Death in the Jungle Read online

  After almost thirty minutes of sweating through the workout, Mr. Meston announced the Saigon trip would begin at 1000 hours, then called for us to jog twice around the perimeter of the ten-acre base. I was happy for the run, as someone might spot my snake.

  With everyone breaking into a scamper, I loudly broadcast my predicament and asked my teammates to watch for my, pet.

  “Holler if you see him!” I directed.

  “I’ll scream with delight, like the house maid did last week when she saw my private stock!” McCollum blew from behind me.

  “Knowin’ you, you were as limp as a snake!” Funkhouser teased him.

  “You’ve never seen me coiled up and ready to strike!” McCollum retaliated. “That’s a sight to behold! The eighth wonder of the world!”

  Katsma and I jogged a little faster, joining the others at the front of the pack.

  “The ninth and tenth wonders are in my family, too!” Muck yelled after us.

  “What are they?” Kats yelled back.

  “My wife’s bazookas! They’re awesome! I call one Victor and the other Charlie, and I do love the way they torture me!”

  Laughing, we ran away from the slower runners. McCollum was still getting guffaws behind us, but his words were now unintelligible.

  Katsma soon made a move to take the lead over everyone, and even though breakfast was still heavy in my stomach, I couldn’t help but go with him. The lead was what I was used to. It was where runners like Kats and me just naturally ended up. Not that we were so great—we simply loved to run, to stride out, to make tracks.

  That morning, the rush of wind and the feeling of strength was stimulating. I almost forgot about Bolivar’s being lost as Kats and I intermittently challenged one another with short bursts of speed as we circled the base. When we completed the run, however, Bolivar was all I thought about.

  Sweating profusely, Kats and I made a beeline for the showers. As we approached them, Kats pointed toward the Seabees barracks.

  “There’s a snake!” he exclaimed.

  I looked and saw the snake, but it was easy for me to tell that it wasn’t mine. This snake was more than two feet long and had different colored stripes.

  “That’s a viper,” I informed Katsma, who concurred. We watched as the venomous snake slid through the new door leading into the barracks.

  “Should we go warn the Seabees?” Kats wondered aloud. We looked at each other. Smiles broke across our faces.

  “Naw!” we sang in unison.

  “Viper bites are rarely fatal,” I stated as we headed for the showers.

  After a short shower, I walked back to my barracks wearing only my UDT swim trunks. Just outside the open door, I threw my wet towel on top of a scurrying, three-inch shrew and gathered it up. Bolivar would have breakfast awaiting him, should he come home.

  I entered my cubicle and deposited the shrew in Bolivar’s cage, making sure to fasten the latch. I slid the cage under my bed, then dug a pair of Levi’s jeans and a sports shirt out of my footlocker. I’d wear those clothes to Saigon.

  I checked my Rolex. It was only 0835 hours, so I decided to read. I draped the fresh clothes over the locker, then crawled under the mosquito netting with Louis L’Amour’s The First Fast Draw that I had received from my mother a few days earlier.

  I should go look for Bolivar, I told myself. Yes, in a half hour, I would. Give him some time to surface. First, I thought I’d get lost myself in the story.

  I was lost only twenty minutes when I was snapped back to reality by someone shouting curses from outside the barracks. I listened more intently and I realized it was Flynn yelling something about a snake.

  Funkhouser rushed into the cubicle. “Flynn’s got Bolivar cornered in the john!”

  I dropped my book on the bed and flew out from beneath the mosquito net. A few seconds’ sprint brought me into the lavatory, where I found Flynn in his under-shorts and wearing sandals, swearing and holding his right index finger in his left hand.

  “Your damn snake bit me!” he informed me, showing me the wound. His finger had been punctured slightly.

  “Where is he?” I asked, unconcerned about Flynn’s little bite.

  “Look in that first stall,” Flynn directed, then he moaned. I entered the stall and spied Bolivar’s tail behind the toilet. Looking around the other side, I saw my pet’s head, placed my hand behind it, and then grabbed. I pulled Bolivar out of his hiding place.

  Holding the snake with both hands, I started out of the latrine.

  “Thanks for finding him, Flynn.”

  “Next time I’ll kill that little gook!” my teammate called after me.

  I chuckled. “You’ll have to stand in line!”

