Fortunate Sons

Chapter 6: Night Patrol Somewhere along the Mekong River

The calm flow of the river was disrupted by the silent movements of Taylor and his teammates as they moved through the murky waters, unseen and unheard by the enemy who lurked in every corner of the jungle.

The night was quiet, save for the singing of the bugs and frogs who called the river home. Up above white stars dotted the black field but not a trace of moonlight was to be found. Slowly, the men kept moving through the murky waters, treading carefully and cautiously to avoid hidden traps that lay in wait beneath the ground.

"Shh, stay quiet, stay quiet," Taylor warned in a hushed whisper.

The quiet sounds of the jungle hadn't been the only thing to reach their ears. Somewhere in the distance the men could hear other noises, twigs snapping, leaves rustling and brush being pushed aside. The enemy was close. Taylor could feel the vibrations that sailed along the ground and into the water, dancing in his chest and shoulders.

"Down, down," Taylor whispered.

The team submerged themselves into the water all at once, the noises of the surface world turning to the muffled rumblings of the world beneath. The rush of the water enveloped them like a fluid cloak, the currents rushing by their ears as they moved along the murky, sticky bottom. When they came back up to the surface, the team hid themselves away in the tall, marshy grasses and jungle plants that grew all along the riverbank.

"Anything out there Tay?" Dix whispered. "Taylor?"

"Shh!"

Amidst the maddening chirp of the crickets and nighttime critters, Taylor and the others spotted something making its way up the river through the pitch black, the faint outline of a shadow on the glassy, blue black surface of the water. A long riverboat made of rough, splintering wood cruised its way along the dark water, manned by a lone figure in a black robe with his straw hat concealing his face from view had emerged from the darkness of the night, rowing along with the faint slapping of water against the side of his vessel and only a long rod of bamboo to guide them.

"One of the river-folk?" Dix asked, putting his sign language skills to good use.

"No," Taylor signed in reply. "Charlie coming up the river."

Dix looked closer at the figure through the reeds and saw the gun on his back. He couldn't have been a high ranker. More likely a scout or somebody's toadie who performed everybody else's dirty work. It could have been the man they were looking for in disguise, perfectly concealed like a chameleon in order to blend in and carry out whatever dirty deeds he planned under the cover of night.

For a split second they saw the man's head turn in their direction. The soldiers jumped halfway out of their skin, thinking that their cover was blown. Their hearts beat wildly deep in their chests when through the reeds poked something long and black with a clear sheen in its surface.

Dix and Taylor froze, petrified at the sight of the muzzle end of the rifle. They didn't dare move or make any noises, holding their breath until they turned beet red in the face. Their eyes bugged out of their sockets and their skin grew clammy. Taylor's hand moved to the handle of the k-bar hooked to his belt, ready to draw and fight.

When a sleeved arm appeared through the reeds, Taylor instinctively grabbed a hold of it and quickly disarmed the intruder, wrestling him to the ground and clamping a hand over his mouth to muffle his screams.

"Make one wrong move and you'll sink to the bottom!" Taylor snarled in the native tongue.

The man writhed and wriggled beneath Taylor who kept him pinned under his dead weight and his hand clamped over the man's mouth. Taylor yelped when he felt a stinging pressure on his pinky finger, hard and enough to make him draw his hand back. The teeth marks had left a dark indent in the skin, sharp, jagged and with small drops of blood that seeped out onto his skin.

"The hell happened?" Dix asked.

"Little shit bit my finger."

Close shouts nearby send the pair into a panic once again but to their relief it was only Ma Ahn, Mitch and Thom. Thom's face suddenly flared with anger as he dragged the captured enemy to his feet and bound him with a length of rope he kept in his pack.

"Well, well I guess all we had to do to find you was follow the stench of B.O and we'd be led right to the scene of the crime," Thom remarked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"You let me go or I'll have you all hung!" the scout demanded.

"You'll be lucky if we don't do it first."

Thom pushed the scout to the ground where he lay flat, his head cocked to the side and glaring daggers at Taylor and the rest of his comrades. "Oh, oh-ho what have we here," Thom chuckled after a search had revealed an interesting find. "Hey guys check this out."

Should've guessed.......Taylor thought to himself. The two things that easily gave away a VC scout had been found in his pockets to no one's surprise, a photograph of Ho Chi Minh and a copy of the infamous Little Red Book. At least it was one less threat for them to deal with.

"What do you want us to do?" Thom asked.

"Go find Fourth Platoon and have them take him back to base," Taylor said. "We'll let the higher ups deal with this one."

"Alright, alright," Thom said to the scout as he hauled him to his feet. "Let's haul your stinky carcass on out of here."

They headed back the way they came and found Fourth Platoon to hand off the prisoner who promptly took him back to the base. When all had been said and done they headed back out to patrol in and around the town lines.

"Hey man," Dix said. "Thanks for covering our asses back there."

"No problem Dix," Taylor replied. "Just glad it didn't take a turn for the worse."