The Tunnel Rats (41 page)

Doc and Hammack fell silent, but Ramirez could still hear them breathing. The centipede stopped and its antennae twitched as if /

probing for vibrations in the air. 'Come on, lovely,' whispered Ramirez. He held the knife in his fist, point downwards. 'Come to Papa.'

The centipede's legs began to ripple again and the insect moved forward. It headed towards the wall and ran along it. Ramirez jabbed the knife at the middle of the insect and impaled it. The centipede reared up and tried to snap at his hand. Ramirez twisted the knife and it made a crunching sound. Still the centipede refused to die. Ramirez scraped it along the tunnel wall but it continued to thrash about. He held it down with the knife and squashed its head with the end of his flashlight, gently so that he wouldn't break the bulb. Green, milky fluid squirted from the insect's body and splashed along Ramirez's hand. Eventually it went still and Ramirez pulled his knife out. He flicked the dead insect out of the way. 'Okay,' he said. 'Let's go.'

Nick Wright sat with his legs down the hatchway, staring into the darkness. Around him insects clicked and whirred and he heard something slithering on the rocks behind him. There'd be snakes, he was sure of that. Snakes and spiders and God knows what else. He shuddered. His mouth had gone dry and he wanted to drink some of the water in his knapsack but knew that he should save it for later. He held the flashlight in both hands. It was made from black rubber and was long enough to hold three batteries. How long would three batteries last? he wondered. Six hours? Twelve?

A figure materialised in the gloom. It was Bamber. 'Okay?' Wright asked.

'Yeah, he knows what he's got to do,' said the FBI agent. He crouched down next to Wright and illuminated the map with his flashlight. 'The first part's a piece of cake,' he said. 'The tunnel runs pretty much north all the way. There'll be kinks and bends but nothing to worry us.'

Wright nodded. He switched on his own flashlight. Bamber's face shone a deathly white in the beam.

'I'll go first,' continued Bamber. 'Stay fairly close. You'll probably find that you don't need to have your flashlight on.'

'What about the goggles?'

'Let's see how you get on with the flashlight first,' said Bamber. 'You'll find the goggles uncomfortable if you wear them for more than an hour or so.' He gestuted at the hole. 'Do you wanna go down?'

Wright swallowed. His throat felt as if it had shrunk to half its normal size. 'Okay,' he said. He edjged forward and slid his legs into the hole, taking his weight on his arms. For a second his feet swung freely and then his toes scraped on the floor and he dropped down. He scraped his cheek against the side of the tunnel as he wriggled through.

Wright twisted his neck up so that he could see the square of light above his head. Bamber was looking down on him, smiling. Wright flashed him a thumbs-up and tried to grin. He ducked down and examined the tunnel. To the north, it ran off into the distance, then curved to the left. Wright could just about shuffle forwards in a crouch, his knees up against his chest, but it was painful and he knew he wouldn't be able to keep it up for long. He squatted back down. There wasn't enough room to walk bent double, and his only option was to crawl.

'Okay, Nick?' called Bamber.

'Yeah,' replied Wright. He moved back, making room for Bamber to come down. He bumped against something soft. It was a green kitbag, with 'USMC stencilled on it in white letters. 'There's some stuff down here. It looks like they left it.'

Bamber's feet dropped through the hole. The FBI agent's toes scraped against the side, kicking down a small avalanche of dirt, then he lowered himself down and squatted, facing Wright. The beam of Bamber's flashlight was shining up under his chin and it gave him a ghostly appearance, his eyes transformed into black pits in a stark white face. He reached up to grab hold of the cover.

'Leave it,' said Wright, quickly. Too quickly, he realised. He could hear the panic in his own voice.

'Nick, we're going to be almost two miles away from here,' said Bamber. 'Open or closed, it's not going to make any difference.'

'Humour me,' said Wright.

More grains of soil tumbled down from the hatchway. Wright shone his flashlight along the sides of the tunnel. He patted the tunnel wall with the flat of his hand. The earth was hard, like concrete, reddish in colour.

'It's solid,' said Bamber. 'It's been like this for twenty-five years, it's not going to collapse now.'

