Chapter 21

It seemed like I had no more than laid down when someone was shaking my shoulder.

"It's time to get up, Sarge," Starling was saying at the same time.

"What time is it?" I asked, as it was still dark in the bunker.

"It's 0600 hrs, Sarge. The Major wants to leave shortly," Starling told me.

"Shit! There are things that need to be done before we leave," I told him, as I went to get up. That was when I discovered how stiff I was from sleeping on the ground.

"Yes, I was pretty stiff, too," Starling said, as I moved around a little to get the kinks out. "What needs to be done before we leave?" he asked next.

"What is this 'WE' stuff?" I asked.

"The Major said that I was to go with you," Starling said.

"Who's in Commo then?"

"Williams is staying in Commo."

"No, no ... Williams can't do what needs to be done there. Let me talk to the Major. In the meantime, go check on the generators. Make sure that they have enough oil and that there is sufficient gas for today," I told him, as he handed me a box of C-rations. I tucked them in my ruck with the portable.

"Get out a-half dozen batteries for the PRC-77s after that. We'll need to change them before we go anywhere," I told his back as he hurried out. I grabbed my ruck and weapon, and went to find the Major. He was talking to Lieutenant Wesley when I located him. I waited until they were finished.

"Sir, we can't take Starling with us. I need him in Commo to take care of the equipment and recharge the batteries," I told him.

"Can't Williams do that?" he asked.

"Williams is fine on the radio, but he doesn't have the background in the other equipment that Starling does," I told him.

"Starling had more sleep," the Major told me. "That was why I chose Williams to stay here. If you think Starling would be better at the job, I'll switch them," the Major agreed.

"It would be better to let Williams get more sleep, sir. A sleepy man won't be paying attention," I said. "We are all going to be on shorter shifts for a while."

"All right, we'll leave them both here," the Major agreed. "Are you ready to go?" he asked after that.

"As soon as I inform them of the new arrangements, and I change the battery in the portable. We need to change the batteries in all of the PRC-77s before we go out," I added, and hurried back to Operations.

In Operations, Broyles was changing the batteries in Lee's and Tweed's radios. He had already changed the one in his. MSG Sorenson was changing the battery in another radio. I found Williams nearly asleep by the AN/VRC-47.

"Williams, go get some sleep. Starling will hold down the fort for a while," I told him, as I changed the battery in the portable and put a new one in my ruck.

"Okay, Sarge. I'm wasted," Williams told me in a flat tone.

"Rick," I said, turning to Starling. "Go make sure that the lights are off in all of the tents after you start the generator. Start the batteries charging after that, and lastly turn on the radios and do a commo check with me and the others when we leave camp. Keep an eye on the batteries, and don't allow them to over charge. They'll get hot as they charge," I reminded him.

"Right, Sarge," he acknowledged. "Did you eat?" he asked.

"I'll eat when I have time. Thanks for asking, though," I told him.

"You ready to do this dead-eye?" Tweed asked, from behind me.

"No, but let's go anyway," I told him, as we left the tent together.

It was after 0630 before we left camp for the shore of the river. The party included the Major, both Team medics, Tweed and me. Captain Paribetra, his medical personnel, and two Platoons of Rangers followed us. I noticed in passing that one of them was 2nd Platoon.

It was only a short trip to the shore below the embankment. The Rangers spread out as our security element while the rest of us examined the bodies.

I noticed very quickly that there wasn't any smell coming from the bodies yet, or any flies. I looked over at Tweed, and he just shrugged. Sergeants Fleming and Taggert along with the Ranger medical personnel examined the bodies while Tweed and I started a count of them, and checked rank insignia.

There were 97 bodies scattered along the shore of the Salween. The majority showed no sign of what had caused their death. All had weapons and a variety of explosives. There were a number of RPG as well. Tweed and I stopped to talk at the far end of the column.

"Just like in Cambodia," was the first thing Tweed said very quietly. "Did you see any officers?" he asked next.

"I saw three lieutenants, and six sergeants of various ranks," I told him.

"Yea, that matches with my count. There was no Company Commander or First Sergeant with them," Tweed commented.

"Or any Political Officers either," I said. "They have special insignia on their uniforms."

"That's curious," Tweed remarked.

"We should backtrack and see where they crossed the river. Maybe the rest are on the other side. Also, there have to be vehicles. Look at their boots. If they marched this far they would be very worn. These men's boots are nearly new," I told him, as we moved to rejoin the others.

"What count did you get?" the Major asked.

"Ninety-seven total, including three lieutenants, and six sergeants of various ranks, but no Company Commander, First Sergeant, or Political Officers," Tweed told him.

"That matches with what Captain Tamusarit reported," the Major said, as SFC Fleming approached.

