Let’s go kill those bastards

Excerpt from: The Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers. ©

In a dark and dingy sand-bagged bunker, Marlyne was perched over a blood-drenched kitchen table holding a surgical sewing needle. The same young boy who this morning had said, “I got hit… and it stings” was now sitting upright on the table, watching Marlyne pull the threatening needle and thin thread through the flesh of his thigh as she stitched the wound up as best as she could. She had removed a chunk of shrapnel now discarded in a bowl together with many other bits and pieces of jagged steel and other debris removed from previous patients. He was in pain, and tears had rolled over his round cheeks. A box of Fortral injections stood open beside her. Like other patients before the young boy, almost exclusively women and children, she had injected him to dull the pain. But Fortral was not a real anaesthetic. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure how effective it was and even less of its side effects, so she used it sparingly. Mr Trung Xiu, the camp chief, held a hurricane lamp nearby so Marlyne could see in the near obscurity of the bunker. He watched her every movement with tight lips as he had done with all previous casualties.

A woman in her thirties was lying on the hard earthen floor, her eyes closed. Her legs had numerous small perforations, but it was the hole just above her left breast that had caused her death. Marlyne had worked on her for half an hour, attempting to stem the blood flow. She had applied CPR, but all to no avail. Nothing had stopped the bleeding. In the end, she had to pronounce the woman dead. Only rapid surgical intervention might have saved her, but here in this primitive camp, that luxury was not available. Most were luckier, so Marlyne continued working on those. She tied a knot in the thin thread and cut off the remainder.

‘OK, that should do it. Off you go, boy… who’s next?’

A woman placed a frightened eight-year-old girl on the blood-smeared table. She was one of the lucky ones; the girl only had a few minor superficial wounds due to flying debris. Marlyne cleaned her hands with alcohol and oxygenated water, surgical gloves were not available. She smiled at the young girl and stroked her hair. ‘OK, little one, let’s have a look at you. It’s not that bad; you’ll be running around as soon as you get out of here.’ No one understood what she said, but her comforting husky voice had the desired calming effect.

In the forest, Dewitt quietly said, ‘Get some order in these guys, Pham. We don’t want any more surprises. And keep an eye on our flanks… who knows who else is in this forest.’ The trail veered to the right, following the curve of the hill. Instead of going up towards the top, the path gradually turned back towards the open-spaced valley. If that was true, then the Viet Cong were indeed moving in a direction that could lead them straight into the arms of one of the waiting Meo groups.

Surely, he thought it could not be the first time this has happened out here. They must be able to guess each other’s tactics… could they really make such a deadly mistake..? They must be desperate.

Not far ahead, shots and automatic fire suddenly reverberated. Burst of AK-47s echoed through the forest, but the .30 calibre carbines were clearly having the upper hand…and the last word. The men hurried along the poorly defined trail to join the action. As they arrived on the scene, they found a group of Meo warriors kneeling behind trees, firing into the bushes. There was no return fire anymore.

‘How many in there?’ he asked. Stern and tensed-looking faces briefly glanced at the western soldier and his Vietnamese Rangers and then returned their gaze towards the undergrowth. They gave a short situation report.

Tran tried to translate. ‘They said they saw a VC fall in there. They think he is one of the wounded stragglers.’

DeWitt looked around, assessing his immediate surroundings. ‘Listen up, four men to the left uphill and then move in from the flank. The rest with me!’

He waited for what he considered a preciously long minute for the four men to struggle through the vegetation. He then raised his rifle and fired a burst into the vegetation straight ahead of him. Others joined the firing. Within seconds, he also heard the four carbines firing from his left flank about 50 metres away from their position. DeWitt and his men jumped up and stormed forward, bursting out through the undergrowth only to find the place empty.

‘Nothing! The son of a bitch has to be around here somewhere,’ he commented to anyone who cared to listen. The other four tribesmen reappeared from the slope to his left and joined the search.

Slowly and as stealthily as they could, their weapons pointing in all directions, they proceeded forward along what could pass for a trail. Trails were dangerous, DeWitt knew. Without visual contact with the enemy, the tension quickly increases to nervewracking. They half expected a volley from an AK-47 at any moment.

The men carefully checked their surroundings for telltale signs of human presence. Then, like a pack of wolves, they picked up the fresh trail of blood again… and the hunt continued.

The trackers barely had to concentrate on the usual indicators like broken twigs and disturbed vegetation. All they had to do was follow the trail of blood the wounded VC had left behind.

Their eyes focused on the corpse sprawled out over the trail. The man was lying on his side in a near-foetal position, his AK-47 still clutched in his right hand. A Meo approached and gave him a hard shove with his foot on the shoulder, turning him over in an awkward, twisted position. The man’s eyes were open as if he had not comprehended his own death. Like his comrade back at the ambush site, he too was dressed in greenish-khaki coloured military fatigues with canvas boots. Several of the Meo men approached, looked him over and then, for good measure, fired a shot or two in the dead Viet Cong’s torso. They were clearly pleased with the result of their hunt. One man pulled out a machete. He briefly searched his surroundings. He then chopped down a thin, straight tree and removed the remaining branches with a few swings of his machete. Others joined in attaching the dead man’s arms and legs to the pole with nature’s very own rope: liana plants. Two of the tribal men then hoisted the pole onto their shoulders with the dead Viet Cong hanging by his arms and legs and his head swinging down like a grotesque trophy after the hunt.

Great… this is going to slow us down, DeWitt thought, but he said nothing. Instead, they walked along the ridge that led towards the open valley. Further away to the east, he heard the distinct slow fire of a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) followed by the impact of a mortar. Minutes later, the tribesmen and their Vietnamese companions suddenly broke out of the jungle. DeWitt looked around, taking in his new surroundings and re-orientating himself.

‘Pham, tell that man with the machete to mark the trees where we came out.’

Old habits die hard, he thought.