's head. There was a crashing sound in the brush to his left. He almost fired, but it was Rider moving his team up; all four were abreast and to the left of the trail in the jungle. They began laying down disciplined fire, pouring bullets into the unseen enemy.

To Mellas, the whole thing happened so quickly that he didn't even remember thinking. There was the sudden burst of Vancouver's machine gun, and Mellas dived for the ground and immediately started crawling forward to find out what was happening. Automatically, he started shouting for Mole to get the gun up front and heard the command being relayed back down the line. Fitch's excited voice was screaming over the radio. Mellas shouted at Hamilton-'Tell him I don't know. I don't know'-and crawled furiously forward.

He had just crawled around a bend in the trail when Vancouver's gun stopped and he saw Connolly roll out, firing in front of him while Vancouver was scrambling backward. Mellas shoved his face into the dirt just behind Vancouver's right knee, poked his rifle blindly down the trail, and opened up over Vancouver's head. Almost simultaneously, it seemed, the M-79 grenade launcher shot off a solid thump that sent a round of flechettes down the trail. Then a whole fire team crashed through the jungle on his left and opened up on full automatic. All this time, Connolly was also shouting for Mole and the machine gun, crawling backward.

Mole came scrambling up the trail, gun cradled in his arms, crawling crablike, awkwardly, but very fast. His A gunner, Young, the only white kid in the machine-gun teams except for Hippy, crawled behind him, dragging the heavy steel boxes of machine-gun belts. Mole slammed the gun down on its bipod just off the trail and immediately started laying disciplined bursts of fire down the dark green corridor. Tracers sped down the tunnel of jungle like the taillights of receding cars. Young crawled up next to the barrel, fresh belt in hand, eyes wide with fear, ready to reload.

Mellas rolled back and grabbed the hook from Hamilton, panting for air. 'Ambush. I knew this f.u.c.king trail. Death trap. Vancouver spotted them. Before we got into the kill zone. I think they dee-deed. Over.'

'Casualties? Over.'

'That's a neg. Over.'

'Thank G.o.d,' Fitch replied, forgetting radio procedure.

Mellas was quivering with excitement and with a strange exultation, as if his team had just won a football championship. No casualties. He'd done well. It was over too quickly, though. Somehow, it should be prolonged. He wanted to tell Fitch and Hawke all about it. He wanted to go running down the long line of excited Marines, telling the story of the fight over and over again. They'd broken up an ambush. His platoon. Killed two, maybe three of the enemy, and suffered not a scratch. A perfect job.

'Bravo Six, this is Bravo One. Over.'

'Bravo Six,' Fitch answered.

'We need artillery,' Mellas pleaded excitedly. 'The G.o.dd.a.m.ned gooners are dee-deeing right out of the f.u.c.king area. Where's the G.o.dd.a.m.n mortars? Let's get get some.' some.'

'Roger that, Bravo One. Character Delta's working up an arty mission right now. It's a little hard on the mortar squad to fire sh.e.l.ls into the tree limbs over their heads. You copy? Over.' Mellas was too excited to notice Fitch's sarcasm.

He crawled over to where Connolly was lying beside Mole, peering down the shadowy trail. Connolly, too, was quivering and breathing hard. Vancouver was to Connolly's left, and Rider's fire team to the left of Vancouver, pulled back now in echelon, forming the left side of a wedge. The rest of the squad, without being told, had formed the right side of the wedge at the head of the column to get maximum fire in the direction of the ambush but still allow fire to their sides to protect their flanks.

'I think they drug the body away, sir,' Connolly said. 'Just as we was crawling back, I thought I caught some movement. Did you see them?'

'Yeah,' Mellas lied, without intending to. 'You're right.' In his imagination, fueled by the excitement, this mention of an NVA soldier pulling a body back into the cover of the jungle was enough to convince him that he'd actually seen it happen. 'Why doesn't the skipper send a platoon around in an envelopment?' he asked, staring down the trail.

Connolly looked at Mellas. 'In this s.h.i.t?'

Mellas stopped gazing straight ahead and looked at Connolly. For some reason, that comment had brought him down. Once more he saw tangled jungle on both sides of a narrow muddy path. 'Yeah, it'd take forever. They'd be sitting ducks. You'd hear them for miles.'

'There it is, sir.'

'Maybe we can get it on with the artillery.' Mellas wanted to keep talking about the incident. 'You're sure about the gook you zapped in the head?' he asked.

'I saw his f.u.c.king face disappear,' Connolly said grimly.

