Death in the Jungle Page 22

  I dreamed about hunting. The woods were alive with chirping birds, and chattering squirrels. The fall leaves were rattling their loosening chains. I was stalking a big buck, which looked nervously aware. He stepped into an opening in the post oaks and briars, then froze. I slowly raised my rifle to shoot. Then I woke up and the deer got away.

  I lifted my head and felt Bad Girl with my fingers. She reminded me that I had become a manhunter. I’d hunted man with the M-16/XM-148 three times since Sweet Lips’s demise, but I’d yet to kill with the weapon. It would have been nice if the North Vietnamese Communists would have given it up and gotten out of South Vietnam; the warring would have ceased and the dying would have ended. I would have retired Bad Girl without ever having shot a human being with her. Yes, that would have been nice. Right then, however, I realized I was thinking wishfully. In actuality, I was riding a boat so deep into enemy territory that there was a fair chance I’d have to cook some gooks, which is the way I had to think about it, so I wouldn’t think about it when the time came. If I were to dwell on the thought of an enemy having a wife and children waiting for him at home, I might hesitate in squeezing the trigger and give him an opportunity to kill me or a teammate.

  The coxswain cut the throttle back on the engine to slow us down a bit. We were on the Dong Tranh and getting close to our insertion point. The coxswain employed the boat’s radar while Mr. Meston used his Starlight Scope to find our way and check the shoreline. Both men were looking for the small stream we were to bypass by five hundred meters, then we’d insert and work back to the stream at a point deeper in the jungle.

  Mr. Meston suddenly gave the signal to lock and load. The sounds of cocking weapons filled the air as the LCPL continued moving alongside the dark shore. When the boat slowed to just above idle, I moved forward to the portside bow. Four of my teammates grouped behind me while four others crouched down at the starboard bow.

  As the coxswain turned the bow of the LCPL toward the shore, I prepared myself for the jolt of boat striking land. When it came, I jumped off the port bow and onto the shore. To my delight, the ground beneath my feet was soft but not wet and muddy.

  The nine of us ended up a few meters inland, waiting and listening in the brush. The LCPL backed away from the riverbank, then moved farther down the river where the coxswain would perform a couple of fake insertions.

  With my ears peeled, I observed the silhouettes of my teammates in the dark. The outlines of the weapons projecting out of each body were a sight to behold—the M-16s, the M-79 grenade launchers, the M-60, and the Stoner machine guns. My courage cranked up a couple notches as I was reminded of our firepower.

  After fifteen minutes, the dark sky showed the first traces of the coming of dawn. Meston had us hold for another few minutes, then he signaled Pearson to take the point position and start through the thick brush. The rest of us strung out behind Pearson and began moving east, back toward the stream we had passed in the LCPL. I fell into the fifth slot behind Pearson, Meston, Markel, and Schrader. Behind me walked Flynn, Moses, Dicey, and McCollum.

  The going was slow for several reasons. The nipa palm and undergrowth was heavy. Prickly stems and branches grasped at our legs like octopus arms. The brush was noisy, and noise was a major no-no for U.S. Navy SEALs in the T-10 area. Also, the possibility of booby traps was great, as we were assuming the VC and NVA had taken appropriate measures to protect themselves and their base camps and hospital.

  We covered the first two hundred meters of our 750-meter patrol in an hour. The mosquitos had acted as a sour uninvited escort since just after daybreak, oblivious as always to the killing power of our weaponry.

  Mr. Meston had us halt when Pearson signaled that he had found a well-worn trail. Several sets of VC tracks, no older than forty-eight hours, were imprinted in the ground. Pearson was sent to recon a portion of the trail alone, checking for more sign. After going about forty meters, Pearson returned and informed the lieutenant that there were several diverging trails ahead. To give Pearson a break from the stress, Meston motioned for me to assume the point position. Pearson and I exchanged places, then I started down the trail with the others strung out behind me.

  Walking on dry ground along a cleared pathway was a pleasant change from the normal watery muck and dense vegetation. I had to focus on my job, though, and not allow my concentration to lapse because of the luxury. After all, I couldn’t afford one careless step. I, for one, intended to meet death on a golf course at an old age, not death in the jungle at twenty-six.

