A Bottle Of Mateus Rose

“A bottle of Mateus Rose,” Lieutenant colonel Hank Leopord snapped his fingers at the bartender as he escorted the round-eye nurses from 25th Med-Evac into the Officer’s Club. “Captain Holcomb, Captain Esposito please join me and these fine ladies from Cu Chi Dustoff at my table, the rest of you find a table. Bartender! Where is that wine?”
Darjeeling reached under the bar and grabbed a bottle of the Portuguese wine. Having set out in the blazing sun in the Class VI yard for six months or more, it was more like a Madeira than a rose. He grabbed a corkscrew and a towel and started for the head table, staring at the nurses. He had not seen a “round-eye” for six months. Placing the bottle on the table next to the colonel he proffered the corkscrew with his right hand.
“Well, what are you waiting for, man? Open the damn thing.” Hank Leopard glared at Darjeeling and found himself looking straight at the pointed end of the corkscrew which was about two inches from his eyeball.
“Deadly weapon, sir,” Darjeeling said, placing the corkscrew next to the bottle, “you may want to do that yourself.”
Captain John Hostetler, sitting to the left of the colonel grabbed the bottle and corkscrew. “I’ll do it, sir, we wouldn’t want PFC Darjeeling to corkscrew it up.” Hostetler began peeling the lead foil off of the bottleneck. He looked at the nurse who was sitting next to him and laughed loudly. “Get it, corkscrew it up.” Darjeeling couldn’t believe that Hostetler actually elbowed the nurse in the ribs, causing her to recoil and then excuse herself to the ladies room. Except there was no ladies room, only a piss tube outside. She walked around a bit and then sat back down. Darjeeling returned to the bar, fixing Captain Walker a Rob-Roy and taking the crap that Walker was giving him about how dirty the glass was.
“This is a war zone, sir,” Darjeeling said as he looked through the reel-to-reel tapes for something to put on the state-of-the-art Akai deck. "It's Viet Nam, not New York City." He picked up The Soft Parade by the Doors threading the tape onto the empty reel and flipping the switch. About ten seconds later, Colonel Leopard was at the bar.
“Get that shit off of there, now! Put on Wes Montgomery and burn that tape!” His face was red and his eyes were bugging out. He wanted to kill Darjeeling. “Give me that tape!”
Darjeeling ripped the Doors off and quickly threaded the Wes Montgomery onto the deck. He thought to himself, “That will do just fine, sir, that will do just fine.” He remembered the scene with Hostetler earlier in the day.
“Darjeeling, when I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.”
“Yes sir, Captain Hostetler, sir, I’ll get right on it, sir,” Darjeeling snapped a British salute and clicked his heels together. Then he put his hands on the table and got in the captain’s face. “You seem to have changed drastically, Hoss,” he said. Hostetler nearly exploded but Darjeeling’s hand came down and pushed him back into the chair. “Just two months ago you and I were smoking dope and counting VC up in Rocket City and now you’re pulling this bullshit on me. You better watch your back, Hoss, or I’ll blow the whole scene on you. You break foul on me one more time and I start talking.” Hostetler slumped back into the chair.
Darjeeling snapped back to the present and looked at the clock. The CS gas canister was hissing outside the door of the club. It only took a few minutes for the gas to be drawn in by the window unit air conditioner. “Another Rob-Roy, sir?” Darjeeling asked, “Or maybe a Manhattan this time?” He reached for his gas mask and drew it on as the party quickly broke up, officers and nurses heading for the front door and right into the gas cloud. He motioned at the nurse that had caught Hostetler's elbow. She had put a wet towel over her face and was calmly watching the scene while looking for an exit. “Out the back and head south toward the mess hall,” he told her. The place was empty now except for Wes Montgomery. Darjeeling picked up the Doors and followed the nurse out the door.