"Maybe you should anyway," Dessler said.

"Mum's the word," Ellis said and put his finger before his lips. Franz seemed to be not only a nice fellow, but a competent noncom, and if he wanted him to be quiet, he would be quiet.

"What I'm going to do now is cut the punjis off as close to where they went in as I can," Franz said. "And then pull what's left the rest of the way through. You're going to have to hold him still." I can't be very seriously hurt, Ellis decided. I can't feel a thing.

"Now what?" Lopez asked.

"Now I shoot his ass full of penicillin," Franz said. "And then we wait five, ten minutes. If he comes off cloud nine, I'll get a couple of ARVNs to help him walk. If he's still out of his gourd, I'll put him out and we'll have to rig a stretcher for him."

"What about coffee? Would that help?" "I don't know," Franz said. "It's a stimulant. I don't know what effect it would have on the narcotic"

"It wouldn't hurt to try," Dessler said. "I'd hate to have him unconsus"

Ellis became aware that Dessler was holding him in a sitting position and that Lopez was giving him something very bitter from his canteen cup.

What that is, Ellis realized after a moment, is a packet of instant coffee mixed with very little water.

Whatever effect the coffee was supposed to have, it didn't. Ellis felt himself falling asleep. He opened his eyes. Dessler was methodically slapping his face.

Ellis put his hand up to stop him and then forced himself onto his elbows "How long was I out?" he asked. "About twenty minutes," Dessler said. "What shape am I in?"

That's what I wanted to ask you," Dessler said. "We've got the punjis out and the wounde bandaged, and Franz gave you a bunch of penicillin. Do you remember what happened? Where we are?"

"I even remember you hugging me," Ellis said. "Help me up, please."

"You sure you're all right, Lieutenant?"

"We're among friends, Charley," Ellis said. "You can call me Tom."

Dessler chuckled "I feel bad about this, Tom," he said. "Really bad."

"I fell in the goddamned hole," Ellis said. "Don't be silly."

Two of the reliable ARVNs were Standing there, looking down at him.

"Let's see if you guys can help me walk," Ellis said. They pulled him upright. He put his arms around their shoulders and supported himself on his good leg. The bad leg now felt as if it were on fire, and when he tried to straighten it, there was a sharp pain.

"This'll work," he said.

"I went and had a look," Dessler said. "I don't know if it's our guys or not, but it's the bad guys. They're armed. And they have sentinels out. There's about twenty-five maybe thirty of them. How do you want to handle it?" "Jesus, that manyr Dessler nodded.

"Let's just take them out and see who they are later," Ellis said.

They're keeping their fires going," Dessler said. "There's light."

"Grenades, and then shoot anybody who moves," Ellis said. Dessler nodded, then asked, "What do we do with you?"

"Find me someplace where I can fire the M-14 prone," Ellis said.

"Why don't we just leave you here with a couple of ARVNs?" "Because I am afraid of being alone in the dark," Ellis said. "It would be smarter, Tom."

"As I have just proved by getting myself stuck with shitty sticks, I am not very smart," Ellis said.

"You're the boss," Dessler said.

"No, you're in charge," Ellis said. "If you really want to leave me here, go ahead."

"You mean that" "Yeah, I mean it," Ellis said "Then you stay. Tom," Dessler said. "We'll put you someplace where you can cover the trail, and then I'll put another M-14 on the other side. I think some of them will make it to the trail."

Ellis shrugged. There was no other real alternative. He could hardly rush the Viet Cong encampment on one leg.

Dessler found a place by the trail where he could rest the M-14 on a fallen log and left him there. He returned in several minutes and sketched the trail and the location of the encampment with a stick in the dirt.

"Franz is here," he mid, pointing, "so make sure you keep your fire to the left of him. I sent a couple of ARVNs around on the other side, in case they head deeper into the forest. But I don't think they will. If they run, I think they'll run for the trail."

"Okay," Ellis said. "Go do it."

It seemed like a very long time before there was any sound but the creaking of limbs in the forest. Ellis's foot and leg felt more and more on fire, and when he felt (he didn't want to look at his trouser leg, it was moist with blood that had soaked the bandage.

