Chapter 1

Susan Jennings didn't know what to do when she regained her senses. She was now, she assumed, a prisoner of war. She was in a POW camp, but she didn't see any of the other members of her medical unit there with her. Sue had no idea how long she had been there. The last thing she remembered was an explosion in the OR — the hospital's Operating Room — and then everything collapsed around her head. She wandered around the compound inside the barbed wire trying to get oriented. Other women seemed to be bartering their clothing, but she couldn't figure out what they were getting in return.

It was terribly hot. On the other hand it was always hot in Vietnam. Eavesdropping on a transaction she found that the girl was bartering for food. Susan had never paid a great deal of attention to the very occasional lectures on prisoners' rights and obligations. After all, as a nurse she was a noncombatant. Of what earthly good could such information possibly do her? Now she was finding out.

Feeling a little dizzy, she touched her scalp and discovered why. There was a lot of dried blood and what felt like a nasty laceration on the back of her scalp. The girl she had been watching completed her transaction and Susan asked her about it. The girl had taken off her bra, then put her shirt back on. She explained that there was only a tiny amount of rice given to the prisoners each day. Since she had been imprisoned for nearly three months, her bra was hanging on her now-flattened chest so it didn't make any difference to her anyway. And it more or less guaranteed a full rice ration for the next thirty days.

Then Susan asked about later ... after the thirty days. The girl pointed to a couple of girls on the other side of the compound. One was naked to the waist retaining only her skirt. Others were completely naked.

"What do they do?" Susan asked. "The ones with no clothes, I mean."

"They have a very stark choice. They either trade their bodies or they go without. And if they go without for too long, they have no bodies to trade with," the girl replied. She pointed out an emaciated girl crouched in the far corner of the compound. "I think she's been here for over a year. She decided she wouldn't sell her body and now it's too late."

Susan looked around and saw a guard watching her hungrily. With her golden-blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes, she was a true beauty. Going up to the guard, she started to talk with him about rice. When she asked what her bra would be worth he replied that for her it would be a triple ration for two months. Susan accepted his offer on the spot. When he told her that she would have to take it off right there, she unbuttoned her uniform shirt, hung it over the wire and then took off her bra. At the sight of her full, firm breasts, the guard almost climbed through the fence.

Before giving him her bra she asked him how and when she would get her extra food. After looking both ways the guard said she could have some right away. Taking her bra, he gave her a handful of ration bars. Susan immediately recognized them as being from Red Cross parcels that should have been given to the prisoners in the first place.

Taking the ration bars, she realized that the guard had been a good-enough sort; there were eight of them. Making her way across the compound, she went up to the starving girl who had been pointed out to her. When she got closer, she saw that the girl was a human skeleton. Jennings doubted that she weighed even seventy-five pounds. The girl was hunkered down with her head resting on her knees.

"Hi! I'm Sue Jennings. Who are you?" she asked.

The girl looked up with a very vague, unfocussed look in her eyes. Susan realized with a shock that the girl was dangerously close to death. Then her green eyes focused and remarkably she even tried to smile. "Hi, Susan. I'm Ginny Cameron. I would shake hands, but I'm not sure I can even get up."

Ginny's body was the color of mahogany from being bare in the tropic sun for so long. Putting the girl's arm over her shoulder, Susan helped her over to the side of one of the huts. Because of the time of year and Vietnam's closeness to the Equator, the sun was now almost directly overhead, but she found a little strip of shade under the hut's roof overhang. After gently easing Ginny Cameron down, Susan sat down beside her.

"Ginny, you've got to eat something! You've really carried this diet thing too far already," she said with a bright smile.

Ginny Cameron remarkably still retained a sense of humor. "I don't know ... Sue, is it... ? I think I can still spare another pound or two."

Susan almost cried. The girl's breasts had completely disappeared and her ribs were so prominent she could count them just by looking. Even her thighs were now not much larger than the femur bone itself. Remembering what she knew about dieting and starvation, Susan remembered that the body first uses its fat and then breaks down and burns muscle tissue. Clearly this is what was happening to Ginny. And there wasn't any muscle left.

Smiling at Ginny she said, "I brought you a gift." Carefully unwrapping one of the nutrition bars, she offered it to the girl.

Ginny just looked at it without comprehension. Finally she said, "Are you giving this to me? Sue, I can't take it. You just don't know what you're doing. I made a choice and I guess it was a stupid choice. So now I'll die of it."

Ignoring the girl's words, Jennings broke off a small piece of the very rich nutrition bar and put it between Ginny's lips. The girl just let it melt in her mouth. As she did a near-rapturous expression appeared on her face. Susan just continued feeding the starving girl small morsels until the bar was gone. Only then did Susan notice that Ginny's eyes were flowing with tears.

