Death in the Jungle Read online

  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, I sensed a presence on the water to my right. Trusting my instincts, I quickly turned my head in that direction. Through the driving rain I made out an oncoming sampan.

  Shit! my brain screamed. I wheeled Sweet Lips toward the sampan in a manner that Lieutenant Meston couldn’t mistake. I knew he was reacting to my move and was reflexively raising his M-16 to his shoulder.

  “Lai dai!” pounded my ears as Meston hollered for the two occupants of the sampan to come to us. At that point, they were but twenty meters away. I saw two young boys, drenched like we were, looking my way with mouths wide open in astonishment.

  “Lai dai!” Mr. Meston yelled again. The boys obeyed and paddled the sampan right at us.

  “Get ’em, Smitty,” directed the lieutenant. “Brown, keep your eyes on the prisoner.”

  As the sampan drew close, I couldn’t help but notice the extreme filth of the two boys. Their wet clothes looked as if they were about to rot off their bodies. Their faces were caked with dirt. But I forgot about their poverty and stared at their eyes—the almond-shaped eyes that were focused on the barrel of my shotgun, which was pointed right at them.

  “Gio tay len!” I shouted as I grabbed the bow of their sampan. Instantly, they raised their hands high above their heads.

  The sampan hit the bank and I grounded it onto the beach. Ty helped me give the sampan one hard pull.

  “Dung len!” barked Ty, and the two boys stood up. “Di di!” Ty spit. The boys stepped out of the boat, and Ty ushered them to the older prisoner. Mr. Meston wanted their identification cards, and Ty asked for them. Like the woodcutter, they had none.

  Suddenly I saw another sampan drifting toward us. Again, I aimed Sweet Lips at the boat. I glanced back at my teammates, who were concentrating on our three Vietnamese captives.

  I knew there was one way to draw their attention.

  “Lai dai! Lai dai!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. This time there were three people in the sampan, and one of them jumped to his feet. I could see that he was a small boy, and I refrained from shooting him, even though his quick action brought me close. The other two occupants were females, one old and one young.

  Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw the barrel of a weapon on each side of me. I looked right, and there was Mr. Meston. I glanced left. Flynn was aiming his rifle at the sampan.

  “Mau len!” I shouted, telling the Vietnamese people to hurry up.

  “There’s another boat coming behind them!” Flynn informed us.

  Raindrops were running off my hat in front of my eyes. I gave my head a quick, hard shake, then I stared upstream. Sure enough, there was a third sampan with three more occupants.

  The lead boat was a few meters from shore when Lieutenant Meston hollered at the other, “Dung Lai!” I made out an older boy with two old women in the sampan. They, like the others, showed surprise and fear. What else would you show? I thought. When you were a flick of a finger away from termination, a little fear may just reach up and grab you by the throat. And believe me, fear was working overtime that day on the Cu Lao Ca Xuc.

  Both sampans hit the bank before Lieutenant Meston ordered the six people to step ashore. As they stood and followed directions, I saw that their clothing was as rotten as the boys’. They moved quickly to demonstrate compliance, gathering into a tight group beside Lieutenant Meston.

  Mr. Meston had Ty ask them for identification, but none of them could produce anything at all. I checked their sampans for papers and found nothing.

  “Take ’em to the other three while I find out what TOC wants me to do with ’em,” Lieutenant Meston said, looking at Ty and then me.

  “Re tay Phai. Di truoc,” commanded Ty, pointing his rifle where he wanted the women and children to go. The group moved toward the other prisoners, who watched us approach. The woodchopper’s face lit up at the sight of the others, but he refrained from speaking.

  When the nine detainees were gathered together, Ty told them to sit down. “Noi!” he barked. All obeyed immediately.

  “Ong co thay Viet-Cong khong?” Blank faces stared at Ty. Again Ty asked if they’d seen any Viet Cong.

  “Da khong,” the woodcutter answered negatively.

  “Da khong,” echoed one of the old women.

  Ty looked at me. “Bullshit,” he muttered.

  As we waited for the LCPLs to arrive, I noticed the small boy who had hopped to his feet in the sampan watching me. He appeared to be about eight or nine years old, and when I looked away, he scooped up a handful of mud and started painting his face like mine. Of course, the hard rain quickly washed his cammo-job away since he had no hat.

  “TOC wants the woodcutter for interrogation,” Lieutenant Meston informed me when he got off the radio. “The others we’ll let go.”

  The LCPLs were almost upon us before I heard them over the beating rain. Mr. Meston told Funkhouser to hold the woodcutter while Ty and I directed the other Vietnamese people back to their sampans.

  As the eight walked ahead to their sampans, the small boy glanced at me several times. When he reached his boat, he gave me a quick smile before climbing aboard.

