Several Days

Something short and quiet this time; trying to play a little with dramatic irony and narrative time. Too easy, or does it work?

Several Days Before the War

In life, Second Lieutenant Arlo Grant had been a quiet man. He had the anxiety nearly all new second lieutenants know, the knowledge that one is less than a year out of college and leading soldiers, and unprepared. The fear of failure. In the Army nomenclature, second lieutenants are called Butterbars, ostensibly for the shape and color of the single narrow brass bar on the front of their camouflage caps that indicates their rank. The term implies a shortcoming as well, though, a softness. You’re still a college boy, the term says. You’re not a soldier yet.

Still, Grant was considered a good platoon leader by his soldiers, and a good officer by his superiors. Firm but not harsh in his orders; methodical and organized.

In his room in Fort Stewart’s bachelor officers’ quarters, the BOQ, he had lined up his four sets of boots at the foot of the bed, laceless and softly shined, and hung his uniforms on hangers, pressed, not starched. One duffel bag sat by the door, packed neatly with his Army-issue field gear, nothing else. There were two boxes filled with his civilian clothes, folded, there was another with books, and a final box filled with various personal effects. He had cleaned and dusted the room, defrosted the freezer in his small refrigerator, and stripped the single bed down to its slick vinyl institutional mattress and folded the sheets and blanket. Three envelopes lay on his desk, each labeled with a different name in his small and careful hand.

At 2050 hours, just before nine in the evening, he had placed a wine glass and an uncorked bottle of red wine next to the envelopes, and a small white pill and two blue capsules next to the glass. From a metal footlocker next to the desk, he took an IV bag filled with saline and lactose, a catheter, a length of clear vinyl tubing, three small metal- and rubber-capped glass bottles, and two syringes, one larger than the other.

Outside, the sun was down and the light was leaving quickly. One could see a portion of the tracks from his window. Long trains of flatcars trundled slowly out of Fort Stewart, laden with desert-tan milvans and armored vehicles: tracked artillery, tanks with mineplows.

He pierced the rubber center of the first bottle’s cap with the large syringe and vampired the contents. He did the same with the second bottle, and the third, filling the syringe to capacity. The empty bottles went into the wastebasket under his desk. Syringe still in hand, he took the IV bag and turned it so the drip end was at the top. He pierced the other end with the syringe, the non-drip end where the liquid was, and depressed the plunger, shooting its contents into the bag, and upended the bag again and removed the syringe. The syringe went into the trash as well. He hung the bag from a nail in the wall over his bed, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

Outside the window, the trains still went, rumbling at walking speed down the tracks, out of Fort Stewart, towards Savannah and the port.

He poured a glass of wine.

Luna walked past the chow hall with her rucksack slung over one shoulder. The moon was out and there was a turgid fog that clung to corners and settled in drainage ditches, the Georgia air warm and wet and heavy. She could hear Travis and Cohan laughing and talking a hundred feet behind; beyond them, the faint clang and rumble of the trains. She said a silent prayer of thanks that she wouldn’t be on railhead. Railhead started later in the day — you had to have daylight, too much risk of injury — but it was hot and brutal work, no shade and barked shins, shackling vehicles to flatbeds with heavy chains, and always the acrid stink of diesel.

Railhead or not, 0400 was early, by even her standards. As well as the talk and trains, there were other sounds, coming from the motor pools she passed: the clatter of roll-up steel doors, hatches slammed open, occasional shouts, engines starting. It wasn’t just her: everyone was up early, it seemed, everyone or nearly everyone. Fort Stewart was stirring, past stirring, into concerted commotion.

She passed the 2/4 Cav motor pool, paused to watch two soldiers lash bundled camouflage nets and five-gallon water cans to the sides of sand-colored tank turrets. Travis and Cohan’s voices sounded suddenly closer. “Shit,” she heard Travis declaim. “We go, they best give me bullets. I mean, what, truckers don’t fight? Convoy gets ambushed over there, what do we do? We hit ’em with harsh language? Shit.” She waited for him to go on. Fifty feet behind, maybe. “I’ll light someone up. Best give me some bullets.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Cohan replied. “Get some, baby.”

Luna turned and strode on, towards Bravo Company’s motor pool.

Two days before, she had seen the headlines, seen them and sighed, knowing what they meant. It had been an inward sigh, and half-hearted: there was hope also, hope and dread, the adrenaline chill: I’ll do this. Can I do this?

