A Hymn Before Battle lota-1 Page 2

  “Thank you, sir,” said the somber gate guard after a thorough study of Mike’s driver’s license and face. “Take the main road to a ‘T’ intersection. Turn right. Follow that road to Forces Command; it is a gray concrete building with a sign. Go past the main building to the guard shack on the left. Turn in there and follow the MP’s direction.”

  “Thank you,” said Mike, dropping the Beetle into gear and taking the proffered ID.

  “Not at all,” the guard said to the already moving Beetle. “Have a nice day.” The Delta Force commando in an MP uniform picked up a recently installed secure phone. “O’Neal, Michael A., 216-29-1145, 0657. Special attention Lieutenant General John Horner.” For a moment the sergeant first class wondered what all the fuss was about, why he was wearing rank three grades inferior to his real one. Then he stopped wondering. The ability to quell curiosity was a desirable trait in a long-term Delta. Damn, he thought, that guy looked just like a fireplug, then dismissed him from memory as the next civilian car pulled up.

  “I’d forgotten how much he looks like a fireplug.” Lieutenant General John J. (Jumpin’ Jack) Horner murmured to himself, standing at a comfortable parade rest as the Volkswagen puttered into a parking place. Over six feet tall and almost painfully handsome, the general’s appearance was the epitome of a senior military officer.

  Slim and hard looking, stern of mien, the only time he smiled was just before he pulled the rug out from under an incompetent junior officer. Erect of carriage, his Battle Dress Uniform fit as if, contrary to regulation, it was tailored. With closely cropped, silver hair and glacial blue eyes he appeared to be exactly what he was: an iron-clad modern scion of the Prussian warrior class. Were he wearing a greatcoat and jackboots he would slip unnoticed into the WWII Wehrmacht Oberkommando.

  His twenty-seven-year career had been spent exclusively in airborne infantry and special operations. Despite having never attained a keystone desire, command of the Ranger regiment, he was undoubtedly the world class expert in infantry tactics and doctrine. Furthermore, besides being an excellent theoretician and staff officer, he was considered a superlative commander, a leader of men in the old mold. In his career he had come across many characters, but few matched the squat juggernaut rolling across the emerald grass towards him. Horner laughed internally, remembering the first time he met the former NCO.

  * * *

  December 1989. The weather conformed to official standards for a North Carolina winter and Fort Bragg, Home of the Airborne, had been under sullen rain and sleet-swollen clouds for a week. With the exception of the weather, and it had its good points, Lieutenant Colonel Horner was pleased with his first ARTEP as a battalion commander. The units he and his sergeant major had grilled mercilessly for three long months had just performed flawlessly despite the environment, whereas the year before, under the previous commander, they brutally flunked the same Armed Readiness Testing and Evaluation Program test. Even with the rain it appeared that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world right up until his jeep suffered a sudden and spectacular blowout.

  Even this was no obstacle. Jeeps come with a spare tire; the driver’s rucksack was hanging from it, containing tools to handle just such an eventuality. But when his driver confessed that he had neglected to pack those self-same tools, Lieutenant Colonel Horner instantly smiled. It was a very Russian smile; it did not reach the eyes.

  “No tools?” asked the colonel tightly.

  “No, sir.” The specialist swallowed, his prominent Adam’s-apple bobbing up and down.

  “No jack.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Sarn’t Major?” snapped the colonel.

  The sergeant major, not having anywhere he was supposed to be and snug in his camouflage Gortex rain-suit, was deriving some humor from the situation. “Shall I draw and quarter him, sir?” he asked, tucking his hands into his armpits and preparing for a long wait in the sleet. He hoped like hell it would start to snow; there would be less of a chance of hypothermia.

  “Actually, I’m prepared to entertain suggestions,” said the colonel, holding on to his temper by a thread.

