THERE BE DRAGONS

by Peter Hallett

  “I said, it ain’t easy, sir.”

  “What isn’t?” asked Jacobs.

  “The walking. It ain’t easy in this rain. With the mud and all.”

  “Yeah, it’s difficult. I can’t imagine what it must be like to try to fight in it. Just getting to the CP in the slosh is demanding. A firefight in the mud and rain must be hell.”

  “Nah, not hell. Just another normal day in Nam.” The soldier inhaled some tobacco smoke. The exhaled mist separated quickly as the wind took it in its invisible grasp and swirled it away into the air.

  Jacobs took ahold of his stomach.

  “You okay, sir?”

  “My heart is beating fast and my gut is in knots,” answered Jacobs.

  “The idea of a firefight done that to you?” asked the soldier as he took another drag.

  “Erm …”

  “You’ll get experience quick enough and then your heart will stop trying to push from your chest and your stomach won’t flip no more.”

  “It’s so stupid. Now isn’t the time for nerves. I’ve got to stay focused. Do what Lynch tried to teach me. Keep the negativity at bay.”

  “I don’t know who Lynch is, but he makes sense,” said the soldier.

  “Did I say all that out loud?” asked Jacobs.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Darn.”

  The soldier smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant. We was all a FNG at some point.”

  “Why am I even telling you all this?”

  “If it makes you feel any better, you could order me to leave.”

  Jacobs was able to force a smile. “Good idea. Leave me alone, Private.”

  The soldier took another drag from his cigarette. “Yes, sir.”

  The trooper walked away and Jacobs started towards the CP again. He muttered to himself under his breath as he did, the rain and sound of the choppers keeping others from hearing him. “I’m so dumb. Why don’t I just tell every random soldier my life story? Explain how much I’m filling my pants.” He shook his head. “I hope you’re doing well in the field, Lynch. I hope your men have taken to you. I hope they like you. They will. You’re a likeable guy.

  “I wonder if you’ve more of a chance of getting your platoon to like you than I have? We both have different attitudes and approaches, I guess. Which will be the most successful?” He slipped and felt a muscle twinge in his leg. He took a second to shake the pain away. Once he felt limber enough, he continued to trudge forward.

  “Have you engaged the enemy yet? Have you killed yet? Are you even still alive? Could I kill a man? I said yes. I had to say yes. You’d have thought it odd if a soldier had said no to such a question. Should I have such doubts?

  “Maybe everyone has doubts until it happens? Maybe once you find yourself in a kill or be killed situation, taking a life becomes easy. Maybe, when faced with the possibility of your own death, you’re able to react without doubt, but with certainty.

  “Would killing a man in this war make me a murderer? Had I been trained to break the law? What’s the difference between myself, and a murderer in the USA? Is it just a change of location, a change of weapon? A country’s law verse military law.” He shook his head again. “No. No more. Time to stop thinking like this.” He smiled to himself. Rain ran onto his teeth. “Lynch, you’d laugh if you saw me now. Walking in the rain talking to myself, like I’ve just escaped from a psychiatric ward. I’ll be seeing flying demons next.”

  • • • • •

  Jacobs met with the lieutenant colonel in the CP.

  “Jacobs, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ll be flying out to your company with the evening’s supplies. Your predecessor was killed recently on ambush, shot through the eye. You’ll be replacing a good man. Make sure you do him justice.”

  Jacobs’s butt clenched.

  • • • • •

  Jacobs was finally on his way to his company. He was flying out by chopper to the LZ.

  The firebase was small, with no permanent fortifications, just foxholes and rolls of wire at intervals. It was more like a village. The ground had not been cleared and the company CP was merely a bunker, with sandbag emplacements for mortars.

  “In the real world there are bricks and mortar, in Nam there are sandbags and mortars,” Jacobs said to the pilot. He got no response.

  • • • • •

  Once he had disembarked from the chopper, Jacobs walked over to the nearest soldier. The soldier’s uniform and that of the other soldiers at the firebase were more ragtag than his and others he had seen so far. Regulation haircuts and clean fatigues were long gone.

