by Barry Sadler
Gus waited, believing in his luck and the basic justice of a man who has never done anyone any wrongs. The time would come; he merely had to be patient until fortune presented him with an opportunity to gain revenge.
It was not long before fate took a hand in Gus's problems. He was crossing the chopper pad when he caught Dominic Ciardello heading in the opposite direction. Ciardello was so pretty that he nearly turned Gus on. Black curly hair, dark eyes, long sensitive lashes and a body sculptured by Michelangelo.
Gus called to him: "Hey, Dominic, let's go get a beer. The treat's on me." He had a plan in mind which seemed even better when Dominic answered him.
"I can't. I've got to go to the dispensary and get a shot of penicillin."
Gus lit up like a Christmas tree. "Penicillin! My dear boy, you could not have by any chance contracted a social disorder?"
He nearly fainted with pleasure when Dominic spat back at him. "If you mean do I have the clap, yes, what's it to you?"
Gus gloated, thanking God for his gentle mercy, that now the Philistine was almost ready to be delivered into the hands of righteous retribution. Putting an arm the size of a normal man's thigh around the Italian's shoulder, he hugged him as gently as he could, making Dominic fear for his spine. "Dear boy, you and Uncle Gus have got to have a talk before you do anything foolish. Do you recall last month when our beloved Sergent chef Hermann gave you the extra duty for your being only thirty seconds late for roll call? And do you recall his gentle interests in your welfare when he made you take point on the last three patrols because of his love and affection for Italians? If you do, then I believe that fate has delivered you into my tender care for a mission that shall redeem both our honor and increase our fame. Come with me, my son. I have a small and, believe me, not unpleasant task for you to perform before you render your body over to the medics."
Gus immediately took Dominic with him downtown and even paid for the luxury of a three wheeled cyclo cab to haul them on their sacred mission to the house of Sergent chef Hermann's oriental Desdemona. After Hermann's girl got a look at the handsome, dashing Italian Legionnaire it took only a few seconds before they came to an understanding. A few francs changed hands, more as a matter of honor for her than anything else. After she got a look at Dominic and compared him to the insensitive brute she was living with, Gus thought she would have paid him if he had bargained a bit harder. But this was no time to be niggardly. He waited in a nearby bistro, sipping Pernod until Dominic returned from his mission with a decidedly pleased expression on his face. Together they returned to camp, Dominic to get his penicillin and Gus to wait patiently until the full fruits of his vengeance had time to mature to their full and burning glory. God, it was good to get even!
Three days later, while crossing the same chopper pad, Gus saw Hermann heading away from him He called out, "Sergent chef, a moment please!"
Hermann waited for him to catch up before giving him one of his normal looks of barely controlled loathing. He had never forgotten that day on the docks of Haiphong when Gus had embarrassed him. "What is it, Beidemann. I'm busy."
Gus took on a conciliatory aspect as he said with great sorrow in his voice, "Sergent chef, there is no need for you to speak harshly to me. I have merely come to offer you my condolences for your unfortunate condition."
Hermann looked confused, then leery as he snapped back, "What do you mean, my condition?"
Gus was barely able to control a hysterical giggle that tried to force its way out of his mouth. It took all of his self-control to keep an even tone as he looked sympathetically at Hermann. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear you have the clap!"
Hermann snorted, "I don't have the clap, you oversized baboon!" and turned away, pissed that Gus should waste his time with such childish antics. He barely heard Gus snort, choke and gurgle out happily as he left, "Yes you do!"
Hermann chose to ignore that. The animal was merely trying to work on his mind.
The next couple of days were ones of pure joy for Gus. He waited for the inevitable moment of his triumph. It came on the morning of the sixth day after Dominic's liaison with Hermann's girl. Gus was in the mess hall having a small breakfast when Hermann entered, walked up behind Gus and hit him in the back of the head with one of the metal folding chairs at the table. Gus went down on the floor, although the blow had not bothered him at all. He was laughing as he saw Hermann 's face. Hermann screamed at him in fury, "How did you do it, you son of a bitch?" Gus never told him, not being one to involve a friend if he could avoid it, especially as he now had one other bit of unexpected pleasure. Hermann was busted down to sargent for striking a subordinate in public. It was an added bonus, which made Gus nearly forgive Hermann all his sins.
