The
Father of all Rats
(A
Vietnam, Dilemma, 1971)
Vietnam, life was cruel, for the rat population on
Cam Ranh Bay, at Alpha Dump. Tons of ammunition were kept partially underground
with a mound atop. Scarcely did we ever open the iron doors to that enclosure,
save it needed to be ventilated, and cleaned, and inspected every so often,
usually every three to five months, thereabouts. And to be frank, I counted
days as they slipped by closer and closer to that deadlines, and checked the
duty roster to see if I was on this unfortunate duty assignment, of cleaning it
out; it was a four man job.
Sergeant Crusher, his real name I
forgot, but he looked like the Wrestler they called The Crusher, in the 1960s,
who I went to see him once at the Minnesota St.
Paul, Armory, wrestle, he was a crowd pleaser.
Matter of fact Sergeant Crusher and I
once got into it once, it was a harsh fight. Anyhow he was tasked to oversee
that the job got done, and I, being a Corporal, at the time, was his second in
command, and we had two Privates, all tasked to do this, duty, one that no one,
wished to do.
“We have five thousand tons of ammo in
this storage vault (more
liken to an enclosure, the size of an Olympic swimming pool) and believe me not, hundreds of rats!”
He told us straight out, as we stood
inches away from the locked doors, two large doors.
“There is no diminutive way rats can
escape once inside this enclosure, it is a steel-walled prison inside there for
the most part, and the few ventilators that are here and there, are protected
with firm wire-mesh. Although some of the smaller rats chew their way in but
never leave; the ventilators are quite small themselves. The rats increase and
multiply over this long period. So they become imprisoned in this storage unit,
eat the wood crates, and so on, and then turn to cannibalism. And by the time
we do our inspection and inventory, the majority of the rats will be dead, yet
those that are left, the survivors, and
it will be a score of them, will be huge colleagues: as Darwin said: the
strongest and the fittest, and the most fiercest.”
Still standing by the doors, I could
hear the rats passing back and forth, going on like: squealing and crying. Then
as the sergeant put the key into the lock of the door, said abruptly:
“Woops, I forgot to mention, there is an
attached room to the ammo vault, additional and luckier rats will
have found their way into that room to steal food, we keep can rations there,
and they gnaw their teeth into the cans to the point they break their teeth,
you’ll notice tooth fragments everywhere. There will be a blood-splash all
about, and that is what we’ll have to clean up.
“Which reminds me, may I suggest you all
stand to one side, so the rats do not feel cornered when I open up the doors,
we don’t want them to think we are trying to trap them again, let them run,
they will be the father of all rats, and by measurement, some will be scaled at
twenty inches from the tip of their tail to the tip of their nose. Have no pity on them if they challenge you
during their escape. If you feel compelled to use your M-16, go ahead and do
so. If possible shoot once in the air, and then at them, and don’t shoot one
another in a frenzy.”
And when he opened the doors, we all
looked slowly toward that ominous blackness, in what was quite distinctly an
active rat-hive, and out thundered a cloud of dust, blackness, and blobs and
flashes of reddish-brown, to dark brown, to complete black rats,
it at first left us in hushes, aloft their rumbles, the voices hundreds
of feet running every-which-way, Crusher stepped back in his usual casual way,
and gave no orders at all, save in low conversation with himself, we were all
compelled to shoot at them, regardless if or not they were about to challenge
us. And I know not why—it must have been spontaneous with all of us (except Crusher) —in that we wanted none to cling onto us, to
avoid being dragged away with the horde; our hands went for the trigger of the
rifles, and my hand gripped and pressed the trigger, on automatic. We were all deafened by the reverberation and
boom of the rifles and chaos of the unceasing rats’ diabolical thunder, it was
a bizarre sight. It was one audacious
orgy, of red-blood. They came out as if there had been a color-riot inside what
might be related to a bunker under fire, while others, more beat-up, whom were
like gigantic serpents, crowed out through the two doors, per near one on top
of another, bitten half to pieces, like ragdolls, the fur on their backs torn
off showing flesh.
Aye— (a
diabolical thought) I was for
a moment curious to see what might happen should one of us get caught by two or
three of those mongrel-giant rats, ere one could gain the safety of the trigger
of his rifle.
The stink, and dust filled my mouth and
strangled my lungs as if I had fallen into an outside latrine, and down into
its abyss. Piercing its way into my pores, under my skin, I was obfuscated,
confused, by all this onslaught.
