x
Dick lay in the noon hush, eyes sweeping the dark jungle depths, and wondered how long it'd take to get the filth of Vietnam out of his body. He doubted if the green clothes and socks would ever be clean again. He turned to Quaid and softly said, "How many hours are ya goin' to spend a hot bath, Aidan?"
Quaid grinned. "About a week. Then a holiday in Spain. Veronica loves the beaches there."
Dick wrinkled his nose and ostentatiously sniffed. "You ever tried to work out what we smell like?"
"No. I'm not a masochist, Sam."
"Sweat, gun-oil, wet boots, wet clothes that have dried with dirt and sweat in them, wet socks, and plain Vietnamese dirt." Sniff sniff.
"Yeah. No wonder they can smell us downwind. It's a wonder the leaves don't curl after a week or two."
"These bloody things ain't much chop," lifting a green-clad leg with canvas J-boot on it. "They wear out in a couple of weeks and your feet stink---Jesus! Canvas wet, dried, sweated, wet dried---phew."
Aidan fanned his face. "You should bathe more often, Sam. You really are on the nose."
And they sank into the quiet noontime somnolence.
The company moved into the area they would occupy for the night and set about the quiet routine of eating and readying their sleeping quarters.
Oscar Scar and Daniel Serrano were clearing an area about 10 yards from the medic, nicknamed "Doc" as they all were. He quickly put on his rations to cook, placed a mug of water nearby, and called softly, "Sick Parade."
The word passed swiftly and the "sickies" made their way through the deepening dark green gloom to receive the best the medic could do with the contents of his satchel.
Ointments, powders, and injections. Brusque, no-nonsense, the medic dealt with the real or imagined aches, pains, and complaints. Lat of all came the VD cases. As they made their way to him through the gloom, he readied the injection.
The man halted. Doc asked, "Which side?" as the green trousers were undone, "left" or "right" came the reply, the trousers dropped, white buttocks gleaming faintly in the light under the trees. "Okay, next." Fastening waistband, hefting rifle, the man made his way back to the weapon pit.
"See what ya get fer touchin' those bar birds," hissed Oscar.
"Yeah. What else do you recommend?" whispered Serrano.
"Wait till we get into gorilla country. We'll catch one and stake her out."
"Aw, come on!"
"Aw well, if you're particular, we'll put a bag over her head. Some of the harpies I've see ya with, there'd be no difference."
"Scar, one o' these fuckin' days..."
"Hey? You're my mate, ain't ya?"
"Sometimes, I fuckin' wonder."
"Hey listen---to show ya how much I think of ya, I'll give ya a tin o' rations---here."
"Ham 'n lima beans, you mongrel! I wouldn't feed 'em to a dog!"
"Trouble wi' you is that you got no taste for good food."
"Okay, that oughta do it," said Dale Ball, as he and Tony Fleming put the finishing touches to their hutchi. Behind them in the shell scrapes, the rations bubbled on the solid fuel fires, bright in the gathering gloom.
A sudden, insistent rustling of leaves drew their attention; to their left, a sapling shook and trembled. In the gathering darkness, a sweat-strained green-clad figure was visible, standing legs apart, hands gripping the little tree.
"What they....?" muttered Ball, frowning at the sight.
Tony grinned and punched Ball's shoulder. "It's Red Berryman---pissing razor blades!"
The nearby figure, agony in every line of its body, gripping the tree trunk, head back, hung there in the gloom. Finally, the man shuddered, his head sank, he relaxed and wiped a green-clad forearm across his forehead. Still holding onto the tree with one hand, he turned and saw the two pale faces in the gloom. Mustering up a weak smile, he shook his head and muttered, "Whooo, it's enough to make a man take to the bottle."
The two witnesses chuckled in sympathy.
"Where'd ya get it?"
"Some bird in Saigon. Talk about pissing razor-blades! Fuck me! Medic asked me who, where and so on---all I could say was she had slant eyes, long black hair, and spoke fluent Vietnamese. Jesus, they're all alike, aren't they?"
"Yeah, too right."
After the shadowy figure moved off to its own hutchi, Tony said softly: "A bit rude sending a bloke out in the J with the jack, isn't it?"
"I suppose so. But it's a self-inflicted wound. And we're short of people. Whether they've got jack or not, doesn't matter out here. In fact, it's better. They can't infect anyone else, eh?"