  “Other than the obvious, sir, call the CONTAC team?” A grin split his ebony face at the commander’s discomfiture. Jack was the best battalion commander he had ever met, but it was always fun to watch him handle minor problems. The colonel hated dealing with little shit like this. It was like he was born a general and was just waiting until he had an aide-de-camp to handle drivers and their failings.

  “Other than getting on the net and admitting that my driver is an idiot by calling a recovery team for a simple flat. Reynolds,” he said, turning to the specialist fourth class, standing at attention in the drizzling sleet, “I would love to know what the hell you were thinking.”

  “Sir, we have the operational readiness survey coming up,” said the specialist, desperately wishing his internal processes would just stop or a hole would open up and swallow him.

  “Uh huh, go on. Feel free to use more than one sentence,” said the colonel.

  “I think I know where this is going,” chuckled the sergeant major.

  Taking a deep breath the quivering specialist continued. “Well, the PLL kit is only good for minor shit like changing a tire…”

  “Like now!” the colonel snapped.

  “Yes, sir,” the specialist continued, doggedly, “and when the vehicle is good the tires rarely go bad. And this is a good jeep, that’s a new damn tire! But at ORS the inspectors know that the commanders’ vehicles get first dibs so they really go over ’em with a fine comb. And if they can’t find something major they look for little shit like chipped paint on your jack and stuff. So, I got the maintenance chief to swap me for a new set of PLL and since I didn’t want it to get fucked up…”

  “Knew it!” laughed the NCO. “God, I hate that trick. Next time, Reynolds, get two sets of PLL and keep one in your locker!”

  “Reynolds.” The colonel forced himself to pause. Ripping the head off the idiot would solve nothing. One of the reasons he was so angry was his own sense of failure for not replacing this particular weak link before ARTEP.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You are almost remarkably lacking in sense.” Horner looked at the heavens, as if seeking guidance.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I ought to send you to the Post Protocol office as a permanent driver,” said the colonel, returning to the situation.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It is not a compliment,” said the officer, smiling like a tiger.

  “No, sir. Airborne, sir.” Reynolds knew that when the colonel smiled like that you were totally screwed. Scouts, he thought, here I come.

  “Sergeant Major Eady?”

  “Alpha weapons.” While the discussion had gone on, the sergeant major had pulled out and consulted a tactical dispositions map. The sleet turning to rain pooled and dripped on the acetate cover, occasionally requiring a shake to clear the view. By evening it was sure to snow. The sergeant major decided he wanted to be back at the Tactical Operations Center by then; all his comfort gear was there.

  “Where?” snapped the colonel, stalking over to his own seat.

  “South to the next firebreak, which should be on the left about two hundred meters, around the bend, then about a hundred fifty, two hundred. Clearing on the right. If I remember correctly, there’s a lightning-struck pine at the edge of the clearing along the road.” The NCO had been driving these roads before the specialist was a gleam in his daddy’s eye.

  “Reynolds,” growled the colonel, throwing himself into the seat of the open jeep and propping his foot on the mud-splashed shovel lashed to the side.

  “Sir.”

  “I assume you can run four hundred meters in your field gear.” The colonel assumed the same position as the sergeant major in the back, gloved hands thrust into armpits, body slightly crouched to reduce surface area. The position of an experienced and heartily pissed infantry officer preparing for a long wait
in the cold rain and sleet.

  “Airborne, sir!” The specialist snapped to attention, happy to have somewhere to go out of the glacial gaze of his commander.

  “Go.”

  The embarrassed spec-four took off like a gazelle. The icy red mud splashed for yards in every direction with each stride.

  “Sergeant Major,” said the colonel, conversationally, as the figure disappeared around the first bend.

  “Yes, sir!” snapped the sergeant major, coming to attention in his seat, but not removing his hands from his armpits.

  “Sarcasm?” asked the colonel, tightly.

