Rest of the folks are tired and weary

Oh Lord, and have laid their bodies down.
I go the place where danger awaits me
and it's bound to forsake me.
So stupid minded.
I can't help it ~Marvin Gaye

Time passed without incident as Danny Percell finished his work on Doc Hock's glasses. The moonless night kept him blind, but his fingers told him that the metal was fairly straight and the frames would stay put on the medic's face, so that was good enough. Spitting a few drops of tobacco-laced saliva onto the lenses, Danny used the point of his filthy shirt collar to wipe down the glass, oblivious to the fact that he had deposited a slimy residue of mud and tar far worse than the oily fingerprints he sought to remove.

After a few ineffective moments, Danny was satisfied that the glasses were as close to perfect as they were ever going to get, and he dropped them into his shirt pocket where they would stay until he could present them to their rightful owner. Assuming, he thought glumly, that they ever found their rightful owner.

Dismissing the idea for its pure absurdity--of course they would find Doc...and Taylor ...and LT--the exhausted specialist instead turned his attention to his aching body. Raising his arms over his head to stretch out the stiffness, Percell grunted and tried to get comfortable. After sitting in the same position for several hours, moving nothing but his hands and arms, the sudden shift caused all of his numbed nerve endings to come alive. An unpleasant tingle shot down the calf and thigh of his left leg, and Percell winced back the pain. The foxhole was too small for him to extend his legs so he rubbed his throbbing muscles until the burning sensation subsided.

When he was sure that all of his nerves were at last awake, Percell decided it was time for his mind to sleep. Even without benefit of a watch or the stars to mark the passage of time, Danny's gut told him that it was close enough to Ruiz's turn for sentry duty. If the usual two-hour allotment had not been satisfied, Percell convinced himself that his charitable act of fixing Hockenberry's glasses had earned him the right to a nap. Even if it did not, his fatigue screamed for satisfaction.

With a yawn, Percell leaned over to shake his hole-mate awake, but instead of touching the soiled cloth that should have been covering his friend's chest, Danny's hand wrapped around a mound of warm, moving fur. Startled, Percell swallowed the scream that wanted to escape and squelched his urge to yank his hand away, instead gripping the squirming intruder even tighter to prevent its escape.

"What the...?" he murmured as he tried to establish exactly what it was that he had captured.

The question was cut short by the alarming sound of a loud squeak that announced to Percell what fearsome marauder had found its way onto Ru's chest. "Rats."

******************

Doc Hockenberry was unsure of how many hours had gone by since he had begun carving his message into the window sill. In fact, he could not be sure that any hours had gone by. It might have been only minutes, although it seemed more like days. Time held no meaning in the dreary night, except that the movement of it meant that he and his comrades were that much closer to dawn. For that reason alone, each transition from one second to the next without incident was considered a victory.

After finishing his work on the cryptic plea that would never be seen, much less discussed among the three soldiers, there was nothing more the medic could think of to do except to sit and wait. He told himself that they were waiting only for the sun to rise and for the clouds to break, and if they were lucky, for Sergeant Anderson to come to the rescue. To expect anything else from this desperate night seemed unthinkable.

And so it went.

For some time, Hockeberry had counted off the seconds in his mind, tapping the blade of the officer's knife to mark each one. When he began losing count, repeating numbers and passing sixty before realizing a new minute should have been begun, he realized that he was inadvertently putting himself to sleep just as surely if he were counting the proverbial sheep.

"Francis Thurman Hockenberry," he scolded himself, "Don't you be fallin' asleep now."

It was then that the medic became anxious to turn over his watch, but hesitated, unclear of how long a turn at sentry should be. With just the three of them, it seemed logical that each man should take a longer watch, allowing the others to get in a good, refreshing rest. The problem with the theory was that, because the medic had taken the first duty, his increasing fatigue was quickly affecting his ability to focus.