  After we traveled about two hundred meters, the human footprints became intermingled with lots of deer tracks. Having seen thousands of deer tracks in my life, I estimated that the biggest tracks on the trail had been made by a deer weighing around two hundred and fifty pounds. My heart hammered a little faster as I anticipated the sighting of a monster buck, and once again I had to apply myself to the task at hand, which was guiding the squad carefully to our ambush site.

  My attention was undivided over the next three-quarters of an hour as my teammates and I covered another two hundred meters. The numerous human and deer tracks continued underfoot, and I avoided stepping in some scattered deer droppings, but no other signs of humans or deer were manifested. I was somewhat surprised by this, as we’d moved to within seven hundred meters of the enemy base camps.

  When I finally came to the designated stream, I knew our position was 250 meters inland from the mouth of the stream where it intersected the Dong Tranh. I signaled Mr. Meston, who signaled back that I should recon the bank while the others waited.

  I slunk up and down the riverbank for several minutes, discovering the same old thing: voluminous tracks. I reported my findings to Mr. Meston, who decided to proceed with our game plan, which was to patrol 150 meters alongside the stream to our preplanned ambush site. That location would put us less than five hundred meters from scores of enemy troops.

  It took thirty minutes to reach the ambush site, which I identified when I noted a second stream that branched off to the southwest from the main stream. At that fork we would lie in wait to capture or kill soldiers who would attempt to do the same to us. But this I knew: capturing a SEAL was out of the question; as long as breath remained, a knocked-down, wounded, and dying SEAL would continue shooting holes in enemy hides. And the rest of the team wouldn’t leave until he was carried away or dead. Such was the confidence we placed in each other.

  Mr. Meston signaled for half the squad—consisting of Schrader, Pearson, Moses, Markel, and Dicey—to position themselves overlooking the stream. Meston, McCollum, Flynn, and I set up as rear security several meters back in the bushes. While the other three men catnapped, I took the first two-hour watch for rear security.

  As the time went by, I heard nothing except the mosquitos. I observed the still jungle and enjoyed the peaceful morning. The skies were overcast, but it didn’t rain. It was a nice feeling to be high and dry on an ambush site, which was a rare experience. Even my rump was comfortable, settled down in a soft, dry pad of moss.

  At 1130 hours, McCollum relieved me on watch. I stood my M-16/XM-148 against a sturdy branch of a bush, then lay my head against the trunk of the nipa palm behind me and closed my eyes. A light breeze licked at my face for half a minute, refreshing me, then it was gone to wherever it was that breezes went.

  I left the war to the others for a while as my mind ran through many thoughts of a different place and time. I dreamed about the field-rat plague in the summer of 1959, when North Central Texas had been infested with millions of rats at the end of a seven-year drought. The rats had been eating up all the grasses and even the bark off mesquite trees. Day after day, Chuck Toliver, Jimmy Harbis, and I had traveled a couple of miles out of Wichita Falls on the Archer City road with our .22 rifles to shoot at the rats. We’d killed them on the ground and knocked them off mesquite branches where the rats had perched like vultures. When our ammunition had run dry, we’d picked up sticks and clubbed or stabbed the varmints to death, how
ling and laughing all the while.

  I remembered my 1960 Harley Sportster, a souped-up motorcycle that could do 110 miles per hour in third gear. When I had wanted to show off, I would lift the front wheel off the ground when I shifted to fourth. The speedometer had stopped at 120, but I often had taken the bike to 150 in fourth gear. At top speed, the wind blast had been so strong I could barely hang onto the grips. I had even felt my fingers slipping on many occasions. As a twenty-year-old, I’d drag race at night on the boulevard in town, beating the hottest Corvettes and everybody else, then I’d escape from the converging cops in the nick of time.

  In the same time period, I had owned a red convertible MG-A which could hit 120. I’d cruise town with a black-cloth top or a fiberglass red top or no top at all. The Pioneer 3 drive-through restaurant had been a primary hangout for college kids, and it was there I’d hustle the girls in my flashy sports car. One night in 1962, I had floorboarded the MG all the way between Jacksboro and Mineral Wells on Highway 281, a trip of approximately thirty-five miles.

