By the Grace of God: Chapter 4
Poor soldiers sometimes surprise even the most hardened commanding officers
Loo sneered into the amber liquid he sat swirling around in the glass that appeared in his hand. The sweet, smoky aroma of the bourbon reminded me of cool winter evenings at my grandfather’s knee.
Puck tried me on around the same time Windy took on Jeepers. He knocked on my tent and came in as I was responding to correspondence and working on the upcoming campaign Command was organizing. A respectful knock and a polite request to enter preceded him sauntering in as if he owned the place and I should be glad to see him. I sat back in my chair, threw my feet up on the desk and played with the cigar between my teeth as I nodded towards the extra chair.
“What can I do for you, Corporal?” Puck turned the chair and sat backwards. His hands resting on the back of it, he took the measure of me. His eyes moved insolently from my toe to my head as he assessed me. He smirked, deciding to go for it.
“You know, Lieutenant, it’s more what I can do for you, isn’t it? I could ease your burdens and make your life easier. Major Harrison, God rest his soul,” Puck crossed his heart and tried to look pious, “gave me extra responsibility and little odd jobs that made his workload easier to bear. I’m here to offer my services to you in the same manner. I have the experience to help make your life here in hell more enjoyable.”
It was common knowledge what Puck did for Major Harrison. His holier-than-thou homage to his former CO didn’t fool me, neither. The remorse and grief he tried to convey never reached his eyes, it stuck to his words like the slimy little shit he was.
“Corporal, I know what you did for Major Harrison and I see your true feelings for him in your eyes. I have nothing for you to do. I have everything covered. Thank you for thinking of me, though. I’m mighty appreciative.”
The dismissive wave of my hand as I turned back to my paperwork told him it was time to go. He ignored the not-so-subtle hint and kept talking.
“Lieutenant Walters, I assure you I held Major Harrison in the highest esteem. As I do you. Please keep me in mind, I have more experience as a Quartermaster and can get this camp’s stores in tip-top shape right quick. Just give me the chance, won’t you?”
Puck set up house in my tent at that point, with no intention to leave until I gave him what he wanted. He helped himself to a cigar and the lighter from the humidor on my desk, spitting the tip onto the floor as he clicked the lighter open. I was having none of it.
Mouse, my Quartermaster, was the best, bar none, and I had no intention of shipping him off somewhere else to put Puck in his place. He was invaluable and, as my Poppy used to say, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Mouse didn’t need fixing or replacing.
I grabbed the back of that chair and yanked it out from under Puck’s smarmy ass, landing him on it instead. I set it back beside the desk, plucked the cigar from his mouth and snapped it in half. Tossing the pieces in the trash, I stepped back with my hands on my hips and smirked as I watched him get to his feet. He wasn’t so cocky anymore.
I leaned in nice and close, snatched the lighter from his hand, and looked him right in the eye. I wanted to make sure he grasped where he stood with me.
“Corporal, I will only say this once, do you hear me? I don’t enjoy having to repeat myself. You will NOT be my quartermaster. I will not be giving you any responsibility in my camp.”
I took a draw on my cigar and blew the smoke in his direction.
“Your smug, kiss-ass manner will not work on me or any of the guys in this camp. We work straight with one another. We don’t tolerate lying, cheating, stealing or disrespect. It gets treated accordingly, understood, BOY?”
He nodded at me, wide-eyed but calculating how best to handle me. I could see that in his eyes. I wrapped my lips around my cigar and settled back into my chair. Without another word, I dismissed him. He saluted me, clicked his heels extra loud, and turned tail to leave.
Puck’s arrogance annoyed me, but I understood it. I understood him better than he realized. We were two peas in a pod, him and I. That day marked the first of many skirmishes between Corporal Attersley and I over the years we worked together. That first one was the most entertaining.
He took the same position with everyone in camp, doing his best to swerve work and sail through the rest of his tour. Puck wanted to coast through the rest of his tour doing as little as possible. That notion did not last long. None of us tolerated it from him, or anyone else.
Puck was with us for close to nine months. Nine months in which every man in camp rode his ass trying to make him into the man we knew he could be. By the time Puck left Camp WhoopAss, we’d birthed ourselves a model Marine.
Corporal Ralph “Puck” Attersley not only signed up for a second tour, he requested to be in my unit. At the end of that tour, he signed on as a career man and ended up in country for a third tour, again with me. Puck retired from the Corps a few years after I did, served 30 years and left a decorated Marine.
I didn’t think he was true Corps material when he sauntered into my tent that day, but he became my right-hand man through our tours together. I don’t think I could have managed without him by the time I shipped home.
We worked together during our military careers, too. He was always a rank or two below me, but we were equals in my mind. Puck blew me away when he transformed from a smug, double-dealing scammer into a team player and a damn good Marine.
A cigar appeared in Loo’s hand, smoke spiralling upwards from the glowing tip. His lips wrapped themselves around the end of it and he took a long draw on it, blowing smoke rings between us.
I was so proud of myself the day I learned how to blow smoke rings.
He let out a deep chuckle and continued.
