Death in the Jungle Read online

  ADJ3 Flynn, Automatic Weapons, M-60

  HM2 Brown, Corpsman/Rifleman, M-16

  AZIMUTHS: 120 degrees-500m

  ESCAPE: 090 degrees

  PHASE LINE: None

  CODE WORDS: Challenge and Reply-Two numbers total 10

  Mr. Meston, Flynn, and I, totally subdued, made our way back to the Rach La and Long Tau intersection. As we arrived, we saw Mr. Schrader and the five other men walking up the Rach La toward us. Mr. Meston sat down on a large root of a bush and closed his eyes for several seconds. Flynn and I stood nearby and watched the others approach.

  “Anything?” Mr. Schrader inquired, even though he easily could see by our demeanor that we’d struck out.

  I shook my head. No one said a thing until Mr. Meston looked up at Markel, the radioman.

  “Bring the radio,” he ordered. Markel moved to Mr. Meston’s side and Mr. Meston used the radio to report our need for extraction. After the transmission, Mr. Meston directed us to set up in a semicircle perimeter until the boats arrived. McCollum and Flynn took the right and left flank positions, and I sat down on a clump of grass next to Flynn.

  “This is a shitty day, and someone’s gonna have to pay,” Flynn muttered in my direction.

  I put my head down and stared at my hands. The hands that had tied up Kats.

  Why hadn’t he snapped the tape and saved himself? I wondered. He must’ve banged his head when the boat had swamped, or he had gone into the water and had hit his head beneath the boat. That had to have been the answer. He had been knocked unconscious. So, who was gonna pay for that?

  I glanced at Lieutenant Meston in the center of our circle. He was our leader, a part of us, yet somehow he seemed singled out and solitary. He saw me looking and returned my gaze. I stared for another couple of seconds, then I looked away, knowing that it was he the Navy would blame. I believed the lieutenant already had figured that out. And it was a shame. No one was a culprit in this. Katsma’s death was just a sad, unfortunate, heartbreaking accident.

  My ears picked up a distant vibration, and I recognized the whirring sound of helicopters. Checking the sky for several seconds, I finally spotted two Seawolves approaching from the west. They were flying along the Long Tau’s southern bank, right over the top of us, no doubt having been called in on the search for Katsma’s body.

  As the helos passed by, I saw the gunner in the lead chopper give us a wave of recognition. I waved back once. The gunner in the second helo just looked. I looked at my teammates and saw Markel and McCollum greeting the Wolves’ presence with waves of their hands. As always, we were glad to accept the help of our friends in the air.

  A few minutes later, Mr. Meston directed two PBRs to our location. Having intercepted the Dust-off transmission earlier, the thirty-one-foot river patrol boats, each bearing five-man crews, had hurried to assist us. The ten of us split into two groups and boarded the boats for transport to Mighty Moe.

  While we journied downstream, I studied the river along the southern bank for a minute. Then my eyes focused on the water splashing beside the boat. This is the water that got Kats, I thought to myself. Fifty or sixty feet deep, with a six-knot current, the Long Tau River had taken my mate. Dammit. Water was supposed to be a SEAL’s friend.

  “Smitty.” Mr. Meston’s voice broke my train of thought. I turned my eyes to the lieutenant.

  “Smitty, I want you and Mr. Schrader to stay with the PBR and keep looking for Katsma’s body. The rest of us will go back to the base. I’m gonna have to get with Lieutenant Salisbury over this and fill him in on the details.”

  I nodded my head. “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “I still don’t know what the hell could’ve happened,” Mr. Meston grumbled.

  “Me neither,” I declared.

  We didn’t wait long to find out. When the PBRs reached Mighty Moe, everyone from our platoon but Mr. Schrader and me boarded the big boat. Lieutenant Jackson immediately explained the accident to Lieutenant Meston. Mr. Meston, in turn, sent Moses from Mighty Moe to join us on the river patrol boat and our search. Since Moses had been in the Boston Whaler with Katsma when it was swamped, he started telling me the grim details as the PBR moved away from the LCM-6.

