This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments. And last but not least, Nifty would like your donations.

Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 30 (Thurs., Jan. 12)

Our First Sergeant arrived in less time than he'd promised. He saluted the Major, "Good morning, Sir." who was still standing next to me. First Sergeant looked at me worried. "What happened?"

I told him basically that Sean had just collapsed, when the Major butted in. "If I may say so, First Sergeant, this excellent soldier proceeded precisely according to emergency protocol. I was standing here, watching. He checked his airway, checked for pulse , then expertly lifted the victim into the fireman's carry and double-timed with his entire platoon, I might add, up here. Excellent leadership. Commendable."

"Thank you, Sir." I looked at him, of course, my eyes were more than moist. "Uh, could you please help us find out how Specialist McGrady is doing?"

"It would be my pleasure." He walked ahead of us to the desk, where the Second Lieutenant was watching us. The look wasn't an interest in what we were doing; the look was something else. Then it dawned on me that he was cruising us.

The Major picked up the admissions sheet and located the cubicle where they were treating Sean. He told us to wait, and that he would be back in a minute.

"Has he been showing any signs, like indecision, confusion?" Top wanted to know.

I shook my head. "Other than pain in his leg, he's been okay." Then I had to laugh. "And the pain in his ass caused by that guy from Alabama who was besmutting the New Jersey National Guard."

"Besmutting?" First Sergeant looked at me with a crooked grin.

"Sorry, Top. Uh, yeah, he was casting a bad light on the Jersey National Guard." I felt like an ass, until he said that he'd have to remember that for Scrabble.

The Major appeared, all smiles. "Specialist McGrady will be fine. And if you could wait until is drip is finished, you can take him back to his unit."

"Will he be confined to quarters?" Top looked very concerned.

The Major nodded. "For the rest of the day, at least, I'd imagine. But you'll have to confer with the attending physician. It's out of my field."

First Sergeant smiled. "And what is your field, Sir?"

"I'm the doctor whose patients never get better." He chuckled. We both looked puzzled. "I'm a pathologist. That's why I was waiting out front. We're expecting a delivery from the firing range, that I'll have to sign for before I go home. Okay, see you, Gentlemen."

"Thank you, Sir." Top told the Major who went back out front. The affable First Sergeant turned his attention to me. "If Sean is confined to barracks for two or three days, do you think that you can get the troops to where they have to be?"

I laughed. "If you can give me a map of the base, I'm sure of it."

"You can read a map?" For some reason he seemed surprised.

"And, as of this morning, I can also use a toothbrush and dental floss." My sarcasm seemed to hit the right note with the obviously distressed Top Sergeant because he sputtered and gave out a heartfelt gut laugh.

"In that case, we're all set." He chuckled again. "Okay, you need to find your platoon and get your teeth and eyes looked at. I'll get Sean over to the BEQs."

And once again, I must have looked acronym-anxious. "Uh, Bachelor Enlisted Quarters."

"May I speak frankly, Top?" I didn't think that I was being totally selfish. Sean liked being near me, I knew that for certain, so it was in his best interest, too, I rationalized. "Would he know anyone at the BEQ?"

"Probably not, but it would be more comfortable." He didn't seem all that convinced.

"Of course, it's up to you and Specialist McGrady, but why don't you consider keeping him in the barracks, where his platoon can look after him?"

A gleam appeared in First Sergeant's eyes. "You know, Loughery, you have the makings of one outstanding soldier."

***

After having the dentists oohing and aahing over my French gold fillings, my eyes tested, and letting myself be inoculated against every disease known to man, we took a fifteen minute break at the telephones before the platoon marched back to our barracks. I got hold of Haruki and explained what had happened to Sean and about his not having anywhere to go, once he got out.

Without hesitating, Haruki agreed to put Sean up indefinitely. And there was the surprise of the week. Haruki's reserve unit needed to send some paperwork down to Dix, so, true to form, Haruki had volunteered to drive it down, himself.

"You're going to drive?" I didn't know that he even had a driver's license.

"Yeah, I'm going to use the pool's TR4." He told me over the phone, but I thought that I'd misunderstood due to the bad connection.

