Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers Page B

something solid.”
    “How about my daddy’s pickup truck?” Walowick asked. “I wouldn’t mind going home and getting behind that baby.”
    I couldn’t see a thing outside the chopper. The door gunner was reading a comic book. He looked cool. I thought of saying a prayer, but I couldn’t think of one. I didn’t know one prayer. Under my breath I apologized to God.
    “Yo, Peewee!”
    “What?”
    “We get back to the base, remind me to memorize a prayer.”
    “I know one,” Peewee said.
    “What is it?”
    “Flying into combat, bout to have a fit, Lord, if you listenin’, Please get me out this shit!”
    “Just say a Hail Mary!” Monaco yelled.
    From where we were at the base the action looked like it was just a few miles away. We were in the choppers nearly ten minutes and still going.
    I didn’t know we were even getting near until the door gunner put his hand on his headset, as if he were listening to something, then moved to his gun, pointed it down at the lush green jungle below us, and started firing. The .50 caliber started spitting, and the shells came out at an enormous rate. They were flying back into the chopper and banging around. I dropped my rifle. Monaco pushed it back toward me with his foot.
    We didn’t just come down, we damn near fell down. I was grabbing for the sides and shaking. I thought the chopper had been hit.
    “Get ready!” Sergeant Simpson called out. “Monaco, you go first. Don’t none of y’all shoot Monaco!”
    Monaco had his eyes closed, praying.
    “Now!” the machine gunner yelled over his shoulder.
    Monaco went out in a flash, and Lieutenant Carroll was right behind him. Johnson jumped out next and fell. I was next in the door, looked down, and saw that we were still about ten feet off the ground.
    “Jump, shithead!”
    I jumped and landed across Johnson’s legs. I got up first and started to help him up just as two more bodies landed on top of us. We started crawling away from under the chopper.
    “Let’s hit it! Spread out!”
    We spread out and started moving toward the trees. I kept as low as I could, bent over at the waist. We kept moving ahead, with Monaco running like he was crazy or something. There was no fire, and we stopped in a pretty dense area.
    “Stay down, stay alert!”
    We didn’t move for a while. I looked up and saw the choppers in the distance. Then they were gone. Even the sound was gone. The only thing I could hear was the heavy sound of my own breathing. We were on our own.
    Simpson started going around, placing the squad. Johnson was off to one side with the .60 caliber machine gun. Brew was his feeder. I gave Johnson the thumbs-up sign and he gave it back.
    The air in Nam was always hard to breathe; it was heavy, thicker than the air back home. Now it was harder. I opened my mouth wide and sucked in as much air as I could, but it didn’t seem to be enough.
    We waited ten minutes. Nothing. Then we began to hear small-arms firing off to our right. I looked, but I couldn’t see anything. You could smell it, though. You could smell the stink of gunpowder and hear the distant burping of the machine guns.
    We waited twenty minutes. Nothing. The sound of gunfire subsided. The smoke didn’t. It drifted our way like a gentle mist through the tall trees. Behind us the choppers were coming in again. They went back into the landing zone. Then they were gone again.
    We waited. Forty minutes.
    “Brunner! Back up!”
    We started out, moving less quickly than when we came in. The landing zone, without the excitement, the fear, was a longer distance away.
    We reached it finally, and I was near enough to Carroll to hear him call the choppers in. We were on the choppers and out in minutes, with Simpson screaming at us to get our weapons on safety.
    We got to the base area, and I remembered Jenkins. I was behind Brunner and followed the path he walked.
    We got back to the hooch, and Simpson came in.
    “How did Charlie Company do?” Walowick