The deep penetration Special Forces snatch patrol, slowly made its way along a narrow jungle road, while at the same time hugging the thick vegetation that hung over its edges. In this way they were making the best use of whatever cover they could find, in an effort to remain unnoticed by the village they were about to pass. The men were spaced at least five meters apart, as had been drummed into them during their basic training. There were times when this rule had to be flexible, to ensure that they kept each other in full view. It was late evening and the light was slowly starting to fail.
Sergeant Bruce Jackson was in charge of this ten-man patrol that was secretly operating deep inside of Laos, far beyond their jurisdiction. They were attempting to grab a local warlord who controlled a large area of the country. He was then to be taken back to headquarters in Vietnam, where he would to be interrogated and won over by the Americans. In an effort to try and shorten the war in that part of the country.
Bruce had positioned himself behind his two Laotian tribesmen scouts, so he could be in full control of any situation that might develop up front. They had been very lucky to get this far with out being recognised as infiltrating soldiers. One reason was that they were wearing the same military style uniforms as the local militias. In this way they were able to stick to the main tracks that weaved across the country. If they were to cut their own tracks, then the operation would have taken weeks longer. Twice they had successfully past local Laotian troops on the other side of the roadway that were also on patrol but heading in the opposite direction. The local scouts up front had used the briefest of words to assure the Laotians that they were in fact locals.
Bruce had been very careful in picking his men for this task. Making sure that he did not pick anybody tall, who might stand out amongst the local tribesmen. Now all that planning was paying off, as they made there way deep into the enemy held countryside.
The smoothness of the operation was placed into jeopardy as Bruce came up along side a young boy in a military style uniform, who was walking slowly on his own and in the same direction as the patrol. Bruce guessed that his scouts had just spoken to him and thought that he was of no threat to them. It was a gamble that would usually have paid off, providing the other members of the patrol knew what was going on. Unfortunately in this instance there was no way to pass the word back to warn them. Suddenly the boy turned and looked straight at Bruce’s camouflaged face, and stared deep into his eyes. Bruce knew that the boy sensed something was not quite right. He had to make a quick decision without informing the members of his team of what he intended to do.
He grabbed the boy and cupped one hand over his mouth as he dragged him into and down a nearby narrow alleyway. Where he plunged his commando knife deep in to his side, at that same moment he felt him struggle and to try and bite into his hand that was still over his mouth cutting off his air supply. Bruce knew there would be no noise and as he felt the body become limp and lifeless he slowly lowered it so it was resting on his knees. Then silently he let the body slump down into a heap by the side of the alley. Where he placed a couple of pieces of cardboard that he found nearby on the crumpled heap, in an effort to conceal the body. The longer the evidence was hidden the further the patrol would be away from the village before it was found. All the time he was looking around, just in case somebody might have been watching.
Bruce then turned and made his way towards the entrance of the alleyway where he hoped to rejoin his patrol. Unbeknown for him the soldier who had been directly behind him had not been close enough to see what had happened in the failing light. So the patrol had continued to advance up the track and past the village.
Before Bruce could reach the road way and look for his men, his attention was grabbed by the sound of somebody moaning very loudly behind him. He turned and was taken aback by the sight of the young man who he thought he had just killed, on his knees and was struggling in an effort to get to his feet.
Again he had to make a quick decision and turned around rushing back to grab the wounded young guy. Then once again holding him in a silenced position, he stuck his dagger into his side around the area of his kidneys and thrust it up under his rib cage, something he should have done the first time
Bruce then turned once again towards the alleyway entrance that faced the roadway. Before he could take another step, two Laotian villages started to advance towards him. One of them was a guy and he was carrying a machete while the other one was a young girl. Bruce knew that he would not get past them so he made another decision to head back down the alley. Unfortunately away from his patrol and safety, not wanting to get involved in a situation that could escalate in to a major incident. He ran down one alley then left into another then left again, all the time trying to head in what he thought was a square shape direction. In this way he hoped that it would bring him back onto the main roadway through the village so he could be reunited with his men.
