Everyone grew quiet and fixed on their thoughts as the helicopter gunship, with its droning rotors, rumbled through the dark sky like a giant dragonfly.

     Besides, they knew the routine. They knew the location of the sheltered beach on the river. They knew the trail to the village where they were meeting their contact. They knew the VC general they were to capture. And they knew what time they were supposed to meet their ride back to the base. Night along with the pervasive green and black shapes and sounds of the jungle surrounded them.

     The team leader was "Don’t-call-me-Captain-just-do what-I-fuckin’-say" Doyle Collins. He had the stocky frame of a Celtic warrior, close-cropped shock of reddish hair, emerald fire lurking in intense eyes set off by an incongruous scattering of freckles spanning his blunt nose, and prominent cheekbones. Big Jerome, taciturn and downcast, coiled in concentration, no sign of his usual deadpan banter. Blank-faced Larry and Bama. Sharkey, the wise cracker from Philadelphia, who had many personae, such as the fixer and the demolition specialist. His favorite line was that he was in training to become a mob hit man when he got back to The World.

     On reaching the Mekong, the helicopter veered sharply and plowed north along the river delta. The nearly invisible glints of approaching sunrise cast shadows of grayish liquid light. They tracked briefly across an endless span of jungle on the Cambodian 

side.

     Larry squinted to make out the vague outline of some ancient ruined temple looming amid the jungle trees. Ruins all over this country, he thought, as though . . . as though what? From a temple in Siam to something overgrown by wild vines. The people return to village life and survival mode. Could be right, too. Build something up, you just attract armies of jack-booted raiders who want to loot you. Better to live on rice and fish and be left alone in jungle river gloom.

     Dawn was approaching as they neared the part of the beach where the Apache could hover long enough for them to lower themselves down on rope ladders. At a signal from the pilot they scrambled into action, each passing through the door into the opaque furnace of river air. They assembled on the tiny beach and watched for a minute as the helicopter took off.

     “Welcome to Cambodia, gentlemen,” announced Doyle Collins. “We’re not really here anyway so let’s do it and get the fuck out of where we’re not. Got that?”

     They each managed their own version of a tension-breaking grin or smirk or smile. Good old Doyle. Not your typical officer, for damn sure. Larry and Jerome gave him a thumbs-up sign.

     “Get a rope, over here,” signaled Sharkey. As quickly as possible, they scrambled up the overhanging cliff on ropes that had been placed there by their anti-commie Cambodian village elder contact named Quoc Tran. According to ARVN sources, his eldest son was tortured and killed because he was excessively lucky at playing cards with some VC officers. The old man was leading them to Tran Do’s hideout to get even. He was going to show them the location of a VC supply depot as proof of his good intentions. Well, it sounded plausible. Maybe even a little too neat. They were either in the jaws of the trap or the bait for the trap; it was strictly by Cambodian rules.

     “Fuck is that?” demanded Sharkey as he stepped gingerly around a brownish-green pile of fecal material swarming with red ants in the center of the tiny footpath.

     “That’s old Tran Do right there,” observed Bama with a sardonic grin. "Looks like he's sicker than we thought."

    "This place is the asshole of Asia,” observed Jerome emphatically as they made their way along, constantly pulling vines and branches from their faces and simultaneously watching the ground for snakes and trip wires.

     “I give it a thumbs-up,” Sharkey pursed his mouth wryly, “like to build a little vacation pad right on that beach, you fucking bet I would.”

     “Water’s greasy,” noted Bama with a quick wrinkle of his nose, “greasier ‘n shit.”

     “That’s why there’s no graveyards around here,” Larry chipped in, “anything’s dead, they either eat it or throw it into the river. How far to this village, chief?”

     Doyle stood still at the head of the column, peering at a small diagram drawn on a torn cereal boxtop. “Hard to say from this. Trail goes right along the river, then cuts inland two, three clicks."

