THERE BE DRAGONS (11 page)

The NVA were using trees as cover, their AKs poking around the trunks and rattling off rounds.

Jacobs removed the empty mag and grabbed a full one from one of his dead platoon members. He clicked it in and fired a three-round burst.

He saw two frags in a line by the ammo belt that was feeding into the M-60. He grabbed one. Got to a knee. Pulled the pin and threw it.

A trunk of a tree exploded. An NVA soldier took off into the air.

The tree fell and crushed another of the enemy, his scream carrying through the battle’s noises. Jacobs picked up the other frag, pulled the pin, and threw. He dropped back down prone.

The frag sailed over the fallen tree and exploded. Two NVA soldiers flew upwards, both missing their legs. They were also on fire and waving their arms frantically. As they hit the jungle floor, a cloud of blood sprayed up.

Stephens fired some rounds into them.

“We have a major problem, LT!” Stephens didn’t stop shooting. He just screamed over the thunder of his weapon.

“And what is that?” asked Jacobs. He fired a few more bursts.

“We’ve got bunkers ahead! We thought we were laying an ambush but it seems the gooks had the same idea!”

The mud before them got chewed up. They both hid their faces as water and dirt landed on them.

“We’re pinned down,” said Stephens, “We’ll be flanked soon.”

They heard a noise that terrified them.

The whoosh of a rocket.

“RPG!” screamed Jacobs.

They ran.

Stephens dropped the M-60, picked his CAR-15 up.

Behind them the jungle exploded. The force of the blast knocked them off their feet.

They hit the ground with a crunch. Both their helmets rolled from them. Jacobs dropped his M-16.

Stephens turned back towards the crater and sat upright. He held his CAR-15 to his hip and fired at the NVA advancing towards them. He cut down four of them. Then his mag was out. He ejected it and felt on his webbing for another.

He found none.

Three more NVA emerged from the bush, the leader firing off rounds.

Stephens turned towards the mud and rolled. The shots pierced the wet dirt where he had been with a slap.

Jacobs sat up, now holding his .45. He fired a shot.

It hit the lead NVA in the skull. His helmet flew from his head and it hit the soldier behind him in the face.

The surprise of the helmet hitting the other soldier made him stumble backwards. His rifle fell to his side as he tried to keep his balance. His finger slipped on the trigger and the rifle flashed into action. It cut the trailing NVA to small bits. His tattered body fell to the ground.

The clumsy NVA stood in shock for a second then turned to Jacobs and brought his rifle up. He fired.

It was empty.

Jacobs unloaded the remainder of his magazine into him.

Stephens picked up his empty CAR-15 and pulled Jacobs by his arm to his feet.

Jacobs picked up his M-16 and put the .45 away.

“I bet you couldn’t do that again, LT,” said Stephens.

“I need to get back to Buttons. Call in the artillery on those bunkers,” said Jacobs.

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s go.”

They ran, keeping low as bullets whistled over their heads. Shouts in Vietnamese chased them.

Jacobs passed back a spare mag.

Stephens clipped it in and spun around. He now ran backwards, firing off shots. They didn’t hit enemy but it kept them at distance. He turned back around to follow Jacobs.

Jacobs had his rifle to his shoulder when he saw an NVA round a tree to his left. He fired.

The NVA fell onto his back. But he wasn’t dead. He started to raise his AK, to take aim with a wobbly arm.

Jacobs fired again. He saw blood spray and the body fall back.

“Good shooting, LT,” Stephens shouted over Jacobs’s shoulder.

“You enjoying yourself?”

“How could anyone not enjoy this? The madness, the violence … this is living.” Stephens smiled.

The CAR-15 clattered off some rounds.

Stephens had fired a burst over Jacobs’s right shoulder. It took out another enemy soldier. The shots had pelted into the NVA’s back as he knelt with his rifle held tight to his body, taking aim at the platoon’s positions in front of him. Positions Jacobs and Stephens were running towards.

“They have broken our lines for sure, LT. Keep frosty,” said Stephens.

Jacobs fired as an NVA appeared from out of nowhere, like a magician had pulled back a black velvet veil, the NVA the result of his conjure.

Luckily the enemy was facing away from Jacobs. And just like the man Stephens had killed seconds ago, Jacobs’s bullets splashed his back with blood.

The NVA fell before Jacobs’s feet and he jumped over the body.

Stephens did the same but fired a shot into the enemy while in flight. “You can never be too careful with these guys,” he said as he landed into his run.

The ground before them turned into lots of little muddy, watery, volcanic eruptions.

They both stopped and dropped to the ground. They held their faces down into the filth, as AK bullets seemed to trace them into the terrain.

The shooting stopped.

They both got to their knees and held their rifles to their shoulders.

They saw nothing before them.

Then they heard the screams.

A group of six NVA charged forward with bayonets fixed to their rifles.

Jacobs and Stephens fired. They sprayed the attackers with lead. Their now syrupy bodies fell over each other into a pile of churned flesh.

Stephens was removing his mag as another NVA charged him from behind. The enemy soldier tried to stab the sergeant in the back with the bayonet fixed to his rifle.

Stephens turned just in time to see the deadly blade before it was able to puncture him.

He dropped his empty rifle and took ahold of the AK, just beyond the bayonet. While still on one knee, he twisted around, lifted the NVA over his shoulder, who flipped in the air and hit the mud before him, landing on his back, his head next to Stephens’s boot. His eyes were wide when they looked up at the sergeant’s upside down image.

Stephens quickly removed the bayonet from its fixed position on the AK rifle as the enemy threw a leg up over his body, over his wide eyes and towards Stephens’s face.