'We'll call it a confirmed, even if we don't have the body. I mean, there's no way the gooner can still be alive. Vancouver must have greased at least another one or two.' Mellas turned to Vancouver. 'Hey, Vancouver, how many you think you got?'

Vancouver looked down at his steaming weapon. 'Jeez, sir, all I saw was f.u.c.king bushes and all this s.h.i.t came flying at me. I maybe hit a couple of them, though.'

'We'll look for blood trails soon as the arty mission's over. But we must have got at least one confirmed and two probables.'

Mellas turned around to where Hamilton was lying with the heavy radio pressing him into the dirt, its small bent antenna waving in the still air. He proudly reported the score. 'Bravo this is One. We got one confirmed up here and two probables. Over.'

'Roger, one confirmed and two probables,' Pallack's voice answered. 'Heads down. I just heard character Delta say shot.' He'll be working it in close. Over.'

'Incoming,' Mellas called out in a loud voice. 'Friendly incoming.'

He looked around to see if his men were reasonably safe. Then it occurred to him that everybody already had his head down and had been that way for the past three minutes. He buried his own head in the earth as the first anguished scream of the 105s came through the sky from Eiger.

It was again Third Squad's turn to take point. They handed off Williams's body to Second Squad and moved quietly forward. Cortell kept taking his helmet off and putting it on, rubbing his high, glistening forehead. Everyone hurried through the would-be kill zone, breathing a thank-you for Vancouver's eyes and reaction time.

Jackson found two rice cakes hanging from a man's b.l.o.o.d.y web belt that had been removed and tossed beside the trail. He happily stuffed them into his large trouser pockets, as all of his squad's food was gone. He quickly cut the bra.s.s buckle with its red star from the belt, knowing it would bring some good money from souvenir hunters in Da Nang, and pa.s.sed it back to Vancouver. A little farther down the trail they found a b.l.o.o.d.y cap. That also was pa.s.sed back to Vancouver, who silently gave it to Connolly. Connolly stuffed it into his pocket.

Mellas's whole body was zinging. His hands quivered. He started at nearly every noise and talked too rapidly, and too much, on the radio. He kept mentally replaying the scene, wondering how he could have reacted faster and killed more of them, wondering if Connolly was aware that, while he was changing magazines, Mellas had saved him by firing. He wondered if people outside the company would hear about his action and how his platoon had succeeded when Alpha Company had lost so many in a similar ambush. He remained charged up until they reached the ammunition dump that afternoon as the light began to fade from the gray sky.

At the dump, Mellas was bitterly disappointed.

He couldn't believe that all the reports he'd read about the Air Force and Navy destroying bunkers had referred to what he saw before him: three large holes dug in the dank ground, covered with logs and earth.

Inside the three bunkers were ten 120-millimeter rockets, several hundred 82-millimeter mortar sh.e.l.ls, eighty small 61-millimeter mortar sh.e.l.ls, enough AK-47 ammunition to supply a platoon for one firefight, and a few medical supplies donated by the English Red Cross.

Hawke seemed strangely happy. He broke into the hawk dance, then climbed on top of one of the bunkers and tossed bandage rolls in the air like streamers, shouting at the top of his lungs, 'The f.u.c.king English! I knew it was the f.u.c.king English behind this war!' He laughed and tossed another bandage, looping it in the trees. The whiteness looked out of place against the dark canopy.

The company mostly shrugged at the Jayhawk's antics. Ca.s.sidy organized a work party, and soon the ammunition was hauled into a pit where he, Samms, Ba.s.s, and Ridlow joyfully collaborated in blowing it up.

Everyone buried his head in the earth and they set off the charge. There was a tremendous explosion, but not even a quarter of the ammunition went off. The rest twisted skyward, tumbling end over end, and scattered across the area. The kids booed. Ca.s.sidy laughed and immediately put the booers to work collecting the ammunition. The Marines on the work detail grumbled. 'We must have the only f.u.c.king lifers in the Crotch that can't blow up a f.u.c.king ammo dump.' They waited for an hour to make sure there were no cook-offs in the pit and once more set the charges. This time they covered the ammo with rocks and earth to contain the explosion.

The platoon sergeants themselves were laughing about the incongruity of the situation. Most people would think they couldn't light a match around an ammo dump without setting it off. Basically, everyone was happy. They would probably clear an LZ the next morning and sky out by afternoon, their mission accomplished with no casualties other than Williams.

