Hawkins hadn’t meant to do it. He hadn’t meant to do anything when the rocket hit them this time. He’d thought he’d never be able to jump out of a plane again, and if the plane went, he’d go with it. But he jumped with the others, and floated down into a paddy with the VC shooting up at them. He watched the rippling mud come up at him and thought if he could make it that far, he’d live. The mud looked soft, inviting, infinitely safe. It opened for his feet, closed around his ankles and calves. He sank into it as far as he could, then lay back to let it cover his chest. The others took longer getting there. They got George Dunning in midair and he was dead when he landed. They got little David Garfield, too, but he was still alive. He landed a few yards from Hawkins and Hawkins heard him groan and slosh in the mud. He stopped moving and Hawkins looked over at him. His blood ran into the mud in streaks. He was twenty-­two then, but he was thin, his eyes were big for his face, and he looked like a child. When the firing stopped, Hawkins half swam, half waded to him.

“It’s in the gut,” Garfield said to Hawkins. “Very bad, I think . . .” He spoke reasonably. “I think I’ll die soon. So leave me, Roger. There’s no point.”

Hawkins wanted to leave him but he couldn’t. He waited to be sure the VC were gone, then lifted the unconscious boy in his arms and started carrying him back where he thought they’d come from. He’d gone four miles when a helicopter spotted them.

They tried everything to save Garfield but he died in three days. Before he did, he dictated a letter to his father and told him who Hawkins was and what he’d done.

“Meyer Garfield’s an animal,” Lerner told Hawkins. Hawkins was a rookie then; Lerner had been his sergeant. “He pimps, pushes, bribes, kills. . . . So what does he want with a rookie cop?”

“I tried to save his son’s life. I guess he wants to thank me,” Hawkins said.

Lerner looked at him for a moment. “The son died?” Hawkins nodded. Lerner tried to look cold and failed. “Okay,” he said, “go get thanked; just watch your-
self.”