Then there came the sound of grenades, muffled by the thick vegetation. There was first one grenade and then five or six more almost at once. Fifteen seconds after that, another continuous rumble of grenades lasted perhaps three seconds.

Then the faint sound of shouting, a pained scream, and the drumbeat of M-14 rounds, rapid-fire but not full automatic.

Then came, perhaps thirty seconds later, two separate bursts of three or four rounds each. Then the peculiar sound of an AK-47, firing full automatic, answered by a barrage of M-14 fire. Then silence.

Then the sound of someone crashing through the forest, toward him.

He could see nothing. He couldn't even see the front sight of the M-14. He moved the lever to full automatic. There was a surprisingly loud click. If he was going to get a shot in, it would be for a fraction of a second, and he might as well throw as many rounds as he could as quickly as he could.

And then there were shadows moving out there.

He had the sudden chilling doubt that maybe they were his people.

But that was unlikely.

There was the glow of a muzzle burst as Franz opened up. Ellis squeezed the trigger and held it until the twenty-round magazine had emptied. When the recoil stopped, there was a sharp pain in his leg and foot. He felt a clammy sweat and was afraid he was going to pass out.

There was no more sound in the forest, no more gunfire. Then Lopez's familiar voice. "Coming through! Coming through!"

Lopez (Ellis knew it was Lopez, because his shadow was much larger than the shadows he had fired upon) appeared on the trail, followed by three others.

One of the three detached himself from the group and went to the two bodies on the trail and fired two rounds into each.

"You okay, Lieutenant?" Lopez called out. "Yeah. Send somebody to help me up." Two of the shadows detached themselves and came in his direction. They were ARVNs, and they knew what was expected of them. They pulled Ellis to his feet and half carried him into the forest.

Dessler and an ARVN sergeant were squatting by one of the campfires, going through papers from a cheap cotton rucksack. The ARVN found something that interested him and chattered excitedly, first in Vietnamese and then in singsong English.

"Bull's-eye," Dessler called to Ellis. "We got the sonofabitch." "He's sure?"

"What's he excited about is we got a visiting fireman too. A VC light bird."

"No kidding?" Ellis said, pleased. He urged the ARVNs forward to where Dessler was. Then he started to lower himself to the ground.

There was a bright orange light, and the jungle, the rude shelters the Viet Cong had built, the wood fire, and Dessler himself started to move in circles, and the ground came up and smacked him in the face.

Sixty feet above them, Captain Van Lee Due, commanding officer of Ninth Company, Fifty-third Regiment, swung gently in a hammock suspended between branches of a large tree. He was bleeding slightly from several small wounds where small fragments of the hand grenades had struck him, but was neither seriously wounded nor in great pain.

From the first grenade, it had never entered his mind to fire his AK-47. If the attack failed, there would have been no need to, and he would have needlessly endangered his life by calling attention to himself in a position from which he had no means of withdrawal. And since the attack had succeeded, there were nineteen bodies on the ground, which meant that no more than eight or ten of his men had escaped. It would have been folly to expose himself.

His immediate problem, as he saw it, was to explain to the staff of the Fifty-third Regiment how the attack had happened in the first place, and why he had permitted the enemy to kill a senior staff officer.

There was no question in Captain Van Lee Due's mind what had happened. It was just bad luck. The enemy had by chance passed close enough by to smell the smoke of the fires.

In the future, fires would be used only for cooking and then extinguished In the future, he would also select campgrounds with more care.

For the time being, there was nothing that he could do but wait until the Americans and their puppet soldiers left.

Thirty minutes later they did.

Headquarters U.S. Army Special Warfare School and Center Fort Bragg. North Carolina 1645 Hours. 29 January 1962 PRIORITY.

CONFIDENTIAL.

HQ US ARMY MIL ASSISTANCE COMMAND, VIEThAM SAIGON RVN 1005 ZULU 27 iAN 1962 VIA CINC USARMYPAC.

R)R DC SOPS DA WASH DC.

INFO: SURGEON GENERAL.