"Sue," the girl asked, "why are you doing this? You know it's too late, don't you? I've only got a few hours left and I guess I was almost looking forward to the release." Trying to smile, she continued, "Starvation is a hell of a way to die, though. But isn't there anything I can do for you?"

Smiling warmly at the girl Susan replied, "Yes, there is! Ginny, please keep fighting. You were a beautiful girl before and you will be one again. Please? Try to hang on?"

Virginia Cameron slowly nodded her head.

Over the next weeks and months Susan developed an abiding hatred for three people, all Americans: Homer Black, Colonel, U.S. Army Medical Corps, Charles Simon, Major, USA MC, and Judith Harrison, Captain, U.S. Army Nurse Corps. They were always well dressed, clearly well fed and housed outside the compound. She asked Ginny Cameron about them one day. Ginny by now had actually gained a couple of pounds and now could even move around a little.

When Susan approached her, the girl smiled and asked, "How's the camp lifeguard today?" Then she frowned, shook her head and asked, "Susan, what are you trying to do? I heard about the episode with the guards and the male prisoners. What was that all about?"

Susan rubbed her crotch remembering how she had taken thirty guards one after the other in order to try to save the lives of some of the men who were dying for lack of medicine. Susan was the only operational nurse — or medical person — inside the compound. Black, Simon and Harrison did nothing.

Susan had traded her body for units of antibiotics and she still felt unclean. Now she was only wearing her shirt. All of her other garments had been traded for food and medicine which she had used for other prisoners.

After quickly telling Ginny about her experience she concluded by saying, "It really wasn't too bad. I have a pretty liquid cunt which lubricated their entry pretty well. I'm all right."

Looking at Susan, Ginny unbuttoned her shirt. By now Susan's tits had completely disappeared and her skin was almost as deep a shade of mahogany as Ginny's. "What are you doing, Sue?" she demanded. "I know you get enough food to keep yourself fit. But I think you're losing weight even faster than I did. You're giving it all away, aren't you?"

Susan only shrugged but did not reply. Instead she asked, "Ginny, what's with Black and company? Why do they live so well?"

"It's the shame of the camp," Ginny replied with a grimace. "I think they sign off for all the Red Cross parcels and the rest of that stuff, certifying that everything's fine here in the camp. In return they get whatever they want." Then she frowned at Susan and continued, "Incidentally, I hear they hate your guts. Sue, you're a threat to them, and they'll get you if they can."

Susan looked at Ginny Cameron and realized she was truly a beautiful woman. Before she had not realized how glorious Ginny's hair was: a beautiful shade of auburn. She said so and Ginny gave her a skeletal smile.

"You're changing the subject," she accused. Looking at Susan carefully she added, "Susan Jennings, I want to swear a solemn oath to you. If I get out of here alive, I want you to know I will do anything — anything — for you that it is ever in my power to do. I owe you my life. You know it, Sue. I just want you to know that I know it, too."

Over the previous days they had noticed that the guards had been increasingly nervous. Since the prisoners received no news of any kind they couldn't identify the source of the nervousness. Just then a guard came along cracking a whip and ordered all the prisoners to assemble in the center of the compound.

Susan started to help Ginny to her feet but the guard pushed her away. Ginny almost made it to her feet but failed, falling back to the ground. The guard stood over the prostrate girl and held out both of this hands with all his fingers extended. Ginny was going to receive ten lashes with the bullwhip.

Knowing it would kill the girl, Susan stripped off her shirt and covered Ginny with her own body. The whip came down across her five times. Each stroke felt like a white-hot wire cutting into her back. After five lashes the guard made a rolling motion with his hands. Susan rolled over and bridged her body over the fallen girl. Again the lash came down, this time across her breasts, belly and loins. When the whipping was finished, Susan rolled off the red-haired girl and just lay bleeding in the dirt.

Then the guard commander came up and pointed to her. Looking up she saw that a cross had been erected and it was obviously for her. Swallowing hard, Susan gave Ginny a quick thumbs-up sign. Then she threw her her shirt and said with a little grin, "It doesn't look like I'll be needing this anymore."

Susan accompanied the guards to the cross where she was quickly tied by her wrists to the crosspiece and left to bake in the bright sun. A guard was posted at the base of the cross to keep other prisoners from helping her in any way. Soon the pain in her shoulders became unbearable and she had difficulty breathing. After hanging there throughout the day, by late afternoon she was in a terminal stupor, very close to death.

Sounds of gunfire and nearby explosions partially roused her. Moments later American troops swept through the compound, routing the guards who had already retreated into the surrounding jungle. Susan tried to raise her head which had been lolling against her chest. She could see helicopter transports supported by gunships land and begin the evacuation of the liberated prisoners.

When she felt strong arms holding her, she was just slumped against her bonds unable to move. An American was holding her while he reached and slashed the ropes holding her to the cross. By the time he got her down the last wave of assault troops was loading up. Ordering his men to run for it, he said something cryptic to them about "the supply point."