Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam

by Cynthia Kadohata

  They ate quietly, and then the others looked quietly at Camel, as if waiting. Camel seemed kind of pleased, but also displeased. “We did good out there today. But we’re going to have to cut the practice short. One day instead of two. We got some new intel, so we don’t have time to waste. We got a safe house we’ll take you to in the morning.” He was talking to Rick.

  “Safe house?”

  “It’s just a house in a village, but it’s guarded. We’ll be fine.”

  “So we’re starting tomorrow instead of the day after?”

  “Yeah. So I want you and Cracker to get a good night’s rest.”

  Rick’s heart sped up. A good night’s rest? When all this was going on? Later he lay on his cot, Cracker on top of his legs. “My knees, girl,” he said, but she didn’t budge. He didn’t try to push her off, let his mind wander instead. He hadn’t goofed here in Vietnam. But he hadn’t gone on a killer mission yet. And Cracker, she was the other factor.

  He didn’t know, because he hadn’t asked it of her, whether she was a generalist or a specialist. She’d done everything he’d asked. But now they were stepping up in level. Why him? He could think of two reasons: Bruno had just returned from a kick-butt mission—two weeks in the field. Couldn’t overwork the dogs, or they weren’t as effective. And Tristie had gotten orders yesterday. So now here he was—the generalist asked to step up, to specialize. But, man, he didn’t know. He just didn’t know. Did he have the hunger for this kind of stuff? It wasn’t too late. He could go to Camel, tell him no. They’d find someone else, lose just a day. But who knows what could happen to those prisoners in a day? He became aware of one of his feet going to sleep and reached down to push Cracker away.

  Sometimes Cracker liked to stay right where she was even if he didn’t want it. Now, when he reached down and tried to push her off, she stubbornly folded her paws around him. Maybe if he scolded her, she would move.

  But Rick suddenly felt too tired even for that. He crashed in mid-thought and woke with his knees aching from Cracker’s weight.

  After breakfast Camel said, “We’ll go in two separate jeeps so the locals don’t know what we’re up to. Cracker will ride with Madman.”

  “She won’t ride with anyone but me,” Rick said confidently. Then he saw Cracker seem to smile as Madman petted her.

  Cracker looked from Rick to Madman. She liked this Madman fellow, but Rick was her guy. She sat in front of Rick. Finally, he said, “Go with Madman, Cracker. He’s your friend.” Madman picked up her leash. Cracker looked up at Rick. “Good girl. Go with Madman.” He gave her the “stay” gesture and took a few steps away to stand next to Camel.

  Madman said, “Come, Cracker!” She hesitated and looked again at Rick. He didn’t know what to do, so he turned his back. When he turned back around, he saw her jumping into the jeep with Madman, Vukovich, and one of the Montagnards. He watched as the jeep drove off, Cracker gazing at him anxiously.

  He, Camel, and the second Montagnard waited about half an hour before driving off to the safe house. As described, it was just a hut in a village, with a few Montagnards and Special Forces guys around keeping watch.

  Rick was feeling pretty tired. Even his brain felt tired. Camel looked curiously at Rick. “Feel good about going on this mission?”

  Rick thought a moment. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Good. Listen to your intuition.”

  Rick blurted out, “I’m a little nervous.”

  Camel said, “I wouldn’t want to go with anyone who wasn’t. Sit down, let’s all talk.”

  And there on the floor of that hut, Camel told Rick more mission details while the other men listened and Cracker snored lightly by their side.

  Camel smoked cigarette after cigarette as he went over the plan. “We need to rescue four captured personnel before the NVA takes them up to Hanoi. If they go to Hanoi, we’ll never get to them.” Camel inhaled and seemed to be waiting for comment from Rick.

  Rick concentrated on the new information. “Right. You said ‘rescue’ earlier,” he said. “But you didn’t say where from….”

  “A jail-more of a pigpen, really. We have coordinates and a picture of the jail from our agent.”

  Rick was still back on “rescue.” He said. “Yeah. Yeah.”

  “Six of us plus the dog will perform the whole infiltration into the target area.”

