The gangly captain had just finished praying while looking up at a crucifix centered high on the bulkhead at the head of his bed, a few inches above a color photograph of Pope Paul VI, hooked on a nail an inch beneath the cross on the left, and a black-and-white photograph of President John F. Kennedy, draped with black bunting, fastened on the wall to the right of the pope. As he teetered clumsily to his feet, rising like a dizzy stork, while turning away from his bed, he moved his long and bony right forefinger from the center of his forehead to the center of his chest, then to his left shoulder and to his right, blessing himself.

“Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch,” Terry O’Connor mumbled with a smirk to Jon Kirkwood. “I swear I knew this guy back in Philly when I was a kid in Catholic school. Just a little bit on the creepy side, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh!” the man gasped, seeing the pair of newly joined lawyers standing at the main entrance to the barracks, holding ajar the inwardly opening, double-wide screen doors so they would not bang shut, waiting respectfully for him to finish his devotionals before invading his sanctum.

“Sorry, Mack,” O’Connor said, letting go of the screen, allowing it to slam against the frame, and then striding forward to where the man stood and thrusting out his right hand. “We just barged through the doors and there you were on your knees, talking to God, so we thought we ought to give you a moment before we imposed our company on you. I’m Terry O’Connor, and this steely-eyed devil here on the port side is my all-around best friend and cohort in sin, Jon Kirkwood.”

“I am totally embarrassed,” the lanky captain said, taking O’Connor’s hand and shaking it, and then grabbing Kirkwood’s, too. “You must think I am some kind of a religious freak.”

“Not at all,” O’Connor said, unconsciously wiping the clammy sweat from the handshake on the seat of his trousers. “You have my utmost respect.”

“Mine, too,” Kirkwood said, pulling his hand from the damp and cold-as-death grip. “Didn’t catch your name, though.”

“I am so sorry,” the ghostly complected man said, his long, narrow face immediately flushing red, causing the shaggy blond tangle of thinning hair atop his head, fanning in every direction above his close-cropped temples like the fronds on a coconut palm, to take on a pink cast from the reflection of the blush glowing off his scalp. “I am in such a fluster this afternoon, totally out of sorts. Michael Carter here, Harvard Law, class of 1962.”

“Glad to know you, Mike,” Kirkwood said, offering a friendly smile to the strange-looking man.

“Same here, Mickey,” O’Connor said, chopping out the words with his rapid-fire, Philadelphia-born-and-raised manner of speech.

The man beamed a wide smile filled with tartar-caked yellow teeth spreading from puffy, pink gums and said, “I am equally glad to know you both.”

Jon Kirkwood suddenly took two steps to one side and pretended to look for his bunk, where he had left his seabag and valise. The full brunt of Michael Carter’s breath had assaulted him.

Not losing a beat, Terry O’Connor pulled a roll of peppermint Certs from his pocket and popped one in his mouth. Then he tore back the paper and motioned for Michael Carter to take one.

“Oh, thank you,” Carter said, fingering the mint from the pack.

“Ah, here’s my gear, right where I left it,” Kirkwood said, thinking that the last time he had smelled anything so foul as Carter’s breath, he had stumbled on the carcass of a dead goat at the mouth of a drainage run while hiking at Big Sur in August.

“Harvard Law, no shit,” O’Connor said, sucking on the peppermint lozenge.

“My undergraduate work was at Haverford College, in Pennsylvania, where I graduated summa cum laude,” Carter said proudly. “I applied for Harvard just on a lark, and what do you know!”

“I was Columbia all the way, both undergrad and law school,” O’Connor said. “Jon did the same at UCLA. Nothing like Harvard, but not exactly community college either.”

“I had also applied at Cornell, and was accepted,” Carter then beamed, “but who can turn down Harvard if you get in?”

“Very true,” Jon Kirkwood said. “While Terry and I will end up scraping nickels from the gutters, you’ll be up there in some Park Avenue high-rise stacking the long green.”

“Not at all,” Carter said, frowning. “I have dedicated myself to the poor. I intend to do legal aid in Boston when I finish my military service. The plight of the poor is no laughing matter, gentlemen. Money does not interest me at all. Justice is my cause, and my reward shall be the satisfaction of righting the injustices heaped upon our brothers and sisters who struggle against poverty.”

“Politics, I get it,” O’Connor said with a smile. “You’d really get along with this Swedish lady I know back in New York. I think she’s read some of the same crap that you did.”

“No, I am not political,” Carter said, stiffening and then looking back at the photograph of JFK on his wall, after seeing Terry O’Connor’s gaze travel to the pictures of the pope and the dead president.

“So you have Kennedy up there, draped with black bunting, for sentimental reasons?” O’Connor said, a tone of sarcasm lilting from his voice.

“Exactly!” Carter said. “I have ties with the Kennedy clan.”

“You’re related?” Kirkwood said, pulling a khaki uniform from the suitcase he had unfolded on his bunk, and then neatly hanging the garment in the wall locker.

“Philosophically related, if you will,” Carter said. “I greatly admired the president, and I subscribe to his philosophy of asking not what my country can do for me, but what I can do for my country.”

“You didn’t even get a draft notice then, did you?” O’Connor said.

“No,” Carter said. “I joined the Marines straight out of school. My duty to my country.”

“Your family must have a lot of money, pal,” O’Connor then said, grabbing his seabag and dumping its contents on his bunk, spilling half of it across the floor.

“Why would you say that?” Carter said, surprised.

“Guys like you are either completely crazy or filthy rich,” O’Connor said. “Crazy people don’t make it through Harvard. Don’t even get an interview to get in Harvard, or Yale, at that matter. Rich does. I peg you as filthy fucking rich, with a capital F.”

“Filthy or fucking?” Kirkwood asked, laughing.

“Take your pick,” O’Connor said, throwing his boots into the bottom of his wall locker. “Don’t get me wrong, Mickey, I like filthy fucking rich. I want to be filthy fucking rich one day. I admire filthy fucking rich. I’ll take the corner office with the big leather chair any day of the week over camping in a slum with a soap box as a desk.”

“Rich is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Carter said, walking back to his bunk and sitting on it, resting his chin on his hands, and staring at the floor.

“See?” O’Connor said to Kirkwood. “Can I pick ’em or can I pick ’em?”

“Carter, you are filthy fucking rich, aren’t you,” Kirkwood said.

“Yes,” Carter mumbled. “I hate it, too.”

“My wife is well-to-do,” Kirkwood then admitted as he shoved his empty suitcase under the end of his bunk, hiding it behind his footlocker. “She has her emotional problems with the money and all, sounds a lot like you, too, when she bemoans the problems of having loads of cash, but given the choice of having wealth or living out of a soup can, she will choose to suffer in the lap of luxury every time.”

“I intend to do good,” Carter said. “I refuse to be another rich, Boston elitist tossing crumbs to the poor from my Bentley on my regular weekend sojourns to Martha’s Vineyard.”

“You drive a Bentley?” O’Connor said, kicking his suitcase under his rack. “I would have taken you for a Rolls-Royce purist.”

“Very funny,” Carter said, still brooding with his face in his hands.

“Hey, pal,” O’Connor said, “don’t take it so hard. Hell, you can give me a couple of your millions, and then you won’t be so rich. How’s that?”

“Fuck off. You wouldn’t take it if I did give it to you,” Carter said.

“Good judge of character,” Kirkwood said, leaning against his wall locker, “but I know this Irishman a lot better than that. I think that if you put a million bucks under Terry O’Connor’s nose, he would grovel for it like a hungry dog.”

“Fuck-an-a, Jack,” O’Connor laughed, wadding his empty seabag and stuffing it in his footlocker. “Like I said, nothing wrong with money. It greases the axle for the proverbial wheel of life to keep right on spinning round and round. I’m a lawyer, for crying out loud. A law whore. Pay me a fee and I am all yours, baby.”

