Fortunate Sons

Chapter 27: The Nightmare

Taylor and the others were shown around the village to be sure they would know where everything was in case it was needed. Everything from supplies and food, to weapons and ammunition dumps, it was all there at their disposal.

"This is where they recover," Lai Thai said, leading the six into what the villagers referred to as "the sick shack". "Be careful. Some of them are still shook up by what happened to them at the outpost."

"Can ya'll blame them?" Dix said as he and the others followed her up the stairs.

"Not in the least," Lai Thai said with a hollow laugh.

She led them up the rickety stairs of the stilt building and opened the latch on the door. The prisoners they had freed from the outpost were making a full recovery and resting up before they could be given the go ahead to leave. The room where they spent their recovery days was small with a few trundle beds barely raised a foot off the ground. Two lanterns hung from the ceiling to light the room at night while on the beds were an odd layering of flannel Indian blankets, probably given to them by servicemen in the town.

"We've done what we can," Lai Thai said, taking the lantern from its hook and shining the light onto each and every one of their faces. "There isn't much else we can do for them. Medicine is scarce in these parts and the communists are doing everything in their power to cut us off."

"I have a medical kit," Mitch offered. "I know it's not much but....."

"Would you mind?"

They waited for a few minutes while Mitch went back to the main hut to grab his medical kit and returned a minute later to help Lai Thai in her nightly rounds. Two of the men were passed out and dead asleep in their beds, turned on their sides with their hands bandaged while another one coughed violently. The two Korean marines were given water by two identical girls who came in with a hard wooden jug full of it.

It pained Taylor to look on each and every single one of their faces and on the awful, torturous wounds that had been inflicted upon them. The suffering and sorrow that he saw there in the sick shack was enough to drive even the sanest of men over the edge. As he looked upon the ghastly injuries, he had begun to feel strange sensations in his hands, fingers and in his toes as though he too had been inflicted with the same wounds.

One young man with a dirty face and bandages wrapped around his wrists and head turned to Taylor and tugged at the sleeve of his sage green shirt. "Hey," he said wearily. "Thanks for pulling us out of that Charlie pit back there."

Taylor gave him a nod but said nothing more. He wanted to forget what he had seen there, every bit of it with nothing left to remain. Taylor gripped the man's hand before he left him alone to see to other business.

"They are lucky," Ogun remarked. "No one would have made it out of that viper's nest alive if they had their way."

Taylor stayed silent as he gazed out the open, glassless window of the sick shack. He could hear the crickets and the critters chirping as the sky turned to dusky blue. For miles all he could see was the jungle and nothing but.

"They're still out there," Taylor said.

He felt Ogun's large hand gripping his shoulder as if to reassure him that all would be well. "We won't let them win," Ogun assured him. "We won't."

No one slept that night. Everyone, save for Ogun, were plagued by nightmares of what they had seen in the last few days. Worst of all, Taylor had kept worrying about Sue. Of all the people in the world, he hoped most of all that she was alright. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her face, her standing at the top of the Dien Ha ridge in her fatigues or in a white ao dai, looking out over the calmness of the jungle....no mortar fire, no guns firing, no death. Just her.