Death in the Jungle Read online

  My ears quit ringing in a little while, and minutes later I heard a boat coming fast downstream. Using prearranged long and short radio clicks, Mr. Meston directed the coxswain toward our location.

  As the boat drew closer, Mr. Meston signaled with his red-lens flashlight. The coxswain cut way back on the throttle and softly nudged the bow of the boat into the vegetation on the riverbank. I could see the silhouette of the coxswain and the gunner, who were the only crew aboard.

  Mr. Khan and Funkhouser climbed over the bow and into the boat, followed by myself and McCollum. Mr. Meston and Bucklew, with the radio, came last. Usually, the patrol leader and the radioman were the last to extract simply because they had the radio for communications, and the patrol leader had to set the example. The boat then backed away from the foliage while all of us trained our weapons on both banks of the river.

  Once we turned upstream, the coxswain poured it on and we sped the two hundred and fifty meters to the Song Ba Gioi. There we swung westward and went full throttle, which was thirty-five knots with a full load. I was wet all over, and the wind seemed colder on the big river. But it was no biggie. In ten minutes we’d climb aboard Mighty Moe, the big LCM-6 which would escort us back to Nha Be and a beer party I was still alive to enjoy.

  I raised Sweet Lips defiantly toward the night sky and, with all eyes on me, whispered “Hoo-yah!” which was the cry of UDT/SEALs. The others responded with quiet hoo-yahs, maintaining a semblance of noise discipline. Still, the release felt good. Our morale was high. Another mission was over, this time with two estimated KIAs. Thank God, I wasn’t one of them. It was not my epitaph being inscribed that day.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was a long boat ride back to Nha Be on Mighty Moe, and as we reached the naval base, the sun was already lifting over the horizon. I’d been awake for thirty hours but couldn’t sleep had I wanted to, and I wanted to. But the whole squad was flying high. We’d had our first action of the tour, and it was time to let everyone on the base know it.

  As we disembarked, there were many howls and hoo-yahs. One of the Seawolf pilots stood near his gunship on the helo pad and gave us a quick wave. I raised Sweet Lips high over my head in salute to that courageous man. Funkhouser sauntered beside me and wrapped an arm around my neck for a friendly squeeze. I looked right into his face and yelled, “Hoo-yah!”

  Funky slid away, saying, “Smitty, your breath smells like a three-day-old dead dink!” I puckered my lips and sent my buddy a kiss. He just grinned.

  We entered the barracks and headed immediately upstairs to the twenty-by-twenty-foot briefing/intelligence room for debriefing. Our squad entered the room with the mobile support team right behind us, followed by the Seawolf crews and Lieutenant Salisbury. Altogether there were twenty men in the room, all of whom had had a part in the mission, with the exception of Mr. Salisbury, the detachment OIC.

  The door to the room closed and Mr. Meston began the debriefing. He spent several minutes reviewing the mission, then specially thanked the mobile support and Seawolf crews for their assistance.

  Finally, Mr. Meston asked for suggestions. After a few statements of lessons learned and recommendations, I had one: “Next time out, McCollum needs to avoid beans.” With that comment, Mr. Salisbury congratulated us, then excused us to clean up.

  Cleanup started with the basics. Everything was muddy, and the mud had to go. Wearing my muddy cammies and all my gear, holding Sweet Lips in my hands, I stepped into the rough shower the Seabees had made for us. I turned on the overhead spray and salty water, pumped from the Long Tau River, washed over me. The water was unheated, but it was not very cold.

  After rinsing Sweet Lips, I set her outside the shower room. I began stripping off my gear and clothes while standing beneath the running water, cleaning things as I went. The water at my feet was brown as it swirled around the extra-large drain. Several minutes later, though, my clothes and gear were thoroughly flushed, and I was as clean and shiny as a real seal.

  Once out of the shower, I slipped into my blue-and-gold T-shirt, UDT swim trunks, and coral booties. The wet clothes and gear I hung on pegs in a dressing room adjacent to the showers, intending to take the clothes to Nga’s, a laundry in Nha Be, the next day. The cleaning of Sweet Lips, however, had barely started.

