One Man's War

CHAPTER THREE

“Man, things are getting bad out in the bush,” Pete’s copilot, Joe Keegan, confided. The Sikorsky helicopter’s blades were turning slowly, the engine already shut down. Pete finished flipping off the rest of the switches on his side of the cockpit and sat back in the uncomfortable seat, perspiration running down the sides of his face beneath his helmet. Sweat poured off him from the humidity that hung like a heavy, wet blanket around them twenty-four hours a day.

“Yeah,” Pete croaked, loosening the helmet strap. “Things are getting worse.” With a groan, he took the heavy helmet off, fresh air cooling him momentarily. Running his fingers through the wet hair plastered against his skull, he glanced back at the glum marine second lieutenant—a green twenty-three-year-old kid. This was the officer’s first month in Nam and into what was known as the “bush,” a place where lives could be and were lost—especially to VC land mines and snipers. The war—and it was a dirty war, in Pete’s opinion—was heating up daily.

Keegan glumly lifted his hand in farewell and exited out the right side of the Sikorsky, heading toward the flight shack to file their flight report.

Pete’s gunner, Random, a red-haired marine lance corporal with dancing gray eyes, glanced over at him. “Want me to check for holes in the fuselage, Mr. Mallory? I know we took hits.”

“Go ahead. Just don’t tell me how many you find.” Pete sat there, letting the shakiness pass before he attempted to move. His knees felt like jelly.

“You don’t want to know?”

Pete shook his head. “No way.” He didn’t want to know how close one of those bullets had come. The VC knew the man sitting in the right seat of a helicopter was the pilot, and they aimed for him first. He tipped his head back, closed his eyes and took in a ragged but deep breath, trying to still his pounding heart.

“It wasn’t very groovy out there today,” Random added, just as shaken as Pete from the ground fire. “Hot LZ’s are the armpits of the universe.”

“No argument from me, and groovy isn’t a word I’d use for a wartime situation,” Pete whispered. His mind, his heart, circled back to Tess. Damned if she hadn’t haunted his dreams for the past five days. And not an hour went by that her image didn’t gently intrude upon his world of harsh reality, of life and death, giving him a moment’s serene peace. How was the four-year-old girl? he wondered. Had she survived with the help of the tetanus vaccine and antibiotics? How was Tess?

With a sigh, Pete opened his eyes, stuffed his helmet into the green canvas bag that he stowed behind his seat during flights, and slowly moved out of the cramped, confining cockpit. All around him on the tarmac was the busy-bee activity of ground crews servicing the birds and tanker trucks, refueling them for the next flight. Weary flight crews were dragging their butts back to the flight line shack to file their reports and discrepancy logs.

At the flight shack, Pete joined his copilot. “What’re your plans?” Keegan asked as he handed him the report to check and then officially sign off. “Beers at the O club?”

Normally, that’s exactly what Pete would do. Only an ice-cold beer took the edge off his thirstiness and dulled the adrenaline from a rough flight. He quickly read Keegan’s report, noticed how wobbly the printing was on it, and signed it off with his own trembling signature. Pete handed the report across the desk to the flight chief. “No,” he said. “I gotta check out some things. Maybe later.”

Gib Ramsey was at his desk in the hard-back tent that served as headquarters for the Marine Air Group helicopter squadron. The air in the tent was squalid, and hung like a damp sheet within the gloomy interior. Gib looked up as Pete sauntered in.

“How was it out there today? I heard you took ground fire.”

Pete shrugged. “Yeah, my crew chief counted fifteen rounds that stitched up my bird. No casualties, though.”

“Good,” Gib said, putting the pen and paper aside.

“We aren’t always going to be so lucky.”

“No...”

“Hey, I want permission to buzz on over to Le My for a couple of hours.”

“Oh?” Gib cocked his head, his eyes curious.

With a burgeoning grin, Pete added, “I scrounged up some more supplies for your sister.”

“I thought so.”

His mouth stretching into a full smile, Pete said, “This is business.”

“Oh?” Then Gib shrugged. “She knows your type anyway, Mallory, so I’m not worried. Tess has been able to take care of herself in situations far worse than you horning in on her life.”

Pete laughed good-naturedly. The major knew he was the best scrounger at Marble Mountain and relied on him heavily to get badly needed items for the squadron. Every once in a while, Pete took advantage of this relationship, but his CO usually allowed it to happen by way of thanks for his heroic efforts in the area of procurement.