     “Then where’s this VC vacation spa?” whispered Sharkey.

     “Back up there on the river, where it starts to turn north. Not far.”

     They walked the rest of the way to the village without speaking, the sound of their bootsteps drowned out by the rising cacophony of bird calls and insect drones that filled the early morning. Two small black-clad figures awaited them at the village outskirts. They bowed repeatedly, greeting the strangers with an urgent obsequiousness.

     The older man, Quoc Tran, eyes shadowed under the wide straw brim of his conical hat, introduced his remaining son, Lon.

     “Only son left,” the man repeated angrily several times as they set out in the direction of the river. “First I show you VC storehouse. Then we go find old Tran Do, yes?”

     “They got plenty stuff, the VC,” said Lon, “get stuff from you guys, USA, you’ll see.”

     After a short time, they came to a place where the path vanished into a tangle of vines, mangrove trees, and rough underbrush. Quoc Tran held up his hand and the column stopped. He signaled an area to his left, and led them through the trackless terrain with practiced ease. Emerging, they found themselves in a small clearing before what remained of the delicately-carved towers of a ruined temple.

     “Son of a bitch,” whistled Bama, wiping his sweating brow.

     “This is the one I saw coming in,” added Larry, “bigger than it seemed.”

     “You see, you see, plenty stuff,” urged the two villagers in unison, leading them into the interior of the skeletal, vine-covered building.

    “Jesus Fucking Christ,” exclaimed Jerome, “look at all this shit.”

     Removing a patchwork covering of straw mats and camouflage tarps, they uncovered a small treasure of wooden supply boxes, most of them stamped with the familiar USA logo, some with Chinese lettering and a few with the Cyrillic stamp of the Russian language. Squinting in the shaded gloom, they could make out M-16s and Kalishnikovs, ammo, grenades, mines, MRS’s, meals ready to shit, as many soldiers called the latest generation of K rations. A crate bearing the familiar sailing ship symbol and the name Cutty Sark Scotch Whisky.

     “Mother fucker,” whistled Sharkey appreciatively, “these guys got everything but my ‘Dear John’ letter from home.”

     “That’s packed in the whisky box,” Jerome chuckled. “Shit, this beats breaking into warehouses back in the Bronx. Less dangerous neighborhood, too.”

     “You want dangerous, come to Philly,” Sharkey quipped. “I’ll show you dangerous.”

     “How they get this shit, anyway?” asked Bama.

     “That’s easy,” replied Doyle Collins, prying the lid from the top of the crate of Cutty. “Half the longshoremen are VC agents. Between them and the fucking crooked ARVN guys, we’re lucky to get half of our own supplies. Well, you do your thing, Sharkey, and let’s get moving. Don’t like the smell of this place.”

     Lon said something to his father in a furtive voice.

     “What’s he saying?" asked Larry suspiciously.

     Doyle exchanged a few phrases in the local dialect and nodded.

     “Sure, sure. He wanted to keep back the crate of whiskey to sell on the black market. Wanted to know if it was all right.”

     “That seems kinda strange,” Sharkey’s brow furrowed, “that he 

didn’t just scam it before now. I mean why ask us?”

     A few more words were exchanged. Doyle nodded, seemingly 

satisfied.

     “Says they were afraid to come here without us along. Get caught by the VC and they’d get their heads cut off. Guess that’d do it.”

     “How we gonna work this?” asked Sharkey.

     “Best thing’s gonna be to swing back,” Doyle said after pondering a moment. “You get it set up and we’ll make the hit, come by here and blow it on a timer. Give us time to get back to the beach.”

     “Don’t wanna tell every gook within a hundred miles that we’re here,” Jerome nodded ponderously.

     A moment later, Sharkey joined the column.

     “Ready to rock and roll,” he announced.

     They hacked their way back to the main trail and eventually worked their way into a position on high ground just north of the riverside village. The only sign of life observable in the bright mid-morning light was a pair of pajama-clad men who were repairing fishing nets near some small boats close to the shore. A warm breeze stirred the fronds on the roof of the main hut.