346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFwoM5k1t7n
The vehicles rumbled to a stop, ramps lowered, and the infantry stepped out, carrying their packs by the straps, and moved to the edge of the red dirt road running past the ill-tended rubber trees. The company commander and the artillery observer compared maps to agree on their position, then the platoons began sweeping through the rubber on the road sides. Suddenly, from no-one-knew-where, an ice-cream and soft-drink hawker appeared peddling down the road. Smiling, he opened his ice-chilled containers and waved bottles of orange drink.
"Where did he come from?"
"Fuck if I know."
"CSM---pass the word---no purchases. No drinking gifts of it either."
"Right, sir."
The puzzled hawker sat in the shade watching the silent, green-clad men pass. The Americans, government troops, and even the French had been very happy to do business. Philosophically, he remounted and pedaled back to town to report on the number of troops and vehicles he had counted.
Major Flash Gordon sat and looked around his little audience; his three platoon commanders, who sat with maps folded before them, the artillery officer, and mortar five controller.
"Now then," plucking a blade of grass to be used as a pointer, "we've been doing well thus far protecting this road construction effort. Tomorrow, we move 1500 yards to the east. Dispositions tonight for us and the Yanks are on this map---you can copy 'em later."
His voice rolled on with the remainder of the orders until the fiscal "questions," and the group dispersed to pass on the information to their platoons, settling in around them in the thick scrub.
"Why did so far? The fuckin' earth is like concrete and no bastard can get through this shit," waving at the tangled mass around them, "without waking us?"
"C'mon, give it a rest," muttered Kelly.
Val Moreno glanced over to where Tony Fleming and Toby Scruggs were sitting at ease behind their little fires, hutchi up already, bedding laid out.
"Yeah, righto."
Through the trees cold be heard the grunting and rumbling of the road construction machinery going into the night laager 600 yards away.
Inside the American camp, Sergeant First-Class Marcus Sloan shifted his cigar butt to the corner of his mouth, placed his M16 butt on his hip so the barrel jutted skyward and addressed his group of soldiers, standing red-dirt stained before him.
"Okay now. What we're gonna do is go out front about 200 paces and provide security for the rest of the people here. These engineers depend on us to protect 'em. We got a radio, so we can call down fire on any Charlie we see. We stay out all night, come in for chow. Right. Gomez, lead off."
The dirty infantrymen moved in single file through the perimeter of their buddies surrounding the engineers. Dark hulks of tanks and M113s stood like sleeping elephants at intervals around the circle.
Arriving at the end of his 200 paces. Sloan placed his twelve men in a circle, himself and the radio man in the middle, gave his final instructions for quiet and alertness, and settled for a long night.
12 miles away, the 3 battalions of Q021 Regiment started their rapid approach march through the night, guided by local guerillas into, through, and out of each guerilla's area. As they drew nearer, the units split up, until small groups of nine or ten were each guided by a local along the paths and tracks toward the selected concentration point, where they would form up as a battalion and attack the US engineers, striking a resounding blow at the Washington-Saigon-London triumvirate.
Through the soft night, three main force battalions of experienced soldiers, armed with new Soviet and Chinese AK47 rifles and SKS carbines, and guided by their local guerilla force members, who were armed with older rifles, flitted, jogging steadily towards the night camping place of the engineers.
A burst of firing woke up Alec Collins. He raised himself on one elbow, peering towards the command post. He could hear the low murmur of the radio operator. As he was drifting off to sleep, another burst of automatic fire sounded. He woke fully, waiting. When nothing happened, he sank back, but the firing flared up again and again.
Corwyn Clarke lay peering through the bushes around him, one hand outstretched to grip the forearm of the radio man. All around his little group, dark figures drifted through the trees. They had materialized so rapidly and silently in the blackness that they were all around him before he realized what was happening.
The three battalions of Q021, minus those who had fallen before the imperialists' guns some 400 yards away, formed into their units, into their assault teams. Behind the first wave stood the local men, women, and children needed to act as bearers of the wounded and captured weapons and equipment.
The US gun crews sleepily rolled out of their sleeping gear and closed on the guns before firing a harassing fire mission on a possible Vietcong location 6 miles away. The crews swung into their long-practiced drills, shells sliding into muscled arms, barrels rising against the velvet night sky.