He was in a loosing battle and it did not take him long to realise that he was well and truly lost. Every alleyway that he turned down looked exactly like the last. They were all very narrow, so narrow in fact that at times as he ran he was grazing his elbows along the walls. Occasionally he went past low arched doorways that had people standing in them. He became increasingly worried that it would not be long before others joined in with the chase, even though they might not know why he was being chased.
Finally almost exhausted he slowed to a walk, while all the time looking over his shoulders. As he turned one of the corners he was suddenly confronted by what he guessed was a young girl. He did not want to go back so he decided to bluff his way past her. As they approached each other he began to sense that there was something odd about her, but thought nothing of it until he was almost on top of her. Then as he was about to squeeze past her it suddenly dawned on him. She was the girl who had witnessed him killing the young boy, and she had something menacing in her right hand. At first he thought about just shooting her, but then changed his mind in case it awoke the whole village, then he would really be in trouble and so would the mission. So again he turned to flee back the way he had just come, hoping to leave the problem behind him.
Bruce was not fast enough, she lunged forward and stabbed him in the top of his arm, but he was surprised that he had not seen a knife. But he had felt a sharp piercing pain that shot down the complete length of his arm. Pain was the last thing on his mind at this moment in time; all he wanted to do was to find a way out of the village and to be reunited with his men. Again he found himself running as fast as he could in an effort to escape any further attacks that she might try and launch at him. All the time his brain was racing trying to work out what it was that she had just stabbed him with.
Then in a split second he suddenly realised that it had been a syringe. He ran his hand up his arm to feel for the wound, almost stabbed his hand on a broken needle. By sheer luck the needle had been broken in the girls frenzied stabbing attack against him. Immediately he started to try and work out what had been pumped into his body and how much. Whatever it was, he only had a few minutes to find somewhere to hide, before he past out. If he failed then it would be easy pickings for whoever was chasing him.
He continued racing first down one alley and then down another until he was completely disorientated. But at least he had found himself out of the village and was on a very narrow grassy track, with jungle to his right and a three-meter drop to his left down to a small stream. By now he was staggering and his vision was becoming very blurred. If he did not find a hide away soon he would end up very dead. The last thing he remember before he past out was falling to his left.
He then toppled head over heels down a steep embankment narrowly missing several large boulders that lay in his path. Finally ending up in the middle of a very large group of lush thick prickly bushes. By the time his body had come to a halt he was already unconscious, ending up being completely out of view to those who might pass along the track above him. The large cocktail of drugs that his body was now experiencing sent him spinning off into a fantasy world unlike anything he had ever experienced to date. At times the fantasies became the worse nightmares that anyone could ever imagine. Then in the middle of this drug-induced coma, just like the eye of a hurricane, the dreams became calm. So calm in fact that his whole life started to unravel in front of him. It was as if he were an angel and that he was gliding through little white puffs of cloud that he imagined heaven was like, and looking down on his complete life history. Leading right up to the situation that had just befallen him.
He did not know it but he had been very lucky, if this is what you can call luck. When the needle broke while it was in his arm only half of the syringe contents had entered his body. A full dose of that highly volatile mixture would surly have killed him, in what would have been a most terrifying death of tortured nightmares.
Unbeknown to Bruce he had lain unconscious for almost two days. When he finally opened his eye he found himself imprisoned inside of a small bamboo cage. After being unconscious for such a long time, at first he did not feel like jumping up and running around. Which was a good idea because his cell was so small that he could not stand up anyway, also as he moved his arms he found that he could touch all four sides of the cage. So he just lay there trying to get his bearings and to try and place together the events that had left him in this predicament.
It was then that he realised that he was not alone, for sitting on the other side of the bamboo bars just a few feet away he found himself looking into the eyes of a young girl wearing a jungle camouflage style uniform. Then as he rubbed the top of his arm it did not take him long to assume that she had been his attacker. She did not respond to his request for some water, she just sat there starring at him. So Bruce asked her once again only this time he used the little local language that he knew. Before the words had left his lips she threw the contents of a bowl that she was holding into his face. Lucky for him it was water and his tongue worked overtime trying to lick whatever moisture he could find from around his mouth. Trying to keep his spirits up he came out with the usual witty lines that he had become well known for. By thanking her for her service and that he had no change so he could not give her a tip. The expression on the girl’s face did not change so Bruce continued telling her that he did not like the service she was providing. Continuing that if it did not change then he might take his custom elsewhere. With that she jumped up and started rattling the side of the cage bars with short piece of bamboo that she had in her hand. The noise became irritating as she kept it up for some time until she turned and walked away, leaving Bruce to take in his surroundings.