  I took the shotgun to a small wooden table with a jerry-built tin roof over it, located next to our barracks. A big metal tub filled with diesel fuel sat on the ground beside the table. There I disassembled the weapon and washed it in the diesel, using several sizes of firm-bristle brushes to scrub each part. A meticulous cleansing got off all of the salt and carbon residue.

  After the diesel bath, I wiped the parts dry with a towel, then used special lubricants on every inch of the weapon before putting it back together. When I was done, Sweet Lips looked and smelled like a new girl.

  I returned Sweet Lips to the armory, where she would be stored until I needed her again. Then I entered the ground floor of our twenty-two-by-seventy-five-foot barracks, which housed three SEAL platoons, minus the officers, totaling thirty-six men. Eighteen cots were lined up, three feet apart, on each side of the center aisle running from one end of the building to the other. My platoon had done some trading with the Seabees for several four-by-eight-foot plywood sheets and some two-by-fours with which to build partition walls between every second and third cot. This gave us some semblance of privacy with two-man cubicles to share. My cubicle was eight by eight feet, and my mate was Funkhouser. Each cot had a mosquito net draped over its four tall corner posts, the ends of which could be tucked under the cot’s mattress to keep out mosquitos. At the foot of each cot was an individual locker for storing personal items.

  I went to my cubicle, where I put on a fresh pair of camouflage pants, a cammo shirt, and dry pairs of socks and boots. I reached underneath my cot and pulled out a two-by-two-foot wooden cage that held Bolivar, my twenty-inch pet boa constrictor.

  I opened the mesh wire top of the cage and took Bolivar in my hands for a minute of petting. The snake seemed appreciative of the show of affection, after which I put him back and slid the cage under the bed. Then I went to the chow hall to eat.

  There were no C rats in the mess hall; instead, it was time for some real food, or at least as real as the cooks could get it in an out-of-the-way place like Nha Be.

  Bucklew and Khan were seated at a table and were digging into ham and eggs, toast, and coffee. I grabbed a tray at the serving counter and filled a plate with the same menu, opting also for some Tabasco sauce.

  “Mr. Meston and McCollum took a chopper to go look for the sampan we shot up,” Bucklew informed me as I sat down at his table. “It’s low tide, so they may find something in the mud.”

  “Prob’ly two dead VC,” snarled Khan, staring right through me with those penetrating eyes of his. He looked mean. I was glad he was my friend and not my enemy.

  Bucklew swallowed a bite of food and said, “Hawkeye, you sure were lucky yesterday.”

  I grinned. “You mean with that booby trap?”

  “Yeah,” replied Bucklew, nodding his head, “not to mention that croc. Volunteering for point must involve some kinda death wish.”

  I gazed hard at Bucklew. “I don’t wanna die. That’s why I’m on point. I trust myself more than anybody else.” I looked at Khan, who was looking at me. “If I ever get shot up, Khan, make sure the Communist pig who shoots me gets paid back in full.”

  Khan slowly nodded once, then went back to eating. I poured some Tabasco sauce on my eggs as Funkhouser approached with Mojica, a Mexican-American member of the Boat Support Unit.

  “That’s the way to smother those eggs!” agreed Mojica, pulling a chair away from the table and sitting down.

  “There’s plenty more where this came from,” I informed him.

  “Don’t stuff yourself,” said Funkhouser as he, too, sat down. “Save room for the beer. The party starts at 1200 hours, and we’re buyin’ for everybody on base in honor of our first successfu
l mission.”

  It was the custom, after every successful encounter with the enemy, for the returning platoon to invite everyone to the Quonset hut for free beer. At 1200 hours, I tossed a five-dollar bill on the bar counter, which paid for fifty beers at ten cents apiece. Funkhouser, Bucklew, and Khan did likewise. Within minutes, there were forty guys in the building, including SEALs, boat support people, and helo crews. They were all in a festive mood.

  Hoo-yah! was the cry of the afternoon. Backslapping and neck-hugging were a frequent exercise, which accelerated when Meston and McCollum entered with two recovered Communist weapons in their hands.

  “Look what we got!” boasted Mr. Meston as he held up an AK-47 and McCollum showed off an Enfield rifle. “We found the sampan, full of holes, along with these rifles, three rifle grenades, a paddle, and a cooking pan.”

