Outrage

Sword or Shield?-2

“Nah. These fuckers are just stone-assed nuts, Rojas. No fire discipline. No nothin’. Your granny could f**k ’em up with nothin’ more than a reinforced fire team. They’re just tryin’ to show off.”

“Corporal Mallory! I best see your ass double-timin’ up that street!” A familiar roar suddenly cut through the snarl of diesel engines and practically every other sound in the noisy streets of Beirut. “And get that helmet on your gourd before I cram it up your ass!”

Rojas stifled a giggle and beat feet away from the threatening specter of Gunnery Sergeant Harlan Barlow, the man who was bearing down on them, flapping his tattooed arms like some hammer-headed gargoyle fueled with high-octane kick-ass. Mallory turned to follow but Barlow’s whiskey-raw growl tripped him in midstride.

“Freeze in place, ass-bag! You wanna tell me what the f**k a rifle squad leader is doin’ away from his rifle squad when every dune-coon in the goddamn world is runnin’ around this AO like a scalded-ass ape?”

Struggling to suppress a grin, Mallory popped his helmet back on his head and wondered for the hundredth time where this lanky buzz-saw from someplace in southeast Missouri got such a colorful vocabulary. Given the guy’s military history, revealed in a gaudy display of decorations and service ribbons on the rare occasion when he was ordered out of combat dress, it could have been Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Africa or any combination of exotic duty stations in both peace and war.

He’d nearly pissed himself trying not to laugh aboard ship on the trip over when the Gunny tore into his squad over some infraction. With Gunny Barlow a word to the wise was always insufficient and an ass-chewing was a work of art to be lovingly crafted with creative profanity. The Gunny seemed to have marked him for special attention ever since the day he’d been promoted out of a skate job as driver for the Commanding Officer of 32nd MAU.

Barlow moved into bayonet range and slashed Mallory from head to toe with a withering glance. The fading tattoos on his wiry arms rippled as he jammed fists onto his hips with elbows cutting a precise 45 degree angle. “Spit it out, Mallory. Colonel’s makin’ his rounds and I ain’t got all day to be screwin’ the pooch.”

“Gunny, Colonel Skaggs pulled me and Rojas away from our post. He come around in a Jeep and told us to stand by near the docks as security for that guy Hakim.”

Barlow’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he digested that information. A raucous burst of gunfire seemed to distract him momentarily and then he was locked back into Mallory’s eyes. “I see one of yer s**t-eatin’ grins formin’, Mallory. Stifle it and listen up. I got two things to say to you. One: Until we get out of this Ethiopian jug-f**k, I don’t want to see you any more than six feet away from them maggots in your squad. Two: That sugar-tit the Old Man had you on has dried up. Colonel Skaggs and me been around the grinder together more than once. Don’t be playin’ him off me. Is that clear?” Barlow didn’t wait for a response. He turned to charge up the rubble-strewn streets of Beirut as though he was back on the drill field at Parris Island.

It figures, Mallory mused, removing his helmet to massage a sore spot on his scalp. Wherever the Gunny goes it might as well be Parris Island. Before Mallory could move, the Gunny did a neat about-face and planted himself back in position for another tirade. He snatched Mallory’s helmet and slapped it back on his head with a painful thump. There was nothing to say, so Mallory tried a feeble smile. Surprisingly, it worked. The corners of Barlow’s pale blue eyes crinkled as he shook his head in mock disgust.

“When you gonna learn, son? Didn’t nobody ever teach you what goes up must come down? All that lead these clowns are poppin’ up into the air has got to fall and the unlucky agent that’s standin’ in the wrong spot when that happens is gonna find out about terminal ballistics the hard way.”

Mallory was too shocked to respond. As well as he could recall, it was the first time the Gunny had ever put two words together without one of them being profane. “I knew a dude like you in Vietnam, Mallory. He never had much s**t together either.” There was laughter in Barlow’s eyes so Mallory let the long-suppressed grin spread over his features. It seemed like something he could get away with this time. He was right. Barlow shook his head once more, spun on his boot heel and sauntered up the street.

Mallory watched silently until the Gunny was out of ear-shot and then turned to Rojas. “That f*****g guy actually has a sense of humor. “I don’t know whether to s**t or wind my watch…”

It was nearly time for Wafic to leave Beirut and the camp that had served as his headquarters during the most recent Zionist campaign to eradicate the Palestinian people. Over the past week he had pumped his men up with assurances of their ability to continue the struggle, told them not to worry about their families and packed them off for shipment out of Lebanon. Now it was his turn to go and he had a few personal details to handle.

Fortunately, the Palestinian fighters in Beirut were being allowed to take their personal weapons along, which made their recent survival against an overpowering enemy somewhat easier to pass off as an interim victory. As an old soldier, Wafic deeply regretted having to leave the antiaircraft guns, tanks, mortars and rockets provided by the Iranians, Syrians and other Arab brothers in Beirut, but there were more and better weapons to be had elsewhere. The Zionists, he thought, had managed to wiggle off a high-explosive hook in Beirut but they would not escape the ultimate fate of those who desecrate the homelands and challenge the might of Islam.

