Platoon
script used with coutesey of Daily ScriptPLATOON
FADE IN:
A QUOTATION AGAINST A BLACK SCREEN:
'REJOICE, O YOUNG MAN, IN THY YOUTH ...'
The sound now of a C-130 air cargo plane roaring over us and we cut sharply to:
EXT.AIRSTRIP - BASE CAMP - VIETNAM - DAY
As the C-130 coasts to a stop, the hatch rotating down on a hot, dusty lifeless airstrip somewhere in Vietnam. Nothing seems to live or move in the midday sun.
TITLES RUN
A DOZEN NEW RECRUITS step off the plane, unloading their duffel bags, looking around like only the new can look around, their hair regulation-clipped, crisp, new green fatigues fitting them like cardboard.
CHRIS TAYLOR is just another one of them - as he turns into a tight closeup, to look at a motorized cart pulling up alongside ... He's about 21. Newmeat. His face, unburned yet by the sun, is tense, bewildered, innocent, eyes searching for the truth.
They fall now on a heap of BODY BAGS in the back of the cart. Two soldiers begin loading them onto the plane. Flies - hundreds of flies - buzz around them, the only cue to their contents.
GARDNER (next to Chris, Southern accent) That what I think it is?
SOLDIER 1 (a look) I guess so ...
An uncomfortable look between them.
SERGENT Okay, let's go ...
As they move out, Chris' eyes moving with the body bags being loaded onto the plane. Moving over now to a motley HALF DOZEN VETERANS bypassing them on their way to the plane. They look happy. Very happy, chatting it up.
They pass the newboys - and they shake their heads, their eyes full of an almost mocking pity.
VETERANS Well I'll be dipped in shit - new meat! Sorry bout that boys - 'sin loi' buddy ... you gonna love the Nam, man, for-fucking-ever.
Chris looking at them. They pass, except for the last man who walks slower than the rest, a slight limp. His eyes fall on Chris.
They're frightening eyes, starved, hollow, sunken deep in his face, black and dangerous. The clammy pallor of malaria clings to him as he looks at Chris through decayed black teeth. Then the sun flares out on him and he's past. And Chris looks back. Disturbed. It's as if the man was not real. For a moment there. As if he were a ghost.
Chris walking, duffel bag on the shoulder, looks up at the lollipop sun burning a hole through the sky. A rushing SOUND now. Of frightening intensity, an effect combining the blast of an airplane with the roar of a lion as we hardcut to:
EXT. JUNGLE - SOMEWHERE IN VIETNAM - DAY
The sun matches the intensity of the previous shot as we move down into thick green jungle. We hear the sound of MEN coming, a lot of men. The thwack of a machete. Brush being bulled. We wait. They are getting close.
The CREDITS continue to run.
SUBTITLE reads: December 1967 - Bravo Company, 25th Infantry Division - Somewhere near the Cambodian Border.
A sweating white face comes into view. CHRIS - cutting point. Machete in one hand, whacking out a path for the platoon, M-16 in the other, he looks like he's on the verge of heat exhaustion. Breathing too hard, pacing himself all wrong, bumping into things, tripping, not quite falling, he looks pathetic here in the naturalness of the jungle. An urban transplant, slightly neurotic and getting more so.
His rucksack is coming apart as well, about 70 badly packed pounds banging noisily.
Behind him BARNES now comes, the Platoon Sergeant. Then the RTO, his radio man, humming lightly. Others are behind, the column snaking back deep into the brush.
We cut around some FACES of the Platoon - all to be seen later. Young faces, hard and dirty after weeks in the field, exhausted yet alert, fatigues filthy, slept-in, torn, personalized, hair way past regulation length, medals, bandanas. A jungle army. Boys.
Chris glancing down at his raw bleeding blisters. Transfers the machete to his other, slightly less blistered, hand. The kid cuts on - struggling but trying, on his last reserves of strength, smashing almost straight forward through brush, not even bothering to look ahead. He smells something, looks around, slows his pace, eyes working ... around to the base of a tree. He moves past it.
And as he does so, the camera from his POV comes around on a dead decomposing 10-day-old GOOK - eyes starting from its sockets, worms and flies feasting.
Chris draws his breath in, terrified. Barnes suddenly appears alongside, his hard humourless eyes looking annoyed from the gook to Chris.
BARNES What are you waiting for? He ain't gonna bite you. Move out.
Chris looks at him with pent-up hatred and crashes on.
EXT. PLATOON PC - DAY - MOVING
At the COMPANY PC, CAPTAIN HARRIS on the radio.
HARRIS Bravo Two, Six. What's the delay up there, move it out on point. We've got a link up at Phase Line Whiskey at One Eight Zero Zero, over.
EXT. PLATOON PC - DAY - MOVING -- MORNING
At the PLATOON PC, LIEUTENANT WOLFE sweats heavily as he speaks in his radio. He is also new to the field, a dark little feisty guy, about 24, very hairy, especially in the eyebrows, an intense get-ahead look.
LIEUTENANT WOLFE Two Bravo, Two move it out. Six says we're jamming 'em up back there. Over.
Barnes, upfront, turns to SAL, his radio man, under his breath.
BARNES Tell that dipshit to get fucked. Get that other freshmeat up here. Gardner.
As Barnes picks up his pace, irritated now at this reprimand from the CO - coming up on Chris, who is soaked now from head to foot in sweat, dizzy, feeling sick, about to vomit.
BARNES (CONT'D) What the hell's the matter with you Taylor! You a sorry ass motherfucker. Fall back.
He grabs Chris's machete out of his hand and bulls his way into the foliage, tearing it apart, setting a new pace.
Chris being bypassed by the column, their eyes on him. He is swatting at the red ants that are all over his neck.
GARDNER, another new recruit, fat, hustling up to replace him.
A big and black medic - DOC - comes over, gentle eyes and manner; with him is Sergeant ELIAS, concerned.
DOC You okay?
CHRIS Ants. I got ants on my neck ... (shaking them out)
DOC (helping him) Yeah, black ants are killers, you look sick man. You need a little salt. (reaching into his satchel)
Sergeant Elias, a handsome, graceful dark-haired Indian kid of 23, the squad sergeant, is taking items out of Chris' pack - air mattress, extra unnecessary clothing, extra canteens, grenades, gas mask, books.
ELIAS (shaking his head, amused) You're humping way too much, troop, don't need half this shit. I'll haul it for you but next time you check it out with me okay?
Chris nodding, grateful, panting.
The men passing, watching. Chris sorry about this, trying to keep up face.
BUNNY, a young 18 year-old with an angel's face, is pissing in the dead gook's face.
KING passes, glances at him.
KING You're a sick mother Bunny.
Bunny laughing about it.
Chris standing there one moment, fighting for his breath, suddenly passes out, going over with his 70 pound rucksack, hitting the ground with a loud bang.
ELIAS (concerned) Hold it up.
On Chris - his eyes opening. He seems all right.
CHRIS (trying to get up) I'm okay ... I'm okay.
Chris crumples backwards. Elias helps him.
EXT. COMPANY PERIMETER #1 - DUSK
The COMPANY - about 100 men who seem insignificant amid the size of the surrounding jungle - is digging into a perimeter of some 100-yard radius. A RESUPPLY CHOPPER lifts off in a flurry of blowing leaves. Bare-chested soldiers chop down trees, clear fields of fire, set out claymores, fill sandbags, chow down. Little fires snake up against the greying red horizon.
EXT. COMPANY PERIMETER 31 - DOC'S POSITION - DUSK
We cut close on a pair of grungy feet - the staple of the infantry - moving up to DOC, the Medic, bandaging them for FU SHENG, a Hawaiin kid.
EXT. COMPANY PERIMETER #1 - RHAH'S POSITION - DUSK
Rhah sets his tripflare. Crawford, with him, putting out a claymore.
EXT. COMPANY PERIMETER #1 - RODRIGUEZ - POSITION - DUSK
Back in the perimeter RODRIGUEZ sets his M-60 in the newly dug foxhole. SAL, next to him, is shaving in his helmet.
EXT. COMPANY PERIMETER #1 - KING'S POSITION - DUSK
KING looks like a king. A lion of a black man but with a sleepy, gentle face, not to be roused, is painfully trying to scrawl a letter home with the pencil held awkwardly, mouthing the words. FRANCIS, a young baby-faced black with long lashes and soft eyes, peeks over his shoulder, shaking his head.
FRANCIS Shit, King, it ain't d-e-r-e man, it's d-e-a-r, and Sara don't have no two r's in it, fool. Shame on you.
King shrugs, a sleepy stoned voice.
KING Don't matter, she knows what it means ... an she don't read too good nohow ...
EXT. COMPANY PERIMETER #1 - COMPANY PC - DUSK
Sgt. Elias washes himself, attentive to his body, slender and well-muscled, and extremely handsome youth. Of Indian blood, with long black hair, generous smile, wide facial bone structure, gypsy eyes, and the cleanest white teeth, he could be a young Greek god. He is given somewhat to panache, a silver wristband on his arm, a bandana of black parachute silk hanging from his neck, his fatigues tightened down at the ankle, he pulls his pants down, checking for crotch rot, applying talcum powder to the area, his buttocks facing us.
LERNER, a white kid, 19, from Florida, stopping to admire the frontal view.
LERNER Mumm, any time sweetheart.
ELIAS Lerner, you'd choke to death on it.
EXT. COMPANY PERIMETER #1 - COMPANY PC - DUSK
At the COMPANY COMMAND POST a beehive of activity with its four radios, personnel, some Vietnamese scouts milling around. CAPTAIN HARRIS is running down a field map with his THREE LIEUTENANTS. Harris, a broad-shouldered fine-looking military specimen with the requisite Southern accent and football coach mannerism, is directing his remark to 2nd Platoon's LT.WOLFE, who looks a little nervous.
CAPTAIN HARRIS Sky Six reports a fresh company of NVA moving across from Cambodia to this blue line. (points to position) We got a good chance to light 'em up tonight. All platoons will set squad-size ambushes before full dark. Lt. Wolfe (glances at him) You 'bush in this area near that ol' Buddhist temple we passed on the hump in. Lt. Hawkins, you take this area in the rubber plantation...
LIEUTENANT WOLFE (eager) No problem sir ...
EXT. PLATOON PERIMETER #1 - CHRIS' FOXHOLE - DUSK
Elsewhere, Chris scrapes out a foxhole, his shirt off, bandana around his head, the work hot and heavy.
TEX is out there setting the claymore as BIG HAROLD and JUNIOR start breaking down their C's.
JUNIOR (a whining high voice) Hey Big Harold, gimme your peaches for the fruitcake man.
BIG HAROLD (laughes loudly) Fuck you bitch.
JUNIOR C'mon man, didn't I do you right that time I give you the turkey loaf for the ham and lima beans shit.
BIG HAROLD Tricky bitch, reason you gimme dat turkey loaf is nobody else can eat that shit 'cept me so don't start your game playing with me Junior.
They're both black, Junior with huge goggle eyes and a face of pimples and pockmarks, his teeth yellowed and decayed, some of them missing. Harold is about twice his size, about 250 pounds, a baby huey concentrating real hard on preparing his stove to eat with.