  “Sarcasm? Me, sir? Never,” he said, leaning back in his seat. Then he held up his right hand with forefinger and thumb slightly separated. A pea might have fit between the two. “Maybe, maybe, just a bit. A bit.” As he said it, his fingers separated until they were at maximum extension. “A bit.”

  “I have been meaning to talk to you about getting a new driver…” said the colonel, letting some of his tension go. The situation was just too stupid and petty to get really angry about.

  “Oh? Really?” The sergeant major chuckled.

  “It’s not so much the fact that he is so damn stupid,” the colonel continued, resignedly. The Smaj would have his little laugh. “It’s that when he’s not arrogant, he’s obsequious.”

  “Well, Colonel,” said the NCO, taking off his Kevlar helmet and scratching his head. A flurry of dandruff drifted off in the cold wind. Basic personal hygiene complete, he took care settling the helmet on his head and getting all the straps back in place. The chinstrap was greasy against his chin, the well-worn canvas soaked with skin oils after the long field problem. “The sergeant major is only an enlisted man and we’re not cleared to know what obsequious means. But if you mean he’s a little ass-kisser, that’s why he got the job in the first place. That and he’s a hell of a runner; Colonel Wasserman was big on running.” The ebony Buddha, a noted runner himself, smiled contentedly. From his point of view this was the last item that needed major repair in the whole battalion.

  “Colonel Wasserman came within a hair’s breadth of being relieved for cause and is currently headed for the street,” snorted the colonel. He and the sergeant major had tried to bring the soldier up to the standard that they expected but it just had not happened. Reynolds just seemed to be one of those soldiers best suited for the “Old Guard.” He looked great during inspections, but just could not get his head out of his ass when it came to combat training. Horner sighed in resignation, realizing that there were some situations that training would not solve.

  “In general I use the following criteria,” he continued. “If Colonel Wasserman thought it was a great idea, I try to go in the exact opposite direction. In a way it’s too bad I can’t follow him through the rest of my career, it’s like a guiding light. Move Reynolds out gracefully. Give him a nice letter, your signature, not mine, and send him back to Charlie company. Find a good replacement. God help us if we had to go to war with this bozo.”

  There was a period of silence as the two leaders listened to the falling precipitation. It seemed to have settled for sleet, but there were occasional flurries of snow and still a little freezing rain. In the distance there was a rumble of artillery from the Corp artillery having its bi-yearly live fire bash. Weather like this was good training for the cannon-cockers. Good training was an army euphemism for any situation that was miserable and, preferably, screwed up. Their present predicament met all the requirements for “good training.”

  “Where the hell is the jeep?” asked the colonel, resignation echoing in every tone.

  Coming down the road was a sight that would have been comical in other circumstances. Reynolds was tall and slender. Walking with him, carrying a gigantic overstuffed rucksack, was a short — Horner later learned he was five feet two inches tall — incredibly wide soldier. He looked like some camouflage-covered troll or hobgoblin. His oversized “Fritz” helmet and, when he got near enough to see, equally oversized nose completed the picture. Under one arm he carried a large chunk of pine, easily weighing seventy or eighty pounds and his face bore a deep frown. He looked far more annoyed than the colonel or sergeant major.

  “Specialist, hmm, O’Neal, one of the mortar squad leaders,” the sergeant major whispered as they approached. He climbed out of the jeep and the colonel followed, getting ready to deliver a world-class ass chewing, Horner style.

  “Sir,” said Reynolds, continuing his saga of despair, “when I arrived at the weapons platoon, I found all the vehicles were gone to refuel… ” As he spoke O’Neal walked to the rear of the jeep without a word or a greeting to the senior officer or NCO. There he dropped the log and his pack and grasped the bumper. He squatted, then straightened, lifting the corner of the thousand-pound jeep into the air with an exhalation.