  Several other SEALs, having heard the commotion, met me outside the john.

  “Flynn got bit on his finger,” I announced, continuing toward the barracks.

  Katsma walked beside me. “That’s what we get for not telling the Seabees about that viper. What goes around, comes around.”

  I grinned. “At least it was Flynn who got the come-around, and not us. Hoo-yah!”

  I put Bolivar in his cage with his new companion, whom I’d dubbed “Squeaky.”

  I crawled back into my bed and read another thirty pages, then dressed for the Saigon trip.

  At 0955 hours, thirteen SEALs from Foxtrot Platoon, along with Lieutenant Salisbury and Mojica, our boat support buddy, assembled near the front gate and watched as Leading Petty Officer Pearson drove up in a late model Chevy pickup truck. A previous SEAL platoon had stolen the truck from the U.S. Army on a street in Saigon, where it had been parked, looking very olive drab, a few months earlier. Now it was very black, with the false license number 93-4127 painted on the doors.

  There being nothing quite as audacious as thieves returning to the scene of their crime, the fifteen of us joined Pearson in the truck. Lieutenants Meston and Salisbury climbed into the cab with Pearson, and the rest of us climbed into the open box in the back. A few of the guys carried sidearms, which they weren’t supposed to do in Saigon, but they kept the weapons “hidden,” actually bulging, inside their shirts and belts. Smith and Wesson 9mms and .38 Specials were the weapons of concealment.

  McCollum and Flynn jumped in the back of the truck after handing up a case of beer apiece.

  “These are in celebration of Smitty’s birthday!” McCollum declared, flashing me a smile. I chuckled to myself, knowing the beer would have come along regardless. Any excuse for beer was a good excuse. As a matter of fact, on a previous trip to Saigon we had commemorated Mickey and Minnie Mouse’s anniversary, and God only knew if we had had the correct date or even if the two rodents had ever formally been married. But the beer had tasted particularly good that day.

  With all on board, Pearson drove us through the base gate. Down the hard-packed gravel road past the hootches of Nha Be we went. A couple of Vietnamese children, naked at the side of the road, waved at us. I waved back.

  A distinguished old man with a white goatee just stared as we went by. He was short and frail, and his clothes literally hung on him. He looked despondent. Like most elderly Vietnamese men, I was sure he cared not for war but wanted only to live peaceably with his family.

  As we left the old man and the village of Nha Be behind us, Pearson sped up. Since the road to Saigon was immediately west of the northern end of the Rung Sat Special Zone, and was, in fact, separated from the RSSZ initially only by the Long Tau River, the trip was potentially dangerous. The VC sometimes mined the road, using both pressure and command-detonated mines. The most effective mines were usually command-detonated. The VC, while hiding in the jungle, chose their target and detonated the mine, using the current from flashlight batteries, when the target moved into the kill zone. After blowing a vehicle off the road, they killed any survivors. Also, VC snipers occasionally sat in wait of a good target. Obviously, a rig carrying a bunch of beer-guzzling men from a U.S. naval base made an exceptionally enticing target.

  As P
earson drove faster, we opted for our number one defense against the thought of a possible ambush, which was the cold beer. It took but a few more seconds before everyone in the box had a beer can in his hand.

  “To Smitty!” Funkhouser called out, hoisting his can over his head. The others saluted me in the same fashion, then McCollum started singing “Happy Birthday.” All joined in, then gulped their beers when the last word was sung.

  Halfway through the second round, I heard the blast of a rifle from the east side of the road. I looked into a rice paddy, but I didn’t see the shooter.

  Another shot rang out, then a third.

  “Sniper!” Mojica warned us.

  Doc Mahner, standing just behind the cab, slapped the roof of the cab with his hand to get Pearson’s immediate attention from behind the wheel.

  “Sniper!” he shouted. “Go faster!”

  I heard the sonic pop of a fourth bullet fly by my head before I heard the report of the rifle. Out of reflex, I ducked. Of course, the bullet was already buried in a palm tree on the other side of the road by the time I had reacted.

  Pearson was floorboarding the accelerator and I had to hold onto the side of the truck as we bounced all over the road.

  “Pass me another beer!” cried Funkhouser, shrugging off the attack.

