by Glen Johnson
Lennie called to Tuyet, who was walking towards the house with a basket of dragon fruit. She put the basket down and ran straight over, with her head lowered.
“Cigarette,” Lennie said.
Tuyet removed the packet from Lennie’s shorts and lit one, and placed it in his mouth. She stood rock still. She could not leave until Lennie excused her.
Smoke streamed up Lennie’s greasy, spotty, shrapnel scarred face. With his two fingers and thumb, he started to rub Tuyet’s right nipple.
She did not move or utter a sound.
He gripped it hard and twisted.
Tuyet’s face screwed up; her eyes shut tight, but she remained silent, her hands placid at her sides.
His deformed hand moved down her body, stopping between her legs, over the top of her blue ao dai. His hand pushed roughly against her crotch. He leaned in closer, the cigarette mere inches from her face.
“Tonight... I’m going to use you, and cut you bad.” He just stared into her lowered face.
“Tell all the bitches to get ready. You all have one hour to finish up what needs doing for the day, and get to your room.” He removed his hand and walked away, leaving her stood, shaking, with tears rolling down her cheeks.
With a quick wipe of her face, Tuyet ran back to the basket of fruit.
Lennie pulled on his shorts, to make room for his growth.
It started to rain; a short heavy burst that pattered the ground hard and fast. Plumes of dust floated in the air. The rain bounced off the large elephant plant leafs that surrounded the pigpen; it was loud, and made a tattoo of echoing sound.
Lennie did not run for cover; the rain was refreshing. He flicked the cigarette butt into the bushes. He pulled down his shorts and pissed against the thick stem of a bamboo tree. He spat a big glob of yellow flem.
He had a whole day to kill. It only took an hour or so to clear the landmines, and prepare for the truck. Hue will have the children all ready to load straight into the van before she goes to her room.
He clenched the metal claw to grip another cigarette. He lit it with his good hand. The metal almost cut right through the filter.
The rain stopped as quickly as it started.
At least it has cooled the air down a little.
When the van arrived, two large bouncer type men got out from the back, completely dressed in black wearing balaclavas. He never saw the driver. He presumed they were American, even though he has never heard them speak, but purely because of their steroid enhanced bodies.
The two men would load the van with the ten children and leave a package on the ground. It would contain ten thousand dollars in cash, in Dong – one thousand per child. When they returned they left the same amount. Twenty thousand did not seem a lot for what he did, the risks he took, but in Vietnam, it was a fortune.
Lennie took a long drag and blew the stream of smoke into the sky. He spat again.
He had wandered his domain, as he did every morning, and was pleased with what he saw. The children were ready; the dogs and pigs fed, and the slaves would soon be locked in their room.
Time for a Halida beer.
*
Lennie had a quiet afternoon.
The slaves were locked in their room, and everything was ready for the white van to turn up tonight.
With a cold beer in hand, Lennie relaxed into the hammock that swung in the shade between two thick bamboo trees behind the farmhouse. After he finished the Halida, he let the movement of the hammock lull him to sleep.
*
Lennie woke hours later. All was peaceful. It was the afternoon, and the dogs and pigs would be seeking shade in the corners of their cages and pen. It was if the world was holding its breath due to the sticky heat.
He had slept longer than he intended. One of the women normally roused him as they went about their chores, but because they were all locked away, he had nothing to disturb him.
He rolled sideways to get off the hammock, twisting his legs to the ground to steady himself. His false foot hit with a thud.
Time to remove the landmines so the van can get in.
He used to do this procedure regularly at one time, when he first moved here. Now it was just a once a month project. Before he used an old Foerster Minex 2FD 4.500 metal detector, which the French used. However, he had collected so many when he cleared areas around towns and villages that he had a stockpile in a locked shed at the edge of his property. So now, he simply used a long stretch of rope with a grappling hook on, and tossed it towards where he knew the antipersonnel landmine was buried mere inches under the soil.
He collected the long rope and metal grappling hook and wandered off towards the only mud track in or out of his property.
He walked smoking another cigarette; he didn’t bother removing it, but just left it hanging from the corner of his mouth, like his mother used to do.
The bitch!
She was the reason he had joined the army in the first place. He did not know his real dad, but had a collection of live ins and step dads over the years he was at home. None of them liked him, or gave him the time of day. A few even beat him for the fun of it, or so it seemed at the time.
His mother had to know everything; she was a complete control freak. He could not even go to the toilet without her say so. He was kept in his room, with a bolt on the outside. He was let out only to go to school, or when he needed to empty his piss bucket or use the shower. He had no real friends because no one was allowed back to the house.
As soon as he was old enough she marched him to the recruiting office and signed him up. The day he left for training she tossed out everything that he could not fit into his bag, then repainted his room as a man cave for her new boyfriend.
The last time he saw his mother was when she stood on the doorstep to make sure he got into the taxi.
Blood is thicker than water, some say. Bullshit, he mused.