From his cell he guessed that he might be on the edge of some sort of village or camp. For he was in the middle of a clearing, with the dense jungle having been cleared for almost twenty meters from where he was positioned. To his right there was a row of huts that were all constructed of local vegetation and were connected by a narrow flimsy walkway that ran the length of the huts. There seemed to be several chickens and a couple of pigs just wandering around the clearing looking for food. In the distance he could hear children’s voices, so he guessed that they were playing close by. If he could hear children then it was a good bet that he was near a village. The one thing that he thought strange was that there were no guards to be seen especially around his cage.
Bruce did not need much time to assess his predicament; within just a few seconds he told himself that he was stuffed. Further more he had no idea who his captors were, where he was or even what time of day it was. Having been a wake now for some time he now felt the urge to stretch his legs, but seeing as the girl had left him he did not know whom to call. The more he shifted his aching body around in the very tight confines of his cell, the more he became frustrated in not being able to stretch. It wasn’t just his legs now it was his back and no matter how he tried there was no position with in the confines of the cell that he could find, to at least stretch out one part of his body. Whoever his captors were they had used a lot of science to designing this hellhole, into one of the most uncomfortable pieces of deprivation furniture he had known.
Not knowing the time of day and the loneliness was his worse enemy, so he had to devise ways of over coming this. He had once read of a Russian guy who was imprisoned for twenty years in solitary confinement. While he had lain on his straw mattress, he had noticed that the sun shining threw his Prison bars made a pattern of a chessboard on his cell floor. Then over the next twenty years he had taught himself how to play the game by imagining where all the pieces were. Upon his release from prison he had gone on to become a grand master.
The pattern the sun cast beside Bruce’s cell was not exactly like a full size chessboard. It was more like a striped board, but at least it gave him a challenge and something to occupy his brain. At least if he were to lean this way he would be able to brag that he did it harder than the Russian guy.
It was almost dark when his favourite little female friend returned, and in her hand was a rusty looking flat tin. She approached his cage slowly and placed it by the bars, in a position where Bruce would be able to reach through the bars to get to it. She immediately left after pointing to the tin in a gesture that he under stood as being for him. It only took him a few seconds to realise that it was just a few left over food scraps. Left over’s from what he had no idea, although he did notice a small piece of green coloured bread amongst the swill. He knew he had to eat some of it, as he was almost at starvation point, not knowing when he’d had his last meal. If he was going to get out of this predicament and escape he would need to be reasonably fit, suspecting that he was several hundred miles from the safety of his camp in Vietnam.
That night was long and cold and Bruce found it hard to get any sort of rest. One of his legs was cramping badly and there was no way that he could stretch it. Halfway through the night it went numb so at least he could not feel the pain anymore.
Just before daybreak the girl along with to other males in military uniforms came over to his cage, unlocked it and dragged him out. The relief was immediate for Bruce as his cramping limbs were able to unfold and become out stretched. He was then manacled by the ankles, and found that there was now a twelve-inch piece of chain between each foot. Once the guards were happy that he would not be able to run away, they allowed the girl to take him shuffling to a river nearby. It was hard going for him shuffling along as the manacles were cutting deep into the flesh of his ankles. He was also experiencing problems with the leg that had been numb all night, he had thought by now that the blood would be circulating once again. At the river the girl pointed towards the river ordering him in.
Bruce could not help himself and once again his wit came out quite naturally when he asked the girl if she had some soap. She made out that she did not understand, but Bruce thought other wise as she produced a pistol from her pocket. His immediate thought was that she was going to shoot him and leave his body to just float away. This was one of the most common ways that the people of this part of the world used to get rid of unwanted bodies.