JUNIOR Youse a pig man. I hope Manny get dat laundry gig for' you do.
BIG HAROLD De fool think he's gonna get it but he ain't known for his thinking.
JUNIOR He's a fool alright but you a bigger fool. Hey, whiteboy, watcha waiting for - dat hole ain't gonna dig itself ...
Chris looks up, continues working, as Junior chuckles.
JUNIOR (CONT'D) Hey Taylor, you don't know it but I saved your ass today. I killed a shit-eating dog. (laughing)
BIG HAROLD (getting up) That reminds me, I gotta take a shit.
JUNIOR You gonna wipe your ass dis time?
BIG HAROLD Yeah if you let me have your shirt.
CHRIS (VOICE OVER, as he digs) Somebody once wrote Hell is the impossibility of Reason. That's what this place feels like. I hate it already and it's only been a week. Some goddamn week, grandma ... (checking his raw blisters) ... the hardest thing I think I've ever done is to go on point, 3 times this week - I don't even know what I'm doing. A gook could be standing 3 feet in front of me and I wouldn't know it, I'm so tired. We get up at 5 a.m., hump all day, camp around 4 or 5 p.m., dig foxhole, eat, then put out an all-night ambush or a 3-man listening post in the jungle. It's scary cause nobody tells me how to do anything cause I'm new and nobody cares about the new guys, they don't even want to know your name. The unwritten rule is a new guy's life isn't worth as much cause he hasn't put his time in yet - and they say if you're gonna get killed in the Nam it's better to get it in the first few weeks, the logic being: you don't suffer that much. I can believe that ... If you're lucky you get to stay in the perimeter at night and then you pull a 3-hour guard shift, so maybe you sleep 3-4 hours a night, but you don't really sleep ... I don't think I can keep this up for a year, grandma - I think I've made a big mistake coming here ...
As he speaks, we cut around to various shots of the platoon members on the perimeter - shaving, eating, cooking, playing, etc ...
EXT. PLATOON PC - NIGHT
Towards the end of this voice over, we cut to Sgt. BARNES moving towards the PLATOON PC. A powerful face, a quiet, angry fixed stare, a thick trimmed moustache that helps conceal a network of plastic surgery grafts and scars. The distortion from the jaw up the left side of his face to his forehead, punctuated by a severe indentation above the left eye where a bullet once penetrated his skull.
Walking with him is Sgt. O'NEILL as they join WOLFE, Sgts. ELIAS and WARREN at the PLATOON PC where they're huddled over maps. Warren is a black, thin, tall, paranoid man with untrusting eyes, silent and bitter.
BARNES (to all, almost pleased about it) We got boo-coo movement. 3rd Battalion just got hit 15 kliks north of here. (the MEN react with wary silence)
O'NEILL (eager to elaborate) Yeah, they had claymores strung up in the trees, blew a whole fucking platoon to pieces. BAAD SHIT.
Barnes inflects his next words at Wolfe, who is worried.
BARNES Yeah, they got two Lieutenants and a Captain.
WOLFE Jesus.
Elias quiet. Barnes studying the map.
WOLFE (CONT'D) (to Barnes) Who do you want on ambush, Sergeant?
Barnes doesn't bother acknowledging the question, barely glancing at the Lieutenant, to him a necessary evil. Everybody knows who's really in charge of the Platoon. Barnes flicks his gaze to Elias.
BARNES Elias - you take your squad and I'll take Tex and Francis from your squad. (to Warren) We move out in two-zero mikes. (concluding)
ELIAS I thought it was O'Neill's turn tonight.
They all look at each other. O'Neill spits in the dust, a freckled, short red head with a hard worried face, a lifer, 30 going on 60.
O'NEILL Shit! Morehouse and Sal are short. Fu Sheng's going on R&R, you don't want to send their asses out on an ambush. You got the fresh meat Elias.
ELIAS (to Barnes) They don't know shit Barnes, and chances are we gonna run into something.
O'NEILL So what am I going to do! Get one of my guys zapped so some fuckface fresh from the World can get his beauty fucking sleep!
ELIAS Hey O'Neill why don't you cool it, you don't have to be a prick everyday of your life, you know.
O'NEILL Fuck you Elias.
BARNES You get your men ready Elias ...
Concluding the debate, no further argument, Barnes rises. The meeting's closed. Lt. Wolfe hasn't said a word, looking as Elias departs, without a word.
O'NEILL (watching him) Fucking guy's got 3 years in and he thinks he's Cochise or something ...
His resentment directed partly at the way in which Elias carries himself, the natural sense of grace - and the dignity it bestows.
CUT TO:
EXT. PLATOON PERIMETER #1 - SQUAD ASSEMBLY POINT - DUSK
Later. On the very edge of the perimeter, darkness coming down fast, the men in the ambush patrol rustle into their packs, all of them bitching.
Tex, carrying the M-60, looks up at the glowering sky.
TEX Shit, looks like rain. All night too. Gonna grow mushrooms in your bad-ass crotch Junior.
JUNIOR (under his breath) Goddamn ain't no justice round here, you break your ass for de white man ... gonna get our act together, do some rappin' wid de brothers, change things ...
CRAWFORD What's O'Neill have a nose up the lieutenant's ass already, how come we always get ambush.
FRANCIS Politics, man, politics. We always getting fucked around here.
Chris is scared, nervous with his last-minute equipment adjustments, his pack obviously overweight for a night mission as he hauls it up.
Gardner, the other new boy, is jovial in contrast, his wallet extended towards Chris.
GARDNER Hey Chris, I show you a picture of Lucy Jean?
CHRIS (not to be bothered) No ...
Gardner shows him his girl. She's real dog u-g-l-y, and what makes it worse is Gardner's put the standard photo of Raquel Welch alongside it, tits and all. But he misses the irony of it.
GARDNER (admiring) Yeah she's the one all right ... that's Lucy Jean. She's a-waiting for me.
CHRIS (nodding) Yeah she's real pretty, you're lucky ...
Gardner puts it away. Elias appears alongside them, checking their packs out, takes out Chris's poncho liner and other items. He carries a modified M-16 with a short barrel and a collapsible stock.
ELIAS (to both boys) Don't need this or this ... you're doing okay. Just stick close to Tex, do what he does. (calling out to Tex) Tex you got Junior and Taylor here on your position.
Tex is a sour Texas Ranger type, chews tobacco, spits.
TEX Damn, 'Lias this gun's boss. Put Taylor someplace else.
Chris feels the words like lashes on him.
ELIAS You got Taylor ... (to Gardner) ... Gardner you go with me (to Chris and Gardner) 'Case somethin' happens to you, you get separated or lost don't yell out okay. Sit tight. We'll get to you.
His eyes. Chris watching them. A smile in them. Elias moves off, a quality to the man that Chris admires. A natural sense of leadership.
BARNES Okay, let's move out.
As he follows King, on point, out the perimeter. A single file.
EXT. THE AMBUSH NIGHT (RAIN)
Night is coming down. The tone of the jungle sounds has subtly shifted - mellower, more sinuous and certainly scarier.
The file stops. King, an experienced point man, listens.
Chris - carrying Tex's linked ammo - looks around, tense. Behind him is Gardner, trying to smile, starts to whisper something ('Hey Taylor ...') when he's abruptly shushed.
The file moves on. Gardner's pack rattling a little too loud. A weird rush of cold wind now rattles the trees and the MONSOON comes. A hard slanting rain, sudden, tropic.
EXT. RUINS - JUNGLE - NIGHT (RAIN)
A piece of an old Buddhist temple, under a sulky moonlight now in a state of decay, the jungle surging to engulf it.
The Men are setting up quickly and relatively quietly in the ruins - alongside a miniscule trail. The rain is coming down harder than ever.
Chris and Tex setting out their claymore mines, raveling back their detonating cords to their position, drenched. In the far distance, an ILLUMINATION ROUND brightens the sky for a brief moment. Various ad lib curses and directions are lost in the sound of the rain.
EXT. AMBUSH - BARNES' POSITION - NIGHT (RAIN)
At the Ambush CP, Ace whipsers into his radio. A soft hissing sound.
EXT. AMBUSH - CHRIS'S POSITION - NIGHT (RAIN)
Later. Close on Chris being shaken awake.
TEX Taylor, you're on.
CHRIS (groggy) Uh hunh.
The rain continuing to pelt them. Tex hands him an infrared scope.
TEX (suspicious) You sure you know how to work the claymore?
CHRIS (offended) Sure.
Tex curls up as best he can in his poncho to sleep.
TEX Okay ... don't catch no zzz's on me buddy or I'll sling your motherfucking ass ... You hear me?
CHRIS (grits his teeth) Yeah. (looking at his watch) Hey Tex - you're ten minutes fast.
TEX Sin Loi. ('tough luck', closes his teeth)
Chris lets it go, scans the jungle and trail with the scope. The POV is greasy and blurred. He puts it aside.
Suddenly a series of resonant SNORES crack through the jungle. Chris starts, then sees it's from JUNIOR lying out there, spreadeagled in the rain. Chris prods him.
CHRIS Junior!
JUNIOR Unh? ... Unh.
CHRIS Shaddup! You're snoring ... Shhh.
Bending low into his eardrum. Junior never wakes, rolls over with a growl. Silence.
CUT TO:
EXT. CHRIS' POSITION - NIGHT (RAIN)
Later. A pool of muddy water has formed, in which a pair of buttocks sit. Move up to Chris still on duty, looking at his watch, drawn, drenched, pathetic, rainwater coursing down his face.
CHRIS (V.O.) (continuing his letter) ... 'Course Mom and Dad didn't want me to come, they wanted me to be just like them - respectable, hard- working, making $200 a week, a little house, a family. They drove me crazy with their goddamn world, grandma, you know Mom, I don't want to be a white boy on Wall Street, I don't want my whole life to be predetermined by them.
A large RIPPING SOUND as the wind blows down a big tree branch onto the jungle floor. He starts, peering out. Nothing. He looks at his watch again.
CHRIS (V.O.) (CONT'D) ... I guess I have always been sheltered and special, I just want to be anonymous. Like everybody else. Do my share for my country. Live up to what Grandpa did in the First War and Dad the Second. I know this is going to be the war of my generation. Well here I am - anonymous all right, with guys nobody really cares about - they come from the end of the line, most of 'em, small towns you never heard of - Pulaski, Tennessee, Brandon, Mississippi, Pork Bend, Utah, Wampum, Pennsylvania. Two years' high school's about it, maybe if they're lucky a job waiting for 'em back in a factory, but most of 'em got nothing, they're poor, they're the unwanted of our society, yet they're fighting for our society and our freedom and what we call America, they're the bottom of the barrel - and they know it, maybe that's why they call themselves 'grunts' cause a 'grunt' can take it, can take anything. They're the backbone of this country, grandma, the best I've ever seen, the heart and soul - I've found it finally, way down here in the mud - maybe from down here I can start up again and be something I can be proud of, without having to fake it, maybe ... I can see something I don't yet see, learn something I don't yet know ... I miss you, I miss you very much, tell Mom I miss her too - Chris.
He moves towards Junior, shakes him, but Junior seems to be out of this world.
CHRIS (CONT'D) Wake up!