Mellas, however, felt a curious malaise, anxiety, and an emptiness beyond hunger-he had been on half rations for five days and had eaten nothing at all today. Four thoughts kept hammering at him. First, how could the English, seemingly the most civilized of people, the people with whom they'd fought side by side against the n.a.z.is, be aiding their enemy, the North Vietnamese Army? Every penny that the North Vietnamese saved by receiving donations could be spent on ammunition that could kill him. Every life saved was a life that could kill him, too. Mellas felt betrayed. Second, he was still trying to reconcile those tiny log-covered pits referred to as bunkers with the images in his mind of bombs smashing concrete and steel, the Siegfried Line, the Guns of Navarone Guns of Navarone. Third, why in h.e.l.l had they walked all this way, sacrificed Williams, and nearly killed the entire First Squad but for Vancouver's uncommon alertness, for no more ammunition than could be hauled off with a couple of trucks?

These thoughts nagged at him as he struggled to dig his hole for the night. When he finished, he sat down to face the fourth question. Should he make his last cup of coffee now or in the morning? The platoon was just about out of food. He decided to wait. He went off to find Hawke and Fitch to talk about medals for the action, half hoping that maybe he'd get one, too, but at the same time realizing that all he'd really done was show up for the party. He also hoped Hawke and Fitch would be fixing coffee.

Fitch was on the hook with the Three, who had questions of his own-to which Fitch had the wrong answers.

'I was informed that there were three ammunition bunkers in this complex. These numbers you've given us just don't jibe. Over.'

Fitch took a deep breath and looked at Hawke before answering. Pallack rolled his eyes.

'That's affirmative. Three bunkers. We got them all. The numbers you got are everything that's in them. They're little little bunkers. Over.' bunkers. Over.'

'I copy.' There was a burst of static as Blakely released his transmitting b.u.t.ton. Fitch waited nervously. Static burst out again. 'Stand by for a frag order, Bravo Six. Over.'

'Roger your last. Bravo Six out.'

'A fragment order on the original?' Mellas asked, uneasy about any change. 'Does that mean we're not skying out tomorrow?'

Fitch shrugged. 'Maybe something to do with Delta Company over the ridge. h.e.l.l, we can't go far with everyone out of food.'

'Not quite everyone,' Hawke said, digging into the side pocket of his utility trousers. He held up a single can of apricots. Everyone looked at it longingly. 'And I ain't opening it.' Hawke stuffed it back into his pocket. 'I got a bad feeling about that frag order.'

At the regimental briefing that afternoon, Major Adams was particularly snappy. Whap Whap. 'And at coordinates 768671, elements of Bravo One Twenty-Four destroyed the ammunition dump uncovered by Alpha Company and believed to be one of the supply sources for elements of the Three Hundred Twelfth steel division now known to be operating in our TAOR. Approximately five tons of ammunition consisting of one-hundred-twenty-millimeter rockets, small arms and automatic weapons ammunition, and mortar rounds were destroyed along with approximately one thousand pounds of medical supplies.'

'Better leave the medical supplies out of the report,' Mulvaney said. 'No sense getting somebody riled up about destroying medical supplies.' Somehow the public felt it was OK to kill men with tumbling bullets and flaming jelly, but to kill them by denying them medical supplies was against some societal notion of decency.

'Aye, aye, sir,' Adams answered.

Mulvaney turned stiffly in his chair to look back at Colonel Simpson and Major Blakely, who were seated behind him. 'Maybe you do have some gooks out there, Simpson,' he said.

Blakely smiled and looked up at Adams, whose face revealed a twinge of jealousy. Mulvaney turned back to face the briefing officer. He was trying to figure how many men and how long it would take to haul five tons to such a remote location. Through terrain like that, it was quite an accomplishment. He had to admire the North Vietnamese Army. But why were they stacking ammunition there? Was it a way station for moving the ammunition farther south? They could hit Hue again. Now that would be a f.u.c.king propaganda disaster. Let the politicians chew on that for a while. But then they might also be preparing a move in force straight across Mutter's Ridge, where they'd control Route 9 and then starve out VCB. Now that they'd abandoned Matterhorn to get enough troops to do the stupid f.u.c.king Cam Lo political operation, that would be what he'd do if he were a gook. He suddenly felt, in the middle of his back, the uneasiness that had saved him so often in Korea and the Pacific. Then he noticed Major Adams waiting nervously to continue, sighed, and nodded his large head. He couldn't cover everywhere.

Whap. The pointer moved to the left, three-quarters of an inch, the distance it had taken Bravo Company half a day to move. 'As the colonel is aware, Bravo made point-to-point contact with an undetermined-size unit of North Vietnamese Infantry at grid coordinates 735649 earlier today. Two confirmed kills and three probables with no casualties suffered by Bravo Company. The bodies were searched with negative findings.'

