Death in the Jungle Gary Smith (mobi reader txt) 📖

an hour of fighting the bushes, and vines, and mud, I saw the river through the foliage just ahead. I signaled to Mr. Meston that we were there, and he waved for me to recon the riverbank and our ambush site. In this dense brush, he was asking a lot. Of course, I agreed with his decision and didn’t hesitate to follow his order.

I began my laborious exploration at 1640 hours and didn’t make it back to Mr. Meston until 1700. I nodded my head that all was well, and he pointed me to left flank. I crept through the thick undergrowth until I found myself on the riverbank. A couple of bushes separated me from the stream.

I sat down in the muck in a place where I could see the river between the bushes and where I could get off some shots at anything that moved in the water. Sweet Lips would have no problem doing some damage because the river was less than forty meters wide. Should the VC float by on a sampan bringing supplies to their troops, they’d be awfully close to the kiss of death.

As Funkhouser settled into position several meters to my right, I untied my boots and took them off. I pulled a pair of coral booties from my pack and slipped them on, then placed a pair of swim fins on top of the mud to my right. Mr. Meston had me prepared to go into the river to retrieve the sampan and supplies should we wipe out some gooks. Again, I was assigned to the risky business. That was what I got for comparing myself to Hawkeye. Now some of the guys were even calling me that.

I took the roll of parachute suspension line out of my pants pocket and crawled with it toward Funkhouser. He met me halfway. I gave him the end of the line, which he wrapped around the middle finger of his left hand, then playfully saluted me with it. I whispered for him to go to places further south, then scooted back to my position. Funky and I were now linked and ready for nightfall, which was yet three hours away.

I stared at the current for a while. It was very fast, and I wondered how quickly a sampan would move in it. Just as fast as the current, I informed myself. That meant I’d have to discharge the six rounds in Sweet Lips as fast and accurately as my arms could work. Sluggish action on my part would result in only one or two shots before the sampan was out of reach; therefore, I had to stay awake and alert.

As I watched the water, a sea snake floated past me. It was black with white rings, and I knew it was venomous. This one looked four feet long; in a few seconds it was gone. I prayed that no shark would come that night.

The day gradually, but very slowly, passed. The heat and humidity sucked pints of water through my skin’s pores in an unrelenting effort to weaken me. Man, it was hot. The VC didn’t appear foolish enough to have left their hootches for a boat ride in that furnace. At least I hadn’t seen any.

Time went by and nothing grabbed my attention until the mosquitos began swarming over the water. A cloud of them was active right in front of me. Night was near, and with it, the bloodsuckers. How I wished I could unload on them with Sweet Lips, just for the satisfaction of it. Perhaps another time.

At dusk, the thought of vipers, crocs, sharks, and gooks stepped front and center from the back of my mind, where I’d been able to store it for a good, long two minutes. The thought contained a lineup of adversaries, all able and more than willing to remove fifty years from my life span. The men in my platoon had invented a name for these death dealers from the deep: “man-eating man-a-cheetahs.” Any creature that swam and had a deadly bite qualified.

I remembered that Billy Machen, the first SEAL to die in Vietnam, had been killed near there last year. He had been a good point man, too. But I liked point. I wanted it. If I died there, so be it.

I remembered reading in a magazine about a man and his epitaph. On his tombstone was inscribed:

“Here lies Leslie Moore,

Shot by a .44;

No less, no more.”

I liked that inscription, and I’d been thinking about a similar one for me:

“Here lies Hawkeye Smitty,

His death was not very pretty;

Oh, what a pity.”

Whether I got torn apart by a couple dozen bullets or a couple rows of razor-sharp teeth, there wouldn’t be anything pretty about it.

As the last light faded into darkness, so did my thoughts of dying. Now I had to concentrate on killing. I was totally concealed, as were my buddies, and I was ready. All the odds were in our favor. We had the element of surprise, and we had the firepower to blow the Queen Mary out of the water. A tiny sampan had absolutely no prayer, unless it could drift past unseen and unheard, and if that was ever possible, that night might have been the night. It was as black as Aunt Jemima’s posterior. But I had great ears. I could hear farts clear at the other end of the line. Must have been the beans in the C rats talking.

McCollum ejected an occasional noise for half an hour, then apparently got his intestines under control. It was quiet for all of three hours. Then something in the water to my left wheezed, then sucked in a lot of air. After the gulp, it made a little splashing sound. It was a crocodile. He had come up for air, then went underwater again.

I didn’t think about the croc for long. The suspension line tied to my right wrist jerked three times. Three times meant “the enemy is