“So, you got some stuff to go to Le My?” Gib teased.

“Strictly business.” Giving Gib an innocent look, Pete opened his hands. “Hey, Tess called me an angel of mercy a week ago.”

Rolling his eyes, Gib muttered, “You? With your reputation?”

“Believe it, Major. Well? Can I have about three hours? We’re not due for another mission until tomorrow morning. I’m all caught up on paperwork.”

Gib nodded, then scowled. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m up to my armpits in local politics with that rubber plantation estate owned by Dany Villard.”

Joy coursed through Pete. He hadn’t realized how much he truly wanted to see Tess again until he heard permission granted. “Out of sight. See you later, Major.”

“Pete?”

He turned on his heel. “Yes, sir?”

“When you `accidentally’ run into Tess, will you tell her to get her rear back to Da Nang at night? Things are heating up out there.” The scowl on his broad brow deepened. “She’s supposed to stay at Da Nang every night, not out at those villages.”

“I’ll tell her that.” Pete recalled vividly her earlier refusal to stay at Da Nang. “But I don’t know if it will do much good.”

“Do me a favor? Use your considerable charm, sweet talk and any other kind of leverage you can think of to get my baby sis to see the light of day? Tell her there’re VC massing west of Le My.”

Pete shared Gib’s belief that Tess should stay at a safe haven each night. “I’ll do what I can.”

“If you succeed, I’ll owe you, Mallory.”

Grinning, Pete nodded. “Maybe a weekend’s worth of leave in Saigon?”

With a groan, Gib shook his head. “Get out of here, Captain Mallory.”

Chuckling, Pete sauntered out of the tent and into the humid noontime heat. He threw his utility cap on his head, the broad brim shading his eyes from the always brilliant, burning rays of the sun. Whistling softly, his spirits lifting so high he felt as if he was walking on air, Pete requisitioned a jeep from motor pool, then went about collecting all the little things he’d scrounged all week—just for Tess. When she saw these gifts he’d managed to wrangle, he thought with a deepening grin, she wouldn’t be able to say no to anything he asked.

* * *

Pete found Tess at one end of the village of Le My, sitting on a rubber-tree stump and holding what looked like some sort of impromptu medical clinic. Spread out on a cardboard box next to her were syringes, bottles of vaccine and the cotton strips she used for bandaging. In front of her, standing patiently in line, were about thirty women with children hanging onto their clothes or tucked away in their arms.

“Hey!” Pete called as he approached, “you playing nurse now?”

Tess’s head snapped up. Her eyes widened. She’d just finished inoculating a five-year-old boy, and she used a piece of cotton dipped in alcohol to clean away the spot of blood on his arm.

“Pete!”

He grinned broadly and set a large box down beside her. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, honey. How are you? And how’s that little girl with the bad foot?” It took everything Pete had to stop himself from reaching out to touch Tess’s cheek—which was smudged with a bit of red dust. Her hair was caught up in a haphazard ponytail, and today she was wearing her “official” AID uniform, a one-piece khaki outfit replete with badges on each shoulder that proclaimed her as a civilian, not a military advisor.

“I’m fine. Oh, and the little girl, Lee, is much better—thanks to you.” How stalwart Pete looked in his dark green flight suit, his hands settled confidently on his hips and that rakish smile on his face. The look in his dark blue eyes made Tess feel overwhelmingly special for a moment—but then she reminded herself that Pete had the ability to make each woman feel special, desirable and one-of-a-kind just so he could get her into his bed.

“Looks like today is shot day. Lucky people,” Pete teased. “Glad it’s not me.”

Tess glanced at the long line in front of her. “Well, if I had some help, the vaccinations could go faster.”

“Is that a hint for me to roll up my sleeves and get to work?”

She smiled up at him as his shadow fell across her. “You seemed to know a great deal about medicine last week. Sure, pitch in. If you can fill the syringes, hand them to me, this will go twice as fast.”

“If I do, will you take an hour out of your schedule and visit with me?”

Tess shook her head and managed a sour laugh. “Do you always have to bargain with a woman, trade something for her attention?”

Pete moseyed on over to her “table” and methodically began to do as Tess asked. “Well, now remember, most ladies just fall into my arms without a fight. I only make trade-offs with tough lady customers who have to be convinced of my being a good thing in their lives.”

“Oh, boy,” Tess said, rolling her eyes and laughing as the next person in line, a mother with three small children, stepped up to her.

