Death in the Jungle (9 page)

Fifteen minutes later, Meston gave the signal to get ready to move. After forcing down a last bite, I stuck the can upside-down in the mud, then stood up and stepped on it. It sank and vanished. On recon, we never left behind anything but our tracks.

Ignoring the gurgling noises in my gut, I briefly inspected my gear, picked up my weapon, and fell into line. I took point, as always, and, after reading my compass and checking with Mr. Meston, I began guiding the platoon on a northeasterly course which would take us to the first creek crossing.

As I advanced through the bush and the mud toward the creek, I was walking in an inch of water, which soon rose to two inches. I knew the water would get a little deeper, as high tide was still an hour away. The creek, however, was then only sixty meters in front of me.

My eyes darted from the water before me to a bush on my left, a tree on my right, the water ahead, and back toward my feet. Three meters directly in front of me there was something in the bushes growing out of the water. Something strange, a peculiar-looking log. I
stepped closer, then the log rose higher in the water and became a seven-foot crocodile.

My heart exploded. The croc eyeballed me from six feet as I turned Sweet Lips toward its jaws. Instantly, the creature whirled and seemingly flew into the distant creek. Never had I witnessed anything move so swiftly, its legs a mere blur in the muck. My heart was getting its best workout in years.

I looked at Mr. Meston behind me, and I jokingly examined my pants to see if I’d wet them. At least I wanted Mr. Meston to believe I was joking. Then I proceeded toward the creek, Sweet Lips still shaking in my hands.

Once I reached the creek, Mr. Meston gave the hand signal for “danger point.” With that, Funkhouser deployed himself on our left flank with his M-60 machine gun, and McCollum, with the grenade launcher, positioned himself on our right flank. Mr. Meston, Bucklew, and Mr. Khan moved up behind me as I prepared to drop into the deep water of the creek.

Knowing that most of the creeks and tributaries in the Rung Sat Special Zone were over-the-head deep, all of us took a minute to blow up our UDT life jackets already in place beneath the H-harnesses we were wearing. On Mr. Meston’s signal, I took a moment to look for smiling crocodiles, then I waded into the creek, which was twenty feet wide. The water met me at the neck on the first step, so I didn’t even try for a second; instead, I swam across.

Upon my reaching the foliage on the far side, I crawled out onto the watery, muddy bank and poured the water out of Sweet Lips. Then I did a short recon before waving the other SEALs over.

McCollum came first, and then Funkhouser. Once out of the creek, they set up on right and left flank positions, as usual. The others followed single file.

After the brief swim, everyone deflated his life jacket and quickly inspected his gear. Mr. Meston pointed a finger at a stand of nipa palm trees, then whipped his finger around in tight, little circles in front of his face. That was the signal for “rally point,” which meant if we somehow got separated, we were to meet here. The only thing that could split us up was one whale of an enemy assault. I hoped I never would see the day I’d have to scramble back to a rally point.

From the stand of nipa palm, we were less than a hundred meters south of the second creek crossing. I guided the platoon there in twenty minutes. This creek, like the first, was not very wide, but it was deep.

I inflated my life jacket, then swam across. A short recon turned up nothing nasty, so I gave Meston the “all clear.” Funkhouser slid into the creek, and halfway across, he disappeared underwater. A moment later, his M-60 made an appearance, followed by Funky’s head. As he grasped some tree branches on my side of the creek, Funkhouser shook his head like a Labrador retriever, sending water droplets everywhere. He looked at me and grinned, then dumped the water out of the machine gun’s barrel.

I turned away and looked to the northwest where a hootch was supposedly located. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was not far. Maybe a hundred meters.

As the rest of the platoon crossed the creek, I continued watching the bushes. Funkhouser’s splashing had been a little noisy. VC may have heard us.

At Mr. Meston’s signal, I started for the hootch in ankle-deep water. Fifty meters later, I saw the hootch ahead and to my left, about forty meters away. It was sitting on a muddy plateau several inches above the water. I guided the platoon ten meters closer, then Mr. Meston motioned for us to form a skirmish line. McCollum and Funkhouser took the flank positions, their
weapons pointed toward the hootch. Mr. Meston signaled for me to go in alone.

