Patrol

By David Beakey

They headed into the jungle. The mission was to search out and engage the enemy. Little did they know that they were to become the hunted.

Things deteriorated quickly. The monsoon had been threatening for a week, with scattered but intense rain, but on the first day of the weeklong patrol the skies opened up. Sheets of rain fell, quickly filling the rice paddies. They were forced to walk on dikes and raised trails, against their better judgment. This made their progress more predictable and they were higher off the ground, silhouetted as they walked. Nevertheless, they trudged along, grimly seeking contact. At night they huddled in a large circle, in foxholes filled with water. They wrapped ponchos around themselves and put the cellophane wrappings from their C Ration cigarette packages over the barrels of their weapons. Those on watch peered into the darkness, secretly praying that they wouldn’t be assaulted at night. At dawn, they saddled up and continued the hunt.

On the third day they lost their first man. A single sniper round went through his pack and lodged in his shoulder. He was taken away by chopper in the afternoon. Later the point man nearly tripped an artillery round, rigged across the trail. It was a fresh booby trap, and the men looked at the jungle around them, which was quiet except for the hiss of the constant rain. On day four a grenade was tossed into a group of three men who had huddled together to eat. Two managed to scramble away, but one man was frozen in place and lost a foot. The corpsman gave him a shot of morphine to still his screams. A small reconnaissance team went out and discovered that the grenade thrower had managed to crawl within six meters of the men.

By now, the men secretly wished they could throw away the extra machine gun ammo that they carried, into the three feet of water they trudged through. Their feet were bleeding and swollen from the constant submersion. The rain had only gotten heavier, continuing through the night.

On day six there was a short burst of automatic gunfire at the head of the column. Two men were wounded immediately. All of the men opened up, shooting in every direction, into clumps of trees and in the general direction of the hostile fire. But the enemy had quickly withdrawn, leaving nothing but a few bullet casings and bent branches. Again the chopper came, for the third time. That night, the men heard strange noises through the rainfall, a mournful wailing in the distance. Some thought it was a Vietnamese song, being broadcast over a transistor radio. Others likened it to the voice of spirits, drifting through the jungle. In the morning, a small Viet Cong flag hung from a tree only meters from the men’s position.

By now, they were weary and agitated. They no longer walked stealthily, but stomped through the sodden trails, barely looking to the right or left. At noon they received more sniper fire. There were no injuries; the rounds flew high over their heads, seeming to be more of a statement than a threat. They trudged on, through the rain.

At dusk, they finally rendezvoused with the choppers, which were to carry them home, to the base camp. As they were boarding, there was more hostile fire, some rounds slamming against the sides of the choppers. The door gunners let loose with abandon, but only a few marines fired, preferring to ensure their spot on the choppers, the birds of freedom. As they rose above the jungle, the men stared sullenly, thinking only of changing their stinking clothes and getting dry. Below them, in the jungle, other men looked up at the choppers. They too were glad that the mission had ended. They turned and crept away, thinking of the warmth of their tunnels.