  “Yeah!” shouted Flynn as another shot was fired. Flynn looked back down the road and flashed his middle finger at the sniper.

  “You’ll never hit us, you stinkin’ gook!” Flynn yelled at the top of his lungs. “We’re too fast, you SOB.”

  “Hoo-yah!” I concurred. The rest erupted into a shout, then we passed out some more beer.

  The next few miles were uneventful, unless one called beer guzzling and profane jokes an event. As we got closer to Saigon, we passed a Lambretta motor scooter with an attached platform and five Vietnamese aboard. The roof of the scooter had a luggage rack which was loaded with chickens. The two adults ignored us, but three children stared blankly as we went by.

  The occasional hootch on the side of the road of a couple miles back became many hootches. Old French two- and three-story buildings increased in appearance, as did plain one- and two-story buildings like those of Taiwan and China.

  Doc Brown reached into his Levi’s jeans front pocket and pulled out a minigrenade. He saw me looking at him and said, “Saigon scares me more than the jungle.” Then he shoved the grenade back into his pocket.

  I didn’t blame Doc for his nervousness. The Vietnamese were prejudiced against black people, and Doc was black. To me, he was a friend, that was all. Not black or white, just Doc. He was a good teammate, always there and always ready to help. In combat, he was very cool, calm, and collected. It was too bad, I thought, that he had to face prejudice even in Vietnam. Facing death in the jungle was enough burden for any man without adding to it.

  Entering Saigon, we saw people everywhere. Many were on foot, while others drove vehicles, motorbikes, pedicabs, or rode bicycles. The funny thing was, they all ignored us. Why they did this, I couldn’t figure out. After all, we were there fighting and dying for their freedoms, and they didn’t seem to care one iota. Besides, I wondered how people can not notice a pickup loaded with loaded U.S. servicemen. The mystery of it pissed me off.

  Driving carefully now, due to the heavy traffic, Pearson took us to a main intersection, which we called “the Y.” There it was even more crowded, if that were possible. As always, I gazed at the big painted sign above us advertising toothpaste. It pictured a black man’s profile, and he was smiling and showing off his very white teeth. What a paradox! I thought. The Vietnamese didn’t like blacks, yet they exploited one to promote a toothpaste, certainly for the contrast of the white teeth against the black of the man’s skin. Anything for a buck. No wonder Brown disliked Saigon.

  Pearson drove down Tran Hung Dao Boulevard. The street was lined with big trees and big French colonial buildings. The windows in the buildings were wooden louvered or totally open for air to circulate. Lots of hotels, restaurants, sidewalk cafes, shoe shops, bars, and laundries filled both sides of the street. Again, droves of people flooded the thoroughfare. Workmen and peasants were dressed in loose black trousers and short black or white jackets. Many nonlaboring men wore Western clothing. The Vietnamese women wore their national dress of long trousers under a long-sleeved tunic slit from hem to waist. Some of the men walked the street hand-in-hand, an ordinary mark of friendship common to many Asian countries.

  Eventually we ended up in the center of Saigon at NAV-FORV, which was headquarters for Naval Forces Vietnam. The three-story building contained SPECWAR staff officers, who coordinated with SEAL platoon officers in the field, and other U.S. military personnel. That was where lieutenants Salisbury, Meston, and DeFloria gathered classified information while the rest of us drank more beer across the street at an Indian-owned tailor shop. The shop catered to GIs, serving sandwiches and beer as well as making and fitting clothes. It was also a place for trading money on the black market, an illegal practice.

  Thirteen of us entered the tailor shop and took seats at the four tables. The Indian proprietor, wearing a colorfully embroidered shirt, approached my table.

  “American beer?” I asked.

  “No, only Vietnamese Tiger or 33 beer,” he answered.

  “Man, I’d rather drink piss than Ba muoi ba,” I replied, referring to 33 beer, which was a sorry beer at best.

  “Smitty’s buyin’!” Funkhouser shouted. “It’s his birthday so he owes us a round.” Funkhouser was right. On a SEAL’s birthday, the birthday boy bought a round of beer. It was a tradition that I would not be the one to break. We quickly decided on Tiger beer. The bottle was nearly twice as big as 33 beer. Quantity, not quality, had become my motto since going to Vietnam.