Wright rested the back of his head against the clay. 'I know,' he said. He took deep breaths. The air was hot and sticky and it felt as if he had to drag in each lungful. He looked up at the hole and the stars behind. They were maybe four feet underground. Just about the depth a coffin would be. He tried to block the image out of his mind but it kept returning: a black coffin, lowered into the ground, a group of mourners standing on artificial grass as a robed priest muttered Latin, then a handful of wet earth thrown down, thudding against the polished walnut. Wright standing next to his mother, holding her hand and listening to her cry, squeezing her fingers to let her know that he was there, but getting no reaction from her.

'Nick?' Wright snapped back to reality. 'What?'

'Time to go.'

Wright nodded.

Bamber shuffled around and crawled forward on his hands and knees. The beam of his flashlight danced crazily, throwing eerie shadows against the tunnel walls. Wright tried to clear his throat but almost choked, and he began coughing, the noise echoing around the confined space. Bamber was almost fifteen feet away and the light from his flashlight was already fading. Wright crawled after him, his eyes fixed on the soles of Bamber's training shoes.

Ty amirez emerged into the chamber and stood up, arching his J-V spine and exhaling deeply. He was drenched and his hair and skin glistened. The chamber was almost twenty paces long and ten wide and about twice the height of a man. Hammack crawled 298 STEPHEN LEATHER out behind him. He too was soaked to the skin. He stood up and surveyed the room with Ramirez. There were reed mats on the floor, and on the far end of the chamber a sheet that had once been white was pinned to the wall. At the opposite end an old projector sat on a wooden table, covered in cobwebs and dust.

'Wonder what the last feature was?' said Ramirez.

'Probably .4 Thousand And One Ways To Kill The White Devil; said Doc as he crawled into the chamber. He ran his hand over his face, wiping away the moisture thaj^clung to his skin, then took off his rucksack and shook it. It too was dripping wet. He took a swig from one of his canteens, spat, then drank deeply. He wiped his mouth and offered his canteen to Ramirez.

There was a flurry of movement above their heads and dozens of small black shapes whizzed by, spinning and curving through the air. All three men ducked instinctively.

'What the . . .' said Hammack.

'Bats,' said Doc. 'They're harmless.'

The bats flew around the chamber, their sonic radar allowing them to whiz by the men so closely that they could feel the draught from their wings, then almost as one they flew off down a side tunnel to the left of the makeshift movie screen.

Ramirez handed the canteen back to Doc. Doc had taken a Marlboro pack and his Zippo lighter from a small plastic bag and he lit up.

Ramirez shook his head. 'Can't see why a doctor smokes,' he said.

Doc exhaled and grinned at Ramirez. 'This from a man who snorts heroin?'

'Recreational use, Doc,' said Ramirez.

Hammack was walking around the perimeter of the chamber. Three tunnels led off the room: the one they'd come through, the one the bats had flown down, and another, midway along the wall. In the far corner, to the right of the screen, was a jagged hole in the floor. Hammack went over to it. The hole was about three feet deep and at the bottom were sharpened bamboo spears, pointing up. 'Damn near lost my foot to that thing,' said Hammack.

'Yeah, well, you should know they always put punji traps in THE TUNNEL RATS 299 the corners,' said Ramirez. 'That's where you hide when you're scared of the dark.'

Hammack sneered. 'Hell, I weren't ever scared of the dark,' he said.

'That's right,' said Ramirez. 'When you closed your eyes and your mouth you were damn near invisible.'

Hammack laughed throatily. He popped a fresh piece of chewing gum into his mouth and went over to the tunnel the bats had flown into. He knelt down and looked inside. There were fragments of metal embedded in the red clay. Hammack pulled one out and held it in the palm of his hand. Doc peered over Hammack's shoulder.

'Max was lucky,' said Hammack, probing the metal with his finger. 'Got down just in time. Another second and it would have killed him.'

'Shouldn't have gone in without probing for tripwires first,' said Ramirez. 'It was an obvious place.'

'Easy enough to say after the event, Sergio,' said Doc.

'Come on, Doc. He was panicking, he wanted to get out and he took the wrong tunnel. If you hadn't heard the click, if you hadn't shouted . . .'

'Yeah, well, I did and he got away with a backful of shrapnel,' said Doc, crushing his cigarette with his heel. 'Come on, let's go.' He slipped his rucksack on. 'Bernie, are you okay going point for a while?'

'Sure,' said Hammack.

'I can do it,' said Ramirez defensively.

