I heard the Gypsy Wagon before I saw it. The unique wheezing and clanking noise the engine made along with the blown out muffler dopplered through the parking lot, vibrating the bench I was sitting on. I rolled the cherry out of my cigarette, toed it out while I rolled the rest of the tobacco out of what was left of the paper tube, then stood up, jamming the stripped cigarette butt into the pocket of my slacks. The morning was warm and I was already sweating in the heavy wool of the Class-A uniform as I picked up my dufflebag and the manila folder of paperwork.
The Gypsy Wagon, a GMC/Chevy/Dodge chimera-hybrid pickup truck made up of parts the gorillas who worked in the motorpool dug out of a dumpster, idled toward me, the sunlight gleaming off the cracks in the windshield. The brakes squealed as it came to a stop and I hucked my duffle into the back of the truck, heaving it over the sideboards. I pulled open the door, ignoring the thunk when the opening door put stress on the front quarter-panel until it suddenly released. I got in, slamming the door, ignoring the sound of shattered safety glass that was still rattling around the bottom of the door, and dug out my smokes.
The driver hit the gas and got us moving before I even got the door all the way shut. He was tall, six-one, six-two, about two hundred pounds of Texas beef jerky. Blond, with a bush mustache, and a plain honest face that made people think of a young Sam Elliot. He was dressed in the normal US Army issue Battle-Dress Uniform, woodland camouflage version, a pistol rig carrying a .45 pistol wrapped around him. There were two sets of battle-rattle on the floor. The Kevlar vest wrapped in a set of Load Bearing Equipment, which held two canteens, two ammunition pouches, a compass pouch, and a field dressing pouch. One had a bandoleer of 40mm grenades on it, the grenades mostly flares and smoke, although the white-phosphorous only technically counted as a non-combat round.
One for him, one for me.
Between the two of us were two XM16E3 rifle. One with a forward assist, the other without but with an M203 40mm grenade launcher mounted under the barrel, both of them sporting chrome bolts. Both rifles were battered, beat up, veterans of testing in Vietnam twenty years prior. Both had the quarter-moon 30-round magazines, the ones civvies called "banana clips", slotted into the magazine wells.
"Hooch in the glove box," the driver, one Specialist Jonathon Bomber, grunted at me as he pulled out of the parking lot.
"Thanks," I said, kneeing the glove box at the bottom so that it popped open. The vehicle dispatch was on top of a bottle of Wild Turkey that I pulled out. I pulled the cork, pulled a long drink off the bottle, then handed it to the driver. He took a pull, swallowed, then pulled another before handing the 101 proof rye burboun back to me. I took another hit of the slightly sweet liquor, corked the bottle, and put it back in the glove box.
"Goddamn, that hit the spot," I said, cracking the little wing window to flick my ashes.
"Bet," Bomber said, concentrating on the traffic. An M113 Armored Personnel Carrier blew the red light, crossing the intersection in front of us in a clattering of tracks and the roar of a diesel engine with a worn bearing. The guy in the hatch gave us the finger when Bomber honked, which both of us returned. "Pistol is under the seat."
"Thanks," I said. I left it there, no reason to drag it out.
Before long we were on the Autobahn, speeding down the German freeway, the Gypsy Wagon shuddering slightly as the front end kingpins protested the fact Bomber had wound the RPM's high enough to get the engine to push us along at a brisk 90 MPH in direct violation of military regulation that wanted us to try to drive 55 MPH on a road that Germans tried to break the sound barrier on.
"So how was PLDC?" Bomber asked, referring to the Primary Leadership Development Course I'd just completed after forty-five days.
"How'd you like a punch in the face?" I asked him.
YOU ARE READING
Atlas Reloaded - Book Five of the Damned of the 2/19th
Historical FictionSummer, 1985. New weapons and munitions have come out of the experimental phase and are now being issued across the United States military as the Cold War heats up and the Soviet Union has moved eight armored divisions into Western Europe. The work...