  “You look like a guerrilla fighter, Private. Like a jungle pirate,” Jacobs said.

  “We all do out here, sir. Every damned last grunt.”

  “Where is the company commander?” asked Jacobs.

  The soldier pointed him in the right direction and Jacobs headed to the captain.

  The captain was dressed in fatigues, just like the others, and was chomping on a cigar. His skin was wrinkled and dry. He had a dimple in his chin and a scar through his left eyebrow. The eye at that side was white.

  “Lieutenant Ethan Jacobs, sir.” He saluted.

  The captain snapped Jacobs’s arm back to his side. “Don’t salute me. There are snipers all around that are just itching to kill an officer.” He exhaled some smoke.

  Jacobs squinted through the haze.

  “They might not be very good shots, and couldn’t hit the side of a barn from ten meters away, but still, son.”

  Jacobs’s eyes dashed around and tried to take in the surrounding jungle. He couldn’t see anything g through the thick growth. “I could be in the sights of the enemy right now?” Nerves hit him again. It showed in his face, his expression succumbed to the debilitating feeling.

  “Calm down,” said the captain as he watched Jacobs’s darting eyes. “We don’t salute or wear insignia of rank in the field. It’s better that you learn it the easy way rather than the hard.” He removed the lieutenant’s bar from Jacobs’s helmet and placed it his hand. The hand was shaking. “You can wear that in An Khe but not out here. Put it somewhere safe, outta sight.”

  Jacobs placed it in his pocket.

  “Follow me,” said the captain. He led Jacobs to a seat in a nearby tent.

  • • • • •

  The captain took another drag from his cheroot. “Charlie has been pretty quiet at the moment. We ain’t sure why, but I am sure I don’t like it. Better they attack and are active so we can kill them, than them be in hiding. I hate sitting around.”

  A stray shot pierced the tent and hit the ground. Dirt puffed up into a cloud and wisped slowly away in the breeze.

  Jacobs had jumped at the round but the captain hadn’t batted an eyelid.

  “You okay, son?”

  “Yeah … It’s just this is the closest I’ve been to Samantha’s murderers,” said Jacobs without a thought.

  “Who? What?”

  “Nothing … Sorry, Captain. The nerves are getting the better of me. I’ve been having bad dreams and I can’t shake the horrific thoughts of my girl getting killed.”

  “Well, now is the time to get ahold of yourself,” said the captain.

  “Sure … Sorry, Captain.”

  “Don’t let that stray shot rattle you. I ain’t worried, so you don’t need to be. If I look fearful, then panic.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “You’ll have Stephens under your command as platoon sergeant. He’s on his third tour; he knows his stuff.” The authority in the captain’s cadence was much more relaxed than the other senior officers Jacobs had met. “You’ll have four squad leaders and three corporals. I’m sure Stephens will introduce you and let you share spit when you get there. You’ll be flying out with a reporter by the name of Malcolm Maxwell. I’m afraid he’ll be joining your platoon for a while. Don’t let the nosey fella get in your way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

>   “Don’t let him spook the men.”

  “How would he do that?” asked Jacobs.

  “He’s written articles about the dragons. I don’t want the men wasting time worrying about reptiles. They need to concern themselves with the gooks. The chances of running into the dragons are slim.”

  “Slim?” His eyes widened. “But possible?”

  “Dismissed, Jacobs.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  • • • • •

  That night Jacobs bedded down on a blow-up mattress in a tent. He added a plain smudge of black ink to his helmet, to identify his rank in a safer fashion.

  He wrote a letter to Samantha. Then tried to sleep.

  The enemy.

  The NVA.

  Stabbing her with bayonets.

  Laughing.

  • • • • •

  In the morning, Jacobs jumped into a chopper to see Maxwell already aboard.

