One Man's War

Tess struggled to shake off much-needed sleep to stay up with the girl. By 3:00 a.m., the child’s temperature was beginning to drop. Relief shattered through Tess as she lay down and drew the girl into her arms. She closed her eyes, but sleep refused to come. Pete’s unexpected entrance into her life had stirred up a lot of unsolved feelings toward Eric.

Eric had been the exact opposite of Pete: quiet, sincere and hardworking. Somehow, the engagement had fallen apart. What had gone wrong? Had it been her? Was she incapable of being loved? Or of knowing what love really was? Now Pete was saying he was a bastard, making no bones about it, and yet there was such a discrepancy between his words and his actions. Unable to figure it all out, Tess sighed again and gave the little girl a gentle squeeze, just to let her know she was loved and cared for.

Pete Mallory was a hunter with few morals or values when it came to women. The pain in Tess’s heart widened as she broached the twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness. So how could she be drawn to him? How? Resolution wove with sleep as she surrendered to the security of the darkness. Under no circumstance would she allow herself to be manipulated. No way.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_6cc0f958-66e8-5e6b-9963-c6efffea7ac7)

“Man, things are getting bad out in the bush,” Pete’s copilot, Joe Keegan, confided. The Sikorsky helicopter’s blades were turning slowly, the engine already shut down. Pete finished flipping off the rest of the switches on his side of the cockpit and sat back in the uncomfortable seat, perspiration running down the sides of his face beneath his helmet. Sweat poured off him from the humidity that hung like a heavy, wet blanket around them twenty-four hours a day.

“Yeah,” Pete croaked, loosening the helmet strap. “Things are getting worse.” With a groan, he took the heavy helmet off, fresh air cooling him momentarily. Running his fingers through the wet hair plastered against his skull, he glanced back at the glum marine second lieutenant—a green twenty-three-year-old kid. This was the officer’s first month in Nam and into what was known as the “bush,” a place where lives could be and were lost—especially to VC land mines and snipers. The war—and it was a dirty war, in Pete’s opinion—was heating up daily.

Keegan glumly lifted his hand in farewell and exited out the right side of the Sikorsky, heading toward the flight shack to file their flight report.

Pete’s gunner, Random, a red-haired marine lance corporal with dancing gray eyes, glanced over at him. “Want me to check for holes in the fuselage, Mr. Mallory? I know we took hits.”

“Go ahead. Just don’t tell me how many you find.” Pete sat there, letting the shakiness pass before he attempted to move. His knees felt like jelly.

“You don’t want to know?”

Pete shook his head. “No way.” He didn’t want to know how close one of those bullets had come. The VC knew the man sitting in the right seat of a helicopter was the pilot, and they aimed for him first. He tipped his head back, closed his eyes and took in a ragged but deep breath, trying to still his pounding heart.

“It wasn’t very groovy out there today,” Random added, just as shaken as Pete from the ground fire. “Hot LZ’s are the armpits of the universe.”

“No argument from me, and groovy isn’t a word I’d use for a wartime situation,” Pete whispered. His mind, his heart, circled back to Tess. Damned if she hadn’t haunted his dreams for the past five days. And not an hour went by that her image didn’t gently intrude upon his world of harsh reality, of life and death, giving him a moment’s serene peace. How was the four-year-old girl? he wondered. Had she survived with the help of the tetanus vaccine and antibiotics? How was Tess?

With a sigh, Pete opened his eyes, stuffed his helmet into the green canvas bag that he stowed behind his seat during flights, and slowly moved out of the cramped, confining cockpit. All around him on the tarmac was the busy-bee activity of ground crews servicing the birds and tanker trucks, refueling them for the next flight. Weary flight crews were dragging their butts back to the flight line shack to file their reports and discrepancy logs.

At the flight shack, Pete joined his copilot. “What’re your plans?” Keegan asked as he handed him the report to check and then officially sign off. “Beers at the O club?”

Normally, that’s exactly what Pete would do. Only an ice-cold beer took the edge off his thirstiness and dulled the adrenaline from a rough flight. He quickly read Keegan’s report, noticed how wobbly the printing was on it, and signed it off with his own trembling signature. Pete handed the report across the desk to the flight chief. “No,” he said. “I gotta check out some things. Maybe later.”

