Tale of Johnny Ray

By now, Second squad had closed the gap and SGT Lykes sent word for Second squad leader, SGT Jones to join him up front.
He briefed SGT Jones on what had transpired with the old man, who was still visible but walking away.
SGT Lykes was in charge of this mission, but valued SGT Jones' expertise.
After hearing what had happened SGT Jones said "You the boss, but I say we just leave him be and keep our distance.
Like you done figured out, they know we are here. I say we ease on into the village, but go easy, man. Real easy."
And so we did, allowing papasan a hundred feet or so gap.
After another quarter mile, the sky brightened up as the tree line widened considerably at the edge of the village, revealing a large clearing.
Neat vegetable gardens were evident, as were pigs and chickens.
There wasn't a look of wealth by any means, but everything was tidy and orderly, almost military.
Was it in their nature to be so organized, or was the military so deeply ingrained in their culture after centuries of war?
It wasn't nearly so evident in downtown Saigon, but everything in the country had a survivalist feel to it.
Like a well tended battlefield.
An old woman ignored us as she drew water from a well. A young child stared at us with inquisitive eyes from around her dress.
The village consisted of approximately a dozen straw huts on either side of the road, along with a larger hut about halfway down on the left.
I surmised this to be their version of a barn, or some sort of communal storage.
Where was everybody? It was too quiet, almost spooky. Maybe they thought if they ignored us, we would go away.
SGT Lykes gave us permission to stand down, but to keep our ears and eyes open, while he decided how to approach the situation.

SGT Jones had taken on a grim demeanor. He had his war face on.
"Talk to me Jonesy" SGT Lykes said.
A minute passed before he answered. When he did there was a growl in his voice.
"That old one armed man set up that trip wire. He killed Portman and Stenson just as sure as if he put a gun to their heads.
And it could have been any one of us. He is full blooded VC. No doubt in my mind.
After he blew up those guys, he waited around to see what we would do.
We could have radioed for some more guys or some air support. But we didn't and he knew that.
He didn't set up anymore traps because that would have raised the alarm and have pulled in more heat.
He figures two little ole squads ain't no big threat, so he just left us alone.
He has been forward tracking us the last two days. Knew for sure where we were going once we took that last fork in the road.
There were most likely two of them and he done sent his buddy ahead to warn the rest.
Yeah, old papasan was being ####y. He wanted us to see him. Wanted to taunt us.
We took his arm, maybe his family, and he took it real personal.
Notice he vanished like a ghost? I guarantee we could bulldoze every one of them huts and never find him.
No sir, he done crawled in a tunnel like the dirty rat he is. Crawling right on back to his VC hideout.
So they can play it two ways. They can let us snoop around, not find a #### thing and go on about our merry way.
Or they could be setting us up for a firefight."

 

SGT Lykes listened thoughtfully to what the other sergeant had to say, then said what was on his mind.
"You know what the name of this village is? Vuy long. You know what that means?
It means happy. What a friggin joke, huh? The boys in intelligence researched this joint.
They dug up some old maps, not that old really, maybe three years old. And guess what? This ancient village didn't exist.
I guess you noticed there are no menfolk around aside from the vanishing one armed man.
No farmland for miles and very little livestock to speak of. And Viet-Nam isn't famous for retirement villages popping up in the middle of the jungle.
If it were up to me, I would call in an artillery strike and turn this place into a big hole.
But I don't have to tell you Jonesy that we are bound by rules that Charlie doesn't have to abide by. It sucks, but it's our reality.
These are my orders from the captain. To investigate the village of Tinh tu for possible VC activity and report our findings.
Should we encounter an overwhelming situation, we radio for assistance."
What was left unsaid, is that they should have come better equipped to start with, at least an entire platoon rather than half.
That would certainly lessen the possibility of being overwhelmed. But being an NCO, it was improper to voice his disagreements with his superiors in front of the men.
"Listen up gentlemen. I want you to split into groups of two. No, scratch that. Groups of three. Go door to door.
Start down on the other end and work your way back up.
Your main priority is tunnel openings. Move everything you have to move to see the entire floor.
If it's not big enough to conceal an opening, don't pick it up. No souveniers. I don't want anybody else getting blown up on this mission.
Jonesy, take your squad down the right side, I'll take the left.
First thing I want to do is check out that barn."
He said the last louder than necessary while keeping a sideways eye on the woman by the well who jerked her head toward the building.
''I knew it" he said. "She speaks english."
As we approached the barn she yelled out. "Khong, khong. Chang co cai. Nha trai, nha trai!"
"Cut the act momasan. I know #### well you understand" SGT Lykes yelled back.
"What's she saying ?" I asked.
"She's just saying there is nothing there. Just a farmhouse. Funny, I don't see a farm around here, or any farmers either."
"And would you look at what we have here. Well I will just be dipped in snuff. Masterlock, made in U.S.A. Be a waste of time to ask anybody for a key."
"Hey sarge, check this out." It was Ant. He had become curious about a gap in the thatching on the corner of the structure.
Pulling it back revealed not bamboo, but heavy treated 2x6 planks secured with large nails. Nail heads that were still shiny, indicating it was recently constructed.
Even a moderate amount of humidity would have left a thin rust colored glaze in a matter of days.
It was a facade. A fortress diguised as a flimsy hut. The big question was why?
The VC were well known to store everything underground. The NVA would be more inclined to store weapons and ammunition in this fashion, but not out here in the boonies.
They would use a conventional base. Something was way too weird. We didn't know for sure what was in there yet, but it couldn't be harmless, judging the way the woman was screaming at us. Turns out that was just a distraction.
More subterfuge it seems. For as sarge began inspecting the building and the woman began screaming, I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye.
Just a blur. I turned in time to see a boy of perhaps ten years old making a mad dash for a hut.

