A scratching sound.
Then a squeak.
Then a flapping.
And then suddenly the tunnel was alive with squealing, flapping, biting, hungry bats, dozens of them, surrounding him in the darkness.
Early screamed a scream of pure terror. He started firing. He emptied his rifle, heard the bullets thumping into the earth as the bats kept coming, started to back up, slashing the darkness with his knife, clawing for his pistol. The screeching creatures were all around him, and his scream was endless and ear-piercing as he thrashed in the darkness. Pulling himself up against the side of the tunnel, he emptied his .45 into the blackness around him, firing blindly. He clawed out another clip as he backed through the tight confines of the tomb toward the entrance. He was disoriented in the dark and his hands were shaking. There were bats in his hair, biting his cheeks. He slammed another clip in the .45 and emptied it. Then he pulled out the flashlight and began sweeping it around the tunnel, hoping the light would scare them off. Finally he could feel the cool draft from the opening sweeping past him and he reached back to get a grip on the edge of the shaft; his hand touched something soft and wet and at first he thought it was mud. He twisted around and flashed the light back. The big kid, Noel, was hanging upside down, his arms resting on the floor of the tunnel. His face was mush. Blood bubbled out of the gaping bullet hole under his eye and poured out of his nose and mouth.
‘Oh God, oh Jesus!’ Early screamed as the bats continued to assault him and flew past him and attacked the dead soldier’s bleeding face. And Early, still screaming, clawed frantically past his fallen comrade, gasping for the fresh air that rushed down the shaft, knowing deep down that in his panic he had just killed his own buddy.
Eddie Riker, who would very humbly tell you that he was the best slick pilot in the whole damn Vietnam war, was the next man at the table.
They sent a light colonel in from Saigon to interrogate Riker. The first thing Riker noticed was that the colonel didn’t sweat. A hundred degrees in the shade with the humidity running about 98 and his shirt was still starched. Dry as the Sahara. Riker was wearing khaki shorts and a T-shirt and was soaking wet. The colonel came to the barracks where Riker was under house arrest. An arrogant little man impressed with his own importance, carrying an alligator briefcase and a little stack of files. He spoke in a monotone and never looked Riker in the eye. He stared down at the report the whole time, tapping his pencil slowly on the table while Riker told him the story. Riker knew the type, just another scummy lawyer sitting out the war in Saigon.
‘You are charged with criminal assault on an officer,’ the colonel said.
‘I know it,’ Riker said.
‘I’d like to hear your version of this,’ the colonel said, leafing through the report in front of him. The pencil went tap, tap, tap. Riker knew whatever he said would go right past the colonel. To people like this, combat was running out of toilet paper in the middle of the night.
‘Okay,’ Riker said. ‘First of all, you got to understand I’m the hottest damn slick pilot in the outfit. We been evacuating wounded along the DMZ in Song Ngan for five months now.
It’s about thirty minutes by air from here. A real shit situation. A lot of action and heavy casualties. I been doin’ six, seven runs a day, which puts a lot on the Huey. I tell you this so you understand, with that kind of schedule, maintenance is critical.
‘Anyway we inherit this lousy little fig-leaf major — a real fugazi, man — in charge of maintenance. Short- sticker, y’know, had about two months to go, sat around carving notches in this piece of wood keepin’ track of his time. All he cared about, gettin’ out of here. And we’re losin’ choppers left and right, maintenance was so shit-ass bad. The other mornin’ I’m dropping down to pick up a bunch of wounded kids and all of a sudden I don’t have any power. I’m at maybe ninety, a hundred feet, all of a sudden my slick drops like a fucking body bag. I hit, the Huey rolls over, the blades shower off A dozen kids are chopped liver. Ever seen a human being after a chopper blade works ‘em over?’
The colonel sighed but didn’t look up. He turned away, staring out the window.
‘Just stick to the facts, Lieutenant,’ he said.
‘These are the facts, Colonel. A dozen kids down there waiting for salvation and I fell in and butchered them.’
Riker paused long enough to light a cigarette.
‘Me? I end up with a bruise on my neck and a headache. They fly me back here to base and all the way back I’m thinkin’, That son of a bitch, all he’s gotta do is keep the slicks up to snuff and he can’t do anything but carve notches in his Goddamn stick. That’s his whole fuckin’ job. It really ate me. When I got back, I went straight to that