Stephens blocked it with his right forearm, pushed the limb away. Then with his left stabbed the NVA in the chest with the bayonet.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Blood hit Stephens’s face, tattooing his cheeks with crimson war paint. He dropped the bayonet. “Mag,” he demanded from Jacobs.

Jacobs removed one from a fellow dead soldier’s body lying next to him and handed it to his platoon sergeant.

Stephens loaded it into his rifle and both men ran again.

As they passed Teacher and Cage, they saw the two troopers engaged in hand-to-hand combat too.

Teacher whacked an NVA soldier in the face with the butt of his shotgun. The guy fell and Teacher continued the beating. He stood over the NVA and brought the butt of his gun down onto his nose in a stabbing motion. It was brutal. Bone cracked and splintered through flesh.

Cage was on the ground, atop an enemy soldier. He held his own helmet in both hands and smashed it down into the NVA’s face. Jacobs could hear Cage’s grunts of effort.

“I’ll help these, LT. You get that artillery on those bunkers or we’ve had it,” roared Stephens.

He broke off from Jacobs and ran towards Cage and Teacher.

Jacobs saw from the corner of his eye the enemy, as they ran into Teacher’s and Cage’s position. One got off a shot.

It hit Teacher in the arm. His body spun and hit mud. A trail of blood performed a balletic spin in the air before it touched down on his fatigues.

Stephens fired on full automatic at the oncoming enemy. The spread of bullets cut down the group of NVA.

Stephens got to Teacher. “You okay?”

Teacher held his wound and said sarcastically, “I’m just peachy.”

Jacobs continued his run. He could feel the lactic acid build up in his muscles. His body didn’t want to work anymore. It wanted to stop. “You’re not giving up on me now, legs.”

Bump.

He fell onto his butt. Dropped his M-16. He had hit something. He had run right into it.

He saw before him, an NVA sat on his backside.

He had run into an enemy soldier. The collision had knocked them both off their feet.

The NVA picked his AK up from a puddle.

Jacobs landed on the NVA, both of his hands grabbed the rifle and pushed it down towards the enemy, the barrel faced off to the left.

The AK fired.

The bang rang Jacobs’s ears. The expelled casing hit him in the face and burned his cheek. Jacobs grunted from the pain and pushed the rifle into the throat of the enemy. He laid all his weight onto it.

He saw the eyes of the NVA bulge and felt his body tense, then relax.

Dead.

Jacobs picked up his M-16 and stood to his feet. He looked down at the man he had killed. “That was more personal. More evil, Lynch.” He looked at the pained expression on the dead man’s face.

The enemy.

The NVA.

Stabbing her with bayonets.

Laughing.

He fired a burst into the body. He gulped. A tear ran down his face. A bullet hit earth near his feet. He ran forward towards Buttons.

Buttons was next to Diaz. They were both firing from their cover. Cover which was being cut up.

The Doc was hunkered down, shots hitting all around him. He ignored them. He kept his eyes straight ahead on Jacobs.

Jacobs covered ground fast, despite the ache in his legs, despite the uneven ground, despite the darkness, despite the hail of bullets. He shut his eyes briefly as the glare from an RPG explosion lit the night.

He dove over the temple wall as bullets shattered it.

Once he had recovered from the impact of the jump, he grabbed the handset from Buttons’s back and radioed command.

Buttons didn’t look back. He kept his eyes trained down the sights of his rifle, firing.

The artillery began to fall. The enemy line was bombarded.

Trees exploded.

Bodies exploded.

Bunkers exploded.

Jacobs heard a whistle being blown. The arms fire began to die down.

The sound of the jungle started to push its way back into the emerging silence.

The rain started to fall again.

The water ran down Jacobs’s face. He wiped it away and saw blood on his hands. He watched it wash onto the ground, into the mud.

“Jacobs.” Stephens stood by their position now. Jacobs hadn’t even seen him walk to them. “They’ve retreated. We should start searching the surrounding area for survivors.”

“Okay, Sergeant. Get on it.”

“Yes, sir.” Stephens nodded at Jacobs. “You did good.”

“Thank you.”

“Diaz, you’re with me. Doc, Teacher needs you. He’s been hit.”

• • • • •

Stephens and Diaz walked into the destroyed section of the jungle, the section the enemy had once occupied before the bombardment had forced their retreat.

Stephens pointed to the right flank and Diaz set off in that direction. “Diaz, stop carrying that weapon low. I don’t care how fast you think you are,” ordered Stephens.

Diaz did as told but didn’t look at the sergeant.

Stephens heard the thunder.

He looked to the sky, held his rifle to his shoulder and laughed.

Teacher rounded a tree, his arm in a sling.

“Sarge.”

“What are you doing, Teacher? Get back to the Doc.”

“You seen something in a tree?” he asked.

Stephens lowered his gun. “No, I heard some thunder.”

“Thunder?”

“Don’t tell the other men this, but I’ve always hated thunder, ever since visiting my grandfather on the reservation as a young child. My grandfather told me stories of the thunderbirds.”

“Thunderbirds?”

Stephens looked to see if Diaz was out of earshot. Between them lay many dead NVA, their bodies in various types of gruesomeness. “The artillery made short work of them,” said Stephens.

“So did the platoon,” said Teacher.

“We’re the ultimate rat termination team.”

“How many did you plug?”

“I don’t know. Do you?” asked Stephens.

“Sure do. I keep count of all the dinks I drop.”

“I remember when I started in the war, I counted the number of men I’d murdered. Now I have no idea. I’ve lost count,” said Stephens.