Clarke made his decision and whispered to the radio man, who bent and cupped his hands around his mouth to minimize the risk of detection by the deathly quiet, ominous figures all around them in the dark shadows of the moonless night, who now were streaming past them with the barest crackle of crushed twigs and clink of equipment---like so many black demons in a nightmare, the shapes trotted past Clarke's men.
Realizing this was his chance to disrupt the assault waves, Clarke opened fire, his twelve men putting forth a torrent of automatic fire. The radio message had given just enough time for the defenders to take weapons and roll into the pits---time for the artillery to place the shells swiftly on zero s0etting, time for the tank crews to climb aboard---and the night was bludgeoned by a crashing outburst of fire, a Niagara that began and rolled on and on for four hours.
"Christ, what the hell's that?" gasped Fleming, as the rolling thunder jerked all of them awake.
"The bloody bastards are attakin' the Yanks," whispered Kelly, as though the "bloody bastards" could hear him.
Huge 50-caliber tracers streaked through the trees, and other invisible rounds snapped past or plunked into tree trunks and the ground, showering leaves, twigs, and dirt in all directions.
"This is no fuckin' good. If that Yank on that .50 twitches, we've had it. Shoulda dug deeper, mate."
"Shit! How could I know? We're gonna get hit by Yank bullets!"
"C'mon, fuck ya! There's that anthill over here. We'll get behind that. Next time, Private Quaid, I want you to dig to six feet before dinnertime."
"Get knotted, Fleming."
Clarke's radioman was speaking rapidly, trying to give their location in the storm of noise and light. Groups of Charlies still pressed forward around them, and others moved past in the other direction carrying dead and wounded. The leading waves had been literally mown down by the sheer weight of the defenders' fire. The artillery rounds exploded almost in their faces; the tank cannon fired canister, and the tank machine guns added their fire to that of the wall of rifle and machine-gun fire from the infantry.
Despite this, assault teams of Vietcong reached the US lines and overran them in several places, surviving only seconds before being cut down.
In answer to Clarke's message, 4 US tanks, 4 British tanks, and 2 M113s charged out into the night to try to fine and save him. As the engines roared into life, underlying the drumming of their guns, the Charlies reacted with the speed only disciplined, trained, and experienced soldiers could reach in the maelstrom of shot and shell before the American line, where the bush was literally being cut down by the gunfire. The recoilless rifle teams moved towards the noise of the engines, waiting till the engine note gave notice of the ponderous, night-blind monsters from the rear. 2 caught fire and burned; the others were halted, their crews sitting locked inside, listening to the enemy crawling and thumping over them, traversing their turrets and illuminating each other with searchlights, hosing each other with machine gun fire to wash off the climbing, clinging, black-clad figures, grotesque and evil in the light.
Clarke moved his group, wriggling over the ground, deeper into a clump of bushes to await the daylight.
As the gray light seeped under the trees and bushes, absorbing the shadows, the defenders looked out on a scene of splintered trees, shredded bushes and silent bundles of rags---Vietcong soldiers, men, women, and children, mown down in the attack.
The American commander turned to one of his staff officers. "Get the engineers to dig a mass grave. There's too many for individual digging."346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTDqabsOVvX
346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlhfl3K7DB5
346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTSf2DyjBN0
346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVHqQUFWIYv
"God! I hate getting up early!" moaned Kelly. The others made no reply, dark shapes doing final packing in the predawn gloom of the tent. One by one they carried the packs outside and plonked them on the ground at the entrance, then they walked off through the soft night and gentle balmy breeze to the mess tent for the effort of swallowing food at an hour when the stomach would've rather been asleep.
Water bottles filled last of all, and the dark groups assembled on the road, then turned and moved off to the trucks, boots sloshing through the dust, raising a faintly seen cloud that hung at ankle height, separating the dark loosely standing figures from the more solid dark mass of the earth.
The sky was the faintest of grays on the eastern horizon and a deep, dark velvety, sensual blackness overhead. Bright against it flickered the blinking rubies of the helicopters, approaching from the south, moving into their long strings for the landing, drawing curving necklaces of sharp red flashes blipping against the blackness as they circled and settled on the helipad, a segment of beauty that had nothing to do with the ugliness revealed when the sun washed away the night sky and precise red lights.