Occasionally, Pete looked up from his duties. Tess knew Vietnamese fluently, and her voice was soft and rhythmic as she spoke to each woman and child. She had such gentleness. Pete wished mightily that Tess would touch him like that. It was obvious to him that the Vietnamese worshipped Tess. But he knew they could never really appreciate her fully—the way he could.

“So, Lee is getting better, huh?” he asked, handing her another syringe filled with vaccine.

“Yes, much better. Thanks to you.”

“You promised to have a glass of mineral water at the O club with me on that one.”

Tess gave him a wary look. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“More importantly, have you been looking forward to it?”

With a delicate shrug, Tess said, “Would a monkey look forward to being trapped and eaten by a tiger?”

“You’ve been in Nam too long. You’re already beginning to sound like a Zen Buddhist—answering a question with a question.”

She grinned and swabbed down the next boy’s arm. “Just answer my question, Mallory. Why should I allow myself to be trapped by you?”

Pete had the good grace to blush, something he’d not done in a long, long time. Placing two more filled syringes next to her, he muttered, “Since when is kissing or making love a trap?”

Tess hooted, and several of the villagers smiled even though they didn’t understand enough English to know what had been said. “Real love is never a trap. Is that how you see love?”

Uncomfortable, Pete shrugged. Only five more people stood in line and then they’d have time to themselves, time for him to woo Tess with his array of scrounged gifts. “I’m not sure what love is.”

Giving him a curious look, Tess said, “What an odd thing to say.” What had happened to Pete to make him that doubtful of one of the most beautiful feelings in the world? “There are so many kinds of love,” Tess began softly. Smiling up at her next patients, she said, “The love of a mother for her child. The love of a brother for a sister. The love of a husband for his wife.”

Scowling heavily, Pete fixed the last syringe and handed it to Tess. “Yeah, well, I’m not too well acquainted with any of the above. Maybe that’s why I don’t put much stock in this thing called love that everyone thinks is so great.”

The vibrating anger beneath his words made Tess turn and study him for a moment. She returned to the last few vaccinations. “Tell me about your mother. What kind of woman is she?”

Pete snorted violently and shoved his hands into the pockets of his flight suit. “A bitch.”

Tess froze momentarily beneath his grated words, then finished the injections. She slowly turned around to face Pete. His eyes refused to meet hers, but the anger banked in them was very real. And so was the thundercloud-dark expression on his hardened features. Instinctively, Tess knew she was treading on some very painful ground.

“Tell me about her,” she coaxed gently as she gathered up the used syringes and empty vaccine bottles.

He shrugged and his mouth quirked. “What’s there to tell? I was the unwanted brat. The minute after I was born, my mother gave me up. She abandoned me, according to her older sister, because she was only sixteen years old at the time. I was a mistake that happened, and believe me, her whole family thought so, too. No one in the family would take me for various and sundry reasons, so I ended up in a string of foster homes until I was twelve. By that time, I was past the cute and cuddly stage, so no one wanted me. I spent time in a Chicago orphanage until I was eighteen. When I got out, I headed to college to make something of myself. I never wanted to look back. I never wanted to hear from any of my so-called `real’ family again. They didn’t want me, so I don’t give a damn about them.”

Pete nailed Tess with a lethal look. “Don’t talk to me about love. I don’t know what the hell it is. I never did. Now, rejection—I can tell you a whole lot about that. And quitting—that, too. I come from a family of gutless wonders who would rather let a little kid go than try to keep him.” Darkly, he looked down at his dusty flight boots. Why the hell was he telling Tess about himself? It was the cardinal rule in his book of life never to divulge anything of himself to anyone—especially a woman. She could do too much damage with that kind of information.

Tess packed the medical supplies into the small cardboard box, at a loss for words for several moments. She felt Pete’s pain as if it were her own. Glancing around the village, where so many children played happily, she looked up at him, her face filled with compassion. His mouth was a tight line holding back a deluge of suppressed feelings. Somehow, some-where in her heart, Tess knew she could unlock that buried grief and pain for Pete. But at what price to herself? He didn’t acknowledge love, and with good reason. He could take, but he wasn’t going to give to her or anyone.

“I’m sorry if I touched a raw nerve.”

“Hell, that nerve’s been dead a long time,” he said explosively. Exasperated, he added, “Look, I didn’t mean to talk about myself. Let’s forget it.” He moved like a tightly coiled spring to where he’d set the box, and brought it back to the makeshift table. In an effort to shake off all mention of his dark and unhappy past, Pete struggled to put on a smile and tuck away all his emotions. “I’ve been gathering things all week for you. Go on, take a look.”

