Fields of Fire (39 page)

32

Goodrich walked endless strips of dust roads, red dirt in the wind like sleet. The resupply helicopters passed overhead, carrying netted external loads from the An Hoa landing strip to places like Arizona and the Phu Nhuans and Go Noi. They reminded him of hawks clawing dead mice. Another helicopter mission popped past him, coming from the western mountains, dragging a long rectangular net under it like a plane pulling a commercial streamer at a resort beach. Eight men hung from the net, in full combat gear. Four clung to it, peering down as the helicopter hovered over the pad. The other four were dead, strapped to the net. Goodrich watched them and felt sick: another Recon team had bitten the dust. The gooks were everywhere. Something big was about to blow.

Still he walked. No direction. Jeeps and mechanical mules raced past, throwing curtains of red powder over him. The rows of tents and sagging bunkers blended into blurs, punctuated only by occasional fetid, slowly moving whirlpools of bad air, like someone else's breath.

He kicked the dust, sending little powder clouds into the air with every step. Damn it. How did I ever get into this? He lit a cigarette as he walked. And there's no backing out. For the first time in my life, I have to make a decision, do something affirmative instead of letting life kick me around.

Mark, his old roommate, had written him from Canada, and the letter had been the catalyst that set him walking. Mark had sent a clipping from The New York Times, an article by an investigative reporter about a possible massacre of civilians by an Army unit. Mark had been in rare form in his letter. “And you tell me there are no more pogroms,” Mark had written. “And you tell me I shouldn't see Nazi uniforms every time I turn on the TV. What do you call this—winning the hearts and minds?”

Then there had been the kicker. “I can't understand how someone could stand by and watch this happen. Do they make you all automatons? Do they intimidate you to the point you lose your consciences, for God's sake?” And then, crushingly: “I feel better knowing there are people like you in some of the units over there, Will.”

Goodrich kicked another cloud of dust into the air, covering himself with it. He had mulled it for hours, and could not find a way out of confronting the issue head-on. He had justified his unpopularity within the platoon by his willingness to retain his moral principles. And damn it, I'm right, he thought, reassuring himself. The others just don't seem to have the maturity, or the moral referent. Or something. They just can't understand the things they're doing. Or have done.

Then he attacked himself. I don't know. Maybe it's me. I sure don't seem to be very swift about all this—bush bullshit. He regretted the immaturity he himself had displayed when he had serenaded Snake and Hodges. I can certainly be a goddamned asshole, without much provocation.

But if I ignore this, how can I ever face myself, much less anyone else? The moral purist, who copped out of his one real crisis. I'd be saying, in effect, that two—murders—weren't worth the effort, weren't worth the confrontation. Will Goodrich, moral purist and gutless wonder. And it was wrong. He contemplated the killings. We can't play God. We can't administer street justice—what the hell: bush justice—to every Vietnamese who pisses us off.

He contemplated the emotions that were transparent in the others, the hot, wronged urge to avenge that rushed from places inside them where he himself had only felt repulsion. For a moment he doubted his right to judge their actions from his own moral referent, since he knew that for some reason he and they reacted as differently as five dobermans and a cocker spaniel. But damn it, he decided, there's no way to justify murder. The rules say kill, O.K. But when the rules say stop, you've got to stop. We're not God. We're not barbarians.

He returned to the battalion area and found himself standing before the Legal Officer's tent. He immediately grew queasy. Who's his clerk? What if this gets out? Who knows what they'd do to me? They can be such—Oh, God. No way.

He walked the road for a short space again, feeling trapped, powerless. Then it hit him like a shock. Of course. Regimental Legal. At least they investigated the Sergeant Major. And it won't get back to the company from regiment. Too far removed.

Regimental command area. He reached a small, square sandbag bunker with a red sign above the door. The sign read REGIMENTAL LEGAL OFFICER. Goodrich checked the dirt road for familiar faces, then bolted inside the door. A Corporal looked up at him, mildly shocked by his dashing entrance.

“What do you want?”

“I'd like to see the Legal Officer.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Goodrich stared exasperatedly at the Corporal. He was tempted to leave on that note, to justify his retreat on those grounds. But not so easily for murder, he decided. “I don't have time for that. We're pulling out tomorrow. Arizona.”

