Jungle Rules (41 page)

The five-foot, eight-inch-tall captain took his fork and raked the last of his scrambled eggs onto a triangle of buttered toast, and shoved it in his mouth. Then he finished his fourth twelve-ounce tumbler of water that morning, and took a last gulp of coffee before getting out of his seat.

“Sir, I think if you’d drank just one more glassful of water,” Tufts said, hurrying behind the major before Dicky Doo cut him off.

“Stanley, if I finished one more glass of water, I would have it leaking out my ears,” Dickinson snarled back, shoving his way past a jam of enlisted Marines and soldiers waiting their turns to board the aircraft. “I drank two canteens full of water last night, and then a big glass of water when I got out of the rack this morning, and two more with breakfast.”

“Wouldn’t you like to hit the head first, sir?” Tufts said, scrambling
behind the major, pushing to the front of a line of junior officers who scowled at the captain for breaking through their ranks.

“They have a head on the plane,” Dickinson said, barging his way to the aircraft.

“Fucking field-grade and his asshole cleaner,” a voice grumbled from behind the pair of lawyers, stopping Dickinson in his tracks.

“Who said that!” Dicky Doo hissed, spinning on his toes and eyeing a line of a dozen or more lieutenants and captains with a few collegially minded majors and a lieutenant colonel mixed with them, choosing to board the plane with the crowd rather than using their ranks to jump ahead in the line. Behind the officers, staff noncommissioned officers waited, then mostly sergeants and corporals, and at the tail end of the queue, the majority of passengers for the flight, the nonrated enlisted soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. Scattered among these lowest-ranking servicemen, a sprinkling of field- and company-grade officers waited with them, holding out to board last, a subtle show of respect for the lower ranks. Hustling tight on Dickinson’s heels, his arms held out slightly from his body, keeping the inside creases of his khaki shirt wrinkle-free, Stanley Tufts dutifully emulated the major by also turning back and glaring at the congregation of pissed-off servicemen behind them.

“Come, Stanley,” the major snapped, wheeling on his toes and stepping onto the silvery stairway parked against the front passenger portal of the Boeing 707 jetliner.

“Yeah, come, Stanley, kiss my ass,” the voice called again. “Major Lard-Bottom and his boy.”

Dicky Doo grabbed the rail of the stairway and whipped his head around, trying to see who said the blatantly disrespectful remark. Stanley Tufts, trying to stay close, slammed against the major’s backside and caused both men to stumble. The Laurel and Hardy wreck sent a shock of laughter rippling through the approximately two hundred servicemen who watched the clumsy duo fumbling at the foot of the gangway.

Noticing the increasing gap in the line of officers boarding the aircraft, Gwen Ebberhardt stepped out of the doorway and looked down the stairs, where she saw Dicky Doo glaring up at her, his teeth clenched and his face boiling, as he trundled up the steps. Stanley Tufts hurried behind the mojo with his nose nearly touching Dickinson’s back pockets.

The shapely, six-foot-tall, red-haired flight attendant smiled and waved at the sea of mostly homebound men from her perch at the stairway’s top deck, and then took Major Dickinson by the arm and led him inside the plane, with the captain hot on his heels. Seeing the eye-fetching woman, the laughter immediately changed to a chorus of cheers and wolf-calling whistles, mostly from the lower ranks of veterans who had survived their thirteen-months-long tours of combat duty and now headed Stateside to their waiting families.

“Major Dickinson and Captain Tufts here, shouldn’t we be up front someplace?” the mojo told Gwen Ebberhardt.

“What does that card with your seat assignment say, sir?” she asked Dicky Doo, pointing to the tickets he held clutched in his fist, issued to the two men when they checked in for the flight that morning.

“They put us back there on row nineteen,” Dickinson spoke in a quick and angry tone. “I think that’s where the enlisted men sit. Field-grade and their companion officers should sit at the front accordingly.”

