CHAPTER 13

At the step-off point where Whiteboy entered the jungle the vegetation showed scars from the morning bombardment, but only ten meters down the wilderness appeared untouched. It began with walls of green to his sides. At fifteen meters he turned left, ducked beneath several branches and found a trail west. Branches draped with vines crossed overhead. With each step the canopy thickened, the jungle became darker, the trail descended. The trail appeared to Whiteboy to have been unused in three months, perhaps even six. Palm fronds crossed the path at shoulder and waist height. Bamboo thickets, clusters of stalks clumped like pillars, rose in the midst of his downward movement. He stepped quietly, slowly, cautiously around, over and between, always looking, listening, smelling before each step. He did not smell the mortars.

When Brooks had dismissed the men from the CP conference earlier Egan had immediately searched for and found Whiteboy and had told him his squad would be point. Egan had explained to him the direction and objective of movement and then left. Lieutenant Thomaston had followed Egan to Whiteboy’s position amongst the leafy brush down a trail off the northeast corner of 848. Thomaston confirmed the move and set up the diversionary step-off location and then he too had left.

“They stickin it to us ah-gain,” Whiteboy had muttered to himself, his thick lips trembling imperceptibly, his great mass hunched in dread. Before him was his M-60 machine gun. He had not lowered the bi-pod legs which could be used to support the barrel but had simply rested the barrel in the crotch of a bush and generally aimed the weapon down the trail. Whiteboy had stroked the metallic side of the machine gun and had muttered to it, “They stickin it to us ah-gain, Lit’le Boy. They au a-time stickin it to us.” He had rolled over, gotten to his knees, hefted the gun and begun organizing his squad.

There was nothing fancy about Whiteboy’s organization. He had decided to walk point himself. He always walked point for his squad. Whiteboy hated it but he could not allow another boonierat in his squad to walk point. It was partially that Whiteboy believed his responsibility as squad leader carried with it a need to protect his men but it was more a matter of pride—the pride of a boonierat, of a squad leader, an M-60 gunner, a point man, a big man. That is the way he described it to himself. He could not bear that another boonierat should do his work.

With his walking point came the advantage of immediate obedience by his squad to whatever he ordered. Justin Hill, the assistant gunner and ammo bearer, would walk Whiteboy’s slack. Behind Hill Whiteboy set Cookie, Bill Frye, a rifleman, then Andrews, the squad’s RTO, then Harley with the M-79 grenade launcher and finally Kirtley and Mullen, both rifleman. After securing their equipment they all had risen from their positions and carried their rucks to the step-off point, where they sat and waited for Thomaston to tell them to move out.

“We’re goina work west down that finger,” Thomaston had repeated to Whiteboy for lack of anything else to say. “If we don’t find anything we’re goina sweep up to that peak then maybe move southwest.”

Whiteboy had not really listened. He had sat above the step-off smoking and checking his ruck again for anything that might make a sound when he moved. A knot had grabbed his stomach, tightened, forced acidic fluid to the back of his throat. He had patted the gun, rubbed his immense hands, his thick fingers over the oily bolt carrier and feed tray. As he squeezed, the weapon seemed to push back, as he caressed, the weapon seemed to sigh and caress his hand in return.

Whiteboy had spent most of the preceding ten months in the bush, much of the time without close human contact. He had learned to speak to his weapon and to listen to it. He had learned to listen and to smell and to feel the jungle. Before entering the army Whiteboy had been a mechanic. He had always worked with his hands, always with tangible things. Whiteboy was now a mechanic with his M-60 and he was in touch with the physical world of the jungle about him. His primal instincts were accentuated in the jungle. He was in physical touch with a physical universe that required no verbal explanation or justification. Whiteboy, feeling, communicating with the physical world through his hands, was primally touching reality at a level the intellectualizing Brooks or Silvers could not feel for they cloaked reality in words as if the words were the reality and the real did not exist, could not exist, without description. Whiteboy communicated with his men in a way Brooks could never communicate, could never understand, could never feel.

“Okay,” Thomaston had said. Whiteboy had risen, his giant body buried beneath an enormous rucksack. A sling ran from the M-60’s front sight over Whiteboy’s right shoulder then to the butt of the stock, the gun slung horizontal at Whiteboy’s hip, the barrel straight forward. A belt of one hundred cartridges came from the feed tray, hung toward the ground then looped back up over the gun barrel and hung down again. Diagonally across his chest Whiteboy had two additional belts of ammo and about his waist was snapped a third. Whiteboy had glanced back at Hill to make sure he was ready then had stepped forward, down, into the first layer of jungle. Hill followed at three meters then Frye, Andrews, Harley, Kirtley and Mullen. As the descent began the helicopter with the correspondent arrived, deposited its load and departed. When it left Thomaston sent word forward to wait zero two then move out again. Whiteboy stepped quietly down.

At the step-off point Egan entered the jungle behind 3d Sqd. He was followed by Cherry and Doc McCarthy, 1st Plt’s medic. Thomaston stayed at the step-off metering out soldiers at equal intervals. 1st Sqd followed the platoon CP and then 2d Sqd. Thomaston turned his post over to Lt. De Barti of the 2d Plt who metered out his men behind 1st Plt descending into the jungle.

Whiteboy set the pace for the entire column. Very slowly he moved. One pace every five or six seconds, ten paces a minute, less than 300 meters in an hour. Whiteboy picked his way downward, generally westward, turning up here, down there, as obstacles in the trail dictated. He stayed below the ridge keeping the crest always uphill to his left. He did not cut trail. He did not use a machete to straighten the path. He simply moved toward his objective along the path of least resistance as imperceptibly as possible.

Justin Hill maintained visual contact with Whiteboy. As slackman Hill paid close attention to the pointman’s every motion. Hill followed Whiteboy without a sound, stepping over each root cluster, hunching beneath each low branch. Behind Hill Cookie Frye moved in slow spurts. He walked to within a meter of Hill then stopped and faced off the trail to the uphill. Frye waited there searching the jungle to the side until Andrew’s moved up and took his position. Then Frye moved again forward to within a meter of Hill, now stopping, looking downhill searching waiting for Andrews. Andrews moved forward when Harley assumed his position. Behind the point and slack, the squad moved forward like an inchworm on a stem, the front not moving until the rear had caught up and taken its place. Behind Mullen, the last man in 3d Sqd, Egan kept the chair unbroken and behind Egan Cherry copied the movement.

As the trail descended it became steeper and the canopy higher and thicker. Beneath the canopy the air was thick, moist, clinging. The vegetation went from dry and dusty above to wet and thick below. Light barely penetrated to the earth. The trail became muddy. As more and more men passed over the trail the mud squished and became slippery. The squishing noise was dampened by the thick air and absorbed by the jungle.

Cherry became disoriented 100 meters into the jungle. He could not hear Egan to his front. He had come up to Egan, assumed Egan’s position as Egan had moved down through a hole in the green leafy wall. Dave McCarthy, the medic, moved in behind Cherry and Cherry went to move forward toward Egan but he had lost the trail. Cherry paused. He listened. He could neither hear nor see Egan. He stepped forward and was met by palm fronds and vines. He could not even find the path. He paused and listened again and he searched for the way to go. He glanced behind him. McCarthy was two paces back, mostly obliterated from view by the vegetation. Behind McCarthy was Numbnuts of the 1st Sqd. Cherry could not see Numbnuts at all.

“Sergeant Egan,” Cherry called in a very low voice. “Sergeant Egan,” he called a little louder, a bit panicky. Cherry shuffled his feet. “Sergeant Egan,” he raised his voice.

McCarthy touched Cherry’s shoulder. Cherry turned. Without warning, totally unexpected, a hand smacked him across the mouth. It was Egan.

“You cocksucker,” Egan snarled, the sound of his voice very low yet harsh and strong. “You mothafuckin cocksuck shit fuck. What the fuck you doin?”

“I … ah …” Cherry was shocked, fearful.

Egan’s eyes bulged. “Mothafucker, I’m tellin you once en only once. If I ever hear a sound from you, if I ever hear your feet touch the ground or your ruck hit a bush, I’m goina kick yer ass forever. You start concentratin, Mister. You stupid shit fuck. We got the whole fuckin column halted.” Egan had hold of Cherry’s fatigue shirt collar and was shaking Cherry back and forth with terrifying, rapid jerks. Then Egan disappeared through a hole in the green wall less than a foot from Cherry. Cherry stared after him as if Egan had been a spirit. Cherry did not even see the brush move.

Generally in the field boonierats established a buddy system, pairing off either by friendship or by necessity and at times by both. Whiteboy and Hill were a team. So were Pop and Garbageman, Jax and Silvers, Doc and Minh, and now Egan and Cherry.

In the CP Brooks paired off with El Paso. Those two were very close. As commander Brooks was the brain of the company and as senior RTO, El Paso was the ears and mouth. El Paso carried a PRC-25 set on the internal frequency of the company for communicating between the CP and the platoons and/or squads. Bill Brown also carried a PRC-25, his radio being set on the command network to communicate with battalion HQs which was now established with a forward TOC on Firebase Barnett. Tim Cahalan carried the Monster, a PRC-77. This radio was similar to the 25 except it was also a kryptographer, automatically scrambling or descrambling voice transmissions. The Monster was used to communicate with the rear on vital or intelligence matters such as calling in a unit’s location to insure friendly artillery did not accidentally drop unfriendly explosives on them. All three radios were kept open to receive transmissions at all times. At all times the radios had to be monitored. Brown and Cahalan, along with FO, buddied-up.

The company CP entered the jungle between the 1st and 2nd Plts and inch-wormed downward with the column.

“L-T, Barnett’s gettin hit,” Bill Brown whispered to Brooks. Brooks did not stop nor did he acknowledge Brown’s remark but the RTO knew the commander had heard and was thinking.

“They’re catchin beaucoup shit,” El Paso said a moment later. “Sounds like eighty-twos.”

Then Brown said, “Recon’s callin for another medevac.”

Alpha continued to descend in column. Whiteboy was 75 meters west and below the CP. The 2d Plt was strung out behind and above the CP an equal distance. 3d Plt had returned to the LZ from patrolling and was now eating lunch, making noise and maintaining a high degree of visibility.

Along the creeping column rucksacks bore down into shoulders and backs. No matter how carefully a soldier packed his ruck, no matter how many times he tested it for comfort, when the move finally began the ruck dug in someplace. The weight from the rucks drove legs down into every fold and hole in the trail. Thigh muscles fatigued and twinged, shook from the weight and the slowness. Helmets, those being worn, felt hot and heavy and never seemed to sit just right so they strained neck muscles. Sweat from foreheads collected in eyebrows and trickled saline rivers into eyes. Weapons, always held pointing forward with both hands, the right thumb on the selector ready to flick from safe to automatic, stretched forearms and wrists and hands. Hands sweated on pistol grips and arm guards. Right hand index fingers tensed and tickled triggers.

The column moved slowly, alert, searching, the earth became steeper and more slippery and the rucks seemed to gain weight on the unsure footing. The only sound most boonierats could hear was their own breath exhausting harshly from their lungs and hissing over their teeth. Occasionally the swish of tree branches or palm fronds brushing on their helmets or clothes caused them to move even more lightly under the heavy loads. The artillery batteries on Barnett began pumping out rounds. Now explosive rumbling from the big shells rolled across the column. In the enclosure of the valley the thunder echoed and ricocheted.

At point Whiteboy slowed further. With each pace he looked twice from side to side for traces of enemy. He searched up and down for booby trap trip wires. He examined the trail for fresh human footprints.

The last of 2d Plt slipped into the overgrowth and disappeared into the jungle. The 3d Plt tightened the perimeter about the landing zone. On top of 848 the troops were still grab-assing. Rafe Ridgefield, the announcer from the Phoc Roc, was lounging back on a warm rock catching the sun’s rays with John McQueen, Terry Snell and Don Nahele. Snell and Nahele were buddies from Los Angeles who had entered the army together and who had stayed together from basic through advanced training and into the boonies. All four men were smoking and laughing.

“Hey, Snell,” Nahele called, “you a crusher or a folder?”

“I’m Lutheran,” Snell chuckled.

“Man,” Nahele drew out the word, “I just took the healthiest shit I think I ever took in my whole life.”

“What a coincidence,” Ridgefield laughed. “So did I.”

“Jesus,” Snell groaned, “I haven’t shit in four days.”

“I took one two nights ago that squirted out all over the place,” Ridgefield said. “The anal joy was great at first but then my ass began to burn.”

“That’s that red pepper yer always puttin on everything,” Nahele said.

“You guys don’t even know what shittin’s even all about,” McQueen called over. “Did I ever tell you guys about Latrine F-27 down in the Delta? F-27. Defecation Sector for the 25th. Down there we used ta say, ‘the larger the turd, the more efficient the shitting.’”

“Hey, Queenie,” Snell called back. “When does piss become somethin separate from the body? When it’s waste in the blood stream it’s still part of ya, don’t ya think?”

“Maybe it’s when it enters the bladder,” Ridgefield injected. His eyes were darting unfocused back and forth. A radio program was building quickly in his mind.

Nahele sensed Ridgefield’s mind churning and he began egging him on. “Maybe it’s still part a you till you piss it out,” Nahele said.

“Maybe til it hits the ground,” Snell added.

Ridgefield wheeled about, jumped up and announced, “I mean it. I’m goina run for Congress. I got all the problems of the world figured out. It’s really very simple. I am now in possession of the solution.”

“Halleelujah!” Nahele cried out. He bummed a cigarette from Snell. “Ol Rafe’s goina give everybody a gallon a bourbon, a deck a Js and a piece a ass and let em drink en smoke en fuck ’emselves to death.”

“Don’t be crude,” Rafe Ridgefield chastised. “That don’t work. My opponents have been proposing exactly that for years and look just how far the Great Society has got. Nope,” he said, a twinkle in his eye, “it is first and foremost a matter of the bladder. It’s all obvious from there.”

“Oh God,” Snell snickered. “Get your entrenching tools, the shit is starting to flow.”

Ridgefield stood up on the rock he had been lying on, cleared his throat, thought twice about standing on his soapbox on the LZ and crouched. “It is obviously a sign of weakness,” Ridgefield addressed Snell, Nahele and McQueen and fictitious throngs in his best congressional voice, “if one urinates too often. I mean, if one urinates every time the urge presents itself, well, he’d be pissing ten to twenty times a day. He would literally be pissing his life away. And each time he urinated it would be for what, six, eight seconds. Isn’t that right? I SAY THIS IS RIDICULOUS!”

“So do I,” Nahele laughed.

“I’d say any urination lasting less than half a minute is a total, inexcusable waste of time. It should be illegal. Or at any rate, taxable.” As Ridgefield spoke McQueen, Leahmann and several others from his squad edged over to listen. “Now, Gentlemen, the actual act of urinating and the length of time it actually takes for the fluids to be expelled are not of primary importance. However, the time it takes, the time it wastes, to find a suitable location to urinate plus the time it takes, it wastes, to get there and back and of course the time wasted zipping and unzipping, Dear Lord, if a person goes only eight times each day, he, or she, as the case may be, will spend one third of his, or her, productive time doing nothing better than peeing … ah … excuse me, relieving his, or her, bladder.”

“Rafe,” Snell said, “I aint had a pair of pants with a zipper in ten months.”

“Now then, this is my plan,” Ridgefield summoned his most articulate and deep voice. “This plan will have profound personality alterations for those upon whom it is imposed. Everyone will piss at ten o’clock in the morning. At that time they will be allowed to rid themselves of the built-up urine from the night before plus liquids from their morning coffee. The next allowable urination will be at four in the afternoon. This urination will be only for hardship cases and will require the permission of a ten-person review board. The four o’clock will enable weak individuals to relieve themselves of morning coffee break liquids, of whatever they might have consumed during lunch and of anything which might have reached the bladder since the afternoon break. Everyone will be allowed to urinate just prior to retiring for the night. This, of course, is necessitated by the need for one to get an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

“Now the profound effects I anticipate this action, this legislation, to have will include a hardening of the character of the people of our beloved country, a hardening of our soft national character. It will be the first major step in disciplining the masses. Once the major population centers are pacified we will be able to advance and blanket the entire nation. No riots, no strikes, no wars. The entire world shall follow suit.

“Now then, Gentlemen,” Ridgefield was virtually blasting his voice across the valley, “with the people so disciplined from holding back the urge …”

“What are you goina do when all the sewers explode at ten-oh-five every morning?” Snell teased.

“Maybe his old man’s a plumber,” Nahele said.

“Gentlemen,” Ridgefield waved his arms for silence, “such trivialities. Here I squat before you …”

“With your dong in yer ear, Man,” Nahele completed Rafe’s sentence. “Hey, we gotta get goin, don’t we?”

“Gentlemen, this session of the legislature shall not be adjourned until we adopt this measure now lying before us.”

“Fuck it,” Snell laughed. “Hey, Rafe,” he said standing, “I gotta piss. You wanta time it?”

“Be careful,” Nahele warned. “He may wanta hold it.

Jesus H. Who’s at point? Those fuckin guys sure are takin their sweetass time.”

Ridgefield picked up his M-60 and he and Snell and the others slipped into their rucks and prepared to slide off the LZ and into the jungle. Ridgefield glanced quickly over the hilltop then began climbing down through the first brush and onto the now well established trail. “Sssshh,” he suddenly hissed. “What’s … oh fuck.”

Whiteboy and Hill and Egan heard it too. Once, twice, phaffft. phaffft. Three, four. Now almost everyone in the column, heard it. phaffft. It was an odd sound. Later Cherry would remember thinking that it sounded like a car door being closed halfway down the block on a very warm muggy summer night. It was not actually a sound. It was more a feeling at the ears as if the door closing compressed air in a sedan and the compression traveled as a shock wave. It was the sound of a mortar round leaving its firing tube somewhere in the surrounding jungle. phaffft. phaffft. Seven. Eight. Whiteboy had leaped off the trail before the second round was launched. Hill leaped when he saw Whiteboy go. Egan was on the ground, prone, beneath his rucksack, scrambling to bury himself in an indentation of earth. Up and down the line veterans were crawling, clawing for cover. Instinctively Cherry was down too. He pulled his helmet down over his ears, pulled his neck down until the helmet seemed to merge with his shoulders. PHAFFFT. PHAFFFT. No one said a word.

karrumphh. karRUMph. KARRUMP.

The first shell exploded on the ridge at the draw, the second on the ridge 20 meters up and the third 20 meters higher. The NVA were walking the mortar rounds up the ridgeline.

Whiteboy cringed with each explosion. KARRUMP. But he did not remain down. He caressed his 60. “Okay Lit’le Boy,” he whispered to it. “If they gonna folla this up, we gonna be ready. God A’mighty Sweet Jesus, stop them fuckin thins.”

KARRUMP. It was now very quick. Cracking echolessly. Shrapnel stones and dirt zinged from the explosions and fired into the vegetation knocking branches and leaves and vines down. KARRUMP. Another mortar shell exploded, again higher, higher than Whiteboy’s location. Whiteboy raised up, pulled back, yelled to Hill, “Form a point.”

KARRUMP. Mortar rounds exploded one per second, each 20 meters higher than the preceding one.

Brooks screamed to Brown, “Get ARA ASAP.”

Cherry pulled his helmet down tighter. He pulled his knees to his chest, to his ears and he huddled in a tight frightened ball below his rucksack. KARRUMP. The explosions moved higher. Cherry could feel his back muscles trying to reach the earth through his chest. The hairs on his chest seemed implanted in the moist soil. As each round exploded his body experienced jolting physical fear. His eyes stared down, bulged in tight drawn skin, focused on tiny bamboo shoots and tiny bugs and then went out of focus. Beads of sweat burst from his temples. He inhaled mud, his face—mouth, nose and eyes—pressed into the trail.

Then it was silent.

“Everybody stay down,” Egan’s whisper yelled. “Get down and get to the right of the trail.”

Whiteboy had backed up to Cherry’s position and Cherry now found himself at the center of a defensive ring set up by 3d Sqd. Egan was by his side and he had the handset from Cherry’s radio. Egan twitched, jerked, whisked the handset down his left arm cursing, “Fuckin spiders.” Everyone except Cherry had shed his rucksack and all were now still, hiding in the vegetation in a rounded point. Cherry wriggled from his pack.

“Quiet Rover Four, this is Rover Two. Over,” Egan called El Paso.

“Two, Four,” the reply was instantaneous. “Any W-I-A your location? Over.”

“Negative, Four. Over.” Egan snarled inwardly then said to himself, “Fuckin dinks can’t hit diddlysquat.”

Other squads called into the CP. Egan monitored then rose silently and vanished. Cherry was shaking. He lit a cigarette. Oh God, he thought. Three hundred and fifty days to go.

Within minutes after the last mortar round fell on Alpha Company’s location ARA Cobras appeared in the sky. SSShheee-saaBAMM. The first rocket exploded against a target on the next hill. Cherry jumped. The Cobra fired two more rockets. Cherry could see the rockets leave the bird before he could hear them. Then came the explosions. Then the echoes. The echoes came from across the big valley and from intermediate ridges. A rocket left the tube at the Cobra’s side, the propulsion, explosions, an immediate minute echo, pause, major echo and reverberations. SSShheee-saaBAMM bamm BAMmbammbambam. The Cobras peppered the side of the opposite hill. Rocket after rocket. The explosions were 200 to 300 meters from the defensive point where Cherry sat. He smiled. There was nothing frightening about a rocket exploding at that distance when he knew it was directed at someone else. He sighed and smiled and felt reassured. He almost rejoiced and he noticed that Hill and Harley were giggling and that Frye and Mullen and the others were lying back nonchalantly smoking. Only Whiteboy seemed tense, intent, lying prone in heavy brush with just the tip of his machine gun protruding from the leaf cover.

The two Cobras were diving in series at the targeted hill, firing two rockets each with each pass. Then the birds opened up with their miniguns, electric Gatling guns, firing so quickly the noise ripped like a giant chain saw. Together, with rockets between, it sounded like music to Cherry. He felt pleased. Hell, he thought, this isn’t so bad. Not with them birds doin most of the fighting.

There was a faint movement in the trail above Cherry. He turned. Lamonte came through taking photographs. George was behind him. They spotted Cherry, gestured hello then proceeded by. Lamonte crouched to frame Whiteboy with palm fronds. He and George discussed the best angle for the shot and the best light and depth of field settings. The Cobras made another pass. Lamonte came over to Cherry and said, “Excuse me,” then aimed his camera up through a hole in the canopy where a small beam of sunlight was coming through. Lamonte waited then attempted to catch a Cobra within the small leafy frame on the next pass.

Egan reappeared. He laid his hand on Cherry’s shoulder and whispered, “Come with me. Bring yer shit.”

They climbed back up the path to the back of the 1st Sqd where Lt. Thomaston was monitoring the situation on Steve Hoover’s PRC-25. Silvers and Jackson were sitting with him. “They’re trying to blow the canopy away,” Thomaston said. “They think they see something.”

“Wow!” Cherry said.

“Yeah,” Thomaston smiled at him. “We really brought you to the right place. Gettin your cherry busted, huh?”

Cherry smiled sheepishly.

“Those was sixty mike-mikes,” Jax said. “Ef those been eighty-twos that close, they blast yo ears out.”

Silvers, Jax and Hoover were concocting a mixture of C-rations and sitting back lethargically. Egan and Thomaston were still monitoring both radios, one on internal, one on command. Cherry sat a short distance below them all and said nothing yet inwardly he was smiling. He had seen his first action and he had survived it.

“Ah think we’re doin just what ol Charlie wants us ta do,” Whiteboy whispered to Hill. They were now lying side by side in the vegetation, concentrating on the trail below.

“Yeah. Givin Chas time ta dee-dee outa here,” Hill whispered back.

“Or maneuver up heah,” Whiteboy whispered.

“If we get hit, you know they got somethin down there they don’t want us ta see.”

“They must have sompthin down theah if they had the guts ta mortar us in daylight.”

“I bet they waited for us ta come off the fuckin LZ ta drop em. They just wanted ta see what direction we’d go in.”

“Ah aint gonna go down theah tanight. That’s damn straight. Ah aint movin. Orders nor nothin.”

“Well,” Thomaston called to Cherry, “you may have missed 882 but you aint goina miss this one.” Thomaston monitored the conversation between the helicopter pilots as they continued to waste the far hill.

“Those mothafuckers,” Egan cursed. “Scatter’m, birds.”

“Did you make Hamburger?” Thomaston turned to Hoover.

“Were you there?” Hoover replied.

“There en Blood Ridge,” Thomaston said.

“That was a motherfucker, wasn’t it?” Hoover said.

“Hey,” Thomaston exclaimed in a normal speaking voice. The men above and below and at his side looked toward him. “They’ve spotted the mortar tube. They’ve spotted the mortar pit.”

“Super,” Egan chuckled. “They see the tube or just the pit?”

“They see movement down there,” came the reply. “They see movement down there. Chas is dug in and got bunkers.”

Cherry gulped.