  “Serve ’em up!” I told the Indian. And he did. As a matter of fact, two rounds came out of my wallet.

  “If you keep blowin’ your money like that,” Katsma chided me, “you won’t be able to afford that house on the hill in Texas!”

  I smiled at my friend. “You’re right,” I agreed. “Too bad I wasn’t born on February 29. Then I’d only have to put up with this once every four years.”

  Kats and I laughed, then ordered another beer.

  As we drank together and traded money with the proprietor, an erratic stream of Vietnamese people flowed in and out of the shop. Some bought sandwiches, others picked up clothing. Each time someone entered, we were on alert. At least we were on guard as much as it was possible for a group of inebriated men, which truthfully wasn’t much. Still, we made an attempt to keep track of who-came-in-with-what, and more importantly, who-left-what. A box left behind on the counter may have contained more than just papa-san’s pajamas in need of a needle.

  That particular day, only one suspicious Vietnamese man entered the shop. He was carrying a shoe box and a seemingly frightened look on his middle-aged face.

  As the man passed Brown’s table next to mine, Brown told him, in Vietnamese, to halt. The man stopped and faced Brown with the shoe box held tightly by his left arm.

  “What’s in the box?” Brown asked. His eyes were riveted on the man’s face.

  The man hesitated, appearing confused. I heard the click of the hammer of Brown’s revolver as it was cocked.

  Brown barked at the man, asking if he understood him. “Ong hieu toi duoc khong?”

  The man jerkily nodded his head up and down as he slipped the box from under his arm and into his shaky hands. “Shoe!” his voice squeaked. He took the lid off and lowered the box to show a new pair of sandals to Brown. “Shoe! Just shoe.” The Vietnamese man grabbed a sandal and took it out of the box, offering it to Brown. “You want?”

  Brown’s intense glare faded and I heard the hammer being slowly uncocked.

  “No,” Brown mumbled.

  The man persisted. “You want shoe, GI?”

  “Toi noi khong duoc,” Brown said, waving the man away. “Di di.”

  As the man backed away and j
ammed the sandal back into the box, Brown shoved the revolver down inside his shirt and belt.

  “Saigon scares the shit outta me,” he muttered in my direction.

  A moment later, Mr. Meston entered the shop through the open door. “Let’s go, men,” he said. “The PX awaits us.”

  Everyone guzzled the last beer and headed for the truck parked just outside the door. All aboard, Pearson drove us a couple of miles to our favorite spot in Saigon, the Post Exchange in the Chinese city of Cholon.

  The Post Exchange, or PX, was a big French building where we could use our ration cards to obtain a month’s supply of hard liquor and wine, two bottles each per man. We could also buy Japanese stereo and camera gear on the spot, or we could order it through the PX catalogue and have items sent directly to the States. Good deals were found on jade objects, oriental furniture, and other things made in the Orient, such as stereo gear, camera gear, and lens accessories.

  Mr. Meston gave us an hour at the PX, telling us to rendezvous at the main entrance at 1300 hours. Funkhouser, Katsma, and I were the first in line for our liquor ration.

  As I waited my turn behind Funkhouser, I chuckled to myself. Funky never outran me in anything, except the liquor run. While I was always content to walk, albeit rather briskly, to the service counter, he sprinted.

  I chuckled again when Funkhouser placed his order. “Two quarts of Early Times.” Then he ordered two bottles of Portuguese wine.

  “I’ll take the same,” I sang out. Funkhouser grinned at me.

  Katsma giggled from behind me. “You remind me of the Texan who was sittin’ at a bar when this guy walks in and orders a stiff drink. He drinks it and immediately blacks out and falls to the floor. The Texan says to the bartender, ‘I’ll have what he had, only make mine a double.’ ”

  I laughed, collected my booze, and went shopping.

  At 1300 hours, all of us gathered at the entrance to the PX to fill up the truck. Everyone had his liquor, and some, like me, had other purchased items. I carried an AM/FM radio, which I’d been wanting.

  We traveled another couple of miles to the Continental Hotel, where we sat at sidewalk tables beneath beautiful mango trees and enjoyed sharkfin soup with noodles, fried rice, beer, and French coffee for lunch. Our eyes feasted on the hordes of women walking by.