     “Looks like it’s deserted,” said Doyle suspiciously. “Where the fuck is everyone?”

     Quoc Tron crawled to the Irishman’s side and gestured toward the main hut. “Village men out fishing. See two boats missing there? Gone out already. Women and children, they send to other place when general come. See there, in main hut? Gotta trap door there. Tunnel goes to little VC hospital. That’s where the old man is. Tran Do. You see. I not lie.”

     “Not lie. No way,” Lon bolstered his father’s assurances.

     Doyle looked at his men. “OK,” he said decisively, “makes sense that they got an underground facility, not gonna be lounging on the beach getting a tan now, is he?”

     “Not that wily old bastard,” nodded Sharkey.

     “OK. Listen up. Jerome, Sharkey, you work your way down there ,and when I give the signal, ace those fuckers at the nets and come up toward the hut. Me and Bama and these two birds go down and bust into the hut. You know where this trap door is?” he barked softly at the two Cambodians.

     “Yes, Sir, middle of floor, right middle of floor.”

     “Right, you go inside the hut first and show us. Larry, you stay up here and cover us from this high ground.”

     Larry’s palms began to sweat as the men moved slowly into position. He strained to hear any unusual noises beyond the usual sporting of monkeys and shrieking of birds. Nothing. The warm breeze picked up. When would the fishermen return? That could screw up everything. He saw Doyle looking back at him, gave him a thumbs-up sign and saw Jerome and Sharkey emerge from their cover on the south side of the village. He tightened his grip on the grenade launcher in his hand.

     In seeming slow motion, a keening sound like a whistle swept across the yellow mud and the two men at the nets hurled grenades at Jerome and Sharkey as they were in the act of raising the barrels of their Uzis to fire. Two jagged red explosions shocked the heavy river air. As if on cue, two pairs of men emerged from the two huts between the now obviously empty main hut and the river, machine guns blazing.

     “Shit!” The curse seemed to float above his head and drift away like a blue balloon. Jerome and Sharkey were already gone, nothing visible in the sector they had occupied except a drifting black smoke and two mashed-up red and green objects. At the explosions, the two alleged guides had bolted for the treeline like rabbits, the younger one taking a split second to flip a grenade behind him, as much to cover their escape as to kill Doyle and Bama.

     As if by miracle, the grenade caught the tip of the bamboo and palm frond roofline and spent most of its force blasting apart the main hut. By this point, Larry’s finger found the trigger of his weapon, and he launched a perfect shot over his diving companions, squarely eliminated the two VC closest to Doyle and Bama, who returned enough fire from their vulnerable positions in the yellow clay to force the farther pair of attackers back behind their hut.

     “Mother Fucker!” the voice was Bama’s in belated recognition of the sudden death of their two companions. The voice was so choked with rage and shame and grief that the words seemed to be lobbed forward so that they fell into the flames that consumed the main hut with lapping intensity.

     “Back out, I’ll cover you!” he shouted down to the two Rangers as he squeezed off a second grenade from the launcher. It wasn’t a perfect hit like the first, bouncing erratically up and over the frail wooden boats the initial attackers crouched behind and exploding in mid-air so that the man with the lowest position was able to escape the blast that tore off the head of his companion and hurled it smoking into the river.

     With the man at the boats momentarily stunned and Larry raking the far hut with machine gun fire, Doyle and Bama were able to make their way back to the high ground position. All three realized simultaneously that Bama had taken a bullet in the stomach and lost a chunk of his charred right thigh to the grenade blast from the traitorous guides. They looked at each other, but said nothing. Larry motioned them ahead and fit his second-to-last grenade into its socket and, seeing the two VC flashing toward the cover of the trees, lobbed another shot in the direction of the already burning and splintered boats. A tangible death cry mingled with the blast and Larry noted with a dull satisfaction that red chunks of the attacker mingled with charred straws of splintered bamboo surging into the air, leaving the village in a violent silence broken only by the crackling of flames.

