Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel (27 page)

“Naw, bullshit! He’s just clamming up on us, that’s all.” He shook his head in admiration. “That’s one crafty little mutt, that Tiger the Lurp Dog. His agent’s probably got the book and movie rights all tied up, and he’s just keeping quiet, hoping we’ll pay to see his adventures. Smart little fucker, ain’t he? Hardcore little fucker, too. He didn’t let a few sores and a swollen eye or a shredded ear slow him down. Foul little dude. He’s the only real Lurp in this whole platoon!”

Tiger didn’t let this extravagant praise go to his head. He stayed under the commo desk, calmly licking the sores on his legs and only occasionally lifting his nose to check for a smell he might have missed. Finally Pappy Stagg got fed up with the grabass and bullshit and chased everyone but the lieutenant out of the bunker, then talked Tiger out from under the commo desk and lifted him up onto his lap for a look at his legs and eye and shredded ear. There wasn’t anything he could do about the mange—he’d have to consult the vet down at the Scout Dog platoon about that—but the sores didn’t look too bad, and on close examination, neither did the swollen eye or the shredded ear.

Pappy Stagg was a good medic, and Tiger didn’t resist or try to get away, even when the old lifer rubbed medicinal cream into his sores and dabbed around his eye with a cotton swab dipped in peroxide. Tiger was a tough little mutt, but he was very tired, and as soon as Pappy Stagg was done with him, he jumped down and scurried back under the commo desk. After pacing a tight circle to make sure he’d have enough space to turn around and stretch out if the mood struck him, he sank down, rested his head on his forepaws, and went to sleep, leaving Pappy Stagg and the lieutenant more or less alone in the bunker for the first time since Two-Four went under out in RZ Zulme.

Lieutenant Longman didn’t really count for much in the Lurp platoon. Before the Two Shop major put a stop to his filling in on short teams, he’d proved himself to be a skilled soldier who enjoyed carrying the second radio and never showed any great desire to interfere with the team leaders. Back in the rear, he knew when to turn away blind. The troops considered him harmless, and most of them actually liked him. He kept a reasonably correct distance from the Spec Fours, and he tried to listen to his NCOs. But he was still a commissioned officer, still the platoon leader, and from time to time he had to assert himself, just to keep in practice. He’d been in a jolly mood with all the men gathered to welcome Tiger home, but now the bunker was almost deserted; Tiger was curled up asleep under the commo desk, and Pappy Stagg was once again back to his hopeless radio watch, listening to Two-Four’s compromised push, unwilling to give up on Mopar and Marvel. If anything, Tiger’s return had encouraged him, and the lieutenant was worried that the old bird was losing his professional objectivity.

“Why don’t you turn that damn thing off, Top?” he said. “Go get some sleep. You look like death warmed over.”

Pappy Stagg turned away from the bank of radios and cupped a hand behind his ear. “Speak up a little, would you sir? I can’t hear you over the rushing noise of this radio.”

Lieutenant Longman frowned. He stepped over to the commo desk and killed the radio. “Go on, Top. Why don’t you go get some sack time? For the last eight days you’ve been up in a spotter plane or helicopter every day, and then sitting down here at the commo desk all night, listening to that compromised push. Face it, Top. You’re wasting your time. Even if one of them’s still alive, even if both of them’s still alive—they either got their radio turned off, or else the battery’s dead by now. We don’t have any teams out, so you can relax and take a night off. Roust a couple of the Spec Fours to come down for radio watch, if it makes you feel any better. Or I can stay down here all night, if you want to go crash. I still got to write all those next-of-kin letters, so I can listen for you, and if we get any traffic on that compromised push, I’ll let you know.”

Lieutenant Longman was a little worried about Pappy Stagg. He really did look terrible. The lines on his forehead were deeper and more numerous than they’d been a week or so before, and his eyes were tired and bloodshot. The wrinkles around his eyes looked deeper too, and he was smoking too much. He was still a strong old bird, but now he was beginning to look more old than strong.

“Go on, Top. Go on down to the tent and sack out. You need the sleep.” It was a suggestion, not an order, and to show that he wasn’t trying to be a prick, the lieutenant reached over and turned the radio back on, but kept the volume down so low that only Tiger could hear it, and Tiger was too busy dreaming about dead rats and wounded birds to listen with his good ear.

Pappy Stagg put down his Nick Carter spy novel and pushed his chair away from the commo desk. Rubbing his big hawk nose and the weary place between his eyes, he looked the lieutenant up and down, then requested permission to speak off the record, man to man and soldier to solider, with no rank involved.

Lieutenant Longman nodded, and as Tiger stirred in his sleep, Pappy Stagg stood up to take unfair advantage of his height.

“All right, sir,” he began with normal military courtesy, to cover his ass if the lieutenant took things the wrong way. “Now forgive me if I get to talking out of hand, but I want you to listen up, and listen up good, sir. I’m forty-seven years old, and I’ve been in this man’s army damn near thirty years. I’m a master sergeant, E-8, and I been up and down the ladder twice—earned my stripes, lost ’em, and earned ’em again the honest way each time, through hard work and kicking ass.”

The lieutenant nodded again, for he’d heard all this before, and of course it was true. He wasn’t too sure what Pappy had been busted for—that was many years in the past—but if anyone in the Army had come by his stripes honestly, it was Pappy Stagg.