After the van was loaded tonight, and the children taken, the dust lane remained un-mined. Tomorrow he would load the pigs and dogs into his old ex-army, battered M35A2 truck, and drive to Han Oi, to make his monthly deliveries. He would be back in three days. The slaves would remain in their room, with the doors bolted and explosives packed on the frames, or so he told then, he never bothered with anything but the locks, but they believed him.
The buckets in the corner of their room would be overflowing by the time he returned, but that did not bother him, because he did not have to empty them.
They also believed he replaced the landmines on the path, but it remained clear until the van returned to drop the bodies off.
It is all about psychology; he thought. Treating them the way I have for so long, they believe anything I say.
He stood thirty feet away from the path tossing the grappling hook, with the rope threaded through his hook, then raking it back over the dusty soil. Within minutes the first dull, percussion boom echoed across the valley. Moments later, three more booms vibrated the ground, sending mud and dust high into the air.
Every time one went off his vision blurred, and the sound of his blood pulsed loudly in his ears. Each plume of mud and shrapnel reminded him of the time one took his arm and leg and fingers.
Once the mines were cleared, he walked the area, patting the mud back into the pitted earth.
Only another five hours and the van will be here. Time for another beer and some food.
*
Lennie had eaten the food they had prepared before they went to their room. It was the only time he ever ate cold food, but he did not want even one of them outside the room while the mines were cleared, in case they made a run for it. He would never catch them with his fake leg.
He had a revolver in his room, hidden under the floorboards, but he didn’t like to carry it around, incase one of the females saw it, and it gave them ideas. They never tried to hurt him because they knew they would never escape. While he was alive, there was hope.
Hope was mankinds greatest weakness, he mused with a quiet chuckle.
Lennie sat in the quiet main room eating cha gio – pork spring rolls wrapped in rice paper – off a plastic plate, and then washed down with another beer.
After he finished six rolls he laid back against some weaved cushions and had another snooze; working in the heat, and having a full belly, added to the beer, made him sleepy.
Lennie woke with a start. A loud beeping awoke him.
Shit! The van.
It was dark outside. He’d slept too long. The van had arrived, and the children were not ready.
Lennie quickly got to his feet, and after whacking the switch to power the halogen lights in the cages, he rushed outside. He had never kept them waiting before; he did not want to anger them.
The van was back a little further than normal, because no one was around, they were being cautious. However, upon seeing Lennie hobbling towards them, the van started backing up. No one was outside the van yet; they did not open the door – with the two men jumping out – until all ten children were ready in the clearing.
Lennie opened the cages, and gathered the silent, dopey children up. They were confused as to what was happening, and the white clothed children shuffled around bumping into each other. However, that was the extent of their actions, because diphenhydramine had been added to their morning meal, to make them docile and manageable.
Seeing everything was now going to plan the van started to reverse.
That is when the shit really hit the fan.
Before the back doors could open, and the two men jump out and herd the children onboard, the ground started to vibrate, and shift, then open up. A vast plume of mud sprayed into the air as the heavy van plunged into the hole, straight down, all four wheels at the same time as the whole van disappeared into a hole with an almighty grating, metal rendering sound.
What the fuck?
Lennie jumped back, knocking two children over in the process. The drugged children just lay on the ground, looking up at the starry sky, unmoving.
How? Why? What is happening?
Lennie could hear gunfire coming from inside the white van. Small plumes of mud shot up into the air as bullets streaked through the van’s roof.
Lennie got to his feet. Looking over he noticed the whole van was submerged, and mud had caved in, covering the front windshield and sides and backdoor. A bit of the white roof could be seen that was not covered in mud – it was now riddled with bullet holes. In desperation, the men inside fired at the roof in hopes of hitting Lennie.
Nothing made sense. How can this be happening?
Lennie did not shout down to the men, telling them he would get them out. As far as they were concerned, he was the enemy. He could hear them shouting inside, but it was all muffled and distorted.
The children who were not lying down had started to meander around. However, they were the least of his worries.
The women! They did this! But how?
Lennie ran to the farmhouse, with his lopsided canter. As he ran, he twisted the end of his prosthetic hooked hand and tossed it to the ground. He unclipped his converted knife and clicked it in place, twisting it to lock it onto the end of his fake arm.
I am gonna kill those cunts!
Lennie didn’t enter the house; rather he went to their door that opened up onto the courtyard. The door had a padlock on.
Shit! For fuck’s sake!
Lennie had tossed his hooked hand to the ground a way back, and the knife was no good for gripping so he could unlock the padlock with the key from around his neck. He ripped the key free, and wedged the knife into the gap under the arched metal lock, holding it in place while he turned the key, but as he twisted and the lock came undone; the top inch of his blade snapped off – he had been using more pressure than he realized.
Jesus H. Christ!
Lennie swung the door open hard. He did not know how the females had done it, but they had.
The room was empty.
Impossible!
Lennie scurried in, ripping up the grass mats; down was the only place they could go. In the corner of the room, under the bucket full of shit, was the trapdoor. A door so small Lennie would have trouble squeezing through.
“Fucking bitches,” he screamed at the dark tunnel.
