Camp Pendleton, California
“THE King fucks the Queen!” Sergeant Abdulhamid shouted. His boots crunched in the tan, coarse, metal-littered sand as he stalked the berm along the firing line.
Hector Ramos swallowed dust and blinked grit out of his eyes. He was sweating hard in desert MARPATs and flak jacket, goggles, helmet, and gloves. California chafed in his shorts. Frowning, he noted it accumulating on the dust cover of his M240 too. The dust cover was plastic on the exposed side and metal underneath with just two small metal clips securing it to the barrel. Maybe he should have left it in the A bag. He started to wipe it with his sleeve, but was afraid to get dirt in the ventilation holes. Finally he bent and blew it off, but a moment later another layer sparkled on the black surface.
The trucks had arrived before dawn with the trainees and the weapons. They’d unloaded as the sun rose, handing down tons of ammo, then smashing off the thin white pine sheathing before setting up. The green metal boxes sat open ready to hand, hundreds of brass rounds gleaming like tired gold. Fine dust eddied past. Abdulhamid’s sweat gleamed in the sun. “The fucking infantry is the fucking Queen of the battlefield. Right? Well, the machine gun, he is the King. And the King fucks the Queen. Let’s hear it!”
“The King fucks the Queen.” The ragged chorus rolled along the firing line, under the broiling sun.
Infantry Training Battalion, Camp Pendleton, California. The first two weeks had been twelve hours a day of the skills of the MOS 0300 infantryman. Marksmanship under fire, grenades, identifying and countering IEDs. Manning convoys, basic tactics, combat conditioning, physical training. Land navigation, with forced marches through the hilly terrain. Urban combat and room-clearing training, the instructors told them, had been dropped, in the interest of “saving time.” To which Troy Whipkey, easily the most cynical human being Hector had ever met, had muttered, “So they can ship us to Korea faster.”
Only now it sounded like they might not get there. The Navy was pulling out of WestPac, leaving the forces there surrounded. It looked like the Army would be killed or captured.
“Gonna be up to us Marines, retrieve the situation,” one of the sergeants had told them. “Or die trying.”
“Most likely, die trying,” Whipkey had muttered, fidgeting beside Hector in the sunrotted training bleachers. Whipkey was a redneck from central Florida, but his attitude was anything but patriotic. He’d shot a kid who’d kept “mudding” his family’s back ten in his ATV. Fortunately, the kid hadn’t died, and the judge had given Whipkey a choice: jail or the Corps.
Hector had sweated the math and the map reading. But now they were in the MOS-specific training. Somehow, the Corps had decided he would be an 0331. A machine gunner, trained on the M240, the Mk-19 40mm grenade launcher, and the M-2 .50-cal machine gun. Or, as Sergeant Abdulhamid put it, “The most bad-boy high-speed muthafuckas to walk this fuckin’ valley, and the fuckin’ steel spine of this man’s Marine Corps.”
Now Abdulhamid yelled, “Remember, jundies, you ain’ got but so much ammo. We had to buy this shit wherever we could. Israel. Argentina. Germany. Ain’ no U.S. ammo till we get makin’ powder again. It’s gon’ go bang, but you gon’ get dispersion. Focus on your target reference point. Track in from that. Check your wind. Range is hot! Yallah yallah! Gun up.”
Forget Mirielle’s kisses in the dark, forget everything but the checklist in his head. Safety on F. Bolt to the rear. Hector slotted the charging handle to the forward position and flipped up the cover assembly. Ensure the feed tray, receiver assembly, and chamber are clear. He slapped it down. While maintaining rearward pressure, pull the trigger and ease the bolt assembly forward.
“Double link at the open end,” Troy yelled beside him. “Free of dirt and corrosion.”
Place the first round of the belt in the feed tray groove, double link leading, with open side of links face down. Hold the belt six rounds from the loading end. Ensure that the round remains in the feed tray groove, and close the cover assembly.
Yells began to proceed down toward them. “Gun one up!”
“Gun two up!”
“Ready,” Hector said. Beside him Troy yelled, “Gun three up!”
AMMUNITION: 7.62mm × 51
WEIGHT with bipod: 24 pounds
LENGTH: 47.5 inches
MAXIMUM effective range with tripod: 1800 meters (1.1 miles)
MAXIMUM range: 3725 meters (2.31 miles)
MAXIMUM rate of fire: 100 rounds/minute (sustained), 200 rounds/minute (rapid), 650–950 rounds/minute (cyclic)
He was wiping sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand when, without warning, the targets began popping up, from fifty yards out to eight hundred. Whipkey was manning the combo scope/laser rangefinder, but there wasn’t time to cut ranges. Not for pop-ups. Sweating in the blazing sun, lying full length in the sand, Hector traversed, depressed, and pulled the trigger.