  Oh, man. Rick was slowly getting the picture. And as Rick understood it, “infiltration” meant going into enemy-held territory—and with just six men. His heart raced.

  Camel asked sympathetically, “Did you get enough to eat this morning? Need any cigarettes or anything?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Rick’s mouth didn’t move right. “Uh. Just so I understand. We’re infiltrating enemyheld territory with just six men and a dog?”

  “Absolutely.” Camel’s face was still sympathetic. “We’ll get you and your dog out of there, don’t worry. We appreciate your help, and well take good care of you.” He lit a new cigarette from his old one. “Our guys are being held in an enemy camp with five or six guards at all times. Booby traps everywhere. Cracker’s going to have a lot to keep her busy.” He paused. “But it’s all gonna work.” Cracker had roused at the sound of her name.

  Madman said, “She can handle it. Camels famous for his intuition.” He smiled at Cracker, then slapped Camel’s back.

  Camel said, “Absolutely, she can.”

  This was all going a little fast for Rick. He thought, I ain’t famous for my intuition. It didn’t take much intuition to sell drill bits. But he took a deep breath, trying to remember how calm his father always was. Rick was a Hanski. Hanskis didn’t panic. Still, his heart pounded.

  Camel added modestly, “Everybody’s got intuition. But, you know, in our line of work, you start to develop it more.”

  Cracker waited while the men smoked silently. This Camel man was looking at her like he was studying her. She wondered if she was supposed to bite his nose off. She looked at Rick, but he seemed calm. She decided not to bite the man’s nose off. The man leaned forward. She growled.

  “Easy girl,” snapped Rick. “Easy.”

  She stopped growling.

  Rick’s mind raced right along with his heart. “But how do you know for sure that the men are there?”

  “Our agent told us,” Camel said. “Vietcong man. Credible source, though. He’s never given us bad intel.”

  Rick felt his jaw drop but he closed it immediately. He wondered how much he was showing the tumult inside himself. He just didn’t see how they could base an entire mission on something Charlie said. He tried to calm down. It was just that he’d heard a thousand times that you can’t trust anything the Vietcong said. He couldn’t help speaking but tried to make it sound casual. “What if he’s a double agent and it’s an ambush?”

  Cracker was getting agitated. Rick knew that she knew what he was feeling.

  Camel laughed wryly. “Oh, yes, we’ve been ambushed. Oh, yes, that has happened.” He chuckled. “But I survived to tell you about it.” He pulled something out of his pocket and threw it to Cracker.

  Cracker sniffed at the item as it flew through the air. Food! She snatched it into her mouth. She decided she liked this new man. But there was something about him. He seemed almost like her. On the other hand, all Rick had to do was tell her to, and she would bite anybody’s neck.

  Camel silently took a few deep drags, giving Rick a moment to settle down. After a few moments, optimism started to fill Rick. He offered, “Well, practice did go smooth. The plan seems solid.”

  “It’s a good plan,” Camel said.

  “Do things usually go as planned?” Rick asked. His optimism drained as the other men all laughed.

  Madman said, “Remember that time we were surrounded by about two hundred enemy troops and you got pinned down?”

  The others laughed more. “That’ll be a great story to tell the grandkids!” Camel said.

  Rick wanted to say that being surrounded by two hundr
ed enemy troops wasn’t a story he’d want to be telling anyone, ever. But he remembered his sister’s and his rapt attention as they listened to their grandfather tell about World War II and the Nazis. Hanskis stayed calm. He didn’t say more.

  There was another brief silence. Then Camel said, “It’s a real good plan.” More silence. Madman petted Cracker as Camel continued: “The thing about plans is that you can’t predict what the enemy is going to do. You can only plan for what you think is going to happen. So when we get out there, you have to try not to ask yourself whether you can do something. Instead, you have to tell yourself, ‘I will do this.’ Not can, but will.” He paused, looked up at Rick. “I hear you’re a good shot.”

  “Yeah, I did pretty good in AIT.” Shooting well had come pretty easy for Rick. A gun was like some kind of ultimate tool.