Junior opens one dead eye.
CHRIS (CONT'D) It's your shift, man ...
Junior scowls, swears, looks around for his rifle in the mud.
Chris crawls back to his position, curling himself up in his soaked poncho, teeth chattering from the cold, rain splattering over him. A long beat. He sighs, the sigh kicking off the next image.
EXT. CHRIS' POSITION - NIGHT
Chris jerks awake - very suddenly, very frightened. THE RAIN HAS STOPPED. The jungle sounds are loud. Cicadas, night animals, water dripping hypnotically from leaf to leaf. And the whirr of a million mosquitoes out after the rains, chewing at Chris' face. He looks around, startled.
Tex is asleep. Junior is asleep. What happened? He looks at his watch. The mosquitoes are eating him alive. He buries his head in his green towel which he wears around his neck, but he can't see. A beat. He moves again, miserable from the bites. Another beat. Then suddenly the sounds of the jungle shift - some of the animals dropping out. A different tone. A piece of wood is stepped on, a rustle of bush ...
Chris sees something, lifts an edge of the towel to peek out.
A shoadow of a figure is frozen there in front of him about 15 yards. It looks like a man. But it doesn't move. At all. It listens.
Chris, his heart in his mouth, tries to peer through it. It's a bush. It has to be. No human being could stand that still. His heartbeats are up. The moments take forever. But deep down - somewhere in his psyche - he knows who it is.
The figure now shifts, ever so slightly - and moves. It IS a human being. Oh my God!
Chris looks around. Tex seems like a mile away. Why doesn't anyone fire! He casts a desperate look at his rifle, at his grenades encrusted with mud, but in spite of all his training, he is frozen with indecision and fear at the sight of his enemy.
The figure seems to whisper something back, then turns and comes down the trail. Now a second and third figure appear behind him - all in helmets and packs. All coming right past Chris' position. Ten yards. Nine.
Chris is rigid with terror. Stark eyes. Pleading with Tex to wake up, but out of reach. He is about to have an anxiety attack, his heartbeats so far up he is sure they will hear him.
The first figure is now directly in front of Chris on the trail, looking left and right. A rattle of his equipment, a creak of leather. A smell. The man's face now catches the moonlight and his eyes come around on Chris.
Oriental eyes. Looking right at him. Startled. Chris staring back, hypnotized. It all happens very fast. The figure murmurs something in Vietnamese. A warning. He swivels.
A flash of muzzle fire. A raking cough of automatic fire. A grenade explosion.
Chris is hurled to the ground, helmet bouncing off, scattered, confused, jarred. All hell breaks loose around him with NOISE and SHOUTS.
Tex, kissing the ground, is yelling at him.
TEX THE CLAYMORE! GET THOSE FUCKERS!
Chris, not knowing what he's doing, is fumbling with the claymore handles, presses them. INSERT: They won't give. He tries again and again to the squeeze the life out of them. Tex is screaming at him.
TEX (CONT'D) THE SAFETY! TAKE THE SAFETY OFF YOU ...
Lunges over and grabs the handle from Chris. Clicks the safeties off and blows them.
Three EXPLOSIONS rip out into the night - and one of the ENEMY is caught in a brief instant looking like an X-ray, his body lifted and swirling in the air, then enveloped in swirls of smoke.
Chris, trying to keep up, grabs his M-16, lays out a stream of fire. The sound all around him is deafening.
EXT. GARDNER'S POSITION - NIGHT
Gardner, freaking out, stands crouched, confused, tries to run, collapses.
EXT. O'NEILL'S POSITION - NIGHT
O'Neill throws a grenade, wild.
EXT. CHRIS' POSITION - NIGHT
An explosion. Chris hits the deck.
Tex is now on the M-60 machine gun, yelling at Junior who is cringing on the ground.
TEX Feed me!
He lays out red tracer bullets like laser beams, then suddenly reels back, whiplashed, screaming. A grenade explosion rocks them.
TEX (CONT'D) AAAAAGHHH! MY ARM! MY ARM!
His hand and wrist are gone, his face in the dirt. Junior is fumbling around, trying to stay down and help him at the same time.
JUNIOR (grabbing Tex's gun) DOC! GET UP HERE! TEX IS HIT!
Chris, looking out to his front, has no clue what's going on. Except the fire is slacking. Relayed shouts of 'Medic! Medic!' Other SHOUTS.
SHOUTS HOLD IT UP! HOLD IT UP!
The firing has ceased. A silence, punctuated by occasional shouts and fast moments, has enveloped once more the cemetery. Doc crashes through the bush, kneels over Tex, who continues to howl in deep pain.
TEX (freaked out) MY ARM! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!
DOC Easy Tex easy boy!
Trying to sound calm but his voice is on the edge, examinging the mutilation with a pen flashlight, he whips out his morphine in a big hypodermic.
VOICE (next position) Doc over here! Gardner's hit.
DOC 'Right there.
As he slips the morphine into Tex's arm.
TEX (muttering at Chris) ... godamn! Godamn! DUMB FUCKER, DUMB FUCKER!
Chris watching, suddenly feels himself dizzy, instinctively runs his hands over the back of his neck. Feels the warm blood there. A moan comes from his lips. Junior looks at him.
JUNIOR Oh shit, Doc he's hit too.
CHRIS (weakly) I'm hit ...
Barnes and Big Harold come hustling up.
Doc finishes tourniquetting Tex, cradles Chris onto the earth, his flashlight probing the wound. Tex in background continues to thrash and moan.
Chris waits, tensely for the verdict, his eyes big with fear on Doc, who takes out his morphine.
JUNIOR (to Barnes, pointing at Chris) That dumb fuck didn't blow his claymore!
Chris hearing this. Barnes looks at him.
DOC (to Chris) ... it's a scratch, nothing to worry about.
CHRIS (suspicious) Doc ... tell me the truth, don't lie to me.
The needle goes in. Tex lets out this strange keening moan that sets everyone's teeth on edge.
JUNIOR (to Barnes) He let'em walk right up on us. He was sleeping on his shift.
CHRIS (muttering weakly) I was not ... it was your ...
DOC (leaving, to Harold and Junior) Self-preservation's the first law of nature. Gotta learn how to work your shit Taylor. Watch me, don't let'em go into shock.
Tex's moans are maddening and scary. Barnes suddenly clamps his hand over Tex's mouth shutting him up and from way down deep in his throat, chokes out the words.
BARNES Shut up! Shut up - and TAKE IT! TAKE THE PAIN!
Tex's eyes roll wildly, uncomprehending. Doc and Big Harold looking at Barnes, wondering. Tex is suddenly silent, shocked. Barnes stands, an icy glare, goes. Junior scrambles over to Tex's side. Doc runs off.
Big Harold cradles Chris, his big black hands like a mother, reassuring him.
BIG HAROLD You gonna be okay Taylor, okay, don't you start worrying now.
Chris looking up at him, eyes blinking slowly, dazed already by the morphine. He's very scared.
CHRIS Do you ... do you know you're gonna die ... Big Harold? ... do you feel like ... like ... everything's gonna be fine and then ...
BIG HAROLD Bullshit man, you gettin outta the field, man. Three hots a day, white sheets, dem pretty white nurses give you blowjobs too you pay em enough, I heard tell bout dem white bitches. Better save yo strength Taylor.
JUNIOR (muttering darkly) Don babytalk him man. Cocksucker fell asleep. They walked right up on us, he don do shit.
BIG HAROLD Shaddup bitch.
Chris is gettin woozier, feeling he is dying but starting to grin, not caring about it anymore. Yet he is nowhere close to dying.
CHRIS It's not ... so bad ... dying. How long .. it ...
EXT. TRAIL - RUINS - POSITION #1 - NIGHT
Barnes stands over a moaning, ripped up ENEMY SOLDIER. FIRES his M-16 point blank into the head. The Soldier bucks and dies, quivering.
EXT. TRAIL - RUINS - POSITION #2 - NIGHT
ELIAS, checking out a blood trail some distance away, shifts on the shot, looks back.
EXT. TRAIL - RUINS - POSITION #3 - NIGHT
FRANCES, MANNY, BUNNY and KING are huddled over another mangled enemy corpse.
BUNNY (stripping the corpse) That's no NVA man. That's a chink - look at 'em, the cocksucker's six and a half feet tall. Look at his gear - good as ours.
FRANCIS Shit I blew my claymore right in one dude's face and I seen him walking around afterwards.
MANNY What we fighting here, vampires?
EXT. TRAIL - RUINS - POSITION #1 - NIGHT
Elias comes up to Barnes swiftly, indicating the blood trail leading off into the bush.
ELIAS Blood trail just keeps going and going but no body.
BARNES How the hell did he get away?
ELIAS Fuckers returned fire soon as we lit 'em up. Hard core fuckin' NVA. They got their shit together.
RING (coming up to Barnes) Sarge - Doc wants you. There's a problem with the new man.
Elias and Barnes go with King. Past Chris and Tex who are ambulatory and bandaged, being helped along. As Barnes passes, the men look at him, everybody quickly senses something is wrong.
EXT. GARDNER'S POSITION - NIGHT
At one of the positions Doc is working feverishly to knock the life back into Gardner who lies there, his shirt stripped off on his cottage cheese belly. A huge sucking chest wound. He's dying. You know it because he knows it. The eyes do the talking, numb, terrorized yet strangely detached, accepting, not protesting or concerned any longer.
Most of the ambush has assembled and is watching, Chris moving in to see. Doc is mumbling to him, low key.
DOC Chopper's on the way Gardner, hang in there, you gonna be okay ...
But Gardner seems unconcerned. Things are going on in his head - who knows what. And in his eyes there are big tears rolling. Then a morphine smile. A sort of goofy Gardner smile, maybe thinking about Lucy Jean, who knows. He's dead.
BARNES (to all) Take a good look at this lump o'shit ... (motions to Gardner's body) Rmember what it looks like, all of you. You fuck up in a firefight and I guaran-goddamn-tee you, a trip out of the bush - IN A BODYBAG. Out here, assholes, you keep your shit wired tight at ALL times ... (glares directly at Chris) and that goes for you, shit for brains. You don't SLEEP ON NO FUCKIN' AMBUSH. Next sonofabitch I catch coppin' z's in the bush I'm personally gonna take an interest in seeing him suffer - I SHIT YOU NOT ...
He thumps Chris lightly but menacingly in his chestbone and moves on.
CHRIS (drowsy) I didn't fall asleep, Sergeant, Junior ...
BUNNY (pissed, cuts in, shoves him hard) Shut your face chicken shit! You in big trouble boy!
O'NEILL Excuses are like assholes, Taylor - everybody got one.
ELIAS Knock it off! We got two men need attention here. Police up your extra ammo and frags, don't leave nothing for the dinks. Hoyt, Junior, carry Gardner.
JUNIOR (muttering) Let de white boy carry his ass, he this dude that got him fucked up. Who'd be hauling his ass if that was a brother laying there?
Elias follows Barnes out of earshot of the others.
ELIAS Man'd be alive if he'd had a few more days to learn something.
Barnes, registering it, just keeps on walking.
