Avenger

Most nerveracking of all, and the source of most deaths, was the task of penetrating the trap doors that led from level to level, usually downward.

Often a tu

But who waited on the other side? If the GI's head went through first and there was a Vietcong waiting, the American's life would end with a throat cut from side to side or the lethal bite of a garroting noose of thin wire. If he dropped downward feet first, it could be the spear through the belly. Then he would die in agony, his screaming torso in one level, ruined lower body in the next one down.

Dexter had the armourers prepare him small, tangerine-sized grenades with a reduced explosive charge from the standard issue but with more ball bearings. Twice in his first six months he lifted a trap door, tossed in a grenade with a three-second fuse and pulled the door back down. When he opened the trap door a second time and went through with his flashlight on, the next chamber was a charnel house of torn bodies.

The complexes were protected from gas attack by water traps. The crawling Tu

The only way through was to roll onto one's back, slide in upside down, and pull your body along with your fingertips scrabbling at the roof. The hope was that the water ended before the breath in your lungs did. Otherwise, the Tu

Before entering the water, the point man would tie a lanyard to his feet and pass it back to his partner. If he did not give a Dext reassuring tug on it within ninety seconds of entering the water confirming that he had found air on the other side of the trap, his buddy had to pull him back without delay because he would be dying down there.

Through all this misery, discomfort, and fear, there occurred a moment now and again when the Tu

Twice the Badger and the Mole came across such AladdinÕs caves. Senior brass, unsure how to cope with such strange men, handed out medals and warm words. But the Public Affairs people normally avid to tell the world how well the war was going, were warned off. No one mentioned a word. One facility trip was arranged, but the "guest" from PA got fifteen yards down a "safe" tu

But there were long periods of no combat for the Rats as for all the other GIs in Vietnam. Some slept the hours away, or wrote letters, longing for the end of their tour and the journey home. Some drank the time away or played cards or craps. Many smoked, and not always Marlboros. Some became addicts. Others read.

Cal Dexter was one of those. Talking with his officer partner he realised how blighted his formal education was and started again from square one. He found he was fascinated by history. The base librarian was delighted and impressed, and prepared a long list of must-read books, which he then obtained from Saigon.

Dexter worked his way through Attic Greece and Ancient Rome, learned of Alexander, who had wept that, at thirtyone, he had defeated the known world and there were no more worlds to conquer.

He learned of Rome 's decline and fall, of the Dark Ages, mediaeval Europe, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, the Age of Elegance and the Age of Reason. He was particularly fascinated by the early years of the birth of the American colonies, the Revolution, and why his own country had had a vicious civil war just ninety years before he was born.

He did one other thing in those long periods when monsoons or orders kept him confined to base. With the help of the elderly Vietnamese who swept and cleaned the "hootch" for them all, he learned workaday Vietnamese until he could speak enough to make himself understood and understand more than that.

Nine months into his first tour, two things happened. He took his first combat wound, and the Badger ended his twelve-month stint.

The bullet came from a VC who had been hiding in one of the tu

The same grenade ought to shred any VC waiting out of sight. On this occasion, the VC was there but standing well down the passage with a Kalashnikov AK-47. He survived the blast but was injured and fired one shot at the fast-falling Tu

Soldiers will admit it, policemen will confirm it; there is no substitute for a partner you can utterly rely on. Since they had formed their partnership in the early days, the Badger and the Mole did not really want to go into the tu

But the body of the one who never made it was still down there. The Badger and the Mole went in with ropes to find the man and drag him out to be sent home for a Christian burial. His throat had been cut. No open casket for him.

Of the original thirteen, four more had quit at the end of their time. Eight down. Six recruits had joined. They were back to eleven in the whole unit.

"I don't want to go down there with anyone else," Dexter told his partner when the Badger came to visit him in the base clinic.

"Nor me if it were the other way around," said the Badger. They settled it by agreeing that if the Badger extended for a second oneyear tour, the Mole would do the same in three months. So it was done. Both accepted a second tour and went back to the tu

There were certain rules down in those tu

The pair had entered a newly discovered shaft up in the Ho Bo Woods. The Mole was up front and had crawled three hundred yards along a tu

The Mole was crawling alone when he saw, or thought he saw, the dimmest of glows coming from around the next corner. It was so dim he thought his retina might be playing tricks. He slithered silently to the corner and stopped, pistol in his right hand. The glow also stayed motionless, just around the corner.