To the east, a delicate pearl shell pink seeped upwards, strengthening to a rose glow, then a red fan against which the distant fringe of trees and closer helicopters were sharp black silhouettes. Then the sun lifted the skirt of the night sky and, like an unwelcomed but determined visitor, shouldered its way up over the threshold, flooding the world with its ever-brightening light and ever-increasing heat.
The rows of helicopters sat mute, great blind staring perspex windshield eyes towards the sun, secured main rotors raised overhead in salute. The attendant crewmen began their rituals: peering into the engine bays, freeing the rotors, checking their machine guns. Then, the donning of bulbous helmets prior to linking themselves to the mindless inert insects, and transforming the silent things into whirring, throbbing, blinking flying beings.
The first engine whine heralded the climb into the belly. The rotor began revolving slowly, then faster until it skipped around as a dim blur, and the Huey shivered in anticipation of the flight.
100 roaring insects under the shimmering canopy of their mechanical wings, squatting in the early sunlight---the first row rises, dips noses, and threshes away the second....the third.....the fourth----until the pad is empty.
The 8 Hueys raced low to the east into the blinding mass of the rising sun, then swung north, gaining altitude over the dark green carpet below, rising into the still cool air. Rolled-down sleeves and trouser legs fluttering in the wind, hair tousled, the infantry sat gazing down into the blue depths. Helmeted crew, impersonal in the green-visored bulbs, sat behind their control panels or machine guns.
The flight sank into the lower, warmer air trailing out into the line-ahead landing formation, lower and lower over the trees. The landing zone floated up in front, and the escorting gunships swam up abreast of the slicks---machine guns blazing, rockets hissing out---to flash ahead into the trees on the sides of the LZ.
The now familiar nose-up float down the LZ, crewman craning out to watch the rear, dirt and grass rising to meet the skids, touch, bump, rock, crew watching the infantry out, run down, magazine on, cock, safety on, there they go, off to the side before the next lot arrive.
Lieutenant Tris Dunkin trotted his platoon, panting under their packs, to their designated location on the riverbank. He knelt and pointed out to each section commander his area. Del Sheppard waved his section after him and walked swiftly through the grass, stopping to peer across the 100-yard gap of the river. He turned to the section standing behind him, half raising an arm to point out the machine gun position, passing and glancing up at a racketing gunship speeding overhead.
"Okay. We'll be here to secure this riverbank till they're across the other side. Del, put the gun next to that tree---" and ducked as the shots cracked from the far bank. The section disappeared into the grass and bushes, the M60 returning fire into the dark green wall on the far bank.
Two of the section lay in the shadow of Sheppard's bush: one held by the pack in a half-lying, half-sitting position, head back, eyes staring into the fathomless depths, small hole in shirt front over the shattered heart.
"Hold yer fire. They've stopped. Get the medic! Quent's had it! Colt's been hit in the leg!"
The following lifts crossed the river unopposed and secured a bridgehead; other battalions crossed and plunged into the jungle.
Small battles flared as the opposing forces crept through the green impartial veils. Once more, caches of food, weapons, and munitions were found and removed.
Binh's platoon had evolved a successful tactic of creeping only as close to the foreigners as they needed to hear their voices clearly, then emplace a big DH-10 mine, quietly withdraw, unwinding the electric wires, and detonate the mine from some distance away. As the DH-10 consisted of a concave mass of explosives studded with shrapnel, the blast projected the shrapnel in the direction in which it was pointed. Binh and his men had been most successful against the Americans, who would not be quiet and would not place little patrols out in front of their positions.
Binh and one of his squads crept carefully through the trees, guided by the noise of the helicopters. Thi and Dung went first, then Anh with the Russian RPD machine gun, Nghiem with the DH-10 mine and battery. Quoc, Xuan, Binh, Sai, Loc, and Van. The quiet afternoon enveloped them as they moved under the trees.
Corey Pearce lay, weight on his elbows, half dozing in the shadows. In a semicircle lay the other 3 members of the little patrol. He blinked awake as the movement to his front drew his attention.
"Hsst! Wake up! Wogs in front," he hissed.
"Hmmm. Sees 'em, yeah. Right!" from the other 3.