  “When the Boston Whaler came along the port side of Mighty Moe, the coxswain all of a sudden cut the gas, causing the bow to dip. With seven men aboard, plus the .30-caliber machine gun and two sandbags in the bow, this was a bad move. Three of the boat support people stepped on the starboard gunnel, grabbing for Mighty Moe. This was the second bad move. That’s when we capsized. There was no need to panic, ’cause the Whalers won’t sink, anyway. I saw Doc try to hold Katsma, but he lost his grip. Kats went underwater and never came back up.” Moses stared at me for a reaction.

  “Shit,” was all I gave him.

  Moses looked out of the boat at the water and spat. “I’m sure he smacked his head under Mighty Moe,” he said, looking back at me.

  “What makes you so sure,” I wanted to know.

  “ ’Cause we turned over right into Mighty Moe, and the current was sucking us beneath her. I’ll bet he hit his head on the prop guards.”

  Moses’s theory made sense. After all, in UDT training back in ’65, all of us had been tied just like I had tied Katsma, then we had been tossed in deep water where we kicked and swam like porpoises in order to pop our heads above water for air. The exercise hadn’t been that difficult.

  “He had to be knocked out to keep him from coming up,” Moses finished his supposition.

  I nodded my head, then quietly said, “He’ll come up sooner or later, and I want to send him home where he belongs. Keep your eyes peeled.” I sat down on the starboard side of the PBR as we cruised down the Long Tau close to the southern bank. My eyes darted everywhere, as the body could be anywhere. Somewhere in that great river was my teammate, and I was determined to find him.

  After twenty minutes, we’d traveled downstream about three miles. The coxswain turned the boat to the port side and crossed five hundred meters of water to the opposite shore, where we headed slowly upstream in our search.

  The sun was cranked to the hilt, scorching me. I glanced at its blazing yellow face and the beast blinded me in return. Closing my eyes, I watched dancing spotlights torch my brain.

  Opening my eyes again, I blinked rapidly, then squeezed my eyelids together in my fight to defeat the incessant sun spots. After several seconds, they plagued me still. But like all human beings who occasionally have been dumb enough to glare at the sun, I’d been in this position before, and I knew the little bouncing buggers would soon go back to wherever it was they had come from.

  Halfway ignoring the spots, I glanced around inside the boat at the crew. All of the men seemed rather chipper. I hated that for a moment until I realized we had to work at staying lively for the sake of team morale. We couldn’t allow Kats’s death to destroy us.

  I’ve got to let this go, I spoke inside myself. Kats’s destiny was in bigger hands than mine now, so I had to let him go. My other teammates would be counting on me to be a hundred percent ready for the next mission, which meant being mentally “up.” With these thoughts in mind, I forced a grin at Mr. Schrader, who was staring at me.

  “He was a good man,” I stated loudly. “Let’s win this stinking war and make sure he didn’t die in vain.”

  Mr. Schrader gave me a thumbs-up and said, “We’ll kick some ass.”

  But for the next eight hours, our asses got kicked by stifling heat, humidity, and the tedium of doing nothing but making runs up and down the big river. Even my eyes were sunburned when we finally gave up and went back to the base.

  “His body will surface in a day or two,” I told the coxswain in an attempt to keep things somewhat positive.

  “Yeah,” he replied, “if the sharks don’t eat him first.”

  I hadn’t forgotten the sharks; I just didn’t want to talk or think about them. And those giant, God-awful, saltwater rats would rip away at a gallant SEAL. Damn them. When M
oses and I, sunburned and tired, arrived at our barracks just after dark, Brown informed us of a meeting in the morning at 0830 hours. We were to gather in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) with Lieutenant Salisbury, no doubt to hear all sides of the story of Katsma’s death and for a needed pep talk.

  I walked to my cubicle and found Funkhouser sitting up in his bed, protected by his mosquito net and writing a letter. He lowered his pen and pad of paper as I reached the foot of my bed.

  “Did you find him?” he inquired, his voice hoarse from the flulike illness, which had kept him from the mission rehearsal.

  “No,” I replied, “but we will.” I sat down on my footlocker to untie my boots. I started jerking impatiently at the laces, which didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

  Funkhouser, observing my touchy behavior, was considerate and asked no questions, such as the natural “What happened?” He undoubtedly had been told the main details several times already.

