Probably.
I started to ask Than about that, and then thought better of it. No, there were no leeches here. None.
After four hours of hiking, pushing my runner's legs past their normal endurance point with the steep terrain, the crawling sensation of sweat trickling off my body fed into the obsession with leeches. Each small movement of sweat across my body made me suspect that it was not just my own perspiration, but one of those horrendous leeches burrowing in. Then the itching started in my groin. It almost panicked me, the thought of a flaccid worm crawling across my crotch, looking for just the right point at which to feed. I'd heard that leeches first injected their victims with a small amount of numbing agent so as not to alert them when the leech finally selected its spot. Was that what I was feeling now? Was there a patch of numbness spreading across my thigh, stretching out tentacles toward my left nut?
It couldn't be. My rational mind was firm about that. Still, to appease the demons lurking in my mind, I bent over to check that my boot-pant barrier was still impenetrable. In the process, I brushed lightly at my groin, and was relieved to feel nothing out of the ordinary there.
I had just started to straighten up when the first light chatter sounded through the jungle. I glanced around, looking for the source of the noise. A hand clamped down on the back of my collar, the fingers hard against my neck, and jerked backward. I stumbled backward, lost my balance, and fell to the ground next to Than.
"Guerrillas." He mouthed the word. He pointed in the direction of the slope.
I squinted, and could make out nothing besides the same dense green foliage. I eased my rifle off my shoulder sling and settled it into my hands. It was bulky, uncomfortable, but the stock was worn in several places where other hands must have held it.
Than lay a quieting hand over mine to still the action of chambering a round.
From up ahead somewhere a thin, bloodcurdling cry started low and quickly crescendoed past any octave I'd ever heard a human utter before. It was a wild, keening sound, something inhuman and unholy. It lasted for about five seconds, then cut off abruptly.
Than nodded. "Now we wait."
"For what?" I asked, barely breathing the words.
Than gave me a look of slight disgust. "To see if that was them ― or us."
The minutes stretched into hours, the jungle silent except for the noise of the wind through the trees. The animals had taken cover, and not even a bird disturbed the silence.
Finally, one of our point men emerged from the foliage. A severed head, eyes still moist but glazed with the unmistakable look of death, hung from his hand. The point man was grinning. He motioned to his fellows with his rifle with all the braggadocio of a fighter pilot, as if to say, "It's safe ahead, I've taken care of business."
The men climbed back to their feet, slowly now, casting looks around at the jungle around them. It wouldn't do any good ― we'd not heard them before, and I doubted we would hear them next time.
We'd just started to reassemble into a column when the next shots were fired. This time I needed no prompting ― I dove to the ground and rolled under some brush.
The shots were concentrated on an area about ten feet ahead of me, slightly above waist-high. I could hear no sounds save my own harsh breathing.
Beside me, someone moaned. I looked over and saw Than pale and grimacing in the next clump of brush. Could I risk it? Than was holding up one hand, motioning to me to stay where I was. He clamped his hand around his upper arm, then held utterly still.
I moved slowly, trying not to rustle the brush around me, moving at a pace measured in inches rather than knots. It took me five minutes to traverse those ten feet, but finally I was at his side.
I unpeeled his fingers from around his shoulder and inspected the wound. Blood soaked camouflaged uniform, running in trickles over the fabric until absorbed by a dry portion. I pulled the fabric back gently.
The entry wound was clean, a hole through his arm rather than ripping the entire arm off. I fingered it cautiously, hoping that the wound was still numb enough from nerve trauma for Than to tolerate it. There appeared to be no fragment of the bullet left inside, so I took his hand and placed it back over the wound and clamped down. I placed my hand over his and pressed firmly.
Wetness seeped between my fingers, dark red rivulets that coursed down my fingers and crept around my fingertips. I could see it under my nails, darkening them as though I were a mechanic.
Than pulled his uninjured arm free, and I felt the wound throbbing warm and moist under my fingers. He reached in a jacket pocket, extracted a small medical kit. With one hand, he withdrew a roll of bandages and tape.
There was still no sound from the jungle, and the gunfire had fallen silent. Still moving carefully, trying to make no motion discernible to the people that were shooting at us, I slowly peeled back the tattered camouflage sleeve and pushed the torn T-shirt up onto his arm.
From the little I know of wounds, this was a clean one. I dumped some alcohol on it, then wound the gauze tightly around it in multiple layers. When finally I saw no more red seeping through, I bound it over with tape. Than watched impassively, not so much as a groan escaping from between his lips.
Up ahead, one of our men returned fire. I saw the bright sparks from the muzzle of his rifle, heard the antiseptic rattle of his automatic weapon. An AK-47, I suspected ― it had looked like that when I'd had a chance to see it earlier.
Lying motionless in the jungle was unendurable. Fear turned to rage, then to the urgent, overwhelming need to act, to do something to take my own destiny into my own hands. It is a trait bred into fighter pilots, reinforced through days and days of aerial combat maneuvering, and finally imprinted on your mind by your first at-sea combat experience. Unlike ground troops, for whom the survival of one man depends on all his buddies doing their jobs, aviators rely primarily on people within their own cockpit. For me, that meant the voice of my backseater in my ear, giving me vectors, calling off warnings as missiles were launched against us.
