War Year by Joe Haldeman Page A

to be a trailer with walls and a roof built over it), there were four guys digging a hole and filling sandbags.
    â€œThis Bravo Company engineers?”
    An old guy, about thirty-five, dropped his shovel and climbed out of the hole. “That’s us.” He stuck out his hand. “Sergeant Pobanovitch, call me Pop. Which of you is Farmer and which is Horowitz?”
    We got straightened out and he introduced us to the others. “The tall one’s Doc Jones, the medic.” Jones was the only Negro in the bunch. “Guy with the pick is Fats—Fats, what the hell is your real name?”
    â€œDon’t matter. Fats is OK.”
    â€œAnd I’m John Williamson,” the last one said. “They call me Professor.” He looked kind of like a professor, too; horn-rimmed glasses and bald halfway up his head. But he was just as dirty as the rest, and unshaven to boot.
    â€œAll right, men, take a break,” Pop said. “We’ll help you get rid of some of that beer.”
    â€œYeah, it’s lunchtime anyhow.”
    â€œYou ever think about anything else, Fats?”
    â€œYou betcher sweet ass I do!” He went over to a cardboard box and fished out a green tin can. “None of them around, though.”
    â€œLet me show you guys how to eat C’s,” the Professor said. He pulled out three C-ration cans and started opening one with a P-38 Army issue miniature can opener. “You don’t want to open it all the way—leave enough so you can use the top as a handle.” He bent the top over so it made a kind of messy handle. “Then you find yourself a stove, like this.” He picked up another tin can with both ends removed to make a hollow stand, with holes punched in the side. “Now. You take some C-4”—he took a stick of the white plastic explosive out of his pocket—“pinch off a piece the size of a marble, put it in the stove and light it.” It flared up with an orange flame, and he put the C-ration can on top of the stove. “It heats up real fast but you’ve got to stir like mad to keep it from burning on the bottom.”
    The can he brought over for me turned out to be frankfurters and beans; Willy got spaghetti and meatballs. Not bad. For dessert, we opened cans of fruit.
    â€œFarmer, you and Horowitz are going out with the Prof tomorrow to relieve the engineer squad with A Company, First of the Twelfth. Prof’ll be in charge, and your squad’s code name is Two-One-X-ray. That’s what we’ll call over the radio when we want to talk to you.
    â€œReminds me—we’ve gotta get code names for both of you. Can’t use real names over the air. Either of you have a nickname?”
    I remembered Smitty at Cam Ranh Bay. “Anything but Tex. Call me Okie.”
    â€œOkie it is.” Pop wrote it down in a little notebook. “Horowitz?”
    He puffed on his cigarette. “Hmm… how ’bout ‘Whore’?”
    â€œFine.” He wrote it down. “Now—good thing you came so early; didn’t think we’d get this bunker done by nightfall. Fats, you get a chain saw and Doc, get an ax; go out an’ get us some overhead. Rest of us’ll keep digging here. Including the lieutenant, if he ever gets back from that goddamn meeting.”
    â€œMeetin’!” Doc snorted. “You know they’s up there drinkin’ beer and tellin’ dirty stories. Lieutenant’s not comin’ back ’til the work’s all done.”
    â€œâ€˜RHIP’ Doc—remember what that means?”
    â€œYeah… ‘rank has its privileges’—too many fuckin’ privileges, if y’ ask me.”
    â€œSo who asked you? Take a couple of beers, but don’t let any officers see you drinkin’ on the other side of the perimeter. If they do, I’ll swear I don’t know where you got ’em.”
    â€œOK, Pop.” Doc put a