FicWad

Chapter Four

The Dusty Trail

-xxx-

Master Sergeant Draper sure did ramp us up for duty - in spades.

When Roadrunner Nine returned to Pleiku, amid a cloud of dust on the camp's helicopter pad, they hardly looked like an organized military unit. The four American advisors wore mismatched sets of experimental U.S. woodland camouflage and commercially sold "tiger stripe" pattern fatigues.

The three Montagnard fighters that stepped off the slick wore anything that fit them comfortably, including ARVN uniform parts, old WWII Marine tropical uniforms, and whatever they came from their villages with. They all looked like a motley bunch, sunken-eyed and tired from walking a three-day and four-night deep penetration patrol. But as soon as Draper produced two six-packs of beer from the camp's surgical squad tent, the unit appeared to relax. They knew they were as safe as they could be.

Draper introduced Doggie and me to the fire team leader and communications specialist assigned to Roadrunner Nine. We would be replacing the short-timers, a pair of weapons experts that were due to rotate home to the world. Both short-timers had three Purple Hearts waiting for them along with their transfer orders to the States. I hope Doggie and I don't earn so many out here.

There was so much to remember... Roadrunner teams weren't expected to slug it out with VC and NVA units, especially the kinds they routinely crossed paths with moving along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Often, the armed elements of the enemy could outnumber a Roadrunner team by ten to one. Stealth was the key to our success. We had to move quickly, fix and identify the enemy and then bring down fire from the heavens, which was something we supposedly had plenty of.

I think we re-learned to pack our kit in less than five minutes when Draper showed us a team of advisors who were preparing to go out on patrol. All of the neat goodies the Army gave us Stateside were dumped into footlockers or sent to the Supply guys to be traded with the Cavalry unit in Pleiku for more useful items.

What did we pack the most of on Roadrunner? Socks, ammo and food. That was it. Besides a standard load of mission equipment, like maps, compasses, radios, weapons and such, socks kept our feet from developing trench foot and we were told to change them often.

The typical Vietnam jungle boot let too much moisture in, and the teams often crossed rivers without the benefit of a bridge. With all the moisture around, and all the walking we did on patrol, changing to fresh socks a couple times a day helped ease the burden on our blister-sore fighting feet.

Food was the obvious second major item. With patrols running for three to five days straight and no standard re-supply in the field, we carried our canned C-Rations in our socks (which helped keep the little cans from rattling while on the march), or the new packaged "MRE" stuff carefully arranged in our rucksacks. Sometimes, we kept some chocolate bars or treats handy to leave with villagers along the way. It was supposed to be our way of keeping the locals' hearts and minds on our side.

And ammo was the most important thing to have as much of as possible. When we loaded up, the patrol rucksacks weighed in at around eighty pounds of gear. That was probably three-quarters ammunition, already loaded in magazines. We also carried bandoleers of 40mm grenades for an M-79 launcher, or extra belts for an M-60 if the squad had one handy.

The CIDG guys carried their ammo in American WWII kit, since they were mainly armed with our old stuff to begin with. Everyone split the load of the support weapons, so that if one man went down, the whole supply of ammo wasn't lost.

Now, if you've ever gone camping or hiking you're probably wondering, "What about tents? Sleeping bags?" All that bullshit was considered an unnecessary luxury for Roadrunner patrols. Like I said, we took socks, food and ammo. We often found our own shelter in ruined villages, or asked the locals to take us into one of their hooches for the night.

In enemy-infested routes, we slept under the jungle canopy, in foxholes or just leaning against trees while one or two of us stood watch. The pantywaist Infantry can have all the other high-tech goodies; we took care of ourselves just fine out there.

So, I'll bet you're wondering who I started out my combat career with in Vietnam. Doggie Dobbs and I were assigned to a pair of dangerous men, to say the least.

Second Lieutenant Christopher "Candy" Wilcox was six-four and damn near two-fifty. He looked like a rail, but was strong as an ox. He started out as a Special Forces civic action sergeant, before getting a battlefield promotion and an assignment as a Roadrunner team leader. He had jet black hair, but no one could tell, because he liked to keep his head shaved bald and didn't even show a hint of five o'clock shadow on his face. Some of the CIDG guys called him the "hairless Devil" because of his ferocity in the field.

