P. O. W.

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  CHAPTER NINE

  Gray Justice

  The Bru chief pointed in the direction of A Rum, and his men separated into teams of four and disappeared into the jungle. Some of the Bru warriors were armed only with their long knives and crossbows, and a few of them carried NVA AK-47s and SKS semiautomatic rifles. The old chief had served as a scout for the French and knew how modern weapons worked, and fourteen of his villagers had served at one time or another with the Special Forces CIDG program. He had one hundred and seven warriors with him and another fifty Bru men loyal to him at A Shau. The torture and death of his grandson would be avenged.

  McDonald let Arnason break trail until the sound of gunfire from the village became muffled, then he signaled for the small, three-man team to stop. Kirkpatrick took up a prone position on the trail facing the direction they had come from. He had the safety off his CAR-15. Arnason took up the same position but faced down the trail in the direction of the Rao Lao River.

  McDonald squatted between the two men’s feet and spoke in a low whisper. “Turn on your transponders.” He reached up on his own web gear and pushed the switch that would send out a signal to Brigadier General Seacourt’s airborne command aircraft. “If we get separated, head due east until you reach the valley. At Ta Bat, the Rao Lao turns due south. Stay with the river until you reach the Special Forces camp. Remember that we’re on the north side of the Rao Lao, so you’ll have to cross over it. I recommend you do that as soon as you can, because it gets wider and deeper in the valley.”

  Kirkpatrick and Arnason kept their eyes on the trail while McDonald talked. “I’m going to try and avoid all contact with the NVA…. There are too many of them for us, and even though we might kill a few of them, they’ll eventually surround us by zeroing in on the sound of our weapons.” McDonald tapped Arnason’s boot. “I’ll take point.”

  The river appeared sooner than McDonald had expected. Moving downhill was easy, and they were making very good time. He picked up an animal trail and headed east next to the swift-running water.

  The NVA squad left the cages where the Americans had been kept and started running at a fast clip down the trail. The NVA point man could see the distinctive boot prints in the moist dirt that identified the Americans. They knew that three of them had run back into the village after the helicopter left the LZ. The NVA point man ran with a smile on his face. The Americans were heading down to the Rao Lao, and he was sure that they would turn east and try to make it back to the American base in the A Shau. Americans were fools, they were so predictable.

  The Montagnard team watched the three Americans pass through their ambush site. Any one of the small brown men could have reached out and touched the Americans, but their camouflage was perfect. The leader of the team thought that one of the Americans looked like the young soldier who had buried his son and wondered if American fathers loved their children as much as the Bru did.

  The NVA squad had made up the distance quickly between them and the three Americans. They ran without worrying about running into an enemy patrol. The first four NVA crashed into the brush lining the trail and rolled downhill until they had become so entangled in vines and bamboo that their bodies stopped. The squad leader had little time to realize what was happening; there were no warning gunshots. The Bru reloaded their crossbows with practiced skill and speed, and three more of the NVA fell down on the trail with small arrows embedded in their throats. The remaining NVA soldier started backing up and bumped into his squad leader. The soldier cursed and tried shoving the man away from him, using his pistol. The blow from the long knife was so swift that the NVA squad leader probably could have looked back and seen his own headless body as his decapitated head spun down on the trail. Only the remaining NVA soldier had time to pull the trigger on his AK-47.

  McDonald stopped and turned around to face back down the trail, his CAR-15 held up against his inner thigh. The AK firing had come from less than a hundred meters away. He quickly pointed for Arnason and Kirkpatrick to take up ambush positions next to the trail.

  The Bru father used his long ceremonial machete to trim nine two-inch-thick bamboo stakes from the stands of bamboo growing wild next to the trail. The Bru warriors worked fast, impaling the NVA soldiers on the stakes in the same fashion that had been used on his son. Those NVA soldiers were lucky: they were already dead. But the Bru were sending a signal to the living NVA. It took two of the Bru warriors to free the body of the last NVA from the vines he had rolled up in as he had slid down the steep incline. The father waited on the trail with his cousin. The NVA soldier the warriors dragged back had been hit in the lung by the arrow and was still breathing deeply, trying to stay alive; the Bru father nodded and they lifted him and shoved him down on the stake.