He wanted to take full advantage of what he expected to be a short-lived freedom. So he went into the water to wash his battered body down, have a drink and to also exercise his numb leg. Just like he thought his freedom was over all to quickly as the girl shouted at him gesturing him out by waving the pistol at him. Then it was just a short shuffle back to his cage where he was bundled inside once more and the door slammed shut behind him. She could not help her self as she picked up the piece of bamboo and proceed to strike the side of his cage as if he were an animal. It had not taken Bruce long to realise that she definitely hated him, and that he was not going to get any favours from her while she was in that frame of mind.
The evening meal arrived just like it had the day before, still as unappetising, as it had been the previous one. Hence a routine had been set, this would give Bruce a chance to try and work out a way of trying to make his escape. If in fact he was lucky to be able to work out a way.
Each day that he went through the routine he watched the girl very closely trying to see if there was a chink in her armour. Just that little something that she had changed in her routine over the days that she had watered him. The only thing that he could confirm was her hatred against him, or was it the uniform and country that he represented, of that he was not sure.
The ice was finally broken the day that Bruce had decided to make a run for it. He was going to dive under the water and even though his ankles were chained he was going to swim as far as he could out in to the middle of the river. Where he would stick a reed that he would grab from the riverbank into his mouth. Hoping to take another large breath of air in order that he might continue his swim underwater to freedom. All of this came to nothing when the girl asked him in broken English what his name was.
Bruce could not believe it and had to think rather quickly not really knowing what to say. During his training it had been explained to him that the enemy would use any trick possible in order that they might gain information from captives. He had always been told to give only his name, rank and number and that anything else might be used as useful information by the enemy. Anything else and could be said that he had collaborated with the enemy
He had to admit that she was a pretty looking girl and that in other circumstances he would have been attracted towards her, even though her face always looked dirty by a few smudges of mud upon it. He used to tell him self that it was jungle make up for women. Quietly he told her that it was Bruce, and that as he had told her his name then she must now tell him hers. It went quiet for a few minutes until she looked at him and said it was Lee. Bruce smiled at her, the ice had finally started to thaw and as far as he was concerned it was he who had made the enemy talk first. He went on to tell her that it was a pretty name, and that she was also very pretty, not really knowing whether she understood everything that he had said to her. He decided to put his escape attempt on hold for a while just to see what became of the gradual melting of the ice that Lee had instigated.
He had been marking one of the Bamboo bars of his cage by using the edge of his tin plate. In this way he had a little idea of how many days that he had been a captive. It was another twelve days before she finally spoke to him again. This time it was while she delivered his favourite evening meal of pigswill. Only this time he was very surprised to find that the plate contained a large piece of meat and that the bread was now white and not the usual mouldy sort of green colour that he had almost got used to. She sat down beside the cage while he ate and asked him what part of America had he came from. Her English was all broken but he knew what she was saying. Once he’d finished eating the meat, he told her that he actually came from England and that he was looking forward to going back, in the not too distant future.
He then asked her if she could get him some sort of first aid gear so that he could treat some body sores that had started to spread all over him. He was surprised when she past him a small bottle and some dirty rag. She had noticed that he had been deteriorating in the last few days and had seen the sores on his body when he washed in the river. Bruce guessed that the bottle contained some sort of local medicine and that the rag was to be used in applying the liquid to the sores.
This was the first day that she had spent such a long time with him and when finally she got up to go he felt a little sad inside. She had broken up the routine and boredom that had controlled his everyday existence for several weeks. Then just before she left, she past him a length of reed through the side of his cage and then she was gone. Bruce looked at the reed trying to understand why she had given it to him and what was its significance. It took almost an hour before he thought he had unravelled the mystery. The reed had several notches on its entire length each about six inches apart. As Bruce broke the reed at one of the notches he realised that the notch was solid and that it blocked off the hollow tube inside of the reed at that point. Which meant that he would not have been able to use the reed, as a breathing tube if he’d have tried to escape, by swimming the river. Some how she had read the signs and had realised what he had been planning. He wiped the sweat beads from his forehead wondering if in fact she would have shot him, if he had tried to make a run for it.
