Jungle Rules

by Charles W. Henderson

  Staff Sergeant Orlando Abduleses had just sat down with his plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, and had put a metal spoon in his cup of coffee when he saw a GMC M880 pickup truck with the canvas top taken off the wooden ribs above its cargo bed and what looked like twenty or thirty lumpy duffel bags piled in it.

  “Special Services has finally come through!” Lieutenant Colonel Webster said, sitting across the folding table from Abdul and several other prison guards.

  “What’s in the bags, sir?” Abduleses asked, while shoving a piece of toast in his mouth, followed by a spoonful of eggs.

  “All the baseball and softball gear that wing and division had in Da Nang,” Webster said, smiling.

  “We going to play baseball?” Abdul said with a laugh, and looked at the other guards eating at the table with him and the provost marshal.

  “Bats,” Webster said, and winked at Abduleses. “I got the idea watching that asshole Harris swaggering around with the one that Gunny MacMillan kept in control. Along with bases, balls, and mitts, each of those bags from Special Services has half a dozen bats inside.”

  Abdul the Butcher smiled at his cohorts as Major Jack Hembee came to the table and pointed at the truckload of baseball gear. “I see that the chief of staff worked his magic, and it looks like they brought every sack of equipment in the barn,” the major said with a big grin. “My alpha has one of our reinforced rifle platoons headed over here now. Between your guard company and my guys, we should be able to field at least a hundred batters.”

  “We count about fifty bad guys left inside, so with a two-to-one edge, I think that those inmates who might consider resisting will think again when each of them sees two Marines apiece with baseball bats in their hands,” Webster said, smiling confidently.

  “BEFORE WE HANG this guilty motherfucker!” James Harris shouted, laughing toward his jury that included Samuel Martin, Clarence Jones, Kevin Watts, and the Chu Lai Hippie along with eight other Black Stone Rangers, handpicked by the Ax Man and Mau Mau together. “We got to have ourselves a fair trial decided by this lyin’ dog’s peers. Now, you jurors that we selected, you the most lyin’ dogs we know!”

  All the rangers gathered with their backs toward the burning cell block and laughed at Mau Mau Harris’s comedic routine. Then Celestine Anderson stood up and kicked over the bench where he sat next to James Elmore, tumbling the hapless bum to the ground.

  “First of all, Mau Mau, I ain’t no good at this defense lawyer bullshit, mainly because I not only want to kill this motherfucker, but that one, too,” Ax Man said, and pointed at Michael Fryer. “Why don’t you let me be prosecutor, and you defend these two shitbags.”

  “Okay, motherfucker, if that make you happy, then you prosecute and I’ll defend,” Harris crowed, strutting to the overturned defense bench where James Elmore sat in the dirt, crying.

  Brian Pitts had taken a seat on a picnic table he had set upright as the judge’s platform. He had a yard-long, two-inch-by-four-inch-thick table leg that someone had broken from one of the piled-up picnic sets, and rapped it across the wooden planks where he sat, calling the court to order.

  “How does your client plead?” he asked Harris and laughed, waiting for the ridiculous answer he knew he would get from Mau Mau.

  “Before I plead this motherfucker guilty as charged, we need to tell the court what this waste of breath done to deserve havin’ his head cut off!” Harris proclaimed, and then laughed at Elmore. “This stupid piece of shit ratted out everybody he ever knew. He stole money from your honor, and got his self busted! To wit!”

  Harris laughed at himself, reciting the legal jargon.

  “To wit, motherfucker!” Mau Mau said again, and laughed. “Tryin’ to get his slimy ass off the hook with C-I-fucking-D, he ratted out his main man and his only living friend, namely me, and his honor, the Snowman.”

  “Guilty as charged then!” Pitts said, rapping the table leg, and then looking at Celestine Anderson, who glared at Mau Mau Harris. “Does the prosecution have anything to add before we decide what sentence our man Elmore should receive from this court?”

  “Wait one motherfucking minute, motherfuckers!” Anderson roared, leaping from his bench, where he sat alone, and walking to the center of the court arena. “What the fuck I suppose to do? The fucking defense done prosecuted and convicted the motherfucker!”