 

You don't know how good it is to hear that. I felt that was my weak point, not spending time on locale descriptions. I'm not lazy, just feel the characters should be the priority.
At one time I had read every thing ever written by Dean Koontz and still respect him greatly for his earlier works.
But I have noticed in later years he has taken to spending an excessive amount of time describing scenes that have little or no bearing on the story.
I, too found myself skimming to the bottom of the page(or two) to pick up the story. Rather than have a man just walk up to a house and ring the doorbell, we get to hear every detail of the house and the yard. The color and texture of the lawn. Every type of vine, flower and shrub surrounding the house. The color and condition of the paint. The cracked window pane etc.
But of course, when you get up in the Stephen King/Dean Koontz/John Grisham level, you get paid by the word, so why not strech it out, I suppose.

In regards to Cousin Jake, I have indeed given some thought to using him later. Maybe when Johnny gets in trouble in Atlanta later on, Jake could be there to help out.Might be a good fight scene or two.

Thanks for the comments and feel free to jump in anytime.
I start a dedicated run next week. I will be home three days and four nights a week. Running 2300 miles in four days and off three. I'm stiil not believing it yet.
Anyway, I hope to get a lot more done here and speed things up towards working on a submission draft.

 

Fifteen feet separated me from the boy. He had already taken two strides by the time I was in motion.
By the time I was within six feet of the hut he was heading toward, he was already entering the doorway.
Throwing caution to the wind following blindly behind. I suppose an instinctual part of my mind figured if there was a booby trap, it would take us both out.
Upon entering the hut, my brain had difficulty processing what my eyes were seeing.
This caused some hesitation, which may have cost me the time necessary to capture my prey.
Seeing the boy's legs protruding upward from the ground was confusing, until I realized he was going headfirst into a hole.
Reacting to the situation, albeit too late, I dove headfirst at the legs, which were disappearing rapidly.
Grasping frantically, I made a tentative grip on an ankle, but was only rewarded with a sandal as the lad dropped into the darkness.

"What the hell just happened?" Ant said as he saw me on my knees looking down a hole with a sandal in my hand.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out" I said as I began inspecting the shattered bamboo and straw at the scene with what appeared to be fresh blood hanging amid the opening.
It appeared to be a hatch designed to blend in with the straw floor. Rather than take the time to open the hatch as he normally would, he dove through headfirst with barely enough impact force to break through, splintering the narrow bamboo strips in the process.
Judging from the amount of blood evident, he took some nasty slicing on the way through.
But he accomplished his mission. He made his escape to alert the VC of our discovery of the storage building.
That was the deduction of SGT Jones, who arrived just behind Ant.
He then proceeded to toss a gas grenade into the tunnel.
"Let's get out of here boys. Ain't nobody coming back up through this hole anyway, but I figure it don't hurt to be on the safe side."