  Madman nodded approval, but at Cracker. He murmured to her, “Six people and a dog. One creature.”

  Cracker had no idea what he was saying. But he sure did know how to pet a dog.

  They’d planned to spend a short time practicing today just like yesterday, but then as Rick was finishing off a mid-morning snack, Camel rushed in and said, “New intel. Gotta move.”

  Rick didn’t move, and for the first time Camel looked annoyed with him. “Let’s move!”

  Dammit. Rick had taken some things out of his sack and had to repack them. He was the last one out of the safe house.

  Like the other men, Rick was supposed to go on the mission “sterile.” That meant no uniform, just plain fatigues. He taped his dog tags together and put them in his pocket. He took off Cracker’s metal choke chain so it wouldn’t rattle. He pulled Cracker’s STABO harness out of his rucksack and found it all stuck together. He tried to figure that one out. Maybe it had gotten wet somehow and some of the adhesive from the tape had stuck on it? Nah. Maybe … He was concentrating so hard, he didn’t even notice Vukovich laughing. The other guys started laughing too.

  Camel laughed hardest. “Don’t worry, that’s not her real harness. Vukovich is our glue expert.”

  Rick wasn’t even sure if this was a joke. Maybe Special Forces had some kind of special super-glue? Everyone looked seriously at Rick for a second.

  “We’re kidding,” said Camel.

  “Oh!” Rick said. Then he finally got it. Just like every unit had a procurement specialist, it seemed like every one had a practical-joke specialist, too. In this group that would be Vukovich. Rick finally laughed, but by then nobody else was.

  They all walked toward a Huey in a nearby field. Rick noticed some of the locals watching them closely. Camel pointed at Vukovich and said, “Hey, when you get off the chopper, don’t forget your sack like you did last time!” They both laughed. Rick was shocked at how casual the team seemed.

  Cracker had come to accept the others, because now she could feel that Rick felt comfortable with them. When they reached the chopper, Cracker jumped aboard eagerly. They lifted into the sky. Cracker smelled smoke in the air.

  “Busy day in Vietnam,” shouted Camel.

  Rick’s feet hung out the doorway. They seemed to be going west, and for a long while. He turned to Camel.

  “If we keep going west, we’re going to cross the border into Cambodia.”

  “That’s right.”

  It was illegal under the rules of engagement for the United States to cross the border. Of course, Camel would know that. He would also know that if they got taken prisoner across the border, there was nobody to save them except other Special Forces.

  He leaned into Camel’s ear and shouted, “The rules of engagement! Won’t we get in trouble?”

  Camel shouted back, “The president knows about all activity over the border!”

  Rick was stunned. The president? Like the president of the United States? Would the president know that he, Rick Hanski, was going over the border?

  Sixteen

  RICK STARED AT THE JUNGLE BENEATH HIM AND wondered whether they had already crossed into Cambodia. Camel’s face was impassive. It was an honor to be chosen to accompany Camel—at least, that’s what U-Haul had told him. Rick had mentioned to the sarge that rumor he’d heard about how Special Forces soldiers ate their own soles when they ran out of food. In response U-Haul had basically told him he was so stupid, it was unimaginable that he’d graduated kindergarten. And yet Sarge had recommended him for this gig.

  Rick hoped this rescue plan wasn’t dinky dau. That was supposedly Vietnamese for “nuts.” Sometimes a commanding officer came up with a plan that was dinky dau. There had been cases Rick had heard of where a unit refused to follow their C.O. if the plan was bad. But these guys seemed to know what they were doing.

  They kept going west. Camel hadn’t told Rick precisely where they were going, but Rick didn’t know much about Cambodia anyway. In fact, he realized he didn’t know much about anything. But he finally had to ask. “Where we going?” he shouted out.

  “A hamlet called Phumi Krasang in Kampong Province,” Camel shouted back.

  Rick had never heard of it. The jungle thinned out as the helicopter began to drop down, and Rick’s mouth went dry. It was still daylight so the plan, which called for insertion at dusk, was out the window. He tried to lick his mouth moist, but he didn’t seem to have any saliva. His heart was pounding so hard that he could literally hear it over the noise of the chopper. He glanced casually at the other guys. They seemed perfectly calm, like they were just flying to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk.