Gib Ramsey was at his desk in the hard-back tent that served as headquarters for the Marine Air Group helicopter squadron. The air in the tent was squalid, and hung like a damp sheet within the gloomy interior. Gib looked up as Pete sauntered in.

“How was it out there today? I heard you took ground fire.”

Pete shrugged. “Yeah, my crew chief counted fifteen rounds that stitched up my bird. No casualties, though.”

“Good,” Gib said, putting the pen and paper aside.

“We aren’t always going to be so lucky.”

“No...”

“Hey, I want permission to buzz on over to Le My for a couple of hours.”

“Oh?” Gib cocked his head, his eyes curious.

With a burgeoning grin, Pete added, “I scrounged up some more supplies for your sister.”

“I thought so.”

His mouth stretching into a full smile, Pete said, “This is business.”

“Oh?” Then Gib shrugged. “She knows your type anyway, Mallory, so I’m not worried. Tess has been able to take care of herself in situations far worse than you horning in on her life.”

Pete laughed good-naturedly. The major knew he was the best scrounger at Marble Mountain and relied on him heavily to get badly needed items for the squadron. Every once in a while, Pete took advantage of this relationship, but his CO usually allowed it to happen by way of thanks for his heroic efforts in the area of procurement.

“So, you got some stuff to go to Le My?” Gib teased.

“Strictly business.” Giving Gib an innocent look, Pete opened his hands. “Hey, Tess called me an angel of mercy a week ago.”

Rolling his eyes, Gib muttered, “You? With your reputation?”

“Believe it, Major. Well? Can I have about three hours? We’re not due for another mission until tomorrow morning. I’m all caught up on paperwork.”

Gib nodded, then scowled. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m up to my armpits in local politics with that rubber plantation estate owned by Dany Villard.”

Joy coursed through Pete. He hadn’t realized how much he truly wanted to see Tess again until he heard permission granted. “Out of sight. See you later, Major.”

“Pete?”

He turned on his heel. “Yes, sir?”

“When you `accidentally’ run into Tess, will you tell her to get her rear back to Da Nang at night? Things are heating up out there.” The scowl on his broad brow deepened. “She’s supposed to stay at Da Nang every night, not out at those villages.”

“I’ll tell her that.” Pete recalled vividly her earlier refusal to stay at Da Nang. “But I don’t know if it will do much good.”

“Do me a favor? Use your considerable charm, sweet talk and any other kind of leverage you can think of to get my baby sis to see the light of day? Tell her there’re VC massing west of Le My.”

Pete shared Gib’s belief that Tess should stay at a safe haven each night. “I’ll do what I can.”

“If you succeed, I’ll owe you, Mallory.”

Grinning, Pete nodded. “Maybe a weekend’s worth of leave in Saigon?”

With a groan, Gib shook his head. “Get out of here, Captain Mallory.”

Chuckling, Pete sauntered out of the tent and into the humid noontime heat. He threw his utility cap on his head, the broad brim shading his eyes from the always brilliant, burning rays of the sun. Whistling softly, his spirits lifting so high he felt as if he was walking on air, Pete requisitioned a jeep from motor pool, then went about collecting all the little things he’d scrounged all week—just for Tess. When she saw these gifts he’d managed to wrangle, he thought with a deepening grin, she wouldn’t be able to say no to anything he asked.

* * *

Pete found Tess at one end of the village of Le My, sitting on a rubber-tree stump and holding what looked like some sort of impromptu medical clinic. Spread out on a cardboard box next to her were syringes, bottles of vaccine and the cotton strips she used for bandaging. In front of her, standing patiently in line, were about thirty women with children hanging onto their clothes or tucked away in their arms.

“Hey!” Pete called as he approached, “you playing nurse now?”

Tess’s head snapped up. Her eyes widened. She’d just finished inoculating a five-year-old boy, and she used a piece of cotton dipped in alcohol to clean away the spot of blood on his arm.

“Pete!”