“They don’t put guys like that on the defense team,” Carter said. “You’re a weenie just like the rest of us, trying to exact a little humanity and justice out of this fucked-up system. Now tell me the truth.”

“I guess you saw the Nathan’s Hotdogs sign stenciled on my shorts,” O’Connor said and laughed, letting go of his footlocker’s lid, allowing it to bang shut. “Yeah, I really do give a shit what happens to these poor bastards. I also get good and pissed off seeing them railroaded by the likes of Dicky Fucking Doo and his Fabulous Don’ts.”

“Dicky Doo is nothing,” Carter said. “You have not yet met the consummate evil, Captain Charles E. Heyster.”

“As in shyster?” Kirkwood chimed with a laugh.

“Heyster the shyster,” Carter said. “That’s good but not original, yet quite apropos. You’re not the first to call him that, nor will you be the last.”

“So he is the shining star in Dicky Doo’s galaxy?” O’Connor said, pulling off his sweat-stained shirt.

“He is Dicky Doo’s galaxy,” Carter said with a sigh, still sitting on his bunk resting his chin on the heels of his hands and his elbows propped on his bony knees. “His foremost champion for injustice. This morning in court, Charlie the shyster handed me my head yet again. This time he not only humiliated me, but my client, too, and he pissed squarely in the face of justice, railroading a completely innocent man, simply from the way he looks and a dirty little name that people called him behind his back. How can a human being be so cruel as to knowingly send an innocent man to prison?”

“They do it every day,” Kirkwood said, noticing O’Connor stripping down to his T-shirt and boxer shorts, and following suit.

“I know,” Carter said, and began choking on his words, his emotions now starting to overwhelm him. “I am such a failure at stopping it, too. That’s what I was praying about.”

Jon Kirkwood could say nothing, seeing the stick figure of a man shuddering as grief from his loss took full charge and sent tears coursing from his pink-rimmed blue eyes.

“Suck it up, pal,” O’Connor then muttered, tossing his dirty socks in his laundry bag and dropping it on the floor by the foot of his rack.

“Yeah, right, suck it up,” Carter said, sobbing and wiping his wet face on his khaki shirt’s shoulder and upper sleeve. “I keep sucking it up, and Charlie Heyster keeps cheating and winning.”

“What the hell did he do?” O’Connor said.

“Subliminal influence and mind games for the jury,” Carter said, pulling out a yellow stained handkerchief and blowing his nose. “He cheats, and the judges let him get away with it. I object, and even when the judge sustains it, the jury is still influenced by the sideshow. He gets what he wants.”

“You’re driving me crazy with your rhetoric,” O’Connor said, lying on his bunk and propping himself on his elbows. “Start at the point where you are in court, and give us a clue of what went on.”

“Sorry,” Carter said, dabbing his eyes. “We began at nine o’clock this morning. My client, Lance Corporal Raymond Zelinski, rather former lance corporal, now private, was railroaded on false charges of possession of narcotics with intent to distribute, and the whole raft of typical misconduct charges they tie to such a case. None of it true.”

“Kingfish, all my clients is innocent, don’t you know,” O’Connor said, rolling his eyes and grinning at Kirkwood, who lay on the neighboring bunk. “That’s why we’uns gots jobs as defense counsels.”

“Calhoun the lawyer from Amos ’n’ Andy,” Kirkwood laughed, turning on his side and looking at O’Connor. “I loved that old show. That and The Honeymooners.”

“It’s not funny, gentlemen,” Carter said with a frown at the racial bend of O’Connor’s wisecrack. “You’ll have your turns in the tub with Heyster, and then you won’t be so jovial about it.”

“Oh, now wait a minute there, Sapphire,” O’Connor said, his eyes still open wide as he shifted his smile to Carter.

“You want to hear this or not?” Carter fumed, now towering over O’Connor, whose bunk sat directly across the center aisle from Carter’s.

“Shoot, Luke,” O’Connor said, lying back. “I’m all ears.”

“We’re a little punchy after flying twenty-three hours straight from California to Okinawa, then no sleep, and catching the predawn flight from Kadina to Da Nang,” Kirkwood said, relaxed on his bed, propped on his elbows.

“I did the same thing,” Carter said, now taking off his uniform shirt, revealing his dingy T-shirt with yellow sweat rings staining the garment’s armpits. “I know how you feel. Wednesday departure from Norton Air Force Base, landing in Okinawa, and then Friday morning the predawn freedom bird to Da Nang.”

“It will rot out your brain,” O’Connor said.

“At any rate,” Carter continued, pulling off his shoes and sitting on his bed, “Raymond Zelinski is not your poster-type Marine. Like yours truly, when God passed out good looks, we were someplace else.”

“I can count at least a dozen not so pretty Marines I saw just getting off the plane and checking in today,” O’Connor said. “Take that guy at supply who issued us our helmets, flak jackets, and other duce gear, or even the guy at the armory that gave us our .45s. Somebody should have spanked their mamas! I doubt looks had really that much influence on the jury. They see ugly daily.”

“Au contraire,” Carter said. “There is ugly, which I agree is quite common. Then there is repulsive. Lance Corporal Zelinski stands about five feet, ten inches tall and weighs all of 135 pounds at best. He has very dark eyes that are quite large and bug out. His brows are black as coal. His skin is a translucent pasty gray, and the tissue surrounding his eyes looks fragile and bruised, but it’s not. That’s just the color. Gray circles around very large brown eyes overhung with thick, black brows.”

“Sounds beautiful so far,” O’Connor said and mimicked gagging, putting his finger down his throat. “He might look more natural with a hooded black cape and a scythe. Now that I think about it, I’ll bet that was his sister I took on a blind date once, just after I enrolled at Columbia. The dark circles and thick eyebrows bring back those old freshman nightmares. She originally came from Hell’s Kitchen. I think she kills ducks for a living nowadays, out on Long Island.”

“Very possibly his sister,” Carter said, offering a cheesy grin. “Zelinski happens to come from Hell’s Kitchen in New York.”

“No shit?” O’Connor said, dropping his head back and letting out a laugh, and then looking back at Carter. “Doesn’t sound very Irish, though.”

“No, I think Raymond is Polish,” Carter said, still showing his yellow teeth. “He has a very strong New York brogue, though, a voice that sounds like Muggs McGinnis from the Bowery Boys.”

“Oh, good, I like that,” O’Connor said, propping himself back on his elbows. “Them and The Three Stooges were my favorites.”

“That was The East Side Kids, though,” Kirkwood said, looking at Carter and then at O’Connor. “Leo Gorcey played Muggs in The East Side Kids movies. In The Bowery Boys he portrayed Terrence Aloysius ‘Slip’ Mahoney. Huntz Hall had the roll of Horace Debussy Jones, better known as ‘Sach.’ They’re some of my favorites, too, but for that era of comedies, I always liked Abbott and Costello best.”

“What about The Dead End Kids?” O’Connor asked, looking at Kirkwood. “Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall played in those too, right?”

“Yeah,” Kirkwood said, “The Dead End Kids were the first movies with Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey, in the late 1930s, then came The East Side Kids in the early 40s, and then The Bowery Boys later in the 40s and through most of the 50s. Same bunch, just different names. Gorcey’s father, Bernard, played Louie Dumbroski, the old man with Louie’s Sweet Shop, and Leo’s younger brother, David Gorcey, played Chuck.”

“Carter, the man is a walking encyclopedia,” O’Connor said, pointing his thumb at Kirkwood. “Hell of a library between his ears. He can tell you anything about anything, and right down to the gnat’s ass, too.”