EXT. BASE CAMP - DAY (WEEK LATER)
Chris is driven up in a jeep to his Company PC - marked 'Bravo PC' on a C-ration box. It's midday on a hot lazy afternoon, few people out in the 102 degree sun.
Chris' Company is on the outskirts of the base camp, their barracks regulation wood, canvas, and fine mesh screening, red dust everywhere, bunkers down on the perimeter, reams of barbed wire and concertina, a sand-bagged MESS HALL and CHAPEL, 81 mm mortar pits, observation towers, recoiless rifles, 50-caliber machine guns.
Chris gets out of the jeep, stiff-necked, a bandage around it, still in some pain. The first man he intersects is KING, carrying crates of beer.
KING Hey Taylor, what's in the breeze?
In King's mild tone Chris tries to read his standing in the platoon.
CHRIS Okay - got light duty, three days.
KING Shit, too bad we in base camp anyway.
CHRIS What you got there - beers?
KING Yeah, just stole me some from the Top's supply but he's stealing it from us anyway. (sees somebody coming) Chucks are coming. You better 'didi' man.
Too late. Sgt. O'NEILL, the redhead lifer accompanied by Spec 4 SANDERSON, a big handsome blond kid, not too bright in the face, both slightly drunk, come around a corner, beer cans in hand. O'Neill sees Chris immediately.
O'NEILL Hey Taylor - you back?
CHRIS (pause) Uh, looks like it?
SANDERSON (spotting King's beer) Where'd you get that beer King?
KING (a funny look) I found it ...
SANDERSON You found it? ... Bullshit! You going on report. Gimmee that shit.
O'NEILL Awright, come here both of you. You too Taylor (wags his finger) Got a little special job for you.
They advance toward him reluctantly.
CHRIS I got light duty, Sarge. Doctor said to take it easy couple days.
O'NEILL (laughes) ... ain't that tough shit now.
EXT. THE OUTHOUSE - DAY
A wooden cabin with some half-dozen seats built over half barrels cut from empty oil drums. A guy is in there, pulling up his pants.
Chris, King and Crawford, a California blond with a handsome honeyed look, are sweeating heavily as they roll the barrels out from under the outhouse, the smell of human waste strong. A hot midday emptiness, nobody around except the flies.
KING (pissed) ... Motherfuckah, motherfuckah, I'm too short to be dealing with this shit! They keep fucking with us man, no letup ...
CRAWFORD (equally pissed) Politics man, fuckin' politics. That O'Neill man got his nose so far up Top's ass he gotta be Pinocchio...
KING Forty-two days man and a wakeup and I'm a gone motherfucker. Back to de WORLD. (dreaming in his eyes)
CRAWFORD Broke a 100. Got 92 to go. April 17. DEROS man. California this summer. Waves are good they tell me, surfin's gonna be good ...
KING March man in Tennessee, sniff the pines ... sniff that crossmounted pussy walkin' down by the river. What you got Taylor? (a snicker) Let's see three hundred and WHAT?
CHRIS ... 32. 332 days.
CRAWFORD (groans) Oh man! Sorry bout that. I can't even remember when I was 332. You gotta count backwards like you got 40 days in - think positive.
KING (to Chris) How the fuck you get over here man, you look like you educated ...
CHRIS I volunteered.
KING You WHAT? Say 'gain.
CHRIS Yeah, I dropped out of college and told 'em I wanted infantry, combat, and Nam ...
He grins, finding their reactions funny. It's also the first time we've seen Chris crack a smile.
CRAWFORD You volunteered for this shit man?
KING You a crazy fucker, givin' up college man.
King has long sleepy eyelids and cat's eyes, a large pink tongue and big white-edged cotton picker's nails - a lazy, gentle nature, content with the world.
CHRIS Didn't make much sense. Wasn't learning anything ... (hesitates) And why should just the poor kids go to the war - and the college kids get away with it.
King and Crawford share a smile.
KING What we got here a crusader?
CRAWFORD Sounds like it.
They pause, wipe the sweat off. King lighting up a half-smoked joint, hitting a few puffs, eyes shooting around, making sure he's not spotted, passing it to Crawford.
KING Sheeit, gotta be rich in the first place to think like dat. Everybody know the poor always being fucked by the rich. Always have, always will.
Noticing Chris is having trouble with his neck, picking at his bandage.
KING (CONT'D) You okay man? Neck botherin' you?
CHRIS Nah ...
KING Here have some of this. Won't feel a thing.
Chris looking at the joint, a little apprehensive. He's never smoked.
CHRIS No, thanks ...
KING Go on, whatcha gotta lose, yo' here now ...
CRAWFORD Kills the smell of shit anyway.
The joint proferred. Chris waits a beat, shrugs, takes it, smokes.
KING Suck it in. Hold it ... That's it. Now let it out.
Chris blows it out.
CHRIS Don't feel it.
King and Crawford chuckle, go on rolling the cans.
KING Dat's what they all say.
CUT TO:
EXT. OUTHOUSE - LATER - DAY
King, Crawford and Chris pour kerosene over the cans at a secure distance from the outhouse.
King lights it. The cans pop and start crackling. A line of burning barrels. Rings of dirty black smoke rise against a soft blue sky.
They watch, stoned. Chris turns to both of them.
CHRIS ... you know that night we got hit ... I ... (ashamed)
KING Fuck it, don't mean nothing, no such thing here as a coward, done your best man, next time y'do better.
CRAWFORD History, man, history.
Chris surprised at their attitude. The joint suddenly hits him, a look in his face, eyes looking around different. Over at King.
CHRIS (deadpans) I think I'm starting to feel that stuff ...
Crawford laughes.
KING (laughes) Yo getting there Taylor. You be cool now and I'll introduce you 'round to some of the 'heads'.
CHRIS What are the heads?
KING (laughes, walks away with Crawford) Later ...
Chris alone, breathes deep, feeling the full effect.
EXT. BASE CAMP - NIGHT
A relief against the long harsh, hot day. We see lights on all over the camp, sounds of music, laughter from the barracks.
INT. UNDERWORLD HUTCH - NIGHT
King leads Chris down to a specially constructed cellar-like hutch dug deep into the ground on an isolated edge of the battalion perimeter. Ammo casing and canvas are piled over it, and sandbags surround it. From the outside very little sound can be heard as they go down through a trap door made of ammo crates. Past a lookout (Adams) pulling security, hitting a joint but alert. King motions to him, it's cool.
Inside is another world. Chris looking around amazed. It's like a private cabaret for the 'heads' who are there cooling out. Boxes of food from the States, beers, whiskey bottles, crates functioning as tables, hammocks hanging from poles, electric fans, tape decks, paraphenalia.
The boys are all dressed up in their Saturday night rags. The clothes are clean, the headbands, the medallions are out, anything distinctive and individualistic. On the tapedeck, Jefferson Airplane's 'Go Ask Alice'.
To Chris it is a new world. And RHAH, the resident head, sitting there in all his finery puffing a huge burning red bowl in a three foot long Montagnard pipe, seems to be the lord of final judgement in this smoky underworld.
Across his naked chest, birds and snakes are tatooed. Around his neck a black skull and white ivory cross side by side. On his knuckles 'Love' and 'Hate' are tattooed. In his eyes, a dancing Satanic fire. A poor rural Southern white, in his grizzled late 20's, he could be a Biker King. Giving Chris the once-over.
RHAH Whatcha doing in the underworld Taylor?
KING (smiling) This ain't Taylor. Taylor been shot. This man Chris been resurrected ...
Chris wondering what he's doing here. His eyes roving over LERNER, CRAWFORD, MANNY, FLASH, FRANCIS, HOYT, TUBBS, DOC, other from the Platoon, about 9 or 10 of them.
Rhah eyes him back, hands him the bowl.
RHAH You lame Taylor?
CHRIS What?
RHAH You lame or something?
KING (smiling) ... go ahead on, smoke it man.
Chris understands, takes the bowl. Hesitates. Then smokes it. The contact fumes are almost enough to knock him out. He starts coughing. They're all laughing.
RHAH Your shit's in the wind troop. Baaaaah!
Lerner replies, his tongue hanging out in parody.
LERNER And Baaaaaaa! back on you.
RHAH (looking at Lerner with distaste) If you're gonna do it man, 'least do it right.
Building up to it, his eyes shaking with conviction at the whole insanity of the world, he neighs with all the venom he can muster.
RHAH (CONT'D) Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
They all laugh and applaud. King smoking from the pipe passing it back to Chris who takes another hit, doesn't cough this time, looking around, wondering about these guys.
LERNER I didn't like it.
RHAH Bah, you're a child, Lerner. Rhah don't waste time on you.
They go on ad-libbing with each other, teasing Doc, who's fairly straight, saying he wants to go to med school in the fall. 'Be what?''A gynecologist, man.''What dat?' Francis suggests, 'Dats a pussy doctor, man - he's gonna be Doctor Feelgood, man!' They're all cracking up, finding every joke funny. As Chris finishes his hit on the pipe, looks up across the smoke, already dazed, surprised to see ELIAS suddenly there - leaning out of his sling in a far corner of the hooch. A Monkey is draped around his neck with silver bracelets, rings, a necklace - like a sensual little Egyptian whore, Elias playing with it, spaced out in a sleeveless vest, tiger pants. Dancing eyes on Chris, he swings out the hammock, comes over with the monkey.
Meanwhile Manny has broken into a high falsetto snatch of blues directed at Chris, joined by Big Harold and Francis, all of them clicking their hands.
MANNY & BIG HAROLD & DOC Oooh Chris, you look like you is high oh yeah, he looks like he is high Ooooh Chris, you know you gonna be that way all night oh yeah I think that you are ... Yeah! up now and up to par oh yeah.
Elias pulls out a Remington 870 shotgun, jacks it to the rear, points it at Chris.
ELIAS Put your mouth on that.
Chris does so slowly, a little worried. Elias takes a hit and blows it down the bore - 'shotgunning' it into Chris' lungs. Chris staggers back, coughing. Everybody laughes 'hey dude - you done had your ass blown away' etc ...
Elias smiles his big white-tooth smile.
ELIAS (CONT'D) First time?
CHRIS Yeah.
ELIAS Then the worm has definately turned for you man.
Chris puzzled by this expression.
ELIAS (CONT'D) (smiles) Feel good?
CHRIS (a sense of euphoria now) Yeah. No pain in my neck now. Feels good.
ELIAS Feelin' good's good enough.
As he sucks in a huge mass of smoke off the bowl. His eyes performing a funny little hop, skip and jump, as he holds it, his face turning red.
The monkey jabbers and jumps around on his neck, worried. Elias then blows the smoke out in its face, the monkey hating it.
The Group laughes.
ELIAS (CONT'D) Hey Crutcher. I hear you got a Dear John from your gal. Told you she wasn't getting 'nuff from you.
Lerner looks up, stoned out of his mind, wearing a ring in his ear.
LERNER Shit. Sold me out for some lame dude with a 4-F.
ELIAS What'd you say her name was again?
LERNER (recalling her image) Daisy Mae.
BIG HAROLD Hey look at Charlotte!
The monkey is sitting quietly stoned, its eyes blinking. Laughter off.
ELIAS Daisy Mae! What Daisy Mae look like Crutcher?