Sitting there in the stillness, agonizing over his quandary, the medic remembered that the LT was wearing a wristwatch. Excited at the possibility that he would be able to know how much of the night was behind them, and how much lay ahead, Hockenberry crawled over to the side of the hootch where the two men slept. An excruciating wave of disappointment surged through him when he touched the officer's arm only to discover that the wrist wearing the timepiece was tucked under Taylor's body as if the man were some overgrown teddy bear. It was impossible to get a look at the watch without moving both men, risking the chance that either or both would awake prematurely.

Suddenly considering that he had no way of seeing the dial of the government-issued wristwatch in the darkness anyway, Hockenberry decided that it was not worth the gamble.

"Damn," he muttered, easing himself away from the huddled mound. "It'd be nice if one of y'all would just wake up and let me off the hook here."

Crawling back over to his place under the window, Private Hockenberry sighed and resumed his boredom-induced vigil of tapping out the lonely seconds.

"One...two...three..."

**********************

No sooner had Danny Percell captured the screeching animal in his brawny grip when the other man sharing the shallow hole suddenly started from his peaceful slumber. As his brain alerted him to the disturbance in the foxhole, Alberto Ruiz bolted up and reached for his weapon as quickly as his reflexes demanded.

With instinct and adrenaline guiding him, Ruiz did not realize that his friend was leaning over him, nor was he aware of the macabre prize that Percell had just retrieved from the machine-gunner's chest. To both men's shock, Alberto's movement brought the panicked man face to face with the squirming rodent.

"Hijo de puta!" Ruiz cried, making no effort to keep his voice low. "What the hell is that? A rat? Caray! Let me outa here!" As Ruiz turned away and tried to scramble out of the foxhole, he was stopped cold by a large familiar hand holding him in place with seemingly little effort.

"What the hell are you two doin'?" Sergeant Anderson demanded through clenched teeth, having no real desire to learn the answer. He could hear Specialist Ruiz's heavy, uncontrolled breathing and, although he was concerned for the soldier's welfare, Anderson's first priority was to secure the LP, and only then could he take time to find out what had caused the outburst. "We are not in a whorehouse in Sin City where nobody but the guy in the next room is gonna hear your noise, so keep it down!"

Ruiz hesitated only a moment, but before the sergeant's words could be fully digested, the specialist pulled free of the noncom's grip and Ruiz scurried out of the hole. "Fuck that, Sarge. I ain't stayin' in no grave with no rat. Tu chupas, Percell!"

Danny had already discarded the rodent, pitching it mercilessly into the jungle where he hoped some cobra might find it a tasty midnight snack.. "Stop cussin', Ru. I didn't put it there. I was gettin' rid of it for ya. Although, I'd say it's the best-lookin' thing you've slept with in ages."

"Chingate, Danny," Ruiz snapped, unamused by his friends sarcasm. Had Percell understood Spanish, he might have been insulted by his buddy's string of expletives. Instead, Danny grinned and left Ruiz to enjoy his rant uncontested.

Sergeant Anderson found even less to be amused by than his machine-gunner. "Knock it off, you two," he hissed, pounding the dirt with the butt of his shotgun to show he meant business. The First Sergeant's voice tremored with his fury at the team, having expected better behavior from this particular group of soldiers. It never ceased to amaze him to think that Alberto Ruiz was among the bravest of soldiers he had ever worked beside, yet one lousy rodent was enough to make the man crazy with fear.

And that fear had just invited a heaping helping of trouble right their way.

"Whatever cover we had before is blown now. Get your gear, shut your mouths and let's go. Johnson, keep these two quiet or I'll shoot all three of you."

The senior specialist shook his head and sighed an unsoldierly "Yeah, okay," to his sergeant. When the last of Anderson's shadow disappeared into the night, Johnson lashed out at the nearest person to him, slugging Percell square in the chest. "Way to go, Percell. So much for sleep, Man. Shit."