“Now, I don’t mean no offense, sir, but I been on jump status for twenty-five years, and I probably got more time in the prop-blast of a C-119 than half the officers in this brigade got in the chowline. I’ve faced planes, I’ve faced tanks, and I’ve faced suicide attacks. And let me tell you, sir, I shit my pants the same for them all. I’ve been in three and a half wars and a hundred deadly hassles in places you ain’t never heard of, sir. I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

Lieutenant Longman nodded once more. He’d seen Pappy without his shirt, and the zipper-like scars on his belly were even more impressive than his huge and faded Airborne tattoo.

“Talk about shrapnel? Hell, sir, I’ve got enough metal in me to where I don’t trust my own compass. I’ve been shot, and stabbed, and hit over the head with chairs and bottles and high-heeled shoes. I’ve been froze in blizzards, broiled in the sun, steamed in jungles worse than what they got here, and damn near crippled in a shot-down helicopter or two.”

Pappy paused to make sure the lieutenant was taking it all in without getting his feathers ruffled.

“I’m always horny, usually hungry, and drunk more often than I should be. I’ve had dysentery three times, scurvy once, blood fever twice, and at least eight doses of the clap. And I don’t need no young lieutenant looking out for my goddamn health, telling me when I need some sleep! Have I made myself clear … sir?”

Lieutenant Longman shrugged. “All right, Top. It’s up to you.” There wasn’t much else he could say without puffing up and acting on his military dignity, and he knew that his dignity wouldn’t be worth much without Pappy Stagg’s respect—at least not in the Lurp platoon, it wouldn’t be. “You and Tiger can hold down the fort all night if you want. I’m gonna try and scare me up some late chow.”

The lieutenant started for the bunker exit. He had one foot on the sandbagged ramp when he paused and turned around to get in the last word—as was only proper, seeing as how he was an officer, and a gentleman to boot.

“Two-Two’s going out in the morning, Top. This is the last night we can waste a radio monitoring a compromised frequency. Tomorrow things will be back to normal, back to the proper codebook, Top. You stay here if you insist, but I’m sending a runner down in case you want to catch a nap. We’re gonna need you on your toes in the morning.”

Lieutenant Longman sighed and shook his head. He looked down at Tiger, sleeping peacefully, his head now resting on one of Pappy’s boots. “It ain’t easy sometimes, but you gotta remember, you gotta be hard. People die, but life goes on, Top. Hell, you oughta know that better than anyone.”

Pappy Stagg grunted something along the lines of “Goodnight, sir.” Tiger whined softly in his sleep. And the lieutenant left the operations bunker, satisfied that he’d made his point without pissing the old bird off any more than necessary. There was no doubt about it, Pappy Stagg was getting a touch grouchy in his old age.

With the lieutenant gone, and Tiger sleeping under the commo desk, the operations bunker seemed almost normal again. Pappy eased his foot out from under Tiger’s head and walked across the bunker to the coffee urn. As he waited for the coffee to heat up, he tried to figure out just what was missing from the bunker, what it needed to seem like a home. It needed a couple of sharp Spec Fours, nosing around the more glamorous field manuals—Ranger, Special Forces Operations, hand-to-hand combat—all full of beatnik bravado, but curious about the profession, ready to start getting serious, ready to take a little grownup pride in becoming soldiers. And it needed some young lifers, a couple of staff sergeants maybe, still full of piss and vinegar and Airborne spirit, still young enough and dumb enough to believe a man could make it on his own. An operations bunker just wasn’t a home without a few young lifers hanging around, trying to get the role down to where it was first or second nature.

Stretched out beneath the commo desk, Tiger’s sleep was momentarily broken by a crackle of stactic in one of the speakers above him. The sound was very faint, for the volume was still turned low, but Tiger was alert. His good ear perked and his shredded ear twitched and tried to stand. He sniffed the bunker air, then opened his good eye and lifted his head to look around. Pappy Stagg had taken his coffee cup to the other side of the bunker and was standing with his back turned as he thumbed through the mission files. The bunker seemed very lonely.

The next time he heard the speaker crack and hiss, Tiger didn’t even bother to open his one good eye. He trusted his nose more than he trusted his sight or his hearing, and his nose gave him no reason to wake. Still sleeping, he sniffed and squirmed. When Mopar called to him from inside the speaker, called to him from behind the static, he thumped the sandbags with his tail and slept on, dreaming of old friends, familiar scents, and soft voices in the night. It was a short but pleasant dream, and when the speaker fell silent again, Tiger the Lurp Dog woke with a stretch and a yawn, and went off through the drizzle to check out the team tents and sit on the berm looking out over the chopper pad, waiting for Mopar, his main man, waiting for his team to return from wherever it was they had gone. It promised to be a very long wait, and finally, at dawn, when the rains returned in earnest, sweeping the compound and sending rivulets of water streaming down the berm, Tiger rose and trotted off to the bunker between the first and second team tents, crawled inside, and went to sleep with his nose next to one of Mopar’s socks and his tail resting, fat and still and lazy, on what was left of poor J. D.’s pearl gray pickpocket hat.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1983 by Kenneth E. Miller

cover design by Mauricio Diaz

978-1-4804-0553-0

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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