MANNY She look huge and got freckles on her ass.
LERNER She look beautiful.
FRANCIS How much she weigh man?
BIG HAROLD She braid her hair under her armpits, Crutcher.
FRANCIS (sarcastic) Daisy Mae what?
KING Daisy Mae Highway, that's what. (laughing) Well whatcha want, Lerner, your dick been limp for a year, 'cept when you're bopping your buddy Tony up there.
LERNER Fuck that.
ELIAS I fucked this chick in Hawaii man. Couple weeks ago ... Oooooh! Wow - outasight. Gracie Slick man, she looked like Gracie man, I shit you not. (remembering)
The look on his face ensnares all of them, except perhaps Rhah.
MANNY What happened man. What whorehouse you go to?
ELIAS No whorehouse man. On the beach.
FRANCIS Sure.
ELIAS Yeah, sure. She walked right by me. Long black hair, tits swinging. Ass like French bread. Legs don't end right.
LERNER (skeptical) You can plant that shit in Tennessee man, but it won't come up in Texas.
CRAWFORD So what she got, hair on her tits.
ELIAS I just stopped man. My heart's beating like a hardon right I got a hardon sticking through my pants, my bathing suit looks like a hutch ...
BIG HAROLD I know dat feeling ...
ELIAS So I'm thinking to myself - Elias you walk away from this, you gonna regret this the rest of your natural life. So I go after her, follow her down the beach. You know find out if she is what she is.
They're all hooked into this now.
KING And?
ELIAS Well she was picking up her kids.
MANNY Dat's dat.
ELIAS No, dat ain't dat.
FRANCIS Get outta here, she married ...
ELIAS Like two hogs in heat. Boy.
Their throats knotting ...
CHRIS (joining in) ... But what'd she do?
ELIAS What didn't she do. She fucked the living shit outta me, that's what she did!
CRAWFORD (sucking in air) Jesus!
ELIAS Couldn't get enuff ...
CHRIS But what'd she actually do?
ELIAS She was a crossbreed, Chinese and Polish.
BIG HAROLD What dat?
RHAH (finally hooked in) And living in Hawaii man?
ELIAS Yeah - and has blonde hair and almond-shaped eyes.
FRANCIS Hey man didn't you say she had black hair?
ELIAS She had blonde hair man. And long tan legs, in those leather sandals you know, with those thongs up to her knees, this musky oil on it ... mmmm smelled good when they were wrapped around my face ...
They groan, dreaming of Hawaii.
DOC Yeah!
CHRIS God!
BIG HAROLD Please, somebody hold my dick!
ELIAS (in afterthought) ... and a broken nose.
DOC Broken man?
ELIAS Yeah, otherwise she would've been too perfect, y'know what I mean ... some woman. Her name was ...
He forgets it. A grass blackout. Lerner urging him on.
LERNER Susan?
MANNY Tamara?
CHRIS Elizabeth?
Elias shaking his head, trying to remember.
KING Merle?
RHAH Merle? Jesus! ... Patty?
BIG HAROLD Inga?
CHRIS Jennifer?
HOYT Connie?
Elias snapping his fingers.
ELIAS Dawn! That was it!
CHRIS (repeating it) Dawn ...
King listening to the sound of it.
KING Dawn?
The others nodding, musing over it.
BIG HAROLD Yeah, Dawn ...
INT. THE BARRACKS - NIGHT
In comparison to the darkness of the hooch, a highly lit atmosphere, attracting bugs ... dusty gear lying around a disordered hooch, loud and finger-snapping COUNTRY WESTERN MUSIC playing from a tape deck, a well-known tune, circa 1967.
BUNNY, the 18 year-old angel face, totters drunk with a Colt-45 beer in hand, over to JUNIOR, the badass black kid with the zits, who just lies there on his cot sweating, doing nothing.
BUNNY (listening to the music) Listen to that shit, that's good shit!
JUNIOR (irritated as always) Fuck that redneck noise, dude. All dem chicks be rappin' how dey losin' der' ho's and how dey ain't got no bread for beer. Fuck dat honky shit. Got to get me some motown jams, dig it?
BUNNY (doesn't understand a word of it) Whaddaya talking shit for man. Hey Junior! Y'ever smoke any shit?
JUNIOR Das right dude. You be tryin' to string de black man out on dat shit and keep him DOWN. Time's be coming, my man, when de black man's gonna throw off that yoke.
BUNNY (lonely in his way for company) Say I can dig it. Smoke that shit everything kinda gets weird y'know? (hiccups, sits) Y'hear that story the gooks is putting chemicals in the grass so's we become 'pacifists' so's we don fight (to no one in particular) Where the hell's everybody, they'se gettin high that's what - bunch of hopheads, they think they special ...
JUNIOR (turns away, bored) Don you worry Bunny, youse a killer anyway.
BUNNY Yeah but I still like a piece of pussy once in a while - ain't nothing like a piece of pussy cept maybe the Indie 500.
JUNIOR Youse so fucked up man.
BUNNY Y'ever look at yoself in the mirror Junior, youse uglier than a dick on a dog man. (laughing)
JUNIOR Yeah, you had a piece of pussy on a plate in front of you, you'd probably kill it.
BUNNY Shit, I bet I been laid more'n you have.
JUNIOR Sure, you probably stick it in tween her knees and think youse there.
BUNNY Yeah?
JUNIOR Only way you'd get some pussy is your bitch dies and wills it to you - and then maybe.
Lt. WOLFE wanders down the aisle, beer in hand, slightly lonely, bypassing FU SHENG, the Hawaiin and TONY, a mustached hairy- browed Italian kid from Boston, who are playing some kind of dice game. They hardly acknowledge the Lieutenant who stops by RODRIGUEZ, the Mexican-American kid who is on his cot in his neatly arranged area writing a letter home with a pencil, forming his words with his mouth, as always minding his own business. Religious objects comprise his few decorations.
LIEUTENANT WOLFE (amiable) How you doing Rodriguez?
RODRIGUEZ Good sir.
WOLFE Need anything?
RODRIGUEZ No sir.
Wolfe winks at him, continues on to the POKER GAME going on in the center of the barracks, the main action. BARNES, Sgts.O'NEILL and WARREN, the quiet sullen black, SANDERSON and SAL play as ACE, the tiny radio kid, and MOREHOUSE look on; all of them drinking beer and bourbon chasers from a bottle.
WOLFE (to O'Neill) How's it going Red? (using his nickname)
O'NEILL Shit, cocksucker's got all the cards tonight.
WOLFE (to Barnes) Looks like you're doing all right Sergeant.
Barnes, raking in the chips, is the big winner, a light bead of sweat on his forehead and a somewhat glassy look to the eye the only indication he is drunk - his shirt peeled off revealing a muscular, scarred body.
BARNES Yeah, and I ain't even cheating yet.
SANDERSON (the big blond kid) Have some Kentucky windage Lieutenant. (passes him the bottle of bourbon)
Wolfe takes a nip.
BARNES Play Lieutenant?
WOLFE Nah, I wouldn't want to get raped by you guys ...
O'NEILL What are you saving up to be Lieutenant - Jewish?
Laughes. Wolfe forces a smile, glad to move on. There is a continual worried rodent air about him, an anxiety, a desire to fill the vacuum in his leadership with a false masculinity.
WOLFE Catch you men later. Enjoy yourselves.
As he goes, O'Neill shakes his head after him.
O'NEILL Sorry ass motherfucker ain't he. You think he gonna make it Barnes?
Barnes plays a card, glances, a minute movement of his head.
O'NEILL (CONT'D) Yeah that's what I figger. Some dudes you jes' look in their faces and you KNOW they just ain't gonna make it.
Barnes looks - with some irony - at O'Neill. The Country Western tune has reached a crescendo whine which now mixes into:
INT. UNDERWORLD HUTCH - NIGHT
Francis, the baby-faced black, and Manny, green shades covering his skinny face, lead with a high blues falsetto.
FRANCIS AND MANNY (singing) 'People say I'm the life of the party cause I tell a joke or two Although I may be laughing loud and hardy Deep inside I'm blue ...
The Hutch looks now like a Turkish bath with minimum visibility, the smoke fumes dense. They are all up dancing on their feet - King, Tubbs, Big Harold, Hoyt, Lerner, Crawford, Flash, Doc, Elias - a few light gestures with their hands above shoulder level, passing around the grass pipes while they shuffle, fingers clicking. The song - Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears" - accompanies them from a vintage tapedeck.
ALL '... Since you've left me, if you've seen me with another girl seeming like I'm having fun although she may be cute she's just a substitute because you're the permanent one ...'
King and Big Harold wave Chris into the Circle and he starts swaying with them, feeling as if he's being accepted into a new family.
Rhah watches it all, puffing away on his magic dragon pipe, the shadows dancing on the walls.
It looks like a Saturday night dance party. A yearning for tenderness, for feminity, for a moment of peace in this nightmare life. Their eyes closed, thinking of dance partners that can't be here tonight. Singing their souls out.
ALL (CONT'D) '... So take a good look at my face. You'll see the smile looks out of place. Look a little bit closer. It's easy to trace. The tracks of my tears...'
EXT. JUNGLE - NVA BUNKER COMPLEX - DAY
An overwhelming 103 degree heat. Chris is once more on point, a little better now but obviously struggling with a thick unyielding bamboo thicket that forces him forward in a caveman crouch. Napalm jelly is hanging from the trees in great canopies of spider webs, obliterating the sky.
CHRIS (V.O.) New Year's Day, 1968. Just another day. Staying alive. There's been a lot of movement neat the Cambodian border, regiments of NVA moving across. A lot of little firefights, ambushes, we drop a lot of bombs, then we walk through the napalm like ghosts in a landscape ...
Chris working his way over twisted, broken stumps, branches. On the back of his flak jacket he's written, 'If I die bury me upside down so the whole world can kiss my ass'.
BARNES Pssst!
The signal for silence. Chris freezes. Barnes edging up to him.
BARNES (CONT'D) (whispers) Bunker ...
CHRIS Where?
Doesn't see it. Following Barnes' imperceptible movement of his head.
The bunker, dug into the ground and camouflaged with brush, is staring right at him, not more than 20 feet away. Chris is a dead man if ...
Barnes, checking the terrain, signals radioman Hoyt.
Barnes edging up to the bunker, eyes everywhere. Chris following. The tension builds. They come up to the edge of it, peer in. Nothing.
Barnes walks around it, slips in from back. Chris covers him, other guys coming up now, making a small perimeter.
Chris now starts to see things he didn't see. Right in front of his nose - there is a trench from this bunker to another and another. There is now in his view a complex of bunkers and thatched hootches and lean-tos all blending into the forest. A ghost city ...
Elias and others fanning out now, careful ... whispered conversations in the wind.
Chris moves past a rope with freshly washed laundry stretching between two trees, clothes stirring in the wind. He looks up as King points out a treehouse, then looks down as Lerner whispers something and points - NVA rucksacks are laid out on the ground in an orderly platoon-sized pattern.
