The Phoenix Page 14

  A young sergeant thought he saw something in the mist. He could just make out a rise and a tree where a dark shape huddled in its bare branches. He raised his AK-47 to his shoulder and was just about to squeeze the trigger, when suddenly something incredibly heavy took his leg and pulled. His finger let go of the trigger. What???? Then he was gone, his mouth filling with swamp water as the thing holding his leg rolled over once, twice, showing the white of its belly briefly as it twisted the sergeant's leg off at the hip. More blood spread, the scent drawing death to the Viets. The man standing next to the now deceased sergeant froze in horror as his squad leader disappeared. He was just starting to cry out a warning when the water in front of him burst open and jaws wide enough to tear a water buffalo's rear leg off and lined with rows of serrated teeth grabbed his head between them and closed, crushing the skull and tearing open the shoulder to expose the chest cavity and lungs. Then it too gave a rolling twist and hauled its meal under the water.

  Phang had done as Casey ordered. He had waited till the Vietnamese were well into the swamp and then his men had moved up on its edge, but none of them had entered the water. That they were not to do. Their job was to wait. If things went as planned most of the killing would be done for them.

  Van stood off to the side of Phang. He was strangely silent, his normal bravado and quick banter gone. Even though the men in the marsh were his enemies, they were also of his own race. He didn't like what was going to happen to them.

  Phang kept his own council. He knew what Van was feeling. He knew he would have felt the same if it had been his people.

  Screams began to come from the swamp. Men trying to fight for their lives fired their weapons at random. Some of the lucky ones were hit by their comrades bullets before the jaws took them.

  In his tree Casey shuddered. He had seen death dealt in a thousand different ways, but he had never seen anything to equal this. One of the creatures crawled up onto the hummock and stared at him through double-lidded golden eyes. It raised its head, exposed the white of its maw and gave a long harsh honking cry for food. Casey knew that salt water crocodiles often grew to be over twenty feet in length and weighed over a ton. Right now, along with this one, there were hundreds of them in the waters of the marsh and all of them were hungering for food.

  Blind panic hit the Viets. Those with flare guns fired them off to try and illuminate the night and give them a chance to fight the things ripping off their legs and arms. Most wished they hadn't, for now they could see the waters around them red with blood as bodies were being torn in half. The great crocodiles were not just killing, they were in a feeding frenzy, taking one then another of the Viets. Machine gun fire and grenades thrown into the marsh did nothing to stop them as hundreds of the beasts clambered over each other to get at the living flesh. Huge jaws opened above the water line as the crocs threw their heads back to toss and gulp down gobbets of meat.

  Cries and screams of terror came from all sides. One by one the flashlights went out as the bearers were pulled underwater by the bloodthirsty crocs. When the last of the hand torches went out, the surviving soldiers were left blind in the dark. With no sense of direction most just went deeper into the swamp. Some tried to climb the slick trunks of the mangrove trees only to feel their legs crushed between razor-lined jaws as they were dragged back down.

  Phang's men listened to the screams of the dying with mixed emotions. There were feelings of exultation that their hated enemy was being destroyed and those of revulsion at their grisly deaths. War was war but there was something to be said about being eaten alive by reptiles that even their toughened hides couldn't bear. Van said nothing, the tears running down his boyish face evidence enough of his anguish.

  Phang wondered how his long nosed friend was faring inside that watery place of death.

  Casey sat still in his tree, stunned and in a state of half-shock at that which he had wrought. The huge reptiles were piled on top of each other snapping and gulping down the torn pieces of flesh that had once been living men. The grunts and groans of the hundreds of sea crocs in their feeding frenzy was a form of madness he had never expected to let loose upon the world.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Colonel Ho screamed in panic as the waters around him erupted with monstrous feeding reptiles. One was coming straight for him. He pulled his pistol and fired three rounds straight at the head. The slugs from the Tokarev didn't even phase the monster; it came on. Xuyen tried to break and run but his feet were held fast in the sucking bottom. Ho moved behind him. The croc was nearly on them. Xuyen reached out his hand to Ho for help, but the colonel shot him between the eyes, pushed the body in front of him and moved away. The sea croc took Xuyen between his jaws and sank beneath the water. A small enough sacrifice for your leader, Xuyen.

