Baptism

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  “Fine, but let’s rest here for a few minutes and I’ll go with you.” Arnason tried pouring the last of his water from his canteen in Sinclair’s mouth, but the soldier turned his head to one side and the water only wet his lips.

  Lieutenant Reed heard the conversation, thought for a second, and then spoke. “They must have heard the firefight in the A-camp and will be sending a relief force.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that.” Arnason remembered what the captain had said about not having any more men left that weren’t sick or wounded.

  “I’m going to try to make it back to the A-camp alone.” The lieutenant’s voice reflected his fear but also the courage it took to make the offer. “Kirkpatrick and Sinclair are wounded, and we can’t carry them all the way back. If you and Woods stayed here with them, I could travel fast and be back here no later than tomorrow morning.”

  Arnason thought for a few minutes. The lieutenant was making good sense. They couldn’t outrun the NVA if they were still following them, and Sinclair couldn’t take much more of the rough treatment of being carried. He needed to be MEDEVACed. “Go!”

  Reed picked up his weapon and left the group without looking back. He was scared, but he wasn’t going to let his men down. The first thing that entered his mind when he disappeared into the tall elephant grass was the tigress.

  Woods lay on the damp ground so that he could see the mountainside they had just left. He could barely make out the end of the finger of ground on which they had been ambushed. He strained his eyes looking for Barnett.

  Arnason crawled over to where Kirkpatrick was stretched out and touched his shoulder. The soldier opened his eyes and almost started crying. “Sarge, are we going to get out of this shit?”

  “Bet your ’Rican ass we are!” Arnason smiled. “The worst is over.”

  “Man, that fucking Chicom claymore cut those guys in half!” Kirkpatrick started crying. “Brown… he didn’t have a fucking chance. We had just traded places, did you know that?”

  “Don’t blame yourself.” Arnason knew what Kirkpatrick was thinking; he had been there himself. “You can’t blame yourself for stuff like that or you’ll go crazy.”

  “Brown and me were going to open a record shop back in Brooklyn when we left this shithole place.”

  “So you still can open your record shop and you can name it Brown and Kirkpatrick Incorporated.”

  “I’ll do that, Sarge. Thanks.” Kirkpatrick rolled over on his stomach and blinked back the tears. He would never let himself make another friend during the war; it hurt too much.

  Barnett felt the pain before he opened his eyes. He thought that he had been wounded, but the pain was coming from the way the NVA had tied his hands behind his back on the bamboo pole. He blinked to clear his vision and saw a group of NVA sorting through Sergeant Fitzpatrick’s pack and dividing up the food and gear between them. He slowly turned his head to one side and saw his dead teammates lined up in the clearing. They were all in the same position: their arms stretched out over their heads, their pants pulled down past their knees, and their jackets shoved up under their armpits. The NVA had removed their boots and socks. Barnett could see the face of one of the Special Forces men; it was the lieutenant. The officer’s eyes were open and his mouth was slightly parted; an iridescent green beetle was walking along his lower lip. The thought passing through his mind was a simple one: So this is how it feels to lose a fight.

  The NVA officer looked over and saw that Barnett was awake. He stood up and adjusted the top of his pants before striding up to the American. The NVA lieutenant kicked Barnett to get his attention and saw the glare flash in the young soldier’s eyes. He was impressed, thinking that the boy would be terrified when he woke up. He sneered and reached down with both hands and yanked on the bamboo pole, forcing Spencer to his feet. The pain was instant, and Barnett screamed.

  The NVA lieutenant grunted and placed his hands on his hips. “You not so tough, ’merican boy!” The accent was Vietnamese, laced with French.

  Barnett blinked his eyes to clear them of the tears of pain and saw one of the NVA soldiers glaring at him with a look of pure hate. The soldier spoke to the lieutenant in rapid Vietnamese and pointed at him with a shaking finger.

  “My soldier say he saw you kill his friend. He want to kill you!” The lieutenant frowned and struggled with the rest of the words. “What you think about that!”

  “Fuck you!”

  The lieutenant became instantly angry and cuffed Spencer hard against the side of his head. “You say fuck to me! Respect! You respect North Vietnamese officer!”

