Page 37 of Cry Havoc

“Here,” Quinn said, passing his teammate what amounted to $92.80 in bills and coins. “Some Marshall Aid between branches. See if you can win some of my money back.”

Keeping flush with cash meant little in units with such a high mortality rate.

“Investing in the Navy? Oh Quinn, how the mighty have fallen,” Lee said as Tiger refreshed their drinks.

Tom glanced again at his cards and tapped his middle finger on the table, something he had done all night with lesser hands.

“Any more bets?” Tom asked.

“Sure thing, Frogman. Let’s get some serious cash on the table. I bet $100.”

“Fair enough, Lee. Now that I’m gambling with a bit of Quinn’s dough, we might as well make it interesting. Showdown. Heart flush. What about you?”

Tom flipped his cards to reveal the two, five, six, ten, and queen of hearts. While not the strongest possible hand, Tom knew it had a good chance of coming out on top.

Any experienced card player knows that the moment your spirit recognizes it’s time to call it a night, you call it a night. If not, recklessness becomes mistaken for confidence, which muddles the mind and leads to a spiral of defeat. Tom had learned a lot from his dad at their family card table, some of which translated to life away from the deck. Perhaps that had been his father’s intent all along?

Tom’s father, Thomas Reece, was a hard man, forged in the fires of the Great Depression and the Second World War. The one thing that softened that rigid exterior was a deck of cards, over which he opened up about long voyages across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, where the mind could descend into darkness if left to its own devices. Thomas and many of his compatriots battled those demons by playing cards.

“Learning poker was as much a survival skill as anything taught at Camp X,” he told his son as he dealt a new hand one night during a snowstorm.

“What’s Camp X?” a young Tom Reece had asked his father.

The elder Reece had looked at his wife and then to his son.

“Never you mind that. Think about your possibilities with your new hand.”

Thomas Reece was a survivor. He was passing on what lessons he could over cards. Poker, Texas hold ’em, vingt-et-un, baccarat, and a dozen other games were drilled into Tom’s young head. Now, at a different table in a new war, all their unique qualities were swimming through his brain, sloshing alongside the bourbon and Delta Rules.

Shaking his head to clear away the thoughts of his father and the fogof alcohol, Tom heard Lee swear under his breath, flipping his cards to reveal a king high straight, which loses to a heart flush. After the players had initially anted up $25 each and bet an additional $25 before the draw, the final pot winnings for Tom totaled $350. Quinn’s donation, paired with the $33.40 he had left in his reserves, put him just shy of $500.Not bad.

Tom glanced at the wrist that a day earlier had held his Seiko.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Lee twisted his left hand and turned the face of a new Rolex Submariner toward him.

“Three a.m. Just getting started.”

If the sweat and smoke of Da Nang were not unpleasant enough in the daylight, they were nauseating in these early hours of the morning. At this point their game of Delta Rules five-card draw had been going on the better part of five hours. It was time to bring it to its conclusion.

Tom studied his opponent. Lee was tired. He was fighting it, but he was growing weary and now he was on the ropes, the pile of crumpled bills in front of him dramatically diminished after the last hand. Tom decided it was time to end it.

“I got lucky on that one,” Tom said, reaching for the deck. “Since I’m gambling with Quinn’s money, how about one more hand?”

“All in?”

“All in,” Tom said. As it was his deal, he began shuffling the deck, the worn cards bridging easily in his hands.

“Sure thing. One condition, though.”

“Another rule change?”

“Green Beret house, Green Beret rules.”

“Of course.”

“Treys are still wild with face cards and no aces, and we’re still playing southern hands. I feel a blaze or Dutch straight coming on.”