  Suddenly my mental drifting was ended by a sound similar to the uncorking of a wine bottle. I opened my eyes and sat up, reaching for Bad Girl in the same motion. Mr. Meston, sitting on the ground a few meters to my left, slipped the safety off on his M-16. McCollum, sitting off to my right, raised the M-79 grenade launcher from his lap. Flynn, propped against a tree trunk next to McCollum, was asleep. We left him be while we listened for another clue.

  A minute went by. Then two, and three. Nothing happened. I looked to the front line on the stream, but no signal was given.

  A rustling of brush occurred behind Mr. Meston and my heart bolted inside my chest. I turned my head to look as the noise came again, only to spot a squirrel dart through the ground vegetation and climb into a nipa palm. I watched it for a few seconds, noting that it looked like our gray squirrels back home, then I looked at Mr. Meston. He rolled his eyes, letting me know that he, too, had been freaked by the squirrel’s racket.

  After another few minutes, Dicey slipped off the front line and quietly approached us. I could see by the look on his camouflaged face that something had happened.

  As Dicey reached Mr. Meston, the lieutenant motioned me over. I half walked and half crawled a few yards to the two men. Dicey whispered to us that he had seen a gook come to the edge of the trees on the opposite side of the stream, carrying two water jugs. The man had peered up and down and across the stream while motioning and whispering to a comrade or comrades hidden behind him in the bushes. I asked Dicey why he hadn’t shot the man, and Dicey said that if he had reached for his Stoner machine gun the VC certainly would have seen him, that’s how close he had been. The stream was only twenty-five meters wide and the VC had been directly across from Dicey and had been all eyes.

  I told Mr. Meston that the VC could have faked not seeing us and that he and his comrades might counter ambush us.

  “Dammit,” the lieutenant whispered, then he told Dicey to be extremely alert and motioned him back to the stream. I moved back to my mossy seat, knowing in my guts that some people were going to die before we got out of there. I just hoped that all of the dead had slanted eyes.

  Luckily, there was no attack from the VC and no one died during the next five hours. Instead, things got real pleasant as the clouds broke up, the sky became blue, and a waft of a breeze meandered through the leaves. Most of the mosquitos took a siesta, and I, too, drifted in and out of sleep throughout the afternoon. Occasionally, I awoke and drank some water from one of my two canteens, or I dipped a little Skoal tobacco. At 1600 hours, I ate a can of C rations, more out of a need for something to do than to satisfy my appetite.

  At dusk, Mr. Meston, Flynn, McCollum, and I moved to the riverbank, relieving the others, who shifted to rear security for the night. I took the left flank while McCollum assumed the right. Flynn was next to me, with Meston positioned between him and McCollum. I sat on a dry pile of sticks that Dicey had stacked and sat upon just off the riverbank between two cycads, palmlike trees with short, thick stems. Just in front of me, growing at the edge of the stream, were several water chestnut plants, tufted and grasslike plants standing a foot and a half high. As I settled down for the night watch, I liked Dicey’s spot selection, which was high and dry, fairly comfortable, with a good view of the water. The only negative was a slight lack of cover, which was why Dicey couldn’t reach for his machine gun when the enemy had appeared straight ahead of him. For me, that would not be a problem, as I was already being blanketed by darkness.

  When the night fully descended, I could still see the outline of the opposite bank, thanks to a clear sky and a three-quarter moon. A crocodile blowed downstream to my left, then made a whistling sound, drawing air. A nearby frog answered the croc with a couple of ribbits. A fish splashed in front of me in the stream, and the ripples glittered in the moonlight. The jungle was coming alive with creatures, and it was possible that humans would soon join the party of noisemakers.

  Sure enough, an hour after dark I heard faint talking downstream, but only for a few seconds. I listened intently for another hour; nothing made a peep except a shrew in the brush behind me. And so went the rest of the night: quiet and uneventful.

  At first light, we got our gear ready to travel and we moved upstream as soon as we could see well enough. We crossed one large stream on the way, which ticked me off because I was so enjoying being dry for a change.

  After crossing the stream, we found fresh VC tracks all over the place. I had never seen so many before. With me at point, we patrolled at a snail’s pace, knowing the enemy was close. Soon I smelled the faint odor of nuoc mam, a strong-smelling fish sauce, on the breeze. A few steps later, I smelled smoke.