Mulvaney turned to look at Blakely and Simpson. 'Someone must have really been on their toes out there,' he said. 'Was it a point-to-point or an ambush?' In fact Mulvaney already knew that it was the big blond Canadian kid with the sawed-off M-60 who had busted up an ambush. His jeep driver had the story from one of the First Battalion radio operators. Bravo's skipper must have been in an awful hurry to be barrel-a.s.sing down a trail another company had already been hit on. That young lieutenant was was lucky. Probably hadn't learned when to charge and when not to. Mulvaney would have to talk to him about it if he got the chance. lucky. Probably hadn't learned when to charge and when not to. Mulvaney would have to talk to him about it if he got the chance.

Simpson cleared his throat, his face reddening. 'In answer to your question, sir, Bravo's point man apparently fired first and the lead squad pulled back and set up. We called it a point-to-point contact because it seemed the most conservative.'

Mulvaney grunted and turned to endure the remainder of the briefing. Why in f.u.c.k Simpson should worry about breaking up an ambush was beyond him.

After suffering through hearing the Navy doctor tell how many Marines went through his sick bay, the congressional inquiries officer tell how many letters he'd handled from upset congressmen responding to letters from upset mothers and wives, and the Red Cross liaison man tell about dependents who were not getting pay allotments, Mulvaney could finally rise from his chair to address his officers.

'As you already know, gentlemen, the Fifth Marine Division continues to be involved in a combined cordon and search operation with the First ARVN Division. Our major objective, as you also know, continues to be Cam Lo.' Mulvaney turned to the large map and began outlining the next day's plan of the ongoing operation, all the while feeling that somehow he had let his regiment down. Working with the G.o.dd.a.m.ned gooks wasn't his idea of fighting a war, particularly when all that would probably happen was a few old political scores would get settled in Cam Lo. Some SEAL teams had been operating in the villages for several years now, a.s.sa.s.sinating 'known Vietcong leaders,' but where the f.u.c.k did that that information come from? Supposedly from the CIA, but then none of those spooks were hanging out in the villages. Christ, they're all six-foot-two white boys from Yale. So where did the spooks get their information? Probably from one of the d.a.m.ned secret societies who were just fingering a leader of another secret society over the control of some drug market and getting their dirty work done courtesy of the United States Navy. Any Vietcong leadership, if the Vietcong existed in any force there at all after their buddies from the north set them up to be obliterated by American firepower during Tet, would be long gone by the time all the security leaks from the ARVN trickled down. Yes, Mulvaney mused, power in the secret societies would definitely shift after Cam Lo, and the spooks would be played for suckers, and his Marines would pay the price. He wanted to kick the CIA's a.s.s and break the f.u.c.king ARVN's scrawny necks. information come from? Supposedly from the CIA, but then none of those spooks were hanging out in the villages. Christ, they're all six-foot-two white boys from Yale. So where did the spooks get their information? Probably from one of the d.a.m.ned secret societies who were just fingering a leader of another secret society over the control of some drug market and getting their dirty work done courtesy of the United States Navy. Any Vietcong leadership, if the Vietcong existed in any force there at all after their buddies from the north set them up to be obliterated by American firepower during Tet, would be long gone by the time all the security leaks from the ARVN trickled down. Yes, Mulvaney mused, power in the secret societies would definitely shift after Cam Lo, and the spooks would be played for suckers, and his Marines would pay the price. He wanted to kick the CIA's a.s.s and break the f.u.c.king ARVN's scrawny necks.

'Simpson,' he said. 'I'm going to have to disappoint you. We'll have to abandon the Matterhorn area for good. I can't afford to give up any of Mutter's Ridge. Lookout and Sherpa keep me covered in the Khe Sanh region. Division wants a new fire support base opened at Hill 1609 just beneath Tiger's Tooth. We'll have to bring in those two companies in the Matterhorn area and then send one of them out close enough to open 1609.'

'But, sir.' Simpson stood up, excited, already believing the numbers he'd 'estimated' for his report. 'We're just beginning to find what's really up there.' He turned to look to Blakely for support.

Blakely didn't miss his cue. 'I'm sure the regimental commander realizes,' Blakely began, 'that with the latest findings of Bravo Company, combined with the intelligence estimates of division, there's a high probability that the NVA is becoming quite active in the far northwest. It would be a real shame after having given those reports to division to have no follow-through on them.'

Mulvaney almost exploded. The last G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing on his mind was following up on some f.u.c.king report he'd turned in to division. Then he remembered his wife. He counted to five. Then he counted five more.