  Maxwell had blond hair, wore tattered fatigues and a camera around his neck. He was unshaven. He didn’t have a beard as such but it wasn’t far from one. He was older than Jacobs, by ten years or so.

  As the chopper took off, Maxwell held a hand out for Jacobs to shake. Jacobs did so.

  “I’m Malcolm Maxwell. I know …” He rolled his eyes. “My parents had a thing for alliteration. Nice to meet you.”

  “Are you army?”

  “No. I just have friends in high places. I won’t be a hindrance. I’ve had some basic training and have been in the bush a few times. I’ll be able to keep up.”

  “Good to know,” said Jacobs. “The platoon moved in the night before and have secured the location, so the LZ should be safe.”

  “Thanks for the info. If you could keep me informed as we go, that would be a big help.” Maxwell removed a small notepad from his top pocket and began to jot down the details of the journey.

  “Could I ask what you’ll be reporting on? Will it be the news as the army sees it? Or the bull that I was told during training?”

  “And what bull would that be?” asked Maxwell.

  “That we’re winning,” said Jacobs.

  “And that’s bull?”

  “It’s the news I’ve been led to believe. The lies,” said Jacobs.

  “So us winning the war is … a lie?”

  “That’s what I’ve been told.”

  “And who told you that?” said Maxwell.

  “People who have seen the real news. The news the general public is exposed to. The truth.”

  “You think the news on television is the truth?”

  “It would appear so … isn’t it?” Jacobs started to doubt himself.

  “I can only comment on what I’ve seen with my own eyes and that’s what I report,” said Maxwell.

  “You only report what you see?”

  “I try to. I follow up on eyewitness accounts. Put myself in the line of fire, I guess you could say. Once I’m certain of it, I report it.”

  “Are you freelance?” asked Jacobs.

  “In a way.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s complicated,” said Maxwell.

  “You could always try to explain.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “All you need to know is like I said before, I’ve got friends in high places.” Maxwell was stern for the first time.

  “I’ve got to admit I find your presence to be added pressure,” said Jacobs.

  “You mean, if you foul up, will I report it?”

  “Yes. That.”

  “What about this? Will your girl back home see a picture of you in the local paper? Will it scare her to see you in the jungle, to see you carrying a rifle, a weapon … an instrument of death? Maybe she will see a picture of you standing over body bags. Over body bags filled by your platoon members. Or maybe she will see a picture of your own body bag. The zipper not pulled up enough to cover your face. Maybe that will be how she’ll learn of your death.”

  “I—yes—some of that.” Jacobs stuttered his words out.

  “I report what I see,” said Maxwell.

  “What are you hoping to see? The things you mentioned? Body bags filled with our dead?”

  “No. I’ve seen enough of that. I’ve hundreds of those kind of pictures,” said Maxwell.

  “Then what?” stressed Jacobs.

  “I want to see something that will change the world. I want to make a discovery. To be the first person to get a picture of one of them.” Maxwell smiled.

  “The dragons?”

  “Yes. Have you seen one?” The reporter was giddy now.

  “No. I’ve just been hearing stories of them since getting here,” said Jacobs.

  “Yes, the flying demons are becoming quite well known.”

  “You expect to see one near my platoon?”

  “Have they not told you?” Maxwell frowned.

  “Told me what?” asked Jacobs.

  “Your platoon is based near the main sightings area.”

  • • • • •

  The chopper followed colored smoke to the high ground; it had already been cleared of trees and undergrowth.

  “Trees are another casualty of war in Nam,” said Jacobs. “The sergeant, Stephens, has already radioed the chopper with the confirmation of what color of smoke to land at. It’s been learned, by error in the field, that the enemy will wait until smoke is popped, then follow the path of the chopper so they can open fire while it’s vulnerable because of the landing. So now, a few different colors of smoke get popped and the chopper is informed by radio which to land at.”

  Jacobs couldn’t help but smile at the colors below him, red, white, and blue. He could also see foxholes guarding the perimeter and some ponchos turned into a makeshift tent. “That’s a field bivouac,” he said.

