Miles Wilson C 2025

MILES WILSON

By Carl Edgar Law © 2004

Miles Wilson was bleeding out like a stuck pig till I jammed a shell dressing into his back by feel. He was staring up at his maker, eyes glassy, mouth slackly agape and drooling. He looked surprised. I knew what to do but I was swimming through molasses. Only a battlefield medic knew how to do this mindlessly. Miles said:

"Tell Pamela I love her... tell my Mom and dad.... I shut him up. I said: "shut up you sick fuck... you owe the army six more months and by Christ the army's gonna get them."

He laughed cynically at my transparent attempt to make him mad; to divert his attention from the O-RH-NEG running into the mud.

He coughed up a bloodfroth and I realized I'd have to get him over into the recovery position. It was starting to come together. He wasn't heartshot at all. SHIT! NO! He wasn't heartshot--I'd got my sides mixed up. Miles had been shot in the upper left chest... nowhere near the heart, if five inches is nowhere near the heart. The round had nicked a lung. I said:

"I'm putting you in recovery Miles, it's no killshot at all" and started to wrestle his bulky weight onto its side. I'm thinking back to the eight week lieutenants' course... eight fucking weeks--shake 'n bake. We hardly knew how to wipe our asses after eight weeks... on the side; one arm in back, one arm in front, the legs... where do the fucking legs go. So I roll him on his side anyway and it kind of looks like the picture in the book. I'm holding the loose shell dressing on his back and once I get him facing away from me I pull the cotton away and look.

It's like a needle went in and a softball came out. I have this aberrant thought of fucking Julie and one sperm going in and one baby coming out. How the fuck does that work. I must be going insane. I keep thinking that hours have passed... that the luxury of thinking has left it too late to keep Miles alive. But, it's only seconds and now that I lift the loose shell dressing off I see the exit wound isn't bleeding all that bad. I'm peering over Miles with little jerking movements. Look at his back, peer over to see what's coming out his mouth.

My head is starting to move into real time. It's coming together. I grab for the sulfa in my pack and sprinkle it on. I pull another shell dressing off my webbing and put it on properly, somehow slipping the tape under his body and bringing it back round. I sprinkle sulfa in my palm and sort of tap it into the point of ingress. It's a standard 7.92 AK round. I just hope they didn't dip it in shit.

They do that. They shit on the ground and nip a little piece between thumb and forefinger and sit patiently wiping it onto their rounds. Then they clean them off with a rag so you can't see there's shit on the rounds but it's there. It only takes a few molecules to fester.

And then they shoot you.

"Stay awake Miles." We've been on a first name basis since I showed up three months ago knowing as much about fieldcraft as a baby knows about finding milk once the nipple is withdrawn. Miles looked at me sardonically, took me aside and said "can we talk man to man," and then grinned at his joke. He said:

"Just forget it all... forget it all. Right now you have a life expectancy of 14 days. Stick with me for a week and that'll rise to 30. You're still alive in 30 days we have a chance. My job is to keep you alive... your job is to keep me alive. Without each other we perish."

Five men to a squad, three squads to a section (British - we had some but they got killed), three sections to a platoon, three platoons to a company and it goes up from there.

He went on:

"In front of the men you're Sir. In private with me you're a tyro. You're a no nothing walking target."

I was still wearing my one silver bar like I'd been dubbed Sir Knight by the wand of God, rather than been sent a sheepskin by LBJ. They didn't even print commissions on vellum any more. It was just some kind of heavy bond paper.

I bristled and Miles laughed. He laughed and laughed until I said "Sergeant I've had enough of your insolence." By that time he was practically rolling on the ground unable to contain himself.

"SIR! LOOK AT ME! I AM YOUR BEST FRIEND."

I stopped, a little intimidated by his blazing eyes. If looks could have killed.

He said: "Don't forget Sir! You can always shoot me for insubordination with that big hogleg you have on your belt there." I sort of tittered inanely at that point, beginning to ease into it.

I said "how'd ya know I'm not jerkin' your dick" These combat happy sergeants you either live with them or die without them.

So Miles then takes me by the shoulders and looks into my eyes like a fortune teller about to dump the bad news. I'm thinking, assaulting an officer (that's what it is technically) but I'm in his thrall now.

He says it again "Sir!" as though I'm about to be taken out for shooting and he's the padre easing me down.

"I am your best friend. Nothing they taught you is any good out here. I am your mommy, your daddy, your legal guardian, that much-loved uncle that you thought you preferred to your dad when you were growing up. I am your brother. We are cannon fodder. We have no value at all. We are America's lost children and OUR ONLY DUTY is to stay alive. I'll show you how to do that."

So now I'm giving up. I can tell the way my shoulders have slumped. He's got me. And then Miles says:

"They took me five days after the prom--took me five days after high school; took me from my widowed mother and brought me out here. It's my second tour. My skin is coppered with blood; coppered with the blood of young men who never grew old. I'm old and cynical and I really don't give fuck one. They can court martial me and take me out and shoot me and it'll be a mercy compared to this. So just remember that fat navy Colt you're wearing and shoot me anytime... better than being sent to Viet Nam MUAHAHA."

I laughed. It was like going through the Stargate. Suddenly I just knew that this guy was a prince and we could work. I said:

"I brought a bottle of Johnny Walker out with me."

Miles said "OK then, you can jerk my dick."