  “Fuck you, comrade!” Spencer screamed the words at the Communist officer.

  The NVA soldiers couldn’t understand what Barnett was yelling, but the tone of his voice was enough for them to figure out that it wasn’t respectful.

  The officer curled his lip back off his teeth and stuttered out his next sentence. “You say ‘fuck’! Okay, ’merican soldier! You fuck!” He went over to Sergeant Fitzpatrick’s naked body and cut off the NCO’s penis. Barnett watched from his position on the ground where two of the NVA soldiers had him pinned down so that he couldn’t move.

  The lieutenant ordered his men to bring Barnett to his knees and raise his chin. The NVA soldier who had glared at Barnett earlier used a two-foot-long piece of bamboo under Spencer’s chin to lift his head up. Spencer was forced to look up at the officer by the pressure against his back from the NVA soldier’s knee and the pull from the bamboo under his chin. Two more NVA soldiers held him upright under his arms.

  “You like fuck!” The lieutenant screamed the words. “Fuck this!” He pushed the bloody, amputated penis against the young American soldier’s lips. “Fuck!” He kicked Spencer in the stomach and screamed again. “Fuck this!”

  Spencer kept his mouth closed and tried breathing through his nose.

  The NVA lieutenant wiped the bloody organ over Spencer’s face, then threw it back toward the row of American bodies. “I teach you… fuck!” He kicked and punched Barnett until the soldier passed out from the pain, and when the seventeen-year-old fell over on his side, the NVA soldier who had held his chin kicked him three times in the groin.

  The lieutenant went over to the other American prisoner and glared at him before speaking. “You like fuck?”

  James looked directly into the NVA’s eyes. “No, man. You’re the boss…sir!”

  The lieutenant nodded his head. “You smart!”

  Lieutenant Reed met up with the Special Forces captain less than an hour after he had left the remaining members of the team and told him where they were waiting and that they needed a MEDEVAC chopper. The captain called back the information and decided to use the team’s location for the landing zone. He remembered the small rise in the valley well from prior patrols, and it was an excellent place to defend. The knoll was far enough away from the mountain so that the NVA small mortars couldn’t reach them, and it provided excellent fields of fire for his machine guns.

  Arnason saw the relief force first and warned the rest of the team that the commandos were approaching their site. Woods couldn’t wait to return back to the ambush site and find Barnett’s body. He was hoping that Spencer had escaped and was trying to E&E out of the area, but he would be happy to bring his body back if he had been killed.

  The Special Forces captain refused to send out a platoon with Woods and Arnason, and ordered them to stay with him until the MIKE Force arrived and he could send a Nung Company with them.

  Corporal Barnett fell down and was yanked back up on his feet by the guards on each side of him. The bamboo pole was tied behind his back and extended out a foot on each side of his elbows. The nylon cord that was tied around each of Spencer’s wrists and ran across his belly cut into his skin each time the pole was yanked.

  James walked behind Barnett and tried keeping out of the NVA guards’ way. He was glad that Barnett was giving the NVA a hard time because they were concentrating all of their hate on him. James
sneered every time one of the guards hit the blond-haired honkie or when Barnett screamed from the pain. James would have been really enjoying himself if he wasn’t a prisoner also.

  Night was beginning to fall, and the NVA lieutenant increased his pace on the trail. Barnett could barely walk from the blows he had taken, especially the kicks he had received in his groin. The lieutenant ordered two of his men to carry Barnett, and they slung their weapons over their backs and lifted the prisoner’s pole up on their shoulders. Barnett bounced from the pole with all of his weight centered on the crooks of his elbows. The pain was extraordinary, and with each step the NVA took the teenager screamed until he passed out.

  The NVA soldier whose friends Barnett had killed, smiled each time Barnett screamed. He looked over and saw that James was smiling also.

  The lieutenant directed his men off the trail and guided them to a series of deep caves in the side of the mountain that gave them protection from even arc-light bombing. James was very interested in the underground structure and almost forgot that he was a POW. The NVA had established a small city under the mountain that could house a battalion without cramping the men together. A small hospital was set up in one of the caverns that had a dozen wounded NVA soldiers occupying the bunks. James was impressed with the NVA ingenuity.