  “Yeah, we can do this,” he said with a grunt and tossed the jeep back into the mud. It bounced on its springs and splattered Reynolds with more of the cold glutinous clay. O’Neal’s actions had effectively shut off the flow from Reynolds. “Good afternoon, sir, sergeant major,” O’Neal said. He did not salute. Despite standing division orders to do so, the 82nd continued the tradition of considering a salute in the field a “sniper check” and thus a bad thing to train for.

  The sergeant major stuck out his hand. “Howarya, O’Neal.” He was astounded at the return grip strength. He had dealt with O’Neal peripherally but had never appreciated the specialist’s almost preternatural condition. The baggy BDUs apparently hid a body made of pure muscle.

  “Specialist,” said the colonel, sternly, “that was not a good idea. Let’s try to think safe, okay? Rupturing a gut would just make a bad situation worse.” He cocked his head to the side like a blue-eyed falcon, pinning the soldier with his most arctic stare.

  “Yes, sir, I guessed you would say that,” said the specialist, the officer’s stare bouncing off him like rain off steel. He worked a bit of dip over to one side and spit carefully. “Sir, with all due respect,” he drawled, “I work out with this much weight every damn day. I’ve lifted the gun jeeps before for exercise, I even clean jerked one, once. I just wanted to make sure the extra radios didn’t make it too heavy. We can do this. I lift it, the sergeant major slides the log underneath, we change the tire, reverse the procedure and you’re outta here.”

  The colonel peered down at the specialist for a moment. The specialist looked back up with a matching scowl, the bit of dip bulging his lower lip. The colonel’s scowl deepened for a moment, a sure sign of amusement. He carefully did not ask why the sergeant major was sliding the log under the jeep instead of the driver. Apparently O’Neal had the same opinion of Reynolds that he and the sergeant major did.

  “You have a first name, O’Neal?” asked the colonel.

  “Michael, sir,” stated the specialist. He moved the dip to the other side. Other than that his expression of terminal annoyance did not flicker.

  “Michael or Mike?” asked the colonel with a deepening scowl.

  “Mike, sir.”

  “Nickname?”

  Reluctantly, “Mighty Mite.”

  As the sergeant major chuckled the colonel scowled fiercely, “Well, Specialist O’Neal, I reluctantly approve this procedure.”

  “How’re we gonna break the bolts?” asked the sergeant major. That had been wearing on his mind more than lifting the jeep. There were plenty of things to use for levers if necessary but not a lug wrench to be seen.

  Specialist O’Neal reached into his cargo pocket and with a flourish withdrew a crescent wrench all of eight inches long.

  “Good luck,” snorted Reynolds, “they got put on at Brigade with an impact wrench.”

  A smile violated the frown on O’Neal’s face for a moment. He knelt in the mud, cold water seeping into the fabric of his BDUs, adjusted the wrench and applied it to the nut. He drew a deep breath and let it out with a “Saaa!” His arm drove forward like a mechanical press and, with a shriek of stressed steel, the nu
t loosened.

  “Craftsman,” he said, relaxing and letting the rest of the breath out slowly, “when you care enough to use the very best.” He spit another bit of dip out, deftly spun the nut loose and started on the next.

  The colonel scowled, but there was a twinkle in his normally cold azure eyes. He turned to be unobserved and gave the sergeant major a wink. They had found their new driver.

  * * *

  “Howarya, Mike?” General Horner asked, as the approaching figure brought him back from memory lane. He extended his hand.

  Mike shifted the cedar box under his arm and took the outstretched hand. “Fine, sir, fine. How are the wife and kids?”

  “Fine, just fine. You wouldn’t believe how the kids have grown. How’re Sharon and the girls?” he asked. He noticed in passing that the former soldier had lost none of his musculature. The handshake was like shaking a well-adjusted industrial vise. If anything the former NCO had put on bulk; he moved like a miniature tank. Horner wondered if the soldier would be able to retain that level of physique given the demands that would shortly be placed upon him.

  “Well, the girls are okay,” said O’Neal, then grimaced. “Sharon’s not particularly happy.”