  “What about the dinks?” Funkhouser shouted.

  “Probably washed downstream,” answered Lieutenant Meston, setting the AK-47 on a table.

  “Shark meat!” someone yelled, and all of us shouted hoo-yah! and raised our glasses high.

  McCollum wasted no time dropping a five-spot on the counter and grabbing a beer before heading for the piano. He drank half the beer in one swig, set it on top of the piano, then sat down on the piano bench. After playing a short introduction, he began to sing:

  “Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here!

  What the hell do we care? What the hell do we care?

  Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here!

  What the hell do we care now?”

  As he went through the words again, everyone joined in. Bucklew hoisted his glass over his head, splashing beer on himself and on my back, as I happened to be the fortunate one standing in front of him. But I was only momentarily irritated. Five beers and a dozen songs later, I was not worried much about anything. And five beers after that, I was the one doing the splashing.

  One of the SEALs from Echo Platoon made a big show out of downing two beers in ten seconds, then challenged Foxtrot Platoon to beat his feat.

  “No problem,” I retorted. “Just give me a minute.” I spent the next few minutes searching the dark and dusty places of the building until I found what I needed to win the bet: a cockroach.

  With all eyes upon me, I pinched the cockroach between the thumb and index finger of my right hand, while with my left I lined up two beers on the bar counter in front of me. After a final look into the fuzzy, bug-eyed face of the two-inch insect, I tossed it into my mouth and chewed it in half. Then I swallowed the two beers as fast as I could.

  “Nineteen seconds!” someone from Echo Platoon bellowed. “You lose, Smitty!”

  I coughed and said, “The cockroach is crawlin’ back up my throat.”

  One SEAL from Echo Platoon ran out of the Quonset hut, hands cupped over his mouth.

  McCollum watched the man go, then hollered, “It looks to me like Smitty won!” My platoon buddies shouted several hoo-yahs in agreement.

  The party continued nonstop for nine hours, with many of the 230 men on base making an appearance. The Seabees who worked the day shift were the last to show, but by the time they did, I was too inebriated to care.

  At 2100 hours, after countless beers and shuffleboard games, I called it quits and wended my way to the barracks and my bed. I remembered tucking in the mosquito netting and my head hitting the pillow, but that was all I remembered.

  The next morning, despite headaches and hangovers, our entire platoon of fourteen men was awake at 0600 hours for breakfast, and at 0730 were assembled for calisthenics. All of us were wearing UDT swim trunks and lightweight tennis shoes. A few men wore T-shirts, but the rest were bare-chested, including me.

  Lieutenant Meston told me to lead the PT, which I did. After half an hour of vigorous exercises, everyone was perspiring heavily, which was good. I’d found PT to be the best way of sweating out all the beer I’d consumed at a party.

  When I finished guiding the platoon through the numerous routines, Meston ordered a six-mile run. That put a smile on my face, as I loved to run. At six feet, two inches, and a hundred and seventy-five pounds, lean and mean, with a good pair of lungs, I was blessed with a runner’s body and the ability to fly. Bucklew, who was another running enthusiast, and I grabbed the front and led the others out the gate of the ten-acre naval base and onto a narrow, hard-packed gravel road. The road extended all the way to Saigon, which was seven miles northwest.

  Immediately upon leaving the base, we began passing by the four dozen hootches which were built on stilts on both sides of the road. I noticed Nga’s hootch and was reminded that I had to take in my dirty clothes for cleaning and pressing.

  It took less than a minute for Bucklew and me to run through the village of Nha Be, and as we left it behind, Katsma from Foxtrot 2d Squad caught up to us. He was a five-foot-nine, barrel-chested strong man, built like Atlas, and he was no slouch of a runner, either. We were running at a sub-six-minute-per-mile pace as “Kats” joined us.

  “You call this fast?” Kats taunted us.

  “Fast enough to keep you lookin’ at our cute little butts,” I said, glancing over my left shoulder at this determined runner.

  “They’re cute, all right,” Kats chuckled, then loudly sucked in some air.

  Bucklew picked up the pace a notch. “We’ll show you fast on the way back when there’s a mile to go.”