  McDonald heard the horrible man scream and shivered. Something was happening up the trail. No NVA had passed their ambush. McDonald decided that he would risk leaving the ambush site; they couldn’t afford to waste time hiding next to the trail. He left his hiding place slowly and started walking east on the narrow trail. Kirkpatrick constantly kept his eyes on their six o’clock and walked sideways and backward as the small team moved away from the screams.

  She had heard the loud noises coming from the plateau and raised her head off her paws. She was very hungry, and it had been days since she had heard that pleasant sound. There would be good things to eat when the loud noises stopped. She got up on her feet and stretched. A soft mewing brought her around, and she licked both of her cubs. They had not had the benefit of a full fifteen weeks inside of their mother but had been born early. The female cub was very weak and would probably die. The small male cub struggled to find his mother’s warm body in the large cave. She purred to comfort them and left the entrance of her cave. She must find food so that she could produce the milk her cubs demanded.

  McDonald was still serving as the point man when they ran into her on the trail. She was as surprised as they were. The sounds that were loud and shook the ground always left dead things, and here in front of her were live things. The second of confusion gave McDonald the advantage, and he pulled the trigger on his CAR-15. She roared and leaned back on her haunches. Something was stinging her. She turned her head to one side and swatted at the air. McDonald’s clip emptied fast. Arnason stepped up next to him and emptied his CAR-15 into the huge tigress. Blood spurted out of her mouth and turned her teeth red. She growled again, but with less force; something was happening that she did not understand. She couldn’t move or even swat with her paws.

  She died.

  “Look at the size of that thing!” Arnason instantly recalled Fillmore being dragged out of his night rest site and wondered if this beast was the one that had eaten him. He didn’t know exactly where they were, but they had to be within ten miles of where it had happened.

  “Man! This is some shit! First a fucking snake as long as a fucking train, and now a fucking tiger that looks like a motherfucking elephant!” Kirkpatrick shook his head. “Man! This is some shit!”

  McDonald tended to agree with the New York soldier. The tigress was huge and would have been a world-class trophy except for the scarred, burned hide on her hip. “Move it!” McDonald kept the point and changed magazines as they traveled. The pause from the encounter with the tigress brought McDonald’s attention to the dimming light. It would be dark within an hour. He couldn’t believe that the day had passed so quickly! They had attacked the POW camp at first light of morning. He couldn’t believe his eyes, and waited until they broke out of the jungle to see if it was just thick cloud-cover over the sun or if it had gotten dark. The trail turned to his left and started going up a steep incline. McDonald stayed with it. Animal trails were always the easiest avenues to travel in the jungle. The paths always followed the best terrain.

  A half-hour later they broke out of the jungle into a large, rock-covered clearing. McDonald saw that a number of large caves dominated the cliffs above them and a steep drop-off went down to the white-water river. McDonal
d signaled a break and searched the area for signs of any enemy activity. The sky had turned dark, but not due to normal nightfall; a huge rain cloud was moving in over the whole mountain and valley floor. A raindrop that looked like a gallon of water hit the boulder McDonald was leaning against, followed by another one at his feet. A summer storm was about to break loose, and McDonald knew that trying to walk a mountain trail during one of the heavy downpours would be nearly impossible. Flash floods would roar down the narrow ravines, and the mountainsides would become slides of mud. As he searched the area for shelter, his eyes came to rest on the mouth of a cave.

  “Up there!” McDonald pointed with his CAR-15.

  Arnason took the lead and climbed slowly up the rocks. Where there was one tiger, there could be two. His thoughts went to the breeding habits of the big cats. Did they mate for life? He wished he had paid attention during his high school biology classes.

  The cave didn’t go back as far into the mountain as the large entranceway suggested. It did go back enough to protect the three men from the storm that broke out in a fury the instant Kirkpatrick had stepped under its lip.