  The NVA lieutenant hit James on the arm and pointed at one of the NVA soldiers wearing a Red Cross arm band. “You go!” James went over to the man and took the seat that was offered to him. The NVA medic dressed the scratches on James’s arms and asked him in Vietnamese if he had any other injuries. James didn’t understand and frowned. A North Vietnamese doctor looked up from the soldier he was sewing up and spoke in perfect English. “He wants to know if you have any other wounds that need attending to.”

  James looked at the doctor in shock and then answered slowly. “No… sir.”

  The doctor spoke to the medic in Vietnamese and went back to dressing the wounded NVA.

  Barnett moaned. He had been dropped down near the entrance of the cave with a single guard left to watch him. The doctor looked up from his patient and spoke with rage in his voice at the lieutenant, who answered the senior officer sharply. The NVA doctor spoke one short sentence and waited. The lieutenant glared at the colonel and then obeyed. He sent two men to bring the young white prisoner over to where the doctor waited. The NVA colonel took one look at the teenager and directed his medics to make a bed ready for him. He used a scalpel to cut through the nylon cord holding Barnett, and threw the bamboo pole down on the floor. The doctor hissed the word barbarians under his breath, then ordered his medics to undress the boy.

  Barnett lay on the cot in a semiconscious coma, drifting in and out of awareness. The doctor probed his naked body, looking for broken bones, and found three locations where he thought the young soldier was suffering from ruptures or breaks. The doctor stared at Barnett’s testicles and spoke sharply to the lieutenant, who answered with a negative. The doctor looked up and glared at the lieutenant, knowing that the officer was lying to him. Someone had kicked the boy in the groin a number of times and one of the soldier’s testicles looked as if it might have ruptured.

  James waited until the doctor had finished with Barnett and then risked speaking to him. “Doctor, thanks for helping my friend.”

  The doctor looked over at the black soldier and shook his head. “I don’t want your thanks. You Americans are butchering enough of my people. I am a doctor, and I treat all people… good and bad.”

  “Thanks, anyway. Doctor, do you think you could find me an interpreter?”

  “Why?”

  “I would like to tell the lieutenant something….”

  The doctor glared at the soldier. “You’ll have your chance to talk tomorrow when the regiment intelligence officer will see you.”

  Woods lay flat on his back in the grass waiting for the helicopters to finish unloading. He needed all of the rest that he could get before climbing the mountain. Arnason sat next to him watching the Nung commandos set up the perimeter. The Chinese mercenaries worked smoothly and with little direction. They were professional warriors and had been fighting somebody or something all of their lives.

  The captain took a seat next to Arnason on the matted-down grass. “The MIKE Force is going to give you their recon platoon. You won’t find better fighting men in Vietnam.”

  Arnason nodded his head.

  “They’ve been briefed and know what to expect. Will you be ready to leave in an hour?”

  “Yes.” Arnason took the shirt the Special Forces NCO handed to him. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll be the Hatchet Force leader.” The NCO spoke with authority. “We’re only going as far as the ambush site to retrieve bodies. I want you to know that right off the bat.”

  Woods sat up. “What if some of them have been taken prisoner?”

  “I know what you’re thinking. I would feel the same way you do if one of my men were taken, but trust us.” The sergeant looked Woods directly in the eyes. “We know what we’re doing. If we try to chase them down now, they’ll be waiting for us and a lot of people will get killed. We have a special team called Project Cherry that goes after POWs when things cool down.”

  “But they’ll torture them!” Woods was letting his imagination run away.

  A hurt look flashed across the NCO’s face. “They might, but they’ve made a habit of trying to keep their POWs alive.”

  “Let’s go.” Woods struggled to his feet.

  The Nungs moved fast through the valley and found a trail that wove its way up the mountainside. The climb was much easier even though it was about three times as long with the hairpin curves that doubled back and forth up the steep slope.