  Maxwell made some more notes, then clicked a few shots with his camera out the side of the chopper. “Thanks, LT. All useful information.”

  The chopper touched down.

  Jacobs grabbed his kit and jumped out. Maxwell followed.

  • • • • •

  Two men from the platoon unloaded supplies amongst the swirling leaves and clouds of orange dust, before the chopper joined the sky again.

  Maxwell took pictures of them at work. They started to pose. Smiles beaming.

  “I’m Teacher, and this is Smith. Make sure you make a note of that.” Teacher was skinny, his collarbones prominent. He was caked in dirt, and looked like he hadn’t washed for weeks. The bottom row of his teeth was black, and a few of them broken.

  Maxwell let his camera hang and started to write in his pad. “Tell me about yourself, Teacher.”

  “Well, I guess you’d call me a farm boy. That’s got something to do with me being issued this pump-action shotgun, which is now slung over my shoulder. I got good with a shotgun back home on my father’s farm.” He winked at Maxwell. “I keep it with me at all times,” he continued. “It’s my best friend out here. I love the art of creating a buckshot-filled corpse from a dink soldier. My father raised me by himself. My mother left for another man when I was young. Is that the kinda thing you wanted?”

  “That’s great. Have you spoken to a reporter before?” asked Maxwell.

  “Yeah, I’m surprised how many of you guys are around. Fighting in this war is like being in a Hollywood movie.”

  “Can I quote you on that?”

  “Sure. Remember I’m Teacher and he is Smith.” He jerked his chin at Smith.

  “I’ll remember.” Maxwell’s pencil scribbled across the pad. “Tell me about yourself, Smith.”

  Smith was shaven and washed, tanned and handsome. He fixed his hair with a black plastic comb before answering. “I’m from the opposite spectrum to Teacher. I’m from a stable home, a middle-class family, but a family that doesn’t take it too easy on me, they don’t spoil me. I’ve had to work hard for everything I’ve acquired in life. Not that that matters now, in Nam.”

  “Thanks for your tim
e, soldiers.”

  “Maxwell, follow me,” said Jacobs. “Teacher, Smith, get back on it. You’ve had your fun.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sure thing, sir.”

  Jacobs and Maxwell walked farther into the LZ.

  “It’s going to be useful having you here, Maxwell.”

  “Why is that?” he asked.

  “You’re a good way to find out who these guys really are. You’ll save me time.”

  “It’s good to know I’ll be of some use.”

  “What struck you about those two soldiers you spoke to?”

  “Nothing new. They remind me of so many men out here,” said Maxwell.

  “They’re both so young, younger than me, and I’m considered young for an LT. But they’re only kids,” said Jacobs.

  “Like most of the people dying over here, sir,” the reporter said. “The average age of the men serving in Vietnam is twenty-two.”

  The platoon sergeant met Jacobs with a handshake. “Stephens, sir.”

  Maxwell held a hand out to Stephens, but it wasn’t taken.

  Stephens was a small man but built with muscle. He had a bull neck and his shoulders were broad and rock solid, his arms pumped. His face was sun damaged and his hair dark grey, his cheeks prominent and his lips thin. His knuckles where covered in scabs. He had Native American blood in him; it showed in the hue of his skin.

  The rest of the platoon were scattered about easting C-rations. Their fatigues were torn and stained with mud and blood. More jungle pirates.

  Jacobs looked to two of his men that were sat nearby on the edge of a foxhole smoking cigarettes. One of the men was black and the other white. Both were shirtless and dripping with sweat.

  They scrutinized Jacobs.

  “New LT,” said the black man. He inhaled some smoke.

  The white man nodded. “Let’s take bets on how long he’ll last.”

  “Good idea,” the black man inhaled again.

  “You two,” Jacobs said. “What are your names?”

  “I’m Jackson,” said the black man.

  “I’m Cook,” said the white man.

  “I heard everything you said. I don’t like you talking about me that way. Do you want to get off on the wrong foot with your new LT?”