The closest thing I had to a backseater here was Than, and he was in no condition to help. I patted him once reassuringly, urged him slightly deeper into the underbrush, then crept forward toward the man who'd fired. Years ago, I'd test-fired an M-16 during OCS. Later, every few years or so, I'd have a chance to go out on a range and reacquaint myself with its capabilities. Not enough to call me a good shot with it, but then at that rate of fire you don't have to be good. You just have to be close.
The man saw me coming, and motioned me into Position behind a tree. Evidently he'd ascertained the bearing of the threat. I crept behind the tree, then cautiously raised up, letting its bulk shield me from the snipers. The man to my right fired off another burst, and finally our assailants in the trees began returning fire again.
Their muzzle flashes gave them away immediately. With my M-16 in full-automatic mode, I hosed down the vicinity of the muzzle flashes, staying low to the ground to catch him in cover.
There was a scream; then a muffled wailing began up on the hill. The enemy gunfire ceased.
The man I'd identified as our platoon leader stood slowly and waited, exposing himself to fire. When none followed, he motioned to the rest of the men. They formed on him, and quickly took up fighting positions.
I returned to Than, only to find him struggling to his feet with one good arm. The bandage around his left arm was already soaked with blood.
With Than injured, our pace slowed considerably. Although the bleeding had finally stopped, he was fighting off shock by sheer willpower. I watched him carefully as we progressed through the jungle, noting the pallor beneath his burnished skin, the telltale tremble in his fingers.
The other men were aware of it as well, and one stood by his side at all times, ever ready to lend a hand during the steep upward climbs. At first, Than protested, shaking off the help. As the day progressed and there was no denying his increasing weakness, he accepted the assistance with bad grace.
The only thing he absolutely refused to do was Stop. During one short rest break, taken at my insistence, he provided only a brief unsatisfactory explanation. "We are in danger until we arrive. Once we are there, I think we'll be safe."
I strained to hear the slightest unusual noise in the jungle, unconvinced that our attackers had been persuaded so easily. Where there was one, or two, there could be a whole platoon, lurking just out of sight in the dense jungle. I could feel their eyes on me, and even though there was no trace of them otherwise, not an unfamiliar noise or an odd flash of color in the jungle, I knew they were there.
For whatever reason, there were no further attacks. Late in the afternoon, when Than's strength was clearly almost gone, we broke out into a low valley between two sets of hills.
It was as though I had stepped back in time. Hard-packed ground surrounded cinder-block buildings, the materials for which must have been transported by unimaginable effort. Helicopter perhaps, I thought, glancing at the stand of trees. There was almost enough room to allow in a cargo aircraft, although the descent and landing would have been harrowing. Still, if the branches had been trimmed back, the trees thinned a bit thirty years earlier, it could have been done.
The buildings themselves were virtually intact. Someone had been caring for them ― they could not have survived so well in the jungle otherwise. And there was the cleared dirt area around them, only a few green shoots popping up in the middle. It would have to have been cleared quite frequently.
The jungle around me was omnivorous, voracious, devouring any sense of order that man attempted to impose on it.
"It is here," Than gasped. Two of his men were lowering him to a sitting position on a barren tree stump at one edge of the compound. Than's color was markedly paler, and his breath was coming in deep, shallow gasps. His men moved in gentle eddies around him, murmuring uneasily. One ventured forward and began caring for the wound, tentatively at first as though he would be rebuked, then with greater confidence.
"You can't mean this has survived all these years?" I stared at the compound again, baffled at the orderliness of it.
We had entered the clearing at the southeast corner. Positioned at an angle to us was one large, central building, the glass that had been in the windows ― if there had ever been glass ― the only clear casualty of time. This building was flanked on three sides by longer ones, clearly configured as barracks. The low, utilitarian appearance was unmistakable to anyone who'd spent any time in the military.
A central tower two stories high stood at the back part of the compound, behind the barracks-shaped building that ran directly behind the main building. It was two stories tall, capped with a sunshade made out of poles. From it, a security detachment would be able to see everything that moved in the camp ― and outside it.
There was only one fixture to the puzzle missing, one that had not struck me at first. I turned to Than, considered his condition, then asked anyway. "Defense ― where is it?"
Than shrugged, then winced at the pain the involuntary motion invoked. "The wire ― for people in this area it was the most valuable part. The rest of it, even disassembled, requires too much effort to move. Very heavy, of course. You can see that."
His voice was losing coherency, and he was tending to ramble. I motioned to the leader of the troops. He approached me, an expression of wariness on his face.
"He needs medical care," I said quietly. "You understand?"
"Yes," he said in a heavily accented voice. "Doctor, no?"
I nodded. "Do you have a radio?"
The man paused for a moment, then shook his head. I was certain he was lying.
"Because," I pressed, "it may be that we have to take him to a hospital." The man appeared to understand me. He replied in a brief, Vietnamese phrase, then appeared frustrated when I could not understand. He tried again, more loudly this time, and I heard Than laugh. I turned to him.
