Chapter Text
Walter spent the next week alone. Nobody pranked him, and nobody talked to him unless they had to. He did what he was supposed to do when he was supposed to do it. He didn't raise his hand anymore in class, though he did answer if the sergeant called on him, which he rarely did. When people lost stuff, he let it stay lost. Paul tried to talk to him again after a couple of days, but Walter ignored him until he stopped trying. He couldn't say anything wrong if he didn't say anything at all.
It was better this way. It was what he had wanted originally. Get good test scores, do what he was supposed to do, and don't end up in the infantry. Keep his head down.
They started using their guns more. Walter was neither good nor bad at target shooting, but once they started on the dummies, once the sergeant started reminding them over and over that they were shooting people, that they were supposed to want to shoot and kill people, it made his stomach do flips, and he couldn't hit a darn thing. He drilled, ran, and did pushups, and it got easier as he got stronger. He studied and took tests and worked all the time to get exactly the right number of questions right and enough questions wrong that he wouldn't be thought a cheat. He only cried at night when no one would see, and he kept his fist in his mouth to keep from making a sound. He never lied in his letters to his Ma, but they got shorter and shorter as he ran out of happy things to tell her.
Sergeant Kent watched him closer all the time. He was worried, not angry--at least, not angry at Walter--but the attention made his skin buzz anyway. He hoped the sergeant wouldn't worry so much that he'd try to find some reason to send Walter home.
It was a warm and sunny Tuesday morning. Walter sat in his assigned seat in the little classroom, listening to the sergeant reading the textbook in a droning voice that blended with the drone of the helicopters flying practice runs overhead. He'd resorted to pinching himself at intervals dictated by the clock behind the sergeant's head, then watching the second hand on the clock to see how long he could hold his breath. He would not start coloring in all the letters with holes in them like Ronnie was doing, though doing so was becoming more tempting by the minute.
A sudden burning in his chest made his heart rate kick up. He told himself Ronnie wasn't going to get into that much trouble for defacing his textbook and tried to turn his attention back to the correct procedure for filing damage reports on US Army property. Hah. Ronnie might want to pay attention to this, given he was defacing Army property right under the nose of the sergeant. The restless, burning feeling in his chest simmered for a while, a fear without a target. He tapped a rhythm on his pant leg with the fingers of his left hand and chewed the chapped skin of his bottom lip.
All at once, panic broke free and poured like a waterfall into his arms and legs. Fire and smoke flashed behind his eyes. Wait, but what? Where? There was a jumble in his mind, too much crowding to the front at once, the shriek and crumple of sheet metal walls, long black blades tearing through the classroom like scythes, a horrible pulpy sound he'd never heard before but was coupled in his mind with crushed and bleeding bodies flung through the air like toys. His breath came fast in his chest, and his hands hurt. He looked down to see them balled into tight fists. A little blood colored the seam where his fingernails dug in.
"Sergeant Kent, Sir!" he said. No time to think about the consequences.
"You're speaking out of turn, O'Reilly," the sergeat said sharply.
"We gotta--" What did they gotta do? "We gotta get out. Out and up the hill. Right now!"
"Explain." He was so calm. How could he be calm?
Crumpled metal blades. Blades! "A helicopter. It's gonna hit us!" He glanced at the door. Ten seconds and he was going to run himself, whatever the consequences. "Sir, I'll take a dishonorable if I'm wrong. But we gotta go!"
"You heard the man, go. March! Double time!" sergeant was already talking to the class when Walter made the offer.
Walter led the charge out the door to make sure everybody went the right way. Sergeant Kent stood In the doorway barking instructions and making sure the guys filed out single file and quickly. They ran up the hill. There were still half a dozen guys in the building when an explosion above them cracked the windows, sending wreckage spinning rapidly out of the sky toward the classroom. They all got out. The sergeant brought up the rear. The helicopter slammed through the corrugated aluminum roof, and a second explosion belched heat and smoke and blew the glass out of the windows in a rain of shrapnel.
