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

for us to form a circle and settle down in the water. He gestured to me to take the first two-hour watch. I walked to one of the more prominent trees outside the men’s circle and leaned my back against the trunk. The others got comfortable, if sitting in water up to the armpits could be described as comfy.

Over the next hour or so, the water level went down considerably until it was but a couple inches deep. I kept my eyes and ears open all the while as the others attempted to ignore the mosquitos and sleep.

Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was 0835 hours, then I looked up at the sky, which was very gloomy. Before I looked away, I heard rustling in the brush directly outside the perimeter from me. I clicked off the safety on my shotgun and found the trigger with my shooting finger. A twig snapped, and I slowly swung Sweet Lips toward the sound.

For the next few seconds, I heard nothing. My eyes scanned the brush, but I saw nothing. Sweat trickled down my forehead and into my left eye. The sting forced me to close it. No matter, as I needed only my right eye to take aim.

A sucking noise reached my ears, and I knew there was someone walking in the mud. If that someone was a VC, I intended to shoot him when he broke through the vegetation and came into view.

While I prepared myself for killing, a sudden chopping noise shattered the stillness. A second chop followed and I pinpointed the sound as coming from a mere ten meters away. Then a series of chops rang out and awakened a groggy Lieutenant Meston, who climbed to his feet with a curse.

I waved my arm, getting Mr. Meston’s attention, then placed a finger vertically in front of my lips and whispered, “Shhh.” Mr. Meston immediately lost the cobwebs and grabbed his M-16 from its resting place in a bush. The chopping, however, had ceased. My brain told me we were compromised as the woodcutter had heard Lieutenant Meston’s voice.

I stared at Mr. Meston, waiting for him to give me directions. Flynn stood up beside Lieutenant Meston and they whispered to one another. As they conferred, another chop resonated. Good, I thought to myself, the man had not been spooked off.

Mr. Meston listened for several seconds to more timber slashing, then motioned for me to go get the woodcutter. I waved at Ty to follow me.

As fast as I could, I crashed through the thick vegetation with Sweet Lips at the ready. The woodchopper didn’t have time to flee as I was on his case in an instant. He was standing next to the tree he’d been cutting, wearing baggy, rotting, black-pajama-type clothing and holding a makeshift ax.

When the middle-aged woodcutter saw me, all painted up and with my weapon aimed at his guts, he sank to his knees and began pleading in Vietnamese. I moved to within ten feet of him, never taking my eyes or my gun off him.

Ty stepped up beside me. “Ong co so linh My khong?” he snapped, asking the woodcutter if he was afraid of American soldiers.

The man, visibly shaking and obviously petrified, bowed up and down like a Buddhist in fervent prayer, babbling as fast as his lips would move.

“Shut him up!” I told Ty.

“Dung noi! Dung yen!”

The man grabbed a rag, which was protruding from his pants pocket and shoved it into his mouth. He bit on the rag to stop his teeth from chattering and to quiet his tongue. Even so, squeaks and squeals emanated from him. Ty had to threaten to slap him three times before he shut up completely.

I picked up the man’s ax as Mr. Meston, Brown, and Flynn came through the brush behind me.

“Does he have personal identification papers?” whispered Lieutenant Meston when he reached my side.

“The can-cuoc cua Ong dau?” Ty asked the woodcutter. The man, his eyes wider than ever at the sight of three more commandos, shook his head. He then noticed my K-bar knife before dropping his head and staring at the watery ground.

I felt I could read the woodchopper’s mind. He was expecting to be killed, probably soon and silently with my knife. But instead of facing death, he faced me as I stooped down next to him. I grabbed his right arm, felt it quivering, and pulled him to his feet.

My four teammates and I escorted our “prisoner” back to McCollum and Funkhouser. Mr. Meston radioed TOC and asked if they wanted the woodchopper for interrogation. They did. Lieutenant Meston then called for extraction via LCPLs.

Since we were 125 meters from our ambush and extraction site, we began moving toward it in single file, with the woodcutter between Brown and Flynn. The walking was easier than earlier, as the water had receded to its lowest level, only an inch deep. I wove a different pattern through the nipa palms in case someone was sitting in wait on our old, water-filled, muddy tracks.

As I went, a sprinkle of rain tap-danced on my floppy cammo hat. A wait-a-minute thorn bush grabbed at my shirt sleeve, then let go as I pulled away. A green pigeon with his beak buried under a hunched-up wing ignored me as I walked past the branch he was perched on. He was just too cozy to get off his seat, or the dark sky appeared too unfriendly for that particular flyer to lift off right then.

A couple minutes later, the unfriendliness turned severe as the rain came hard. The bird knew, I told myself. His instincts had warned him. He hadn’t reasoned it out, because only man reasoned. Instincts, then. Listen to your instincts, Smitty. It may save your life someday.

I maneuvered through the mud and the rain, glancing back at Mr. Meston every thirty meters, until I reached the Cu Lao Ca Xuc. As Mr. Meston and Brown approached my position just shy of the riverbank,