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IX. BADDEST IN THE VALLEY
“Rise and shine, ladies, it’s a beautiful day for killing the babies!”
Like pieces of the landscape coming to life, the members of the Third Squad throw off their ponchos and rise to greet the new day. They are good boys, his men, and he feels a paternal protectiveness towards all of them. Willie Biggs, the only seasoned trooper among them, has proven to be a superior soldier, cool under fire with the kind of instinctive understanding of the dynamics of a fight that cannot be taught. The others are all new guys: Eddie (“Pothead”) Huggins, a yellow-skinned Negro from Detroit who takes everything, good and bad, with the same laid-back equanimity; Peter Plumb, a “down-eastah” from Maine who possesses the weirdest sense of humor he has ever encountered; Roddy Mattison, a California surfer dude who still cannot believe what has happened to him; and Isaiah (“Ike”) McPeak, a country boy from a place so far back in the hills of West Virginia, the news has not reached it that the War Between the States is over. The war has not yet changed them, and they look to him with a trusting devotion that he would find touching, if anything could touch him anymore.
He wanders among them, offering a word of encouragement or advice about their equipment, listening to their complaints and answering their questions as best he can. Outwardly patient and understanding, inwardly he is shocked by their naivete. They are such a bunch of cherries.
“Hey, Pete,” he hears Pothead saying, “do you think it’s true what they say, if Charlie catches you, he cuts yo’ balls off an’ stuffs ’em in yo’ mouf?”
“I don’t know, but I do believe that if Chahlie gets his hands on yuh, yuh ahss is grahss and Chahlie is the lawnmowah.”
“Cowabunga, daddy,” exclaims Roddy Mattison. “It would be a bummer to get shipped back to the World without your balls. What you think they do, throw ’em away, or maybe sew ’em back on?”
“Don’t worry about it, Mattison,” Pete tells him. “In your case it won’t make a bit of difference. Your balls are so small Chahlie won’t be able to find ’em without a microscope.”
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