  “It’s dry.” McDonald remained squatting with his CAR-15 ready as he looked in the back of the cave.

  “Smells like an animal lives here.” Arnason sniffed the air. “Maybe the tiger’s cave?”

  “Could be…” McDonald turned slowly and swept the cave with his weapon.

  “I ain’t staying here!” Kirkpatrick stepped toward the entrance.

  “I think we killed the occupant…. Tigers don’t stay together unless they’re mating or it’s a mother with cubs….” McDonald spoke while his eyes continued searching the cave. The roar from the storm almost drowned out his voice. “In either case, we would have seen the other tigers by now…. It’s safe.”

  “How do you know this was that tiger’s cave?” Kirkpatrick still wasn’t too happy with the idea of staying in a tiger’s cave.

  “They can’t stand to live close together…. This cave is too close to where we killed it.” McDonald hoped he remembered correctly about what he had learned from the National Geographic special he had seen on tigers.

  “It doesn’t matter… we can’t go out there now.” Arnason nodded to the solid sheet of water falling in front of the cave entrance.

  The three soldiers took up positions around the cave that gave them as much coverage of the entrance as they could get. The temperature dropped sharply with the rain, and McDonald felt himself shivering in the dampness. For the first time that day he had time to reflect on the events. Barnett was safe. He was sure the chopper made it back safely with him on it. He would have liked to have found James, but getting Barnett back was the important thing. He tried remembering how many men he had lost, but couldn’t come up with a number because of the fast action. When they got back to the A-camp, he would find out. They did catch the NVA totally off guard. He wondered where the NVA group that had attacked the helipad had come from. There was no intelligence on a reserve force near the POW camp. McDonald inhaled a deep breath and sighed. With luck, they would be at the camp in the morning. He wouldn’t risk traveling at night.

  A soft mewing came from the back of the cave.

  “Shit!” Kirkpatrick flipped the safety off his weapon. “What the fuck was that?”

  “Relax, Kirkpatrick… I’ll check.” Arnason struggled to his feet and walked slowly to the back of the cave. He stopped and flipped his CAR-15 over his shoulder and let it hang from its strap.

  “What did you find?” McDonald kept his weapon at the ready.

  Arnason reached down and turned around holding a tiny tiger cub in each hand by the scruff of its neck.

  “She was a mother….” McDonald lowered his weapon.

  “How do you know it was a she?” Kirkpatrick still wasn’t happy.

  “I checked.” McDonald smiled and relaxed. He was sure now that the cave had belonged to the large female tiger they had killed on the trail. “Bring them over here.” He held out his hands, and Arnason gave him the smallest one. “They’re premature.” He turned her around and looked at the scrawny cub. “You would never believe how big their mother was by looking at them.”

  “What should we do with them?” Arnason still held the cub by its neck skin.

  McDonald shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s take them with us.” He opened the front of his jacket and stuffed the cub inside. She wiggled and hissed until she felt the warmth, and then she settled down and began purring. Arnason stuffed his cub into his shirt and the same thing occurred. “They’re going to get a little hungry until we get back, but they should make it.”

  “Man! I don’t think fucking around with tiger cubs is a good idea!” Kirkpatrick still wasn’t sold on the idea.

  “What should we do? Kill them?” McDonald felt bad about killing their mother, even though he knew she would have killed them without a second thought.

  “Fuck it!” Kirkpatrick went back to the entrance of the cave and looked out. “It’s beginning to stop….”

  McDonald stepped out of the cave. The rain had stopped, but wide rivers of runoff were cascading down the slope, which made walking dangerous. He knew that staying in the cave much longer would also bring danger. The NVA would have to be close behind them. He decided on risking the trail.