Sergeant First Class David "Sparks" Sullivan was a shorter soldier, standing five-eight. He and I were about a half-inch apart, depending on who had the longer hair that day. Sparks didn't speak a lot about personal stuff; he seemed to be all business, all the time. I think he was marking the days until he became a short-timer and didn't have to patrol anymore.

As the team's communicator, Sparks probably had to memorize a lot too, as far as radio call signs and passwords, which must've taken a lot of his concentration to keep straight in his head. He apparently never carried a scrap of paper that could be captured by the enemy or left behind to compromise the patrol.

Eventually, we were all supposed to get trained in local procedures for demolitions, hooch and well construction in villages, basic first aid, intelligence gathering, signaling, patrolling, and so on. But for now, Doggie and I humped the team's support weapons. All members of the fire team carried M-177 carbines, jokingly referred to as "Mini-Mattels". They felt a lot like toys, just as much so as their M-16A1 big brothers, which the Infantry didn't like due to jamming problems in the stubborn conditions of the 'Nam.

I also carried the team's M-79 "blooper", our portable, forty-millimeter fire support. Doggie carried the light machinegun, which was a shortened, Marine-style M-60, or a Stoner Mark 22, which the Navy SEAL units in country used more than we did. The Stoner was better for us, since it chambered in 5.56mm like our carbines, so we could carry more ball ammo and be able to use it in either piece, instead of trying to keep it separate.

Roadrunner Nine had come home from its last mission with only three other men, having lost most of the CIDG fighters they left with in a running firefight with a battalion of NVA commandos. Tranh Ming was the team's ARVN interpreter, and held the rank of Corporal in their army. He had worked with Candy and Sparks for about three months.

The other two, the CIDG fighters, Duc and Hong, were Montagnards, and looked like they could chew up and spit out anything they didn't like that came their way. But despite their toughness, they mourned the most over the loss of their squad mates.

I came to find out later, that Hong's two younger brothers were both part of the squad during that fatal patrol. All three volunteered together to leave their little mountain village and fight the Communists. Hong told us that he tried to dissuade his brothers from volunteering, but they wanted to go to protect him.

The brothers were fiercely loyal to each other. But after that patrol, Hong had been unable to protect them and bring them back to his family. They were seventeen and fifteen years old when they died. Now, they're just rotting, half-buried corpses in an unmarked jungle clearing, thanks to an NVA ambush. To Hong and his family, they're heroes.

-xxx-

Helicopter Base

7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment

Pleiku, Republic of Vietnam

Night was falling around Pleiku. Darkness began to shroud everything in thick walls of black. Due to security and concern over increased VC and NVA probing attacks, the powerful spotlights around the Pleiku helicopter base were randomly lit or kept off. Whenever a special mission was scheduled to depart, the ready pads were left in the dark, in case the enemy was sneaking around to observe them.

A lone, green-painted UH-1 "slick" of the 7/17 Cavalry sat idling on the Pleiku ready pad, its rotors turning with a steady, soft drumbeat while the pilots performed a number of checks inside the cockpit. One of the air cavalry squadron's ground personnel busied himself cleaning the windscreens of dirt and debris from the workhorse helicopter's last mission. He was also making sure that the crossed golden swords emblazoned on the slick's nose shone. Old cavalry traditions never died among the danger-loving, risk taking combat aviators.

A single pinprick of light from a G. I. flashlight moved back and forth as the slick's crew chief led seven dark shapes across the temporary steel matting that made up the ready pad's hard landing surface. When the pilots saw the undulating point of light, they silently turned off the main cabin lights and turned on red bulbs that illuminated their control panels.

The slick's turbine engines whined as they spun up to their operating speed. The pilots didn't even look back into the main cabin as the Roadrunner team climbed aboard and took seats. The crew chief that led the procession onto the ready pad tapped the left-seat pilot on the shoulder and then climbed into his door gunner's seat, where an M-60 machinegun and infrared spotlight were mounted for night support missions.

With all the primary running lights dimmed or out, the transport helicopter rose into the sky and departed Pleiku on its assigned course.