  Arnason warned the Special Forces sergeant that they were nearing the ambush site, and the whole platoon changed gears and became a stealth machine. Woods constantly had to check to make sure that he wasn’t alone. His mind kept going back to what he had told Spencer about not leaving him alive with the NVA; he had to make sure that his friend was dead. Woods kept trying to review what had happened in his mind. He had accepted the fact that he hadn’t abandoned Spencer. The tactic was a good one, which they had used to cover for each other, and Barnett would have joined him after blasting the claymores. He thought about Sinclair and knew that it had been right to help Arnason carry the wounded man. He had done nothing wrong, he kept telling himself, he had done nothing wrong!

  The Nung point element of three men waved for the American sergeant to go forward. Arnason accompanied the Special Forces man. They both saw the bodies at the same time. Arnason felt a cold chill traverse his spine. There were four Americans lying half undressed on the matted-down green grass. Two of the soldiers had their heads turned away from them, but Arnason could see that the four men were the two SF team members, Brown and Fitzpatrick. He went over to his friend’s body and looked down at the blood.

  “My God!” Arnason felt his knees shaking.

  The Special Forces sergeant ordered his men to place ponchos over the bodies until they could bring forward some body bags. “Keep the kid back there.” He spoke to his Nung sergeant, who spoke fluent English.

  “Keep who… where?” The words caught in Woods’s throat when he saw the bodies. “What did they do to—” He saw the missing organ lying a couple of feet away from Fitzpatrick. “Those bastards!”

  Arnason grabbed Woods and held his hand over his mouth. “Quiet! Keep quiet!”

  Woods stopped struggling and nodded his head. Arnason let him go, and Woods ran over and looked for Barnett. He checked around the whole clearing and found nothing that indicated his friend had been killed. He ran back to where he had last seen Barnett and checked the whole area for blood but found none. Hope sparked up inside him that Barnett was evading the NVA and was going back to the camp on his own.

  “It looks like James and Barnett have either been taken prisoner or they’re evading the enemy.” Arnason spoke with hope in his voice.

  “Prisone
rs, I’d say.” The SF sergeant pointed at the trimmings from a bamboo pole. “It looks like they’ve made a couple of arm poles, and they do that when they’ve taken POWs.”

  Arnason felt a pang of guilt from leaving two of his men alive on the battlefield. He looked over at Fitzpatrick’s body. “Do you think he was alive when they… cut—”

  The Nung interrupted. “No, he was dead. You see, there was very little blood. If he’d been alive, there would be much blood!”

  “Thank God. Man…” Arnason felt the tears coming. “We were together for a long time.”

  “Let’s go.” The Special Forces sergeant wanted to leave the area as fast as he could. He didn’t tell Arnason, but the dead NCO was a classmate of his from the Special Forces medical school, and they had been friends for years; the dead sergeant was his oldest son’s godfather.

  “Woods! Let’s go!” Arnason waved at him with his rifle.

  Barnett woke up and opened his eyes. He saw that he was in a cave. He smelled the alcohol and medical supplies and knew that he was in some kind of medical facility. He tried raising his arm and felt the bonds. He was tied down on the bamboo cot and was naked except for the bandages covering most of his chest and sides.

  “You are awake.” The voice came from behind him.

  The NVA colonel stepped into view. “You must refrain from cussing at field officers in the People’s Army. You are very lucky they didn’t shoot you.”

  Barnett pulled against the cords holding his arms to test their strength and felt the pain from his cut wrists.

  “I must call in the regimental intelligence officer. I have been ordered to call her as soon as you woke up.” The colonel spoke to one of his aides in Vietnamese.

  Spencer waited quietly, using the time to check out everything within view. He was already planning an escape. The NVA intelligence officer entered the cave and spoke with the doctor for a few minutes before she approached her prisoner’s cot. “I speak perfect English. I know that your name is Corporal Spencer Barnett and that you are a hero in the American Army for killing many of our people. I know that you have bragged to many of your fellow soldiers about the NVA you have murdered. You can be executed by the People’s Army for those murders!” She took a seat on a bamboo stool next to Barnett’s cot and smiled over at him. “But we are a forgiving people. Your fellow soldier, Mohammed James, has already agreed to cooperate with the People’s Army of North Vietnam in their struggle to unite their country. Will you help also?”