CUT TO:
INT. NVA BUNKER - TUNNEL POSITION - DAY
Elias goes down into a dangerous-looking TUNNEL, on a rope with a .45. Barnes watching him. We sense Elias loves the danger, smiling.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - COMPLEX - MAIN POSITION - DAY
Lt. Wolfe signals Manny and Chris out onto the two flanks.
INT. NVA TREEHOUSE - DAY
Rhah and King explore a treehouse. Rice stores. Rhah, an experienced soldier, seems tense, moves cautiously, expecting booby traps.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - WARREN'S POSITION - DAY
Sgt. Warren cautiously explores another bunker, probing a little tunnel in the bottom of it with a stick. Bunny, having a small frame, goes down into it, fearless.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - MANNY'S POSITION - DAY
Manny, the skinny black boy with the coloured beads, is out on flank - alone, smoking a cigarette, humming.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - CHRIS' POSITION - DAY
On the other flank, Chris, also alone, waits, listening to the sounds of the jungle. He too is smoking a cigarette. The eeriness is everywhere. Rays of morning light peeking through the cathedral dome of the jungle. Bird calls.
INT. NVA TUNNEL - DAY
Elias climbs deeper and deeper into the hole, a rope attached to his waist leading out to the surface, his flashlight now coming around on a shaftway demarcating a TUNNEL that seems to stretch for at least 100 yards. The light revealing cobwebs all along it, but tall enough for a small man.
EXT. CHRIS' POSITION - DAY
It's quiet, weird. Chris takes his pants down, squats. He thinks he hears something, tenses.
There is a soft rustling sound now. And as he focuses on it he realizes it is coming from very close to him. Something light and sinuous moving over the leaves. He looks down.
A bright yellow and orange-ringed krait viper is crawling right between his two legs. It stops, senses another life standing over it.
Chris frozen with dread.
The snake crawls on, pulling its long, long 15 foot body behind it.
On Chris, eyes dilated, slowly regaining his breath looking around everywhere now.
INT. NVA TUNNEL - DAY
Elias moving down the tunnel, fearless. We expect something any moment to come out and nail him but nothing does. He stops. His flashlight revealing a kitchen and an NVA hospital set up. A hammock swings as if someone just deserted it. In another hammock is a dead man. Elias advances cautiously.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - COMPLEX - SANDERSON POSITION - DAY
Spec 4 Sanderson, the big handsome blond kid, is moving through an abandoned bunker. With him is Sal, a tough street kid with an intense face, all whiskered. Sanderson noticing now a metal box of 50-caliber ammo, U.S. marking, half-buried in the ground.
SANDERSON Hey look at that.
He opens the case. Official-looking documents are inside, they glance through them, lighting cigarettes, the search over, successful, they relax.
SAL (a worried type) Leave it willya - it's gook shit.
SANDERSON Nah this stuff's important.
He puts the documents back in the ammo case, lifts it. It's the last thing he ever does.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - SANDERSON POSITION - DAY
The ensuing explosion shakes the ground, obliterating both boys, brances, smoke and dust flying out.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - CHRIS POSITION - DAY
Out on flank, Chris hits the ground, hugs it.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - COMPLEX - SANDERSON POSTION - DAY
Barnes runs up. Black smoke sweeping through the trees. Sal suddenly appears, stepping out of the smoke, stunned. The front of his body is soaked in blood from a thousand shrapnel holes, his clothes shredded, he stares at Barnes, dazed. Both his arms are gone and blood is geysering out like a water fountain. He crumbles - dead or dying.
BARNES Corpsman!
He runs over to Sal, gets a hold of his face in a vicelike grip, enraged, tries to yell some sense into him.
BARNES (CONT'D) (directly to Sal) Goddamit! Are you fucking kids ever gonna learn! Don't you understand how easy it is to die!
The Doc running up - one look tells us all we need to know.
DOC Holy Jesus!
EXT. NVA BUNKER COMPLEX - MAIN POSITION - DAY
Lt. Wolfe, shaken, is on the radio with Cpt. Harris, words garbled through the air, trying to describe a primal horror.
EXT. NVA BUNKER COMPLEX - SANDERSON POSITION - DAY
Barnes moving through the wreckage - sees severed limbs sticking in a sandbag.
EXT. NVA BUNKER COMPLEX - MAIN POSITION - DAY
Rhah crouches over a piece of leg tied into a hipbone and a rib.
EXT. NVA BUNKER COMPLEX - DAY
Elias coming out of the tunnel, filthied.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - MAIN POSITION - DAY
Elias coming abreast of Wolfe.
ELIAS Tell Six we need engineers here, this pos. is crawling with traps.
WOLFE They're on their way ... (consulting his map) There's a gook village half a klik downriver, Battalion wants us to move in and search it ASAP, something's going on ... where's Barnes?
INT. NVA BUNKER - SANDERSON POSITION - DAY
Barnes is still there in the wrecked bunker, squatting there staring as if his mind has disconnected for a moment. He reaches up, touches his scars. The look on his face suggests he is deeply wronged by this tragedy, that he is taking it very personally.
EXT. NVA BUNKER - MAIN POSITION - DAY
Chris watches him from outside the bunker, awed.
Barnes notices Chris watching him, takes a breath, stands.
BARNES You gonna sit there and play with yourself Taylor or you gonna be part of my war ... Awright, saddle up, let's go - Tubbs you got point.
The men moving into jungle formation, silently.
Chris walking over into line, stops for a moment - noticing a freshly-severed eyeball partially buried in dirt, staring up at him. He turns away, sickened.
EXT. NVA BUNKER COMPLEX - MAIN POSITION - DAY
O'NEILL Where's Manny?
WARREN Manny! ... Hey Buchanan.
There is no answer. The men in the platoon start to look at each other, sensing more trouble.
Elias heads into the bush after him. Barnes watches him go.
Francis, his friend, and Tubbs and King follow.
FRANCIS Hey man whatcha doing ... where you at? Get your black ass back in here!
EXT. NVA BUNKER COMPLEX - MANNY'S POSITION - DAY
Out on the flank position, where he once stood, Elias walks out, looks. The jungle is silent once again. Francis, Tubbs, King follow. The others - Barnes, Lt.Wolfe, Warren, Chris, Rhah ...
FRANCIS AND OTHERS (whispering loudly) Manny? ... Manny?
Their voices trailing off. Bird cries come back.
Elias combing the ground for clues ... nothing.
Chris looking on, can't believe it, none of them can, a collective chill running through the platoon.
EXT. JUNGLE - DAY
The Platoon moving downslope in the Jungle, their faces grim, quiet, deadly. King is on point.
CHRIS (V.O.) We had to get to the village before dark so we left Elias with some men to keep looking and to wait for the engineers ... But it was King who found him ... about 1000 yards downriver, not far from the village - It was the end of the mystery.
A moving shot approaching Manny. He's trussed with rope, arms behind his back. Throat cut, eyes startled open, mouth shaped in a scream of terror.
Barnes, the other men looking ... Chris. Barnes says it for everyone, 'The motherfuckers ...'
EXT. VILLAGE - TRAIL - DAY
They come up out of the jungle onto the side of a CART TRAIL, where a tiny village overlooks the river. The VILLAGE is poor, a series of thatched hutches made of C-ration cardboard and aluminum beer can sidings, faint whiffs of smoke coming from cook fires. Pigs and dogs wander about.
An OLD VILLAGER watches them pass from his tillable plot, smoking a cigarette, one leg wrapped around his hoe, resting, no expression.
CHRIS (V.O.) ... the village, which had stood for maybe a thousand years, didn't know we were coming that day. If they had they would have run ... Barnes was at the eye of our rage - and through him, our Captain Ahab - we would set things right again. That day we loved him ...
A pig loiters along the trail, rooting.
Bunny coming up on it with a smile.
BUNNY Hey pig, pig - come here, pig, pig.
The pig grunts. Bunny leveling his shotgun, fires point blank. A horrible squeal.
Chris, directly behind him, looks disgusted.
EXT. VILLAGE - DAY
Tony suddenly points, excited, calls to Barnes.
TONY There goes one!
Their POV - a young VILLAGER fleeing down the slope.
Barnes doesn't hesitate, nails him with a short volley of well- placed shots.
BARNES (to Tony) Check him out.
He turns back into the village.
EXT. VILLAGE - DAY
Troops fanning out over the village, some TWO DOZEN VILLAGERS scattering to collect their children, dogs barking.
SGTS.O'NEIL AND WARREN Get em out! Get em out!
EXT. VILLAGE TUNNEL - DAY
In another part of the village, Barnes hovers over a hole leading into some kind of tunnel.
BARNES Get out of there you fuckheads move! Move!
Fires a warning shot. Three VILLAGERS climbing out of the spider hole, arms raised, but not showing any emotion. Barnes turning to his radioman Hoyt and Big Harold accompanying.
BARNES (CONT'D) (to Harold) Put'em in the pig pen. (to Hoyt) There's more down there. Gimme your Willy Pete.
Hoyt, with reluctance in his eyes, hands over a specially shaped grenade.
Barnes stands over the hole, the grenade in hand.
The three VILLAGERS who just came out of the hole, yell from the distance, to others still in the tunnel, pleading with them to come out.
BARNES (CONT'D) FIRE IN THE HOLE!
Barnes throws the phosphorus in. A muted EXPLOSION. Then sizzling acidic fumes. Frying sounds. A hideous scream from somewhere deep in the hole.
Hoyt, watching, is sickened. Barnes businesslike.
The Villagers, in grief, howl and tear at their faces.
FU SHENG (hustling up to Barnes) Sarge, we found some shit!
Barnes going with him.
EXT. VILLAGE - OUTSIDE HUTCH - DAY
The sun is sittin there hot and high in the sky.
Chris, strangling in heat, a demented look on his face, staggers into a hutch with Francis.
INT. HUTCH - VILLAGE - DAY
Threadbare, poor, a typical Buddhist shrine in the corner, motes of light crisscross through the poor matting and c-ration sides.
Chris edges over, pries up a floorboard, flips it over, scared.
There's a tunnel inside. A long dark dangerous hole.
CHRIS La Dai! La Dai! GET THE FUCK OUTTA THERE!
FRANCIS Hey take it easy man. They're scared.
CHRIS They're scared? What about me! I'm sick of this shit man, I"m sick of this shit! They don't want us here! Who do you think they're fighting for! GET OUTTA THERE!
Francis doesn't recognize him in his rage. Bunny now coming in, followed by O'Neill, drawn by the shouting.
EXT. VILLAGE - WEAPONS CACHE - DAY
Barnes stares down at a WEAPONS CACHE buried cleverly underneath the ruce urns. Ace, Fu Sheng, Sgt.Warren, Lt.Wolfe, others, are digging it out. It's in white plastic wrappings - a load of AK- 47's, rockets, grenades, claymores, carbines, flares, NVA uniforms. A real find.
SGT. WARREN (to Barnes) ... and over here there's enough rice to feed a whole fuckin' regiment ...
Barnes walking with him over to an undercover rice silo being dug out by Tubbs and Junior. Barnes looks it over.
BARNES (to Warren) ... bring the honcho over here. (to Tubb and Junior) Burn it.