The Corporal was unmoved. “Have you been to Battalion Legal?”

“You're kidding. Listen. This is important.”

“What's it about?”

“I can't tell you.”

The Corporal surveyed Goodrich with mild arrogance. “Look. If you can't tell me, how the hell can I figure out if it's important enough to bother the Captain about?”

Goodrich leaned over the man's desk. “Take my word for it—”

The Captain appeared from a private portion of the bunker. He was tall and slim, very young, only recently graduated from law school. He nodded to Goodrich, giving him a tentative, embracing smile. “You sure it's that important?”

Goodrich immediately warmed to the man. “Yes, sir.”

The Captain smiled, gesturing toward his cubicle. “Then come on in.”

The Captain indicated a chair, and Goodrich sat obediently. The Captain sat behind his small field desk and lit a pipe after meticulously packing it from a leather pouch. “What can I do for you, Marine? Need a divorce? Been AWOL? Getting busted for pot?” He laughed comfortably. “I've got a whole bag of tricks.”

Goodrich found himself hesitating to talk about it. It wasn't something a person could just start describing on command. And yet, he felt drawn to the Captain. He smiled tentatively. “Uh. How about a job?” The Captain looked curiously at him, and he leaned forward, toward the man. “I'm highly qualified—for a Lance Corporal, that is. My old man's a lawyer, my brother's a lawyer, and I have almost three years of college. Harvard, better than a B average.” He shrugged, remembering. “Not much better than a B, but what the hell.”

The Captain almost choked on his pipe. “Harvard? Jesus Christ.” He laughed self-consciously. “I won't even tell you where I went. Not that you'd recognize it. Where do you work now?”

“I'm a grunt.” Goodrich shook his head at the Captain's amazement. “Oh, shit. Don't even ask. It's worse than it sounds.”

“Hmmm. I'll bet.” The Captain checked his watch. “Well, to tell you the truth, I don't need an assistant. You noticed Corporal Murphy out front? Well, Corporal Murphy has two years of law school.” The Legal Officer chuckled. “He got drafted. But he does all a man could ask. Now”—he checked his watch again—“I was just getting ready to eat lunch. You didn't hold me up just to apply for a job, did you? You seemed pretty worked up a minute ago.”

Goodrich studied the Captain, feeling nervous, desiring some assurance that, should he reveal the information, it would not merely cause him trouble. “Are you the one who investigated the Sergeant Major?”

The Captain shook his head ironically. “Yeah, but that's done, unfortunately. We don't need anything else on him. We had so much as it was, he should have hung.”

“I take it you weren't particularly happy with the outcome, then?”

The Captain stared at Goodrich with a taut, assessing smile. “No. You might say I was a little disappointed.” He stretched in his chair, still assessing Goodrich. “Sergeant Majors, I have learned, stand somewhere just beneath Jesus Christ, and just above the Colonel. They aren't very fry-able.” He relit his pipe. “But I don't think there would be a similar problem with anyone else. The system's fair, on the whole. Very fair.” He took a final look at his watch. “Now. Are you going to tell me what's on your mind, or do you want to forget it? You seemed to think it was pretty damned important a few minutes ago.”

“It is. It's really important.” Goodrich pondered it a moment. His hands were sweating, and had taken on a nervous tremor. “It just isn't easy to talk about. It's not something you can just start in and discuss. I have to figure out my obligations, where my loyalties lie—”

“Maybe you should visit the Chaplain, and see me later.” There was a hint of sardonic impatience in the Captain's voice.

Goodrich lit a cigarette, gathering himself. “I'm sorry.

I'm making an ass out of myself. That seems to be the general rule, lately. Listen, Captain. You know how things are in the bush. I'm sure you've heard. Everything's screwed up in the bush. There's no logic to it. At five-thirty if you shoot out a light in a hootch and someone dies, you're in trouble. At six o'clock you can do it and it's all right, because lights are used as signals. Shoot a prisoner from five feet away, it's a kill. Touch him and then shoot him, and you're a murderer. You know how it is. So how can any of it make any sense?”

The Captain puffed slowly on his pipe, contemplating Goodrich. “So what do you want me to do about it, Corporal? Make it all go away?”