"Any conclusions, Doc?" the Major asked.

"It's the strangest thing that I've ever seen, sir," SFC Fleming said. "There are a few bodies with visible wounds that could have caused their deaths, eventually anyway, and a few that were blown up by the mortar rounds that we fired, but for the majority of these people, I can find no visible cause of death. It's like they suddenly just ceased to function. Like some mechanical toy that ran out of energy," Fleming told us, perplexed.

"Could we take one back to do an autopsy on?" Fleming asked next.

"Do you think it would do any good, Doc?" the Major asked.

"With what little equipment that we have, probably not, sir, but I thought that I should ask," Fleming told us.

"It wouldn't do any good," I said very quietly, but Fleming, Captain Paribetra and the Major all turned to look at me.

"Don't stop there, Baker," the Major told me.

"They never figured out what killed that Battalion of NVA in Cambodia. It was very similar to this," I told them.

"So are you saying that the Amulets had something to do with this?" Captain Paribetra asked.

"Yes sir. That's the short answer," Tweed said to back me up.

"Okay," the Major agreed, but looked very tired, and I wondered how much sleep he had gotten last night, or if he had gotten any. "What's our next move, then?"

"We are going to have to cremate the bodies. They haven't started to stink or draw flies yet for some reason, but that won't last plus there are a lot of them," Doc Fleming told the Major while looking down the long line of bodies.

"Before we can do that, we must remove all of the weapons, explosives and other military gear. We don't need anything going off in the cremation fires," Captain Paribetra added, quickly.

"We should backtrack on their trail to see where the rest of their unit might be, and where they forded the river. None of them appeared to have gotten very wet," Tweed told the Major.

"All right, we'll do all of that. Captain, who are your best trackers?" the Major asked.

"I have several out here with us. Who do you want to send with them, sir?" Captain Paribetra asked.

"I'll go with them, sir," I volunteered.

"All right," the Major agreed, somewhat reluctantly. "We'll need to send at least a platoon to back them up. Who would you recommend, Captain?"

"I'll send the 2nd Platoon. They have worked with Sergeant Baker before, and they have some excellent trackers," the Captain told the Major. "Also their Lieutenant speaks excellent English."

"Right. We'll get them started in a few minutes. First though, we are going to need some vehicles out here to carry all of these weapons and other items back to camp. We are also going to need more help to remove the weapons and arrange the bodies for cremation. Finally, you and I are going to need to talk with the village headman about more firewood for the cremations," the Major told all of us, seeming to have gotten his second or maybe third wind.

Tweed was on the radio talking to Operations about vehicles, and Captain Paribetra was on his radio arranging for more personnel while I moved over to where the2nd Platoon's Lieutenant was to talk to him.

"Morning, sir," I said after saluting. "It looks like we will be on a mission together again."

"A mission?" he asked.

"Yes, Captain Paribetra will be here in a minute to brief you on the mission."

Captain Paribetra arrived shortly and briefed the Lieutenant before joining the Major in his jeep to visit the village headman. The other vehicles had arrived along with another platoon of Rangers by the time we were ready to move out.

The trackers moved out first, ahead of the rest of us. I followed behind them with one of the Squad Leaders, who spoke good Thai, that the Lieutenant had assigned me to, and two of the men from his squad. The rest of the Platoon followed in a staggered formation fifteen meters behind us.

The trail along the river wasn't difficult to follow, but it still took time. Nearly a hundred men leave quite a lot of foot prints, especially in the dark. At the ford it became more difficult. There were no foot prints in the water, and any clouding caused by their passage had long since cleared. Our trackers were very knowledgeable, and had found some pieces of bamboo along the way to test the depth of the water in the river, and they soon located the ford.

Fording the river also took time, as only a small group was allowed to cross at one time while the others covered them from both banks. The trackers started out again after half of the men had crossed the river. The ground on this side of the river was much rockier, especially when we moved away from the river. Our trackers were truly men of great experience, and managed to pick up the smallest detail to follow the trail. I definitely appreciated their expertise, for I would not have been able to do it.

We had moved some distance from the river and up into the steep rocky mountainside when my amulet went cold all of a sudden.

"Stop the trackers," I whispered to the Squad Leader in Thai. He instantly hissed at them in something other than Hmong, and we all stopped and eased down to the ground. The two men with us had signaled the rest of the Platoon to stop. The Lieutenant quickly moved up to see what was wrong.

"What is wrong?" he whispered in English.

"My amulet suddenly turned cold," I told him. "That means that there is danger ahead."

"What kind of danger?" he asked.

"I don't know. It doesn't tell me that, but we should be very careful, and perhaps just send one man with me to see what it is," I told him.