Death in the Jungle by Gary Smith (most inspirational books .txt) 📕

water. In the trees overlooking this open space, we positioned ourselves for the night watch. I settled in on the left flank, while McCollum took the right. In between, Lieutenant Meston, Brown, Funkhouser, and Pearson set up. Flynn, Moses, Markel, and Ty dropped several meters back for the sake of rear security.

With the water still up to my neck, I was forced to stand as the night descended. Sweet Lips, however, got a break as I lifted her over my head, dumped the water out of her barrel, and propped her up in the branches of a small tree. Then I gave Pearson one end of my parachute suspension line when he waded a few meters to get it. He waded back to his position, stretching the communication link between us. The last thing I saw before the swamp was totally black was Pearson tying the line around his left wrist.

The area was quiet except for the droning of a couple dozen mosquitos that had discovered my head. None of them was brave enough to stake a claim, though, thanks to the working power of a large gob of repellent I had applied while back on the LCPL. The stuff was so effective that the bloodsuckers went away in ten or fifteen minutes, just before the water started receding and my back became a juicy target.

A bit later, I felt some tiny fish biting at the hair on my wrists. It was irritating at first, and I attempted to swish the fish away. They were persistent, however, and I eventually gave up, hoping they’d tire of their game soon. About the time I started enjoying their playful antics, they departed, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I relished the peace only for a couple of hours. At 2230, the tide was at its lowest level. I was sitting on the bank of the stream in slimy mud and a tiny puddle of water. The mosquitos were back. I believed the two dozen had spent two hours recruiting ten dozen enlistees. I couldn’t see them in the dark, but their relentless noise told me the story: parts of me were getting stuck like a pin cushion.

After an hour of torment, rain started falling. This was good in that the mosquitos dissipated; it was bad in that I quickly felt chilled to the bone. Having trouble stifling a sudden cough, I dug the remedy out of my backpack: a small plastic bottle I’d filled with Early Times whiskey. I unscrewed the cap and took a snort. The stuff went down smoothly, and a couple seconds later I felt fire from my throat to my gut. I took another swig, and while enjoying the warmth inside my chest, I put the bottle away.

The rain softened in a few minutes. As it became quiet again, I heard voices upstream to my left. I tugged the suspension line connected to Pearson twice as I brought Sweet Lips up off my lap. I rolled onto my knees in the mud and looked hard over the dark expanse of water in front of me.

The sound of a paddle hitting the side of a boat reached my ears. It was close. I jerked the line three times.

Suddenly I made out a sampan in the glimmer of moonlight. I saw the silhouettes of two people; one was seated and one was standing aft. They were right in front of me for a few seconds, then they were slightly past me and sitting ducks in our kill zone.

Before I could say, “Make your peace with Buddha, boys,” Funkhouser’s Stoner machine gun shattered the stillness. I reacted instantly by firing my shotgun at the dark figure in the rear of the sampan. In less than a second I fired again. Then I heard M-16s blasting away.

I fired three more times before a grenade exploded in the water. As I reloaded Sweet Lips in the dark, somebody sent up a flare. The sky lit up with a brilliancy comparable to the sudden turning on of all the house lights in a dark theater at the end of a play. The only difference of significance that time was that the lights were coming on at the end of two lives.

Now that I could see clearly, I shoved a sixth shotgun shell into Sweet Lips and looked out at the sampan. The boat had drifted to the other end of our kill zone, but I saw no people in it. Funkhouser took advantage of the light and sprayed the water on both sides of the boat with the Stoner, then Lieutenant Meston tossed a concussion grenade into the stream. It blew a few seconds later, sending an eruption of water into the air.

“Smitty!” hollered Mr. Meston. “Go get the sampan!”

His words were not music to my ears. The last thing I wanted to do was swim away from my teammates in the middle of the night now that we had been compromised. If an NVA detachment found our location before I got back out of the water, I’d be in a hell of a mess. But that was beside the point right then. I’d been given an order, so I quickly pulled my duck fins over my coral booties. I grabbed Sweet Lips and carried her a few meters along the riverbank to Pearson.

“Hang onto my baby,” I told him, then I slipped down into the water. I swam for the sampan, but I went only fifteen or twenty meters when shooting spewed forth. The sudden burst of gunfire scared the you-know-what out of me.

In the fading light of the descending flare, I treaded water for several seconds while my teammates shot toward the drifting sampan. I could see bullets tearing up the water near the boat, but I couldn’t see who was there that needed killing. One thing was certain: I hoped the guy was dead before I got there.

“Okay, Smitty! Get the sampan!” Lieutenant Meston yelled when the firing stopped. I took my