"All right. We'll take 'em front left to right, as they come. Ready, fellers?"
Check rear-sight up, safety off, slowly raise rifle to shoulder, foresight on the oblivious black-clad figure framed by the rear-sight. Breathe in---hold it----squeeze, and invisible strings jerk away the marionette in front!"
The initial burst of firing was lost in a big explosion---blast, dust, and leaves blinded the 4 ambushers who lay dazed as debris fluttered down around them. The enemy squad returned the fire, pinning down the four Britons. Then silence returned.
Cautiously, Pearce surveyed the area, the dust cloud still hung, sunbeams striking a thousand golden motes through its drifting center.
"What the fuck was that?!"
"God knows, but it surely cleared the area. Look at that."
From behind, Raw's platoon swept in to investigate.
"What're you been up to?" queried Dick.
"Saw about eight Charlies moving along here, opened fire, and this fuckin' explosion set us back on our asses. Dunno what it was."
"Right. The others are hooking around to try and catch 'em. Let's have a look."
"Be careful. Don't touch anything."
"God, look at the trees, willya?"
"Like the inside of a butcher's shop. Blood running down the fuckin' tree trunks!"
"Look up there---guts hanging offa that branch."
"Here's some electrical wire and a battery."
"Look at this anthill. The bloody side is powdered. Holy shit!"
"Blood trail here."
"And here."
"Piece of M1 buttstock here."
"Hey---here's the remains of a pair of pants---just the waistband. Musta blown the bugger to bits."
Kneeling, Dick examined the ground before him, then turned to Raw. "This is where they put something on the ground---a piece of plastic or something---put the pieces in and carried 'em away. You can see the flattened grass and leaves, blood trails lead up to it then stop. Only drops after that."
Raw shook his head, smiling. "Must've been a beauty. I placed it---35 paces across, trees stripped of all leaves, ant hill powdered---Jesus!"
800 yards away. Binh lay in the shade, clutching the M1 now without its stock. He had sent the surviving six on ahead, carrying the remains of Thi, Dung, and Anh in the plastic. Loc and Van were wounded as well. Binh would wait for a squad from the company to come for him. The explosion had been tremendous. How unlucky that the DH-10 had been detonated by a bullet. Binh sensed movement and held his breath.
A green-clad figure, black rifle at the ready, moved past his bush, the only sound being the grass brushing against the green trouser legs.
Binh gritted his teeth and lifted the shattered M1, aiming at the back of the man. He could not aim lying down, so with a great effort, he rose to his feet out of the shadows of the bush, next to a second soldier who had also not seen him.
Binh concentrated on the 1st man, still oblivious of the imminent shot: the third soldier swung his M16 around and fired the whole magazine into Binh, knocking him over, rolling him along the ground.
The two scouts dived to the ground, the 3rd man began replacing the empty magazine, the 4th fired as Binh rolled to his knees with the momentum of his fall. The fourth man fired two shots---his machine gun jammed, and before their eyes, Binh rose to his feet, and stood, trying to raise the M1 again, a half-naked figure in torn black clothes, bones visible through flesh torn from them by the M16 bullets, blood gouting, shining, sparkling red in the sunlight, head lowered with concentration and effort, feet apart, legs braced, trying, trying---and crashed forward dead before he hit the ground.
"Good God! Who was that bastard!"
"Standing up after a full mag of M16! Holy fuckin' shit," wonder changing to grin, "he was after your bloody hide Tris."
Dunkin stood speechless, shaking his head.
Farther along, Pearce's section, followed by the rest of Raw's platoon, moved silently through the green light of the trees, eyes alert for the lines, light, or shadow that might indicated another cache, or for the movement that might betray the presence of another Charlie. Corwyn strode along, M60 held like a toy, eyes sweeping the kaleidoscope of light and shadow presented by the trees, shrubs, vines, leaves, and branches before him. His eye caught something odd. His brain flashed the message, and his gaze sharpened through the undersea-green gloom onto an Asian face, staring at something near Corwyn---his eye, alerted, focused through the green, and with lightning-fast clarity, he recognized the shapes of several Charlies, facing toward him, weapons at the ready.
"Down!" he shouted, thumbing the safety catch and spraying the belt through the trees, as the answering fire snapped and crackled past, clipping leaves, twigs, and bark.