“At any rate, gentlemen,” Carter interjected, standing up from his bunk and starting to pace, as though he now addressed a jury, “getting back to the subject: Zelinski, with his voice like Leo Gorcey, not only has these horrid eyes, but his hair is jet-black, well oiled, and combed straight back from his high-pitched forehead, like Dracula. The poor boy has thick blue lips and a nose that is at least four inches from its tip to his face. Beneath that prominent schnozzola, hugging his top lip and in the center making right-angle turns upward to each nostril, almost like it was drawn on with an eyebrow pencil, he has this sharply edged snit of a mustache, also very black and vividly contrasting his pale skin. If that’s not pathetic enough, his shoulders slope forward from a pronounced stooped back, slumping so badly that he looks like he’s slouching even when he stands straight. Just having him seated at the defense table was bad enough. He would have been a disaster on the witness stand. He looked and sounded like some two-bit hood from a B-class gangster movie.”

“Sounds more like that character Gomez, from The Addams Family cartoons, you know the one that Charles Addams draws in The New Yorker magazine. Not so much like the Gomez Addams that John Astin plays on the television series, but the cartoon guy,” O’Connor said, leaning on his side and training his eyes at Kirkwood on the bunk next to him.

“That or Peter Lorre, you know from the 1942 movie Casablanca, with Claude Rains, Ingrid Bergman, and Humphrey Bogart,” Kirkwood said, looking back at O’Connor.

“Yeah, Rick’s Café Américain, the usual suspects, and play it again, Sam,” O’Connor said, focused on his pal and completely ignoring Carter, who now stopped pacing and stood with his arms folded, glaring impatiently at the two fellow captains.

“But Peter Lorre didn’t have a mustache,” O’Connor continued, not giving Carter a glance. “He had the creepy eyes, but clean above the lip. Granted that Lorre would have made a better-looking Gomez, though, than John Astin. You know, more like the Addams cartoon guy, but he’s not the comedian that Astin is, so I guess it’s a wash. John Astin’s eyes and smile, though, as Gomez, kill me. The way Astin went after Carolyn Jones all the time, you know, Morticia Addams, kissing her up the arm, that’s classic stuff.”

“Well, think of a skinny Peter Lorre, quite a bit taller, with a very narrow Gomez Addams mustache and slicked-back, ink-black hair, and you have Raymond Zelinski,” Carter said, once again steering the attention of his two colleagues back to the discussion of his case.

“Little Richard has a mustache like that!” Kirkwood said, smiling at O’Connor and then at Carter. “Just hit me. You sure this character isn’t a little light in the loafers?”

“No. ‘This character,’ as you call him,” Carter said, now getting frustrated with the trivial interruptions, “got railroaded today, purely on those odd looks.”

“How so?” O’Connor said, returning his focus to Carter. “I know that prejudice played a part, but come on. Even the most bonehead Marine grunts would need more than looks to convict.”

“Oh, there was quite a bit more, thanks to Heyster,” Carter said, again pacing as he spoke. “If I wasn’t up against a wall with Zelinski’s looks and demeanor, leave it to Charlie the shyster to put the whipped cream and cherry on top.”

“This has got to be good, the way you’ve bled me on this,” O’Connor said, lying back on his bunk.

“Well, Zelinski has his odd looks, and as such has absolutely no friends,” Carter said, now stopped between O’Connor’s and Kirkwood’s racks, his hands resting on his hips. “I can sympathize with him, because I have endured similar prejudices. At any rate, Zelinski is walking guard duty at Da Nang Air Base, and the corporal of the guard checks his post, gives him a shot of coffee from his thermos, and shoots the breeze with Zelinski while he drinks it. Just before he leaves he asks Raymond if he smoked pot. Zelinski tells him that he has never tried it, so the corporal offers him a single marijuana cigarette. Wanting to be cooperative, cool, and one of the guys, the dumb lance corporal accepts the joint.”

“Guilty as charged,” Kirkwood said, looking up at Carter. “Possession, whether you like it or not.”

“Not so fast,” Carter said. “The corporal of the guard had no more than driven from the scene, and Zelinski still had the joint in his hand when the military police swooped down on him from nowhere with three jeeps, and Zelinski’s gunny in tow.”

“I smell a rat,” O’Connor said, sitting up. “Zelinski’s gunny does not like our boy Raymond, does he.”

“Precisely,” Carter said. “When they took Zelinski in custody, and the military police wanted to check out his story with the corporal of the guard, the gunny intervened. Clearly protecting the corporal. If you ask me, that gunny sent the joint out with the corporal of the guard, just to burn Zelinski. That’s entrapment.”

“So you have the word of the lance corporal against the word of the corporal, and the gunny vouches for the corporal,” Kirkwood said.

“Correct,” Carter said, again pacing the aisle at the foot of the two captains’ racks. “The corporal and the gunny both lied on the stand, denying knowing anything about planting the joint on Zelinski. Also, like a bolt from the blue, the prosecution brought in the testimony of three other Marines from Zelinski’s squadron who were caught and arrested that same night smoking marijuana behind a hangar. Our only saving grace was the fact that all that the military police confiscated from Zelinski was the single joint of marijuana, and nothing else. Not even a book of matches or a cigarette lighter with which to light the joint, since Zelinski doesn’t even smoke.”

“Well, that should have thrown some doubt the jury’s way,” O’Connor said, putting his feet on the floor, now sitting on the side of his bed. “The kid’s got a roll of dope, but no way to light it.”

“Oh, but Charlie the shyster neutralized any reasonable doubt we had managed to put forth with his so-called character witness, Private First Class John White,” Carter said, pacing the floor faster. “He was not charged, nor was he ever listed as a material witness.”

“Since when does the prosecution bring in character witnesses?” Kirkwood said, falling back on his bunk.

“He had totally nothing to do with the case!” Carter exclaimed, waving his arms, punctuating his words with their frantic movement. “Yet the judge allowed him to testify. This is what killed us.

“I had pretty much discredited the gunny and the corporal of the guard, and tied them together in their conspiracy. The military police who arrested my client testified as to the contents of Zelinski’s pockets, and the lack of any kind of lighter or matches. Plus the three other culprits they arrested smoking dope in the hangar were nowhere near Zelinski at any time that evening.

“Then the judge called the next witness. The doors in the back of the courtroom swing open and in walks the largest, blackest Marine I have ever seen: Private First Class John White.”

“Oh, shit,” O’Connor said, falling back on his bunk, laughing. “Big, very black, and the name White. Oh, that is good. Sleazy but good.”

“Charlie Heyster had this Marine state his name not once but twice for the jury,” Carter said, waving his arms faster. “And in all, three times!”

“You objected?” Kirkwood said, leaning on his elbows.

“Of course I did, right after the second time Heyster had him say his name, but the judge let it slide,” Carter said, again pacing hard. “I tried to approach the bench, but the judge stopped me in my tracks before I could even take two steps toward him, and told us to move on. I think that the judge just didn’t want me near his face.”

“I wonder why,” O’Connor said, and then flashed a quick, eyebrows-raised grin at Kirkwood. “So what did Private White have to offer in the way of evidence?”

“Nothing of relevance,” Carter said, stopping again between the two racks. “However, his nonevidence nailed the coffin lid shut on Lance Corporal Zelinski.

“Picture this very black Marine private sitting in the witness box, wearing a khaki uniform, which is a sharp contrast to his skin color. The eyes of all six jurors fixate on him. His presence quite literally mesmerized the whole court after Heyster had him state his name for a third time, right after my objection. A disgusting racial trick, and I know that even Private White did not like it.”

“So the jury is hypnotized on Private White,” O’Connor said. “What did he have to say?”

“Heyster asks him, ‘Do you know the accused, Lance Corporal Raymond Zelinski?’ ” Carter said, mimicking the prosecutor, putting his hands backward on his hips as he spoke. “Poor Private White cannot even say Zelinski, and stutters and stumbles trying to repeat the name.

“Then I see it. I see Heyster smile that dirty, I-got-you-now smile of his. He looked at me, looked at the jury, all of whom sat transfixed on White, and then with his back to the jury, I see Heyster raise his eyebrows and give PFC White the nod to now finish his statement.

