The Time in Between by David Bergen Read Free Book Online

and empty. In the distance there were wisps of smoke that Corporal Abel thought might be signs of cooking fires rising from a village. After the drop, when the helicopters were gone and the silence of the countryside had settled in, they waited. For four days they watched the trail and counted the soldiers. One morning, fifty-six North Vietnamese slipped by, quiet and orderly, carrying AK-47s. Harry called in the numbers.
    Charles was bunkered with Harry. They whispered through the night. Harry told Charles about the girl he’d loved and left. He wrote her every day. She was religious. She loved God and she wanted Harry to love God as well and he said that he was capable of doing that. Harry said that God was in charge. Even here, in this madness, it was a comfort to know that someone else was in control. Charles listened to Harry and thought he was a fool, but he didn’t say that. He just kept quiet and read his book, a Graham Greene novel, something Jimmy Poe, a former bunkmate, had recommended. Jimmy read a lot.
    All of them had books. There was a lot of waiting and the waiting was interminable and so they read while they waited. They read and when they were done they traded books. They watched the trail and ate peaches and beans out of tins and they slept and then they waited again.
    They were supposed to be picked up at dawn on the sixth day. However, the helicopters were called to evacuate injured from a firefight north of their pickup and so they waited some more and then they got a call to march south, toward the area where they had seen the wisps of smoke. It was a terrifying walk. The group was skittish and by the time they reached the village they were expecting to take fire. They saw some movement. A woman cooking over a fire. A dog. A child running between the shacks.
    Charles was walking point. The night before he’d written a letter to Sara. “I’m dug in and I’m looking up at the stars,” he wrote. “Harry, my partner, is sleeping like a baby. He’s a happy man who believes in Jesus and life after death. He would like me to believe this as well, but I’ve got more important things to believe in and dream about. Like this girl I know called Sara.” He didn’t tell her about anything that was true. He told her that all was fine. That he would be home in a couple of months and that he dreamed about her every night.
    Walking point was like inviting death. You were all alone and you were the first person the enemy would see and of course you would get killed walking point. Charles wasn’t killed. They arrived at the village and started a search. They set the huts on fire and there were children crying. Everything was going fine until someone started shooting. Charles had been in the doorway of a hut when the shooting started. He’d ducked and in the shadows he saw a shape and the shape moved and he raised his gun and at that point he saw it was a young boy and the boy appeared to be asking him a question but Charles shot and killed him.
    Then Charles shot the pig. And he shot the dog. He didn’t shoot any more people. His body moved slowly. Harry came up to him and started talking but Charles couldn’t hear him, just saw his mouth moving. Harry saw the dead boy and pulled Charles away. After, he sat at the edge of the village. There was blood on his arms and boots. He didn’t know where the blood had come from. He thought it might be the pig’s blood and he wiped at it. The other men sat down beside him. There were only six of them and they had killed only eight people and some animals, but it was enough. Jimmy was off by himself, his head between his knees. Harry was high. He’d smoked a joint just that morning and Alex B. had joined him and so Alex was high as well. He was bragging about his aim.
    Corporal Abel called for order, and Charles threw up.
    ABEL KILLED HIMSELF AFTER RETURNING TO THE STATES. BUT before doing that he got married and had children and found himself a good job at a lumber