Raw's platoon dived down, saved from the imminent ambush by Corwyn's shout, and began to return fire. The Vietcong shooting was a continuous drumroll of automatic weapons, and only a slight rise and dip in the ground gave the British the cover that prevented many casualties.
"Corwyn!" shouted Raw, "try to get around on their flank at your end!"
"Right!"
But the intense volume of fire made movement a matter of slow cautious wriggling. Outflanking was out of the question.
Corwyn, lying behind his M60, continued to put burst after burst in the direction of the Charlies; the gun quit----automatically his hands flew through the actions---cock, raise feed-plate cover, and Corwyn hunched up onto his elbows to see the breech and feed plate, his head and shoulders rearing up as the burst from the Vietcong machine gun slammed home, killing him outright. the Number Two on the gun, Corwyn's assistant, unhesitatingly pushed the body aside, ignoring the blood and brains splattered all over him, cleared the gun, reloaded and carried on firing.
The return fire from Raw's platoon was purely a self-defense measure; if it hadn't been evident, the Charlies would've been on them.
Suddenly they were gone. The platoon carefully checked to avoid a trap, then tended to the wounded and prepared their dead for evacuation.
Moreno knelt by the side of the dead Corwyn, removing ammunition from the webbing and pack, while nearby a stretcher was made to carry the big corpse back.
Raw handed the radio handset to the signaler and walked over. "You about ready?"
"Yeah, Ted....notice something about their firepower?"
"There's a lot to it, if that's what you mean."
"Righto. When we got here, they had a variety of old Russian, French, and American weapons. Now they've got the best new Russian and Chinese stuff, and aren't worried about ammo. They'd have had us just then, but for old Clarke. The AK47 goes automatic, and I couldn't count the automatic weapons firing at us."
"Yes, Val. They're as well armed as us, better, in some ways."
"He was a good man," said Fleming standing up. "Yeah, he was. Okay fellers," to the waiting stretcher makers.
They made their slow way back through the trees to the company position, where Corwyn's body was evacuated by Dust-off. A second Huey circled, waited, and settled.
The insulated containers with the fresh-cooked dinner were lifted out, and the Huey threshed away. "Baron" Roach organized the distribution of the meal. Compartmented paper plates were picked up by the individuals who queued, a platoon at a time, for chicken, peas, cabbage, mashed potato, fruit cocktail, orange juice, milk, or tea. "Baron" stood to one side as the Tommies were fed, muttering about "good food, bully beef and biscuits, soldering in my day, molly-coddling," and ending with a loud "Milk! Milk! They oughta fly in blood for soldiers to drink!" as the grinning troops went back to their pits, plate and mug in hand, rifle tucked under their arm.
The paper plates were simply burned in a trash pit, alleviating the need for cleaning camp posts, hot soapy water, and all the other necessities of hygiene in the field.
The Hueys lifted over the trees, closing into formations and heading south over the river. Pearce sat, rifle between his knees, wind buffeting his hair and clothes, looking out over the dark green carpet stretching as far as human eyes could see.
Below him were the LZs of previous operations, the lulls and valleys through which both sides hunted each other. With the battalion tour drawing to a close, he knew it'd be unlikely that they'd be back to the jungles below, and he was shocked to feel a faint whiff of nostalgia blow through his brain and heart.
Tony Fleming side, placed his pen down, and looked around the CP. The 8-day clock showed 2 A.M. Another hour to go. He was about to fold the just-written letter into the envelope, when he noticed the plywood tabletop---covered in pencil and biro notes, grid references, times, radio call signs, compass bearings, and other jottings whose meanings were known just to those who had made them during the long hours of night duty since the battalion had established itself in the area.
In the corner, earphones on one ear, sat the signaler before his array of softly hissing sets, head bowed over a paperback. Down the table from Fleming, Sergeant Cattrall, the intelligence section sergeant, breathed deeply and regularly, close-cropped head cradled in arms on the tabletop.
Before them on the table sat field telephones, message pads, pencils, map pins, and paperbacks. On the wall hung the various maps required to give an overall picture of the battalion's area, marked with the red and blue rectangles of enemy and friendly units.
Fleming looked around, taking in the night, the quiet, the underground room, the radio, the breathing sounds, the shine of the talc over the maps---this was a part of his life and career.