“White looks right at the jury, just the way Charlie told him to do, and says, ‘I don’t rightly know him as Lance Corporal Zuh, whatever you said his last name was. All us guys down on the flight line, we just calls him Raymond the Weasel!’

“At that moment, White looked at Zelinski and smiled, and every eye in the court then followed White’s cue and looked at my client, sitting there with his pointed little face, bug eyes, pencil-thin mustache, slicked-down black hair, and poor posture. It was as though the whole trial focused on that moment. That name. At that instant he became guilty. He turned to slime. In their minds he was no longer Lance Corporal Zelinski, but a street item named Raymond the Weasel.”

Carter then screamed, standing on his tiptoes and swinging his arms as he now ranted nearly uncontrollably, “Raymond the Weasel! My God! Everyone in the courtroom, including the jury and the judge himself, laughed out loud!

“The jurors’ eyes immediately shifted from the very black Private White to my client, who could only slink down in his chair with his ratty little paws curled under his chin, looking very much like Raymond the Weasel! They convicted that boy purely on his looks!”

“That and a joint of marijuana that he held in his hand, planted or not,” Kirkwood added, sitting on the side of his bunk.

“Well, yes,” Carter said, standing with his arms folded at the end of Kirkwood’s rack. “But he was set up, and everyone knew it.”

“Possession is possession,” O’Connor said, now sitting, too.

“The judge, no doubt duly influenced by my client’s weasel looks, sentenced Raymond to, you guys just guess what,” Carter said.

“Oh, crap, how should I know?” O’Connor said. “Thirty days in the brig. A little harsh, but for a weasel, a month in the cooler.”

“Typically, a guy would get some restriction, a fine, but you said Raymond was no longer a lance corporal, so he must have gotten a bust,” Kirkwood said.

“Wrong on nearly all counts,” Carter said. “The three others who were charged with possession, who the military police caught red-handed smoking the pot in the hangar, each got off with a fine and thirty days’ confinement. For having a single marijuana joint in his hands, not smoking it, nor having even a match with which to light it, and not even time to put it in his pocket, Lance Corporal Raymond the Weasel got busted to private, received six months in the brig, a fine of six months’ pay, and a bad-conduct discharge. For possession of one stinking joint, he’s ruined for life.”

“Six, six, and a kick,” O’Connor said, “That is harsh.”

“Get used to it, gentlemen,” Carter said, walking back to his bunk. “Dicky Doo believes in harshness. He even told me once that every enlisted Marine is guilty of something, and should be lashed at the mast. He claims that a little brig time for them just balances the scales of justice.”

“Oh, he is definitely a flogging kind of a guy,” O’Connor said. “I got that right off.”

“Gentlemen,” Kirkwood said, looking at his wristwatch and sliding his toes between the thong straps of his green rubber shower shoes, “I am off to clean up before the big hail-and-farewell bash tonight. Just a couple of hours away. No time to snooze, but a long shower and a shave might restore my soul at least for a little while anyway.”

“I’m with you, my man,” O’Connor said, rolling off the bunk, and grabbing a towel and toiletry kit, and trotting barefooted after Kirkwood.

Country music from a Filipino group with a Japanese lead singer blared from two batteries of six-foot-tall loudspeaker cabinets that flanked the foot-high riser of plywood laid on concrete blocks that served as a stage. Electric cords buried between two-by-fours stretched to the back of the club, where an octopus of outlets fed the band’s amplifiers and microphones.

“How’d ya like ole Yamaguchi Ritter and his Angeles City Cowboys?” a Marine nearly a size too large for his tiger-stripe pattern jungle-camouflage utility uniform said to Terry O’Connor, slapping a paw the size of a beef chuck roast on the lawyer’s shoulder, knocking him off balance, and causing beer to slosh out of his glass.

“Not bad at all,” the five-foot, ten-inch O’Connor said, looking up at the Marine, who towered a foot above his head.

“He kind of fucks up the L sounds, but after a while, over here, a guy stops noticing it,” the gigantic Marine said, craning his neck over his shoulder, looking at the band playing at the opposite end of the lawn, where much of the crowd had gathered, near the bar and the barbecue grills.

“Terry O’Connor,” the lawyer said, and extended his hand to the huge man.

“Archie Gunn,” the hulk said, returning the shake, wrapping his mitt around O’Connor’s almost like a man taking a child by the hand. “Just call me Lobo. My old Basic School roommate over yonder, T. D. McKay, is in your outfit, and always invites me to your cross burnings and beefsteak sacrifices.”

O’Connor glanced past Lobo, and noticed Jon Kirkwood walking toward him, a half smile on his face.

“Here comes my TBS roommate,” O’Connor said, “Jonathan Kirkwood.”

“Oh, yeah, I met him a while ago,” Gunn said, letting go of O’Connor’s hand and offering Kirkwood a wave. “He was cornered by old Stanley the shithead Tufts and the Brothers B.”

“I know who Tufts is; I met his brother Manley at staging on Okinawa. He came on our plane today, and I think he got assigned to one of the grunt battalions for a couple of months before he goes to work at First Marine Division Legal, but the Brothers B? I haven’t met them,” O’Connor said.

“Phillip Edward Bailey-Brown and Miles Christopher Bushwick. Charming fellows from New England,” Jon Kirkwood said as he joined Lobo and O’Connor.

“Yeah, that’s the names,” Gunn said and grinned. “Their shit don’t stink, either. I don’t think they even fart.”

“They’re not related I gather from the different names,” O’Connor said, seeing the two men talking and laughing with Major Dickinson, Stanley Tufts, and Charlie Heyster.

“Naw, they just call them the Brothers B because of the same initial on their last names, which also stands for Boondoggle, which we have assigned them as their unofficial last name. Plus, those two are joined at the hip most of the time,” Lobo said. “You don’t see one without the other. From up in New England someplace.”

“Old money, and well connected,” Kirkwood added. “According to Mike Carter, our noble Mojo, Dicky Doo, cannot kiss their asses enough. He’s always worming around that pair, and ironically, they treat him like a poor relation.”

“Dicky Doo takes it up the ass,” Lobo said, and gulped down a mouthful of beer from a can that he crushed with his hand as he sucked it empty. “Speaking of taking it up the ass, I’ve gotta get a closer look at this crew of L-B-F-Ms that Yamaguchi Ritter has dancing on the sidelines. See you gents later.”

“What did he call those Filipino go-go girls?” O’Connor asked, laughing while watching Lobo walk through the crowd of cocktail-sipping officers clustered across the lawn, parting them as he pushed through like Moses did with the Red Sea.

“L-B-F-Ms,” a major now standing by Kirkwood said. “Little brown fucking machines.”

The dark-haired and olive-complected Marine stood an inch or two shorter than O’Connor. He wore a khaki garrison cap cocked to one side, and a dark green flight suit with zippered pockets and vents on his legs and sleeves, and a white with red and blue embroidered, circular McDonald-Douglas F4 Phantom patch on his left shoulder. He had a brown leather rectangle attached to the flight suit on his left breast, above a slanted zipper-closed pocket. In gold letters it said “Buck Taylor, Major, USMCR.”

“Terry, here is a guy you have to meet,” Kirkwood said as O’Connor made eye contact with the major.

“Monahan S. Taylor,” the Marine said, extending his hand to O’Connor, “but call me Buck. Everyone does. I drive Fox-Four Phantoms when I’m not acting as my aircraft group’s legal officer.”

“Major Taylor is a Yale Law School graduate,” Kirkwood said.

“And you fly Phantoms?” O’Connor asked, surprised. “I thought a Yale Law degree guaranteed you body and soul to the Staff Judge Advocate Corps.”