Sergeants Hauser and Dobbs clung to the simple troop seats on the left side of the slick, watching the ground fall away and the cavalry base shrink to the size of a postage stamp. The two best friends traded glances and tried to exchange small talk over the noise of the turning rotor blades.

"You scared, Conrad?" Dobbs asked.

"I don't know," Hauser replied. "I guess I feel a bit scared, not knowing what's out there."

"Me, too," Dobbs said, checking the sling of his M-177 carbine. His rifle was across his lap, in case he needed it while en route. His Stoner M-22 machinegun and its ammo belts were in a protective sack with his other gear. "I feel both excited and scared, in a way."

Hong, one of the CIDG Montagnards, turned to face Dobbs and Hauser, smiling a flash of bright white teeth against his black-painted face. "You no be scared, soldiers," he said with a laugh. "We bring you home alive."

Hauser and Dobbs were shocked at Hong's resilience, despite the loss of his two younger brothers in the last patrol. He was a tough little man, and worthy of their respect. Hong was partnered with Hauser, so that the rookie Special Forces operator could learn the ins and outs of tactical movement. Duc would be taking Dobbs under his wing. Tranh, Candy and Sparks would handle the patrol's navigation and objectives.

-xxx-

Our mission, for Doggie's and my first time out, was to locate and survey a section of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that Roadrunner Nine had patrolled before. MAC-V and the ARVN wanted updated intelligence on enemy movements and supply routes west of Dac To, along the Xon River.

Most likely, we were gonna go stomp around and raise a few VC and NVA eyebrows so that the ARVN and American mobile units could conduct a nice safe daylight raid on the area and send home a few elevated body counts to make the brass happy.

Hopefully, we wouldn't stir the bad guys up enough that they'd try to stop us from getting home, or enough to really kick the regulars in the butt when they came rolling through the area like a bull in a china shop. Candy said that we would also locate and fix targets of opportunity, which usually meant overnight encampments or supply caches, and call in some Navy bombers that were assigned to an air support tasking they called "Iron Hand".

-xxx-

Xon River Valley

Near the Vietnam-Laos border

After midnight

The flight from Pleiku to the Roadrunner team's patrol area lasted almost an hour, as the helicopter flew northwest towards the Laotian border. It wasn't so much the distance that took such a long time to cover. The UH-1 had to follow the 7/17 Air Cavalry's normal patrol routes to keep from attracting attention from VC on the ground that could report any out-of-the-ordinary movements.

When the pilots spotted the meandering blue-black strip of the Xon River, they dipped the slick's nose towards the ground and the UH-1 sped along the water's surface, barely skimming the rolling whitecaps. The heavy wash of displaced air from the slick's rotor blades spread ripples in the river all the way to both shores. Hauser and Dobbs peered over the edge of the cabin floor at the black water rushing by, and realized they could almost reach out and dip their boots into it.

"Okay, guys, get your shit together," Candy shouted from his seat in the center of the slick's troop compartment. "We're going into the drink along the western shore at Point Alfa. There isn't enough room on the shoreline for a feet dry insertion."

As the UH-1 raced along the Xon towards Point Alfa, the team's insertion point, it quickly drew the attention of the local VC militia. Black-garbed people scurried along the riverbanks alone or in small groups, brandishing Russian-made AK-47 rifles and trying to take random pot shots at the slick. The helicopter's door gunners returned fire with their M-60 machineguns, efficiently silencing any guerillas that presented themselves as a choice target.

"Damn," Doggie said, to no one in particular. "It feels so surreal, watching the door gunner waste those gooks from a distance."

"You should hope to never have to look a gook in the eyes as he's dying, rookie," Candy said over the chopper's engine noise. "And you don't wanna see the killer stare when he's leaping into your foxhole with a bayonet and wanting to carve your guts out."

"Hey, man," the slick's crew chief chimed in, from his door gunner seat. "We don't hafta like it. We just hafta do it." He turned to track his weapon's sights along the shoreline and spotted three VC running for cover. The M-60 chattered as it released a few dozen bullets, and the shadowy figures stopped moving.

"Yeah! Get some, ya yellow bastards!" the crew chief bellowed with a sick gleam in his eye.

