Red Sky at Dawning

It was almost dawn.

The night had been dark, as dark as the inside of a deep cave, with nothing but the strange chirps and growls to keep him company.

Ever since he'd been separated from the rest of his patrol, Staff Sergeant Willis Kirk had lain huddled in a shallow hole he'd dug in the dank jungle floor. The Viet Cong unit had hit them almost as soon as they left the landing zone, but too long after the choppers had gotten too far away to come back and extract them. When the first RPG rounds exploded near them, Willis had ducked to his right into the thick undergrowth; like he'd been taught in patrol training. The rest of the patrol had, unfortunately, ducked the other way. Ducking and weaving through the brush, Willis had lost contact, and the radio was with Sergeant Clark Lanning, the patrol leader. Although Clark was a grade junior to Willis, he had ten months of patrol experience, and in the Recon Unit, the more experienced soldier always commanded.

Night had fallen soon after the attack, and Willis worried about stumbling around in the jungle, so he'd made himself a place to sleep; a shallow depression hollowed out with his knife and lined with dry brush; under a towering tree whose branches started some twenty feet up the trunk. No worry about snakes dropping on him from that height, and he had the thick trunk to his back if anyone tried to sneak up on him.

It was as comfortable as the makeshift racks he'd had to make in training, but he hadn't slept. Something about the jungle at night made that impossible. Maybe it was the darkness; total inky blackness so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face; or the sounds that the creatures of the jungle made; chirps, tweets, whistles, and growls all night long. The jungle only got quiet right after a fire fight, as the creatures adjusted to the alien sounds of men trying to kill each other. Then again, it might have been the stories that the guys told in the fire base canteen when they were sitting around between patrols trying to drink away the memories of the hardships they faced and the danger each time they 'crossed the wire.' Stories of strange creatures that lived deep in the dark recesses of the triple canopy jungle they had to patrol, looking for VC and North Vietnamese infiltrators, arms caches, and the occasional VC prisoner.

The stories, of course, were just that; tales made up over beer to pass the time and to mess with the minds of newcomers. All night long, he kept telling himself that - they were just stories. But, the sounds kept coming.

He shivered in the hollowed out depression all night as if he'd been cold; despite the tropical temperatures beneath the towering trees. No matter how he tried to convince himself that the only thing he had to fear was Charlie, the nickname the guys gave the VC, stumbling across his position, his mind kept conjuring up images of mythical beasts with slavering maws crouching in the darkness waiting to pounce.

Glancing down at the green luminous dial of his watch, he noted that it was five minutes to three. The sky would start to lighten soon and the light filtering through the gaps in the foliage would enable him to find his way back to the predetermined assembly point to await rescue.

Looking up, he saw that he'd been correct in his assumption; the spaces in the foliage were already lighter. But, instead of the slate gray he'd expected, the sky looked pink with traces of orange. Must be the pollution from a B-52 strike somewhere in the distance, he thought to himself. The smoke from the bomb blasts, mixed with the dirt they kicked up, would cause the sky to be other than blue. He remembered that from his high school science classes.

As he watched the pink darkened; shading toward a light red. He remembered something else from his high school classes; the literature teacher, Miss Grunhilde, who loved to quote from the books she red. One of her favorites was, "Red sky at dawning, sailor take warning." He didn't remember why that was so, and he couldn't remember the rest of the quote. He tried to push it from his mind; he needed to concentrate on getting out of this jungle and back to the fire base for a hot shower and chow.

He hadn't heard any sounds to indicate that the VC were anywhere near him; only the growls of the jungle creatures. The growls that were getting louder. He thought they should have been getting quiet now that the night feeding time was over. And, just as he thought that, the jungle went quiet; as quiet as a graveyard at midnight. No more chirps, tweets, or growls. Just the whispering sound of something moving slowly through the bush. Whatever it was, it seemed to be getting closer.

Then, he heard a breathing sound; a deep, raspy breath that seemed to come from deep within some large chest. It came closer.

Suddenly, the breathing sound stopped. Now, it was completely quiet. Nothing moved; not a blade of grass or a whisper of a breeze. He stared in the direction from which he'd last heard the sound. The saw-bladed elephant grass was still. Then, it parted; slowly, ever so slowly; and, a head emerged.

His heart thudded in his chest, and his mind froze. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He tried to convince himself that he was hallucinating; his mind playing tricks on him after a night alone in the jungle; but, as the creature neared and crouched, ready to pounce, he could smell the rank odor of its breath. Two yellow eyes pierced through him, and the two large fangs were dripping saliva. He could see the muscles tense beneath the tawny fur.

He could not move, but his mind started, in his last moment; damn, he thought, they weren't just made up stories after all.