Everything worked the same as before. I skirted the hootch, noting its decayed condition: the palm fronds were disintegrating on the walls, and the roof was caving in. Around the hootch, there were only muddy deer tracks. Meston met me at the front, then I went in with my Sweet Lips.

Inside the only signs that people once had lived there were a remnant of mosquito net hanging near the entrance and some charcoal residue in one corner of the hard-packed mud floor.

Mr. Meston came in and made a studious walk around the floor, shrugged, and left. I followed right behind him. There was only one thing left to do on the mission, and the doing of it was just eighty meters to the northwest. That was where we’d find the main channel of the Rach Nuoc Hoi, close to where it met the Song Ba Gioi. That was also where we hoped to raise a brouhaha for which formal invitations would be unnecessary.

I took the point and started for the river ambush site. The tide was receding and I was walking in thick, slick mud. Also, the closer I got to the river, the heavier the brush I had to penetrate. I was in a real jungle, all right. Our regular army stayed away from hellholes like that. Only SEALs were crazy enough to explore and duke it out in the muck and mire of the Rung Sat Special Zone.

After almost an hour of fighting the bushes, and vines, and mud, I saw the river through the foliage just ahead. I signaled to Mr. Meston that we were there, and he waved for me to recon the riverbank and our ambush site. In this dense brush, he was asking a lot. Of course, I agreed with his decision and didn’t hesitate to follow his order.

I began my laborious exploration at 1640 hours and
didn’t make it back to Mr. Meston until 1700. I nodded my head that all was well, and he pointed me to left flank. I crept through the thick undergrowth until I found myself on the riverbank. A couple of bushes separated me from the stream.

I sat down in the muck in a place where I could see the river between the bushes and where I could get off some shots at anything that moved in the water. Sweet Lips would have no problem doing some damage because the river was less than forty meters wide. Should the VC float by on a sampan bringing supplies to their troops, they’d be awfully close to the kiss of death.

As Funkhouser settled into position several meters to my right, I untied my boots and took them off. I pulled a pair of coral booties from my pack and slipped them on, then placed a pair of swim fins on top of the mud to my right. Mr. Meston had me prepared to go into the river to retrieve the sampan and supplies should we wipe out some gooks. Again, I was assigned to the risky business. That was what I got for comparing myself to Hawkeye. Now some of the guys were even calling me that.

I took the roll of parachute suspension line out of my pants pocket and crawled with it toward Funkhouser. He met me halfway. I gave him the end of the line, which he wrapped around the middle finger of his left hand, then playfully saluted me with it. I whispered for him to go to places further south, then scooted back to my position. Funky and I were now linked and ready for nightfall, which was yet three hours away.

I stared at the current for a while. It was very fast, and I wondered how quickly a sampan would move in it. Just as fast as the current, I informed myself. That meant I’d have to discharge the six rounds in Sweet Lips as fast and accurately as my arms could work.
Sluggish action on my part would result in only one or two shots before the sampan was out of reach; therefore, I had to stay awake and alert.

As I watched the water, a sea snake floated past me. It was black with white rings, and I knew it was venomous. This one looked four feet long; in a few seconds it was gone. I prayed that no shark would come that night.

The day gradually, but very slowly, passed. The heat and humidity sucked pints of water through my skin’s pores in an unrelenting effort to weaken me. Man, it was hot. The VC didn’t appear foolish enough to have left their hootches for a boat ride in that furnace. At least I hadn’t seen any.

Time went by and nothing grabbed my attention until the mosquitos began swarming over the water. A cloud of them was active right in front of me. Night was near, and with it, the bloodsuckers. How I wished I could unload on them with Sweet Lips, just for the satisfaction of it. Perhaps another time.

At dusk, the thought of vipers, crocs, sharks, and gooks stepped front and center from the back of my mind, where I’d been able to store it for a good, long two minutes. The thought contained a lineup of adversaries, all able and more than willing to remove fifty years from my life span. The men in my platoon had invented a name for these death dealers from the deep: “man-eating man-a-cheetahs.” Any creature that swam and had a deadly bite qualified.

