Lost Patrol -1- Don't Scream

Lt. Helmstead spoke to me without lowering his field glasses. “I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore, Lucie.”

“Utah, sir,” I said seriously. “We’re not in Utah anymore.”

Sergeant Streep grunted, about a number four, amused but impatient. “Don’t sass the El Tee, Private Lucie,” he warned without a hint of the amusement his grunt had indicated.

I shrugged to stop myself from saying, “Yes, sir.” Just ten weeks out of Basic Training, but even I knew you don’t call a sergeant, even a senior one, “sir.” Even if he was the oldest man in our unit, probably ten years older than our commanding officer, who was our titular “Old Man.”

I snickered at that thought. I was the youngest in our squadron at eighteen and a few months, but the “Old Man” only had eight to nine years on me, not a whole decade.

“Don’t giggle, Lucie,” Helmstead accused. “It’s just an expression, from an old movie.” He still hadn’t lowered the field glasses, talking out of the corner of his mouth. “We never were in Kansas.”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed, not quite rolling my eyes. As if I might not have seen The Wizard of Oz. Me and 180 million other Americans and probably twenty million Canadians if there were that many of them. And now that distracted me. How many Canadians were there? Just the ones who spoke English?

I wanted to ask someone. Maybe Sgt. Streep, he seemed to know everything. If I didn’t get an answer, maybe he’d roll his eyes and make that clicking noise like he did one time. I managed to suppress another snicker.

“Sir,” Sgt. Streep said, “what has you all a quiver like a huntin’ dog pointin’ at a mulberry bush? You glued to those field glasses?” He added another, “Sir?” To be polite.

The El Tee sighed and handed the binoculars to Streep. “Take a look, Alvin,” he suggested. “Maybe you’ll have a better idea than I do of just how deep the shit we are in is.”

If curiosity could kill Ted Lucie, I’d have been dead years before, not for lack of trying. Now it was my turn to quiver like a dog waiting for someone to toss the tennis ball.

Sgt. Streep took his time, adjusting the glasses to fit his big ol’ head and his older eyes before looking at what appeared to be a tower sticking up out of the desert landscape some miles away, maybe six or ten; I’m not that good at estimating distances.

I squinted, trying to see whatever it was they saw that had them so fascinated. Streep wasn’t giving the glasses up quickly, and I had time to make my head hurt, trying to focus through glare and dust at the tower, which was pretty interesting all by itself.

Just its existence! Unless it turned out to be a natural formation, it was the first sign of any kind of building we had seen in four days of wandering around Not-Utah.

We being the Third Training Squadron of the USAR Expeditionary Force. Exploratory? Experimental? Whatever soup the alphabet came out of, we’re attached to Fort McWilliams outside Salt Lake, and mostly, we go looking for lost idiots in the big southwest deserts of, like, five states. As if anyone were in danger of running out of idiots.

But this time, we got lost ourselves in that Big Empty part of Utah set aside for Army training. Two Jeeps and four huge Ford trucks carrying sixteen G.I.s. Including me, Ted Lucie, formerly of Big Lonesome, Arizona. I grew up in a desert very much like the one in Utah and this one in Not-Utah, and was well aware of various dangers which include poisonous animals, vicious angry plants, and untrustworthy weather that can be too hot, too cold and/or too wet.

If it’s Not-U-Tah perhaps it could be Me-Tah? That thought caused me to snicker again.

“What do you make of it, Alvin?” The El Tee asked Sgt. Streep again. I hadn’t heard an answer the first time, but the second question got a grunt from the sergeant; a basic number one, a non-committal grunt instead of one with nuance.

I put a hand over my mouth to hide my grin, which, for some reason, was often judged as being very non-military. But now Streep calmly handed me the field glasses and I snatched at them eagerly. I didn’t really know how to adjust them, but not wanting to fiddle around in case someone wanted them back before I got things sorted, I used one of the tubes like a telescope and pointed it in the general direction of the tower.

Of course, I didn’t see anything but sky-above-sand, and both of them blurry. Rats. But the El Tee came to my rescue, putting my hand on the focus knob. “Try that, Lucie,” he said encouragingly.

But he added, “And don’t scream when you see what we’ve been looking at.”

I gaped at him before remembering to look through the single tube. And then I forgot to scream.