  The chopper didn’t touch down, just hovered for a moment. Rick did exactly what they’d done in practice: jump down and rush out with Cracker and take cover behind some bushes. There was jungle but nothing too heavy. More like the woods outside of his town back home. Rick had put on his own and Cracker’s STABO harnesses before they got on the helicopter, because everyone had to be ready to extract immediately, just in case something went wrong. In fact, they had to be ready to extract immediately even if everything went right. Rick would be working Cracker off leash for this mission. Rick turned to Camel, who nodded at him. Rick said with quiet urgency, “Search, Cracker.”

  Cracker padded forward just a few feet before she sat down. It turned out to be some kind of booby trap hung from a tree. They all walked around it in the same order as in practice. First Cracker. Then Rick, one of the Montagnards, Camel, Vukovich, Madman, and the other Yard. At one point Rick waited for Camel and whispered, “Aren’t we coming back in this direction? Shouldn’t we flag the booby traps somehow? What if a friendly blows them?”

  Camel said softly, “We’ll remember where they are. Besides, there aren’t gonna be any friendlies around here.”

  Rick wanted to ask, But how will you remember? It all looks so much the same. But Camel spoke so confidently that he knew he shouldn’t say more.

  Cracker alerted to several booby traps within the first twenty yards. Man, this place was loaded. And they were moving fast. Rick studied her so hard that they became a smaller version of six men, one creature. They became dog and man, one creature. She barely had to begin to alert when he knew she had one.

  Once when Rick accidentally broke off a twig, he wet a piece of dirt with his saliva and wiped dirt on the broken twig to disguise the fresh break, just like he’d been taught during training. Madman was sanitizing the trail in case any of them missed anything, and the last Yard sometimes walked backward, watching the rear. When night fell, they lay in the bush hardly moving except for when Rick fed Cracker a can of horse meat and the guys ate some dehydrated food mixed with cold water. They’d done all this in practice. Then Rick figured he lay awake for at least three or four hours.

  He frowned. Camel, Vukovich, and Madman seemed like three pretty normal guys-stronger and smarter, sure, but were they the supermen who would be needed to pull this thing off?

  Rick almost called out in surprise as he heard a leaf fall. But he forced himself to remain silent. He tried to concentrate on the plan:

  Practice for two days. Instea
d they’d practiced for one.

  Take a Huey helicopter to two klicks from the imprisoned men at last light. They hadn’t done that. They’d taken the chopper three clicks away not long after first light.

  Rest for the night.

  Creep through the woods to the prison at first light.

  Shoot the guards.

  Rescue the men.

  Meet the helicopters that were standing by to pick them all up.

  Come home as heroes!

  Everyone else, even Cracker, seemed to be asleep. But Rick felt like he was sleeping on rocks—he was sleeping on a few rocks, as a matter of fact. And he wasn’t allowed to take his rucksack off. He needed one arm through it at all times and had to use it like a pillow. Not exactly like his down pillow at home. Not even like the so-called pillow at base. But they had to be ready to move at any time. So he just lay staring at the sky. Clouds hid the stars. Rick tapped a foot before suddenly realizing that the tapping made a soft noise. He tried to stay as still as possible. He was so sleepy, it was almost like he was asleep. Only he wasn’t. He turned on his side, but then the sack dug into his ear. Cracker pressed against him, fast asleep.

  Rick looked over to where Camel, Vukovich, Madman, and the Yards were lying quietly and wondered if they, too, were awake. Then he wondered what made a man pursue a profession like this. He himself had thought about going to tech college and learning some kind of thing. He just wasn’t sure what.

  Every man lay within arm’s reach of the other. It was so peaceful, Rick could hardly believe what was going down tomorrow. But the team had covered more than half the distance today, and that meant they’d reach their objective early the next morning.

  Cracker twitched, and Rick pulled his dog to him and whispered in her ear, “I’ll get you out of here, I promise.” Then he said forcefully, “I will get you out.”