Caught off guard, Danny Percell did not brace for the punch and fell back against the dank wall of the freshly-dug hole. Losing his footing, he slid down until he was sitting in the dirt, his thinking temporarily stunned against any vocal reaction. It was just as well, since Johnson had already followed Sergeant Anderson into the darkness and would not have had the benefit of hearing Percell's retort anyway.

Still steaming from his close-encounter with the odious rodent, Alberto Ruiz jumped into the foxhole only long enough to retrieve his machine gun. As he tossed the heavy weapon over the wall and hoisted his own body out, he turned around and voiced one final untranslated assault on his friend's benign intentions.

"Cutre."

"Yeah, well same to ya, Ru," Percell muttered as he picked himself up, gathered his gear and followed the machine-gunner out of the hole. "Next time I'll just let the damned thing eat ya."

Without another word between them, the three soldiers formed a short green line--first Johnson, then Percell, then Ruiz--and headed into the foreboding jungle. Sergeant Anderson, senses keen to his men's movement, took one last look around the shrouded crash site, propped his shotgun against his shoulder and frowned. Speaking only to the ghosts that would no doubt haunt this site for the rest of eternity, he bade farewell to the men who would forever be listed as MIA. "They'll probably never come back for y'all, but I promise I'll make sure your mamas know you died heroes."

With that, the NCO took his place in the back of his line and, unified in cause and conviction, the four soldiers began their dangerous journey in search of the LT, and--God-willing--out of Cambodia.

*********************

It started out as just a soft humming, but Private Hockenberry was bored and tired and common sense had been abandoned a long time ago. Without realizing he had done so, the medic had burst into song, unexpectedly singing away to a tune that had been stuck in his subconscious ever since his emphatic debate with Taylor so long ago aboard the ill-fated chopper.

"Ooh, I bet you're wondering how I knew
'bout you're plans to make me blue
with some other guy that you knew before.
Between the two of us guys
you know I love you more.
It took me by surprise I must say,
when I found out yesterday.
Don't you know that...."

"Doc."

"...I heard it through the grapevine
not much longer would you be mine.
Oh-oh I heard it through the grapevine...,"

"Doc!"

"...and I'm just about to lose my mind.
Honey, honey...yeah."

"Doc!" The sound of Marcus Taylor's amplified voice finally hit its mark and Hockenberry stopped singing. "Shut the hell up, Man. You're butchering it."

The medic could not contain the excitement he felt at hearing at the sound of the other man's voice. "Taylor! You're up, Man? Groovy!"

"It ain't "groovy"," Marcus complained, his sullen tone advising all that Francis Hockenberry would not be seeing the insides of his own eyelids any time soon. "It's bad, Doc. Real bad."

Hockenberry did not need to ask the question to know that Taylor was referring to his shattered leg. Without hesitation, the medic made his way back to the other side of the hootch, careful to avoid Lieutenant Goldman's outstretched body. Finding the specialist still lying on his back, Hockenberry ran his hands down Taylor's leg to ascertain whether or not the break had somehow been made worse. Despite his care, when the medic's long fingers glided over the area of the fracture, it sent a fiery surge of pain through Marcus' body and the soldier erupted.

"What the hell are you doin', Doc? Trying to kill me?" Taylor's words came out in hoarse, labored gasps. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as tears of pain trickled down his cheeks to combine with the beads of sweat that had already escaped his forehead. "Why don't you just cut the fuckin' thing off?. It wouldn't hurt no more than what you're doin' now and at least I'd get to go home!"

Hockenberry ignored the tirade, understanding that any attempt to reason with the soldier would result in nothing but contempt. Pain was often easier to cope with when shrouded under a heavy fog of hostility, and Marcus Taylor dealt with his pain louder than just about any other soldier Doc Hock had ever encountered.

"Quiet, Taylor," the medic advised as he pulled his hand away from Taylor's fevered skin. The area around the break was not only swollen twice its normal size, but it was hot to the touch, indicating to the medic that there might be some other problem besides the broken bone. Shrapnel from the explosion had no doubt punctured Taylor's skin, and in his reduced state, it would be reasonable to believe his immune system could not adequately battle infection.