His mind went back to that night at Camp Lejeune-it must have been 1954 or 1955; he was still a captain in any case; he had Alpha Company, Second Marines. Maizy had come back from bridge with Neitzel's wife, Dorothy, and some of her cronies. Neitzel was already a major and was heading for Amphibious Warfare School and a big staff job. Mulvaney had been painting the living room, little James slung in a beach towel hanging from his neck.

'My G.o.d, Mike,' Maizy said. 'You're getting paint all over him-and the fumes. The girls' bedroom must be full of them.' She was smiling and shaking her head, at the same time removing her impeccable white gloves and placing them where they always resided, in her grandmother's crystal bowl, the only thing she had ever inherited. She grabbed the ap.r.o.n that always hung on the kitchen door hook, and tossed it over her shoulder to protect her only suit. She took the baby from him. 'Wouldn't sleep again?' she asked.

'Eeyep.'

'Girls go to bed on time?'

'Eeyep.'

'Can you put the roller down?'

'Uh-oh. Serious scuttleb.u.t.t.' He put the roller in the tray and watched her watching little James so that she wouldn't have to look him in the eye. He knew that she never wanted to hurt his feelings, but he also knew that she didn't shirk from delivering bad news if it meant a better life for her kids. That same drive had her memorizing bidding rules, with him quizzing her from a book while she ironed clothes so she 'wouldn't make a d.a.m.ned fool of herself in front of the other wives.' That same anxiety had also had her agonizing with her sister at Christmastime about what suit to buy when she had first been invited to the bridge table, as if her sister knew more about suits than Maizy did because she worked in a real office.

'Dorothy Neitzel did it as a favor, so I don't want you to take it in the wrong way. She really is trying to help.'

He watched her glance up at him and then quickly back down at James. 'Help how?' Might as well get it over.

'You know, what do you guys call it, back-channel communication.'

'Gossip.'

She laughed. 'That's what we we call it.' Then she looked at him seriously. 'Oh, Mikey,' she said, her eyes pleading. 'Dorothy says you stood up for that awful alcoholic First Sergeant Hanford who got caught trying to divert base water to some sort of . . . some sort of swimming hole or something that he'd dug out with a bulldozer that he'd, what do you call it, requisitioned, from the engineering battalion without asking them for it. We call that stealing.' call it.' Then she looked at him seriously. 'Oh, Mikey,' she said, her eyes pleading. 'Dorothy says you stood up for that awful alcoholic First Sergeant Hanford who got caught trying to divert base water to some sort of . . . some sort of swimming hole or something that he'd dug out with a bulldozer that he'd, what do you call it, requisitioned, from the engineering battalion without asking them for it. We call that stealing.'

'It gets G.o.dd.a.m.ned hot in those stupid squad bays, and those kids loved it. I told the colonel that all Hanford needed was an off-the-record chewing out. Instead they busted him. He's got four kids. All he was doing was looking out for the troops. You know what I told you that day you picked me up from the hospital.'

'Yes, I know. That you'd always take the side of the bush Marine.' She sighed. 'Mikey, of course you're right, but on that very same day, in my father's 1939 Chevy-I was driving because your leg still wouldn't work from Okinawa-I told you that there might be times that you could be a little more circ.u.mspect. You can do a lot more good for your bush Marines as a colonel than as a captain.'

He took a quick G.o.d-help-me look at the ceiling. 'Hanford did the right thing the wrong way. No harm, no foul.'

'The harm, Michael, was telling the colonel that if he ever got his fat a.s.s out of his air-conditioned office he'd understand what Hanford was trying to do.'

Mulvaney tightened his lips and folded his arms across the chest.

'Don't you get stubborn with me, Michael Mulvaney. You were wrong to do it. Can't you think of your own family, your own kids, for once?'

'That's unfair.'

She breathed, softened. 'Yes, it was.' She reached out to touch his arm. 'But Mikey, please, you've got to hold your temper.' His temper had been an issue ever since he'd gotten back from the Pacific. She moved her hand back to the baby. 'Do you want to know what else Dorothy told me?'

'I can't wait.'

'She is doing us a favor, Mikey, for G.o.d's sake.'

Mulvaney sat down on the tarp-covered couch and looked up at her. 'Go ahead. All ready on the firing line.'

She sat down beside him, scrunching sideways, her tight skirt riding up to show the welt of her stocking, something that always distracted Mulvaney. She tugged, unsuccessfully, at the skirt with her right hand, trying to keep James on her shoulder with her left and Mulvaney on task. She solved both problems by putting the baby and the ap.r.o.n across her lap. She pointed a finger at him, eyes merry. 'You are always h.o.r.n.y.'

'So? I'm on the firing line anyway. Shoot me.'