Hauser simply shook his head at the callous crew chief, unable to understand at the time why people could have such a bloodlust. He wasn't yet schooled in the great meat grinder of combat.

"Point Alfa approaching!" the right-seat pilot yelled over his shoulder. "This is gonna be a dip and drop. Make it snappy when we settle in, so the VC don't fix you or shoot us up to be ornery!"

"Okay, guys," Candy yelled. "Grab something solid!"

The slick flared to land at Point Alfa, which was simply a large boulder that jutted out into the river next to a ruined watchtower inside of which the Roadrunner teams had planted a homing beacon. Under a swirl of disturbed water droplets kicked into the air, the UH-1's nose tipped sharply upward, as the aircraft's weight and momentum brought it into the shallow riverbank mud tail first.

Before the skids even touched down, the men of Roadrunner Nine bailed out of both sides of the troop bay, splashing into the water and keeping their heads down until the slick leaped back into the air.

Candy held his finger to his lips and waved his hand downward, the silent signals for "keep quiet" and "stay low". He listened carefully for footfalls or breaking twigs along the trail that led away from Point Alfa, before shaking two fingers in the direction of their patrol route. The men slowly exited the water one by one, shook themselves off, and then crouched together to listen to the night sounds around them.

Hauser felt cold when he slipped out of the Xon, which was odd considering they were deep inside a temperate hot zone. The late night air seemed to cool things off around them. And the sloshing feeling in Hauser's boots reminded him that packing the spare socks in his rucksack was actually a good idea, even though he thought the veterans at Pleiku were trying to pull a trick on him and Doggie.

"Duc and Tranh, take point while I watch the snot-noses," Candy said, casting a stare at Hauser and Dobbs. "You two newbies had better stay fuckin' quiet as we move, or I'll drop your asses myself. Got me?"

Hauser and Dobbs nodded silently, carefully working the bolts on their weapons to lock and load them for action. With Duc and Tranh carefully stepping down the trail ahead, the patrol moved out into enemy-held country.

When the patrol was a couple of kilometers away from the river, Candy called a halt and nodded to Sparks. Sparks crouched behind a convenient tree, laid down his rucksack and gear, and took the patrol's long-range radio out of its waterproof sheath, setting about installing its parts and batteries. When the device was ready, he called into Pleiku to report.

"Rugrat Nine to Pillsbury Base," the signal specialist whispered, while the other members of the team spread out to take up overwatch positions. "How do you copy, over?"

"We read you. Call sign Rugrat Nine, challenge is Exeter," a static-filled voice said curtly. Sparks adjusted his radio set and asked for a repeat. The message came in clear the second time. Sparks knew his business, especially because he didn't want the enemy to hear him talking it up all over the airwaves. That put the whole team in danger.

"Reply is Cleveland," Sparks said. "You're coming through five-by-five."

"Roger, Cleveland. Pillsbury Base to Rugrat Nine, continue with assigned patrol," the Pleiku radio center instructed. "Your Iron Hand coverage is call sign Devil. Navy A-6 Intruders out of Yankee Station. Over."

Candy jotted down on a radio data card the call sign of the team's Iron Hand air support, while Sparks simply memorized it. Eventually, when the team made camp, Candy would burn the card so there would be no trace of the information for the locals to discover.

"Roger that," Sparks replied. "We'll report in as per the usual schedule. Rugrat Nine is out."

-xxx-

We rallied down a few measured lengths of trail over the next few hours of darkness, taking pre-planned stops along the way to get our bearings and determine our position. It was really difficult moving around under triple-growth canopy, in the dead of night. We used red filters on our Army-issue flashlights, and had to rely on Duc and Tranh's experience on point, to make sure they didn't uncover enemy mantraps.

As we had been told prior to leaving, Roadrunner Nine had been down this route before. And it showed. The men knew where to expect possible traps by feeling cautiously ahead with the toes of their boots. They also made sure our team was alone by listening very carefully to the rustling of the trees around them.

The last patrol down the trail had been by daylight, and Candy told us that the team had located about forty VC traps, from punji stakes to Malayan tiger gates and repositioned American 'Claymore' mines. The CIDG unit had disarmed or filled in all of them. He explained to us as we walked down the thin path, that the VC also knew about the trails that branched off from the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and would try to booby-trap them, if they had the time and materiel. Unmanned security measures were pretty efficient for a guerilla campaign, leaving the men free to do other things instead of guard duty.