"He is telling you that he knows how to care for gunshot wounds," Than said. He closed his eyes, then let two soldiers coax him into a standing, half-carried position. They started walking him carefully toward the central building. "They know about such things," he continued, almost as though talking to himself. "They've had medical experience."
"More than I have." I let his men take him off to the main structure, oddly reassured by Than's comments. With my limited command of their language ― although I suspected a good deal more of them spoke English than admitted to it ― I would be relatively helpless without Than's interpreting abilities. Moreover, I had no real guarantees that the men would insure that I returned to civilization, such as it was, without Than's leadership.
After a short discussion amongst themselves, two men went over to examine the guard tower. Another conducted a careful inspection of the perimeter, poking at odd spots in the jungle with his rifle. Several others went to examine the barracks.
I followed the latter group, still unable to grasp what Than clearly intended. According to Than, this was the prison camp that had housed my father. For however long he'd lived, he had been imprisoned here in these windowless barracks, perhaps allowed out briefly every day to see the sun and exercise.
Or perhaps he'd been on a forced-labor crew, working every day under the raging sun, fighting the insects and heat as I had done. Not so very far from a major population center, but it might have been light-years away for all the good it would have done him. Even had he been able to escape, where would he have gone? What aid could he have expected to receive from these people? No, he would have had to have made his way south, far south ― over three hundred miles, I estimated, and through terrain that was hostile and dangerous even to a man in good health.
And that wasn't counting the snipers we'd run into in the forest.
I stepped into the first barracks building, and paused to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. A square shaft of sunlight penetrated into it, but it was insufficient to effectively illuminate the place. I could see the first sets of bunk beds clearly, but the other ones faded off into the gloom. In the rear, one of the soldiers moved, checking out the room.
"A flashlight?" I said aloud, not knowing whether or not he would understand it. There was no answer.
I stepped further into the structure, keeping my back to the bright sunshine at the door. It took a few minutes, but my eyes finally adapted. I was able to make out the remainder of the bunks, see the surface of the cinder blocks that comprised the walls of the barracks.
I walked to the wall, still keeping my back to the door, and examined the surface. There were names, notes carved into it, letters and words etched into the cinder block by some painstakingly tedious manner. I read names, ranks, dates of service, a few details about when the men had been captured. Nothing that wasn't open knowledge, and information that a POW was permitted to give. I felt suspended in the air, as though reality had receded into some other plane of existence. A surge of eagerness, compounded with fear ― would I find my father's name here? Had he been in this very building, sleeping perhaps in the bunk that stood right next to me? I moved a little bit more swiftly now, fully adapted to the dark and unable to contain myself. If it was here, I had to know it. Had to know it now. Every second of delay, even after over thirty years of believing him dead, was unbearable.
I made a complete circuit of the walls, scanning through the names quickly, pausing to read an unusually poignant note, then moving on to the next. Finally, after I had made a complete circuit of the building, I knew he had not been here.
Not in this building.
But there were two others, and I suspected each would carry its own graven record of the men who had passed through. There were far more names than bunks, indicating either that they'd shared racks, or more probably that some had died ― or been taken elsewhere.
I squinted my eyes and stepped out into the sunshine, dazzling and painful after the prolonged darkness. I moved to the next building, the one directly behind the main structure. Again the wait while my eyes adapted
.
Halfway down the third wall, I found it. His name, rank, scratched into the concrete. The date he'd been shot down, although no details of his mission. That would have been classified, even then.
Was I there? I scanned down the wall, searching for my name or that of my mother.
Nothing. Just details about his captivity, a prayer that he'd evidently composed himself, and one final, cryptic note. "Horace Greeley."
I stared at that one phrase until my eyes began to burn, sifting through my memory for anything of family significance, some key to unravel the phrase. It was not a random thought, I knew. No, it had taken too much effort to carve those words into the concrete, and my father would not have wasted his precious energy on inanities. It meant something ― I just wasn't smart enough to figure it out.
Horace Greeley ― my mind flashed, then dumped details in front of me. A newspaperman, one in the middle of the nineteenth century. He'd been noted for saying "Go west, young man."
I said it out loud, heard the words drift through the still air in this Vietnamese hell.
Go west? Is that what he had meant?
It had to be. It was the most famous saying of Greeley's, and my father would not have relied on something too obscure to be of assistance.
The words of the Ukrainian representative to the last peace conference on board the USS Jefferson, the one that had followed on the heels of the last Mediterranean crisis and had crafted an uneasy peace out of the conflict there, came back to me. The Ukrainian had said he knew my father. He'd refused to say anything further when I pressed, but there had been a look on his face, some odd, secretive sense of knowing, that had driven me almost to violence. It was that comment that had sparked this mission, that had burned itself into my mind and hung there, a constant, omnipresent ache.
I turned to my left, as though trying to look west. What was west of here? I shut my eyes and called up a visual image of a map of the world. Laos, Thailand, Burma. Then India, followed by the morass of the Middle East. Had he meant those countries?
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