  Ho stopped trying to fight his way by wading. His boots had already been torn off by the sludge so he lay face down in the water and began to half swim, half crawl his way out of the swamp. By now the horrible cries of dying men were beginning to fade.

  Ho bumped into several bodies in his flight to escape the reptiles. None of them had all of their parts. Some were torn in two; others had no arms, legs or heads. He yelled at one man whose upper body blocked his passage. The man didn't respond. Ho pushed at his shoulders. The upper torso leaned over to sink head down. He had been torn in half, the air in the upper chest cavity keeping the corpse afloat.

  Fearful of looking behind him, Ho kept his eyes to the front. Every shadow or swirl of water caused his heart to pound in terror.

  As he moved away from the place of slaughter, lone survivors tried to join him. Recognizing him as an officer, they wanted someone, anyone to tell them what to do. He moved away from them, fearful that the sounds of too many men would draw more of the crocs to them. Ho went on alone veering off to the right. He reached out to push a half-submerged log out of the way when it whipped around and looked at him. The hinged upper jaw opening. Ho couldn't even scream. His bowels let loose draining down the inside of his pants leg and he didn't even know it. Somewhere he found strength he didn't know he had. Grabbing the base of the nearest tree, he used the broken trunk of the mangrove to get him out of the water and high enough so he could shimmy up the slick trunk into the nearest branches. The croc below him was not one of the huge creatures who had destroyed the two companies of the 213th Regiment. It was a baby weighing in at only three or four hundred pounds.

  Ho was not going to go any further this night. He had found a refuge and there he would stay; let the others do what they wanted. Here he was safe. As for the rest of the two companies, there weren't too many who had made it away from the crocodiles. Of the over two hundred men who had gone into the marsh less than fifteen made it within sight of land.

  Straining his eyes, Phang tried to see into the mist and beyond the first line of swamp grass. His men looked at each other as they listened to their enemies die. Most made signs to ward off evil or touched amulets to protect themselves from the spirits of those who were dying. The Kamserai were not men who were noted for their deep altruistic feelings, but this manner of death had something that felt unclean about it.

  Phang was of the same stock. He too touched his amulet, prepared by a powerful shaman. It was made of secret things which would protect him from the unseen and keep unfriendly spirits at bay. Phang could read and write. He had been to the big cities of Phnom Penh and Saigon. He knew of penicillin and of television. He was not an ignorant savage. Like most tribesmen who had been raised in an animistic society, he feared nothing that he could touch or see, but no matter what else he had been exposed to in the outside world he still believed in the spirits of the dead and their ability to do good and evil to the living. He found no contradiction in this. Did not the Catholics believe that their invisible god could touch them and do good and evil?

  Van heard them coming, the cries of fear and the whimpering of grown men, the sloshing of weary feet in the water. He almost hated to do what he had to do. They had b
een through a nightmare that no man could ever imagine, unless he were mad. Van took the safety off his weapon. He would do what he had to...

  They were to hold their fire till he was sure that most of the Viets were all together or they were spotted.

  One by one the VC began to emerge from the dark, deadly waters. No man helped another. Each was driven by his personal instinct for survival. Once out of the marsh they collapsed, trying to breathe as they fought to control the shaking of their limbs.

  Phang waited a few moments more till a Chung uy from the 213th stood up and looked around him. He saw the lieutenant from the 213th lock on the face of Van looking back at him from a distance of no more than twenty feet. The exhausted lieutenant was glad to see anyone who might help. He reached out his hands in supplication. Van raised the Savage 12 gauge automatic shotgun and put a solid slug through the lieutenant's mouth taking the back of the man's head off. When he fired, Phang gave the order to the rest of his men. They opened up with all they had. It was a relief for them to kill something themselves rather than leave everything to the swamp. Machine gun and rifle fire poured down on the few survivors. Some of them could have escaped Phang's ambush by going back into the marsh„ but not one man did that. All chose to stay where they were and take the easy way out. Phang rationalized that at least their death was easier this way than in the marsh. He went to check the bodies, putting single pistol shots into each man's skull. It was always best to make sure.