Fortunately, we were dropped into Indian Country before the VC had gotten wise to the last visit of Roadrunner Nine and their counter-trap activities. All the little trail marks and other telltales the team had left behind were intact, and all the traps were clear. Our next major rally point on the route map, roughly two klicks before we reached a junction with the Ho Chi Minh Trail, was a tiny hamlet that didn't even have a name. It was simply a checkmark on Candy's well-worn patrol map, which he updated himself, based on the information his team sent back to the higher-ups.

Candy later told us that he nicknamed the hamlet "Candyland", since the 'ville' was friendly to the team, and they often stopped there on the way in or out of the 'badlands' to catch a nap or cook a meal. It was good cover, and easy for them to escape if any VC got spotted roaming around nearby.

Candyland was too inconsequential a hamlet for the VC to try to subvert. It was populated by old farmers and Montagnard ethnics that preferred to tend to their small community herds and grow just enough food to get by. When the VC 'tax collectors' came by, the Communists would take very little, since the ville produced very little. Visits by the Special Forces were punctuated by giving, instead of stealing, and so the locals were surely more hospitable.

-xxx-

"Candyland"

Republic of Vietnam, 1.7 kilometers east of the Laos border

0300 hours, local time

Duc and Tranh stopped along the trail about a hundred meters from the Candyland hamlet, flashing their red-filtered lights three times in the direction of the rest of the patrol. The triple flash was a prearranged signal for the team to assemble and stop. Each man behind the scouts flashed the same message from one to the next, until Dobbs, manning the trail position, received his three flashes from Hauser.

The Special Forces men and their CIDG trio huddled in a small group with their flashlights snuffed, allowing the sounds of the night to engulf them. Their ears worked to pick up any sounds that were out of the ordinary. After listening for a few moments, Candy raised his M-177 carbine and snapped a Starlite aiming scope onto its carry handle. He aimed the weapon down the trail in the direction of Candyland, quietly scanning the edges of the hamlet.

"Hmm," Candy mumbled. "Something doesn't feel right. Candyland usually has a torch or two burning at night, or at least the red glow from the coals of their community cooking fire should be visible."

"You think the VC finally decided to play God with those poor saps in the ville?" Sparks asked softly.

"Dunno," Candy said curtly. "But I don't think I want to take any chances. Victor Charles might have left a few eyes on the ville to see if they could turn up one of our patrols. Wouldn't be surprised to find a few of their snipers sittin' on the hooches or behind the village well."

Tranh left the group for a moment, softly rustling the loose foliage on the trail's surface. He returned with a small, hand-carved wooden idol. The idol was carved from a long, thin branch of a tree, that had also been hewn into a sharpened stake to hold it upright in the ground.

"Duc found this knocked over across the trail," Tranh said. He added a small explanation for Hauser and Dobbs' benefit. "This is the ville's good luck idol. It goes back to old Montagnard superstitions. They place the idols along the trails that approach their community, in order to ward off evil, and mark their village center as a safe haven for their friends."

"So knocking one down is taboo?" Hauser asked.

"Something like that," Tranh replied. "It is never a good sign if the village idols are left to fall to the soil."

"All the signs indicate the VC have been here, in spades," Candy whispered. "They usually ravage a hamlet and don't take the time to clean up after themselves. They also have some understanding of the locals' belief system, and use some of the hamlets as examples, to make the others fall more smartly into line."

"Are we gonna bypass the ville and stay on mission?" Hauser asked. "You said that if we were discovered by the enemy, our patrol would be blown."

"We'll ultimately have to come back through here," Candy replied. "And if the enemy was hot on our footprints, we'd walk right into a classic ambush before we could blaze a new trail to our pickup LZ. We're better off scouting the place out and handing out a little payback. We could do it silently."

Duc, Hong and Tranh nodded silently. The CIDG fighters pulled out combat knives and machetes, smiling toothy grins in the darkness as they brandished the long-bladed knives for the newbies.

