Page 452 of Hell Hath No Fury
“But you were wounded in battle.”
“I was wounded before battle,” I corrected.
“What do you mean?”
“The bullet that tore through my leg wasn’t fired from a VC rifle,” I said.
“Then who shot you?”
“Corporal James Stover.”
“One of ours?” Pearl gasped. “You mean it was friendly fire?”
“Nothin’ friendly about a man pointing a gun at you and firing.”
“He shot you on purpose?”
“I was a specialist and Stover had just been promoted to Corporal, which meant he outranked me. We were both enlisted men and had gone through basic training together, so I knewhim pretty well. He was a “go getter” with career military goals and was a great soldier, for the most part, but war had changed him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes combat can twist a good man up ’til he don’t even know right from wrong anymore. Killing changes people, and some men handle that change better than others. Stover didn’t handle it too well…” My words trailed off and I paused, deciding on whether or not to continue my story.
“What did he do?” Pearl asked.
I suppose I’d always known I’d have to talk about all of this someday, but why here and now was beyond me. Even more so, why with Pearl. A woman I’d known for only a matter of hours.
“Our unit was sent to Loc Ninh, near the Cambodian border, for what was to be a battle of blood and shit. I lost more friends that week than any other and I wasn’t even there to help them fight. Stover’s bullet made sure I was on the first Huey out of there just as the shit started coming down.”
“Why did he shoot you?”
“On the road leading into camp, Stover and two other soldiers found a young Vietnamese girl whose entire village had been wiped out by the VC. She was scared, malnourished and caked in the dried blood of her family.”
“That poor thing,” Pearl said sadly.
“Yeah, well, that was just the start of her troubles, because rather than take her to medical, Stover and his thugs thought it would be a good idea to take her out to the jungle and rape her.”
“Oh, my Lord. No,” Pearl said in a panic, her eyes filling with tears.
“Don’t worry. They never got the chance. I saw the three of them disappear into the thick brush and followed them carefully. By the time I caught up with them, they had gagged the girl, stripped her naked and tied her to a fallen tree.”
“How could they?” Pearl asked through sobs.
“One of the men, Private Adams, had his pants down and Corporal Stover was goading him on to do unspeakable things to this poor girl.” She stiffened beside me, but I continued, “The butt of my M16’s stock to the side of his head convinced him to do otherwise. Mainly lay on the ground and bleed. The second soldier, who I never got a good look at, bolted through the trees. I ran to the girl and Stover pulled his side arm on me.”
She let out a quiet gasp, hugging me tighter.
“Do you want me to stop?” I asked.
“No. Say what you need to say. I’m here,” she whispered.
“At first, Stover tried to pull rank, but I was having none of that shit. The Army could toss me in the brig for life for insubordination. There was no way in hell I was going to let this animal get away with rape.”
She nodded, kissing my chest.
“He tried a bribe, and when that failed, he shot me through the right thigh, which shattered my femur, nicked an artery and shredded my abductor muscle. Stover left me there to bleed to death in the jungle but in the end the joke was on him.”
“How?”
