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

“Just two old women and a bunker for protection against machine gun and rocket attacks,” DiCroce informed Mr. Casey, who was the Second Squad leader.

“Okay,” said Van Heertum, “let’s keep searching for the POW camp.”

As our skirmish line moved toward another hootch, I glanced back at the four children who had been watching us. They saw me look, and this time they ducked into the hootch we’d searched, and they disappeared.

The growl of a dog caused me to jerk my head back to the front. I laid my eyes on a medium-size mongrel, mangy and black, which stared at me from twelve feet away. I braced myself to hit him with my rifle stock should he charge, but he chose to turn and trot away, looking back a couple times with a sneer on his ugly mug.

A few seconds later, our squads were surrounding another hootch. DiCroce and I went in and searched the dwelling, being careful not to bother anything. Having negative results, we walked back outside and reported to Bos’n Casey and Van Heertum. They had us continue ours stroll through downtown Rach Gia.

As we advanced toward another hootch, through a menagerie of ducks, dogs, and pigs, a group of women and children noticed us from the other side of the main stream. As they visibly tensed in alarm, one of them saw Mr. Marcinko’s platoon approaching from downstream. That sight caused them to quickly but quietly disperse and disappear in various directions.

My attention was diverted to my right as I heard Martin and DiCroce call out simultaneously, “VC!” I swung my weapon in the direction of three men who were coming out of a huge hut about seventy meters away, but I couldn’t shoot because Martin was in my field of fire. I ran up beside Martin and DiCroce.

Instinctively, the three of us spread out in a skirmish line facing the three VC, all of whom were carrying rifles. Martin opened up with his Stoner machine gun first. Instantly, the VC reacted; one dove back into the hut and the other two started running in opposite directions. I aimed Bad Girl at the man dashing to the right and squeezed the M-16 trigger. I had the weapon set on full automatic, so every round in the 20-round magazine pursued the runner like a mad hornet flying at breakneck speed. The only problem was that the magazine emptied in one and half seconds, which was so quick that if the rifleman’s aim was off target in the least, every bullet would miss. As I saw the gook still sprinting for all he was worth, I knew I’d blown it.

“Dammit!” my brain screamed as my shooting finger reached for the grenade launcher trigger. I took careful aim and fired a 40mm HE round at the VC as he dropped into an irrigation ditch. The round exploded on the bank of the canal.

While I inserted a second magazine into place in the M-16, Martin sprayed the other fleeing man with his machine gun. The VC was still running when I joined my teammate in firing at him. A second later, the man, looking like he was hit, disappeared into a canal. DiCroce fired a 40mm HE round from his M-79 after the guy, which blew on the far bank.

Martin turned his machine gun on the large hootch and let loose with a barrage as I ran ahead to the next canal and jumped in. I plowed through the water in the bottom and scurried up the bank closest to the hootch. Sticking Bad Girl over the top, I fired the M-16, now on semiautomatic, at the thatched hut while Martin advanced and joined me in the canal.

When Martin rested the Stoner on the bank and started firing, I climbed out of the ditch and ran in a crouched position to the next ditch. As quick as I could, I threw my weapon over the ridge and covered Martin’s advancement.

We leapfrogged in this manner until we were hiding in a canal only seventy-five feet from the entrance of the big hootch containing at least one enemy soldier. DiCroce and Clann, who was toting a Stoner machine gun, had advanced to the canal behind Martin and me.

The large hootch was at least thirty feet by twenty feet and made of intertwined palm fronds. I pointed Bad Girl at the front wall beside the door and caressed the XM-148 trigger. With a light squeeze, a 40mm round smacked into the wall and detonated. To my astonishment, the thatched roof collapsed, and the front and side walls fell completely over, revealing a large bunker made of mud, logs, and sticks. The hootch was not a hootch at all, but a huge, camouflaged hideout.

I fired another 40mm HE round at the bunker, and DiCroce did the same from the next canal. The explosions didn’t even shake the structure.

As Martin blasted the bunker with a burst of machine-gun fire, I moved a few yards to my right and looked forty-five meters down an intersecting canal. There I spotted the body of the VC whom Martin and I had shot. He was lying half in, half out of the water. I raised my weapon and shot the body twice with M-16 rounds to make sure the man was dead.

“Cover me!” I barked at Martin, then I started down the canal toward the body. Wading through the ditch water, I splashed my way to the lifeless enemy. I bent over and reached into the water beneath the man’s chest. My fingers found the barrel of a rifle, and I jerked a Russian-made, bolt-action rifle out from under the body.

With DiCroce and Clann firing at the big bunker and two smaller bunkers nearby, Martin appeared on the bank of the canal. I handed the confiscated weapon up to him and got busy searching the dead man’s pockets. I found nothing at first, but then I discovered a couple of