The M240 machine gun supports the rifleman in both offensive and defensive operations. The M240 provides the heavy volume of close and continuous fire needed to accomplish the mission. The M240 is used to engage targets beyond the range of individual weapons, with controlled and accurate fire. The long-range, close defensive, and final protective fires delivered by the M240 form an integral part of a unit’s defensive fires.
His gun was ugly and black and heavy and looked exactly like what it was, a machine to kill people as quickly and cheaply as possible. Sergeant Abdulhamid had assured them they would love it. Hector did not. It still seemed wrong to kill, but Abdulhamid said knowing how to use it might save his life and those of his fellow Marines.
The butt hammered his shoulder. Hot brass and parkerized steel disintegrating links spewed out, brass from the bottom, links from the right side, tinkling and smoking and piling until he had to scoop them out of the way with his elbow. Once in a while a round would hang up, and they had to clear it. Blue smoke eddied down the line on a breeze too slight to cool them.
The sergeant had told them not to depend on tracers. “Draws a line to you for the hajji with the RPG.” Abdulhamid referred to any enemy as a “hajji” and to Marines as “jundies.” He wouldn’t let them use just the optic sights either. “Fucking optics gonna go south on you. The internal components shift and you’ll lose the zero. Grease-smear, blood on the lens, you’re fucking toast. Learn the fucking irons. Fuck the Queen. You the King.”
Sometimes Hector wasn’t sure Abdulhamid was all there. Scuttlebutt was he’d been blown up too many times. He was Iraqi, a translator who’d joined the Marines. But he knew the Pig. That’s what he called the gun, the “Pig.” As in, “The Pig, that’s what’s gon’ fuck up them Chink hajjis.”
The officer came down the line and Abdulhamid went silent, glaring at them and making notes in his little green book. But the instant the captain was out of earshot in the hammering noise he was crouching again, shouting into their ears. “You boys rockin’ it? Feelin’ that seven-six-two love?”
“Feelin’ the love, Sergeant. Oorah!” Whipkey yelled.
“Then get on your fuckin’ target, Ray-mose! And keep your fuckin’ head down! You think Chink hajjis ain’ got snipers? You think Sar’n Abdul gon’ be holdin’ your pecker for you, in country? Think that punk-ass shooting get you through ITX? Well, we got special treat for you on Range 400 this time. Whippy!”
Whipkey howled, “Sergeant!”
“Hot barrel. Hot barrel! What is it, you don’ talk fuckin’ En-lish? What is a fuckin’ hot barrel?”
“A hot barrel is two hundred rounds fired in two minutes or less.”
“So when you gon’ pull you fuckin’ tongue out of my ass and change that fuckin’ barrel!”
* * *
A whistle blew. “Cease fire, cease fire,” someone called, and Hector and Troy rolled over and bellowed it too, passing it down the line. Hector panted, running perspiration. When he wiped his arm across his forehead his sleeve came down black. “The line is cold. Make all weapons Condition Four,” Abdulhamid shouted, stalking the berm. “Ammo to the centa line. Saved ammo, to the centa line. Brass and trash, in the buckets. Duds an’ misfires, in the live-round drum.”
Clear and unload … safety to fire F position. With his right hand, palm carefully up in case of a cook-off, Hector yanked the charging handle to the rear. He put his face in the dirt, flipped open the cover assembly, and did the physical safety check with his fingers. Whipkey did the visual check, looking for leftover brass, steel links, or live rounds. “Feed pawl assembly, feed tray, chamber,” he muttered. When he jerked his fingers out Hector racked the bolt again to jar anything in there out into view. They checked under the bolt and op rod assembly, then put it on F again and recocked. Hector pulled the trigger while he rode the bolt home on the empty chamber. He snapped down the ejection port cover and they both rolled onto their backs, holding up their arms. “Clear and safe!” they yelled in unison.
“Take a break,” Abdulhamid said. “Bongos’re on the way. We’ll clean back at the weps bay.” He added unenthusiastically, “Decent shootin’. But ain’t nobody shootin’ back, ’member. And down, down, down! Got to keep them fuckin’ heads down, or the hajjis shoot ’em off. Baroor, I don’t shit you.”
* * *
BACK in the sheds, they tore the guns apart. The cloying stench of CLP filled the bays. As Hector scrubbed, he noted chewed-up metal on one of the feed pawls. “Might be what kept hangin’ us up,” Troy muttered. When Abdulhamid came by, the sergeant told them to turn the part in to the armorer, get a replacement.