“Usually it does,” Taylor said, pulling two cans of beer from a six-pack he held under his arm, and handed one each to Kirkwood and O’Connor, along with a fold-up beer-can-opener he pulled from his pocket. “However, I graduated first in my class at the Basic School. So I had my pick of where I wanted to go. Most dive into the ought-three profession, commanding grunts on the charge, but I had my head in the clouds. I wanted to fly jets. Always did, ever since I saw the Blue Angels perform at South Weymouth when I was a kid. So I went to flight school, down at Beeville, Texas. Got my wings, and here I am.”

“A naval aviator who graduated TBS,” O’Connor chirped. “That’s pretty rare. Most, I hear, miss that evolution.”

“There are a few of us with some ground training. Captain Archie Gunn, over there, is another TBS graduate pilot,” Taylor said. “I expect the crotch to eventually get away from the Marine Corps option out of the navy’s flight officers’ candidate school, and make all their pilots go to Quantico for both Officer Candidates’ School and the Basic School. I think it’s a good idea. It certainly helps my perspective when laying snake and nape for a gaggle of grunts under fire.”

“I’m sorry. Snake and nape?” Kirkwood said, popping a triangular hole in his beer can with the opener and handing it to O’Connor.

“Snake eyes, your standard five-hundred-pound, mark-eighty-two general-purpose bomb, and nape is napalm,” Taylor said.

“Lobo’s a pilot?” O’Connor said, taking a sip from his beer and handing the opener back to Major Taylor.

The three men then turned and watched as the massive Marine in the camouflage uniform now grabbed the asses of two Filipino dancing girls.

“Observation planes,” Taylor answered, dropping the opener back in his pocket and turning toward O’Connor and Kirkwood. “He came to Beeville a month or so before I graduated there and went on to Yuma, where I got my follow-on, F-4 fighter pilot training. Damned good pilot, but way too big. A Martin-Baker seat in a Fox-Four is just not that accommodating, plus if he ever managed to get strapped in he’d rip off his kneecaps if he had to punch out. Never had a prayer to fly jets, so they trained him in Broncos, which is still a mighty tight fit for his big ass. I think that’s why he prefers to fly that J-2 Cub. He’s got room for his butt, and he can throw a friend in the backseat, too. Not that I would ever want to go riding with that crazy son of a bitch.”

“Why’s that?” Kirkwood asked, finishing his beer as the major handed him another one.

Buck Taylor looked at the two lawyers and laughed.

“That fucking monster killer over there wrestling with those girls,” Taylor said, pointing to Lobo who now had a Filipino go-go dancer kicking and screaming under each of his arms, “he has a genuine death wish. He keeps a case of hand grenades on the floor of his plane, in the space behind his feet, some other odds and ends explosives stashed here and there, an M79 grenade launcher and a sackful of blooper rounds hanging on the right-hand door, and an arsenal of assorted small arms and ammo in the backseat. The boy spends entirely too much time trimming treetops with his landing gear hunting Charlie. Gentlemen, I get pretty ice-cold up there flying my Phantom, but to be honest with you, Lobo scares the shit out of me. I do like living.”

“No shit,” O’Connor said, looking at the hulk tossing around the girls like rag dolls.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Taylor added. “I love that goon like my own flesh and blood. He, Tommy McKay, Wayne Ebberhardt, and me, we’re asshole tight as family. I just won’t fly with that insane Doctor Death because I would spend all my time talking to God instead of enjoying the ride. McKay and Ebberhardt, on the other hand, they go with Lobo all the time. But then they don’t know any better, because they’re both nearly as crazy as he is, even if they are lawyers.”

“I’ve only just met First Lieutenant McKay, and have not yet met First Lieutenant Ebberhardt,” Kirkwood admitted to the major. “I don’t believe that Terry has yet met either gentleman.”

“We’ll fix that,” Buck Taylor said, and then he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled an ear-splitting call to the two men, who stood across the crowded lawn, laughing at Lobo now with a go-go girl riding atop his shoulders and her miniskirt bunched over the top of his partially bald head. Archie Gunn immediately wheeled toward the signal, and offered a wide grin while pointing to the girl’s legs wrapped around his neck. Then he turned and pulled up the back of the girl’s miniskirt to reveal that she no longer wore any panties. McKay and Ebberhardt waved, and the major then motioned with his hand for them to come to him.

“I think that Archie is terminal as a captain,” Taylor said, opening the last beer in the six-pack after handing O’Connor one, and then dropping the opener in the lawyer’s palm. “He doesn’t give a shit about it, either. Great entertainment, but then look over there with Dicky Doo and Colonel Prunella, along with the Wing chief of staff. I’ll bet that those three have their assholes puckered equally as tight as they have their jaws locked right now, watching ole Lobo having fun with these girls. You couldn’t get a broom straw up any of them.”

“He burned out or what?” O’Connor said, punching a triangular hole in his beer can and handing the opener back to Major Taylor.

“Probably, burned to his boot laces, but nearly anyone who sees a lot of the enemy has that syndrome going on,” Taylor said, swigging beer and dropping the opener back in his pocket. “I think his shit-bird attitude comes from the Miss Goody Two Shoes he married and then discovered she was a slut.”

Terry O’Connor laughed. “I should have guessed it. Behind the misery of every good man lurks some form of skanky psycho bitch ready to perform a hose job on his ass.”

“Archie got hosed pretty good by this one,” Taylor said. “During his senior year at the University of New Mexico, where he played noseguard for the Lobos, hence the nickname, he ran into this girl one night sitting on the tailgate of some cowboy’s pickup truck outside a bloody bucket, rod and gun club honky-tonk on the north side of Albuquerque, crying her eyes out. Melted ole Archie’s gigantic heart right off. Her boyfriend was inside dancing with another girl, and she needed a ride home.

“Leave it to Archie Gunn to quickly oblige. When he dropped her off at her mother’s front door, she invited him to go to church with her the next morning. A good Baptist girl, just like big boy’s mama. Lobo fell in love. One thing leads to another, and he is head over heels, kissing his little buttercup’s ass, eating the peanuts out of her turds. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, she and her dear whore of a mother can’t get over their luck, having mister big-time New Mexico football star dangling by his sweet testicles on their little puppet strings.

“Right after graduation, Archie and this hog get married. Lobo gets his draft notice and joins the Marines, like about half of the people here tonight did. All during OCS and TBS, and all the while he is off at Naval Flight School, our little Baptist princess, named Bunny, and her mother, Mandy, are painting Albuquerque and Santa Fe red, white, and blue in Lobo’s little tricked-out Pontiac GTO, spending Archie’s money and fucking every truck driver and cowboy with a hard dick.

“I was still at Beeville when Archie got the letter from no less than his defensive line coach at UNM. Somebody had to finally tell him. The coach loves Lobo to this day like his own son, so he did the dirty job. Devastated the poor guy.

“Archie started to file for divorce, but then changed his mind. He decided on cold revenge. Then he couldn’t get to Vietnam fast enough. While he was still at El Toro, though, he started trying to fuck every skanky hole that looked like it could breed the clap or anything worse. He seriously wanted to catch every kind of VD known to man so he could go home on leave, before he shipped out to ’Nam, and give the creeping crud to Bunny. To this day, he still wants to give her the worst shit that he can catch, so that she can pass it around to these assholes fucking her behind his back.”

“He’s never gotten divorced from her?” Kirkwood said, surprised.

“Fuck no, because he found out that as long as he is in Vietnam, the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act prohibits her from taking any sort of legal action against him, like divorce. So he keeps extending over here, just to fuck with her,” T. D. McKay said, slapping Buck Taylor across the shoulder and putting out his hand to Terry O’Connor.

“You’re McKay?” O’Connor said, shaking the hand. “Right, and this skinny degenerate in my hip pocket here, helping me carry all these fresh beers for you lowlives, is Wayne Carolina Ebberhardt. He’s out of Duke University School of Law, and I am a University of Texas lawyer, through and through. Born in Dalhart, raised in Dumas, educated in Austin.”