  The Montagnards left the shelter of the large tree and got back on the trail. The dead tigress lying next to the trail explained the automatic weapons they had heard firing earlier, just before the rain. The Montagnard boy’s father stopped his team and ordered them to skin the dead beast. She was too great a prize to let rot. He lifted one of her paws and released a lungful of air in awe. The tiger’s paw was bigger than both of his hands held side by side. She was huge. He forced the claws to extend from her paw and smiled. A necklace would be made from her claws that would become legendary among all of the tribes. It was a good sign that Ae Die had returned to the Bru and that the evil one, Tang Lie, was gone with the fire that had destroyed their village and the NVA. The Bru worked quickly on the tigress and hid the skin in the hollow branch of a dying mahogany tree.

  Brigadier General Seacourt was monitoring McDonald’s movement on the ground almost by the meter. He had ordered the Special Forces camp to send out company-sized patrols to link up with the small American team as soon as they crossed over the border. The general told the camp commander over the secure voice radio that he hoped he wasn’t too good at map reading. The Green Beret teams had been positioned near the border under secret orders a couple of days before the mission.

  McDonald stopped when they reached a small mountain stream that had turned into a ten-foot-wide rapids. He looked for a way to cross the fast-moving water and couldn’t find one.

  “We could jump….” Kirkpatrick had been a broad jumper in high school, and the ten feet would be easy for him.

  “Not with all our gear and weapons. The other side is muddy.” McDonald pointed with the barrel of his CAR-15.

  “I can do it and you can bring my stuff across. The water is only a couple feet deep.” Kirkpatrick removed his web gear and handed it to Arnason. He gave kis weapon to McDonald. “Cut a couple long bamboo poles and hand them across to me once I’m over there. You can wade across and I’ll pull you with the pole….”

  “Good idea, Kirk…” It was the first time Arnason had used a nickname for Kirkpatrick. The New Yorker had changed since his buddy’s death and was a super soldier.

  Kirkpatrick made the jump with ease—he probably could have made it with his gear on. McDonald held the pole out, and Kirkpatrick grabbed hold of it and stuffed four feet of the bamboo under his arm. McDonald entered the fast-moving water and almost lost his footing on the slippery bottom. The force against his legs was tremendous. He couldn’t lift either foot without being swept away. “Pull!”

  Kirkpatrick saw the predicament McDonald was in and started pulling him along the bottom of the flash-flood stream by pulling the pole toward him, hand over hand. Once McDonald had c
leared land, he laid his gear down and helped Kirkpatrick repeat the process with Arnason.

  The American team then followed the contour lines of the hills and headed due east. They weren’t going to waste any time by trying to throw off any pursuers. The jungle was thinning out and the team could see F-4 jets and gunships making passes toward the village of A Rum and the NVA defenders.

  The voice came out of the jungle: “We’re friends… Sergeant McDonald!” There were no bodies to be seen in the wall of vegetation.

  McDonald dropped down in a combat crouch.

  The voice repeated itself: “We’re friends… from A Shau… Special Forces….”

  “Show yourselves, slowly.” McDonald moved the barrel of his weapon toward the spot in the jungle the voice had come from.

  One of the plants moved and a perfectly camouflaged Green Beret stepped out of the jungle onto the narrow trail. Arnason was amazed because as alert as he had been, his small team would have passed within five feet of the camouflaged Special Forces sergeant and his Bru commando team and not have detected them.

  “Let’s go! I’ll guide you back to the LZ. The general is waiting for you back at the CCN compound.”

  One of the tiger cubs mewed.

  “What’s that?” The SF sergeant started to drop down. He was totally alert for anything to happen.

  “Tiger cub.” McDonald unbuttoned the front of his shirt and the cub stuck its head out and called for its mother. She was hungry. So was McDonald.

  The Green Beret sergeant raised his eyebrows but said nothing, and gave a hand signal for the team to slip back into the neutral jungle.

  Epilogue

  The whole atmosphere at the Command and Control North compound was jubilant. The success of the prisoner snatch mission spread like wildfire over the Special Forces radio network. The Marine Corps guards located atop Marble Mountain fired multicolored hand flares when the helicopter carrying McDonald, Arnason, and Kirkpatrick arrived at the CCN pad.