"All the same," Candy continued. "We're going to go off the trail a few meters and work our way in from another direction. We'll do a bit of observing first, and then go in to see what the VC did to our friends."

"Sounds like a plan," Dobbs whispered, shifting his Stoner light machinegun in his hands and tugging the sling into a more comfortable position. "I'm ready to smoke a few gooks right now."

"Don't be too eager to shoot off that piece of yours, you fuckin' rookie," Candy growled. "It only takes one of those motherless bastards to call in the NVA division that Intelligence thinks is camped out all over these parts. Seven guys don't have much chance of living long against ten thousand seasoned jungle fighters."

Dobbs' face became a mask of dark fear, and Hauser could see it in his eyes, even in the lack of significant light. "Just relax, Doggie, and take it easy," Hauser said. "We'll get out of here the same way we came in."

Dobbs calmed down immediately, when he felt Hauser's soft touch on his shoulder. "I'll be cool, Duke ol' buddy," Dobbs whispered, staring into Candy's eyes as they also softened. Candy's eyes looked like the veteran sergeant-turned-officer was reconsidering whether he could trust his life to Dobbs when the chips were down. When they softened, the team leader had apparently made up his mind in Dobbs' favor.

"Okay, you shit-eaters," Candy whispered, clicking his flashlight back on. "Let's hat up and move out. Haul ass fifty meters perpendicular to the trail, and then we move in quietly behind cover. Duc and Tranh, take point."

-xxx-

Twenty minutes later, after working to near-exhaustion creeping around the hamlet to their approach angle, Roadrunner Nine clustered together once more, behind a section of undergrowth that gave them a little cover. As soon as they settled into position, Candy had his Starlite scope raised again, scanning the hamlet.

"Yeah," Candy mumbled. "Things sure ain't right in there. Looks like the damn place is near fallin' apart. The only way that could happen is if all the residents are dead."

"See any movement?" Sparks asked. "Should we call an Intruder in to give us some ordnance?"

"What're you smokin' Sparks?" Candy asked. "We're not gonna wake all the enemy gooks by raining fire on this here ville. I don't even want your FAC buddy over Dak To comin' around for a smoke run. The Cong know we're out here hunting, and they know the planes are only overhead when some namby-pamby rookie is calling down air cover. We're gonna sweep the ville ourselves and then bug outta here. There'll be no more hot meals and nappin' in this here locale."

Candy pointed his gaze at Tranh, and the ARVN interpreter nodded. He raised his carbine and fixed a bayonet on the end of its barrel. The officer also checked his weapon, screwing a silencer onto the gas diffuser that was at the tip of the barrel.

"The rest of you, cover us from here," Candy whispered. "No gunfire unless we open up first. We'll wave you in clear with a red flashlight. Just stay still and quiet; we'll do the dirty work this time around."

After leaving their packs with the other patrol members, Candy and Tranh slipped around the thick foliage and crept slowly into the ville. They worked their way from one bamboo hut to the next, edging around the outlying homes before moving into the community huts, where the hamlet chief lived with the village's supplies.

Candy and Tranh covered each other, bounding from walls to windows to thin bales of bamboo or drying elephant grass. The men stopped their sweep when Candy spotted a slight movement in the shadows of a half-burned hut. It could have been nothing; perhaps a small rodent or nocturnal animal was scrounging for a scrap of food or a place to nest for a day's slumber.

Tranh studied the shadows, but his sixth sense, attuned to his surroundings, warned him of danger. He advanced around the hut he and Candy were using for cover, and belly-crawled across to the suspect hut. The ARVN corporal slid under the supporting logs and worked his way to the center of the hut, before thrusting his rifle and bayonet through the thin thatched floor of the hut. A large shape inside fell to the floor with a thud.

Candy charged into the hut and turned his flashlight onto the shape. It was a body, to be sure, and by the way it had been dressed, it probably belonged to the village chief. A quick glance at the distorted facial features confirmed that fact. However, Tranh hadn't delivered the killing stroke.

The chieftain had been dead for a long while already and the body simply fell to the ground from its weight shifting against the floor. As a matter of fact, due to exposure to the harsh regional conditions, the corpse was beginning to decay and smelled horrible. Festering red and black welts covered his face from where the VC beat him with bamboo canes or the stocks of their AK-47 rifles. Numerous stab wounds from spike bayonets had gone right through the old chieftain's shirt and pierced his skinny body through and through.

