In Pharaoh's Army Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sergeant Benet climbed inside, then closed it. “You boys have yourselves a good Thanksgiving now, hear?”
    “Yes sir,” Sergeant Benet said. “We’ll do just that.” And he drove out the gate.
    “What a prick,” I said.
    “The captain? He’s not so bad. He’s a reasonable man. There’s plenty that aren’t.”
    Sergeant Benet pushed the truck hard, but he didn’t look worried. He leaned into the corner and drove with one hand, his eyes hooded and vaguely yellow in the weak light slanting across the paddies. He smoked a Pall Mall without taking it from his lips, just letting it smolder and hang. He looked like a jazz pianist.
    He was a hard one to figure out, Sergeant Benet. He thought it was amazing that I could get along in Vietnamese, but he spoke about ten different kinds of English, as occasion demanded—Cornerboy, Step’n-fetchit, Hallelujah Baptist, Professor of Cool, Swamp Runner, Earnest Oreo Professional, Badass Sergeant. The trouble I had understanding him arose from my assumption that his ability to run different numbers on other people meant that he would run numbers on me, but this hadn’t proved out. With me he was alwaysthe same, a kind, dignified, forbearing man. He read the Bible every night before he went to bed. For wisdom he quoted his grandmother. Unlike me, he suffered no sense of corruption from his role as scrounge or from the extreme caution he normally practiced. He had survived Korea and a previous tour in Vietnam and he intended to survive this tour as well, without any romantic flourishes. He avoided personal talk, but I knew he was married and had several children, one of them a little girl with cerebral palsy. His wife was a cook in New Orleans.
    He was solitary. His solitude was mostly of his own choosing, but not entirely. The Vietnamese had added our bigotries to their own, and now looked down on blacks along with Chinese, Montagnards, Lao, Cambodians, and other Vietnamese. If they had to have advisers they wanted white advisers, and they generally got what they wanted. Sergeant Benet was the only black adviser in the division. The Vietnamese didn’t know what to make of him, because he gave no sign at all of being anybody’s inferior. Even Major Chau deferred to him. Sergeant Benet sometimes got together in My Tho with a couple of sergeants from one of the other battalions. I had the idea they were out raising hell, until I saw them once in a bar downtown. Sergeant Benet was just sitting there, smoking, sipping his beer, looking into the distance while the other two talked and laughed.
    The ferry had been almost empty on the way over, but when we got to the landing there was a long line for the crossing back. Two buses, two trucks full of vegetables, some scooters and mopeds, a whole bunch of people with bicycles. We were looking at three trips’worth, maybe more. Sergeant Benet went around the line and angled the truck in front of a bus. The driver didn’t say anything. He was used to it. They were all used to it.
    After we boarded the ferry Sergeant Benet settled back for a quick nap. He could do that, fall asleep at will. I got out and leaned against the rail and watched the ferryman wave the two buses into position, shouting, carving the air with his long, bony hands. The deck was packed with people. Old women with red teeth worked the crowd, selling rice balls, bread, fruit wrapped in wet leaves. Ducks paddled along the length of the hull, begging for crumbs. I could see their bills open and close but their calls were lost in the voices around me, the bark of the ferryman, the cries of the vendors, the blare of a tinny radio. The engine throbbed under the weathered planking.
    A woman just down the rail was staring across the river, lost in thought. I recognized her immediately. A little boy, maybe five or six, stood between us, watching the ducks. I said hello to him in Vietnamese. He drew back against her, gave me a sober look, and did not answer. But I got what I