“And you guys go flying with that maniac?” O’Connor said, tilting his head toward Lobo, who now headed their way, still holding the go-go girl on his shoulders while guzzling beer.

“Lobo’s a damned good pilot,” Ebberhardt said, shaking hands with Kirkwood. “Glad to meet you, Captain Kirkwood. And you, too, Captain O’Connor.

“As the man said, I’m Wayne Ebberhardt, born and bred in Boone, North Carolina. Home of the world’s best moonshine whiskey. If you’re real good, ole Tommy McKay and I might let you sample our little secret stash of homemade lightning that we have bottled up for most any special occasion. Some guys we know with the amtrac battalion have a nifty little still set up. Even has a copper boiler and condenser coils. I gave those boys a few pointers on preparing the corn mash, along with an old family recipe, and they went to work and made a pretty fair-sized batch before they ran out of corn. It tastes a lot like Jack Daniels, only better.”

“You two are on the defense team, right?” McKay said and smiled. “Otherwise I would swear that Wayne’s a liar.”

“We moved in today,” O’Connor said, drinking down the last of his beer. “Already met Mike Carter, and now with you two that makes up our whole section, doesn’t it?”

“You guys, me and Wayne, and our lead attorney, His Holiness, Father Michael Carter, Esquire,” McKay said, taking out a beer from a six-pack that he carried and handing it to O’Connor. “That’s it. We’re the defense that never rests.”

“However, Major Taylor does lend us moral support, and will moonlight a little homework and legal research for us when we can use a helping hand,” Ebberhardt offered, handing Kirkwood a fresh beer from the six-pack he had under his arm. “He’s our secret sixth man, if you want to count him, too. It pisses Dicky Doo the fuck off, though, to have him doing any legal work. The lifer prosecutors hate Buck because he betrayed the juristic cause to fly jets. However, the Right Honorable Major Monahan S. Taylor, after graduating Yale Law, passed both the New York and Massachusetts bars, and is a member in good standing of those fine fraternities. So fuck those tight assholes if they don’t like a jet jockey helping us with some case preparation.”

“Speaking of preparing a case,” Taylor said, handing Kirkwood the opener and looking at Lobo, now smiling with the rim of a cocktail glass firmly held in his teeth, “time for Archie Gunn to say good night. His alcohol consumption gauge just hit too much. When he starts to eat glass to impress everyone, it’s time to put him back in the cage.”

“He doesn’t have to do that to impress me. He did that at hello,” O’Connor said, cringing and offering a hopeful smile at Lobo, who then bit off half the side of the highball tumbler and started chewing.

“Archie, time to hit the rack,” Taylor said in a commanding voice, seeing Lobo crunch the broken glass. “You want to spit that crap in this napkin?”

“That’s okay, Buck,” Lobo slurred, the go-go girl still sitting atop his shoulders. “I’ll go spit it in that shit can by the bar.”

“Good, and while you’re at it, leave the girl there, too. She may be tired of playing horsey,” Taylor said.

“She’s going to the barracks with me,” Lobo said with a broad grin, showing a mouthful of red teeth and blood trickling from his lips where the broken glass had cut him.

“I bet that Yamaguchi Ritter might not want you to do that with his go-go girl,” Taylor suggested.

“I’ll ask him if I can fuck her,” Lobo said, still grinning and bleeding. “If he says no, I’ll put her down.”

“Good man,” Taylor said, and shook his head as McKay, Ebberhardt, O’Connor, and Kirkwood watched the hulking giant amble to the bar, spit the broken glass in the trash can, and then walk to the stage, where he began talking to the Japanese-born country-western singer, who immediately began shaking an emphatic no at a pleading Lobo, his out-of-shape, straw cowboy hat nearly bobbing off his head.

“Gentlemen, having a good time this evening?” Michael Carter chirped as he approached the small group of friends. He held a red-colored drink that had a wad of maraschino cherries and some lime slices floating on top of a berg of shaved ice.

“What’s that, a cherry limeade?” O’Connor asked, eyeing the drink.

“Sort of my own concoction of one, yes,” Carter said. “With a healthy double shot of gin.”

“Bet that’d be good with a hamburger and french fries,” McKay said. “I know that cherry-lime drink would be a big hit at the Tastee-Freez back in Dumas.”

“Where have you been hiding all evening, Mike?” Kirkwood asked, sipping his beer.

“Before the party, I had to catch up on some paperwork back at the office, wrapping up today’s disaster, and I ran into Major Dickinson. He gave me a heads up on assignments for you two,” Carter answered.

“We’re not even checked in,” O’Connor said, making a basketball toss at a trash barrel with his empty beer can and missing. “We’re supposed to have five days.”

“You can check in, but Major Dickinson expects you to get started on these cases while you’re at it,” Carter said, sipping from the top of the gin-spiked limeade. “Staff Sergeant Pride will take care of most of the check-in for you anyway. He’ll get your pay records and OQRs to headquarters and service squadron first thing Monday morning. You’ll have to see medical, dental, and the chaplain on your own, but the rest he can get handled.”

Carter then furrowed his pale brow and deepened his voice to sound authoritarian. “First of all, Captain O’Connor, you will be defending a Private First Class Celestine Anderson, a radioman with Marine Wing Support Group 17. He was taken into custody at Chu Lai this evening after planting his field ax in the head of another Marine private who was apparently touting Private Anderson outside the mess hall.”

“We talking about a battery or a murder?” O’Connor said.

“Murder,” Carter said. “Major Dickinson has assigned Charlie Heyster to prosecute for murder in the first degree, along with a raft of mindless misconduct charges so that the man will be sure to serve a good deal of brig time after they hang him. Your client is a black Marine; the victim was, of course, white. Racism will be at issue.”

“Oh, I imagine Dicky Doo is delighted,” O’Connor said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “A lawyer fresh off the boat, no real practical experience, and suddenly I am the defense attorney on a murder-one rap. I am sure we have a whole host of eyewitnesses to this crime, too.”

“About a hundred fifty or so Marines saw the entire spectacle, all of them crowded outside the main dining facility just moments before it opened for early evening chow,” Carter said.

“Fucking great,” O’Connor said. “My client has a hundred fifty witnesses see him kill a guy.”

“Captain Kirkwood,” Carter said, “your case is also at Chu Lai. Your client is Lance Corporal Nathan L. Todd, an American Indian who I believe is a native of the Cheyenne nation in Colorado. Lance Corporal Todd is accused of homosexual conduct and sexual assault on a fellow Marine. Apparently Lance Corporal Todd tried to suck the dick of a black Marine who was sleeping in the rack above the accused. Todd protests his innocence, claiming that he never got near the man and that the whole thing is a lie.”

“At least its not murder,” Kirkwood said, smiling.

“Gentlemen, good evening,” Major Dudley Dickinson said, joining the slowly growing cluster of Marines. “You give them the good news, Captain Carter?”

“Yes, sir, Major Dickinson,” Carter said, stepping back to allow the Mojo to shoulder his way into the ongoing conversation.

“What do you think, gents?” Dickinson said.

“Welcome to First MAW Law?” O’Connor offered, taking a fresh beer from T. D. McKay.

The crack drew a few smirks, and Dickinson faked a good chuckle.

“I have the paperwork in my office,” the assistant staff judge advocate and military justice officer said. “Both of these ass wipes are in custody, locked tight in the Chu Lai cage. Not a real brig. A couple of steel container boxes with windows cut in the sides and bars welded across the openings. A tad bit hot at midday.”

“Sounds a little on the harsh side, Major,” Kirkwood said. “These cages conform to code?”

“Code?” Dickinson laughed. “What code? We’re just fine with how we handle these dirt bags we clear out of here. You two gentlemen need to focus more on getting these two knuckleheads processed and in the brig, and quit worrying about where they cool their heels tonight.”

“Processed, sir?” Kirkwood said, raising his eyebrows.