  Kats stayed right behind us. “I’ll be here waiting.”

  “Yeah,” I said between breaths, “watchin’ our lovely buns.” I smiled. Katsma intended to run directly behind me, drafting off me for five and a half miles. Then, as usual, he’d try to pass and beat us to the naval base’s front gate.

  I checked my watch after a mile. We were cruising at a 5:38 pace. Not extremely fast, but quick enough to put two hundred yards between the three of us and the next two SEALs. The pace was also fast enough to make talking tough. Still, Kats persisted.

  “Remember last year, Smitty, when you won the SEAL Team Olympic run on the Silver Strand?” he asked, grabbing air every few words.

  “I’ll never forget it,” I answered, “especially since I beat you.” I looked at Bucklew, who was alongside my right shoulder and the perfect picture of a runner. He took a brief look at me, and I winked at him.

  Kats gave a short laugh. “Ha! It was a twelve-and-a-half-mile run, and I tore my thigh muscle after eight miles.” He paused for a couple deep drags of oxygen. “You call that a victory?”

  I made him wait several seconds for an answer, then I boasted loudly, “Yeah!”

  “Bull,” he grumbled, and the conversation ended. There was to be no more talking as the pace quickened again.

  Bucklew moved half a stride ahead of me for a few seconds until I kicked it up a bit to draw even. I looked off to my left at the mud flats and rice paddies, enjoying the exhilaration and sense of freedom that running brought. It felt good to be alive and strong.

  My good feelings didn’t last long. We’d run the second mile in 5:26, and Bucklew was cranking the pace higher. Kats was running right up my back.

  Crap, I thought, these guys were crazy. Then I ran faster. My body was working hard now, and my brain told me I was in for a real workout. At that pace, I couldn’t enjoy the scenery; instead, I had to concentrate on my form, my breathing, and on relaxing my body. Sweat poured into my eyes as I focused on the road ahead. My breathing was loud, and I could hear Bucklew and Kats, as well. Suck in, blow out. Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap. Man, it was getting fast.

  I saw the old Buddhist pagoda ahead on the left, which sat at the three-mile mark and our turnaround point. As we reached it, I glanced at my watch; we’d run the third mile in 5:18.

  “Piece of cake,” I lied as I broke to my right and made a tight-circle turnabout on the road. Bucklew and Kats revolved with me until we were all running south, retracing our steps.

  The pace stayed fast. Bucklew and I kept abreast of each other, while Kats continued benefiting from my cutting a path th
rough the heavy, humid air for him. Not until we covered a quarter of a mile did we approach one of the other SEALs still running north. ADJ3 Flynn, an automatic weapons man with Foxtrot 2nd Squad, recognized the battle we were having and shouted encouragement at us.

  “What the hell are you idiots tryin’ to prove?” he yelled. None of us answered as we flew by him. “Beat ’em, Kats!” he shouted after his squad buddy.

  Bucklew raised high his right hand with the middle finger extended as we distanced ourselves from Flynn.

  We continued pushing the pace, passing the other men going the opposite direction, one by one, until we saw the last two, Funkhouser and Lieutenant (jg) Schrader, bringing up the rear. They reminded me of two sick Texas longhorns loping down the road.

  “Run, Funky!” I gasped as I blew by the two joggers.

  “Too much beer and whiskey last night!” bellowed Funkhouser. I smiled to myself, knowing that Funky would be last even if he hadn’t touched a drop of the party drinks.

  As water, booze, coffee, and every other liquid I’d drunk lately gushed out of my pores, I wiped the sweat off my watch face and noted that we’d run the fourth mile in 5:15. Only two miles to go, I encouraged myself. Then I forced a quick burst of speed and pulled away from Bucklew and Kats, just to keep them psyched out and guessing. They struggled to catch me, even as I struggled to keep the new pace. All of us seemed relieved when I slowed back down, and we resumed our earlier positions.

  With the surprise blast that I had tossed in, we ended up racing the fifth mile in a fast 5:08. My heart was busy letting me know it was there; I heard it beating against my temples. I ran my left hand over my face and wiped it off. My body fluids were definitely at high tide.