The peacetime military is unique, in that one’s salary is paid for learning how to do a job that may never come. The only military counterpart to on-the-job training is conscripted combat.

One day before, twenty-five hours before, an Echo Company battalion runner had earned his title, sprinting from door to door in the barracks, pounding, shouting, “Victory Thunder!” Victory Thunder was a mobilization call. It meant Roll Out, Hurry Up, Make Your Peace And Get Your Camo On. Sometimes, many times, it was fake, an EDRE, an Early Deployment Readiness Exercise, but this time the barracks knew. They rolled, they moved. Everyone had seen the headlines.

The following day, the worst of it was that war wasn’t instantaneous, or at least not for them. No declarations of aggression. Air Force overflights, Navy carriers dispatched, fast-mover PrePo freighters from Diego Garcia, 82nd Airborne to neighboring countries. Italy’s 525th suddenly absent, the Rangers gone, all wives’ calls unanswered. But nothing. Relief, disappointment.

For all any could see, it was in fact again just another EDRE, pronounced “e-drie,” with supreme contempt. Another way to scare soldiers. Another way to make the job, the day-to-day, into panic. Saber-rattling.

At 0030 hours, just late or early enough to be called oh dark thirty, the ambulance had pulled up before the BOQ. No lights, no siren. There was a small crowd outside, all second lieutenants, all — still — mostly male. The few not in camouflage wore gray physical training shorts and t-shirts: late nights now, early mornings, marathon meetings and planning sessions. Dark circles under the eyes. They knew, of course, the grapevine faster than fiber optics, faster than laser target designation, faster than modern war.

They watched as a Staff Sergeant and a PFC rattled down the gurney in the humid Georgia dark, unhurried. No one spoke.

And still, always, the sound of trains.

The motor pool gate had been open, unlocked, when Luna arrived, as she’d expected. Sergeant Barnes was in the operations office, already on the phone, going over the missions log, shuffling soldiers, giving assignments. Travis and Cohan had come in behind her, followed shortly by Kehoe, temporarily Lieutenant Grant’s driver, Garcia, and finally Dillon. They gathered around the break table outside operations, Sergeant Barnes visible through the window.

“Where’s the LT?” she asked Kehoe. He shrugged. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get this party started. Get your logbooks, get your keys. I want a good PMCS, oil and coolant, everyone make sure you’re topped off. We got five trucks and fourteen milvans to move to the port; you folks know it’s going to be a long day. Travis, make sure you check that leak on 236. The humvee up, Kehoe?”

“I’ll pull it around,” he said.

The sky had begun to barely lighten when the line of them pulled up to the open motor pool gate. “Check it out,” Kehoe said. Between the physical training lineup of quarter-strength platoons, soldiers in gray t-shirts and shorts, she could see six men and one woman approaching briskly. “The whole flippin chain of command,” he said. She recognized the Company Commander, the female XO, the First Sergeant, the lieutenants from First, Third, and Maintenance platoons, and the battalion Sergeant Major.

“So that’s it,” she said, still unsure what Grant’s absence meant.

Kehoe tilted his head, still watching them approach, not turning to look at her. “What,” he said.

“It’s war,” she said.

“No,” he said after a pause. “It’s not war. It’s war, ain’t none of us doing PT. It’s war, we’re on the road 24-7. Like, all of us.” He was quiet for a moment. “It’s not war,” he said. He still didn’t look at her. “Something happened.”

“Something what,” she said.

He didn’t answer.

There was a flurry of salutes among the NCOs and officers, and all the higher-ups took a step back except for the Commander and the Sergeant Major.

Bring it in, she watched the Sergeant Major say. Bring it in and take a knee.

The First Sergeant spoke into the Sergeant Major’s ear, and motioned at Luna’s vehicle. The Sergeant Major went to attention, and bellowed.

The company moved, five steps forward, making way for the trucks. The First Sergeant met Luna’s eyes, and gave a circular pointing-forward motion with his hand.

“Let’s go,” Luna said. They drew forward slowly, careful not to clip the motor pool fence, and as they went, she watched the Sergeant Major draw the soldiers closer in around him, and go to his knee and begin to speak.

In the side mirror, she saw the trucks emerge from the gate behind her. Cohan, Dillon, Travis, Garcia. All accounted for. Cohan flipped her off in the mirror. They made it past the company, turned left onto the open back road that led to the interstate.

“Come on, Kehoe,” she said. “We got a load to run. Let’s move it some.”