“Adjudicated. How’s that, Captain?” Dickinson said, and sucked down a gulp of beer.

“How about tried, sir?” O’Connor said, clenching his teeth. “We adjudicate a property settlement. People are brought to trial by courts-martial, last time I checked. Innocent until proven guilty, and treated as such.”

“Get off your fucking soapbox, Captain. You sound like Missus Carter there, pleading for the huddled masses,” Dickinson snarled, locking his eyes on O’Connor’s. “Most of these lamebrains we process through our system joined the Marine Corps to avoid jail in the first place. It’s just a matter of time before they fuck up here, too, and we toss them in the brig, where they belonged from the get-go. Don’t be such a bleeding heart. It doesn’t become you.”

Terry O’Connor held his rapidly heating stare at the major’s eyes, started to speak, but then said nothing.

“What time, sir?” Kirkwood said, seizing the opportunity to head off his best friend from finally letting his temper boil past his quickly eroding self-control and saying something regrettable.

“Time?” Dickinson said, slurping his beer.

“Yes, sir,” Kirkwood replied. “You said you had the paperwork on our two clients, and I just wanted to know what time to be in your office to formally get assigned the cases and receive the paperwork from you. We do have to plan a defense.”

“Tomorrow morning. Zero seven hundred, sharp, Captains,” Dickinson said, finishing his beer. “Captain Carter, why don’t you get me a refill when you freshen up that Shirley Temple you’re nursing.”

Carter nodded to the Mojo, took his empty can, and headed to the bar, thankful for the excuse to depart his presence.

“You two better get this straight on these cases, and all others, for that matter,” Dickinson said, pressing his thin lips back, showing his tightly clenched teeth. “Don’t fuck around with me. I want this shit off our docket and these people processed and in the brig without any holdups. If they’ll plead guilty, let them do it. Go straight to sentencing. The cocksucker is easy, anyway. The ax murderer may take a few more steps, given the mandatory procedures, but I want them both out of my hair, fast.”

“We’ll do our best, sir,” Kirkwood said, and flashed a hard look at O’Connor to keep his mouth shut. “Terry and I will excuse ourselves now. No sleep for a couple of days, and we’re both a little edgy and not clear-headed.”

“Understood, Captain,” Dickinson said, and offered his best disingenuous smile at O’Connor. “Get some rest, boys. I’ll see you in the morning at seven sharp. The daily logistics chopper to Chu Lai launches at nine, should you want to see your clients and perhaps get them moved to the Freedom Hill brig for pretrial confinement.”

Kirkwood and O’Connor quickly turned on their heels and hurried toward their quarters, following the gravel path that led past the tennis courts where Lieutenant Colonel Prunella had volleyed his ball off the plywood backstop earlier that day. The batteries of mercury vapor lamps posted at each corner of the concrete square created an island of light in the surrounding darkness. Ahead they could see the single yellow bulb hanging in the receptacle beneath the white and green metal reflector suspended above the squad bay door on the old two-story French barracks where they now lived.

“Hey, before you guys disappear, can I get a favor?” T. D. McKay said, running to Kirkwood and O’Connor after they had walked well outside earshot of Major Dickinson and the others.

“Depends,” O’Connor said, both captains stopping in the light from the tennis court. “If I don’t catch the clap or go to jail for it, I might consider it.”

McKay laughed.

“No, just cover for me if Dicky Doo goes snooping this weekend,” McKay said. “Just because its Saturday doesn’t stop him when he wants something.”

“We just learned that lesson,” Kirkwood said. “I wanted to lay in the rack and read tomorrow morning. Now Terry and I have to stand tall for Dicky Doo at zero-seven, and then catch a chopper to Chu Lai at nine.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” McKay said. “Sorry, guys. I can hit up Mike Carter. He’s usually good for a cover story.”

“What’s going on tomorrow that you’ve got to have the alibi?” O’Connor said, his curiosity hard at work.

“I’ve got a pal in the grunts, First Lieutenant Jimmy Sanchez,” McKay said, hanging his thumbs in his belt. “The two of us graduated Texas together. We both got our B.A.’s in history. He wants to teach; I went into law school. To make a long story short, Sanchez has a platoon with Third Reconnaissance Battalion, based up by Dong Ha. They run regular patrols along the length of Highway Nine, clear out past the Rock Pile, snooping and pooping, calling in air and arty, that sort of thing. Lots of fun and games. He lets me tag along with his guys.”

“Sounds a little risky to me,” Kirkwood said. “You get into the shit, and Dicky Doo will want your head. Patrolling with the grunts is one of the Don’ts near the top of his list.”

“What the fuck is he going to do about it?” McKay asked. “Shave my head and send me to the grunts in Vietnam? I’m sick of his shit anyway. In a way, I hope he does nail my ass, and fire me off to the grunts. That’s where I want to go anyway.”

“That or hunting VC with Lobo, I hear,” O’Connor said with a smile.

McKay laughed and shook his head.

“You guys know all my dirty little secrets,” he said. “Wayne Ebberhardt is nearly as bad as I am, but I think a ton smarter. He doesn’t get caught playing hooky with Archie. But if Lobo offers to drag you hunting with him, then take him up on it. What a trip! He’s flying that plane, tossing grenades out the windows, you’re in the back with a rifle, or that M60 chopping away. Treetops whipping under your feet. Many times we land and he’s got branches stuck in the landing gear. Lobo loves to fly that plane with one hand and shoot the blooper out his window with the other. That’s his big kick. Blowing up shit.”

“So you’re headed to Dong Ha in the morning?” Kirkwood said.

“Before daylight,” McKay answered, walking away from the duo. “Archie’s flying me up there, so I am crashing at his shack tonight. I’ll be back sometime Monday or Tuesday.”

“Stay safe, my friend,” O’Connor said.

McKay trotted from the island of light where O’Connor and Kirkwood stood, and headed up the road to the line of hooches where Archie Gunn and the other animals of the observation squadron dwelled. The two exhausted and now half drunk Marine lawyers crunched their way along the gravel path that led to the double doorway of their barracks, and the two racks awaiting them inside for a few hours’ sleep before they started work in the morning.

“Fuck it, Jon,” O’Connor said, stripping down to his T-shirt and skivvy shorts. “I am a whipped puppy. You know, the only sleep we’ve had is the couple of hours shut-eye we caught on the Freedom Bird.”

“That seems days ago, but you know, it was only this morning,” Kirkwood said, draping his uniform over his wall locker door and tossing his socks inside a white laundry bag that he now tied back to the rail on the foot of his rack. “I dread tomorrow. Right off the top of the deck we’re dealt a cocksucker and a murderer.”

“Accused cocksucker and murderer, Jon,” O’Connor muttered, throwing his blanket to one side and pulling the bunk’s white cotton sheet across his lower legs.

Schuller, a newly assigned III MAF brig officer, had come to the party late, and missed meeting Kirkwood and O’Connor, so the officers who had remained until after midnight to close down the shindig decided to take care of that social oversight, and at the same time have a laugh at the two new lawyers’ expense.

During some of their excursions with the infantry, playing hooky from legal duties, Wayne Ebberhardt and T. D. McKay had gotten to know Mike Schuller when he led a platoon of grunts from the Seventh Marine Regiment assigned to Fire Support Base Ross, west of Chu Lai. Schuller had devoted himself to his Marines. Any time one of them took a bullet or died in action, it devastated the lieutenant.

At the University of Vermont, where Schuller had initially entered the Marine Corps Platoon Leader Course, he had come to question the validity of the political reasons for American involvement in the Vietnam War. He had started to drop out of the course, and not enter the Marine Corps, but his adviser had appealed to him to reconsider.

Despite his misgivings about the war, Schuller showed himself as a vibrant and promising leader, intelligent, dogged, and fearless. He held fast to a strong set of principles and valued honor and integrity above all else, traits the Marine Corps reveres.

