Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel (23 page)

Mopar thought about Tiger—pictured him lying whimpering, wounded, and hungry on some lowland paddy dike. That was too depressing, so he forced himself to think of Sybill Street instead. He tried to picture her going to her mailbox and finding the long, plaintive letter he’d written her on the plane back to Vietnam. Maybe she’d throw it away after reading the first page. Or maybe she’d keep it to show to all her snotty peacecreep friends at school. Mopar was sure that they’d get a big kick out of it, probably be surprised that a Vietnam GI could write at all. He didn’t have any idea what she’d really do with the letter when she got it, but he was sure she would never even try to understand why he’d written it in the first place. Mopar didn’t understand that himself, but he didn’t regret having sent it. Maybe someday he’d see Sybill Street again, but he wasn’t going to waste his time writing her anymore.

It was safer to dream about enemy women than it was to think about a cold-hearted peacecreep like Sybill Street. She was smart, but she wasn’t smart enough to understand about the war. She didn’t understand anything that wasn’t part of her comfortable civilian world. So the hell with her! She could throw the letter away, or she could keep it to amuse her friends. But that was about all she could do. She damn sure couldn’t help anyone get across a valley full of sleeping gooks and up to J. D.’s last ridge-line. So there was no use in thinking about her anymore.

W
OLVERINE HUNKERED DOWN WITH
his headset and tried to get Pappy Stagg on the horn, but after whispering his call sign and waiting for the normal five count, he heard the relay team come on the air instead. After checking back with the rear, they came up with word that the gunship that would be flying air relay for the valley crossing would arrive on station in five minutes. Wolverine had always marveled at how civilian radio stations came in so much more clearly at night, while military transmissions often seemed to get lost between the pushes. He knew that Pappy was down in the operations bunker—as he was every night there was a team in the field—and he had to smile when the relay team warned him not to step in any slit trenches on his crossing. That was Pappy’s message—a private joke, passed on to lighten the tension. Once, two years before, Wolverine had jumped into a field latrine full of green shit and diseased scum. He’d done it for the best of reasons—to avoid being spotted by an NVA sentry—and the story had followed him everywhere in Special Forces. Now the story would probably catch up with him in the Lurp platoon, but Wolverine didn’t really mind. It wasn’t the sort of thing to hurt a man’s reputation—at least not in a reconnaissance unit. Hiding in a field latrine was a hardcore thing to do. And since the NVA sentry had walked right past without seeing him, it had also been the smart thing to do.

After terminating the transmission, Wolverine dug his pill kit and a roll of luminous tape out of his shirt pocket. He shook out five tablets of dex, took one, and passed the others around. He got two of them back, but didn’t try to guess who hadn’t taken them. Next he shook out five codeine pills and passed them around. He got all of these back because no one was bothered by a cough, and it was believed that codeine would dull a man’s senses and make him sleepy. He passed around the tape and made sure that every man put two little tabs of it on the back of his hat, so that the men behind him could see to follow in the dark. The tape wouldn’t be visible at more than a few meters, so the enemy wasn’t likely to spot it, and it was a good thing to have for night movement, when a man always had to worry about losing contact with the rest of the team.

Now they could hear the gunship. It was far away on the other side of the river, circling wide and lazily over the dark hills and cloudy draws along the Laotian border. It could barely be heard over the wind in the trees, but Wolverine and Marvel both got clear commo checks with it off their whip antennas, so it wasn’t too far away. Wolverine hoped the pilot had enough sense to fly high and never circle any one ridge too long. It would be a shame to lose the relay halfway across the valley.

It was time to move out at last. Mopar stood up and shrugged to shift the weight of his rucksack. He ran his thumb over the safety switch of his weapon—just to be sure—then glanced back at Marvel, took a step forward, slipped on a muddy patch of leaves, and had to grab a bush to keep from falling
kerbang
on his ass.

Marvel smothered a giggle, but Schultz snickered out loud. Mopar glowered back at them, then shrugged again and moved out. Anybody could slip at night in the jungle, but only a fool would laugh aloud when it happened, or almost happened, to someone on his own team. Besides, if a man had to slip, now was the time to do it.