  “You win, motherfucker!” Pitts said with a laugh, and then rapped his table-leg gavel. “How about you tell the court how we need to deal with this piece of shit sitting over there.”

  “That’ll work,” Ax Man said and then looked at James Elmore, who sat in a pathetic slouch, sobbing, his piss-soiled pants wet again and his gold tooth dripping slobber. “How about we tie the motherfucker on one of these tables and throw his ass in the fire!”

  A roar of approval came from the gallery of rangers who edged closer in a tightening semicircle around the freshly condemned prisoner, the upcoming defendant, and two so-called observers.

  “I wanted to see him wearing a stool-pigeon necktie myself,” Brian Pitts suggested, and looked at Mau Mau Harris.

  “What the fuck’s that?” Anderson asked, getting the Snowman’s attention back on him.

  “Cut the motherfucker’s throat and pull his tongue out the hole!” Harris called to Anderson. “You ain’t never heard of doin’ that shit before? I thought you’s a tough dude from Houston, man.”

  “I ain’t never seen a dude get his throat cut and his tongue pulled out,” Anderson said, looking back at Harris. “We do that and then tie the motherfucker to the table and burn his ass.”

  “I vote for that!” Harris cheered, and looked at his client, who now fell off the bench, passing out from the terror.

  “Bury the motherfucker alive!” Randal Carnegie shouted from the group of rangers who made up the jury. “That’s a whole lot worse than anything. Think about layin’ underground and bein’ alive and you can’t move or see or nothin’. Then you start runnin’ out of air. It takes hours to die like that!”

  “I want to cut this motherfucker’s throat and burn his ass,” Harris screamed, and then grabbed James Elmore off the ground.

  Seeing the attack on the pathetic and nearly helpless man, Michael Fryer leaped to his feet and tackled Mau Mau Harris. Celestine Anderson immediately jumped into the fray, while Sam Martin ran to the “judge’s” bench, yanked the two-by-four from Brian Pitts’s hands, and clubbed Michael Fryer from behind.

  “This guilty motherfucker gonna get his throat cut and burned, too!” Anderson said, giving the injured prisoner a hard kick in the ribs.

  “You won’t kill anyone with me here!” Chief Warrant Officer Frank Holden screamed and then ran to where Michael Fryer and James Elmore both lay. Gunnery Sergeant Ted MacMillan leaped to his feet, too, and now stood over the deputy warden, ready to fight.

  Suddenly from behind the crowd two gunshots echoed across the prison yard, one in close succession after the other.

  “Nobody killing anybody except maybe me wasting the first son of a bitch that lays hands on any of those men!” Sergeant Donald T. Wilson shouted, holding the 870 Remington shotgun with its barrel now leveled at the crowd of Black Stone Rangers.

  While the prisoners held their kangaroo court, Wilson had slowly moved behind, man after man, until he came even with the sally port. Then he eased his way to the gate, crawled under the desk, and pulled open the drawers. Just as Iron Balls Turner had told him, the shotgun fell to the floor.

  “I’ve got five more rounds in this ally-sweeper. Anybody want a taste of ought-two lead, just make a move,” Wilson yelled, walking toward the group, which parted for him like Moses dividing the Red Sea. “Gunny, you and the gunner grab up those two Marines and let’s head to the blockhouse.”

  STAFF SERGEANT ABDULESES had taken his station in the observation tower, preparing for the assault on the prisoners that Major Hembee and Lieutenant Schuller would lead as soon as Lieutenant Colonel Webster had given them the go-ahead to
execute the assault.

  “Who fired those shots?!” the provost marshal immediately screamed on the field telephone in the lower level of the blockhouse, where he sat with the chief of staff and Dudley Dickinson.

  “Shot came from the yard, sir!” Abduleses answered, holding the telephone receiver between his shoulder and his ear and looking at the scene below in the recreation area with his binoculars.

  “Who is shooting?” Webster asked, panic in his voice.

  “Prisoner Wilson has a shotgun, sir,” Abduleses answered, watching the rangers part ways for the group of hostages the sergeant now led toward the blockhouse. “I have no idea how he got his hands on the weapon, but he’s got the gunner and Gunny MacMillan carrying two prisoners toward the blockhouse, and he’s guarding their rear.”