The only fly in Gus's pleasure was the constant nagging worry at the back of his mind about Langer. There had been no word on him from any of their sources. Langer was the nearest thing he'd ever had to a true friend, though he had never been able to get really close to the man. They had been through more crazy times together than most people would experience in a dozen lifetimes: the frozen fields of Russia, the great tank battles at Kursk and Kharkov, and a hundred other battles where, at the end, only they came out alive. All the rest of their crew were left behind to enrich the dark soil of Mother Russia with their flesh and their blood. That made a bond between them that few men would ever know. They had survived and Gus had never doubted that somewhere, sometime, Langer would once more present his scarred face. Gus sometimes thought about that face. Langer carried his age better than anyone he had ever known and wondered if Langer had not at some time had a plastic surgeon perform a face lift. He didn't look a day older than he did at the gates of Moscow. There was a timelessness to his former tank commander that did not lend itself to the thought of death. Langer would return. It was only a question of when. Until then, Gus would wait and carry on as always. Langer would not want him to languish away, physically or morally, by refusing his normal appetite for life.
Hermann was in a black, piss-filled mood. The Neanderthal had gotten to him. How, he didn't know. His girl had left, blaming him for giving her the clap. She said she would rather get the disease every day than spend one more minute with him.
He had lost a stripe and had been fined and humiliated, especially after he had hit Gus with the chair. The ape had picked him up like a sack of rice and thrown him across the mess hall, scattering trays and men like chaff. His face had been swollen for a week from the slap Gus had given him after heaving him across the room. The beast had not even been reprimanded, claiming that his actions were caused from the chair, which had hit his head leading to a momentary fit of irrationality. Though he knew of it, Captain Surault was not able to take into consideration the provocation given Hermann. Something like that could never be admitted. That was the only reason he had not busted Hermann all the way down, or taken action against Gus. He was after all a Frenchman with a proper Gallic sense of humor and justice.
After this tremendous success, Gus began to devote most of his energies toward one noble purpose. He was going to drive Hermann mad. By the gentle blood of Jesus, it was good to have a cause in life! Hermann noticed that Gus was smiling a lot more than usual when he was around. The gorilla would just grin through his thick loose lips, laugh obscenely and waddle off, mumbling to himself. It was a very uncomfortable feeling to see the beast do that. He felt as if he were on patrol and knew that a sniper had him in his sights but hadn't made up his mind whether to pull the trigger or not.
Then there began a series of accidents, which were rapidly forcing Hermann into a state of paranoia.
Once when they went up for a practice jump, somehow his static line had become unhooked. Hermann had fallen nearly five hundred feet before he was about to get his reserve chute open. Investigation revealed only that the static line hook had somehow become weakened to the point that the clasp had broken under the pull of the lines. Very unusual. The thing he didn't like most about it was just before that inc
ident, Hermann had seen Gus in the company of a parachute rigger who Hermann had once busted. Could there be anything to that? Hermann began to drink a bit more and slept with a pistol in his hand. Gus began to make plans to see that Hermann didn't get too much sleep.
A dozen other events took place, all seemingly designed to make the life of Sargent Hermann miserable. Gus was never in better spirits, except for the emotional let-downs he experienced during the moments when he wondered when Langer was going to come back.
CHAPTER NINE
The time was now. Langer made up his mind to take the next opportunity to escape. The pain in his back receded but the memory of being bent over and whipped was worse than the pain had been. He had never believed in getting even. He wanted to collect some interest and couldn't do it while confined.