Digging in with the edge of his boots to minimize the danger of sliding or pitching forward, Mopar led the team around the bamboo and down the slope. The clouds were growing steadily darker, and the wind was blowing enough to sway the branches and cover the sound of their movement, but Mopar was very careful not to shake the leaves. Every time he brushed up against a low sapling branch he paused to let Marvel come up close, so that he could take the branch with his free hand and avoid having it swing back to slap him in the face.

The high bush and trees slowly gave way to ferns and tall grass, and though the slope was leveling out now and footing was easier to find, the farther into the valley the team went, the harder it was to stay in shadow. Mopar looked up at the sky and sniffed the wind. The clouds were thick and dark and low, but there was no scent of rain.

A lizard croaked off to the right, and someone—Schultz or Gonzales, from the sound of it—snapped a dry bamboo stalk underfoot, but Mopar knew the sound wouldn’t carry far in the grass, so he drove on without stopping.

Thirty meters into the valley, they paused for Wolverine and Marvel to get commo checks with the gunship, and then moved on again. Crouching to keep his eyes level with the top of the grass, and sighting on a crest of ridgeline that loomed up ahead, Mopar led the team northwest, toward the stream that ran through the center of the valley. It was easy movement. The wind had combed the tall grass free of tangles and clumps so that it parted smoothly and fell back in place after each man had passed. Marvel closed up behind Mopar, and Schultz closed up on Wolverine—so close that he trod on his heel—for the grass was high enough to swallow a man and it was safer to bunch up than to risk separating the team. Schultz was walking tall and the two little tabs on the back of his hat were easy to follow. Gonzales was having a fine time on rear security. He was delighted at how the grass closed up behind him and left no visible wake. It was almost like wading through water.

Suddenly Mopar held up his hand and went down on one knee. He could hear voices to his right front, and he glanced back to see if Marvel had heard them too. Marvel had heard them, but he couldn’t understand what was being said. He shrugged and turned up one hand, then looked back at Wolverine. Gonzales and Schultz were hidden in the grass, but Wolverine was still standing. His face was turned toward the sound of the voices, and he appeared to be listening intently.

There were only two men talking, and they were speaking in normal voices—sure sign that they were at ease and unaware that anyone was close enough to hear them. Wolverine took a grenade out of his pouch and straightened the pin, but he didn’t think he’d have to use it. The two enemy soldiers were complaining about their new squad leader, bitching about how he’d sent them out here in the grass away from the stream, just because they’d dozed off in the afternoon’s political lecture. Wolverine had to smile. Troop indoctrination was the same boring bullshit in every army.

For more than an hour the five Lurps waited, watching for fireflies, resisting the impulse to slap mosquitoes, and listening to the crickets chirp and the frogs croak and
rib-it.
The conversation on their right front continued, but only Wolverine could understand it. The enemy soldiers were complaining about their food. The rice was gritty and full of pebbles. Little Phoung had broken a tooth that very morning, and someone else hadn’t been able to shit for five days. This was the sort of thing Wolverine was glad to hear. Soldiers were always bitching about their chow, but it sounded like these two had a legitimate gripe. Wolverine wondered how long it had been since they’d had a good piece of meat or some fresh vegetables that hadn’t been picked in the wild.

Finally, while the two soldiers were talking about home, the wind shifted. Wolverine bent back the pin of his grenade and motioned for Mopar to stay down and crawl off to the left—to the southwest, away, he hoped, from the main enemy encampment. Twenty minutes of miserable crawling and many grass cuts later, the team paused while Wolverine sent in a report. When they moved out again, they felt safe enough to walk. But now even Schultz stayed bent over and kept his head almost level with the top of the grass.

Step by step the grass grew shorter and the bushes and trees more numerous. Mopar slowed the pace and began moving from bush to bush to stay in the darkest shadows. Water began to ooze up through the grass roots, and the grass finally gave way to ferns and creepers and broadleaf plants. Mopar motioned for Marvel to come forward and cover him, then darted across an open space into a dark line of low trees and thorny bushes. As soon as he was safely in the shadows, he turned to cover Marvel’s crossing. Soon the whole team was in the bush line. Mopar and Wolverine huddled together over a compass, and then the team moved out again.

Ten meters on they halted. They could all hear the stream now, but they could hear no voices, could hear no snoring, and so it seemed that they might be able to cross here, where the water was likely to be deeper and faster than it was to the north. But first Wolverine sent Mopar and Marvel on a point reconnaissance.