By the time the weapons were cleaned, reassembled, inspected, and turned in, the sky was dark. They climbed wearily into trucks for the ride to the mess hall. Most of the Mexican guys sat together, so they could speak Spanish without being hassled. But tonight they ate in silence, too fatigued to talk.
They were in the barracks when a lance corporal stuck his head in. “Liberty tomorrow,” he announced.
“Say what, man?”
“What’d he say?”
“Sunday liberty. Church services, them as wants ’em. The Shame Shuttle down to area 51 gate will run starting at oh-seven-hundred.”
* * *
THE line was already snaking out near the San Onofre gate when Hector joined it the next morning. Palm trees waved invitingly. The wind smelled of the sea beyond. But the access was blocked with orange plastic barriers and concertina. Humvees with mounted .50s overlooked it, and armed sentries paced the barriers. Few of the liberty guys wore civvies. Most were in newly issued class charlies, olive drab trousers and tan open-collar shirts and soft garrison caps.
Just ahead of him in line was a woman with short dark hair sticking out from under her garrison cap. She was short but muscular and looked as if she could press a mortar baseplate a few times. When she glanced back he caught dark eyes, chiseled cheekbones, copper skin. Not Mexican, maybe south of there. More Indio in her blood. They didn’t have many women in 0331. Some had dropped out during the marches, but this one looked like she never dropped out of anything.
When she glanced back again he blurted, “Hey.”
“Hey.” She squinted, shading her eyes.
“Hector Ramos. 0331.”
“Coreguaje. Orietta Coreguaje. 0341.”
“Yeah? I don’t know why, when I looked at you I thought, mortars.”
“Oh, the big tubes. That must be why we ain’t seen you,” said Whipkey, leering up from behind Hector. “You friends with Heck-tor here?”
“Just met the guy.” She extended a hand coolly. “Orietta. And this here is my friend, Pruss.”
Pruss was blond and more heavily built, sort of like a guy. Hector actually took her for one at the first glance, then looked again. At the third glance, he still wasn’t sure. “Oorah, kill,” said Whipkey by way of greeting, looking her up and down.
“But they are off-limits,” Coreguaje added, apparently meaning Pruss. Whipkey’s face fell.
Pruss was in mortars too. And she, or he, had a phone, nonreg but some of the guys had them, and was saying Lyft was up again. Hector felt awkward not knowing how to address him, or her. Or, wait, “them,” Coreguaje had said. She could be gay. Or transgender—there’d been some transgender recruits at Parris Island. But they were all marines, and they got acquainted while they stood in line, and pretty soon it was understood they were going to be libo buddies. When they got up to the gate at last there were cars there along with the buses. A rowdy, shouting crowd of civilians, too, held at a distance by cops. Some seemed to be protesting the war. Others were clearly here to cheer it on, or at least to applaud the troops. Both sides were waving signs and shouting through bullhorns. Avoiding them all, the Marines found an Excursion with six seats open and somebody’s grandma driving.
“Hi, I’m Doris. Where you kids going?” the older woman said brightly.
“We’re not kids. We’re Devil Dogs,” Coreguaje corrected her. Not in a mean way, just matter-of-fact. Hector liked this girl. Firm, but you could tell she wasn’t looking for trouble. He kind of suspected she was with Pruss, but that didn’t matter, he had Mirielle to come back to. If he actually came back.
“I know, I know. I didn’t mean anything, honey. So where’m I taking you?” Doris was in the acceleration lane, pulling out onto a highway. A sign flashed past: Route 5 South.
“Where we can have some fun,” Pruss said. “You know, let go a little. We’re in SOI.”
“School of Infantry? Well, we could go to Oceanside. Or San Diego. But that’s a long drive. When’s liberty expire?”
Hector squinted at her. “My son was in,” she said, glancing apologetically into the rearview. “That’s why I wanted to come down and kind of help out.”
“Oh yeah? Where’s he now?”
“KIA. Ramadi II.”
He sat back, wishing he hadn’t gotten nosy. “So, where to?” Doris said again.
“Someplace with karaoke. Dancing. Music.”
“Oh God. Not fucking karaoke,” Whipkey moaned.
Pruss shrugged. “A hookah lounge, then. Ever do hookah? You can get so wasted. And you know they’ll piss-test us when we get back.”
Doris said, “Well, there’s restaurants in Oceanside giving free dinners to deploying servicemen … I mean, servicepeople. And there’s a concert at the Amphitheater. And the pier, or the beach … Rich used to go skateboarding on the Strand.… Does any of that sound good?”