  I motioned my discoveries to Mr. Meston by pointing at my nose. He sniffed a moment, then shook his head and shrugged. That was discouraging because he seemed not to believe me. To me, this episode confirmed once again that my senses of hearing and smell were extraordinary, as others couldn’t hear or smell the inconspicuous things I could. I attributed my superior, attuned senses to my having been a country boy and a hunter. In comparison with the boys from the city, I was the one who was “practiced up.”

  We ended up sneaking 250 meters closer to the enemy base camps where two more streams forked from ours. The vantage point was better, but the terrain was lower and wetter, both on the riverbank and in the bush at rear security. That promised us a watery day and night.

  While Schrader, Pearson, Moses, Markel, and Dicey set up overlooking the streams, I took the first watch at the rear, positioning myself to keep my eyes on a well-worn trail behind us. I sat in mud and a few inches of water, hidden between two wild fig trees and a small bush.

  The long night on the first ambush site had taken its toll on Mr. Meston, Flynn, and McCollum, who fell fast asleep a few meters from me. Their having taken Dexamil pills during the early morning hours hadn’t helped them because the short-term “high” had left behind an abnormal drowsiness. I was happy that I’d avoided the use of the drug, as I had to remain extremely alert, especially since we were camped less than three hundred yards from men who would have loved to have slit us from neck to nuts.

  I kept watch until 1115 hours, drowning a half dozen more ants to pass the time, when McCollum woke up and took over. That was when I could finally let go and relax. The stress of playing hide-and-seek in the VC’s backyard had worn me out. I propped the M-16/ XM-148 against a fig tree, hung my head, and took a few long, slow breaths. Before I knew it, I was asleep.

  When I awoke three hours later, I discovered a dozen red ants crawling on me. Three of them were on my face. Quickly, I started brushing the little monsters off. Before I got them all, one of them bit my neck. That pissed me off, and I took revenge by catching the culprit and tearing him in two. I discarded the pieces and immediately felt much better.

  For the next three hours, I daydreamed and catnapped while Flynn had watch. At dusk, Mr. Meston signaled for us to relieve the front line. The four
of us at the rear moved to the stream. As we approached our teammates, only Mr. Schrader and Moses desired replacement. Pearson, Dicey, and Markel asked permission from Mr. Meston to stay on during the night. Meston granted their request. This gave us seven men on ambush and two at rear security.

  I sat down in the mud and water on left flank, to Dicey’s left. Darkness dropped, but the moon was unobstructed and bright. I was easily able to see across the thirty-five-meter-wide stream. No way could a sampan slip by unseen.

  At 2100 hours, the tide came in. I was forced to stand up as the water rose to chest level. A few minutes later, I heard an airplane coming. As it drew closer, a voice resounded over a loudspeaker from the sky, telling the VC in the Vietnamese language that they were losing the war and should give themselves up. The voice spoke of the humanitarian things the South Vietnamese forces were doing to help the people. Then it said, “Number one, number one.” This went on for two hours as the plane flew back and forth over the T-10 area.

  I was glad when the plane finally left, as I had been unable to concentrate on listening for faint noises while the recordings had blared. Now that all was quiet again, I felt like I was back in control of the night. Mamma-san Nature, however, had her input on the situation, and she raised the water up to my neck. Then she lowered the temperature to the sixties, which was awful cold for one who was acclimated to eighties, nineties, and above.

  I remained in water until the tide began to recede at 0330 hours. Even though the water level dropped, my clothes were soaked and I was freezing. My teeth were chattering; my face was numb. I thought of Funkhouser, back at the base in bed, and I suddenly wished I could trade places with him, even if only for ten minutes.

  About 0400 hours, Mr. Meston used the radio to let the boat support personnel know we wanted to extract at 0600. Only two more hours of shaking like a leaf, I told myself as a pep talk. Two more hours. At the same time, I couldn’t quite believe we’d spent the past twenty hours just one long golf shot from Victor Charlie, and he hadn’t poked his nose out of the clubhouse. What the hell was he doing? Where was he? I cursed through tap-dancing teeth. Hell, he was staying warm next to his brown-eyed lady while I was clutching the most frigid Bad Girl the jungle had ever known. Dammit, anyway!