Two days after his beating, luck moved in his favor. During the peak of the daily rains, a flight of bombers happened to drop their load in the hills where the network of tunnels grew larger every day. One cluster of them struck the section where he was held, ripping off the top of a group of tunnels. The rain rushed in, flowing in dark muddy torrents where it drained off the hills. A torrent filled the caves, washing men and equipment away. Debris blocked up many of the drainage outlets backing up the waters. It was almost like being in a submarine whose steel sides had been breached by depth charges, letting in the ocean to drown those trapped inside.
The lights went out as the subterranean flood shorted out the generators or washed away the lanterns. The tin sheeting covering Langer's cell was swept away as were the guards. One of them had his throat slit by the sheet of tin as neatly as if a bayonet had been run across his larynx.
When the first stick of bombs struck, Langer had thought an earthquake had struck the hills. The earth heaved and rolled under him. Then he heard the explosions, followed by screams of panic and terror. Water burst into his cell. The force of it dragged him out turning him end over end. His hands tried to grab anything that could keep him from being pulled further into the tunnels as the tons of fluid sought the lowest levels of the network. Hitting a section of collapsed wall, he managed to dig his feet in, sinking his toes deep into the sides. His hands caught a grip on a section of beams that had fallen. Bracing himself against the torrent he raised his face above the thick clay saturated liquid to gasp for air. Stubbornly he held his ground knowing he was near the top levels of the tunnels. If he could just hold on, the waters would pass him by. Then he could try for the surface and freedom.
Three bodies swept by him. One of them reached out a hand to him and grasped his sleeve. Eyes filled with terror, he pleaded for help. Langer hit him in the face to get rid of him. The man's screams were silenced by the waters filling his mouth as he was sucked under and carried through a break in the walls down to the next level. As far as four levels below men tried to find ways out but the exits were all above them except for a few small openings cut in the sides of the mountain for drainage or escape. Their bodies quickly blocked these small exits. Only those on the uppermost levels escaped. Their tunnels were higher up than those opened by the bombs. They could do nothing to help their comrades below. One of the upper tunnel cells fell and collapsed as its foundations on the next level were swept away. Eleven of Thich's agents would never return to their jobs.
Thich and a squad of regular Viet Minh decided to take their chances on the bombs outside rather than stay where the floor under their feet could be removed in the blink of an eye. They followed after their leader as he broke out into the open. Running to get away from the tunnels, he headed up higher to where the foundation of the earth was more secure. His men who went with him were greatly relieved that Comrade Thich had enough sense to get out of the watery grave. The rains beating down on them were a welcomed relief in comparison to the panic they had felt at the thought of being drowned in the dark caverns below.
The pressure against Langer's body eased. The worst of the flood was passing as fast as it had begun. Pushing himself forward, he let the current against him lead him to the outside. All along the tunnel were the soggy remains of men who'd died, their bodies trapped by fallen beams or crates of military equipment. A Russian Tokarev Model 40 sniper's rifle with a scope was wedged between two crates of canned food. He pulled the weapon loose, took a quick look at it and checked the bolt. It was loaded and the action worked fine. Fifty feet farther down the tunnel he found the body of the man who had probably owned the rifle. Two bandoliers of ammunition hung from the corpse's shoulders. Langer wasn't able to get the body free from whatever it was that held it down. The face was still under a foot of water and muck. Taking the man's bayonet, he cut away the straps of the bandoliers and threw them over his shoulders. Now let them try to get him back!
His head was down, looking at the floor of the tunnel, when a rush of water went down his neck. Looking up he saw a hole in the roof of the tunnel. A way out! Dragging over some crates he erected a ladder to climb up to where he could get a grip on a tree root. Grunting and spitting out water that poured onto his face, he inched his way up until he had a hand on the trunk of a sapling. He waited a moment to catch his breath before giving a last effort to free his body from the roof of the tunnel. He was in the open. The bombs had stopped. It wouldn't be long before the Viets got their shit back together and he wanted to be long gone by then.
Hunched over, he headed for the brush and started downhill, not knowing which side of the mountain he was on; but he knew he had to get to low ground to get away. His attempt to escape undetected was interrupted by a burst of fire from a Ppsh 41, the bullets cutting down several branches over his head. He hit the ground, whipping his body around so that he faced the direction from which the shots had come.
