William looked at me through moist eyes.
“What did he say?”
“He said he was going out with me. He said that was the deal, that we would leave Firebase Phoenix together. I told you, right? About how I was going to meet him in Spanish Harlem, that we were going to eat until we threw up, then dance until dawn.”
“You said you didn’t talk about home, that was one of the first things Cruz taught you.”
“He did. He’d say, ‘Don’t even think about home, Shutter. What good is home going to do you? You’re here now. You’re in Nam.’ He used to say it would jinx me to talk of home.”
William took a deep breath and exhaled. I got a sense he wanted to tell me something more but was struggling with where to begin. “What happened, William?”
“Our company got orders to take this hill,” he said, starting to repeat himself and to stutter, words blending together. “It was supposed to be just a few days outside the wire. Just take the hill and come back. Cruz didn’t have to go. Cruz was a short-timer.”
“It’s okay, William. Slow down.”
But he didn’t slow down. He spoke rapid fire, holding back tears. “He went to our captain at the firebase and said I had a clerk’s job waiting for me in the rear, but the captain wouldn’t release me unless he had orders. That’s why Cruz went out again, because of me. Because the captain didn’t have orders for me to fly to the rear.”
I didn’t like where this was headed. “William, you don’t have to . . .”
He grabbed my left wrist with both his hands. “Cruz and I were in Charlie Company. Alpha Company went up the hill midmorning. Bravo wasn’t there. I don’t remember why not.”
I did. It was the ambush he’d told me about. The one in the elephant grass that had wiped out much of Bravo Company.
“One hundred meters from the summit, an NVA regiment had set an ambush. They had dug in and waited for us to get close. Too close to call in air support.”
“A brawl,” I said, remembering what William had called it.
“That’s right,” he said. “A brawl. The NVA opened up with RPGs and machine gun fire. AK-47s. They unleashed hell and cut Alpha Company to pieces. We could hear the men screaming, but the hill was steep, and it had been raining all the time. Every time we sent men up, guys slipped and slid down. They couldn’t get up. Those who did, the NVA cut them down, too. This went on for hours. The men screaming, moaning. Officers kept sending us up. More men died. We had no way to get to them. We couldn’t call in artillery, not even the Cobras. We had to just wait until the NVA melted back into the bush. But they didn’t. This time they didn’t.
“The wailing got to be too much. Cruz couldn’t take it. He said he was going up. I told him not to be a hero. I told him to blend in. Don’t stand out. My mother said that. ‘Blend in. Don’t be a hero.’ He and I just had to get back to the firebase alive. We just had to make it back, but he couldn’t take the thought of good marines dying on that hill.”
William took another deep breath, this one in a burst, like he was having trouble breathing.
“Are you all right? William?”
“As the sun set, Cruz said, ‘Let’s go, Shutter.’ I told him no. I said I wasn’t going up that hill to get myself killed, that I’d had this feeling ever since I’d gotten back to the firebase that my luck had run out. I told him I never should have come back, that the guys were right. They said death followed me. I told him what he always told me, that he should keep his head down. He said he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave them.” Another breath. “I came back for him. I never should have come back. If I hadn’t come back, if I had taken the clerk’s job, he never would have been out there. He would not have felt compelled to go.”
William cried and lowered his head, hugging his knees. I didn’t know what to do. I thought of calling Todd.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But the captain—”
William spoke as if he didn’t hear me. “In the morning, the NVA pulled out and what was left of us made our way up the hill. I kept looking for Cruz as I climbed over bodies on the trail. I kept waiting for him to step out from somewhere and call out, ‘Shutter. Do your job, Shutter.’ But I couldn’t find him. He wasn’t on the slope. He . . . He . . . I didn’t find him until I reached the top. Victor had made it to the top of the hill. The only one. He’d made it. Just Victor. Guys from Alpha Company who were still alive said Cruz pulled them to safety . . . that he killed a dozen NVA. They said he shot his M-16 until he ran out of ammunition. He grabbed rifles off the dead, emptying them. They said he didn’t stop until he’d made it to the top. They said he crawled when he couldn’t walk, that NVA bodies lay on the ground where he’d finally stopped moving. A brawl. They said it had been a brawl.”