They found a brake of thick bamboo to the south, and beyond that a maze of vines and black palm and elephant-ear plants. Marvel spotted three bamboo fish traps among the rocks in the stream, but there didn’t seem to be anyone in the area to tend them. To the north, there were many trees with exposed roots, another thicket of vines, ferns, and leaves, and at least ten million leeches. But there were also trees on the far bank, and their boughs overhung the stream and kept it in the darkest of shadows. Marvel wanted to find a small rock and toss it into the water to see if that got any reaction, but Mopar overruled him with a shake of his head. This was, he’d already decided, the best place to cross, and when he and Marvel returned to where the others were waiting, he pointed out the direction to Wolverine, put on his rucksack, and immediately started back to the ford. Five minutes later the whole team was across the stream—wet and leech ridden, but safe enough to set out Claymores and lay dog while the gunship returned to the rear to refuel. When the gunship came back over the horn, they moved out again, and three hours later they were well up the slope of J. D.’s last ridgeline, set up for the rest of the night in the thickest vegetation they could find, with Claymores out in all directions. They had good commo with the relay team on Culculine, and when Marvel slung up a wire, he could talk directly to Pappy Stagg back in the Lurp compound. Now Wolverine knew who had refused the dex. No sooner were the Claymores in place than Mopar and Gonzales let him know that they wanted to crash for a few hours. Wolverine nodded and let them sleep. He was surprised that they were tired. Crossing the valley had been a piece of cake.

All that next morning Mopar led the team along the slope of the ridge. The five Lurps stayed close together as they moved. Beneath the tall canopy the trees were like pillars in some gloomy hall and the mulch of dead leaves was like a soft carpet on the ground. They crossed washes full of mossy rocks and slipped through tangles of saplings and vines, where the sun shone through and thorns ripped their hands and cheeks. They paused from time to time to rest and listen to the sounds around them, but they always paused in place, staying in order of march and not forming the security wheel. Once Schultz thought he heard someone chopping wood on the crest of the ridgeline, but it was only a woodpecker in a nearby tree.

Once they did hear voices—loud voices, coming from the valley they’d crossed the night before. But even Wolverine couldn’t make out what was being said, and by the time he’d taken out his compass, the voices were gone, so he didn’t bother to report them back to the rear. It would be a waste of radio time to call in voices without also giving an estimated location, and Wolverine was in no mood to waste radio time. By now, everybody on the relay team and back in the Lurp compound knew that there were gooks in Recon Zone Zulme, and there was no use exciting them with something as vague as voices in the valley.

By midmorning the team was only thirty meters from the highspeed trail. Here, at last, Wolverine signaled for the men to form up in a wheel, with security all around, and put out a couple of Claymores—just in case someone stumbled along uninvited while they were laying dog.

After sitting long enough for each man to eat a ration, and for Marvel and Schultz—who were both coming down rather hard from the dex they’d taken the night before—to catch a short nap, Wolverine sent out a point recon to scout the high-speed trail, a back approach to J. D.’s last position, and—if safe to do so—to the other trail farther on to the north, J. D.’s “upper trail,” where he’d heard troops moving whenever there was a lull in the noise of the motorcycles.

Since Mopar and Marvel worked so well together, they were naturally chosen to conduct the point recon. After huddling over a map and compass, they touched up the camouflage paint on their arms and faces, parked their rucksacks, nodded to Wolverine, and slipped away from the others. They returned less than an hour later, stepping out silently from behind the enormous, mossy tree where they said they’d reappear, their chests and thighs muddy from crawling and their face-paint streaked from heavy sweating.

Wolverine listened silently as Mopar gave him a rundown on the situation. The high-speed trail was every bit as wide as J. D. had reported, and although the many weeks of intermittent rain had destroyed any motorcycle tracks, there were a few fresh bootprints in the mud. The other trail, the “upper trail,” was little more than an overgrown path through the trees, and it was at least ten meters farther away from the other trail than J. D. had reported. Wolverine nodded sagely at this good news. It wasn’t surprising that J. D. had reported it as a high-speed trail. Any path with people moving on it would seem like a high-speed trail at night in the jungle. But Wolverine was glad to know that it wouldn’t be necessary to have someone standing guard there while he planted the sensing devices. Security would be thin enough anyway.