Outrage

Sword or Shield?-3

f*****g Frenchies, Mallory thought as he headed up the street. They’ve seen this sort of colonial problem before. Give the Foreign Legion its head and they’d snap all the cheap s**t out of Beirut in something less than a hot second.

Rojas seemed to be on the stick as Mallory approached. He’d completed his trade with an Italian NCO for the insignia of the San Marco Battalion and walked away to study the growing crowd of Lebanese and refugee civilians forming along the broad avenue.

From past experience over the past week, Mallory knew what to expect. A truck convoy carrying PLO fighters down to the docks would be through his sector shortly. The Pals would be firing in the air and raising hell like they had something to celebrate about getting booted out of Beirut. The Lebs would be bidding good riddance to what they considered bad rubbish and the refugees would be crying the poor-ass about being left behind in Lebanon. Mallory knew the drill and so did his Marines by this time.

Walking up the avenue in search of the only two men not in his immediate line of sight, Mallory tucked at the checkered scarf he’d taken to wearing around his neck. It was the black and white pattern of the Palestinian kefiyeh. Arafat wore one just like it wrapped around his gourd in every picture of the PLO leader he saw. Mallory had found it in a bombed-out building near the airport one day and decided it added dash—a certain flair to mark him as a salty veteran, like the non-regulation North Vietnamese Army belt buckle that Gunny Barlow wore. It suited Mallory to wear something that made him stand just a bit above the shapeless uniformity that the Marine Corps demanded. Until he landed in Beirut, getting away with alterations to standard uniform items had been a source of amusement for him and a source of constant irritation for Gunny Barlow.

Mallory spotted his two errant Marines pointing cameras at the shattered hulk of Beirut’s once-palatial Holiday Inn. A Lebanese liaison officer told them the O in the logo on the facade of the familiar landmark had been used as an aiming point by Israeli artillery gunners in an attempt to get the hotel’s unregistered Palestinian guests to check out early. Damn good shooting for cannon-cockers, Mallory thought. The sign now read H lid y nn. Give a guy enough ammo and he’ll find a way to waste it.

Over the babble of the growing crowd, Mallory heard the crackle of gunfire and the snarl of truck engines. It was time to get back to playing traffic cop. He shouted at the two Marines and led them back to the intersection. If they could keep the trucks rolling today, it would be on to ordnance-clearing down at the airport tomorrow. Scuttlebutt had it they would depart for a postponed period of liberty in Naples when that job was done.

Colonel Tom Skaggs hunched his meaty shoulders as he stepped out of the Jeep, rolled his eyes and shook his head at the perfect parade ground salute being fired at him by Gunnery Sergeant Harlan Barlow. He nodded and smiled at the veteran NCO who had served at his side during some truly bad times.

“Damn, Gunny, you tryin’ to get me killed?”

“Snipers in this shithole couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle, Colonel. You got nothing to worry about unless one of them gets real fuckin’ lucky.”

“Well, they been damn lucky so far. Pass the word to hold off on the saluting until we get these s**t-kickers out of the city.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Barlow grinned at his commanding officer and didn’t say the rest of what he felt. There was no need. He and Colonel Skaggs went back a long way. He’d volunteered to follow Skaggs into the Mediterranean, just as he’d followed the officer into the Belgian Congo and the jungles of Vietnam. The first cocksucker to take a bead on Colonel Tom Skaggs will find his sight picture disrupted while Harlan Barlow unscrews his head and shits right directly onto his shoulders.

Skaggs smiled and checked his watch to cover the flash of memory that hit him sometimes when he was around the Gunny. On a bad day in a bloody jungle, young Lance Corporal Barlow carried his wounded company commander out of an ambush and onto a helicopter. From a medevac slab in a Danang aid station, Skaggs had dictated the citation for the Silver Star that Barlow wore on the rare occasions when he was forced to fall out in a dress uniform.

Both veterans flinched instinctively as a four-barreled antiaircraft weapon manned by a departing PLO crew spat streams of tracers into the air. Skaggs shook his head in disgust. “Damndest thing I ever saw, Harlan. You’d think these clowns won a war instead of getting their asses kicked off the battlefield.”

“Don’t mean s**t, Colonel. Take a look at The Nam. It ain’t the noise you make or the number of rounds you fire. It’s the hits that count. If these fuckin’ camel jockeys would have fired half of what they’re burnin’ up in this evacuation at the Israelis, it might have been a different story.”

“Let ’em get their kicks. Sooner we get ’em out of Beirut, the sooner we can get on with this cruise.”

“That still include liberty in Naples, sir?”

“Sure as hell does, Gunny.” Skaggs bashed Barlow’s shoulder and grinned. “Last fling for me. I’m slidin’ out slow and easy when we get back Stateside.”

“That’ll be the day, Colonel.” Barlow tried to hide his misgivings as he followed Skaggs back toward the command Jeep. It was hard for him to imagine a Marine Corps without Colonel Tom Skaggs and he’d been hoping the Old Man would stick around to make general.

“That’ll be the day the missus meets me at dockside with the retirement papers ready to sign. She’s gettin’ a mite pushy about that log cabin I promised her thirty years ago.”