CO XVIII AIRBORNE CORPS & FT BRAGG NC.

CO USASWS&C Fr BRAGG NC CO US ARMY STATION HOSP Fr BRAGG NC I. 1st LT ELLIS. THOMAS I INFANTRY 0-326745 DET OF PATIENTS, 811Th FIELD HOSPITAL. SAIGON RVN HAS ABSENTED HIMSELF.

WITHOUT PROPER AUTHORITY FROM 811Th FIELD HOSP AND is CONSIDERED ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE.

2. SUBJECT OFFICER WHO PURSUANT TO PARA 31 GENERAl ORDERS 305 HG DA DATED 29 DEC 61, WAS PLACED ON TDY TO HQ.

USA MAC VIETNAM Hq AS DC SOPS OFFICER COURIER WAS ADMITTED TO USA MEDICAL FACILITY KONTUM RVN 0545 HOURS 19 JAN 62.

FOLLOWING MEDICAL EVACUATION BY HELICOPTER FROM POSITION.

NEAR AN LAC SHI. MEDICAL EVALUATION OF SUBJECr OFFICER AT THAT TIME INDICATED REQUIREMENTS FOR TREATMENT.

BEYOND CAPABILITIES OF USA MED FAC KONTUM AND SUBJECT.

OFFICER WAS TRANSPORTED BY USAF MEDEVAC AIRCRAFT TO.

811TH FIELD HOSPITAL SAIGON WHERE OVER SUBJECT OFFICERS OBJECTIONS.

HE WAS ADMITTED FOR TREATMENT AND ASSIGNED to DETACHMENT OF PATIENTS.

3. SUBJEC OFFICER SUFFERS FROM SEVERE PENETRATING.

LACERATIONS OF LEFT FOOT, WITH ATTENDANT DAMAGE TO MUSCLE,.

TENDON AND BONE AND SEVERE PENETRATING LACERATION.

OF LEFT CALF WITH ATTENDING MUSCLE DAMAGE. PENETRATING.

WOUNDS WERE CAUSED BY SHARPENED WOOD, COMMONLY REFERRED.

TO AS "PUNJI STICKS," WHICH ARE CONTAMINATED WITH.

THE INTENTION OF CAUSING INFECTION BY HUMAN FECES AND.

OTHER UNKNOWN TOXIC SUBSTANCES. SUBJECT OFICER HAD LOST.

SUBSTANTIAL QUANTITIES OF BLOOD, WHICH EXACERBATED HIS.

CONDITION HIS CONDITION ON ADMiSSION WAS "SERIOUS, GUARDED.".

4. SUBJECT OFFICER WAS INFORMED THAT HE WAS UNFIT FOR.

DUTY, AND THAT HE WOULD BE CONFINED TO 811TH FIELD HOSP.

FOR A PERIOD OF AT LEAST TWENTY-ONE (21) DAYS, PRESUMING.

NORMAl RECOVERY, WHILE UNDERGOING MEDICAL TREATMENT TO REDUCE INFECTION AND WHATEVER SURGERY AND THERApy WAS INDICATED. SUBJECT OFFICER WAS INFORMED THAT HIS OBLIGATION.

TO COMPLY WITH PROVISIONS OF PARA 31 DA GENERAL ORDERS.

305 WAS OBVIATED ON HIS ADMISSION AND THAT FURTHER.

ORDERS WOULD BE ISSUED BY PROPER AUTHORITY WHEN HE WAS.

CERTIFIED AS FIT FOR DUTY BY MEDICAL OFFICERS OF 811TH STATION.

HOSPITAL.

5. FURTHER INVESTIGATION OF THIS INCIDENT BY 811Th STATION HOSPITAL AND HQ MACV HAS REVIELED THAT SUBJECT OFFICER.

WAS INJURED WHILE ENGAGED IN PATROL ACTION AGAINST.

VIETCONG FORCES IN VICI Nm AN LAC SHI.

OFFICER FIFTH SPECIAL FORCES GROUP STATES THAT SUBJECT OFFICER.

DID NOT REPEAT NOT HAVE AUTHORITY TO PARTICIPATE.