He knew tunneling had kept the American army busy for years during the Vietnam War. It is hard to fight a war when you cannot find the enemy, and the Vietnamese are some of the world’s best tunnel makers.
Lennie gripped his head with his one good hand. It never occurred to him to concrete the floor, because they were just weak females to him, objects to be used and abused. He didn’t realize they had it in them to create a network of tunnels under his property.
So they obviously dug a tunnel to the courtyard, then a tunnel wide and deep enough for the van to fall into. It must have taken years!
Lennie paced around the top of the tunnel entrance. He hated confined spaces. He wouldn’t say he was claustrophobic, because that would be announcing a weakness, and he never did that, not even to himself.
They could be miles away by now. If they had spent that long digging the hole for the van, they must have gone way beyond the mines.
“Fuck it!” Lennie needed a torch. There was one in the main room, for emergencies. He ran out the door, along the farmhouse to the front room. He also went to his bedroom and collected his revolver. He pushed it into his shorts waistband. Before long, he was back above the hole, with the torch shining down into the inky darkness.
Lennie did not really know much about Vietnamese tunnels. He had never looked that much into it. All he knew was from the film Platoon, with the Tunnel Rats going down to clear them out.
He did not know that some of the Viet Cong’s tunnel networks were vast, incorporating miles of tunnels, with sleeping areas, supply rooms, communications chambers, food and weapon’s caches, even hospitals, and some had wells dug for providing water.
Lennie was sweating all over.
The gunfire stopped outside.
They may have run out of ammo, or just needed holes, so they didn’t suffocate, while they kicked the windshield out and dug their way out, looking for me!
He did not know or want to find out why they had gone silent. Now all he cared about was finding the five bitches and making them pay with their lives.
Lennie lowered himself slowly down into the hole, swearing constantly while doing so. His shoulders, although thin, just squeezed through while taking some skin off.
The tunnel was cramped and small. It was just big enough to crawl along, which was difficult for Lennie because the prosthetic leg did not bend too well, it was not made for crawling. In addition, his prosthetic hand currently had a knife on the end that dug into the ground as he crawled along. Added to the fact he had to push the big bulky torch along in front, and the heavy metal gun kept dropping out of his waistband.
His head swam as he imagined the soil raining down, entombing him forever, but the tunnel was well made, with hard-packed sides.
It dawned on him why the gardens were always so fresh looking, as if having just been turned over. The women got up hours before him each day, and they had obviously been emptying the soil from the tunnel all over the garden and surrounding area.
“I’m gonna fucking kill them all!” he muttered in anger, spittle flecking from his sneering lips.
He felt like he had been crawling along for hours. The tunnel was cooler than above ground, but he was still sweating from fear of a collapsing roof. Suddenly, the tunnel got a little wider and taller.
Lennie slowly got to his feet. He ached all over from crawling, and mud stuck to the sweat. He could also just make out a muffled banging.
Possibly the men trapped inside the van? That means I have crawled all the way over to the cages.
Being able to stand made him feel a little better, but something about this area made him uneasy. About five meters away the tunnel became small again, which he would have to start crawling along if he wanted to go any further. He w
as thinking about turning around, heading back out and look outside the minefield for them, when a shuffling sound made him turn back around.
A board dropped down into place, blocking the tunnel he had just crawled from.
“What the fuck?”
He spun around and saw a shadow. He pointed his torch. Quyen was down the smaller tunnel ahead, holding what looked like three ropes. One was longer than the other two, possibly the one she had just pulled to drop the obstacle down to block his return.
Quyen was covered in mud. She looked him in the eyes for the first time. She gave a big condescending smile, and said, “Mày chếtđi!”
“No, you go and fucking die! You bitch! I’m going to slit your fucking throat!” Lennie screamed as he lunged forward, scrambling for the tunnel that Quyen sat in. However, just as he did, she pulled the second rope. Another barricade dropped down in front of Quyen.
“Bitch! You Whore!” Lennie screamed as he punched at the wooden obstacle with his knife hand. The wood was thick and would take a lot of energy to get through, but Lennie was mad, bordering on psychotic; his dream had been snatched away. His set up ruined. Years of work down the drain.
As he punched at the wooden wall, a sound, just above the echoing of his knife hitting the wood, made him stop.
The scraping sound of mud?
Lennie looked up for the first time.
A wooden hatch?
“What the...?”
Mud started to rain down.
Lennie jumped back. This was his worst nightmare, being buried alive. However, just as he was a bout to lose it and start screaming like a child, light poured in from above.
Light?
It was not daylight, because it was late, just after sundown. It was artificial light, from the spotlights around the cages.
The roof was reachable.
With a little effort, I can get out.
The stupid bitches fucked up! I am not trapped at all. Not so clever after all, are you?
With his knife hand, he dug a hole in the mud at waist level, then wedged in his real foot and grabbing the edge of the opening with his hand and hoisted himself up.
After the semidarkness in the tunnel, the artificial light was blinding. He covered his eyes with his good hand.
