For now, the bullets have ceased in their fury, the air is tense and humid, we've been fighting against these Gooks for
days, we reek and are caked with mud and the welts of mosquito bites yet, Dalton can still smile.
Fuckin' Charlie Dalton can still smile. "Hey, Walrus, smokes." Dalton smacks my shoulder in the cricket filled silence. Did I mention that we're standing waist-deep in a rice pattie, poised with our guns? I swear… Charlie bugs me again for some smokes and I flip them out of my front pocket, which he catches smoothly.
That's Charlie, always smooth.
Finally, I can take it anymore. "Charlie fuckin' Dalton, why the hell do you have that shit-eating grin on your face?" I sound irritated and that just pleases him further.
"Why does anybody smile in this shit-hole, Walrus? Cuz' I got somebody at home waitin' for me." His words disperse into the distance with a chuckle, "Sugar's sweet, so is he, bye bye black bird..." He sings lightly and I can tell he's thinking about her, whoever she is. Dalton never talks about anything personal-like.
I scoff in disbelief and shift as my feet start to get sucked down into the mud. I got a girl at home too but Dalton's must really be something if she can make him smile like that. I've seen the letters he's gotten from her, they're never like the ones Janice sends me. Her envelopes are always a soft pastel and perfumed like her which is nice. I get one a month, Charlie gets a plain envelop almost every other day and the returning address never has her name, just the initials S.M. He has a shoebox full of those letters and the really "important" ones he keeps tied together with string over his chest. He's such a romantic and so ridiculously poetic.
"What's she like?" I whisper as though there are Viet Cong lurking nearby-which there probably are and Charlie looks at me, thoroughly mystified as he tosses my packet back to me and dives a hand in a pocket as he starts humming to himself, "Oh my love is like a red, red, rose…" when he finds his lighter he looks up to me pointedly. "She isn't like anything." And his smile leads me to believe that not only have I overlooked something but that he's also enjoying a private joke. "That's newly sprung in June…oh my love's the melody…"
Suddenly, I've placed the familiar words, he's reciting Robert Burns. I actually remember that from my freshman year in college, the English course I took. "That's sweetly played in tune…" I look at him and Charlie pats me on the shoulder.
"Never took you for a poet."
I ignore his comment because my curiosity presses me on. "What does that mean, she's not like anything?"
Charlie just shrugs as he blows smoke and offers me his lighter, "As fair art thou, my bonnie lass," He starts to chuckle to himself as I watch him intently and he sighs, "So deep in love, am I. I mean she's really not like, anything. She's nothing."
I inform him the metaphor is lost on me and he laughs. "It's not a metaphor." I just stuck Dalton's odd behavior to his Pot usage. Or…his past-tense usage as it would seem his old lady reamed him out for it in one of her letters. "You can't have nothing without everything…" I was waiting for him to say she was his everything, because that would suit Charlie but he didn't. "And I will love thee still my dear 'til all the seas go dry…" Or maybe he did in his own way. There was a reason he'd sit around and recite poetry-or, reasons. I yet had to figure out his motives but I'm sure that part of it was a distraction, comfort and a reminder all at once.
I could hear the mosquitoes buzzing around my helmet. It was fruitless trying to get rid of them, needless to say, I started slapping my face hoping to rid the world of at least a few more of the blood suckers. Charlie props his M60 strategically on the hill in front of us that gives us some decent cover and steps back laxly to enjoy his cigarette.
Suddenly we hear rounds of fire being shot at us and Obnoxious commands for us to fire back, Dalton dives for his machine gun and we start firing back at the noises we hear. If they are 900 meters away or closer, those V.C.'s are fucking McGooks, you dig? These M-60's are belt-fed and fire over 600 rounds a minute. "Come to Papa!" I hear myself roar through the ammunition fire. The guy on the side of me is counting how many he hits but Dalton tries to remain calm-as always.
He used to fire in the air or grimace through the whole thing, "'Till all the s-seas go dry m-m'dear," Charlie is never without poetry, even though he shakes with the force his M-60 punches out and grunts in pain. "And the r-rocks m-melt with the s-sun-" We duck as there's an explosion near us sending dirt, water and shrapnel whipping through the thick air.