Alfie Hughes flung the paper on the tabletop with a contemptuous snort.
"Don't know why I bother reading this bullshit. These reporters must have hair on the palms of their hands. They wrote absolute rubbish. 'Having a conversation in Saigon in the background noise of D-Zone.' Jeeeeeeessssusss! Raving about how dangerous it is in Saigon---liable to have your drink smashed by a sniper's bullet."
Fleming grinned over his beer. "And we go there to relax."
"They're all military experts, though. Like the F111 nonsense. Overnight, every politician and wanker on a newspaper was an expert on aeronautics, military aviation, military strategy, light-crew training, and economics. Now they're all experts on jungle warfare, counter-revolutionary warfare, airmobile tactics---you name it, they know all about it."
"One bloke was complaining he'd never been offered a drink or included in a conversation with the officers. Why should they? Reporters have a bad name for quoting outta context; they've got no loyalty except to their own fuckin' careers, and they're outsiders anyway."
"Yup. They can drink with PR. They're paid to."
"I've been on ops and in contacts they've written about, but later when ya read about it, you wouldn't know it 'cept fer the place names. They write all kinds of garbage."
"It'd be the same as us going to write on a fashion parade. No training, don't know what you're seeing and its significance, so the people worried think it's all bullshit."
"It'd be the same as us going to write on a fashion parade. No training, don't know what you're seeing and its significance, so the people concerned think it's all crap."
"Yup. The good thing is they only hang around for a day or so anyway, and ya gotta talk to 'em."
"Yup. Listen, how's young Corporal Ames turning out?"
"Oh, not bad---" and the conversation turned to all the important things of life.
The paper lay on the table, pages ruffling in the afternoon breeze preceding the monsoon.346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYYgxaZEDQ4
346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2XBTpfQ5xt
346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHRTEmzjpUd
346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ91iwBKlAdw
"I think we're wasting our time here," said "Flash" Gordon. "They obviously know we intended to operate here and are gone."
After several days of occupying and patrolling a very big rubber plantation, with plenty of signs of recent Charlie activity but no contact, interest began to wane. Then, when the British presence was established there, the search shifted to the south.
The 1st company moved by helicopter and was engaged just off the LZ. The second company, seated on and in the APCs, galloped down the road to the new area, turning off to sweep through an overgrown rubber patch.
"Keep your eyes open---B had a contact and scored 4 kills. They could be here as well."
The neglected rubber plantation had lost its cool, clear appearance---weeds, grass, and shrubs had sprouted in a dense carpet to a height of 6 and 7 feet. The carriers cruised slowly and silently through the growth, the crews and infantry peering about from their vantage point, ducked to avoid low branches, weapons ready. Suddenly, from under the tracks themselves it seemed, running, diving, dodging black-clad figures clutching weapons---the rifles and machine guns snapped, and the M113s roared like hunting beasts as the drivers jockeyed their big charges around the trees, trying to run down the fleetingly seen Charlies. The hectic charge through the section of the plantation, the mounted pursuers alight with the sense of superiority and spirit of the chase that the mounted man has always felt in battle with the man on foot.
"God," grinned one of the drivers, wiping his sweating face, "talk about chasing down rabbits. The little buggers are like fleas."
"Which way did they go?" asked Moss.
"God only knows---in all directions," answered Tony Fleming.
"We're lucky nobody fell off the APCs," muttered Kelly. "They'd been crushed, ya know."
"Is he cheering up or not?" Fleming asked a smiling Matteo Moss.
"He'll fuss about the dark when they put the coffin lid over his face. Here we go again!" as the M113 roared and leaped forward under the branches.
"Any questions?" Raw looked around the silent group. "Right. Let's go."
The 15 men, faces and hands darkened and---except for the signaler---carrying only weapons, ammunition and grenades, filed away through the darkening rubber avenues, feet "shushing" through the low grass. Shaking out into an arrowhead formation, they quickly but quietly reached the spot picked for their ambush---a junction of the slightly raised crisscrossing roads that divided the plantation into sections.
Night was just tightening its grip over the area---squeezing the last night from the western sky, cloaking all the figures with the anonymity of its gloom. The roads were visible as a faintly lighter band in the heavy darkness. The moon was just rising, its light silvery on the distant clouds that barred its beams.