Pruss patted the back of the driver’s seat. “Sorry about your son. Is there a hookah lounge anywhere?”
Doris frowned. “A hookup lounge?”
“Hookah!” Pruss leaned forward, chortling.
“Oh.” Doris seemed to be concentrating harder on the road. “I think there’s a big one down toward Carlsbad. No, wait. There’s one closer. North Freeman, Seagaze? We can go look. If that’s what you dogs want to do before you ship out, well, shit. I say go for it.”
* * *
THEY had dinner at a Thai restaurant. It wasn’t free, but it was half price and the first drink was half price too. So they had one each, then went out into a dusk studded with lights. The wind was cooler. People were out in the streets. They went with the flow, down toward the water. Toward the Strand, where Doris had said her son used to skateboard.
Hector shivered, and not just from the wind. Like they were hooked to the same chain, being driven on toward the Kill Room … no, don’t think about that … look at the lights twinkling over the pier, drink the beer you just bought, cold in your hand. The girl beside you, who even if she isn’t yours is drawing envious looks from the other guys on the boardwalk.
Pruss kept talking hookahs, but Whipkey insisted he wanted another drink first. They found a place with tables outside. The bar inside was filled with men and women, but they were all looking at their phones, not at one another. Pruss said, “Guess OKCupid’s back up too.”
Orietta snorted. “Yeah, look at all the poor Tinderellas, hoping they get picked before midnight.”
“And the fuckboys, all hot to get it in.”
Two hipster-looking guys wandered out, studying their screens and swiping. They had stylish rumpled hair and half-growths of blond beard. They glanced at the four at the table and started to go back in. Then the one in the checked shirt nudged the other and turned back. “Hey, you guys soldiers?” he called.
“No, Marines,” Coreguaje said.
“Thought so. Outta Pendleton, right? Buy you a drink?”
“You want to buy us drinks?” Whipkey scowled, though Hector didn’t see why.
Tall Farmer said patronizingly, “To support the troops. Show our appreciation. These your girls?”
“Are they girls?” muttered the shorter guy, whose black hoodie was flipped back.
“These women are Marines too,” Hector said quickly, before either of them could respond. Then hoped he hadn’t stepped in it, that Pruss didn’t mind being called a woman.
“You want to show your fucking appreciation, asshole, then join the fuck up,” Whipkey snarled.
“Yeah, join the fuck up,” Pruss chimed in. “With the fucking girls.” They and Whipkey exchanged high fives.
“No need to be rude,” the tall guy said, trying to laugh it off. “Just wanted to be friendly.”
“You can save the friendly for when the fucking Chinks land on your fucking beach here,” Pruss said, pointing to the surf.
Hoodie swiped his phone. “That the line of shit they feed you inside the wire, butch? This isn’t our war. Let the Koreans and Japs fight it.”
“If we let them take Guam, they’ll be in Hawaii next,” Hector said.
“That what they’re telling you? Well, that’s what we pay you people for. —Hey, how about her? Check that out.” He shoved his phone at the other guy. “What are you, anyway? Mexicans? My grandfather was in the army. That’s how it works in this country, you know. First generation pays the dues. After that, people wise up.”
“My folks fought in the Civil War.” Whipkey shoved his chair back.
“Wail, there’s always the crackers. Lahk yew,” said the short guy, mimicking a Deep South accent. “Who b’lieve Gawd invented the bolt-action Remington, ta kill the dinosaurs and the ho-mo-sexuals.”
Hector got Whipkey’s arm and dragged him back. The short guy held out both hands, palms out. “Okay, okay—sorry, dude. Bad joke.”
“Did you two even register?” Coreguaje wanted to know. “There’s a draft, ya know. Did you register your sorry, self-indulgent asses?”
The two chuckled. Hoodie sneered, “You don’t register. They build the database from the Cloud. Driver’s licenses, birth records, passports, big data. But any doctor’ll give you a deferral. Or you sign up for a MOC. An online course counts as university registration. No, it’s the illegal aliens they’re sweeping up. Either join the army, or go back across the border in a truck.”
“Makes sense to me.” The tall guy kept swiping. “Let ’em pay their way, or go back where the fuck they came from. We got better things to do.” He whistled, turned on one heel, headed to the bar. Called back, “Hey, Kyle. This one likes it on all fours, and she’ll take us both. Got an apartment, ten minutes’ walk.”
“Jesus.” Pruss threw a Corps-issue chip card on the table. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I need a smoke.”