Walter saw the sergeant go down, along with Larsen just ahead of him. The two biggest guys turned around to grab them and drag them further away from the fire. Walter couldn't move. Smoke and flame filled the space behind his eyes.
It was Chuck who got them all back together. "Sit down, men," he said. "Arnold, check the sergeant. O'Reilly, take a look at Simmons. Anybody else hurt?"
Walter staggered over to Simmons, who was sitting up and pinching his bloody nose closed. Behind him, Chuck picked out the two fastest runners and sent them to call for a fire truck. Both Simmons and the sergeant were peppered with tiny cuts from the glass. Walter should have been faster. If he'd figured out what was happening quicker, they'd all have been fine. Most of them would have been fine. He scrubbed phantom heat from his arms and looked back at the building. "There aren't any survivors from the helicopter."
"What's that, O'Reilly?" Sergeant Kent said.
"They're dead. The student pilot and the instructor."
"They probably are," he agreed. "I doubt anyone could survive a crash like that."
Walter stared into the billowing smoke. "Didn't never see anybody die before. Not in person."
The sergeant nodded. His face was covered with little rivulets of blood where the glass had cut him. "You're sure, though. That wasn't a guess."
"Yes, sir," he said miserably. "Sometimes I know about stuff before it happens." He sniffled into his shirt. "Who's gonna eat me alive?"
The sergeant gave Walter another puzzled look. "No one. I'll make sure of it. That radar of yours is going to go where it can save men's lives."
There were interviews, after. Each of them went in to talk to the MPs because they'd seen it happen, they were told. None of them were in trouble, they were told. Walter chewed his nails to nubs and started in on his cuticles till his fingers bled, just waiting for his turn to mix the truth with just a couple of tiny lies that wouldn't conflict with whatever the sergeant said.
They called his name. He followed an MP into the CO's office. Even steps, stay one step behind the MP, don't look scared, don't cry, don't smile. Fortunately, he didn't feel like smiling now that he knew what it felt like to die. Once the adrenaline had run out of his system--it felt like it had drained right out through his toes--he'd doubled over and thrown up on the grass. He wasn't the only guy to upchuck, though, and nobody gave him hell over it. He saw the CO sitting behind his desk, and two guys sitting at a folding table, one with an MPs armband and the other a helicopter pilot by his insignia. He came to attention. "Walter O'Reilly, reporting for debriefing, sirs!"
"Sit down, son," the pilot said.
"Yes, sir." He pulled out the chair, intending to sit quickly and smartly, but he caught it on his feet and stumbled before he managed to get himself sat down.
"Take a couple of deep breaths. You look like you've seen a ghost," the MP said, suspicious.
"I just saw two guys die today, sir."
The MP scribbled something down on his notepad. "Tell us what happened, as best you remember it."
"We were in class talking about damage reports, and I heard something. The rotors didn't sound the way they usually do, on the copters. I knew that helicopter was gonna crash," he hurried through his explanation, hoping they wouldn't notice the gaping hole between the sound of a busted rotor and knowing a helicopter was going to crash right on top of the classroom. "So I told Sergeant Kent we ought to get out of there, and he made the decision to evacuate the building. He got us all out that door real fast. Nobody got trampled, or panicked, or got left behind. I think he's a real hero, sirs."
The MP acknowledged what he said about the sergeant with a nod. "And what happened next?"
"Chuck, I mean Williams, took charge since the sergeant was wounded. He put Paul Arnold and me on first aid and dispatched Ronnie Benson and Nick Acredolo, on account of they always win the footraces, to call for the fire trucks to come. And then when the trucks came, they marched us all off to the first aid station while they put out the fire."
The engineer asked, all casual in his voice but not really casual at all, "Back up a little. You say you heard the helicopter's rotors failing."
"I guess so. I heard something funny, and then, well, maybe I got scared and I just happened to be right by accident."
"Hell of a lucky guess," the MP said. "Did you know either of the men who were killed?"