Skaggs re-mounted his Jeep and nodded for his driver to crank it up. The new guy was competent but didn’t have half the fire or personality of his predecessor. “How’s young Mallory doing, Harlan? Is my former driver making his bones down in a rifle squad?”

“He’s still got some s**t-bird tendencies, Colonel. I got to fire him up every once in a while but Mallory will be OK, sir. I’ll see to that.”

Skaggs waved as his Jeep lurched into traffic and headed for the Beirut cornice road. He just made it through a busy intersection thronged with bystanders as another convoy of shouting, shooting Palestinian fighters roared into view.

“Tell me she don’t look exactly like Sophia Loren, Doc.”

Doc Grouse followed Mallory’s gaze to the olive-skinned woman across the crowded street from their post. He guessed she did look like a coarse, unpolished version of the actress—an Earth Mother type that made you want to bury your face between her breasts and breathe through your ears. The woman was struggling with a six- or seven-year-old boy, and every time the kid jerked on her arm, those voluptuous breasts bobbled around under her blouse like two bobcats battling it out inside a burlap bag.

“s**t like that proves what I been sayin’ all along, Steve. When God made the world he had two of His fairies linger over Lebanon: the nose fairy and the tit fairy.”

Gunfire rattled from the trucks bearing down on them and Mallory signaled for the corpsman to take his post. The last convoy from the Sabra Refugee Camp was on the way and Doc might have some real work to do if the crowd got out of hand. There was a last glimpse of the woman and her unruly charge before the lead truck swung around the corner and blocked his view.

The first truck was slightly ahead of the convoy, full of shouting, shooting Pals. As it passed, Mallory watched two exuberant fighters squabbling over a dusty red beret. Neither man managed to get a grip on the hat as it sailed over the tailgate, floating on a current of hot exhaust gas like an errant Frisbee.

A scream pierced the babble around him and Mallory caught sight of the buxom young woman trying to fight her way through a solid crowd. The bratty kid had broken away, ducked through several pairs of legs, and run into the street to claim the lost beret.

The high-pressure hiss of air brakes and the howl of a diesel horn spurred Mallory into action. The kid stood screaming, terrified by the sight of the truck bearing down on him. Bolting for the center of the intersection, Mallory swept the boy up in his arms and flashed a glance at the truck over his left shoulder. All he could see was a bug-splattered grill. He rolled right, keeping himself between the kid and the skidding, screeching vehicle. The bumper caught him on the flak jacket and sent him sprawling to the other side of the street.

His neck hurt and his shoulder felt like someone had slapped it with a sledgehammer, but there was no significant damage. From the screams the kid was spewing into his face, it was clear he’d also survived. Mallory struggled up onto shaky legs and set the boy on the ground. The gabbling crowd cleared to make room for Doc Grouse and his medical kit.

“Damn, Mallory! You’re gonna get yer d**k knocked stiff doin’ s**t like that.”

He started to formulate a response but his attention was riveted on the woman as she broke through the crowd to kneel beside the boy. She was, indeed, a stone fox.

The Lebanese truck driver had halted his vehicle in the middle of the intersection to loudly disclaim any fault in the incident. Horns blared long and loud and Mallory noticed some nervous faces peering over the rail of the truck. Things were getting a bit tense.

“Get these goddamn vehicles moving! Show’s over! Move ’em out!”

Rojas escorted the panicky driver back to the cab of his truck while the other Marines began to push the crowd back and clear the roadway. In less than a minute the convoy was rolling again and the incident seemed forgotten by everyone but the three people clustered around the squalling boy. When you’ve seen a lot of death, Mallory mused, a close call doesn’t even make good gossip.

The Lebanese boy continued to bellow as if he’d been hit by the truck rather than saved from death by Mallory’s quick action. He squatted beside the woman to watch Doc Grouse paint antiseptic on some angry red scrapes. “What’s his problem? Kids get hurt worse than that in the States every day.”

“Probably just scared shitless.” The Corpsman applied bandages to the boy’s legs and shrugged. “Only damage I can see is a coupla skinned knees.” The woman stood but maintained a firm grasp on the child. She stared into Mallory’s eyes and seemed to be sizing him up for a moment.

“He cries because he did not get the soldier’s hat.” She glanced at the amazed expressions on both American faces and a smile began to form. “English is not such a hard language. Before the fighting I was a student—at the American University.”

Mallory reamed his ear with a little finger and then reached into the cargo pocket of his trousers. He slapped a camouflage Marine Corps cover out of its folds and plopped the hat down on the boy’s head. Sobbing stopped immediately and the boy reached up cautiously to touch the brim of his prize. Convinced he’d scored a real prize, the boy tore away to show if off before a clutch of friends who had been watching the encounter from a distance.

Mallory shook his head and grinned. In the States you give ’em a lollipop for being brave. In Beirut it’s a piece of military gear. Same tune; different instruments. Doc Grouse finished packing up his medical gear and stood. “He’ll be fine, lady. But I’d damn sure keep my kid out of the streets if I was you.”