Billie Mosiman: Wireman

Daley grunted his agreement. They had been in trees every night since getting separated from their platoon.

It made for lousy sleeping arrangements. The first two nights they fastened their belts and ammunition holders together and lashed themselves to the trunk, but Nick did not like it. He thought they should not give up their freedom of movement. So they took turns, holding each other in place to keep from toppling forty feet to the ground.

Soon it would be Nick’s watch, and for an uncomfortable two hours Daley could try to dream of a bed and clean sheets when reality offered only vertigo and mosquitoes. He wondered if they would ever get out of this goddamn hellhole jungle. Not alive, he decided. Daley had already accepted the death verdict. Miracles did not happen for two lone soldiers with only one working .45 sidearm between them even recon snipers, the top special force of the army, could not be expected to make it out alone.

A galaxy of stars glittered in the sky. It was a clear night and the moon was waning. The silence was broken intermittently by the wild flapping of birds’ wings. Each time Nick stretched his leg and popped his knee, the birds flew into a different set of branches.

What if the gooks heard Nick’s knee-popping trick as they paused beneath the tree? Daley wondered. The night would light up like the Fourth of July and two sitting pigeons would be grounded with guts full of lead.

Sweet Christ!

“You ready for a nap, Daley?” Nick sounded almost cheerful.

“I’m pretty jittery.”

Nick snorted and slapped the branch with his palm. “You’re a master of understatement,” he said. “Try to get some rest anyway. It’s my watch.”

Daley scooted near to the trunk and pressed his chest against the rough bark as if embracing a woman.

“What kind of tree is this?” he asked, tracing the sharp whorls of bark with his fingers.

“Vietnamese oak. How the fuck should I know?”

Daley smiled. He felt Nick’s arm hold him steady. His brother’s fingers were wintry. ”You must be cold.

I’m sweating and your hands are freezing.”

“Fear, little brother. It drains all the warmth. Haven’t you ever noticed?”

Daley silently agreed, but what good did it do to talk about it? It only caused the fear to become more urgent.

Nick’s knee popped again. A bird jeered and flew through pitch blackness with a flutter.

Suddenly a twig snapped at the bottom of the tree. Daley’s eyes snapped open. His heart pounded fiercely and he struggled for breath.

“You hear that?” he asked in a low whisper.

“Some animal,” Nick reassured him. “Get some sleep while you can.”

Daley’s eyes closed and his heart slowed until it no lower thumped against his rib cage. Sleep, sure, sleep.

But how? He had nightmares of falling, his body riddled with bullet holes.

All the odds were against their survival. Big shot recon snipers cut off from safety. One M-14 with a broken breach. Nick had buried it. One M-14 lost in the murky depths of a creek while crossing. He would never live it down if they ever got back to the platoon. He could have told them he would fuck things up.

Where the sergeant saw potential, Daley only saw incompetence. Losing his weapon proved it.

“I’m gonna die,” he breathed, but Nick did not hear him. The frightened birds that nested all around the brothers thought the animal in their midst had only breathed a weary sigh.

Daley woke groggily, clawing his way out of his nightmare to stare blankly at the trunk of the tree right before his eyes.

“Smell ’em?” Nick whispered harshly.

Smell what? Daley wondered. Then his mind slipped into place and he remembered where he was.

The Cong! You could always smell them before you could see them or hear their approach. They stank of wet stagnant rice paddies and they stank of human excrement. Their own shit betrayed their presence.

Daley touched his brother to let him know that he knew the enemy was close. He strained to hear a sound, but be could not tell where they were. The aroma was still faint so he knew they were not at the base of the tree. Please Jesus save us, he prayed.

“Stay.” Nick said the word so softly it might have been a puff of wind passing Daley’s ear. He wanted to scream, No! Don’t go down there! Don’t let me die alone! But Nick already was shimmying expertly down the tree, swinging from limb to limb as he lowered himself to the ground. Daley watched his brother becoming a dark shape going down, down, descending silently to death.

Daley decided not to do as Nick had commanded. He could not sit in the branches while his brother stalked the enemy. There might be too many of them. It was probably a night patrol from a nearby tunnel.

The stink grew stronger. The enemy was closer, not more than twenty yards north of their tree. Daley could hear them, the footfalls barely disturbing the thick vegetation of the forest floor.

He looked for Nick, but his brother had vanished. Oh for godssake, Nick, this is it. This is how it ends. And I don’t even have a goddamn gun.

Daley moved like a wraith down the tree trunk and concentrated on the darkness in the direction of the oncoming sounds. Where was Nick? Would he use the .45?

Daley braced himself for anything. Gunfire. Capture. Quick painful death from behind. He felt his bowels loosen and tensed his buttocks. A sweet sensation of relief was followed by the realization that he had wet himself. Shame suffused him, but couldn’t overcome the fear. He kept perfectly still, not breathing.

An odd gurgling sound came from the direction of the Cong. Bushes rustled, followed by a thin, throaty rattle, then silence.

Suddenly Daley was running without knowing why or what he would do when he burst through the matted vines that separated him from what he feared on the other side. He flailed through waist-high bushes, tearing away the branches that barred his path. His foot caught beneath a body on the ground and he went down with a grunt. He rolled off the corpse, jumped to his feet, and heard Nick whisper close to his ear, “I told you to stay!”

Daley jerked his head, looking around for more Vietnamese. “Where are they?” he asked. “Jesus, Nick, I thought…”

“Shhh!” Nick put a finger to Daley’s lips. They both turned in unison at the approaching footsteps.

Suddenly Nick pushed Daley behind a clump of broad slick leaves. Daley squatted, his gaze riveted momentarily on the dead man’s eyes that stared sightlessly up to the treetops. Daley’s attention went back to his brother, who stood flush against a tree. In the shadows it looked as if something was suspended from his right hand. A rope? A piece of string? What the hell does he have? Where was the .45? Daley wondered.

A short, skeletal Viet Cong slipped into the bare spot where the dead man lay. He stepped past the tree where Nick waited. As Daley’s eyes rounded with terror, Nick moved behind the soldier, wrapped his hands around the man’s throat, and tightened the eighteen-inch wire of a garrote.

The Vietnamese dropped his rifle and grabbed at his throat, the fingers clawing at the strangling wire that was cutting off his wind. Nick jerked the garrote more fiercely and the man’s feet left the ground, his full weight against Nick’s chest. Nick held him, pulling the wire tighter and tighter. The wire sank deeper into the tender flesh as blood began to gush from the wound. The gurgling sounded again.

Nick heaved backward with all his might, and while Daley watched in both horror and fascination, the man’s head was severed from his struggling body, blood spurting after the head in a high, wide arc.

Daley turned and retched. He heard the head hit the ground and roll. Then there was a heavier crash as the body dropped to earth, blood still gouting from the neck.