I said: "I think you're sufficiently insane that I can get you medevacked."

It got worse. He was wearing three canteens and when he pulled out one and handed it to me I thought it was a peace offering; thought it was clean water but... it burned down to the gizzard. I spluttered and choked. Miles laughed and said: "one more and the pain will go away." I knew then and sucked back a bolus and felt my head lighten up.

"What's your name anyway." I'd been taught in OCS never to fraternize. Fraternization is death... but I was floating from three ounces of Viet whiskey--some unknown proof way above legal so I said "Michael Grade... I'm Michael Grade and I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it any more."

Miles had giggled and then gathered himself and looked at me seriously.

"Michael! It's all bullshit out here. Forget EVERYTHING from back home. We are pawns and our duty is to live. Our mothers want us to live. Our fathers, our sweethearts, our brothers and sisters, our aunties... shit... now I'm philosophizing."

He passed me the canteen and I drank again... realizing I hadn't been this mellow since I got my first BJ at the prom. I was an Upper Mount Kisco boy with no experience beyond cutting lawns for pay in the sweet sultry summer and clearing driveways of snow and circle jerking at prep school... I realized sitting with Sergeant Miles Wilson that I knew dick about anything... that I was possibly the least competent person on the planet except for holding about 30 lives in the palm of my hand. It suddenly occurred to me that I only had to raise an eyebrow to send a man to his death.

The thought almost gave me diarrhea.

Miles had come down out of the Big Iron, up there in the Mesabi Range and he had just a soupcon of that Swedish lilt that even on a Minnesota thug suggests innocence. He was big, maybe six two and muscled. He was a second tour man... a daddy... filled with lore and smarts. I was to find out he was smarter than me... quicker... more focused... more alert... more savvy... he just hadn't been to college is all. They had taken me half way through first year.

I just wanted to get it over with. I could have played deferment after deferment but I had broken up with Julie in a blazing row and said "Fine! I'll go and get my ass grassed in Viet and Julie had said... NO NO NO, oh baby don't go... oh baby I'm sorry... oh no, no no and I had felt wonderful and masterful and pushed her away and got straight onto a Greyhound.

Now Julie was writing me every day telling me sorry. Thirty days after I got into battle I could hardly remember her name or why I'd ever slipped her white cotton panties down her legs. Like Miles... I just could not give fuck one. Now this jock bastard was trying to die on me... trying to shirk his duty by death--a lousy excuse. I said:

"You were the guy when I showed up who knew it all you bastard. Now you're fucking it all up." I just wanted to keep him awake, eh!.

There was a time when I was young when I thought a Commissioning Scroll meant getting into number one mess undress after 1800 and smirking sweetly at crinolined girls who would mark me on their dance cards at officers' balls and then do filthy things to officers' balls when the music stopped.

Now the music had stopped and there were no crinolined girls.

It felt like hours had passed. Miles was on his side and his exit wound was seeping and his entry wound wasn't doing anything really at all. I had been checking his pulse from the beginning and it was slow but full-ish. He was getting about 50 beats and while it wasn't full and bounding it wasn't thready either. It was only then that I realized there were nine other guys to check out. It felt like I'd been with Miles for hours and hours and totally abandoned the squad. The other 20 guys in my platoon were back at base... doping out, as I had discovered was SOP in the rear, but...

... suddenly Jones the RADOP was right there beside me with that huge PRC-6 handphone. It looked like a cell would look 15 years later but 11 times bigger.

"I've called it in Sir... I've called it in... medevac on the way Sir... it's all good Sir."

He wanted me to tell him he'd done good. He'd grown up without a Dad. I said "You did good Jones--thanks."

"How's the sarge Sir?"... now the fucker was going to hover....I said "what's happening back there Jones--I've been tied up here, the sarge is maybe gonna be OK... WTF is happening out there?"

"Two down sir... some superficial, no finals."

"OK Jones... what's the word?"

"About 18 minutes Sir."

Ok so the medevac is on the way... I only have to hang on that long with my field medicine... and now the Sarge is burbling at me again... he's saying... oh, you silly fuck Sir I thought you'd be dead in a week and here you are... and he giggles.

And, then he shits.

I smell the shit but I smell copper. I scream "MEDIC". The medic's been tied up with other guys. I loosen Miles' belt and manage to yank down his pants a little. This is definitely not in my contract... what fuckin' contract... there is no contract... and I see all this diarrhea shit rolling down his thighs and it is somewhere between brown and red and through that funky shit smell I smell copper. Well, I guess it's iron but I always think of that smell as copper and I'm the one in charge here OK??

I'm screaming "MEDIC" and finally the little cunt bellies over and says "we gotta get his clothes off Sir--there's a big internal here," which of course Miles hears--go figure.

He giggles.

FUCK! I had him saved and now this corporal tells me I haven't. We get his clothes off--shit all over the place... gives new meaning to the term shit for brains since now I've seen both shit and brains up close. And then.....

It's a needle puncture hidden by his balls... shrapnel. Shrapnel goes in super heated and whirls around inside the visceral spaces... eating up the organs at several hundred feet a second like Pacman... do the math!

Miles' grin is a rictus. He grabs my flak jacket with malevolent force and pulls me down to his face with a supernatural strength. He says "Michael you cunt... I...."

And then he dies.

-30-

Kingston, Ontario Aug 2004