Hesitantly, Tess stood up and moved over beside Pete. As he folded open the flaps of the cardboard box, she gasped. There was an incredible array of medical supplies—adhesive tape, several thermometers, huge rolls of gauze, brand-new scissors, Mercurochrome and at least fifty bottles of penicillin. With a gasp, she reached out, barely touching the items.

“Pete...” she breathed disbelievingly. “How—”

“Now, honey, don’t go asking a scrounger how he got what he got for you. Those are trade secrets.” He forced a smile he still didn’t feel, although Tess’s glowing features assuaged some of the pain that lingered in his chest. Still in shock that he’d admitted his anger toward his mother to Tess, he felt awkward.

“This is wonderful! Oh, look! Typhoid, diphtheria and whooping cough vaccine! The babies won’t die from any of those, now.” She held up a huge amber bottle. “And malaria tablets!”

A hot, powerful feeling moved through Pete as Tess made a big deal over the supplies. Something good and clean flowed through him, erasing much of the ugliness that roiled within him. Her joy was genuine, the look in her lovely green eyes telling him everything. It struck Pete that Tess simply didn’t play the games other women played back in the States. There was a straightforward simpleness about her, that soft Texas drawl of hers touching him like a heated fever, changing him in ways he’d never be able to logically categorize. But his body was responding of its own accord, and the ache building in him was more than just physical. He ached to capture and tame that smiling mouth of hers, to absorb the beauty and happiness he saw in her eyes. In that moment, Pete felt like a man bound for hell getting his first and only look at what heaven might have been like.

“This is incredible, Pete. Wonderful!” Tess turned and threw her arms impulsively around his broad, powerful shoulders and gave him a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice off-key. “Thank you for your gifts.”

The shocking touch of her body against his own made him dizzy. Automatically, Pete reached out to place his arms around Tess, but she was gone as quickly as she had embraced him. Her cheeks were flushed, the freckles across her cheeks darker, making her look even more desirable, if that were possible. Her red hair, straight by nature, was slightly curled and damp against her temples. Pete longed to touch her hair, just a strand of it, to see what it felt like. Would it be strong yet soft, like Tess?

His mouth went dry, and his heart picked up in beat as he met, held and drowned in her gaze, now awash with tears. Tears?

“Now,” he muttered gruffly, “don’t cry! I can’t stand it when a woman cries. It bothers the hell out of me.”

Tess blinked them away and managed a sliver of a laugh. “They’re tears of happiness, Pete. Don’t tell me you don’t know what that feeling is, either.”

Bashfully, he shrugged and turned away. If he kept staring down into Tess’s upturned face, he’d do something they’d both be sorry for later. The blinding urge to kiss her, to take her bodily and bury himself in her loving depths, nearly unstrung all his carefully made plans to woo Tess into his bed. Fighting to get a hold on his unraveling feelings, he felt Tess’s hand grip his arm.

“Pete?”

“I’m okay.”

She smiled up at him. “And you keep saying you’re such a bastard.” A flood of incredible light and heat swept through Tess. “You foster such a bad-boy image, yet you turn around and do this. Pete, something’s not making sense here.”

“It’s just a way of getting your attention, is all,” he muttered defensively, aware of her firm grip on his arm. Her touch was galvanizing, hot coals against his flesh. “Don’t read anything more into it than that.”

“When a man courts a woman, he usually brings chocolates and flowers,” Tess teased and glanced at the box, “not medical supplies.” If she didn’t let go, Tess knew she’d want to keep touching him—to raise a hand to his implacable features, smoothing and softening them once again by taking away the tension that hung around his mouth and eyes. How easily touched he was. That was a happy discovery. He wasn’t half as bad as he tried to make people think. Releasing his arm, Tess whispered, “Well, whatever your intentions, you’ll be saving lives with these medical items whether you know it or not.”

“And for that, you’ll have dinner with me tonight at the O club?” he pressed, taking advantage of her lowered guard. Never had he wanted anything more.

With a laugh, Tess shook her head. “I can’t go tonight. One of the women is in labor, and I promised her I’d stay with her. It’s her first baby, and I want to be here for moral support as well as for medical purposes.” Tess touched the box. “Now, with the Mercurochrome, I can disinfect the baby’s navel. Do you know how many infants get infection right after they’re born because of lack of iodine?”