Hockenberry reached into his supply kit and pulled out one of the few remaining serrets of pain killer. "I can give you some more morphine to help the pain and in the morning, I'll do what I can to get a better splint on that leg." With a voice void of any humor, he added, "but if somebody don't find us soon, you may get your wish."

"Yeah, I bet you'd love that, wouldn't you, Doc," Taylor flatly accused, continuing the quarrel as the medic pricked his thigh with the drug-filled needle. "Get me all doped up on that shit and then chop off my leg, whether it needs it or n..."

"I wish you guys would shut up," a groggy voice uttered from somewhere in the shadows. "Do you ever stop bitching at each other?"

Hockenberry and Taylor mulled over Lieutenant Goldman's question for a moment and then in unison, truthfully replied, "No."

"I can believe that," Goldman accepted, shaking his head in disgust. He was sure that these two were the cause of the persistent pounding in his temples and wondered if he had the power to order them to be quiet...and would they even bother to obey if he did. His condition had no doubt diminished his ability to lead these men, but they seemed to respect the rank despite the state of their CO's memory. With the throbbing in his head feeling worse by the minute, he decided it was worth a shot.

Summoning as clear and forceful a voice as possible, Goldman asserted, "No more bickering. I mean it. I don't want to hear another word out of either of you unless it's relevant to our situation here."

The officer paused a moment, wondering if his order would be met with an outburst of protest, or worse, laughter, as the two underlings decided that their lieutenant was full of shit. If they chose to ignore him, Goldman knew that it would probably destroy his authority over them forever, even if...when, he corrected himself...he regained his memory.

To Goldman's considerable relief, both the private and the hot-headed specialist relented to the officer's command with a resigned "Yes, Sir," and nothing more. How long their surrender would hold up was yet to be determined but for now, Myron was satisfied that he would be free from their incessant squabbling long enough to consider the significant part of the dialogue he had just overheard.

The lieutenant had been awake long enough to hear the medic's prognosis of Taylor's condition, and concern swelled into worry as Goldman considered that the injured man was their best hope in finding a way out of this mess come morning. If Taylor failed to make it, the chances of Goldman and Hockenberry navigating their way to safety alone were negligible at best. It seemed the private had never been taught such skills, and, although his rank told him that he had once learned the tools of survival, Myron simply could not remember how to use them.

After a few moments of listening to Taylor's labored breathing and a string of runaway yawns from the otherwise silent private, Myron came to the conclusion that the best way he could help these men would be to offer to take over the sentry duty so that they could sleep.

"I don't know, LT," the medic argued, sounding less convicted than he felt, his voice weary with fatigue. Private Hockenberry reached a hand through the darkness in the direction of the officer's nearby voice and connected with Goldman's sweaty forehead. "You still got that fever and you sound like you're in some pain yourself. You better get some more rest, too." The medic's voice faltered and he suppressed the urge to weep as he envisioned himself spending the remainder of the endless night propped up in a corner of this hovel battling sleep, as if it were an enemy more formidable than Charlie himself.

Lieutenant Goldman knew the medic was intent on resuming the watch himself, but the exhaustion in the young man's voice conveyed a message much louder than the words being spoken. Myron was unsure of his duty as an officer, but as a human being, compassion would dictate his response.

"I'm not tired," Goldman lied as he got himself standing. He was grateful that the night would hide his woozy posture from the medic who was no doubt trying to peer through the darkness for any indication that his commanding officer was in trouble. As he worked to stabilize his shaky balance, Goldman placed his hands on his bended knees and lowered his head to wait for the blood to more evenly distribute itself throughout his body. Feeling not at all better, Myron boldly declared, "See? Katshkedik."

Not understanding the unexpected Yiddish expression, Hockenberry frowned and asked, "What the heck does that mean? 'Cat shit'?"

Goldman laughed. "Katshkedik," he repeated without hesitation. "It means, 'ducky'... 'swell'." When Hockenberry still seemed not to grasp the meaning, Myron sighed with feigned exasperation and confidently explained, "It means I feel fine, Doc. Groovy."