  “Em!” I called to him from the bow of the sampan. He turned and stared at me. I dug into my pants pocket and pulled out a round tin of Skoal chewing tobacco. I dug deeper and found a pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint chewing gum, which I held out toward the boy. He grinned and took the gum from my hand.

  “Chuc may man,” I wished him good luck. He turned to the old woman who had joined him in the sampan and displayed his prize. She looked at the gum, then at me, showing no emotion. I gave her a slight bow, then hurried away to my teamm
ates.

  Funkhouser and Ty escorted the woodcutter onto one of the two LCPLs. Lieutenant Meston and Brown followed. McCollum, Flynn, and I stepped onto the other steel-hulled landing craft. The two boats backed away from the shore, the bows swung downstream, then the engines kicked into forward gear.

  I took a final look at the small boy. He was still standing in his sampan, peering my way, and I saw him stick a piece of gum in his mouth. He flashed another smile as the rain tore at his tattered clothing.

  We pulled away, and I threw a sharp salute at the boy. I froze his image in my mind, then closed my eyes and turned around.

  “Chao, little fella,” I whispered into the wind.

  At the Nha Be base, I escorted the woodcutter to Marine First Lieutenant Winsenson, an old mustang (an officer who came up through the ranks), who was to handle the interrogation. After telling Mr. Winsenson the details of the man’s capture, I ate at the chow hall, grabbed a shower, then stretched out in my bed until 1630 hours.

  The rest felt good but it was not very long. We were to board an LCPL at 1700 hours and head for another ambush site on the Tac Ong Nghia River about eight hundred meters southwest of the previous site.

  I put on fresh long johns and camouflage clothing, fed Bolivar some insects, then grabbed my gear and walked to the dock. The rain had stopped, thank goodness. If it didn’t start up again, I’d stay dry for another hour before we inserted. Then I’d be up to my neck in water, as we were inserting at high tide. That’s when I’d wish I were a duck and not a schmuck weighted down with tons of gear.

  We boarded the LCPL with the same personnel, along with the addition of PR1 Pearson and his M-79 grenade launcher, BT2 Moses, and ADJ2 Markel, both carrying M-16s. That gave us ten men this time. I welcomed the added firepower since we were going back fairly close to a compromised area.

  The late afternoon was muggy, and I was glad when the boat got going. I took off my hat to let the air rush over my head as we sped along the Long Tau River. During the hour-and-a-half ride, I contemplated the usual preinsertion topics: life and death. The topic sentence for the first was “Gary Roger Smith is alive and well right now.” For the second, “Gary Roger Smith may be dead within the hour.”

  Since I liked the first topic sentence much better than the second, I’d prepared well to keep the truth of it perpetual. Sweet Lips was my companion, and I was loaded down with ammunition, grenades, claymore mines, flares, food, and water. I was prepared for living. Other people would have to die from time to time for me to live; so dictated a thing called war. I had a strong feeling someone would die that night. My instincts told me this. But my will to live told me it wasn’t gonna be me. And I intended to help make sure it wouldn’t be any of my teammates.

  Since a dry boat ride was a lot more enjoyable than a waterlogged recon, the scheduled hour-and-a-half trip seemed to end in half the time.

  Mr. Meston called out for us to lock and load. That meant the fun was over and the ferocity would begin. As the LCPL slowed, I moved to the starboard side of the bow. When the coxswain cut the engine to just above an idle, I got ready to insert. Lieutenant Meston, Brown, and Flynn collected behind me. The other men grouped on the port side.

  As the bow touched into the branches of a nipa palm tree, Lieutenant Meston told me to go. I tossed the cargo net over the bow and climbed down it. I let go and dropped into almost five feet of cool water, and my first thought was, “Thank God I made the riverbank!” If I had fallen short, I would be blowing bubbles where the barracuda and stinging jellyfish played.

  Without pause, I waded several paces ahead, making room for the other men to enter the deep water. I heard them splashing behind me as I moved around nipa palm branches, keeping my eyes on the swampland before me. Feeling my way with my legs and feet, every part of me was underwater except my head and neck. All of my gear, and even Sweet Lips, took the wet route. But I’d done this before: I’d gone where no ordinary soldier would go, and that was the key to our success as SEALs. No one was expecting us in the places where they ran into us, which gave us the greatest weapon of them all: the element of surprise.

  Our objective was to set up an overnight ambush just a hundred and fifty meters northwest of our point of insertion. That was where a small stream branched off the Tac Ong Nghia. Mr. Meston, using his compass, pointed the way. I looked at my wrist compass for a rough azimuth and eyed the top of a tree standing higher than the rest. With this for my landmark, I headed out. The others fell in line behind me.

  Walking in the water was tough. The palms were thick, making for slow going. I found no high spots at all, which kept the water lapping from our waists to our Adam’s apples without relief. Darkness was coming fast, bringing with it the eerie atmosphere I’d experienced in the early morning. A ghoulish, ominous ambience surrounded me, and it was beautiful in a swampy sort of way.