The chieftain's limbs were bound tightly behind him. And for the days he sat upright after finally giving up his life, much of the blood in his body had simply drained down to his feet by gravity. The lack of blood made his flesh look almost snow white, instead of the tanned hue of the average Vietnamese peasant stock.

The way the chieftain was left behind was surely a VC trick meant to scare any Montagnards that might happen upon the ville. It was the enemy's calling card - the "don't mess with us" message meant for all to see.

"You okay, Candy?" Tranh whispered from under the hut's floor.

"No way," Candy whispered, trying to hold down the urge to vomit. He ran out of the hut quickly and faced the patrol's covering position. He flashed his red-filtered light three times.

Sparks entered the ville first, locating Candy by the glow of his flashlight. As soon as the communications man was in range, Candy snatched the radio handset from his long-range radio pack and called the fighting camp at Pleiku.

"Pillsbury Base, this is Rugrat Nine," Candy said. "Spot Report."

"Pillsbury here," a tired voice said through the radio. "Go ahead. Ready to copy."

"Rugrat Nine reports hamlet at grid fifty-two-twenty-nine, one point seven klicks from Laos, has been stomped by the VC."

"Roger that," the base operator replied. "I'll log it in and send the intel spooks a note to update our maps. Can you give us a body count?"

"So far, we found one, the chieftain, Pillsbury," Candy whispered. "Unable to locate traces of others. Perhaps the ville was evacuated by force."

"See if you can find anything out, Rugrat Nine," the base said. "But stick to your mission timeline. We can dispatch another patrol later."

"Rugrat Nine. Wilco," Candy said. "Over and out."

-xxx-

Doggie and I were horrified at the sight that greeted us in the supposedly "friendly" hamlet. The VC had gutted the place. I didn't know what we should've expected to see, but what was there in the dark was a real fright.

The depths to which people would go to exert power over one another, is truly appalling. Had I been exposed to Cobra back then, I might have said that the VC atrocities (and some that occurred due to American actions) were simply child's play. But that sight had an instant sobering effect on Doggie and me, since both of us had never seen it before.

The rickety bamboo huts that the locals lived in were barely standing. There were man-sized holes in walls where the VC had tossed some of Candyland's residents, when they resisted. Entire huts were covered in black scorching, a result of the enemy trying to put the torch to them.

Aside from the village chieftain, there wasn't a soul in sight. The few head of cattle Candy said the villagers kept around must've been herded off by the enemy and added to their own supply. A number of mangy dogs were scattered around the ville, shot dead or bayoneted. The place smelled - no, it reeked - of rotting flesh and death.

Sparks hit the mother lode when he went poking around the ville's cooking pits, which had long cooled and didn't burn with the fires that kept the locals warm and fed. Inside the deep pits, the villagers had been discarded by the VC, after being bayoneted or shot. Their bodies were covered in ground lime, probably while they were still alive.

The contorted shapes of the people in the pits were what was left of all the ville's inhabitants. Mothers clutched stiff corpses of their babies, trying to protect them from the VC. Men had been tossed in after trying to defend themselves, losing to single 7.62mm bullets.

I felt sick. My stomach turned in knots and it felt like a good two weeks of chow all wanted to bubble out of my guts at once. Doggie beat me to it, heaving out a barrel's worth of industrial-grade puke. Sparks had to haul him away from the edge of the cooking pits and made him toss his cookies near the foundation of one of the huts. Respect for the dead, and all that.

I finally let the contents of my stomach go after the twisting became intolerable. None of the guys on the team laughed at us or ridiculed us for getting sick over the sight. They probably all had their fair share of vomiting sessions, having seen the war a lot longer than we did. They just let us get it out of our systems, and then Candy took down the body count.

We decided not to camp in the ville, of course. Candy had an off-trail rest site in mind, where we could observe the Ho Chi Minh Trail and rest. So we marched off on our mission, leaving behind Candyland, Vietnamese name unpronounceable. Former population, twenty-seven; current population, zero.

God Damn those Viet Cong.

-xxx-