"No, sir. I heard it was an instructor and a trainee, but that's all I know."
"You ever want to fly a helo?" the pilot asked.
"Um." He took a shaky breath. "Respectfully, sir, I hope I never have to ride in one. I'll do it if I have to, but I'd just as soon not."
The MP's eyes narrowed. "You and the sergeant were involved in an incident several days ago. Someone put caustic soda on your clothing. That's the kind of thing that would make a man maybe want revenge."
Goosebumps raised on his arms. "On a couple of guys I never met? I wouldn't want anybody to die like that. The one guy died right away, just the explosion, and enough time to get scared and see the roof coming at him. The other guy burned to death. It was almost--I think it was about a minute. It felt like a lot longer." His arms were wrapped around himself and he'd started rocking, which was a bad habit and why had he said all that?
"I thought they marched you all away."
"Ma says I have an overactive imagination," he mumbled into his crossed arms.
Someone walked up behind him. "That will be enough, gentlemen. O'Reilly, go back to the barracks."
He stood. A hand on his shoulder guided him outside, and he stumbled back to the barracks. He hadn't remembered all that, before. Too much else going on. But it was true, every word of it. The sergeant was standing in the doorway. He tapped the shoulder of the next guy who was supposed to be debriefed, then he put his arm around Walter and pulled him inside. He must look pretty awful if Sergeant Kent thought he needed to be guided inside. He sat down on his bunk.
"That's some radar you've got," Chuck said.
Walter shrugged. He didn't have the energy for much else.
Paul sat down beside him, close enough for Walter to lean on if he wanted to. Ronnie pressed something into his hand. He looked down to see a Hershey bar. "You look like you could use something," he said.
Walter held onto the chocolate loosely, still too queasy to try to eat it. Paul took it out of his hand, unwrapped it, and started snapping apart the little squares, then put one of them back in his hand. "Don't make me put it in your mouth, Radar O'Reilly."
Walter dutifully put the chocolate on his tongue and let it melt there. Two squares later he did feel a little better. "Thanks," he mumbled.
"How'd you know?" Chuck asked.
Radar felt his heart jump again. He took another piece of chocolate to steady his nerves and stall for a few seconds. "Just happens. Since I was a kid. Runs in the family."
"So you really do have radar," Paul said.
"Kind of. Maybe. Why'd you shut me out? After, um, Muller left."
Paul shrugged. "No good reason. Didn't want to get my ass beat by his friends. Why'd you shut me out?"
"Didn't want your pity." He swallowed. It wasn't fair to answer him with a lie cadged from the movies. "I didn't want you to get your ass beat either, especially for a known snitch and a screw-up besides."
"You know, for a smart guy, you can be pretty stupid, Radar." There was a little hesitation before Paul said "radar" like it was a name.
Ronnie plied him with another piece of chocolate. "So, can you predict the weather, Radar?"
He shrugged. He could almost feel--he could feel them trying out the name, and the idea of him at the same time, making room for him in their box of things that were odd-but-okay. "Usually. Only a day or two out, though."
Ronnie passed out the last four pieces of chocolate, one to each of them, and held it up like a toast. "To Radar, saver of our asses!"
"Radar!" they all said, while Walter's cheeks heated. They tapped their bits of chocolate together and ate them at once.
It was better, after. Some of the guys still avoided him, and a couple, Peretti included, whispered behind his back, but the weight of being weird-but-useful was lighter than the weight of a huge and slippery secret he couldn't seem to keep. Some guys with a lot of ribbons on their chests came by to talk to the CO and Sergeant Kent. They left looking disappointed, which Radar knew beyond a doubt was a good thing, even if he wasn't sure why. At the end of Basic, Walter got his orders to report to additional training so he could become a unit clerk. Learning how to fill out forms correctly had never seemed like something to look forward to before, but it would put him in a spot where knowing things would be useful and help keep other people safe and supplied with all the things they needed.
He knew by the flip in his stomach when anybody mentioned China or Korea that soon they wouldn't be just playing at war anymore.