Just then, the sureness he heard in his own voice gave Myron Goldman reason to pause as he considered what was happening. He had surprised himself with the use of an uncommon term that was certainly not one that had simply been picked up from Hockenberry or Taylor during this strange and memorable journey. It was something that was his alone, a part of himself that was blockaded in his memory yet battling to break free.

Katshkedik. Was it something his mother used to say? His father? The General? No, not him. It was too lighthearted to come from him. It had to have been his mother. Why did she used to say that? He would have to ask her when he got back home. No. He can't ask her. Why not? Why can't he ask his mother anything anymore?

"LT?" Hockenberry's sleep-filled whisper shattered the lieutenant's translucent memories like the crate full of Chi-Com grenades ripping apart the hull of their Bell UH-1 Huey. "Are you okay?"

Lieutenant Goldman cringed at the correlation he had somehow made between Hockenberry's sleepy voice and violence of some explosive memory. Shuddering, the officer released his struggle with his memory and gave the medic permission to succumb to his exhaustion. "Katshkedik, Doc. Go to sleep."

****************

If traveling the jungles of Vietnam during the daylight was considered a dangerous undertaking for the American military, making the attempt at night--even on a clear one, which this was surely not-- was nothing short of a suicide mission. Sergeant Anderson had no word in his vocabulary strong enough to describe the predicament he found himself in on this foggy, pitch-dark night.

He could see nothing. Not the jungle, not his men, not his shotgun, not even the tip of his nose. The moonless sky yielded no hint of the spectral horizon--where the seam of purgatory should separate heaven from hell--and the silhouette of the treeline that would give the sergeant some sense of reality existed only in his imagination. The only things reminding him that they were walking under a living canopy was the occasional root that jutted up from the ground to cruelly trip the men, and the constant screeching of the hungry creatures of the night.

They walked in silence, moving slowly and deliberately, each man occasionally raising a hand to make sure the soldier in front of him had not moved beyond reach. The only thing between this small band of soldiers and death was the keen instinct of Specialist Johnson and they all knew that synchronizing their movement to his was their only hope for success. Zeke Anderson doubted that it would be enough.

There was no pointman before or since that the veteran sergeant entrusted his life to more than Marvin Johnson, but asking the specialist to lead half a squad of overheated, over-tired men through these conditions was asking for a miracle. Even if Johnson could manage to keep the team headed in the right direction--whatever that was--it would be impossible for him to detect a trip wire or any other booby trap with which the enemy might have littered the area. Walking in such a tight line meant that if Johnson fell prey to Charlie's toys, they would all go down like dominos.

A discomforting thought in itself, but when Zeke considered that the death of these men would mean little or no hope for Lieutenant Goldman and the others, a cold chill shot through his heated veins, producing an unpleasant tingling of his embattled senses. Team Viking completely wiped out somewhere in Cambodia and no one would ever know how...or why.

"Hold up, y'all," he said in a loud whisper, putting a sudden halt to their forward progress.

Without question, Johnson, Percell and Ruiz obeyed and each silently thanked God for their sergeant's unexpected, yet prudent order to stop the line. They had been on the move for more than an hour and the three men had been certain that every step they took had been pushing the limits of the Deity's good humor. Sooner or later, luck would have given out to fate and the MIA status that they would have been issued would have brought more pain and torment to their mothers than they cared to imagine. The collective sigh of relief was not lost on Sergeant Anderson's perceptive ears.

"Stand fast," Zeke commanded, having already decided that they would wait out the remainder of the night where they were. "We got a few hours before dawn. We'll head out as soon as we got us some light. Stay alert. We ain't diggin' in now, y'hear? Just find a spot to wait it out and if you got some chow, go ahead and enjoy it." Anderson chose not to taint the advise by reminding the men that that this might be their last meal...eat the beans and weenies if you got 'em.