"Does your unit's motor pool have British sports cars?" I had to hold the receiver away from my ear because of his loud laughter.

Haruki then told me that his reservist buddies, Charlotte and Barker, had pitched in together with him to buy a used TR4, since living in Manhattan and owning a car seemed silly, but if the three of them shared the costs and one of them were to drive the car once every other week or so, it would be worthwhile.

He would be here on Saturday before the close of business and drive back Sunday evening. Needless to say, I was very much looking forward to seeing him and having him meet Sean. I could hardly wait to see Sean's face, when I told him that Haruki had even been enthusiastic about his moving into the townhouse. The mess hall was the next stop, and not even the food could dampen my high spirits.

When we got back to the barracks, I ran up to the room to tell Sean the good news. But he wasn't there, and all of his things were gone, vanished. And he had been replaced by a Specialist 4th Class, who greeted me in a very loud voice with: "Pack up your shit and get down to the bay, where you belong." He neither said hello, nor did he introduce himself. So much for trusting the First Sergeant.

Haruki had warned me about things like this. He'd said that it was either harassment of good troops to break them, or the result of nepotism. He'd also given me the tools to cope: instant hypnotic state, which we had already programmed and with which I could control my emotions and responses. All I had to do was to bring my right thumb and first two fingers together and count to three and visualize my password, which was Barney. All it took was about ten seconds. At first, I'd considered it to be shades of The Manchurian Candidate, but now I was comfortable with it.

"Did you hear me, Soldier." He screamed.

I turned to face him and smiled mischievously. "I did." My voice was soft, affable.

"Then why didn't you respond?" His voice became louder.

I spoke in almost a whisper. "Because I'm not required to." My smile was still intact. "I have no idea who you are. For all I know, you broke into my room."

"I'm you new NCOIC." He was now in my face, still screaming, with his blood vessels protruding.

Then so he could hardly hear, at all. "Then you should get some stripes, because all I can see is one ineffective, pigeon-shit, wannabe Corporal." I laughed quietly.

"I'll show you pigeon-shit!" Here, he made his first grave mistake. He lunged at me. I side-stepped him. When he got up, he made his second by whirling around. As he spun, I tapped his left carotid artery with the index-finger ridge of my right, and held out my left combat boot, so he would have something to fall over. He went out like a light.

And before I did anything else, I removed his packet of Winstons and got out the pack of Sean's spiked Salems, which I'd removed from his pocket while carrying him to the hospital. I carefully slipped off the cellophane wrapper and placed it into the Specialist's right hand and pressed each finger onto the paper wrapper several times. Sure that his fingerprints were all over the packet, I buttoned it into his uniform shirt pocket.

Now, I took my time and slowly gathered my things and took them down to the bay. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, Helmstedter and Morton were waiting. "What the Fuck was going on up there?"

I chuckled. "Sean and I have been replaced by a SPC 4, who didn't introduce himself but preferred to scream orders at me."

"Yeah, everybody heard him." Helmstedter confirmed and Morton nodded.

I put on an innocent face. "And, I guess from all his screaming, he had an attack of some sort."

Morton went flying up and was back at the top of the stairs in a hurry. "Ben, the guy's unconscious."

With feigned concern, I inquired: "Does he have a pulse?" Not that I could really have given a shit.

"Don't know how to tell." Morton said, and Helmstedter went bounding upstairs.

While they were trying to find a pulse, I put my duffel bag on the floor, and started making my bed. I had just started with the foot end when the First Sergeant appeared. "At ease." someone yelled appropriately.

"Carry on." He yelled back and made a bee-line for me. "Uh, Ben, have you met Specialist Lowe?"

I smiled cordially, "Can't say that I have." and looked around him. "Where is he?"

"He's supposed to be here." Top looked down the center aisle. "The Captain had him replace Sean."

"Yeah, there's a guy upstairs who apparently had a seizure from screaming at me. That might be him. He didn't introduce himself, though." Again, feigned concern was my face of choice. "Helmstedter and Morton are up there now, administering first-aid."

We heard boots on the wooden stairs at a fast pace. They were Morton's. Since he didn't know who First Sergeant was, he looked at me. "I think we need an ambulance."