* * *
THE shop was brightly lit outside but dim and cozy within. A front area, more of a head shop, was lined with showcases of pipes, bubblers, hand pipes, water pipes, stash cans, ash catchers, detox kits, downstems, bowls, scales. Behind that was a lounge lit even more dimly, furnished with long deep sofas and a chessboard, with some kind of sitar music playing. It was fogged with a low-hanging haze rich with spices and tobaccos and other things too. People were chatting and smoking cigars or vaping or toking off softly bubbling devices. Some watched a huge curved-screen television, where images flitted almost too fast to follow.
A short woman with penetrating eyes and a squinting smile murmured, “Hi, I’m Rosa. You kids is of age, right? I don’t need to check no ID, do I? You know there is a back room. Twenty dollars, and you soldiers can have privacy. Nobody else back there now.”
Hector expected Coreguaje to say again We aren’t soldiers, we’re Marines, but she just nodded. “That’d be good. Not so many hijos de putas.”
The back room lay down a hallway past a grimy shared bathroom, then through a clattering curtain of blue plastic beads. It was darker yet, but though the smell was still strong the smoke wasn’t as thick. Sofas faced each other, with a rosewood coffee table between them. A carafe and a tissue dispenser stood on it. A fan circled near the ceiling. Rosa passed out menus, and she and Pruss discussed the shisha choices. Hector figured “shisha” meant the tobacco mix you smoked. Finally Pruss settled on one, and Rosa brought in the pipe, a gaudy brass urn with dangling octopus arms of bright green and blue plastic.
Pruss filled the glass bowl with water from the carafe, then checked the gaskets. They sealed the top with a licked palm, and then their cheeks hollowed as they sucked in through the hose. “Just like checking your gas mask for leaks.” They tightened one gasket, tried it again, and pronounced it airtight. Loaded the tobacco, not too tight. Pruss lit it with a piece of hot charcoal and took quick drags. A thick white smoke filled the glass. They sucked again, eyes closed, and let smoke trickle out their nose. The scents of orange and vanilla filled the air.
Pruss sighed, wiped the mouthpiece with one of the tissues, and laid it on the table. After a moment Whipkey picked it up. He sucked deep and held it, obviously used to grass, then burst out coughing.
When it came Hector’s turn the smoke tasted sweet at first. Then the top of his head pried off and hovered. His stomach flipped a crazy twist. His heart thumped and started to race, pushing against his chest. His eyes popped and water sprang into his mouth. Shit, this was fun?
In the bathroom, after he was done puking, he stared at himself in the mirror. The goggles had left a white band across his upper face. Burn marks from hot cartridges tattooed his cheeks. He looked older, sí. Would Mirielle even know him now? He should get someone with a phone to send her a picture. Maybe Pruss would, if he asked her. No, them. Before they went back tonight.
Out front he got energy drinks for everybody. When he brought them back to the room a dirty guy in ragged clothes was hunched in a corner, playing two spoons clickety-clack under his arm like hambones. He talked a mile a minute and his eyes darted every which way. “Cigarettes is alls I needs,” he kept saying, over and over. Clickety clack, clackety clackety clack. “Five bucks for cigarettes is alls I needs.”
“Get out of here, Spoon Man,” Rosa said wearily from the curtain, as if she said it a dozen times a day. “Go on, get out. Let these kids have some privacy, goddamn it.”
After he left, Orietta got up and turned the lights out. The red coal of the hookah glowed like a demon’s eye in the dark. They passed the mouthpiece around, but Hector only took a sip now and then. He and Orietta sat together on the sofa, and after a while she turned to snuggle into him.
As they held each other in the dark, he wasn’t sure just how, her hand was inside his shirt. Then it was sliding under his belt.
Soon his fingers were inside a wet squirming warmth, her breath panting in his ear. Something was happening on the other sofa too, but they weren’t looking over here.
He was lying back, breathing hard, when the bead curtain clattered. Rosa peered in. “Sorry, but … you guys might want to come out here, see this.”
Clothes hastily tucked back together, they gaped up at the television.
Korea had surrendered. No, “accepted terms.” South Korea would capitulate to China, not North Korea. It would remain a separate country, with a capitalist system, but would dismantle its armed forces and acknowledge Beijing’s leadership. American forces fighting there would be permitted one week to leave. If they did not, they would be destroyed without mercy.
“Guess we won’t be deploying after all,” Whipkey muttered. He leaned back, elbows propped on the bar, and announced to the whole place, “Hey, we ain’t goin’ to Korea. Guess they’re gonna send us home now, war’s fucking over. Guess what? We lost.”
A big older guy got up from one of the front room chairs. Hector tensed. This man looked like one of the fat angry whites who concealed-carried back where he came from. But the old gringo just came over and shook their hands without saying a word; then bent his head, face sad, and left.