Sergeant Dickinson by Jerome Gold Page A

necessary, do you think, to cut off the toes?”
    â€œI don’t know. I think they thought so. I don’t think they were trying to torture me.”
    â€œWhat happened to the rest of the crew?”
    â€œI don’t know. I never saw them after they separated us.”
    â€œDid they give you anesthetic when they amputated your toes?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMaybe they didn’t have any.”
    â€œThey had it. I saw them use it with their own wounded. I’d really like to know what they thought they were doing, whether they were torturing me or trying to save my foot.”
    â€œWe had an NVA doctor once that we almost let go.”
    â€œWho’s that?”
    â€œMe.”
    â€œWho the fuck is ‘Me’?”
    â€œFrank.”
    â€œOkay, Frank. Tell us your story. Make it a good one—Tanner is scratching at the door, we gotta keep him entertained.”
    â€œWe were operating in the DMZ, and we captured this bunker complex. It was like an entire city below the ground, hospital, food and ammo warehouses, a generator plant, everything.It took us seven days to destroy it completely. One of the prisoners was an NVA doctor. I got to know him a little, we both knew some French. He told me how hard it was to care for their wounded because the NVA didn’t have enough drugs or adequate hospital facilities.”
    â€œAre you a medic?”
    â€œYeah. I knew he would be sent to Saigon, that’s where prisoners who are officers go so the Vietnamese can interrogate them. And I didn’t want him to be tortured.”
    â€œEverybody does it.”
    â€œI know. I began to make this plan to sneak him out of the compound so he could escape back into North Viet Nam. I didn’t have it very well formulated, but I was thinking about it. But on the last day, when we blew up his hospital, he went crazy. He had been getting kind of flaky anyway—I had noticed it myself but I figured it was just that kind of weird you get when you have nothing to do after you’ve been in the shit for a long time. But when we blew up the hospital he went insane. So we sent him to Saigon with the others.”
    â€œDid you ever find out what happened to him in Saigon?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHey, Frank?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIf I were you I wouldn’t be telling that story too often.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œI mean everybody here is okay, and Tanner is okay, but you never know who else might be listening.”
    â€œJust like in the ‘Nam, huh? Everybody you can’t see is aVictor Charlie.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œYou’re probably right.”
    â€œI know I am.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œHey, Smythe, do you have any more ethnic jokes?”
    â€œNegative, negative,” Tanner broke in, coming into the ward. “Lights are out, the smoking lamp is not lit. Go to sleep now, like good little boys, or I’ll tell Big Nurse.”
    â€œOooh, Tanner.”
    â€œOooh, Big Nurse.”
    â€œI got your big nurse hanging, Tanner.”
    â€œI mean it. Knock off the talk.”
    â€œOkay, Tanner. Have a rotten day.”
    I lay back, my arm tingling, and waited for the conversation in my head to begin.
    Jeff woke up about midmorning. We passed his bed as though to visit someone else, or on the way to the latrine, and said: “Hey, Tiger.” “How ya doin’, Jeff?” “How ya feelin’?” “Welcome back, Jeff.” “If it isn’t Moshe Dayan,” in reference to the eye patch he wore.
    When I went to say hello, Jeff said, “They didn’t cut.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThey didn’t cut. They gave me too much anesthetic and they spent all day just keeping me alive.”
    â€œOh Christ.”
    â€œI have to do it again. When they think I’m ready.”
    â€œShit.”
    â€œIt’s a pisser. I didn’t even know until Laurel