I kept a pocket calendar by my rack. Every evening before lights out, I'd cross off another day. It was sort of a ritual for me. The daily countdown helped me keep it together over there.
It was a rare evening. So far, no ambushes.
Just the nightly fireworks show, courtesy of tracers from Viet Cong
gunfire high above our tents.
“You joking?”
Sugden laughed, almost dropping the flashlight he was using to read in
his rack.
“Hey, pipe down, we’re trying to get some shut-eye
here!” somebody yelled out.
“Captain’s for real,” I whispered, trying to get
comfortable in my cot, the sheets damp as always. “He wants us to play again, like back at Bragg. Only here.”
"Who?" Sugden whispered back. "You and Ioli and Voina?"
"I guess." I thought for a moment. "Ioli can handle it, I think."
"You could ask him in the morning. He's got the four to midnight
tonight. What about Voina?"
"I don't know, man. I want to play stuff that's on the radio, new stuff. He likes the old stuff." I waved away a cloud of giant
mosquitoes. "Besides, if I’m
on guitar and Ioli's on drums, what we'd really need is a bass player. So what
do you think," I whispered.
"You up for it?"
"What?
Hell, yeah!" he said.
"Hey, shut it up over there!" somebody else
yelled.
Sugden lowered his voice. "But where the hell are we going to find instruments in
this dump? Black market?”
“No
idea,” I said, reaching for my pocket calendar and pen on the footlocker next
to my cot. I squinted in the dark
and crossed out another day. “I just told Captain I’d do it.”
“Even if we could find some, how we gonna pay for
them? We ain’t got that kind of
cash.” Sugden pulled off his
glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“I don’t know,” I said, using the point of my pen to
silently count off my time left.
Three hundred and six days to go.
“Sleep on it,” he grunted, snapping off the
flashlight. He rolled over. Soon he was snoring.
The rumble of distant artillery rattled my cot. I didn't think I'd ever get used to it...