“No. I mean, yes, but since you can't, no. What I want you to do, sir, is tell me I didn't see a murder. For my own conscience. Tell me I saw something that was gray enough that we should forget it. Could you do that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It looked like a murder. It sounded like a murder. But maybe it wasn't.”

“Well, tell me about it.”

Goodrich described, in intimate detail, the killings of the man and woman on Go Noi. He talked about Baby Cakes and Ogre. The killer-team patrol. Finding the bodies. Cat Man's assault on the man. He emphasized his own resistance, and his removal from the scene as the killings took place.

He finished, and sat motionless in the chair, emotionally drained. There. I've done it.

The lawyer studied his notes for several minutes, sucking on a pipe that had gone out without his noticing it. Finally he spoke to Goodrich, reading from his legal pad.

“I want to get a few things straight. First, you did not participate in any of this.”

“That's right.”

“And you were not present at the scene when it all took place.”

“That's right.”

“In fact, from your own statement, you didn't even see the incident. You—and I quote, roughly—‘sat on the porch looking out at the field, and heard the woman scream. Then there were shots.’ ”

Goodrich sighed. He was tired of talking about it. “That's right.”

“And finally, from your own statement, you did not see the bodies after the alleged killings.”

The “alleged” stuck in Goodrich's tired mind. “Well, I—”

“I read again from my notes.” The Captain sucked on his unlit pipe. “ ‘I heard them spading and then they rejoined me at the hootch. We made stretchers for Baby Cakes and Ogre and returned to the perimeter.’ ”

“Well, I—I know they were killed, Captain.”

“They probably were, Goodrich.” The Captain's face was intense, lit. “You asked me to tell that you didn't see a murder. All right. I'm telling you. You didn't see a murder.”

“But one—two—took place.”

“Do we know that? Do we have bodies? Do we have witnesses who will swear that people were killed? Were they even civilians? Was there something that happened near the grave site that would have made the homicides—presuming for a moment that there were homicides—justifiable? Did mamasan have a knife? Did papasan reach for someone's weapon?”

Goodrich shook his head, grimacing with a mix of disgust and disbelief. “Did mamasan have a knife. Holy shit. That's weak, Captain.”

“You say the Vietnamese Scout identified them both as VC?”

“Dan? Everybody's a VC to Dan.”

The Captain laughed, tossing his head and shrugging. “Well, he should know. He's probably pretty close to being right, around here. Who killed them, Goodrich? Again presuming they were killed?”

“They were. I know that. And Snake was the man who gave the orders. I was there for that much.”

“But who killed them? Did the Vietnamese Scout do it? Do you realize that we have no authority over him? If he did the actual shooting, there's no murder.”

“There were a lot of shots, Captain. A lot of shots.”

The Captain shook his head, exasperated. “Haven't I convinced you yet? Isn't all that enough to quell your goddamn conscience? I'll tell you how I feel. Best friends murdered like that. For God's sake, there's been enough tragedy without compounding it. If they did kill the people, they'll have to live with it. It was a mistake. They're kids. They're fucked up and confused. You said it yourself. Nothing makes sense out here.”

Goodrich felt his eyes narrow. “Boys will be boys, eh, Captain?”

“You know that's not what I mean.” The lawyer scrutinized Goodrich, tamping out his pipe and repacking it. He lit it again, still staring. “All right. What do you suggest I do?”

“I don't know.” Goodrich held both hands over his head. “Jesus Christ. I came here to ask you and now you're asking me.”

“It's not exactly your clear-cut case.” The Captain smoked pensively. “Well. We'll have to do an Article Thirty-two investigation. If it ever hit the press that this event occurred, and we let it go by without investigating it, the shit—would—hit—the—fan.” He continued to eye Goodrich, as if he were attempting to solve a puzzle that sat fragmented in the middle of Goodrich's face. “We won't indict. We'd never convict. No, I won't say that. With this My Lai thing in the press, we're going to be catching hell. Anything's possible. But I doubt it.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Write me a statement. Just as you told it to me. Do it right now.”

Goodrich hesitated. “All right. But, Captain—I hope you realize what could happen to me if this got out.”

“It won't get out.” The lawyer shook his head again, totally confused. “What the hell do you want? You just pushed me into this, now you don't want to cooperate?”