******************

His head was pounding and he felt weak, but the sound of Taylor's loud snoring had so far been enough to keep the peaked Lieutenant Goldman from drifting into sleep. Now standing at the window of the hootch, the officer's hand absently traced the indecipherable lines etched into the rough, decaying sill. He had no way of knowing that he had found the words carved out by Doc Hock just a few hours ago, but there was something in the feel of the craggy grain under his fingers that helped to soothe Myron's unsettled nerves.

Keeping watch was a frightening experience for the troubled officer who somehow knew that, should he fail, he would be held accountable for all of their lives...and deaths. Accountable to whom? he quickly asked himself, hoping to find a way to dismiss the question of accountability. To myself? What will I care? I'll be dead.

As he paused to consider the insolence of his rebuttal, the truth stubbornly imposed itself in less time than it took his heart to skip a beat.. No, Myron Goldman soberly corrected...I am accountable to them.

The meandering of his thoughts soon began to usher in a crushing wave of anxiety as the lieutenant tried to make sense of the incredible responsibility of his station. Is this what being an officer is all about? To be responsible for not just two guys but for dozens, maybe even hundreds? He intended to leave the questions hang there unanswered, but the words echoed through his mind, refusing to be silenced until Myron relented and explored them further. Adding to his frustration, the officer found himself asking even more questions and finding very few answers, a quagmire that left him feeling tired and drained.

Why would I choose to do this? he demanded to know. What in hell possessed me to want to become a guy who decides what other guys have to do, especially if it means that some of those guys are going to die? That's insane. Who the fuck do I think I am? God? I don't think I want to do it anymore.

Raising his trembling hand, Goldman rubbed hard at his aching forehead as he turned his back to the window and slid slowly down the side of the grass-covered wall. He could feel his own body heat through his fingertips and knew that the medic had been correct in asserting that the lieutenant was ill with fever. The question now was how bad had it gotten and would it impare his ability to function.

When he was finally sitting, Myron placed the butt of the rifle that he somehow still knew how to operate into the dirt, and hugged the barrel into his chest. With one arm wrapped around the weapon, Goldman continued his assault on his throbbing temples with his free hand hoping that the motion would not only diminish the pain but help to keep him awake. In time, the reluctant sentry rested his forehead against the clammy metal and closed his eyes.

No, I just don't want to do it anymore at all.

***********

Alberto Ruiz was more than happy to take Anderson up on the suggestion to grab some chow. Reaching into his rucksack, he blindly scooped up a can of something, unconcerned about what kind of conconcoction he might find inside. Pulling his churchkey from the band of his helmet, the spec4 fumbled to open his dinner, nearly losing his grip on can and tool alike as he tried to balance his cumbersome machine gun against his leg. Deciding the task would be easier if he were sitting, Ruiz put the churckey in his mouth, tucked the can under his arm and gently laid the M-60 on the ground. With the barrel resting on his foot so that he would not lose contact with his weapon, Ruiz plopped himself down. It took only a second for him to regret his irresponsibility in not checking the ground first.

"What the hell is that?" he yelped, bounding up. Alberto had already figured out that he had sat on a dead human being, but his disgust prevented his brain from quickly identifying the body as that of a Viet Cong soldier. With his heart beating almost as rapidly as it had when he had come nose to nose with Percell's rat, Ruiz tentatively reached down to manually inspect what he could not see.

With just a quick touch, Ruiz learned that the body was that of a man, he had been shot, probably more than once, and not very long ago. The soft, silky clothing and the AK-47 in his hand identified the dead man as Charlie, and that was all the machine-gunner needed to know.

"Hey, Sarge," Ruiz whispered hoping, correctly, that Anderson was not too far away. "There's a dead gook here. Think LT and Taylor are the one's that got him?"

"Well, it sure wasn't Doc Hock, now was it, Ru?"