  Phang wondered again about his scar-faced friend with the gray-blue eyes, whose soul had such a feeling of desolation about it that just being around the man sometimes made him feel as if eternity's breath had touched him for just a moment. What was this man doing now in the marsh, where so many were dying?

  Casey stayed in his tree as he must till the tide turned again. The firing from the edge of the marsh was less than he'd expected. Phang must not have had to work as hard as he thought he would. The sounds of feeding had abated now. The crocs' voracious appetites were sated. Some took cadavers with them to bury in secret places in the mud, till they ripened enough to please the reptiles' palates. Several times, one or another of the monsters would crawl up to the base of his tree and look at him with its golden eyes, but they left him alone. The tree was his sanctuary.

  Casey never slept in the safety of his tree. His mind stayed in a kind of half-daze that let the remaining hours till dawn pass without notice. The tide had gone back out and with it most of the crocodiles. There were probably a few left behind who preferred to wallow in the deep pools of cool mud, or sleep in their burrows after a heavy meal.

  The trail was again visible when he slid down the tree to stand on the mound. His body ached; every muscle in his limbs creaked and cracked. Stretching them out to loosen up, he breathed deep and looked around him. All was quiet.

  Taking the trail as far as he could before going back into the waters, his stomach churned. Several times he wanted to throw up, and would have if there'd been anything inside him. Scattered about were the signs of last night's reptilian bacchanalia. Scraps of uniforms floated here and there, and at times he saw pieces of meat floating loose on the surface. An entire arm, still wearing a khaki sleeve, moved gently in the water, vibrating and jerking as fish and crabs competing with each other tugged at it. The crocs were gone but the blue marsh crabs were everywhere. Thousands of them. It was a normal thing in nature's scheme. After the big creatures fed, the smaller ones cleaned up the mess. He kicked them off the trail with his bare feet, ignoring the clacking pincers.

  By the time he reached the edge of the swamp and had stepped over the bodies of the dead Charlies Phang had killed, the heat of the morning had burned off the last of the mist, leaving the marsh quiet and serene—a completely different picture than the one of the previous night. Herons and waterfowl came as they always did to nest and feed. Flowers opened bright petals to the sun. He looked back at the still waters and shuddered.

  Phang came to him, his dark face filled with concern: "It was a bad thing to see, was it not, my friend?"

  Casey nodded. "Yes, it was a very bad thing. I don't believe I could do it again."

  Van stood silent, his shotgun lowered to the earth. Casey went to him. "It's over now. We'll leave soon."

  Walking back to the bodies he looked them over. Ho wasn't among them. He shrugged, too tired to worry about it. Either Ho had been taken by the crocs or he was still alive. Right now it made no difference. He just wanted to get away from there. Most likely his protagonist was firmly settled in the belly of one or more of the sea crocs.

  Still he had a feeling that his mission was not yet over. Not until he had either hard confirmation from intelligence sources that Ho was dead or he saw the body himself. If Ho was among those taken by the crocs he'd find out sooner or later. He hoped that the enemy colonel was dead. He was growing very weary of this game of hide and kill.

  Ho couldn't leave the marsh. The small crocodile had settled down on a mud bank to rest in the sun. Every time Ho made a move one of its eyes would blink and Ho would freeze. He wasn't going any place until the beast left.

  Casey replaced his missing boots with a pair of rubber sandals made from the tire off a ¾ ton truck. Phang gave his men orders to strip all the bodies and bring any papers they had on them to him. He would translate them later. Right now, he like everyone else, wanted to be away from this unclean place.

  Forming in a single file with flankers out, the Kamserai and the scar-faced man with Van behind him headed back to the north, to where they belonged. All that day they marched in silence, each man left to his own thoughts. Casey stayed in the middle of the column. It felt somehow reassuring to have men in front and in back of him, living men.