“That’s not how we do it on this flight, sir,” Gwen said, still smiling, and then taking the two boarding passes that the senior lawyer held and reading the information printed on them. “You have assignments on an exit row, just above the forward edge of the wing. Those are excellent seats, sir; extra legroom.”

“Okay then,” Dickinson grumbled, snatched the two tickets from her hand, and rumbled down the aisle, with Stanley Tufts glued to his back. Gwen Ebberhardt shrugged and walked toward the aircraft entrance where other servicemen now hurried aboard.

“I think First Lieutenant Ebberhardt’s wife is named Gwen,” Stanley Tufts said, following Dicky Doo to the aisle and middle seats on row nineteen, where a captain by the window sat with his eyes closed and his head resting against the bulkhead.

“Woman like her wouldn’t marry some lowlife Marine,” Dickinson told Tufts as he settled onto his chair, letting out a condescending chuckle as he spoke. “A guy’s got to have a pretty big stack of cash in the bank to get inside that babe’s bloomers, I’ll bet you. Besides, that broad’s got higher sights than to settle on some lowlife troll like Wayne The-Hick-from-North-Carolina Ebberhardt.”

Both Marines laughed at the major’s degrading comment, and as Gwen Ebberhardt walked past the two lawyers, Stanley Tufts waved to her.

“Yes, sir, may I help you?” she asked, leaning over Dickinson to talk to Tufts, the fragrance of her Chanel Number Five filling their nostrils. Both men’s eyes focused inside the open top of her white blouse, catching a glimpse of the bulging porcelain flesh of the upper area of her generous breasts peeking from beneath.

“I see that your name tag says Gwen,” Stanley Tufts said and then blushed. “Is that Ebberhardt?”

Gwen blinked but kept smiling, and never let any shock of the question show on her face, even though inside herself she felt panic wanting to leap out.

“Oh, no,” she shrugged, closing her open neckline with her right hand, “Crookshank. Gwendolyn Crookshank. I know who you’re talking about, though, but she’s on another crew. Her husband’s a lawyer in Da Nang, I hear.”

“Yeah, he’s a buddy of ours,” Tufts said, smiling.

“That’s nice. Gentlemen, I need to get back to my chores,” Gwen said, standing straight and then heading toward the front of the plane.

“See, what did I tell you?” Dicky Doo said, watching the stewardess walk away, enjoying the sight of her legs and derriere moving beneath her short, tight-fitting blue skirt. “That’s some high-priced snatch, my friend, way outside that troll Ebberhardt’s league.”

In ten minutes, the last passengers to embark the aircraft buckled themselves in their seats while the ground crew continued loading the baggage. While airmen outside hurried to get the plane launched, and Gwen and three other stewardesses latched doors, closed overhead bins, and made sure that they had everything inside secured for taxi and takeoff, the pilot began firing engines and turned up the air conditioning.

“Damn you, Stanley, and your goofy water project, now I’ve got to take a leak,” Dickinson said, unlatching his lap belt and stepping away from his seat.

The Marine captain by the window looked at Tufts, crowded in the middle, fidgeting with his safety belt, and at the major, now stomping down the aisle toward the lavatory by the plane’s front door.

“Hey, sport,” the captain by the window growled at the junior partner of the law firm seated by him on row nineteen, “we can’t taxi if you’re out of your seat. If you go take a piss, too, we’ll sit here all fucking day.”

Stanley Tufts smirked and started to say something cutting to the rude officer, but then he saw the gold jump wings and silver Scuba head badges pinned above his uniform’s left breast pocket.

“Yeah, you’re right, Skipper,” Tufts gulped, and smiled with a meek shrug at the recon Marine. Then he retightened his seat belt, and concentrated on holding his bladder.

“Sir, you’ll have to return to your seat,” Gwen Ebberhardt told Major Dickinson as he closed on the airplane’s toilet. “The pilot is ready to taxi. We cannot move until you sit down and strap in.”

“Soon as I take a leak, lady,” Dicky Doo grumbled, pointing at the lavatory door a few rows of seats ahead of him, and then pushed his way past the stewardess.