  “What about Harris and that bunch?” Webster asked, now starting to smile.

  “They’re just standing behind that pile of tables, watching Wilson point that shotgun at them,” Abduleses said and laughed.

  “Let’s take the sons of bitches down then!” Webster growled and smiled at the chief of staff as he set the telephone receiver back in its pouch.

  In seconds, more than a hundred helmeted Marines wearing flak jackets and wielding baseball bats poured through the back door of the blockhouse and quickly formed an assault line facing the mob of rioters, who now crouched behind their wall of picnic tables. Jack Hembee blew a single blast on his police whistle, and the reaction force and brig guard company let out a loud growl and began rapping the ends of their bats on the ground.

  “You men behind that wall, step out with your hands on top of your heads!” Mike Schuller shouted through a bullhorn. “Those who remain behind that wall will face these Marines and their bats!”

  Brian Pitts stepped out first, then came Mau Mau Harris, Sam Martin, and Clarence Jones. After seeing no place else to run, Kevin Watts followed, too, and so did Randal Carnegie. Gradually, more and more of the now defunct Black Stone Ranger rebellion surrendered. Finally, Celestine Anderson, the last man out, walked to the center of the recreation yard.

  A FINE RAIN fell across Da Nang and Freedom Hill on Sunday morning. It cooled the smoldering ashes of the burned hooches and the now fire-gutted cell block. The guard company still used the blockhouse for their administrative offices and the prison sick bay, overseeing the temporary compound across the road, now encircled by several high rolls of concertina wire and German tape.

  They really didn’t need to put up the fence, since all the inmates contained in the makeshift brig posed little threat of violence or escape. They all had short times to do and wanted no trouble.

  On another slope of Freedom Hill, the military police had trained and housed a company of working dogs. Mostly German shepherds, but a few Labrador retrievers and a couple of Belgian shepherds filled the ranks of canines used by the American military to run down spider holes and ferret out Viet Cong soldiers hiding there, or to find bombs or to now sniff out dope stashes in the barracks and at the airport in the inbound and outbound baggage.

  With all the usable jail facilities now destroyed, Lieutenant Colonel Webster found it somehow poetic that he put the high-risk inmates and the nearly fifty former Black Stone Rangers in the working dogs’ kennels. He had the military canines temporarily housed in hooches with their handlers. While the secure dog facility offered metal-covered, chain-link pens with uncomfortably cramped quarters for the inmates, Major Dudley L. Dickinson assured the provost marshal that nothing in the Manual for Courts-Martial, Staff Judge Advocate Manual, or the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibited him from keeping these prisoners there.

  Brian Pitts had the kennel next to Celestine Anderson, so the two men spent the rainy Sunday either glaring at each other or watching the water drip off the corrugated steel roof that slanted over their heads. The brig guards put Kevin Watts and Randal Carnegie in a run together, which the two men didn’t mind at all.

  “Hey, that’s cool, the Hippie had said, crawling through the three-foot-high door that led inside the roomy, plywood doghouse and lying down on a thin mattress spread over the concrete floor. Kevin Watts sat outside, under the tin roof fastened over the chain-link dog run, watching the rain drip into growing puddles that surrounded the kennel’s cement slab floor.

  Mau Mau Harris drew a solitary cell next to Sam Martin on one side, and Clarence Jones on the other. Mau Mau lay on his stomach, gazing out the kennel, watching the raindrops splash in the puddles.

  Chapter 22

  GACA

  A FLUTTERING, NOT quite buzzing sound rattled down the law center’s main hallway, and Jon Kirkwood ducked his head just in time as Chopper, the errant cockroach, made a low pass at him, winging his way back to the nest he had built in the hole where the water pipe came through Charlie Heyster’s office wall. Michael Carter had flattened himself against the bulkhead, banging his back against the photographs of President Lyndon B. Johnson, the commandant of the Marine Corps, General Leonard F. Chapman Jr., and the commanding general, III Marine Amphibious Force, Lieutenant General Robert E. Cushman Jr. When he stepped away after the dive-bombing roach had made his pass, the three pictures fell to the floor, shattering the glass from their frames.