Cong Tham her heart singing, her feet flying, as she moved down the jungle path. Ahead and behind strode the five comrades of the local guerilla unit who had come to take her home. Home! She hadn't seen her parents, family, friends, members of the Front or women's association for six months. How good it'd be to be home again, and how good to be able to use her newly acquired nursing skills to help the people. For 6 long months she'd studied and sat for exams in the school in the distant mountains. Now she was a nurse, with handsome certificates, notebooks, a nurse's long white gown, Red Cross brassard, gauze mask, and some supplies---all carried in the pack on Thi's back.
All friends, the escort had come to take her safely from the mountains---2 days' journey away. They'd chattered all yesterday as they walked along, exchanging news of the village and the school over the past 6 months, and at the transit camp in the jungle had set up singing to Trong's guitar till quite late.
Now, so close to home, the youthful exuberance bubbled all through her limbs, body, and mind, and she wished they could run back along the road, as they climbed up onto it from the jungle. Glancing back, she saw the silver fringes on the clouds lit by the moon's glow.
The ambush party had settled into their positions under the rubber trees and, from experience, prepared their minds to last through the long hours of waiting.
Then out of the darkness came the pad, pad, pad, of swiftly moving feet, and dimly seen shapes materialized on the road. So soon! Here we go then. Breathing held, the ambushers froze, weapons ready, waiting for Raw to spring the trap. Blacker, more solid against the soft sky, the dark shapes drew level and Raw fired, his first shot breaking the silence for a devastating burst that swept the road.
For a moment, Tham stood bewildered, then leaped sideways off the road and, flying away down the short slope, shedding Thi's pack, clambered across the creek and into the jungle, the last survivor.
Tham became conscious of a terrible pain in her legs, and her wandering hand trailed through ripped flesh and broken bone. Unable to move and unable to control the pain, she started moaning, the only sound under the dark rubber trees. The quiet watchers, waiting for further prey, stared into the darkness, fingers on triggers, as Tham's soft cries of pain bubbled out of her and rolled under the arches of the impersonal avenues of rubber trees.
Suddenly, one of the prone figures under the trees rose, took several long, leaping strides forward, and fired a long burst into the moaning body, and, as quickly, leaped back into the impenetrable shadows.
Silence descended, the only noise the faint rustling of leaves as the gentle night breeze stirred the leaves. The silver moon drifted calmly across its black velvet bed, its soft light reflected in the cold glassy eyes on the dirt road, and laying a faint misting on the still wet blood in the wounds.
In the distance, the quiet night was rent by bursts of firing as other ambushes were sprung. In the houses, the people listened and wondered who was dying.
The sun crept up, reluctantly at first, then bounding zestfully into the sky. The ambushers swept the scene of their actions, counting bodies, collecting weapons and documents, pocketing souvenirs.
Tham and her friends, who had escorted her to the last rendezvous, lay sprawled on the untidy attitudes of death in battle. The successful ambushers searched the cold bodies, already reeking with the smell of blood and death.
"Hey sir, one of 'ems a woman. The one Ted put the second round into." To Ted. "You fuckin' near blew her apart, guv'nuh."346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKtzlzK7h8X
"Sorry 'bout that," in casual tones.
"Found a pack down there, where that bloke musta dropped it."
"Bet the bastard's still a'runnin'."
"Wouldn't you be? Cure yer constipation, eh?" with a wide grin, looking up from the rent corpse he was searching.
"They were fuckin' early, weren't they? Hey sir," to Raw, "do you think they even knew we were in the area? They came bowling up the road without a care in the world."
"You could be right: they were early. That's a good ambush, isn't it? Slaughter the bastards before they even know you're around."
"These cunts never knew what hit 'em, that's for sure."
The roaring of M113s came out of the trees and shortly after the angular hulks waddled through the avenues to pick up the ambush party after the bodies had been buried. The shallow graves were dug in the soft red earth. Tham and her friends thrown in and covered over, dirt thrown over the blood on the road---already the scene of industrious activity by ants and flies---and the ambush group climbed aboard the APCs, rolling back for a wash, a shave, cleaning of weapons, and breakfast. Behind them, the ants and flies burrowed over all that remained of a 19-year-old girl's ambitions of a medical career.
ns 18.68.41.141da2