  They passed through two villages that day where women prepared food and cared for their babies while their men worked the small fields outside the hamlet, as they always had. They looked at Casey with curiosity, for many of them had never seen a white man in person and, if they all looked like this one, then they did not wish to see another one. When they asked what had happened, the Kamserai said nothing. They only shook their heads and moved on. This was not the time for the telling of tales. Later, when the memory had a chance to fade and the horror was a bit less real, they would then tell the story of the night of the crocodiles. It would be told and retold around the campfires of their longhouses, and with each telling the story would grow and so would the fear that only a legend with the taste of truth brings with it. In centuries yet to come, the salt marsh would be avoided at all costs, and if one heard the harsh, honking cry of a crocodile he might have a momentary vision of hundreds of men being devoured by the largest of the world's living reptiles.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Near the outskirts of Kompot, Casey suddenly called a halt. Phang went to him. "What is it? Why do we stop? Have you seen something?

  Casey shook his head. "No! It's not what I've seen. It's what I have not seen that bothers me. I'm going back to the marsh. I've got to know if Ho is still alive. I grow very weary of this game and wish to see an end to it. If he is alive in the swamp, I'll find him. If he is dead, then I'll know that too. Anyway, the answers are back there."

  Phang started to order his men to turn around to head back, but Casey stopped him. "No! This is one thing I need to do by myself. You and your men make camp here. If I'm not back by dawn, two days from now, go on to your homes and I'll catch up with you later."

  Phang would have preferred to return with his friend, for the swamp had always been a place of evil and one should not go there alone.

  Casey knew what Phang was thinking. "Trust me, Old One. I'll return. I always do and always will."

  Phang felt there was a certain truth in the words, but he could not say why. But he believed. And that was sufficient. "As you wish Big Nose. We will wait till the dawn, two days from now."

  Van was still in a kind of soul shock. When Casey said he was going back he half stumbled as he turned back the way they had come. He was
stopped by a firm but gentle hand on his shoulder.

  "No! This is not for you. I want you to stay with Phang till I get back." Van looked up at him with sad brown eyes that told of his inner torment. He nodded his head in acceptance of his friend's order. He would go with the Kamserai and wait.

  Casey faced back to the sea. He would have to hurry if he wanted to get there before nightfall, and he did. Settling into a mile eating half trot, he went back the way he had come. One mile after another he ran, letting his mind detach itself from his body as the miles passed behind him. He had to find out. He knew that if he waited he would know in time, but he didn't want to wait any longer. This had gone on too long and it was time for it to be finished. If Ho was in the swamp alive, he'd find him.

  From his perch, Ho watched the crocodile. His arms and legs trembled from the strain of remaining in one spot so long. He moved a leg and wiggled the foot to get the circulation flowing again. When he did the croc blinked once and Ho was still again. Even though he knew the beast couldn't get to him in the tree he didn't want to draw any more attention from it than necessary. If he stayed up there long enough perhaps the beast would lose interest and go after an easier meal. As the sun came and went overhead, and the heat of the day grew greater, the crocodile moved back into the water and lowered his body to where just the large golden eyes showed above the surface.

  Ho was miserable. Flies and mosquitoes picked at his flesh, sucking his blood and leaving itches that couldn't be scratched. Thirst and worry turned his mouth slimy and foul tasting. All of his misery he credited to the damned one who should have died long ago but still stayed to haunt his every hour. Was he a Thay phu, a wizard with powers outside those of normal men, or was he a Tao vat xe Hou nguc, a creature from hell? Ho had long thought himself to be too sophisticated and well educated to believe in witchcraft and devils, but of late his mind had turned more frequently to those stories told in the villages by old men and women, stories of demons that walked the earth in human form and brought misfortune. Surely, he had been given over to the forces of evil, for his luck had gone from bad to worse. He looked down from his safe limb. Where was the Con cu sau? It had disappeared. He looked hard at the water. From this height he should have been able to see the body of the croc, even under water. It was nowhere in sight. He twisted around the tree trunk and looked as far as his eyes could see, checking every patch of swamp grass, every mound of mud where the beast could have gone. It wasn't to be seen. Perhaps it had given up, as he had hoped it would, and had gone to seek another meal. He waited a bit longer. The lengthening of the shadows said that another night was on the way and, if he was going to leave, it would have to be now. The idea of spending one more night in this place of death gave him the courage to crawl down from his limb and place his feet back into the water. It was still shallow; the tide hadn't begun to come in yet. If he hurried he could be out of the swamp before it did, bringing back with it the dreaded crocodiles.