“My father, back home in Vermont, taught me that mankind can strip you of all that you may have, except for this one thing,” Schuller had told T. D. McKay one night at Fire Base Ross, relaxing in his hooch after a day-long patrol that had netted them little but sore feet and salt rings on their uniforms. “Men can take all that you own, or ever will own. They can take your wealth, your family, your freedom, and even your life. Nearly everything that is yours in this world, men can rob from you, save for one thing. One thing in this stinking life. In this whole world, for that matter. And it’s the most precious thing you have, too. My friend, that’s your honor. No one can take that away. To lose it, you have to give it up yourself.”

Schuller had then told McKay how, as a matter of honor, he had decided to drop out of the Platoon Leader Course and not join the Marine Corps. He felt wrong about the war, and could not support the political decisions that put America in South Vietnam and still maintain his integrity.

“I hated the idea of killing in a conflict I regarded unjustified,” Schuller admitted to McKay that night in the hooch at Fire Base Ross, lying on their bunks in the dark. “I hate the killing. I hate seeing these boys, kids mostly, getting wounded and killed for something that I think is wrong. Yet, this PLC adviser was right when he told me that I needed to serve anyway, because these Marines need good leaders: an officer that cares so much for his men that he will lay his life on the line for any of them. Thinking about the war that way, I couldn’t stay home. These Marines needed me, because I am an officer who cares that much. I will walk through fire for these guys. They know it, too. At the same time, they’ll do anything I ask of them.”

Because he cared so much for his Marines’ lives, Mike Schuller sometimes found himself nose to nose with his company commander, arguing against what he regarded a bad tactic that could cost lives. His combative nature with his senior officers came to a head when three of his men died in action and five others suffered serious wounds in what he had called a boneheaded patrol for no good reason except to satisfy the battalion commander’s itch. He had used those very words, and then spit tobacco juice on the battalion commander’s right boot toe.

The lieutenant colonel rippled at the insult, but did not write insubordination or misconduct charges on the passionate young officer either. The battalion commander understood the pain of losing men, despite Schuller’s opinion of him at the moment. The colonel wiped off his boot toe on the back of his pants leg and walked away. As he departed the platoon area, he whispered something to the captain who commanded the lieutenant’s company. Two days later, First Lieutenant Mike Schuller found himself reassigned—temporary additional duty—to the Third Military Police Battalion, and sent to work at the III MAF brig on Freedom Hill.

“Charlie, you do it,” Stanley Tufts whispered to Captain Heyster as the cluster of drunken officers did their best to keep quiet outside the screen doors.

“No, they wouldn’t believe me, they’d know it’s a prank,” Heyster said, whispering in a strained voice. Then he looked at Michael Carter, who tottered on the barracks’ concrete slab porch with a six-pack of beer under his arm and a bacchic yellow smile slashed sideways across his narrow face. “They’ll believe Carter, though. He lives here, too.”

Michael Carter blinked his half-shut, sleepy eyes at Charley Heyster and said, “Believe what?”

“The rocket attack, you nitwit,” Heyster said.

“Right, right,” Carter said, rocking on his unsteady feet and laughing out loud.

“Shush!” Buck Taylor said. “You’ll wake them up.”

“Oh, sorry,” Carter said, and handed the major the package of beer from under his arm and gave Mike Schuller the half-full can that he had drank, and had spilled much of it down his shirt.

“Just run through the doors and yell ‘Incoming!’ ” Taylor instructed. “Now go!”

While the audience found their places on each side of the walkway and the small slab of concrete that served as the porch in front of the barracks entrance, Michael Carter crashed open the two screens, letting them swing shut with a bang behind him. As the slamming doors echoed inside the barracks, the captain began to shout his alarm.

“Incoming! Incoming!” Carter screamed and ran toward the back of the barracks, where the two new officers’ bunks sat across the center aisle from his. “Get out! Get out! Incoming rockets!”

Jon Kirkwood stopped his loud snoring and raised his head, hearing the commotion. He immediately looked across his cubicle at Terry O’Connor’s empty bunk.

“Terry, where’d you go?” Kirkwood called, straining his sleepy eyes to see in the darkness.

Michael Carter looked at the empty bunk, too, and stopped yelling for the moment.

“Oh, yeah,” Kirkwood said. “He kept waking me up, complaining about the snoring. I think he went up to the second deck to sleep, out of earshot.”

“No time to look for him,” Carter suddenly screamed, again resuming his panic. “We’ve got to get to the bunker right now!”

“Let me get my pants on,” Kirkwood said, reaching up to the wall locker door and grabbing the back of his trousers hanging on it.

“No time!” Carter yelled, pulling the pants from Kirkwood’s grasp. “They’re shooting 122s at us. Didn’t you hear the first volley?”

“No, I was sleeping,” Kirkwood said, now grabbing his steel helmet off the top of his wall locker and slipping on his flak jacket.

“Come on, Jon, run for it!” Carter shouted, now jogging back toward the door and the stairs to the second deck. “Run to the bunker, and I will get Terry.”

With the sleep finally clearing his head, sudden panic took hold of Jon Kirkwood and sent him dashing hard, clomping in his untied boots, his white skivvy shorts flapping in the wake of air he stirred from his strides. The steel helmet bobbed on his head, and the flak jacked slapped his sides as he passed the stairs for the second deck and came face to face with the double screen doors. The inwardly opening screen doors.

Kirkwood never lost a step as he burst through the entrance, sending the wooden frames that held the screens in place flying in pieces and the wire mesh falling in a limp wad that tangled under his feet. The mess sent the captain tumbling in a somersault that landed him flat on his back atop the remnants of the barracks screen doors.

Buck Taylor put his foot on Kirkwood’s chest when the panicked Marine tried to bound to his feet. Then the lawyer saw the ring of cheery faces surrounding him, and he began to hear the laughter.

Seconds later, Terry O’Connor came charging out the destroyed barracks entrance, sucking wind as he ran barefoot, and wearing only his white skivvy shorts and T-shirt. From nowhere a foot and leg emerged from the sidelines and caught the captain just above the ankles. Seeing his friend sprawled on the walkway atop the remains of the splintered screen doors, O’Connor angled his fall to the side and slid across the dew-soaked grass.

“Here, this will cool you off, open your hatch,” Taylor said to Kirkwood, still holding his foot on the captain’s chest and now draining a can of beer into Jon’s mouth.

Kirkwood jumped to his feet, coughing and spewing beer. Then Wayne Ebberhardt offered Terry O’Connor a hand, helping him to his feet, too.

“Hilarious!” Kirkwood said, catching his breath and kicking his way out of the pile of rubbish that used to be the barracks doors. “I’m glad you guys got a good laugh. What is it, 2:00 AM?”

“About that. Maybe later. Who knows. I’m too shit-faced to care,” Carter said, and laughed in a high-pitched chirp. “Now you have officially joined our tribe.”

Terry O’Connor kicked mud and sod from his naked feet, and pulled his brown-and green-streaked, wet T-shirt and shorts from his skin as he stepped on the better-feeling, smooth surface of the concrete porch.

“I’m not paying a cent toward fixing that door,” O’Connor said, looking at Kirkwood and then laughing, too.

Jon Kirkwood never laughed, but did take a fresh beer from Buck Taylor’s latest six-pack, popped it open, and drained the can down his throat in one chug a lug series of gulps.

At just a few minutes past four o’clock in the morning, several barrages of 122-millimeter Katusha rockets crashed on Da Nang Air Base. One of the salvos exploded on the bunkers across the road from First MAW Law’s officer barracks, where all but three of the two buildings’ inhabitants had sought shelter. While the sirens had sounded, and Marines shouted the alarm as they ran for cover, Terry O’Connor and Jon Kirkwood stayed on their bunks out of hardheaded rebelliousness. A drunken Michael Carter lay his rack, too, not from any act of stubbornness or defiance, but because throughout the commotion he never heard a thing.