***

The MPs got our statements and marched us under guard to the mess hall for dinner. No one was allowed to talk. Upon returning to our barracks, the Criminal Investigation Division, naturally referred to as 'el CID', had the lie detector set up in the cadre room on the ground floor, since the room upstairs was being treated as a crime scene.

Now, I knew that a polygraph was not admissible as evidence in most European countries, mainly because it was totally inaccurate. And Haruki assured me that I can manipulate a polygraph by using my instant hypnosis. First, they would try shocker questions to get your average 'that's a lie' response. It didn't matter what your answer was, your physical response to the shocker is the important factor. So, at such shocking questions I had to let the needle jump, by increasing my heart rate and skin conductivity slightly. With self-hypnosis I would be able to influence my physical reactions at will. But even without hypnosis, all anyone needed to do was to alter their rate of breathing. This was promising to be fun.

As they interviewed our men and gave them the lie detector test, they had obviously been getting results corroborating my story. About every second guy, who emerged from the cadre room had grinned at me and several had winked. Finally, it was my turn.

I took a seat and was informed that, as a suspect, I was doing this of my own free will, although I wondered why they were both armed and hadn't given me a chance to turn them down. I only nodded to feign apprehension, if not fear. They strapped a tube around my chest and the blood-pressure sleeve over my left biceps. I was instructed to try to answer 'yes' or 'no'. Luckily, the interrogator was from the South with a drawl, which made it easier for me to 'misunderstand'.

He smiled and looked confident, probably due to my looking apprehensive. He gave me the I'm-really-on-your-side spiel and told me that if I told the truth, nothing would happen to me. I nodded and took a deep breath. He switched on the machine. We went through the six or seven obviously unrelated questions, like 'Is the sky blue?" Before I could actually fuck with their heads.

"Have you ever stolen money?" Their eyes were glued to the chart paper.

"Yes." That, of course, took the steam out of their roller.

"Is your name Benton Loughery?" He and his technician were looking at the paper, again.

"No." The needle didn't jerk.

They looked perplexed. "What is it then?"

"頓炬龍洛厄" I told them with all the tones of the Cantonese range of six. They looked at the paper and then at me.

"Can you write that down for us?" They gave me paper and a ballpoint.

And I wrote: "頓炬龍洛厄"

They looked at the paper, then at each other. "In American letters?"

"Can't do that, just like I can't write Fort Dix in Chinese characters." the pen on the arm, tracing on the paper, didn't react.

"Are you Chinese." The interrogator was getting somewhat flustered.

"No." And again, there was no tell-tale reaction.

"Well, Hell's Bells, if ya ain't Chinese, what the Hell are ya?"

"American." Still, they didn't have any usable control negative.

"Are you a spy?" They both had that naive 'gottcha' look on their faces with a slight grin.

"Yes." That seemed to disappoint and please them concomitantly, but did nothing to jar the needle.

"Who do you work for?" They looked as if the promotion for catching a Red-Chinese-commie spy were already theirs.

"The Central Intelligence Agency." I so much wanted to laugh, as their faces drooped.

"Look, Soldier, we're getting nowhere. We need a lie, so we have a control." He explained and I gave them a concerned but innocent face. "Can you tell us an obvious lie, so we can get a reading?"

"Yes." I let my heart and breathing rate increase slightly, as I said: "I think you two are the coolest guys, I have ever met." And, as intended, the pen on the arm went wild. They didn't like it, but they got their lie.

"Do you know Specialist Lowe?"

"No." And I didn't; the fucker hadn't bothered to introduce himself.

"Did you have an altercation with a Specialist 4th Class this afternoon?"

"No." And I didn't have one with him. He had one with me and the pen and the attached arm remained calm.

"Did you hit him?" Now, we were getting to the meat of the matter.

"No."

"Did you plant narcotics on his person?" And with that question, they revealed more to me than they had gotten out of me. They'd found the dope.

"No." Gotta love this machine for backing me up.

"Are you now, or have you ever been a homosexual?" Okay, I would let them have their second control lie. I let the needle pen go wild before I even answered.

But they weren't ready for my "Yes." And still, the arm was indicating that I was lying.