  After several more frustrating seconds, I pulled off my left boot and shoved it beneath the corner of my bed.

  “You got any whiskey?” I asked impulsively, glancing at my roommate.

  “Yeah. You want a shot?”

  I nodded my head and bent down to untie my right boot.

  “Open my locker and it’s right on top,” Funkhouser offered. “Pour yourself whatever you want, and give me a glass. I need something strong to kill this crud I’ve got.”

  I got my boot off, slipped it under my bed and moved to Funky’s footlocker. I lifted the trunk lid, gathered the essentials, and in less than a minute, Funky and I were gulping Early Times whiskey. He was trying to cure the crud, and I was trying to sink the sharks. After several shots apiece, our conscious vexations ceased as we passed out in our beds.

  The next thing I knew, someone was yelling, “Reveille!” just outside our cubicle. I rubbed my face awake and opened my eyes, groggily aware that I’d been dreaming that Katsma was dead. A few seconds later, I realized it was not a dream at all; rather, it was a dreadful truth that had slimed over my brain’s control room. The cleanup process would take a while.

  Looking at my Rolex watch, I saw that it was 0635 hours. I climbed out of the sack and got dressed for breakfast. Thinking about eating, I remembered Bolivar and fed him a half dozen beetles I’d imprisoned in a small glass jar. For a moment, I was tempted to reach under Funkhouser’s mosquito net and interrupt the sound sleeper’s snoring by shoving a beetle into his mouth. The thought was fleeting, however, and I left my sick roommate alone with his feverish visions.

  At the mess hall, I ended up sitting at a table already occupied by Flynn, Brown, and Moses. All three greeted me, then returned to their conversation.

  “Bucklew went back to CONUS,” Flynn said, referring to the continental United States, as he chewed some food.

  “What for?” Moses asked.

  Flynn smacked his lips. “A death in the family, I guess.”

  “That’s goin’ ’round,” Brown commented.

  I stabbed my fork into a link sausage and poked the whole thing into my mouth. Having eaten little the day before, I was famished.

  Moses set his fork on his cleaned plate and picked up his coffee cup. Before drinking, he said, “It’s supposed to rain like hell today.”

  “Great,” Flynn grumbled. “Another one of those days where you gotta jump in the river to dry off.”

  Moses chuckled. “And we’ll prob’ly be out there gettin’ soaked to the bone.” He sipped from his coffee cup.

  “What makes you think so?” asked Brown.

  Moses swallowed, set down his cup, and replied, “It’s called ‘gettin’ right back in the saddle after you’ve been thrown.’ The officers aren’t gonna let us sit around and stew. They’re gonna put us back out there.”

  Flynn nodded in agreement. “First Lieutenant Salisbury is gonna grill us.”

  “He’ll go easy,” I interjected softly. “It was an accident, and nobody needs a browbeating over it.”

  No one said anything for a few seconds. Flynn finally retorted. “We shall see.”

  Two hours later I found myself in the briefing room with Flynn, Moses, Brown, McCollum, Markel, and Dicey from second squad. Lieutenants Meston and Schrader were also present as we listened to Lieutenant Salisbury’s pep talk. His words were encouraging and inspiring, giving all of us a sense of relief.

  “However,” Mr. Salisbury said, and the tonal change in his voice alone was enough to cause instant apprehension, “there’s one more step you will all have to endure.”

  I glanced at Mr. Meston, whose face looked pale.

  “All Foxtrot, PBR, and MST personnel involved in yesterday’s exercise will speak individually with the XO at the officers’ club, beginning at 0900 hours. The XO will be handling the internal investigation.”

  Flynn looked at me and raised his eyebrows. He had been right about the grilling; he just had had the wrong guy heating up the coals. Still, I thought an investigation would only show that Kats’s death was nobody’s fault. That was the truth of the matter, and the truth is the truth. No doubt, all of our stories would correlate, and this tragedy would be put to rest.

  I was called in to the Lieutenant Commander’s office at 0950 hours, after Lieutenant Meston and the Boston Whaler crew. The XO, sitting at his desk, had me sit in a chair across from him. He said he wanted to know, in exact detail, how I had tied Kats in our rehearsal. I told him, then took a couple of minutes to write the account on a piece of paper.