A collective primitive yell rings through the air and I can see that those goddamn slant-eyes are charging at us and we fucking mow them down. Each and everyone. Bullets rip through knees, chests and heads as one by one a voice to their charge is cut short. "I will love th-thee s-still m-m…dear as the s-sands of life sh-shall run!" Dalton grunts as he continues moving his M-60 from side to side.
Dalton's trying to not watch as he silently cries. His helmet has the black words 'WORLD PEACE' penned onto the side. It's not hypocritical, most of us want peace and we sure as hell want to go home. "And f-fare thee well my only love, f-fare th-thee well f-for a while!"
I don't know what the fuck we're doing here, I really don't. I know that Dalton chose this just to spite his rich, over-bred parents but it's taking a toll on him.
I don't flinch as I hear a bullet whiz past my head, I'm too focused at the moment and adrenaline is pulsing in my hears as I hear light tinks of bullets hitting metal, thwaps of bullets burying themselves in the ground where they shall slumber and injure never again and the sounds of explosions are deafening. I hear someone down the line cheer in a typical southern Hick fashion.
Dalton and I will make fun of him later as it would appear the rest of the Gooks are now retreating. I don't have the heart to shoot them down like the other guys. We cheer and laugh, a small portion of the war was currently won and I look over to pat Dalton on the back but…he's not there. His M-60 is gone too.
My stomach freezes and I look down slowly, shit-scared of what I'm going to see.
Dalton's on his side, eyes unblinking and half of him is covered in muddy water and without thinking I fall next to him, shaking him. "No No NO! Fuck! Charlie! Get up man! Get the fuck up! CHARLIE!" Some of the other guys are tugging at my arms as I fight against them. No, NO I can't loose Charlie! Not here, not like this! He's my best friend, we've always been there for each other ever since we were dragged into this crazy bullshit.
Some guys lift m from under my arms as I start throwing punches at everyone and everything. "He's gone, Walrus!" "Let him go!" "A casualty of war, man." "Pack it in Walrus. We gotta move." And all the while I'm screaming No. I can't leave him here, I can't leave Charlie-I won't leave Charlie because I know that he would never leave me. Finally, they give in and soon I have six guys helping me carry Charlie back to camp as tears make clean lines down my grease paint camouflage.
Charlie is laid done outside the medical tent and I go into his chest pocket; pulling out his most treasured possession, his letters. I figure that I should write to her and let her know what happened, that some should really back up the fact that Charlie Dalton is a hero. I realize that Charlie never got to open the most recent letter he received and I break down sobbing at how unfair this all is.
As I convulse with short breaths and gasps, my dirty, shaking fingers gingerly open the envelope and I lick my lips, preparing to read it to Charlie.
"Charlie, I-I miss you. I want you home...again…soon," It takes me several minutes to steady myself before I can continue. "I m-miss your mischievous smile and your s-sly tactics. Remember that time you visited me in college? We w-woke up t-together Friday m-morning. It was raining and I was w-wearing your sweater. That s-sweater is…is…" I wiped my tears away and found the determination to finish as I clenched the paper tightly.
"Is one of my most valued possessions. I missed all my classes that day, all because you seduced me into spending the day with you in bed with the curtains open so we could hear the rain. You even played your Sax for me-only wearing a beret," I laugh at that because it's so Charlie.
"I heard from Todd, he's fallen in love with the female equivalent to Neil, he calls her Cubby because Niccola is too close to his name. He messed it up though, we may have to help him out."
I fight to keep the bitterness out of my voice as I continue because Charlie's gone. "I miss you Dalton. One day you'll come home and I will never let you leave me like this again. Keating's getting married, he has a job in England again. We all understand why. It'll be nice to see the Captain again-we were invited to the wedding which will take place in Lemington Spa. Maybe then we can take a break and go to France-I know how you've always wanted to go there since it's the birth place of the beatnik revolution. I love you Charlie, Ste…Steven!?"
I'm not disgusted, just surprised and now I understand what Charlie meant. She's nothing, nothing because she doesn't exist but Steven does and he is Charlie's everything.
Was. Was Charlie's everything.
I remember something else and I look between Charlie and his letter bitterly. "And I will come again my love though it were ten thousand miles…" He never finished his poem.