     Rushing to join his companions, he helped Doyle push and pull Bama, enabling them to reach a point on the trail where a large squat banyan tree provided a natural shoulder-high shelter.

     The three men looked at each other in the rapid calculation of combat. Behind them on the trail, a rustling noise could be heard as their pursuers approached.

     “I’ll circle around,” offered Doyle. “Come in from behind.”

     “Fuck it,” says Bama, “you guys get those two double-crossing gook mother fuckers and split. I got some left. Those two shits ain’t gonna get by me no matter what. This is for Jerome, man. What the hell we be thinkin’ to trust a pair of gooks? You go get them two for me. Do it.”

     Larry and Doyle exchanged a look.

     “Ain’t no time, man,” growled Bama.

     “OK,” says Doyle. Abruptly, he leaned down and kissed the wounded black man on lips, “you’re a warrior, man, a fuckin’ warrior. Meet you at the edge of the village,” he murmured to Larry then turned and bounded down the trail.

     The two friends regarded one another awkwardly. The noise of their pursuers intensified.

     “Fuck, Bama, fuck.”

     “Don’t you be kissing me too, dude,” Bama grimaced at Larry, holding up his arm as if to ward off an unwelcome advance. “I don’t take to white boys kissing me. Go on now,” he tried to avoid the intense look Larry gave him, then reached out a trembling hand to exchange a brotherly grip, “All right, you take care. Been a hell of a brother. Man, we seen some shit on this ride. Fuck. I wonder if that gook pimp put a fucking hex on my ass? Go on, now.”

     Larry lumbered off. A moment later, as the two pursuing VC bustled up the jungle path, Bama swung from his concealment behind the oversized mangrove root and raked them with close range machine gun fire, sending one of them staggering into the bushes with his insides oozing from stunned and awkward fingers, the other one clawing at the blood-spattered air as though looking for his suddenly missing face and brains before slumping to a frozen stop against the tree trunk. Bama hunkered down with a smile of bitter satisfaction.

     “I got you mother fuckers good.” Then, wincing at the increasingly violent pounding of the pain invading his chest and stomach, he slumped forward, managing to crawl to where the enemy leaned in death. With a trembling hand, Bama reached out and grabbed the dead man’s frayed sleeve and shook his arm.

     “Dude, mother fucker, who are you? Who the fuck are you, man? That’s all I got done in my fuckin’ life was wastin’ you.” A death rattle formed in his throat and his last query was a plea. “Who in the fuck are you?”

     Half a mile away, Larry crashed along the jungle trail, backtracking his way to the village. A low abrupt whistle alerted him to Doyle’s presence. Stuffed into a clearing between two red-flowered bushes is the body of Lon, the younger of their betrayers, his throat hanging at an awkward angle due to the massive slash across it. Heavy flies with bodies like blue marbles hanging in the air in front of his dead face, buzzing.

     “Got this one,” Doyle nodded at the corpse, other one’s probably back at the village by now. You circle north and I’ll come up by the low road entrance.”

     “Right.”

     Larry tracked through jungle more quietly now, crouching down as he approached the rear of the small village. He loaded his last grenade into the launcher and peered in, taking inventory: six hutches in a semi-circle, a few scraggly clucking blue and red and yellow chickens. A movement in a blanketed doorway made him freeze. It was the old man, hurrying to get away, a pack strapped to his back, he spoke quickly over his shoulder as he scuttled across the clearing and turned the bend in the trail that entered the village from the south.

     OK, thought Larry, holding his fire and peering more intensely across the shining damp fly-speckled mid-morning sunlight, Doyle’ll be there to take care of old Judas. Let’s see who’s left. The flap in the doorway opened and a small Cambodian woman carrying a bundled infant emerged, issuing low urgent instructions to the two small children who emerged after here. She kicked one of the chickens out of the way as she turned a second time, motioning the two children, a boy about six and a girl perhaps half that age, forward.