  Since we discovered no high ground on which to stop and rest, Mr. Meston kept us going until we reached the spot where the small stream should have been. We could see a thirty-meter-wide finger extending through the swamp where no vegetation showed above the deep water. In the trees overlooking this open space, we positioned ourselves for the night watch. I settled in on the left flank, while McCollum took the right. In between, Lieutenant Meston, Brown, Funkhouser, and Pearson set up. Flynn, Moses, Markel, and Ty dropped several meters back for the sake of rear security.

  With the water still up to my neck, I was forced to stand as the night descended. Sweet Lips, however, got a break as I lifted her over my head, dumped the water out of her barrel, and propped her up in the branches of a small tree. Then I gave Pearson one end of my parachute suspension line when he waded a few meters to get it. He waded back to his position, stretching the communication link between us. The last thing I saw before the swamp was totally black was Pearson tying the line around his left wrist.

  The area was quiet except for the droning of a couple dozen mosquitos that had discovered my head. None of them was brave enough to stake a claim, though, thanks to the working power of a large gob of repellent I had applied while back on the LCPL. The stuff was so effective that the bloodsuckers went away in ten or fifteen minutes, just before the water started receding and my back became a juicy target.

  A bit later, I felt some tiny fish biting at the hair on my wrists. It was irritating at first, and I attempted to swish the fish away. They were persistent, however, and I eventually gave up, hoping they’d tire of their game soon. About the time I started enjoying their playful antics, they departed, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  I relished the peace only for a couple of hours. At 2230, the tide was at its lowest level. I was sitting on the bank of the stream in slimy mud and a tiny puddle of water. The mosquitos were back. I believed the two dozen had spent two hours recruiting ten dozen enlistees. I couldn’t see them in the dark, but their relentless noise told me the story: parts of me were getting stuck like a pin cushion.

  After an hour of torment, rain started falling. This was good in that the mosquitos dissipated; it was bad in that I quickly felt chilled to the bone. Having trouble stifling a sudden cough, I dug the remedy out of my backpack: a small plastic bottle I’d filled with Early Times whiskey. I unscrewed the cap and took a snort. The stuff went down smoothly, and a couple seconds later I felt fire from my throat to my gut. I took another swig, and while enjoying the warmth inside my chest, I put the bottle away.

  The rain softened in a few minutes. As it became quiet again, I heard voices upstream to my left. I tugged the suspension line connected to Pearson twice as I brought Sweet Lips up off my lap. I rolled onto my knees in the mud and looked hard over the dark expanse of water in front of me.

  The sound of a paddle hitting the side of a boat reached my ears. It was close. I jerked the line three times.

  Suddenly I made out a sampan in the glimmer of moonlight. I saw the silhouettes of two people; one was seated and one was standing aft. They were right in front of me for a few seconds, then they w
ere slightly past me and sitting ducks in our kill zone.

  Before I could say, “Make your peace with Buddha, boys,” Funkhouser’s Stoner machine gun shattered the stillness. I reacted instantly by firing my shotgun at the dark figure in the rear of the sampan. In less than a second I fired again. Then I heard M-16s blasting away.

  I fired three more times before a grenade exploded in the water. As I reloaded Sweet Lips in the dark, somebody sent up a flare. The sky lit up with a brilliancy comparable to the sudden turning on of all the house lights in a dark theater at the end of a play. The only difference of significance that time was that the lights were coming on at the end of two lives.

  Now that I could see clearly, I shoved a sixth shotgun shell into Sweet Lips and looked out at the sampan. The boat had drifted to the other end of our kill zone, but I saw no people in it. Funkhouser took advantage of the light and sprayed the water on both sides of the boat with the Stoner, then Lieutenant Meston tossed a concussion grenade into the stream. It blew a few seconds later, sending an eruption of water into the air.

  “Smitty!” hollered Mr. Meston. “Go get the sampan!”

  His words were not music to my ears. The last thing I wanted to do was swim away from my teammates in the middle of the night now that we had been compromised. If an NVA detachment found our location before I got back out of the water, I’d be in a hell of a mess. But that was beside the point right then. I’d been given an order, so I quickly pulled my duck fins over my coral booties. I grabbed Sweet Lips and carried her a few meters along the riverbank to Pearson.

  “Hang onto my baby,” I told him, then I slipped down into the water. I swam for the sampan, but I went only fifteen or twenty meters when shooting spewed forth. The sudden burst of gunfire scared the you-know-what out of me.

  In the fading light of the descending flare, I treaded water for several seconds while my teammates shot toward the drifting sampan. I could see bullets tearing up the water near the boat, but I couldn’t see who was there that needed killing. One thing was certain: I hoped the guy was dead before I got there.