Puck and Windy got used to lying and cheating everyone in Harrison’s unit to get whatever they wanted. They stole from the unit’s stores and sold it on the black market, pocketing the money themselves instead of using it for more altruistic purposes. If they had been magnanimous in their use of that money, I may have been willing to overlook it, but not for selfish reasons. That wasn’t cool at Camp WhoopAss, where we whooped everyone else’s ass and protected our own. Loo slapped his thigh in delight. I always liked that motto the guys came up with, it worked for me.
The turning point for Puck was when Windy turned on him. Puck saw how fair and respectful I was with the guys and I saw his behaviour align with that of the rest of camp over a few months. Windy never got to that point.
Most people thought Windy got his nickname from his last name, Windermere, but it was also a nod to him growing up in a rough neighbourhood in Chicago. He ran with the gangs when he was a kid, getting into trouble every which way he could. His upbringing and the approach he grew up with came to ‘Nam with him. It wasn’t the best thing he could do. His life in camp would have been better if he had followed Puck’s example and aligned his point of view with ours.
Windy only saw us trying to manipulate and control him. That was laughable. He rebelled against us instead of joining us. His loss, to be honest.
We didn’t want to control anyone, we just wanted to make it home in as close to one piece as possible. To do that, our unit needed to think and act as one. That could only happen if we worked together.
Puck got with the program and worked with us instead of against us. Windy never became one of us. He bided his time until he could make his way home.
Lieutenant Walters took a moment’s pause, and I took a moment’s notice. I watched as he remembered something he wanted to mention, the emotions moving across his face like a thunderstorm across the prairies. He started talking, his eyes twinkling in amusement.
Early on, Puck got put on KP duty peeling potatoes and helping Cookie with meals. It was his punishment for taking supplies and trying to resell it on the black market. A group of guys saw him do it and confronted him, but he denied it and moved forward with his plan to sell it. They came to me, filled me in on what was going on and we devised our own plan.
We consulted with our contacts in the black market and set a plan in motion. They arranged a meet-up where Puck could sell it to the interested party. He showed up, ten minutes early, to do reconnaissance on the location, but he missed the fact that we were there waiting for him. We made him sweat it out by showing up ten minutes late, the rest of our party surrounding him as I walked up and held my hand out.
“Hey Lieutenant, I didn’t expect to see you here. What are you doing in this part of the jungle?”
Puck was nonchalant, but he was shitting bricks, I could tell. His eyes were darting from side to side, looking for his buyer to show up and wondering how in the hell he could move me along before he got busted. His plight was amusing. I found it difficult not to burst out laughing as he came up with reasons for me to get back to camp, but I kept a straight face.
“Hey Puck, I’m surprised to see you out here.”
Puck’s eyes widened as he wiped one hand down his face in exasperation. Footsteps crunched through the underbelly of the jungle, amplifying his desperation as he tried to get rid of me. The footsteps brought a newcomer to the clearing, a typical Vietnamese civilian with a scarf tied around his face, leaving only a pair of suspicious eyes staring out at us. Eyes narrowing, he turned to me.
“What you doing here, Joe? Shouldn’t you be moving along?”
We both turned to look at Puck. I smiled.
“Yeah, Joe. Shouldn’t you be moving along?” Puck looked around the group of us. The guys laughed at the panicked look on his face. “You look worried, Puck. Y’all right?”
I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. It became a laugh, increasing Puck’s anxiety until I let him off the hook.
“Give me the supplies, Puck, and come pay your dues. No questions asked, this time. Next time, we involve the higher-highers.”
Mouse pulled the scarf off his face and wagged his finger at Puck.
“Don’t do that again, Puck. I don’t take to people messing with my supply tent. It’s not nice to mess with Mouse and his stash.”
Puck looked puked out. He shook his head and started laughing. We caught him with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar and he knew it. Puck shrugged and took his punishment like a trooper.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Old habits die hard, ya know? Can we still be friends?”
We laughed and took him back to camp. I didn’t know how things would go, but Puck mucked into his KP (kitchen patrol) duty and never looked back. Cookie and Pork, our camp cooks, put him through his paces. They served us up every form of potatoes they could come up with the week he was on KP. Looked good on him, too.
It was that KP duty that started the rift between Puck and Windy. Puck accepted his punishment with a smile, knowing it wouldn’t be easy to get the better of us after that.
He underestimated Mouse by thinking he was meek. He thought I was a pushover who talked a big talk without walking the big walk. It was obvious Puck felt ours was a unit of laid-back fools, not having figured out our unit was a cohesive group of strong individuals that worked as one. We looked out for each other and the best interests of our unit and camp.
He figured it out that day. The way he treated us changed, there was more respect when he spoke to us.
Windy still figured we were just a bunch of morons and he was the smartest guy in that part of the jungle. He pissed Puck off when he knew we set him up and didn’t tell Puck the plan. Puck called him out on it and all Windy said was “They aren’t that clever, Puck. It’s not that difficult to figure out what they’re thinking. Besides, I thought you knew.” That was when Puck knew Windy wasn’t his friend and didn’t have his back. He was laughing at him getting caught, not helping him.
Years later, as we talked over old times, Puck told me he told Windy “they’re a good group of guys, they’ll take care of us.” Windy laughed. “They’re no different from anyone else. You wait, they’ll turn on you. I’m not giving them the chance to turn on me.”
Windy learned his lesson the hard way.
Keep reading with By the Grace of God: Chapter 5 here:
To start at the beginning, see By the Grace of God: Chapter 1 here:
