ONE

 

 

Southern China – May 23, 1945

 

Two Japanese soldiers chatted in a truck cab, one driving, the other watching the passing countryside for potential ambushes. It was the usual banter between comrades-in-arms about the size of an old girlfriend’s breasts and the wild times they had drinking too much sake with their friends before the war. The news of the German surrender hadn’t dampened their spirits. Like most Japanese soldiers, they didn’t think much of their German allies, if at all. That wasn’t their reality. They were fighting the Americans in the Pacific and the Chinese in China. Everything else was a sideshow. Their commanders kept the bad news from the troops as much as possible. As far as the average Japanese soldier knew, they were winning the war and would soon be going home to their sweethearts and families victorious.

The truck engine groaned as it climbed a long incline. The Japanese were transporting troops to the front line, which was just outside of Chihkiang, China. It wasn’t a particularly heavy load for the six-wheeled Type 94 truck, but the roads were in bad shape, forcing them to keep all the truck’s wheels engaged, which slowed them down.

As the lead truck in the convoy, it was following the commander’s vehicle – a four-wheel-drive Type 95 Korugane – Japan’s early version of a jeep. The truck driver’s eyes went wide when he saw two Curtiss P-40 Warhawks with shark teeth nose art appear over the crest of the hill. It was the damned Americans.

Each Warhawk carried a 500lb bomb on the center hardpoint under its fuselage. It was a general-purpose bomb that exploded on impact. It wasn’t anything fancy. It didn’t need to be. The aircraft was also armed with six Browning .50 Caliber machine guns with 235 rounds per gun. It wasn’t a lot of ammunition for a gun that shot 750 rounds per minute, but it packed a powerful punch.

The nose art identified the fighters as part of General Chennault’s Air Group, nicknamed “The Flying Tigers.” The shark mouth artwork struck fear into the Japanese, who respected the American pilots and their aircraft far more than the Chinese Air Force, which they saw as inferior.

 

The lead pilot was James “Earthquake McGoon” McGovern, a mountain of a man with the confidence to match. His nickname “McGoon” came from the Li’l Abner comic strip printed daily in most American newspapers. At six feet tall and weighing in at two hundred and sixty pounds, McGoon was unusually large for a pilot and had his seat modified so he could fit comfortably in the cockpit of his fighter.

His wingman was Casey “Smitty” Smith, shy, wiry, and one hell of a shot with his aircraft’s machine guns. He had saved McGoon from certain death more than once during a dogfight. While McGoon was good at getting them into trouble, Smitty was good at getting them out.

They had been searching all morning for targets. They could have just flown to the front lines where there were plenty of targets, but those areas were well protected by Japanese anti-aircraft guns and squadrons of Zeros providing overwatch. It was safer to hunt down enemy supply convoys. They were running low on fuel and headed back to their airbase when McGoon spotted the convoy heading up a hill. It was a juicy target – transportation trucks filled with troops.

McGoon and Smitty had chosen to approach the convoy flying on the deck just three hundred feet from the ground in hopes of surprising it before it could defend itself with its mobile anti-aircraft battery. It worked. The Japanese were caught completely off guard, as witnessed when the lead truck accidentally slammed into the back of the commander’s vehicle when the driver slowed on seeing the aircraft.

McGoon pickled the weapon button and released his Warhawk’s only bomb.

The bomb landed ten feet in front of the command vehicle. That was close enough to rip it apart, killing everyone inside. The lead truck’s engine was peppered with shrapnel, disabling it. The truck’s windshield imploded into the faces of the driver and passenger, but it was the bomb’s shockwave that killed them, turning their insides to mush.

McGoon did not waste his machine gun ammunition on the first pass. Instead, he studied the disposition of the Japanese troops abandoning the vehicles and diving for cover along the roadside. He also got a good look at the anti-aircraft battery mounted on the back of a truck. It was a twin-barrel Type 96 based on the French 25mm Hotchkiss gun. Very effective. Very deadly. “Block ’em in good, Smitty,” said McGoon over the radio. “They got a Type 96, and we’re low on fuel. We’re only gonna get one more run at ’em.”

“Got it, Boss,” said Smitty.

As the two aircraft approached the end of the convoy, McGoon peeled off, giving Smitty a clear shot at the last vehicle. Smitty released his bomb.

It was a direct hit and annihilated the truck. Only one of the three axles remained with the left tire still attached and burning. If it weren’t for the huge crater in the road, the truck’s debris would not have been enough to keep the convoy from escaping.

The remaining trucks were sandwiched between two bomb craters and burning wreckage. There wasn’t enough room on the road to turn around, and the heavy vegetation prevented them from driving off-road. They were trapped and at the mercy of the Americans. Their only hope was the anti-aircraft battery in the middle of the convoy. The gun crew scrambled to get the battery operational and return fire.

McGoon banked his aircraft and lined up his strafing run. It was a bit like sewing – once he started, he didn’t want to stop. He would only have a fifteen-second burst. He needed to leave a small amount of ammunition in his guns in case they encountered enemy aircraft on their way back to the base. As he approached the last vehicle in the convoy, he opened fire down the left side of the road, where half of the troops were hiding. Troops were more important than trucks, especially when they were lined up nicely like these were. All six of the Warhawk’s machine guns fired in unison; seventy-five-bullets per second. They laid out a ribbon of death, twenty feet wide and moving at three hundred miles per hour.

There was no time for the Japanese troops to avoid the fusillade. They just closed their eyes and hoped for the best.

As the barrage of bullets approached the middle of the convoy, McGoon nudged his plane over toward the center of the road and strafed the anti-aircraft battery on the back of the truck, killing the gunner, two loaders and damaging the weapon. It never got a shot off. Satisfied with the result, McGoon jogged his plane back to the troops hiding along the left side of the road and finished his run.

Smitty was next. He lined up his aircraft down the right side of the road and unleashed hell on the surviving Japanese troops. The results were similar to McGoon’s, but Smitty skipped the anti-aircraft battery, which already looked disabled. Instead, he saved the last of his run for the lead truck, where he saw someone trying to climb out of the back. He zigged over and strafed the truck, tearing holes in the canvas used to shade the troops from the hot sun. The burning phosphate from the tracer rounds set the vehicle ablaze.

“Sorry, boys. We’re outta bullets. But don’t worry… We’ll catch up with ya real soon. You can count on it,” said McGoon over the radio for Smitty’s enjoyment.

In all, twenty-two Japanese soldiers were killed or critically wounded in less than a minute. Most of the vehicles in the convoy were badly damaged, and several were on fire. It would take two extra days for the rest of the troops to reach the front lines. It was a good day’s work for McGoon and Smitty. They formed up, banked south, and headed for home.

 

 

The air was muggy and smelled of gasoline mixed with decaying vegetation around the airfield. The sun hung low on the horizon, and the shadows were long. Almost all the planes out on patrol had landed for the day. But the Allied airbase was still abuzz. The mechanics were hard at work performing maintenance on the aircraft engines and patching Japanese bullet holes in the wings and fuselages. The fighters had to be patched up, rearmed, and refueled for takeoff by sunup. That meant a long night for the ground crews under the work lights.

 

McGoon frowned as he watched a Chinese artist carefully paint a red circle on the side of the Douglas DC-3 transport plane. “Now that’s a crying shame,” said McGoon. “Perfectly good aircraft being defaced like that.”

“You think the japs will buy it?” said Smitty standing beside him, watching.

“Why wouldn’t they? It’s the same airframe as the Showa. ’Sides, I don’t plan on getting close enough for them to get a good look at it.”

“The best-laid plans of mice and men…”

“Smitty, you been reading again?”

“Yeah. Steinbeck.”

“You really gotta knock that off. A brain can only remember so much. You’re filling yours up with literature.”

“Is that so bad?”

“What’s the fuel consumption rate of a DC-3?”

“I don’t know… eighty… maybe a hundred gallons per hour?”

“Now, ya see… that’s my point. You can’t remember cuz you replaced that knowledge with useless fiction.”

“I suppose.”

“Good. No more reading till the war’s over.”

McGoon was in an unusually foul mood. After their successful assault on the Japanese convoy, he and Smitty had been taken off the flight roster. “Don’t make no sense grounding your two best pilots,” said McGoon.

“The commandant didn’t ground us. We’re still gonna fly,” said Smitty.

“I don’t know about you, but I ain’t no taxi service.”

“Come on, McGoon. It’s a cakewalk. We should be thankful we’re not gonna be shot at.”

“Damn it, Smitty. We’re fighter pilots. They pay us to get shot at.”

“Pay’s the same, McGoon. It’s a couple of missions. And they must be pretty important if they want guys like us to fly ’em.”

“I guess. I do know the area pretty well. I flew over it a buncha times when I was stationed in Burma.”

“There you go. Your expertise is needed.”

“You think these guys we’re gonna drop are pretty important, huh?”

“Must be. Donovan called Chennault directly and asked for his two best pilots.”

“Really?”

“Would I lie to you, McGoon?”

“You might just to shut me up.”

“Fair enough,” said Smitty with a shrug. “I’ll see ya later. I got a letter to write to my wife.”

Smitty headed for his tent while McGoon stayed to supervise the artist as the sun began to set.

 

 

McGoon and Smitty flew for the 14th Air Force's 118th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group. The pilots of the 118th were supposed to be flying the newer P-51 Mustangs, but their shipment of the aircraft was diverted after the Japanese Navy bombed Pearl Harbor. The P-51s were faster, turned tighter, and were better armed than the P-40s, but it didn’t seem to bother McGoon too much as long as he got to kill japs. The Warhawks could out dive the Japanese Zeros, and that was all the advantage McGoon needed. He had been credited with downing four Zeros in dogfights and destroying an additional five on the ground. That made him an ace, which he mentioned as often as possible when meeting young ladies.

The airfield at Laohwangping was shared with 35th Reconnaissance Squadron. The 35th flew P-38s because of their range. McGoon liked the P-38. It was fast, plus it looked real slick with its twin engines and tail booms. He had trained on them before the war but was politely asked to train on the cheaper Mustang after he crashed a P-38 during a dive bomb exercise. It wasn’t his fault. The plane had stalled. But it didn’t matter to the brass. Besides, McGoon wanted to fly for the Chinese, and they were going to use the Mustang anyway. The Chinese were already in the war with Japan, and the pay was three times that of a US Air Force pilot. And to top it off, he already liked eggrolls. The three hundred Americans in the Chinese Air Force were under the command of Major General Claire Lee Chennault, nicknamed “Old Leatherface.”

The entire Laohwangping airfield compound wasn’t more than a compressed earth runway with a line of aircraft on the edge. There were a couple of dozen tents used by the pilots and ground crews, plus a few small wooden buildings used as support facilities. The smallest building had been converted into an officers’ club at the insistence of McGoon. “It ain’t American if there ain’t a bar,” he said to his squadron commander. “We don’t mind getting our asses shot off as long as we can come back to a cold beer at the end of the day.”

“And where do you plan on getting the ice?” said his commander.

“Let me worry about that. You just give us the building. I’ll take care of the rest.”

It took some doing, but McGoon got his officers club and the ice that kept the beer cold. He trained a local man to be the bartender and only made him pay half his tips for the privilege. He liked the Chinese, at least the ones that weren’t communists. He could see that they were really smart. They picked up the things that they were taught quickly, and they remembered them. He didn’t think they would make good fighter pilots. He had seen a lot of Chinese paintings. They were two-dimensional. Flying in combat took a certain amount of creativity, and you had to think in three dimensions. In his opinion, that was not the strong suit of the Chinese.

 

 

When the Chinese artist finished painting the transport plane’s insignia, McGoon headed for the bar. His bar. That’s the way he saw it. The officers club had a Polynesian décor with tiki torches, native masks and tasteful posters of topless native women from a Frenchie artist named ‘Paul Gauguin.’ The bartender was Tian Xinyou, but McGoon couldn’t remember it, so he just started calling him Kwon.

Kwon opened a cold beer the moment he saw McGoon walk through the door. Being the boss man, McGoon drank for free. Everyone else paid, even the squadron commanders. McGoon kept up appearances by always saying, “Thanks, Kwon. Put it on my tab.” Kwon would make an X on whatever piece of paper was lying around at the time, then throw it away when the officer’s club closed for the night.

There were six men already seated at one of the bamboo tables when McGoon arrived. They wore jungle fatigues but without insignia so nobody could tell their rank or country. McGoon walked over and said, “You guys must be the package I’m delivering tomorrow.”

The six men went quiet like some sort of etiquette had been broken. “You might not want to say that too loud,” said Peter Dewey, the commander of the group.

“Why is that? We’re all on the same side here.”

“Discretion is the better part of valor in our line of work.”

“And what line of work would that be?”

“Like I said… discretion.”

“Must be spooks then.”

One of the men rose from his chair and moved toward McGoon. He was tall like McGoon, but his body was tight and fit. His name was René Granier, but the men in his unit called him “Buck” because he liked deer hunting. His dead eyes locked with McGoon’s. He said nothing but McGoon could tell he was a serious man and meant to do him harm. “Buck,” said Dewey. “…order another round, will you? And one for the good captain.”

“Much obliged, but I already got one,” said McGoon keeping his eyes on Granier.

“Then you’ll have two, and we’ll be happier for it.”

“Alright. If you insist.”

“We do. Please sit with us.”

Granier moved off to the bar, and McGoon pulled up a chair at the table. “You’re familiar with where we are going tomorrow?” said Dewey in a hushed voice.

“I’ve been in the area a few times. Chased a Zero across the border last month. Japs got plenty of flak.”

“Which you will avoid?”

“Best I can. That’s why they picked me. I don’t usually fly transport. I’m a fighter pilot. But we all do what we gotta do for the cause, right?”

“We appreciate the sacrifice.”

“Ain’t no sacrifice. Those Vietnamese have saved a lot of downed American pilots. Prevented them from being captured by the Japs. If we can help ’em, we should.”

“Good to know. Now, about the drop…?”

“We’ll have a fighter escort up to the border. After that, we’ll be on our own. We’re going to fly low and fast through the mountains. Any of your boys ain’t used to rough flying might wanna bring a barf bag just in case. I’d hate to see your boots get wet.”

“I assure you, my men are quite used to… rough flying.”

“Suit yourselves.”

Granier walked back over and set seven open bottles of beer down on the table. He pushed one toward McGoon like it was special. “You won’t mind switching, would ya?” said McGoon. “I ain’t fond of spit.”

Granier switched bottles with McGoon and took a sip. McGoon took a big swig from his bottle. Granier kept a straight face as he glanced over at McGoon. “Ah, shit,” said McGoon taking a second look at his bottle then setting it on the table like it had cooties. Granier offered a faint smile while everyone else laughed, including McGoon. McGoon could dish it out, but he could also take it. The package, as McGoon had called them, was the OSS Deer Team.

 

 

It was early morning. Patches of fog hung over the emerald valleys of the northern highlands of Vietnam. The long shadow of an aircraft swept across a thick canopy of trees. The American DC-3 disguised as a Japanese L2D Showa hugged the ridgelines.

It was a rollercoaster ride for the Deer Team members riding in back. Their faces and hands were painted with black and green greasepaint that promised to stay on even when wet. Everyone but Granier looked queasy. Granier thought about the first time he took part in a battle. It was on Guadalcanal…

 

It rained. Granier moved through a grove of coconut trees at the head of his Marine recon platoon. He was on point. Heavy clouds and a storm had masked the Marine’s arrival on the island and caught the Japanese army off guard. The Marines landed on the beach with little resistance, then pushed inland—no Japanese in sight. Only hastily abandoned camps. The Japanese had gone to ground, and it was the job of Marine Recon to find them. The probability of ambush and boobytraps was high. Granier was careful where he stepped. His eyes darted around, taking everything in, searching for danger.

At night, the Japanese and American navies slugged it out offshore as the Marines watched. Big guns were firing. Explosions that lit up the night sky. It was hard to tell who won until the next morning when the American fleet was gone. The Marines were on their own with most of their ammunition and supplies at the bottom of the ocean. “Too little. Too Late. Too bad. Welcome to the war, Pups,” said the platoon’s staff sergeant. “Time to nut up and show the Japs who we really are. Can’t stop a Marine. Can’t stop the Corp.”

The sergeant was a relic from World War I. He fought in the trenches during the Battle of Belleau Wood. It was nasty and gut-wrenching warfare even for a Marine. Lessons learned the hard way. Lessons that would keep Granier and the other ‘pups’ alive.

That’s what Granier was… a pup. A virgin to war. Just about everyone in the platoon was a pup. Veterans like the sergeant were few and far between. The sergeant’s job was to keep Granier and the others alive long enough to learn how to survive. It was the way of the Corp – the old teaching the young.

Granier would never admit it, but he liked the sergeant. He was tough, and tough was something Granier understood. The only way to stay on the sergeant’s good side was always to pay attention and not fuck up. The sergeant expected his men to make mistakes, but he didn’t coddle them when they happened. Any mistake got a marine the sergeant’s boot up his ass accompanied by soul-crushing criticism. This was war. There were no second chances on the battlefield.

From the beginning, the sergeant could see that Granier didn’t like authority and was a loner. Granier had been a hardship case. As a teenager, he had joined a street gang and got caught stealing a car. The judge gave him a choice – jail or the Corp. The sergeant didn’t like anybody that didn’t come to the Marines by their own free will. But Granier had been a good marine and paid attention, unlike some of the others. Still, the sergeant kept an eye on him and waited for him to mess up so he could bust him out. The sergeant knew that the Corp required marines to work as one unit. It wasn’t for loners. The way he saw it, he’d be doing Granier a favor.

When the platoon made camp on the third night, the sergeant had assigned Granier to share a foxhole with Taylor – the platoon screw up. Every platoon had one – a guy that was clumsy, stupid, or unlucky. Taylor was all three. Granier could see that Taylor was not long for this world and tried to keep his distance whenever possible. But the sergeant, in his wisdom, had made that impossible. They took shifts sleeping while the other one kept watch. Even though he was tired, Granier slept lightly. He didn’t trust Taylor to stay awake during his watch. Their foxhole was on the left flank of the platoon’s position. It was vulnerable. The only good news was that they hadn’t seen any Japanese troops since they arrived, and Granier was hopeful that it might stay that way.

Granier was asleep when he heard his name whispered. It was Taylor trying to wake him up. “What?” said Granier, pissed.

“I think I see something,” said Taylor.

“Like what?”

“Something in the trees.”

Granier was going to tell him it was probably the wind when he thought for a moment… He didn’t trust Taylor to know what he saw. Granier climbed over to the edge of the foxhole and looked out. The clouds covered the moon, and it was pitch black. Everything was still. The wind, he thought. Then something moved. He wasn’t sure what it was. Then he saw something else move. “Did you see it?” said Taylor.

“Shut the fuck up,” said Granier, squinting, trying to get a better look. He watched as an entire company of Japanese soldiers emerged from the jungle and trotted towards the platoon’s position. Granier reacted, picking up his rifle and firing. He didn’t care if he hit anything. He just wanted to make enough noise to wake up the other members of the platoon and alert them to the oncoming danger. It worked. The platoon joined the battle, first a few shots, then a cacophony of rifles and machine guns. The Japanese yelled a battle cry and broke into a run. Japanese mortar shells added to the chaos as they dropped on the American positions with blinding flashes of light, torrents of dirt, and deadly shrapnel.

The sergeant ran over and dove into the foxhole. Taylor and Granier were firing and reloading as fast as they could. “Granier, you keep a good eye on that flank. They’ll be coming that way sure as shit,” said the sergeant.

“Got it,” said Granier.

A clump of Japanese emerged from the trees on the flank just as the sergeant had said they would. “Here they come,” said Granier firing at them.

Taylor looked over and panicked. He grabbed a grenade from a pouch on his belt and pulled the pin. He started to throw it when it slipped from his hand and landed in the foxhole next to Granier. Granier froze for no more than a second, but it was enough for the sergeant to realize that there wasn’t time to pick the grenade and throw it clear. “Taylor, you sorry sack of shit,” said the sergeant as he dove on top of the grenade.

The explosion pushed the sergeant three feet into the air as his body absorbed the concussion. He landed face down with a heavy thud. He had saved both Granier and Taylor. Granier fired the rest of his ammunition at the Japanese, killing two and driving the rest to the ground. “Keep firing,” said Granier to Taylor. “I’m gonna check on the sergeant.”

Taylor obeyed. Granier carefully turned the sergeant over. His stomach was gone, a smoking cavity of charred flesh. To Granier’s surprise, the sergeant was still alive. “I knew that dumb bastard was gonna kill someone. Just didn’t think it’d be me,” said the sergeant as he went limp and died.

The sergeant’s sacrifice wasn’t lost on Granier. He had died saving the members of his pack – the Marine Corp. Granier picked up his rifle, reloaded and fired. There was no time to grieve, only time to fight and survive. His sergeant would have been proud if he had lived.

When the battle was over, Granier thought about killing Taylor. He didn’t need a judge or jury to know that Taylor was a danger to the platoon. Granier would protect the others in his unit, even if it meant killing one of their own. He decided that he didn’t need to do anything. Taylor would be killed sooner rather than later. He was too much of a screw up to survive. He just needed to stay out of Taylor’s way and let him self-destruct at a safe distance. He was right. A few days later, Taylor got run over by a Sherman tank. The pack was safe again.

 

Granier snapped back to reality. They would be jumping soon, and he needed to be ready to move with his gear when the command came. Granier’s rifle, a Springfield M1C Garand with scope mount and muzzle flash suppressor, was tucked carefully away in a padded carrying case leaning against his leg. The weapon was a semi-automatic sniper rifle that carried eight .30-06 rounds in an internal magazine. The wooden stock had a leather cheekpiece to help the shooter’s eye align properly with the side-mounted scope. Granier’s M81 scope was wrapped in a towel and placed in the very center of his leg bag to keep it from being damaged on landing. His life and the lives of the other team members would depend on that rifle and scope more than once in the months that followed. Once he was in the field, Granier never let it out of his sight.

 

Dewey had handpicked his team. Each member was an expert in his assigned combat role and had previously distinguished himself in battle. Although they had trained together, this was their first mission as a team. Dewey was confident they were the best men available for the job at hand. The success of their mission depended on it.

Dewey, his face and hands also camouflaged, stood by McGoon, seated in the pilot’s seat. Smitty was in the co-pilot’s seat and flying the aircraft while McGoon talked with Dewey. “The supply drop zone is just over the next ridge. The drop is one week from today at oh nine hundred. Don’t forget to pop smoke when you hear our engines or we won’t know where you are,” said McGoon.

“What if the enemy sees the smoke?” said Dewey.

“You can do what you want, but you’re gonna have a helluva time finding your supplies in that jungle.”

“Alright. We’ll take the risk and pop smoke if the area looks clear. Otherwise, just drop it, and we’ll do our best to find it.”

“Okay. There’s the supply drop zone,” said McGoon pointing out the windshield. “We’re five minutes out from your team’s drop zone. You’d better get your guys up and ready. Good luck. Beer’s on me when you make it out.”

“Thanks,” said Dewey heading out the cockpit door.

 

 

The Deer Team jumped from the DC-3 as it passed over the drop zone. Granier, the most experienced woodsman, was the first out the side door. He kicked out his leg bag and jumped. The static line snapped tight and opened his parachute. He disliked using static lines. He preferred to open his chute. A static line was just one more thing that could go wrong. He could get tangled in it and dragged behind the aircraft. It could get snagged and fail to open his chute. The team was jumping low at eight hundred feet. There was no room for error. He liked simplicity.

Dewey had insisted on static lines to keep the team close together as they descended. Granier didn’t think much of Dewey, but he obeyed his commander. There was little question that Granier was the real alpha dog of the team – the one nobody wanted to mess with – but Dewey had the rank. Granier had learned to respect rank. He had learned to obey. Unlike the other team members, Granier’s concept of loyalty and patriotism did not go much beyond the squad level. He believed in the men that fought by his side and protected him. They were his pack. He would sacrifice for them, not for some obscure concept of country or honor.

The rest of the team jumped and followed Granier down into the forest. It was going to be a rough landing. There wasn’t much choice. There were no meadows in this part of the forest — just trees.

Granier crashed through the top of the canopy. His legs, crotch, and arms broke twigs and small branches as he continued his downward plunge. His chute snarled in the foliage and brought him to an abrupt stop. Still twenty-five feet from the ground, he dangled like a puppet without a master. The other team members crashed through the trees with yelps and grunts, but he couldn’t see them. He released the leg strap holding his pack and rifle. They landed with a thud. Releasing the snap hooks around his legs put his full weight on his chest harness. He pulled the chest straps together, but the hook wouldn’t release; there was too much pressure. He pulled his knife. Once he cut the chest strap, if either arm snarled in the straps, he could dislocate a shoulder. And then there was the knife. It was razor-sharp and could also get hung up as he slipped out of the harness. He decided to toss the knife clear once he cut the harness and hope he could find it on the ground. Once the plan was clear in his mind, there was nothing to be gained by thinking any more about the situation. It was a long drop, and the landing was going to hurt. He executed. A swift stroke of the knife cut the chest strap. He was free. He tossed the knife away as he slipped out of the harness and fell clean.

He bent his legs at the knees and relaxed. He hit the ground and tumbled with a grunt. He rose to his feet and searched for his knife. It was sticking hilt up a few yards away, the blade embedded in the soft soil. Stuck it, he thought. He was relieved. It was a good knife, and he would need it. He retrieved it and gave both sides of the blade a quick swipe on his pants to clean off the soil before sliding it back in its sheath.

He could hear the other team members struggling to free themselves. Helping them was not his problem at the moment. They can take care of themselves, he thought. He squatted next to his leg bag, released the strap from his rifle bag, and inspected his rifle. He slid the bolt open and released it to ensure the slide was functioning properly. It was. He checked the trigger and the hard sights. Everything looked okay. He pulled a clip from the ammunition belt on his waist and inspected the bullets to ensure they were still properly aligned in the clip and gave them two taps on his helmet. He opened the bolt again, locking it back. He pushed the bolt lever back with the side of his hand as he pushed the clip through the open bolt and into the internal magazine. Releasing the bolt chambered the first round. He was armed and ready.

He leveled his rifle at the surrounding trees. As the first team member on the ground, it was his responsibility to provide security for the others still attempting to free themselves from their harnesses stuck in the canopy. His eyes searched the horizon surrounding the drop zone. No movement except for the leaves and twigs that fell from above. It was clear. He made another sweep looking in the surrounding trees for possible snipers. Again, clear. The tropical forest smelled like rotting vegetation, a bit sweet with a lot of sour.

He wanted to check his rifle scope to make sure it wasn’t damaged. It bothered him not knowing if all his gear was working properly, but he knew there would be time for that later, once the team was safe. He didn’t need his scope in the forest. His sightline was only fifty to a hundred feet out. He could shoot that distance accurately with his weapon’s fixed sights. The scope was for distance. He counted the thuds and grunts of the team members falling to the ground. “Buck, you okay?” said Dewey in a hushed voice.

“Yes,” said Granier. It was the shortest answer he could think of. His eyes never left the tree line. He kept searching for the enemy. Granier didn’t waste any effort in communicating. He knew his part of the mission. He didn’t need to discuss it or be reminded. He just executed. Consistently. Constantly.

His lack of comradery pissed off the others in the team who thought him an overzealous perfectionist and a loner. He didn’t care. It wasn’t his job to make them happy. He protected them from the enemy. He kept the pack safe. That was all that mattered.

Granier was born in France in an academic community just outside of Paris, where his mother was a professor of history at a well-known university. As a child, his grandfather had taught him survival skills while hunting boar and deer in the woods. At the age of twelve, he and his family moved to Willington, Delaware, when his father, a chemical engineer, was recruited by DuPont to develop advanced polymers. Even though he and his family became American citizens, Granier never quite fit in as a teenager and spent most of his free time hunting deer and turkey alone in the nearby forests and hills. French was his first language, but he also was fluent in English and Spanish.

“Buck, check our perimeter,” said Dewey.

“On it,” said Granier rising, disappearing into the trees, eyes searching.

There was little sunlight beneath the canopy. Shafts of light alternating with the darkness of the forest. The eyes played tricks. Saw things that weren’t there. He had learned to distinguish the real from the imagined. He stopped fifty yards out and made a large counter-clockwise circle around the team members. His eyes flicked to the ground to check for tripwires and signs of an enemy, then back to the horizon, then up into the trees, and back to the horizon. Always moving. Avoiding dry leaves and twigs in his path. Deadly quiet. His rifle leveled, swinging smoothly from side to side. Hunting. His mind drifted, and he remembered…

 

The same flickering of sunlight as a boy walked through the trees with his grandfather. It was his first boar hunt. He was ten. He carried a Lebel Model 1886 rifle that his grandfather had given him to use. It fired 8mm bullets, which were not particularly large compared to more modern rifles. The gun still kicked like a mule. He had been allowed three practice shots so he could get used to the weight and using the bolt action. It was too big for a boy that had not yet had his teenage growth spurt, but his grandfather had insisted, saying, “When hunting boar, it is better to go in heavy rather than light. Light can get you gored by a tusk, and your mother would never let me hear the end of it.”

His grandfather did not carry a rifle. It was the boy’s task to kill the beast, not his. Instead, he carried a pair of flintlock dueling pistols loaded with .56 caliber lead balls. “A good hunter only needs one shot to kill his prey,” explained the old man.

“Then why do you carry two pistols?” asked the boy.

“I could be wrong,” said the old man with a shrug.

As they approached a knoll, the grandfather saw a line of footprints in the loose soil. He motioned for the boy to come closer. “What do you see?” said the old man.

The boy took a few moments to examine the footprints and then said, “Wolf?”

“Are you asking or telling?”

“Wolf.”

“Yes. Several. They’re close.”

The boy looked worried. He knew his grandfather saw this as a moment of instruction rather than danger. “Keep low and stay downwind,” said the grandfather moving off.

The boy followed.

The boy and his grandfather belly crawled over a large boulder and looked down. Below, a pack of grey wolves mulled around their lair, their bellies full from a recent kill. Females tended their young. Males kept watch for danger. “They’re beautiful,” whispered the boy.

“Yes,” said the grandfather. “Alone, they are dangerous. Together, they are invincible. They hunt as a pack and share their kills. If ever attacked, they will defend each other to the death. They desire no honor or even thanks. They are not selfish, like men. That’s what gives them great power.”

The lesson was not lost on the boy.

 

Granier snapped out of his daydream. He knew he needed to keep his focus. The forest was clear for the moment. He returned to the group. The other team members were gathered around Dewey in defensive positions.

Herbert Green was the team’s automatic rifle specialist and the largest man in the unit at six-three, all muscle. He carried a BAR automatic rifle with a belt holding six of the 20-round box magazines and two bandoleers with three magazines each slung across his chest. His pack was loaded with far more spare ammunition than the others. It weighed almost a hundred pounds, but Green could handle the pack and the weapon because of his size. He spoke English, Chinese, and a bit of Spanish.

Victor Santana was the team’s communications specialist and a rifleman. He carried the heavy field radio Dewey required to communicate with command headquarters in China. Santana knew the radio inside and out. He carried an M1 with a folding stock and spoke English, Spanish and Lao. He was short and stocky. His skin was dark, and his hair coal black. He loved to tell jokes about Mexicans and Central Americans walking into a bar. He was Puerto Rican and feisty as hell in a firefight.

Willard Davis was the team’s grenadier and tunnel rat. He was lanky but surprisingly strong. He had started his career in the Army as an engineer before being selected as a commando. He knew explosives and could build just about anything from tree branches and 50-feet of rope. He carried a half dozen hand grenades plus two smoke grenades on bandoleers around his chest. In his pack were a dozen more grenades and TNT high-explosive blocks that could be used to breach a steel door or remove an obstacle. He looked like a pack mule when fully loaded with gear. His rifle was an M1 with a folding stock. He spoke English, Japanese, and a bit of Khmer.

Paul Hoagland rounded out the group as the team medic and a rifleman. He was in his second year of medical school when the war broke out and immediately volunteered. He was forced to renounce his Hippocratic oath when he joined the commandos. All commandos, even the medics, were expected to fight. He carried an M1 and was an excellent shot. Good eyes and steady fingers. He spoke English, Vietnamese, and a few of the highlands’ tribal dialects.

Granier knew them as good soldiers. Reliable. Brave. A strong pack. The team members broke off pieces of foliage and stuck them in the netting on their helmets and in the buckles on their packs to create natural camouflage. The area around the drop zone was already littered with debris. The few additional broken twigs wouldn’t give the team’s position away to the enemy more than the broken tree branches and scattering of leaves. They would repeat this process each time they moved into new terrain with different foliage. Good camouflage could be the difference between life and death.

Hoagland tended to a nasty cut on Dewey’s shin. A broken branch had caught him on the way down. It could have been worse. Much worse. “Buck, are we good?” said Dewey, wincing as Hoagland pulled a shard of wood from the wound.

“Clear,” said Granier. There was nothing else to report. Granier rarely made eye contact with anyone even while talking, which was unnerving and annoying to those around him. He was always looking someplace else. Searching for threats. He kept his eyes on the surrounding trees; his weapon cradled in his arms. “I need to build my scope,” said Granier.

“Of course. We’ll keep watch,” said Dewey studying his compass and map as Hoagland finished dressing the wound.

Granier knew that even if every team member kept watch, they would not see the things that he could see. He didn’t like that the team was all in the same place. They should have spread out more, but that wasn’t his call. It was Dewey’s. Granier kept his mouth shut and focused on the task at hand. He needed to check his gear and build his scope.

He pulled the metal mount and the bundled scope from his pack. The scope was undamaged. He pulled out and opened a small tool kit with a flat blade screwdriver, a small wrench, and a nylon hammer. He laid the towel wrapped around the scope on the ground to keep the rifle’s parts from getting dirty and took a quick look around to ensure they were safe. His weapon would be useless while being assembled with the mount and scope. He needed to work quickly. He was ready.

He opened the rifle’s bolt, removed the chambered round and the clip. The rifle was empty. Safe. First, he removed the rifle stock from the bolt and barrel and placed it on the towel. Then he attached the mount to the barrel and tightened the screws. He set the scope, closed the mount, and tightened the locking screw. After he’d reattached the stock to the bolt and barrel, he reloaded the weapon and chambered a round. The entire process took less than two minutes. He could have done it with his eyes closed if needed. He had done it before. He was operational.

The Garand was a well-designed, reliable weapon. It did not jam easily, even in the harshest conditions. The rifle’s scope was side-mounted to keep the bolt opening clear for ejecting shells and inserting clips. This allowed the operator to use either the scope or the hard sights on the barrel. There were more high-powered scopes available, but he chose not to use them because they blocked the hard sight. His was a dual role in the squad – sniper, and scout. When there was a firefight, options were important, especially in a thick forest or jungle. “Ready,” said Granier.

“Let’s move out,” said Dewey pointing the direction.

Granier took the lead and advanced through the forest. He felt more comfortable moving within the trees — lots of cover. His senses were focused – ears, eyes, and nose. None more important than the other. All were working together. He knew it was highly likely that he would hear or see the enemy before the enemy heard or saw him. That was good. That kept the pack safe.

He kept a good distance in front of the others. They were loud, even though they thought they were quiet. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know what quiet was. Not like he knew quiet. They moved through the trees in a wedge formation, not a column, but stayed close together. Their weapons were always at the ready, never slung over their shoulders. Safety on, finger off the trigger, a round chambered. They would not take a path through the forest even if they found one. It was too dangerous. There were boobytraps and ambushes on trails. It was safer to stay off-trail even if it made traveling more difficult.

If there were contact, Granier would move off to the side and let the enemy focus on the approaching team with their heavy footfalls. That would give him the advantage he needed. If they were few, he would kill the enemy before they fired on his team. That was the hope. If they were many, he would be in a good position to flank them. Either way, his opening shots would warn his team members and draw the enemy away. His team would have time to disperse into defensive positions. Attacking from two angles was far better than attacking from one. Some might see his using his team as bait as cowardly, but he knew better. He didn’t care what others thought… as long as the pack was safe.

 

 

The first day passed without incident. Even with Dewey’s wounded shin, the team made good time and traveled fifteen miles through the forest before night fell.

There was no fire to warm their food or make coffee. They spoke only when necessary. Mostly they listened. Sound traveled slower in the cooler night air. There would be less warning if a Japanese patrol stumbled upon them. Two team members kept watch at all times. They slept in shifts. Sleep was important. They needed to stay sharp.

Hoagland checked Dewey’s shin. It was swollen as he expected, but there were no signs of infection. The sulfanilamide powder he had poured on the wound had done the trick. It would hurt to walk, but Dewey was tough like all the team members. Even though it looked good, Hoagland would keep an eye on it. An infection in a tropical forest could kill a man just as sure as a bullet if left unattended. Once he redressed the wound, Hoagland moved to check on each of the team members. They were fit and healthy, but even a healthy man could become dehydrated easily in humid conditions. Hoagland checked each canteen to ensure the men were drinking enough and reminded them to eat their salt tablets. If Granier was their seldom seen protector, Hoagland was surely their doting mother. Both did their jobs well.

 

The Deer Team had only been walking an hour when Granier came to a stop, raise his fist to signal the others, and crouched down to make himself less visible. Dewey, his nose in his map, didn’t notice. Hoagland, right behind Dewey, saw Granier and tapped Dewey on the shoulder to get his attention. Hoagland pointed in Granier’s direction. Dewey, seeing Granier crouching, signaled the rest of the team to take up defensive positions. The team members spread out, crouched down and kept watch in their assigned direction.

Granier had seen nothing. It was a new smell that had got his attention. New was not good. It was faint. A hint of fish sauce. He scanned the horizon and the surrounding trees. Nothing. That didn’t mean that nothing was out there. It just meant he couldn’t see it. But he could smell it, and that was enough to make the hairs on his neck stand tall. He waited. Silent. Listened. Watched. Nothing. He still didn’t trust the smell. It could have been a farmer passing nearby. But if it was, he was sure he would have heard his footsteps. Farmers were not trained to be quiet. In fact, they liked to be noisy in the forest to frighten away jungle creatures like tigers, panthers, and snakes that might be on the path ahead. Granier still heard and saw nothing. But there was that smell – fish sauce. He was sure of it. He waited a full three minutes before motioning the team to continue. Their senses were heightened like Granier’s and kept a close watch for any motion as they advanced… cautiously, slowing their pace.

The team moved out of the trees and into a narrow meadow covered with large ferns with more trees on the far side. Granier moved forward fifty yards into the meadow and stopped again. Same sign to the team – fist in the air. They stopped and again took up defensive positions. “What now?” whispered Hoagland.

Dewey, not knowing, shook his head. He trusted Granier’s instincts and would wait to proceed until Granier gave him the go-ahead. Dewey had carefully picked his team, but Granier was a prize. Granier’s commanding officer was pissed when Dewey chose Granier and spirited him away from his Marine battalion. Granier didn’t like going either. Change was difficult for him, especially if it involved getting to know new people. Granier was not a fan of humans. He preferred the company of dogs who were very loyal and didn’t whine unless it was important.

Granier smelled something new – charcoal mixed with freshly cooked rice and shit. Human shit. Cooked rice and human shit meant there was a village or camp up ahead. He looked around for signs of a footpath. There was none. A village would have footpaths leading from it. It was a military camp. The big question was who was in it. It didn’t take long to find the answer…

One hundred yards ahead, Granier saw movement. It was just a glimpse through the trees, but something or someone was moving toward him. He gave the hand signal for contact to Dewey.

Dewey relayed the signal to the other team members. Everyone moved deeper into the surrounding foliage in hopes of not being seen. Dewey worried about the footprints the team might have left behind them. If it were the enemy, footprints would lead them right to the team. It wasn’t that Dewey or the others were afraid to fight. They were OSS commandos. They loved to fight. The adrenaline. The contest. But it was not their mission. Not yet.

Granier watched as a Japanese soldier carrying a rifle appeared through the trees. The way he held himself, his head turning from side to side, his weapon at the ready, Granier could tell he was a scout like himself. There would be more following him. How many? he thought.

Thirty feet behind the scout more soldiers emerged. Fifty in all – a Japanese-sized platoon. They were spread out in a vee formation as if they were hunting for something. A lieutenant led them near the base of the vee. Next to the lieutenant was his radioman. Granier would keep a close eye on the radioman and kill him first if a firefight broke out. Hopefully, his shots would damage the radio so they could not call for reinforcements. The American team was already outnumbered more than eight to one. They didn’t need more soldiers to shoot at or chase them if things went to shit – the most likely scenario. The officer would be his second target. Take out the head of the snake.

Granier stayed low and out of sight as the scout approached. He could feel his heart rate increasing. The scout was close. Very close. For a moment, he thought the unknowing soldier would step right on him. Granier didn’t move, not even his eyes. Nothing to draw attention. The scout passed. Granier shifted his gaze to locate the radioman and the lieutenant. They were less than thirty-five feet from his position. An easy distance. He wouldn’t miss. Two shots each, he thought. That still leaves me four in the magazine before I need to reload. That’s a good number. I can live with that. Two shots each was overkill for a marksman like Granier, but the targets were important, and he didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

Granier always knew exactly which pouches on his ammo belt had clips and which were empty. He never wasted any movement while reloading. Additional ammunition was stored in the exterior pockets on his pack. Pack ammo would take more time to retrieve, but he knew exactly where each clip was stored. He didn’t need to take his eyes off the enemy or take off his pack to find the right pocket. It was a discipline. Practiced. As the scout, he would be separated from the team in a firefight and forced to fight alone. Ammo kept him alive.

His fire plan was simple – fire four rounds, then duck for three seconds so the enemy would lose track of him, fire another four rounds, duck, and reload. With that plan and a little luck, he could kill ten to twelve enemies per minute. Granier didn’t like depending on luck, but he knew it was a factor in a brawl – an up close and personal firefight. He kept a gold 20-franc coin that his grandfather had given him in his front pants pocket. It was his luck.

He could not see Dewey from his hidden position and was unable to receive orders on when to open fire. But he knew what Dewey would want – to avoid contact if possible. Mission was first – to make contact with the Viet Minh and help them to fight the Japanese army that had invaded their country. Granier would wait until his team or the Japanese platoon opened fire before revealing his position and engaging the enemy.

Sweat beaded on Granier’s greasepaint-covered brow as the Japanese formation approached. The Japanese soldiers walked past Granier, then past the team. The camouflage had worked. Granier breathed a quiet sign of relief. Then all hell broke loose…

Fifty yards past the American team was the close group of trees the American team had walked through. As the Japanese scout was about to enter the grove, he was blasted backward by a single rifle shot and landed on his back on the ground. A small Asian-looking man wearing a conical hat covered with camouflage sprang from the ground and plunged the bayonet on the end of his rifle into the scout, killing him. A light machine gun hidden in the grove opened fire, killing several more Japanese soldiers. Dozens of gun flares among the trees revealed a line of hidden riflemen firing their weapons. On the orders of their commander, the Japanese lieutenant, the platoon pulled back, moving toward the unseen Americans.

For a moment, Granier was confused and angry. It seemed two Japanese forces were killing each other. What bothered him was that he hadn’t seen them when he walked by their positions. Damn fish sauce, he thought, remembering the smell. It don’t matter. Japanese are dying. That’s good. He popped up from his hidden position and fired – two rounds into the radioman and two into the lieutenant, who had their backs to him. Both went down. He was pretty sure at least one of his rounds had hit the radio. Granier ducked, waited three seconds, popped up, and shot four more Japanese soldiers, one bullet for each. His aim was deadly this close to the enemy. It was like shooting fish in a barrel – except that the fish fired back.

Dewey and the rest of the American team also opened fire on the Japanese as they moved back past their position. The Americans were hesitant to fire on the grove of trees even though the bullets aimed at the Japanese soldiers were flying past them. The hidden machine gunner and riflemen were killing the enemy. A Japanese rifleman pulled out a grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it. It landed next to Santana and Davis. “Oh, shit!”, said Davis grabbing Santana’s radio and placing it between them and the grenade like a shield. “No,” said Santana, knowing what would happen. It worked. The grenade exploded, sending shrapnel into the radio set, destroying it, but protecting them.

Granier reloaded, popped up, four more shots, ducked down, three seconds, popped up again, fired four more shots emptying his rifle. The empty clip sprang from the magazine and tumbled through the air. It was a dead giveaway that his weapon was empty. The Japanese platoon had been decimated. Most of the survivors were running for their lives. He was running out of targets. Granier didn’t notice the lone Japanese soldier, a bayonet on the end of his rifle, closing on his position from behind.

Granier reloaded. He was fast, but the Japanese soldier sprang into a dead run leveling his bayonet. Granier saw the soldier’s shadow and reacted, pitching to one side, falling onto the butt of his weapon. The bayonet plunged into the ground between Granier’s arm and side. The Japanese soldier withdrew and prepared to stab again. Granier tried to bring his rifle around. It was awkward. He was lying on his rifle. The Japanese soldier lunged with his rifle but then fell sideways before he could complete the attack. A bullet had hit him in the shoulder and spun him around. The soldier landed on the ground. He wasn’t dead. He struggled to bring his weapon around. Granier pulled out his knife and thrust it into the soldier’s upper leg. The soldier screamed in pain.

Granier saw another soldier running toward him from a different angle, a bayonet on the end of his rifle. Granier again reached for his rifle. The soldier on the ground swung his rifle barrel around. Granier saw it and lunged backward to avoid the wounded soldier’s bayonet. Again, Granier stumbled awkwardly. His weapon out of position to fend off the new threat, the old threat still alive and trying to kill him.

The new soldier yelled like a samurai and plunged the bayonet into the chest of the wounded soldier, killing him. Granier, confused, swung his rifle barrel around, ready to fire at the new soldier. And then he saw something that confused him even more… a slight shadow below the new soldier’s chest. Breasts, he thought. He looked up and saw a woman’s face below the camouflaged conical hat. Her eyes weren’t Japanese. They were Vietnamese. She pulled her bayonet from the dead soldier and swung her rifle barrel around toward Granier, hitting his rifle with her bayonet. His finger jerked against the trigger, and his gun fired. It missed her, but just barely. She scowled in anger and swung the butt of her rifle into the side of Granier’s head, knocking him out. Everything went black.