Sergeant Anderson had no way of knowing who had shot this poor bastard, but there was no harm in fostering the belief that it had been their guys. It would be a whole lot easier on Johnson if he believed he had been leading them in the right direction all this time, and Zeke knew he himself felt better believing that someone in LT's group still had the capacity to fire a weapon.

Before he had time to digest the small amount of intelligence they had just gathered any further, Marvin Johnson's voice interrupted. "Did you guys see that?" the pointman asked, nobody in the squad understanding to what he was referring. When he received no reply, Johnson expounded, "Look over there, three-o'clock from the sound of my voice. There's a light. Do you see it?"

Zeke Anderson squinted, thinking he saw a speck of light in the distance, but unsure if it was his mind playing tricks on him...a ghost formed out of wishful thinking combined with the power of Johnson's suggestion. "You mean that spot over there? Looks like either a campfire a klick away or a lantern fifty feet away?" The sergeant continued to stare at the spot, growing more certain that it was not a figment of his weary imagination.

"Yeah," Johnson confirmed, his excitement a distinct mixture of hope and fear. "Looks more like a campfire to me, though. What do you think Percell?"

"Dunno," Danny shrugged. "Seems like it's pretty far to me. Campfire, I reckon. What about you, Ru?"

The machine-gunner sounded more certain than the others. "It's a campfire." He paused. Considered it again and repeated, adding an additional analysis, "Yeah, it's a gook campfire."

Sergeant Anderson could not disagree. The flickering light suggested that it came from an enemy outpost set up with the arrogant assumption that there would not be an American squad within miles, since Charlie knew as well as he did that Cambodia was off-limits. There was an even more important piece of information Zeke gathered from the distant light--the fog was lifting.

************

Although Lieutenant Goldman was no longer having difficulty staying awake, he was growing alarmed by the sudden activity of his mind and the strange images that insisted on invading his thoughts. Surreal and unintelligable, Myron's felt inclined to fight away these unwarrented intrusions until one of them--a vision of himself breathing air into the lungs of a large man in a dark, dust-filled tunnel melded into an even stronger vision of his lips pressed against those of a beautiful blonde woman on a sun-drenched beach--slapped him with the realization that these images were memories that should be encouraged, not stifled.

Keeping his ears alert to the quiet of the hootch, Myron closed his eyes and permitted the memories to flood him, afraid of the story they might tell, but now anxious to allow it to unfold.

Oddly, it seemed to Myron, the first real memory to allow itself in was from less than a year ago. Autumn. The leaves should have been bright orange and gold, the air clean and crisp with a hint of frost nipping the air. Instead, the foliage was still richly green, dripping with the weight of the water that hung in the hot, saturated air. The place was called Vietnam, not New York City. And there, coming around the corner of a large vehicle packed with uniformed boys, many younger than himself, was the man he had been breathing life into from the earlier dream-fragment. "All right, any of you men know which one of these officers is Second Lieutenant Goldman?"

"Yeah, I'm Lieutenant Goldman."

************.

The trip to the VC camp was short and easy. With the light of the campfire as a guide, Johnson had little trouble leading the squad the mile or so it took to get them within sniffing distance of the gooks' foul-smelling dinner. Sergeant Anderson was satisfied that Johnson had stopped the line where he had, about ten meters shy of the camp. From here, he could get a clear overview of the encampment with very little danger of being seen or heard.

There were no more than six enemy soldiers, two of them already sleeping near the campfire, a two-man defense perimeter and one sitting near the fire eating his chow. If you can call a meal of rice and fish heads chow. Just beyond the main camp, almost swallowed by the jungle but not quite out of the reach of the light cast by the amber flames, Zeke saw the last of the gooks, sitting with his back against the side of a bamboo box.

"Aw, shit," the sergeant said to no one in a very soft whisper. He was all too familiar with the use of such a construction. "Please, God. Let that cage be empty."

Squinting to focus through the inadequate firelight, Zeke peered intently into the shadows. "Fuck," he hissed, seeing the battered body of a naked man lying motionless on the bamboo bars that made up the floor of the VC jail. His face was covered in blood making it impossible for Zeke to identify anything about the man other than the fact that he was white, thin but muscular, had short hair that looked like it was probably brown, and wore dog tags around his neck meaning he was an American soldier. That information came as no surprise.