For the most part Wafic was a practical field soldier but he believed these things with all his heart. Like verses from the holy book, he had repeated these things until they took meaning beyond practical matters. You repeat what you should believe until it becomes the only truth. This is faith, he supposed, and faith is the food of the holy warrior. Wafic smiled as he picked up his rifle and shouldered the Soviet-style backpack that contained personal items packed by his good wife.

She was waiting for him at the end of the street where the last trucks from Sabra were idling. He could see her dumpy form as she clutched his two sons to her side. She wore the traditional hijab and covered her face with the niqab. It did not bother Wafic that he would not see her face as he prepared to leave. His wife had been weakened by twelve years of struggle and the effort to feed his sons while he fought as directed by the Popular Front. His sons were the important thing now and he would show them a strong figure before he left Beirut. They would have to become hard men to survive the constant threat of extermination by the Zionists.

Wafic accepted a paper parcel of food from his wife and grimaced at the tears that flowed from her dark eyes to form an irregular line of moisture along the edge of her veil. The wife of a PFLP officer should have more courage. Wafic thought to reprimand her, but women are only women and women are weak. Ins’allah. It was irritating, but it was as God intended.

He knelt to kiss his sons on both cheeks. At least the boys had smiles for their father. Wafic reluctantly broke the hug he was sharing with his sons when his wife sobbed aloud. He stood and stared intently into her brimming eyes.

“Listen to me. There is a plot to weaken us by forcing Palestinian children to live with the Jews. You have one duty while I am gone. No matter what happens, you will see that my sons do not fall into Zionist hands.”

His wife nodded dutifully and Wafic watched the niqab cling to her mouth as she took a deep breath. She was trying to be strong, but there was weakness in her vacant stare. He glanced over his shoulder to see the last trucks preparing to leave Sabra for the docks. The woman would need courage and there was no time for lectures.

He unsnapped the holster at his hip and drew out the chunky Makarov pistol he had been issued in Damascus. With an angry motion, he jacked a round into the chamber of the weapon and handed it to his wife. She stared at it only momentarily before tucking it into the folds of her dress. No further words were necessary. With the gun resting on her belly, Wafic knew his wife would do whatever must be done. He turned to leave and did not look back at his family.

From the rubble-strewn rooftop of a battered four-story building overlooking the refugee camp, the convoy of trucks looked like a wounded snake crawling away from tormentors. A deeply tanned man in dusty, nondescript military uniform refocused his binoculars and remembered the serpents that had crawled out of the ruins of Beaufort Castle following a week of desperate fighting between entrenched terrorists and his Golani Brigade. After the PLO had been driven off that historic redoubt, Israeli soldiers stood in weary clumps throwing rocks at the stunned desert adders that slithered away seeking shelter from the relentless sun. The soldiers had been active witnesses to brutal death and destruction for a full week. Yet, even in victory, they could not stop killing. It was as though the terrified serpents were Palestinians and the men of the Golani Brigade considered them deadly until they were fully and finally destroyed.

Watching the trucks full of shouting, shooting Palestinian fighters roll toward their departure from Beirut, the observer decided the head of this virulent snake had been lopped off, but the fangs were still very dangerous. He wondered what the final outcome would be as he picked up a radio handset and glanced at his partner.

“That’s the last convoy from Sabra. I’ll call in the report.”

The second sun-scorched man on the rooftop did not seem to hear. He swept his field glasses away from the trucks and focused on the wall of wailing refugee families left behind in Sabra. “Just look at that,” he finally commented, “all that Palestinian scum in such a confined area. A couple of good air strikes and we’d rest assured all those little urchins would never grow up into big terrorists.”

The first observer paused with the radio handset halfway to his ear. He ground his teeth and searched for sympathy. “David—revenge is not the answer. We must ...”

“Come to me with that argument after one of these little bastards has tossed a bomb into your living room.” Without breaking concentration, the second observer cut him off in midsentence. “Until then, don’t preach!”

“You talk like a f*****g Nazi.” But there was no anger in the man’s eyes as he watched his eternal enemies prepare to escape from the Israeli encirclement of Beirut. That emotion had been burned out of him by the bomb that killed his wife and daughter along a highway near Jerusalem.

Since Corporal Mallory and Doc Grouse, the platoon medical corpsman, commenced horse-trading with the lunatic legionnaire from 2eme Regiment Etrangere de Parachutiste, some of the other squad members had wandered away from the intersection they were assigned to control. A temporary trade impasse had been reached in both language and terms, so Mallory let the lanky Navy Hospital Corpsman negotiate in high-school French while he rounded up his men.

The Legionnaire had weird lights in a set of very strange eyes and Mallory didn’t mind getting away from it for a while. Something about that stare—and the way the guy fondled the FAMAS assault rifle slung across his chest—seemed to indicate he’d be most pleased to blow away any and all living things that wandered into his assigned field of fire. The shrunken beret crushed over his buzz-cut scalp gave the man a gnomish, slightly retarded look but there was nothing backward about his bargaining ability. Mallory signaled Doc Grouse to up the ante for the pair of winged dagger beret badges currently on the auction block and left them to haggle.