Gwen looked for help from the air force colonel seated in the sixth row, but he simply shrugged and put his nose back in the newspaper he had unfolded across his lap.

“Captain, we have a Marine major who has gone to the lavatory, despite my order for him to return to his seat,” Gwen spoke in the telephone handset just outside the restroom door, talking over the intercom to the plane’s pilot in command.

“Tell me when he gets back in his seat so we can get rolling,” the pilot responded. “If he gives you any further heartburn, let me know.”

“I can handle it, Captain,” Gwen answered. “I just needed to make you aware so you didn’t get under way with him in the john.”

“Thanks, Gwen,” the captain replied. “Ground has already cleared us to taxi to the active, and tower has traffic holding for us to roll for immediate takeoff, if we can get out of the blocks. I hope this guy can take care of business within the next sixty seconds, or we may have to delay for no telling how long if we miss our departure bubble.”

“Sir!” Gwen shouted, knocking on the lavatory door. “Please return to your seat. The tower is holding traffic for us to take off right now.”

“Stuff it, lady!” Dickinson shouted back.

After another full minute had passed, the major finally shoved open the restroom door, wiping the water from his hands with a paper towel. Glaring at Gwen as he stepped out of the lavatory, Dicky Doo grabbed her wrist and slapped the damp napkin onto her outstretched palm, and then huffed as he pushed his way past her.

“You’re clear to taxi, Captain,” Gwen called on the intercom to the pilot. Then she hurled the wet paper towel into the galley’s rubbish bin, next to the refreshment cart that she had withdrawn from its slot in the galley bulkhead earlier, to check its supply and restock any shortages of refreshments or service items.

While watching the rude man trundle to his seat and finally sit down, the flight attendant pulled open the foldaway door to a small closet opposite the forward lavatory. In it she found her flight bag, and unzipped the top. The Dixie cup with the paper lid and rubber band holding it closed lay nestled among her clothes. Casually, she took out the container, stowed her bag, and carried the cupful of laxative granules back to the galley, where she set it in the condiment tray, on top of the beverage trolley. Then she shoved the metal cart back inside its wall compartment and secured its latches for takeoff.

As the plane began to move along the taxiway, Gwen started down the aisle to make her final check of her assigned passengers, ensuring that they all had their tray tables up, seats forward, and safety belts fastened. When she glanced down at the air force colonel on the sixth row, he took his nose out of the newspaper and looked up at her, and again just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

 
GLASS IN THE window shook as the Flying Tigers Boeing 707 jetliner roared over the two-story-high apartment building where Mau Mau Harris and Bao sat waiting for Huong to return with news of James Elmore. Seeing the gray airplane with the blue tail and red and blue trim turning east made the Chicago native homesick.

“When I be working on the flight line, I see that freedom bird taking off on Friday and Tuesday, and I’d think about how glad those boys going back home must feel,” Harris said to Bao, staring through the glass, watching the plane grow smaller at the end of a dark streak of exhaust smoke in the distant sky. The younger brother of Chung and Huong smiled sympathetically at the American but understood little of what he had just said.

Harris looked at the Vietnamese cowboy smiling and then shook his head and returned his gaze out the window.

“Your brother sure taking his sweet-ass time getting back here with the skinny on where we going to get Elmore,” Mau Mau spoke without taking his eyes from the view outside.

“Elmo number ten,” Bao said, and spit on the floor.

James Harris laughed and looked at Bao. “You sure the fuck understand that much, don’t you.”

The cowboy smiled and nodded in reply.

Steps from the hallway, outside the apartment door, hushed Mau Mau and Bao. Both men drew their pistols as they waited for whoever turned the doorknob to step through the entrance.

“It me,” Huong said before he eased open the door, knowing well that anyone else would get shot.

“Come on in,” Harris answered, both he and Bao still holding their Colt .45s ready to fire, just in case someone else came using Huong as a talking shield.

Huong stepped through the entrance first and then brought in a uniformed police officer with him.