Thich was furious. Not only had the storm caused severe damage, ruining the work of months and taking many lives, but now his prisoner was escaping. Angrily, he ordered his troops to stop him Langer settled back and not knowing how the sights were set on the sniper's rifle, aimed for the belly of the soldier with the Ppsh 41. Squeezing off a single shot he blew the man's left lung out. The bullet exited near the sixth dorsal vertebra of the man's spine between the shoulder blades. The weapon was sighted, he estimated, for five hundred yards and was hitting a bit to the left and high, striking several inches above where he'd been aiming. Return fire began to get too heavy. He couldn't hang around or they would be sure to get him, especially since more survivors were coming out of the tunnels to help. Cursing his luck, he took a quick snap shot at Thich who screamed and went down. Back crawling, until he was certain he was out of sight, he rolled over on to his feet and began a blind run downhill, ignoring the branches and vines that tried to snare him. He slipped and slid on the soggy earth, sliding down patches of slick grass like a kid on a sled. The guards normally on duty around the perimeter of the mountain were still in their holes hiding from the rain and the bombs. One thought he heard steps go past his hole but was too stunned from a near miss to bother looking.
Checking the sky, Langer knew that if he could just stay in front of them for another hour he would have a good chance to lose them in the coming darkness. One more hour. He hoped that he'd blown Thich away. The intelligence officer had been hit. That he knew, but how bad was something else.
The scope on the rifle was probably out of kilter after being swept along in the tunnel. He'd have to re-sight it when he got a chance.
Chest aching from the unaccustomed strain, he kept ahead of his pursuers, who were not too anxious to close with him after they'd lost two more men to single shots. Thich was enraged. Langer's bullet had burned a furrow on the inside of his left thigh, nearly removing a portion of his manhood. As more men came out of the tunnels, he sent them down the mountain to aid in either killing or returning his captive. He wanted Langer and wanted him badly. This was now a very personal matter. Thich felt that if he did not do something to remove the Legionnaire from his existence, the man would always be a curse to him. There were forces in the universe that drew men to
gether and not always for the good. Langer must be killed, of that he was certain. As soon as his wound was treated, he followed after the hunters, refusing the offer of a branch to use as a crutch. His wound was not that severe, merely painful and stiff. He would be in at the kill or capture.
Gasping, Langer reached the base of the mountain, finding himself in a mist shrouded valley. With the approaching nightfall, he had no idea of which way to head. Plunging into thigh deep waters, he headed into a marsh fed by the springs and rivulets that drained off the mountains on either side of him. With the dark came a chill that set into his muscles and bones making every effort to take another step increasingly difficult. The weeks of his confinement had cost him much in muscle tone. They were not used to this sudden demand on them. He knew that soon he would have to find a place to rest, in spite of the men on his trail.
The rains had widened the marsh he was in, making it into a small lake with many sink holes where an unwary step could drop a man into a hole ten or more feet in depth. It had become a pit that could be a watery tomb for any who moved too fast in the dark.
A cry of terror far behind him said that one or more of the Viets had just found their way to one of the hidden sink holes. Good! Now maybe they would break off the chase, leaving him to the marsh. Wearily he searched the night sky. There was no moon, and with a layer of fog resting over the marsh, no stars either. Finding a patch of ground higher than the waters, he made a bed in a cluster of green bamboo the height of two tall men. It would be a cold camp, with no fire to ease the ache in his bones or dry what remained of his uniform. For the first time, as he felt along his body checking for injuries, he became aware that his feet were badly torn. He cursed himself for being a fool and forgetting to get his boots, or at least something he could have used to cover his swollen appendages with. It was a little late to worry about that now. Perhaps tomorrow he'd be able to do something about it. Roughly guessing at the time, he thought it was no more than eighteen hundred hours. The sun had been down for two hours or more. He felt as if he had been running for weeks.