  “Now look what that bug has caused!” Carter wailed, and knelt to collect the broken shards while Staff Sergeant Pride sought out the office broom and dustpan in the utility room.

  Chopper had gotten fat on granules of Carnation Coffeemate dry creamer, and today had a hard time launching from the open shoe box full of oatmeal-raison-walnut cookies that Vibeke Ahlquist had sent to Terry O’Connor, which he in turn set out at the enlisted coffee mess for everyone to enjoy. The now overweight North Florida palmetto bug especially appreciated the captain’s gesture.

  When Sergeants Michael Fryer and Donald T. Wilson stepped through the door at the end of the hallway, it had surprised the insect as he grazed on the sugary treat. Fearing a swat from the two strangers, he jumped skyward and spread his sails, beating his way to shelter and safety.

  Kirkwood and Carter had just finished a short talk with Derek Pride when they saw the two free Marines step through the back door and start down the passageway toward them when the big roach flew by, causing stick man to wreck the photographs.

  “Damn, that bug’s as big as a helicopter!” Wilson exclaimed, seeing the flying monster dip past Kirkwood and Carter.

  “Everybody says that,” Terry O’Connor said with a laugh as he and Wayne Ebberhardt stepped out of the defense section’s office and welcomed the pair of visitors.

  Just as the five men finished shaking hands, Major Dudley Dickinson, First Lieutenant Melvin Biggs from the provost marshal’s Criminal Investigation Division, and a military policeman with a yellow Labrador retriever burst through the front door.

  “Everyone stand up and step away from your desks and then stay put!” Dicky Doo shouted in a deep, drill-instructor-style growl to show he meant business. “Stanley, you and Captain Bailey-Brown step out of your office, too!”

  Then he looked down the hall at the defense section.

  “All of you men, come on up here!” Dickinson bellowed. “Is there anyone left inside your office?”

  “No, sir,” Jon Kirkwood said, walking slowly toward the administration section and law center’s front entrance, followed by the two sergeants, who only came to say hello and thank you, and the three captains.

  Terry O’Connor laughed when he saw Charlie Heyster bound through the front door and try to go to his office, but had the CID officer cut him off.

  “Skipper, you’ll have to wait out here with the other men,” Lieutenant Biggs said, noticing that the narcotics-sniffing dog had focused his attention on the former prosecutor and now temporary military justice officer, and had sat down on point in front of the major-select.

  “That’s okay, lieutenant,” Dicky Doo said, and put his hand on Heyster’s shoulder. “He’s not part of this investigation. This is our deputy staff judge advocate and military
justice officer, Major-Select Charles Heyster. I think it’s fine if he goes to his office.”

  “Sir, if you please,” Biggs answered, still looking at the dope dog, and then glancing up at his handler, who shrugged and smiled. Then he looked at Charlie Heyster and Major Dickinson. “Just to do this thing right, if you gentlemen don’t mind, it would really work best if you both joined the other officers and enlisted Marines standing over there. That way no one can say we singled anyone out. It’ll make our investigation much more compliant with Marine Corps guidance regarding search and seizure, and inspections of this nature.”

  “Oh, certainly,” Dickinson said and smiled. Then he took Charlie Heyster by the arm and led him next to Stanley Tufts and Philip Edward Bailey-Brown.

  “Is this your entire staff?” Lieutenant Biggs asked, looking at Staff Sergeant Pride and Lance Corporal Happy Pounds standing by him, both men smiling so much they nearly laughed.

  “Well, Captain Bushwick is in Okinawa, about three weeks past due from when I wanted him back here,” Dicky Doo said, and flushed red when he thought of how the Brothers B had rooked him into taking turns on rotating duty at Camp Butler. Dickinson had devised a way to see his wife by taking a turn at the temporary assignment, split three ways. Captain Bailey-Brown had gone first, but when Miles Bushwick went for his week-long turn, he managed to convince the Fleet Marine Force Pacific staff judge advocate that to preserve continuity in the work, one attorney should take care of the entire assignment. Bushwick managed to stay on the rock, and would rotate home from there. Rightfully, Dicky Doo felt used.