I remembered that Billy Machen, the first SEAL to die in Vietnam, had been killed near there last year. He had been a good point man, too. But I liked point. I wanted it. If I died there, so be it.

I remembered reading in a magazine about a man and his epitaph. On his tombstone was inscribed:

I liked that inscription, and I’d been thinking about a similar one for me:

Whether I got torn apart by a couple dozen bullets or a couple rows of razor-sharp teeth, there wouldn’t be anything pretty about it.

As the last light faded into darkness, so did my thoughts of dying. Now I had to concentrate on killing. I was totally concealed, as were my buddies, and I was ready. All the odds were in our favor. We had the element of surprise, and we had the firepower to blow the
Queen Mary
out of the water. A tiny sampan had absolutely no prayer, unless it could drift past unseen and unheard, and if that was ever possible, that night might have been the night. It was as black as Aunt Jemima’s posterior. But I had great ears. I could hear farts clear at the other end of the line. Must have been the beans in the C rats talking.

McCollum ejected an occasional noise for half an hour, then apparently got his intestines under control. It was quiet for all of three hours. Then something in the water to my left wheezed, then sucked in a lot of air. After the gulp, it made a little splashing sound. It was a crocodile. He had come up for air, then went underwater again.

I didn’t think about the croc for long. The suspension line tied to my right wrist jerked three times. Three times meant “the enemy is here!” I raised Sweet Lips
between the two bushes and squinted hard at the river. Before I saw anything, the thundering crack of M-16 fire erupted on my right. A moment later, the black figures of two men in a sampan were just ten feet in front of me. One of them gasped the Vietnamese equivalent of “My God!”

I squeezed the shotgun’s trigger as Funkhouser let loose with the M-60 machine gun. I pumped in rounds and pulled the trigger again and again. Tracer bullets streaked across the river from Funkhouser’s machine gun. Continuous M-16 fire, along with Bucklew’s CAR-15, pounded my eardrums. Three grenades from McCollum’s M-79 exploded out front and to my left. I sent three more loads into the dark.

The wall of sound was deafening as I reloaded Sweet Lips, then I fired three more rounds as part of the foray. Another grenade blasted the night in the midst of the heavy gunfire, and I wondered when Mr. Meston would stop the firing. One thing was perfectly clear to me: whoever and whatever was in front of us could no longer exist.

After another fifteen long seconds of ear-shattering and brain-jarring noise, I yelled at the top of my lungs for the men to cease fire. After all, enough was enough. There was no need to use up two tons of ammunition on one little sampan. Since it was time for a cease-fire and Mr. Meston hadn’t called for one, and I couldn’t see him to check on his condition, then it was my job as assistant squad leader to stop the firing and save a couple bullets for the trip out of there.

The shooting stopped for a few seconds, then one of the M-16 riflemen opened up on full automatic. I shouted again for a cease-fire. I didn’t have to whisper since noise discipline had been blown all the way down the river.

The gun stopped firing, and Mr. Meston called out,
“Don’t worry, Smitty, it’s me.” A few seconds later, a concussion grenade blew up in the river. “Just me again,” Mr. Meston said. “I wanna get any swimmers.” I saw spots before my eyes; all else was black. Silence returned with a wallop and cranked up the volume on the high-pitched ringing in my ears. My hands were shaking and my nervous system was in some kind of shock.

Through the ringing, I made out Mr. Meston on the radio calling in the boys on the Boston Whaler. Then he called to me and said to forget about trying to retrieve anything from the fast-moving water. That was good news to me. I would have just as soon vamoosed.

I heard more talking. This time it was Vietnamese, and it was coming from across the river. Maybe an enemy unit was moving in. I asked Funky if he heard the voices, and he said he did.

Half a minute later, Mr. Meston was again talking on the radio. I heard him say something about holding the Boston Whaler, and then something about Navy Seawolves. Putting it all together from there was easy: he was calling in the helo gunships.

After Mr. Meston ended his radio communication, he passed word for the man on each flank to put a blue-colored lens on his battery-powered strobe light. I found the strobe in my pack and prepared it as ordered, knowing the helo pilots needed the light to identify our position.