Thereafter, one of the privates laid down
in the grass and had a fit; poor private! He looked the sickest, bleakest
creature I had ever seen, and when he gained his senses, he was so miserable,
helpless there was no point in him assisting us. Thus, us three, started our
tasks, and told him to remain on watch outside: the expression his face was of
pain and he pressed his head with his one free hand uselessly about, ever
seeking to spot a rat with his M-16 hanging lose in his other hand, and failing
to find one, as the tropic darkness drew all around us… (to where I got a glimpse of the remarkable
sunset)
“Oh damn it, damn it” Sergeant Crusher
lamented. “How in heavens name are we going to get this done by midnight; just
one person like that can screw up a crew!”
In the hexes of chaos, I take great
delight in the little things, that being, rats cannot fire M-16s, but the
Vietcong, the enemy can. And that was for me foremost of concern, not rats or a
scandalized fellow soldier.
The gray clouds of the evening, the
light of the moon—all of it as I gazed upon it going out to sea, out into the
South China Sea (Cam Ranh
Bay is based within a peninsula, a cove of sorts with the sea next to it), there appeared an exquisite polished moon
overhead, I could see between the clouds the hollow of the smooth craters on
the moon, it looked like one large crater, its surfaced rippled outward joining
other craters. And all around me as I ventured inside and out of the bunker,
and bring out bags of debris to be burnt, one could hear fog gossip.
I noticed also, a sour grin on Sergeant
Crusher’s face, he was thinking of rice wine back on home base and a girl
waiting for him in his little hutch perhaps eating fried chicken, I knew she
liked it and he bought and brought it
for her on a regular bases, saying to me often, “You can get all you want from
her, or those like her, just bring fried chicken,” and he’d chuckle about it;
our base camp being several miles away Alpha Dump.
There was a certain harmony, into this
pallid warm night that rose, palpitating with a misty gray tinting into the atmosphere. I could see, barely see, shades of greenness
that passed as I gazed upon foliage all about, ethereal pea green, copper
green, gold green, orange green funny what the gray night and the light of the
stars and moon can do, all the greens were beyond description, delightfully
haunting. And the private was still searching for rats, stepping on smaller
reptiles, and jumping a mile high every time he did, hollering: “Oh! Come here! Look, look! A rat, look I got
a rat! No a lizard!”
The rats are smarter than lizards I
think, and the lizards being reptiles need more sun to make them move, and at
night, they don’t move all that quick, being cold blooded, they get their
energy from the sun, not necessarily protein, like mammals do from meat, and
the rats I do believe were frightened far into the thicket.
The reflection of the glimmering water,
with its glistening changeable blue dark gray like silkiness, on our way back along the shoreline of the
South China Sea, was dazzling; it was past midnight. The changeable colors made
for a wet pearl gleaming tint of light on the water. Everything in the sky
softly moving, sinking, as I listened from the back of a five ton truck,
hearing the wavy water, “Huh!” Sergeant Crusher muttered, “I’ll leave it to you
to make out the report, I’ll sign it and hand it in in the morning, I got wine
and chicken and a Vietnamese woman waiting for me Corporal, you don’t mind do
you?”
And then came my hush in the darkness,
and nod of my head, indicating a ‘yes,’ and the night was all night, and dark
was all dark, and the moon turned into a gibbous moon, and we came to revere,
he and I, and the private as we all leaned our forearms upon the wooden rail alongside
the top edge of the five ton, and wooden planks used as seating, we sat side by
side, capturing the silent and dark lilac dim sea at right angles.
My mind now has went back to the earlier
part of the day, that part that turns into night, I didn’t miss it, there had
been a beautiful a most remarkable sunset this evening, I do believe because of
the foreign winds that blow across the white sandy shores of the South China
Sea, the dust being driven up high into the air: winds that blow across; a perpetual wind that is; of blushful grays and greens, should I ever wish to paint
it on canvas in the future, it shall be but a little task. I am writing this,
at 1:00 a.m., on the back of a five ton truck, as I sit braced, wedged by
Crusher and the other private, the one who had the fit, he is driving the
truck, it is something to occupy his mind, Crusher said, which is good, while
all of us back here are in a dead still, me with a flashlight to take notes; I
shall use these notes to be expressed in a future text, I do trust.
No: 1027/ 10-12 & 13-2014
For Rosa who likes a good suspense story
