Platoon Page #5

Chris watching, suddenly feels himself dizzy, instinctively runs

his hands over the back of his neck. Feels the warm blood there.

A moan comes from his lips. Junior looks at him.

JUNIOR:

Oh sh*t, Doc he's hit too.

CHRIS:

(weakly)

I'm hit ...

Barnes and Big Harold come hustling up.

Doc finishes tourniquetting Tex, cradles Chris onto the earth,

his flashlight probing the wound. Tex in background continues to

thrash and moan.

Chris waits, tensely for the verdict, his eyes big with fear on

Doc, who takes out his morphine.

JUNIOR:

(to Barnes, pointing at Chris)

That dumb f*** didn't blow his claymore!

Chris hearing this. Barnes looks at him.

DOC:

(to Chris)

... it's a scratch, nothing to worry about.

CHRIS:

(suspicious)

Doc ... tell me the truth, don't lie to me.

The needle goes in. Tex lets out this strange keening moan that

sets everyone's teeth on edge.

JUNIOR:

(to Barnes)

He let'em walk right up on us. He was sleeping on

his shift.

CHRIS:

(muttering weakly)

I was not ... it was your ...

DOC:

(leaving, to Harold and Junior)

Self-preservation's the first law of nature. Gotta

learn how to work your sh*t Taylor. Watch me, don't

let'em go into shock.

Tex's moans are maddening and scary. Barnes suddenly clamps his

hand over Tex's mouth shutting him up and from way down deep in

his throat, chokes out the words.

BARNES:

Shut up! Shut up - and TAKE IT! TAKE THE PAIN!

Tex's eyes roll wildly, uncomprehending. Doc and Big Harold

looking at Barnes, wondering. Tex is suddenly silent, shocked.

Barnes stands, an icy glare, goes. Junior scrambles over to

Tex's side. Doc runs off.

Big Harold cradles Chris, his big black hands like a mother,

reassuring him.

BIG HAROLD:

You gonna be okay Taylor, okay, don't you start

worrying now.

Chris looking up at him, eyes blinking slowly, dazed already by

the morphine. He's very scared.

CHRIS:

Do you ... do you know you're gonna die ... Big

Harold? ... do you feel like ... like ...

everything's gonna be fine and then ...

BIG HAROLD:

Bullshit man, you gettin outta the field, man. Three

hots a day, white sheets, dem pretty white nurses

give you blowj*bs too you pay em enough, I heard tell

bout dem white b*tches. Better save yo strength

Taylor.

JUNIOR:

(muttering darkly)

Don babytalk him man. Cocksucker fell asleep. They

walked right up on us, he don do sh*t.

BIG HAROLD:

Shaddup b*tch.

Chris is gettin woozier, feeling he is dying but starting to

grin, not caring about it anymore. Yet he is nowhere close to

dying.

CHRIS:

It's not ... so bad ... dying. How long .. it ...

EXT. TRAIL - RUINS - POSITION #1 - NIGHT

Barnes stands over a moaning, ripped up ENEMY SOLDIER. FIRES his

M-16 point blank into the head. The Soldier bucks and dies,

quivering.

EXT. TRAIL - RUINS - POSITION #2 - NIGHT

ELIAS, checking out a blood trail some distance away, shifts on

the shot, looks back.

EXT. TRAIL - RUINS - POSITION #3 - NIGHT

FRANCES, MANNY, BUNNY and KING are huddled over another mangled

enemy corpse.

BUNNY:

(stripping the corpse)

That's no NVA man. That's a chink - look at 'em, the

cocksucker's six and a half feet tall. Look at his

gear - good as ours.

FRANCIS:

Sh*t I blew my claymore right in one dude's face and

I seen him walking around afterwards.

MANNY:

What we fighting here, vampires?

EXT. TRAIL - RUINS - POSITION #1 - NIGHT

Elias comes up to Barnes swiftly, indicating the blood trail

leading off into the bush.

ELIAS:

Blood trail just keeps going and going but no body.

BARNES:

How the hell did he get away?

ELIAS:

F***ers returned fire soon as we lit 'em up. Hard

core f***in' NVA. They got their sh*t together.

RING:

(coming up to Barnes)

Sarge - Doc wants you. There's a problem with the

new man.

Elias and Barnes go with King. Past Chris and Tex who are

ambulatory and bandaged, being helped along. As Barnes passes,

the men look at him, everybody quickly senses something is wrong.

EXT. GARDNER'S POSITION - NIGHT

At one of the positions Doc is working feverishly to knock the

life back into Gardner who lies there, his shirt stripped off on

his cottage cheese belly. A huge sucking chest wound. He's

dying. You know it because he knows it. The eyes do the

talking, numb, terrorized yet strangely detached, accepting, not

protesting or concerned any longer.

Most of the ambush has assembled and is watching, Chris moving in

to see. Doc is mumbling to him, low key.

DOC:

Chopper's on the way Gardner, hang in there, you

gonna be okay ...

But Gardner seems unconcerned. Things are going on in his head -

who knows what. And in his eyes there are big tears rolling.

Then a morphine smile. A sort of goofy Gardner smile, maybe

thinking about Lucy Jean, who knows. He's dead.

BARNES:

(to all)

Take a good look at this lump o'sh*t ...

(motions to Gardner's body)

Rmember what it looks like, all of you. You f*** up

in a firefight and I guaran-goddamn-tee you, a trip

out of the bush - IN A BODYBAG. Out here, a**holes,

you keep your sh*t wired tight at ALL times ...

(glares directly at Chris)

and that goes for you, sh*t for brains. You don't

SLEEP ON NO F***IN' AMBUSH. Next sonofabitch I catch

coppin' z's in the bush I'm personally gonna take an

interest in seeing him suffer - I SH*T YOU NOT ...

He thumps Chris lightly but menacingly in his chestbone and moves

on.

CHRIS:

(drowsy)

I didn't fall asleep, Sergeant, Junior ...

BUNNY:

(pissed, cuts in, shoves him hard)

Shut your face chicken sh*t! You in big trouble boy!

O'NEILL

Excuses are like a**holes, Taylor - everybody got

one.

ELIAS:

Knock it off! We got two men need attention here.

Police up your extra ammo and frags, don't leave

nothing for the dinks. Hoyt, Junior, carry Gardner.

JUNIOR:

(muttering)

Let de white boy carry his ass, he this dude that got

him f***ed up. Who'd be hauling his ass if that was

a brother laying there?

Elias follows Barnes out of earshot of the others.

ELIAS:

Man'd be alive if he'd had a few more days to learn

something.

Barnes, registering it, just keeps on walking.

EXT. BASE CAMP - DAY (WEEK LATER)

Chris is driven up in a jeep to his Company PC - marked 'Bravo

PC' on a C-ration box. It's midday on a hot lazy afternoon, few

people out in the 102 degree sun.

Chris' Company is on the outskirts of the base camp, their

barracks regulation wood, canvas, and fine mesh screening, red

dust everywhere, bunkers down on the perimeter, reams of barbed

wire and concertina, a sand-bagged MESS HALL and CHAPEL, 81 mm

mortar pits, observation towers, recoiless rifles, 50-caliber

machine guns.

Chris gets out of the jeep, stiff-necked, a bandage around it,

still in some pain. The first man he intersects is KING,

carrying crates of beer.

KING:

Hey Taylor, what's in the breeze?

In King's mild tone Chris tries to read his standing in the

platoon.

CHRIS:

Okay - got light duty, three days.

KING:

Sh*t, too bad we in base camp anyway.

CHRIS:

What you got there - beers?

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