INT. HUTCH - VILLAGE - DAY
An Old Woman and her Son, a young man with one leg, throw up their hands, climbing out of the hole with stupid confused looks as Chris, shaking with his own sort of confusion and rage, cuffs them, hustling them out. The Young Man uses a pair of crutches for his blown-off limb, hobbling like a mangy three-legged dog.
BUNNY Hey look at this! Ma and Pa Kettle here. Look at them - greasy gook motherfuckers!
CHRIS Get up out of there! ... You see I didn't wanna hurt you. Why didn't you come out, when I said so hunh! Why? WHY! WHY? DON'T YOU LISTEN ... WHAT ARE YOU SMILING AT HUNH! FUCKING ASSHOLES!
The couple, hands raised, muttering things in Vietnamese, don't understand a word, shaking their heads stupidly and smiling that impassive Oriental smile which sends Chris into a rage only he can understand.
His finger closes on the trigger of his 16.
Francis, the baby-faced black, looks nervously, sensing the danger ... Bunny amused, drawn in by Chris. O'Neill watches passively from the lip of the hutch.
The Young Man continues to grin, not seeming to realize the degree of danger he's in, which is what Chris wants - a token sign of acquiescence. There is also the added element of showing off his manhood in front of an audience now.
BUNNY Do 'em man, do 'em.
Chris. The trigger. He pulls. But he can't quite bring himself to kill. The bullets exploding in the dirt at the edges of the young man's foot.
CHRIS (demonic) DANCE YOU ONE-LEGGED MOTHERFUCKER, DANCE!!!
The Young Man hops up and down in a reflex fear of the sounds of the bullets as they thud into the dirt. Yet his eyes remain fixed on Chris in wonderment.
Chris, firing out the magazine, seems to expend his bloodlust. He ceases, noticing - for the first time - the eyes of the Young Man. They aren't stupid - nor fearful - but filled with resignation and despair - a despair that Chris, in disgust of himself, recognizes.
Chris lowers the rifle, silent.
The Young Man's impassive face shines now with tears. That sad young look - as if death itself would've been a release. Chris turns his eyes away, an awkward sense of shame.
FRANCIS (leaves) Let's get out of here man.
But Bunny takes up the slack, moves forward on the young man.
BUNNY (to Chris) You chickenshit man, they're laughing at you, look at them faces. That's the way a gook laughs.
The Young Man nodding affable to Bunny and mumbling ingratiating words in Vietnamese.
BUNNY (CONT'D) Yeah sure you are, you're real sorry ain't you. You're just crying out your hearts about Sandy and Sal and Manny - they're laughing at us! Their family is out there in the fucking bush blowing us away and they're laughing at us!
O'NEILL (checking out the hutch) Forget it will ya, let's go ...
Chris standing there, watching, sensing something awful is going to come and unable to do anything about it. It comes - suddenly and without warning. Bunny is looking at O'Neill, the Vietnamese couple are muttering something. In one fluid move, Bunny swivels and with unbelievable savagery clubs the young one-legged man in the side of the head with the butt of his 16.
O'NEILL (CONT'D) (stunned)
Hey what are you doing!
BUNNY Fucker!
The young man is groaning on the floor of the hutch. Bunny smashes him - again and again.
BUNNY (CONT'D) That's for Sandy! And this is for Sal! And this is for fucking Manny! This is for me!
Chris watches, horrified. Never in his life has he seen something so horrifying as this. And yet he does nothing. He is part of it.
BUNNY (CONT'D) (stepping back, examines what's left of the head, amazed) Wow! You see his fucking head come apart? Look at that ... I never seen brains like dat before. Jesus fucking Christ ...
The Old Lady is shrieking, hovering over the body of her son. Bunny studying her.
BUNNY (CONT'D) Betcha the old bitch runs the whole show. Probably helped cut Manny's throat. Probably cut my balls off if she could. (to Chris) Come on, man, let's do her.
She cowers from him. Chris steps back, horrified. As is O'Neill, more puzzled than horrified.
BUNNY (CONT'D) (hitting her again) Let's zap all these motherfuckers! Let's do the whole village!
He backs out of the hutch, scared. Evidently Bunny is temporarily insane. But he spots O'Neill, yells at him.
BUNNY (CONT'D) GET BACK HERE YOU FUCKING COWARD O'NEILL. THIS IS FOR SANDY ... THIS IS FOR SANDY MAN! AND SAL! AND MANNY!
As he clubs her to death.
On Chris' face, blood and brain tissue flying up into it.
EXT. CENTRAL AREA - VILLAGE - DAY
A tiny knot of men are ringed around Barnes who is questioning a sturdy-looking man who is the VILLAGE CHIEF. He has been stripped of his shirt, scars all over his body, scared. He has his ID papers out, trembling, showing them to Lerner who speaks some pidgen Vietnamese.
BARNES Where'd he get these wounds?
Lerner translates, the man talking back.
LERNER He says he was hit in a bombing raid.
TONY He's a dink fosure.
BARNES Ask him what the weapons are doing here?
LERNER He says they had no choice. The NVA killed the old honcho when he said no. He says the rice is theirs.
BARNES Bullshit ... who the hell was the dink we just nailed on the riverbank?
Chris and O'Neill come up, watch. Others coming from different places - sensing the narrowing drama. But half the platoon is still at work in the village. We hear shouts, grenade explosions, occasionally gunfire.
LERNER ... He says he doesn't know, NVA haven't been around in a couple of months. Maybe it was a scout or ...
The men around Barnes grumble.
BARNES Yeah sure it was. What about all that fucking rice and the weapons ... who they for? (looking at the Village Chief) Cocksucker knows what I'm saying ... don't you Pop? (a blank look)
ACE You're goddamn right he does!
Lerner translating. The Village Chief's WIFE is now on the scene, a middle-aged woman with angry features, yelling at Lerner trying to answer for her husband, a high-pitched barrage of indignant words directed mostly at Barnes, and interspersed with the spitting of her betel nuts on the ground.
The Village Chief trying to talk her down. But things are definitely getting out of control. And the heat from the sun is only aggravating the situation, pounding down on the actors in the drama, their fatigues soaked in sweat and anger.
LERNER (finally) He swears he doesn't know anything! He hates the NVA but they come when they want and ...
JUNIOR He's lying through his teeth!
TONY Waste the fucker, then see who talks.
BARNES What's the bitch saying?
LERNER (overwhelmed) She's going on, I don't know - why are we shooting the pigs, they're farmers ... they got to make a living, all that crap ...
The Woman is still ranting when Barnes turns to her, quite casually levels his M-16, and puts a bullet in her head. She goes down as if pole-axed.
A stunned pause. The Chief looking at his wife. The Villagers in background reacting.
Wolfe looking ... Chris looking, shocked. Doc, possibly the straightest of them all, very uncomfortable. They are all shocked insome way, but do nothing against the power of Banres. Barnes walks over to the pig pen with the other Villagers, very casually, confronts them.
BARNES (to Lerner) Tell him he talks or I'm gonna waste more of 'em.
Lerner shaken up, muttering to the Village Chief who is in shock, kneeling next to the body of his wife, muttering in a high whine of pain.
BARNES (CONT'D) Go ahead, Lerner, ask him.
A group of Villagers huddle to one side.
Lerner, shaken, is yelling at all of them, demanding an answer.
LERNER They don't know Sarge, they don't know! (half believes it)
Barnes turns his attention on the other villagers, his intentions apparent. Everybody feels them. They're next. Barnes is unperturbed, very much in command of the situation, no rage, no emotions expressed.
Chris has never seen such a thing in his life - but can't react. Can't stop it, just watches it like he's not quite there.
The same goes for Lieutenant Wolfe, for all of them. The very outrageousness of Barns' killing seems to quell all protest.
ACE (sensing the impending massacre) Hey Sarge can we get in on this.
Tony advances, the hairy Italian kid from Boston.
TONY Let's go all the way, let's go for it! Let's do the whole fucking village. Come on, Sarge.
Chris' eyes ... Rodriguez next to him, is neutral but willing.
Francis is hesitant.
Fu Sheng and Junior are ready to go for it. Lt.Wolfe is powerless, frozen.
Sgt.Warren stepping up. The massacre is just about to break.
The Villagers know it, kneel in prayer, mutter.
Barnes suddenly grabs and drags a young 19 year-old Woman, the Village Chief's daughter, across the pen, throws her down on her knees, in front of the stunned Village Chief. She's screaming.
BARNES This his daughter, right?
Lerner nods. Barnes pulls his .45, puts it alongside her head.
BARNES (CONT'D) (to Village Chief) You lie ... You Vee Cee ... I caca ado Vee Cee!
He chambers the .45, the Woman begging Barnes for her life, cradling his knees. He sticks the gun down above her skull.
Chris wanting to cry out, to do something - but can't!
A FIGURE suddenly flares out in the sun, advancing on them. It is Elias.
ELIAS BARNES!!
Barnes looks around. They all look around.
Elias walks right up to him, followed by his men - King, Rhah, Crawford, others from the rear party. He looks around. The corpse of the Wife ... the Young Daughter sobbing.
ELIAS (CONT'D) WHAT THE FUCK YOU DOING!
BARNES (pissed) Stay out of this Elias. This ain't your show.
ELIAS YOU AIN'T A FIRING SQUAD, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!
The stock of his rifle swings up fast and hard smacking Barnes full in the face, breaking two teeth.
Barnes staggers back, hurt, bleeding. Elias is on him like a leopard. Battering him with his fists.
They struggle in the dust, two titans, their faces equally consumed with rage, clawing, spitting, punching, kicking, pounding each other's skulls in the dirt. A dust storm swirls around them, the men closing around like excited apes at a bloodfeast.
Most of the men seem to be pulling for Barnes - Chris just watching neutral.
LIEUTENANT WOLFE BREAK IT UP! ELIAS! BARNES!
But they rool on, smashing each other's faces in. Both quick, fast, agile, mean fighters. Sgts.O'Neill and Warren drag them apart.
BARNES You're dead, you're fucking dead Elias!
ELIAS YOU - you're going to fuckin' jail, buddy, you ain't getting away with this one!!!!!
WOLFE All right! All right! All right!!! NOW BREAK IT UP. LET'S GO ...
They compose themselves, the Villagers looking on, grieving over their loss.
WOLFE (CONT'D) Alright, Six says torch this place! Blow the weapons in place. Round up all suspected Vee Cees and shake it up! We ain't got much light left.
ELIAS (to Wolfe) Why the fuck didn't you do something Lieutenant!
WOLFE What are you talking about! (turns away, goes about his business)
ELIAS (spins him around) You know what I'm talking about!
WOLFE No I don't. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Elias! (goes)
Who wants to be reminded? A silence of shame. The Men moving away, Warren, Ace, Tony, Rodriguez, Barnes looking back once, a cold glare.
The Village Chief is a broken-looking man, huddled over his wife's body.
Elias stands there, frustrated.
Chris glances at him, moves out.
EXT. SMALL VILLAGE - DAY
A zippo cigarette lighter with the engraved initials: 'From Mai
lin to my Bunny Boy'. It sparks a thick flare as Bunny lights the dry straw on the roof of the Hutch where he killed the Old Woman and Young Boy.
Their legs sticking out at the threshold. The hooch burning fast, aided by the strong sun.
Bunny watches with awe.