That night his attempt to try and sleep in between mosquito bites was further interrupted by what Bruce thought was a US air strike that was on a bombing raid nearby. As was usual with this sort of thing a lot of the bombs went astray with several of them landing close by. Bruce’s cage was peppered with debris and rocks several times and he expected to be hit by shrapnel at anytime. Somehow he was lucky and came through the raid totally unscathed, apart from a sore throat after having swallowed a lot of dust that had been thrown up around his cage.
The next morning he was awaken by the sound of children playing around his cage as they collected bits and pieces of the debris that had showered down on to his cage during the raid in the night. Their playfulness turned out not to be friendly as they ended up standing next to him. As he tried to start a conversation with them, they all started rattling on the bars of his cage with anything that they had in their hands at the time. The noise became deafening, but there was nothing that Bruce could do, if he made a scene then they would know that he was upset. It would be a forgone conclusion that they would keep doing it just to annoy him even more. So he gritted his teeth and smiled at them all the time, until they just got fed up with what they were doing and moved on. Unfortunately the noise had been so loud that it had given Bruce a very bad headache and had left a ringing in his ears. The sun was now high enough into the morning sky so that its rays were coming through the bars and onto him. So there was going to be no way that he would be able to get rid of the pain while lying in the sun.
He must have become some sort of local attraction by all that lived in this area, because as the time went by a steady stream of people would file past his cage just starring at him. Occasionally some of the people would hurl abuse towards him or at least that’s what Bruce thought they were doing. Some of the camp dogs would even walk up and cock there leg on to the side of the cage taking no notice of the abuse and shouting that Bruce did to scare them off. This act did nothing to enhance the smells that he had to endure daily from within the cage. Because of the limited periods that he was taken to the river, it meant that there were times when he had to answer the call of nature either in the cage or if it were possible through the bars. The quality of the food also left a lot to be desired, but it also meant that he constantly had stomach bugs, and if he could not control himself by waiting for the routine wash down. Then he just had to let it go in the cage, where as he could wash himself in the river, his cage did not have the same luxury.
All of these things that were happening to him did not stop him thinking of the patrol that he had been leading. Thinking of them walking into the clearing and saving him from what he was expecting to be a certain death. They must have missed him and surely by now some sort of rescue bid must be under way. The one doubt in his mind was that they had been so deep in another country, and how long had it been before he had actually been missed. In this type of thick jungle it was hard enough trying to find some body if you had a little idea where they were. But if thousands of kilometres of jungle had to be searched then that was an impossible task.
It had become a well-known fact to the American advisers who landed in South Vietnam, that the country was not very stable. Most of its leaders and military officers were only interested in trying to make money out of the aid that the Americans were pumping into their country. They had no heart in fighting the Vietcong in that way they might be shot and killed. No all they wanted was to make money and become rich.
Most of the so-called evidence that the Vietnamese government produced in an effort to prove to the American’s that they were doing a good job. Were pictures of so-called dead Vietcong, following a so-called battle with them. Were in actual fact their own men dressed as the Vietcong and pretending to be dead. In this way the people of America were conned into thinking that the aid they were sending was helping to win the war against communism.
Upon arrival the U.S. advisers were told that they were only there to assist and that they were not to lead. Most knew what was going on and tolerated the situation, just ticking off the days until they went home. Bruce had been different; he had thought that he could make a difference. He had been the first one to be given a new role. He had been given a patrol and told to lead it into enemy held territory. He was now realising that he had been tricked, because the truth was no South Vietnam Officer would have wanted the job, just in case they got them selves killed. If that were the case then there was not going to be a rescue attempt made to search for him especially if it had to be lead by a South Vietnamese officer.
As he scratched of the days on the side of his cage bars, he had to face up to the reality that it was looking highly unlikely that he was going to be rescued by a friendly force. He was going to have to make it on his own, but how he had no idea. By his reckoning he had been a prisoner now for more than a month and he was getting weaker each day. If he did not try something soon them he was not going to be able to go anywhere other than in a body bag.