As he stood there trying to determine whether the man was alive or dead, a horrendous thought suggested itself and Sergeant Anderson had to forcibly cool his instinctive reaction to jump to the downed man's aid. The operation to take out the enemy camp would have to be done methodically, and an ambush would end in four more bamboo cages being built for himself and his men, but the urgency to obliterate the camp was now more clearly defined. The soldier in that cage could be Lieutenant Goldman.

Controlling his surging adrenaline, Sergeant Anderson looked at his sharpshooter. Even in the dimness of the flickering firelight, Zeke could see the ghosts still dancing in those crystal blue eyes, and knew without question that Danny Percell was not yet up to the savagery of hand to hand combat. There would be a proper time to reintroduce the soldier to this kind of slaughter. But not tonight.

Because of the critical need for silence, Sergeant Anderson secured Percell's attention by tapping the Spec4's forearm with the dull side of his unsheathed bowie knife.

The startled flinch was barely noticeable, but the sudden gasp for air was unmistakeable and the noncom's hand was over Danny's mouth before the involuntary cry of surprise could even form. "Shhh," Zeke's forefinger to lips demanded, although no audible sound was released. Danny nodded his understanding so the sergeant knew it was safe to remove his hand.

Now that he had Percell's attention, Zeke carefully delivered his silent instructions, trusting that the young soldier had enough mental stability to understand them without mistake. Making a "V" out of his index and middle fingers, Anderson quickly pointed to both of his eyes and then turned his hand and poked his forefinger square into the spec4's chest.

The order was clear. Danny was to be the look-out while Anderson, Johnson and Ruiz infiltrated the VC camp. If all went as planned, the three soldiers would make their way to the caged prisoner with as much stealth as a tomcat on the prowl, taking out the enemy one by one as they went. God-willing, Spec4 Percell would be required to do little more than witness the bloodshed, but the possibility that the young man would be required to come to terms with his demons within a split second to partake in the barbarity was not lost on Sergeant Anderson. If it happened, hopefully the boy could handle it.

God willing.

Dismissing his hypothetical meanderings as unnecessary clutter in his already worry-filled brain...worries about the poor bastard on the other side of the camp who may or may not be Lieutant Goldman, but who is definitely fucked up judging from the tale-tale signs of torture visible even from this distance...Sergeant Anderson delivered two very different messages to the three men with him, using nothing more than a nod of his head.

To Danny Percell, the twinkle in the noncom's eye and the amiable grin on his face meant, "It'll be ok, Kid. Piece of cake." To Marvin Johnson and Alberto Ruiz, that same look meant, "This is it, Boys. If we don't all make it out of here, we'll meet again in Hell."

And with that, it began.

Spec4 Ruiz was the first to make a kill. Without the customary burden of his heavy machine gun that had been left in Percell's care for the time being, Ruiz's compact body easily slid through the jungle vegetation, making less sound than the gentle breeze that periodically disturbed the heavy air. He had found his mark and zeroed in, determined to avenge the tortured man in the cage.

The shadow of a man that Ruiz had targeted was positioned on the edge of the clearing, just beyond the firelight. He had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, and was standing with his arms crossed and resting on his stomach, his head bent so far forward that his chin was touching the top of his chest right where the collarbones meet. Ruiz knew that the gook was asleep. The attack would be clean and effortless.

When he was certain that no one else was around or paying attention to the irresponsible sentry, Ruiz moved in for the kill. He slid up behind the soldier and with a single motion, covered the sleeping man's mouth and nose with one hand and used the other to slice a deep gash from one earlobe to the other. Death was instant making Ruiz feel a surge of anger that this guy had gotten off so easily.

No matter. There were at least five more fuckers to go. Maybe Sarge would have better luck making them pay.

**************to be continued***************