  “Is tying personnel during exercises, while being transported over water, a frequent occurrence for UDT and SEAL teams?” the XO deliberately and pointedly asked me.

  I sensed this question was possibly the biggest one of all, so I ran the answer through my mind for a few seconds before engaging my tongue.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied steadily. “On the Colorado River, during the escape-and-evasion course, the UDT instructors tied me the same way I tied Katsma. This is routine, sir.”

  The XO studied my face for a moment, then said, “Add that information to your written report.”

  As I wrote, he told his yeoman via his intercom to send in five crewmen of the PBR. In less than a minute the office door opened and the five men entered. The lieutenant commander told them to stand behind my chair.

  “Are you finished, Smith?” he asked me, sounding impatient.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered as I wrote my last two words and punched a period at the end.

  “All right,” the XO said, opening his top desk drawer and lifting out a roll of electrical tape. The tape was identical to that which I had used in the mission rehearsal.

  “I want you to tie all five of these men’s hands in the precise manner you tied Katsma’s hands,” the XO instructed me as he reached the tape out to me across his desk.

  I took the tape and stood up. Turning around, I glanced at the faces of the crew of the PBR, with whom I had searched for Kats’s body. Their faces were as red and sunburned as mine.

  “I’ll be tying your hands behind your backs,” I informed them, then I walked around the first man, who happened to be the coxswain. He cooperated by moving his hands behind his back for me. Just as I had done Kats, I wrapped the tape three times around the coxswain’s wrists.

  After taking a couple of minutes to tie the other four men’s hands, I looked at the executive officer and nodded my head.

  “All right,” he said, sitting forward in his chair, “I want all of you to attempt to break loose, right now.” Simultaneously, the men strained and pulled, and in a matter of a few seconds, all five snapped the tape and displayed their freed hands. The XO stared for a moment, then sat back in his chair. I could almost see his mind going a hundred miles an hour.

  “Thank you,” he finally said. “You’re all dismissed.”

  I walked back to my barracks, glad that the quizzing was done.

  At 1400 hours, Lieutenant (jg) Schrader gave Foxtrot Platoon a warning order. The warning order was a “heads up” t
hat a mission was imminent. At 1900 hours, Mr. Schrader would brief us on a twenty-four-hour recon and river ambush.

  I gathered my gear for the op, then checked out Sweet Lips from the armory. I hadn’t cleaned and oiled her as well as usual after the mission rehearsal, so I took her to the cleaning table outside my barracks. Using diesel fuel and a couple of firm bristle brushes, I gave the shotgun a real good scrub. When I finished, Sweet Lips looked pretty enough to kiss, which I did in front of two of my teammates.

  “You must be awful horny,” McCollum said with a chuckle.

  “I just wanna keep my lady happy,” I replied, wiping the stock once more with a cloth. “After all, she never complains, does everything I want, and smells and looks better than you do.”

  “I agree!” Moses guffawed, pointing a teasing finger at McCollum. I laughed with Moses, and Muck finally broke a smile. He slowly unzipped his pants and dropped them to his knees. In true SEAL tradition, he was wearing no skivvies.

  “Smell and look at this,” he smirked as he turned around and bent over, sticking his bare rear end at us. We just laughed harder.

  I took Sweet Lips with me to my cubicle, where I intended to crash for a couple of hours before supper. As I crawled into bed beneath my mosquito net, I looked at my Rolex watch to check the time. The watch registered 1405 hours, which had passed at least an hour earlier. I tapped on the glass face with my right index finger, but the watch was dead. I shook it on my wrist to no avail.

  Looking at Funkhouser, who was still sick in bed and lying on his back, I found him staring at me.

  “What time is it, Funky?” I asked him. He raised his left arm in front of his face and gazed at his Rolex.

  “Fifteen-fifteen hours,” he reported, then dropped his arm on his chest. “What’s up?”

  “Got a briefing at nineteen hundred hours,” I told him, giving my watch another shake. The face stared back at me, showing no life. “Wake me up at seventeen hundred hours if you’re awake.”

  I closed my eyes and relaxed my body. After only a minute, I got my mind slipped into neutral. I began drifting into another world.