     Larry never really thought about the next thing. It wasn’t the thought of Bama crumpled across the jungle river trail, already drawing a voracious line of red ant scavengers who marched the length of his charred leg, pausing at a spot where green camouflage cotton turned swampy with blood and a white bone poked upwards through black skin.

     Or the thought of Jerome and Sharkey back at the river village, reduced in a few insane seconds of action to smoking puddles of scorched protoplasm. It was just the curse, emerging from clenched teeth, and then a routine operation, practiced a hundred times, a swinging around of his body to brace the grenade launcher squarely against his tensed stomach muscles as he broke through the green cover at the edge of the village.

     Less than a second elapsed, a second that seemed to stretch out into slow motion minutes as the woman looked up at him and looked back at the two children who were just in the initial puckering stages of beginning to cry, the tiny edges of their lips quivering, and the woman looking back at the large white man with the blackened face and fierce expression bolting in rage, predatory from the jungle.

     “You fucking bitch, Fuck you, all of you!” growled a strange choking voice in the streaming sun of the clearing.

     And then his right forefinger squeezed the trigger almost secretly, and a second of roaring gave way to a blasting pounding red and yellow clap that dug clay and chicken bones from the crowded ancient ground and mixed them instantly with the molten torn disemboweled and digitized bodies of the woman caught in the act of shielding and the infant and the two small enemies of the moment, who spurted into nothingness as their fractured matter fountained skyward. Larry pasted himself against the bark and moss of a sheltering tree and closed his eyes with a fierce and ecstatic energy. Damn, got ‘em all.

     The thought clawed its way into his sweating forehead. Women and kids. Animal, fucking animal, is this really me? His heart thumped inside his chest and thundered in the canals of his ears as he leaned against the trunk of a tree and vomited, first in small dribbling amounts accompanied by racking throat noises, and then in a brown and yellow flash that exploded from his wide-open mouth and struck the wood of the tree like a bucket of paint.

     Recovering enough to move he ran, veering both feet and eyes around the flaring fat-fed gore in the center of the village. He nearly collided with Doyle Collins, who was standing astride the pathway wiping his knife  with a torn piece of the old man’s black pajamas.

     “Got ‘em both,” he announced, “unlucky day for those two Judas goats. You blast the guy’s hut too?”

     “The woman and her kids,” the words nearly strangled Larry as they emerged from his throat, “I hit ‘em.”

     There was the briefest of pauses, then Doyle Collins sheathed his combat knife. “Well, there it is then. Better to clean out the whole village than leave witnesses around.”

     Larry gaped at him, struggling to keep his face from betraying the wave of disgust that undulated from his crotch to the pit of his stomach, nearly making him vomit a second time.

     Collins saw the struggle on Larry’s face and gave him a reassuring look.

     “I know, it ain’t a fucking picnic, but that’s the way it is, isn’t it?” He reached across to give Larry’s tense forearm a squeeze.

     “Yeah,” shrugged Larry woodenly. “Hell with it. War is all we know, right?”

     “That’s all that need be said.” Collins glanced at his watch. “Long way to go to make the pickup,” he observed, urgency returning to his voice. “Have to forget about blowing the stash and concentrate on getting out of this hole alive. Now that’s something serious. We don’t make that pickup, we're fucked. Forget it, forget those gooks.”

     They didn’t say a single word the rest of the afternoon, communicating by hand signals as they made their way back to the cliff overlooking the Mekong River. After about twenty minutes, they heard the welcome scudding and thud of the rotor blades of the Apache that came to pick up an enemy general only to find two bloody and taciturn survivors. Once in flight, Larry was stunned by the seemingly incongruous, late afternoon splendor of the Mekong River and the hell from which they had just escaped.