Doc shook his head. 'You've been in front for two hours, Sergio. You need a rest. You take the rear.'

Ramirez looked for a moment as if he was going to argue, but Doc's eyes hardened and Ramirez nodded. Hammack went over to the hole in the middle of the wall. He pointed his flashlight into the darkness, ran the beam over the walls and ceiling, and crawled in. Doc and Ramirez followed.

N ick Wright had no idea how deep he was. The tunnel had been sloping downwards for some time, a gradual incline 300 STEPHEN LEATHER but a definite one. He wondered how much earth was above his head. If there was a collapse, he'd never be able to claw his way to the surface, of that he was sure. The tunnel sides seemed to be pressing in on him, and the roof seemed to be lower than it had been in the first section. Occasionally his back would bang against it and there'd be a small shower of red dirt. The tunnel had zigzagged left and right until he'd lost all sense of direction, though Bamber had insisted that they were still heading north. Wright wondered what they'd do if the way ahead proved to be blocked. The tunnel was so narrow that he doubted he'd be able to turn around, they'd have to shuffle backwards for upwards of three hundred metres to a small chamber which had apparently been a resting place for VC on their way to the main tunnel complex. The thought brought on feelings of panic and Wright tried to think of relaxing images: trees, fields, beaches. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine he was out in the open, that above his head was clear blue sky and not unyielding clay.

It was bad enough fighting the claustrophobia. Wright couldn't imagine what it must have been like for the Tunnel Rats, knowing that the enemy was waiting for them somewhere underground, an enemy with guns and knives, hiding in the darkness.

His hands and knees were sore and his back and neck ached, and the rough surface kept scuffing and scratching his skin. Gritty dust constantly worked its way into the cuts and abrasions on his hands, stinging and burning.

He opened his eyes. Bamber was ten feet or so in front of him, crawling with slow, regular movements. Wright tried to follow the FBI agent's rhythm, right arm and right leg moving together, then left arm and left leg. It produced a rolling motion that would have been soothing if it wasn't for the friction on his palms and knees.

His shoulders banged against the concrete-hard walls. He'd never be able to dig his way out if anything went wrong. He pictured himself clawing at the impenetrable clay, his fingers bleeding, his nails breaking, screaming for help with no one able to hear him. Wright's chest began to pound. He was underground, he was surrounded by the earth, he was buried deep below the THE TUNNEL RATS 301 ground and if the roof were to collapse he'd die with his mouth full of soil and clay with no one to help him. He shook his head. Nothing was going to go wrong, he told himself. The tunnels had been there for decades, there was no reason for them to start collapsing now. He took deep breaths, willing the panic to subside.

His hand squashed against something soft and mushy and he jerked it back. He shone his flashlight on to his palm. There were pieces of dead insect on it. Something long and thin with dozens of legs. Wright flinched. His head banged against the roof of the tunnel and he yelped. He frantically wiped his hand on the wall, trying to get the mess off his skin. There was another, longer, piece of centipede on the floor, its legs sticking lifelessly up into the air.

'What's wrong?' asked Bamber. He'd stopped and was looking over his shoulder.

'I put my hand on a centipede,' said Wright. He rubbed his hand on his shirt.

'Did it bite you?'

'I think it was dead already.'

'You okay?'

'I've been better.'

Bamber nodded. 'We're almost at the main complex,' he said. 'Then we go down to the second level.'

Wright nodded. He took deep breaths, fighting to stay calm, knowing that if he did panic there was nowhere to go. He couldn't turn around, and the FBI agent blocked the way forward. He had never felt so trapped and helpless in his life.

Doc leaned back against the wall of the chamber and sighed. 'I'm too old for this,' he said.

'We're all too old for this,' agreed Hammack. He unwrapped a stick of gum and put it in his mouth. He offered the pack to Doc and Ramirez but both men shook their heads.

Doc flipped his Zippo open and lit a cigarette. He looked around.

The chamber they were in was conical, like a concrete teepee, with two tunnel entrances. It was big enough to hold four people and Doc knew it had been constructed as an air-raid shelter for Viet Cong cadres. The conical structure was virtually indestructible, even by a direct hit from a 750-pound bomb dropped by a B-52. The shape of the structure amplified sound from above ground so that the cadres would be able to hear the planes long before they arrived over the tunnel complex.