EXT. SMALL VILLAGE - DAY
Sgt.Warren and Rodriguez lighting another hooch on fire.
EXT. VILLAGE RICE STORE - DAY
Fu Sheng yelling 'FIRE IN THE HOLE!' throws white phosphorus into the rice stores.
EXT. VILLAGE - WEAPONS CACHE - DAY
Barnes and Huffmeister, a big German kid from Texas, are laying the cord to blow the weapons cache.
EXT. SMALL VILLAGE - WELL - DAY
Adams and Parker are poisoning the well with a white phosphorus grenade: 'FIRE IN THE HOLE!'
EXT. SMALL VILLAGE - DAY
Wolfe, Ace, Tubbs, Warren, Rogriguez rope the DOZEN SUSPECTED VILLAGERS together to take them back for questioning.
Elias watches the Villagers mourn their losses. In the background, explosions, hooches popping with flames, the yells of the violations of the Village winding down.
EXT. SMALL VILLAGE - DAY
Chris wanders through this wreckage in the sun, like a dazed visitor from another planet, not believing it. He sees something, goes towards it - knows what it is.
EXT. VILLAGE - EDGE OF WOODLINE - DAY
Hidden at the edge of the woodline, King hands back a bowl of grass to Rhah, the chief head. They're puffing away.
KING Whew! - where that come from?
RHAH Found it. Growing in a garden.
KING (smokes) Sheeit, beats burning hutches anyway ...
They meditatively look out at the Village - burning hutches sending up spirals of smoke. Shouts. Shots. Chaos.
RHAH Yeah - stoned's the way to be ...
EXT. VILLAGE - DITCH - DAY
In a ditch running alongside the Village, partially concealed by foliage and anthills, Tony, Morehouse, and the ubiquitous Bunny have a 12-YEAR-OLD VIETNAMESE GIRL pinned to the ground, gagged and squirming, naked. They are fucking her to death. Junior looks on, both curious and disgusted, but doesn't take part.
TONY Take her up the ass ...
As they roll her over, like excited dogs in heat.
Chris, coming up, sees their heads dipping up and down on the other side of the anthill, knows what they're doing. He makes a conscious decision to do something. He runs over.
CHRIS LET HER GO! YOU HEAR ME! YOU ASSHOLE! LET HER GO!
He strides right into them, shoves them off hard. The girl is in tears.
TONY What the fuck you want - she's a dink.
CHRIS NO - YOU STUPID FUCK ... DON'T ... DON'T ... YOU TOO BUNNY. MOREHOUSE. OFF! NO! DON'T ... DON'T!
He seems disconnected, dazed by the sun, like he's talking to dogs - loud, repetitive words coming out of an anger he can barely control, trying to restore some sanity to a world gone totally nuts today. Don't they understand? Don'tthey have any sense of a mind? Any kind of decency?
The Men looking at him as if he's the one who's gone nuts, not them. Bunny looking at Morehouse looking at Tony looking at Junior. The irony is lost on them, as Chris pushes through to help the poor girl put her scanty clothes back on.
CHRIS (CONT'D) (to the girl) It's okay ... it's okay ...
Elias appears behind Bunny and the others, sees what's happened. He signals them to move out.
ELIAS Get outta here.
The men grumble and slink off quietly. Elias watching as...
Chris helps her to her feet, wounded in the intestines, she can barely stand, blood saoking in her nether regions. Chris slings her up as gently as he can and carries her.
CHRIS (as if to himself) It's okay, it's okay ...
EXT. VILLAGE - PIG PEN - DAY
Near the pig pen, a DOZEN SUSPECTS are being led away on ropes by Tubbs, Warren, Rodriguez. The others left behind look back at their village in ruins, homes burning, livestock dead or scattered, belongings thrown and broken in the dirt. BABIES wail, the adults squat there on their heels watching with absolutely no trace of outward emotion.
Past this Bosch-like canvas, Chris - carrying the girl - walks dazed by the horrors of this long afternoon.
EXT. VILLAGE TRAIL - DAY
The soldiers depart the village. A huge EXPLOSION now rocks the earth and sends a spray of smoke into the blue sky as the weapons cache explodes in stages that sound like the end of the world.
EXT. PERIMETER #2 - JUNGLE - LATE AFTERNOON DUSK
The Company is digging into another overnight perimeter on a ridge with a view of the Valley where the Village was. C-Ration fires all around the perimeter.
EXT. COMPANY CP - DUSK -- MORNING
At the Company,l Elias, Captain Harris, Barnes, Lt.Wolfe are huddled. Close on Harris, looking from face to face, assuming a judicial attitude.
CAPTAIN HARRIS ... and you Lieutenant?
LIEUTENANT WOLFE I didn't see anything sir.
ELIAS I did.
LIEUTENANT WOLFE That dink was reported to me as NVA sir by Sergeant Barnes. Sergeant Barnes.
Squirreling out of any responsibility.
ELIAS My report sir, will include Lt.Wolfe as being witness to the shooting ...
CAPTAIN HARRIS All right, Elias. Sergeant Barnes, I want a report from you ...
BARNES You got it sir - and I can throw in plenty of eye- witnesses if you want sir ...
HARRIS Not now. We'll get into this when we get back to base camp. Right now I need every man in the field, I want your guys to stick together ... Elias? Barnes? ... You hear me? This is no time for fighting with each other. (pause, they nod) Tomorrow we're going back into that bunker complex - from the East. (continuing) First Platoon will lead ... Brigade thinks they might be back there tomorrow. That's all ... Get some rest. (turns away)
Barnes, Elias eye each other and move off.
EXT. PERIMETER #2 - DUSK
Wolfe walks alongside Barnes.
WOLFE Don't worry about it Sergeant, he won't be able to prove a thing, he's a troublemaker but ...
Barnes is obviously worried, although he doesn't let on.
BARNES Elias' a waterwalker ... like them politicians in Washington. Want to fight their war with one hand tied round their balls. Ain't no time or need for a courtroom out here ...
Wolfe leaves him as Barnes turns into his foxhole where Bunny and O'Neill await him anxiously.
O'NEILL How'd it go.
Banres shrugs.
BUNNY Thataway Sarge, fuckin' Elias man, fuckin' squeal that's what he is, gonna get everybody in the platoon in shit. Somebody oughta fix his ass ...
Barnes fixing his coffee.
O'NEILL (worried) Gonna be an investigation or something Bob?
Barnes says nothing, a cryptic look.
O'Neill worried, Bunny, taking his cue from Barnes, slaps him on the back.
BUNNY Ya worry too much O'Neill ...
EXT. PERIMETER #2 - CHRIS' POSITION - DUSK
Elsewhere on the perimeter, Chris is digging out a foxhole with Rhah, as King and Lerner prepare the C's for dinner.
RHAH I know Barnes six months and I'll tell ya something - that man is MEAN, red in his soul like a dick on a dog.
KING Barnes gets killed, his jaws'd go on clacking ...
CHRIS Where's he form?
RHAH Barnes comes from Hell.
LERNER Tennessee someplace. Hill country.
RHAH Barnes took a bullet right there. At Ia Drang Valley ... (points to his forehead) And the cocksucker SURVIVED - that's BAAAD man. That's his high, baby. High on WAR!
His eyes flare out dramamtically. Chris, enthralled in spite of himself.
KING He done a year in Japan in the hospital, then when he gets out, the first thing he done is re-up. Four years he been in the field ...
RHAH ... and you know how many times he done been shot? (Chris shakes his head) Seven times! (with his fingers) Seven.
CHRIS And he still wanted to come back?
LERNER Does a pee wee wanna take a wee wee?
RHAH The Good Lord works his revenge in strange ways.
KING Yeah, you done said it. Revenge on US.
CHRIS Does he have a metal plate in his head?
RHAH (smiles) You mean he's crazy? No more crazy'n the rest of us been out in the bush too long.
LERNER Well he ain't normal that's fosure.
RHAH That's what he is ... Baaaa!
His hand flashes forward in front of Chris. 'HATE' is written across the left hand knuckles in a sloppy, purplish-black tatoo. Chris looking at it.
RHAH (CONT'D) ... and he's FILLED with it. He's roaming these jungles looking for little yellow devils to kill. Remember the Devil does God's work too. (pause) ... and this here's Elias ... Baaaa!
The other knuckle is out - 'LOVE' tattooed across it. Rhah smiles his crazy smil. Chris stares fascinated at the two knuckles side by side. A moment on his face.
KING Love, yeah!
LERNER (makes a cuckoo sign) Here we go again with the crazy preacher stuff. Rhah seen too many movies.
RHAH Baaa, got no time to go to the movies. Love and Hate too busy fighting for possession of my soul.
CHRIS Where's Elias come from?
RHAH (interjecting) 'Lias come naturally.
LERNER ... don't know. Done some time. Heard he worked the oil wells in Oklahoma, made some bread and washed up in El Lay.
KING Yeah, get married to some crazy El Lay bitch, an actress or somethin', she blew all his bread - LSD, gurus, all that California shit, and then she turns him into the cops on a drug rap.
RHAH Not the only man to meet his Jezebel either.
KING So he got a reduced and come over here. Nam's his freedom man, Nam's his pussy. Three years he been here.
CHRIS Three years, Jesus, he's crazy as Barnes ...
KING Well sometimes a man jes don' wanna go back. How you gonna talk to civilians man? People back in the world just don't give a shit, y'know what I mean, to them you're a fuckin' animal is all -
LERNER (to Chris) I was home on leave y'know and everybody's just worried 'bout making money, everybody's out for themselves, they don't even want to talk about it man, it's like the fucking Twilight Zone back there - you wouldn't even KNOW there's a war on here. My sister says to me why you have to go there like I started this ...
RHAH Baaaa! Fuck it, they sold us out - so what! What'd you'all expect? Civilian life is phoney BULLSHIT man. They're ROBOTS man - watchin' dopey television and drivin' dopey cars, and they fuck up, nobody dies. That's all right, you keep fuckin' up, politicians keep lyin'. Cause it don't really matter. Don't mean shit. So what! Whatcha want - a parade! Fuck that too! No war time no grunt never got no respect. Till he was dead - and even THEN! You're fighting for YOURSELF man! You're fighting for your SOUL, dat's all. Remember dat. And it's some goddamn battle too - if you'se a man, wrestle with that angel ... (swings his entrenching tool in a rhythmic chain-gang style) ... Love and Hate - the whole shitbang show, that's the story then and now and it ain't hardly gonna change ...
EXT. PERIMETER #2 - JUNGLE - NIGHT
The stars are out in magnificent splendor. A breeze rustling through the trees.
EXT. PERIMETER #2 - CHRIS' POSITION - NIGHT
Chris is turning in his sleep, perturbed, writhing. The whispering is more and more urgent. Death is all around. He shoots up out of his poncho liner as if shot, stunned. Scared. Looks around. All is quiet. Men sleeping.
Elias is huddled in his poncho on guard next to his foxhole. Chris joins him, sitting, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
CHRIS ... I can't sleep, why don't you get some sack time.
ELIAS ... don't feel like it either.
CHRIS ... beautiful night.
ELIAS Yeah. I love this place at night. The stars ... there's no right or wrong in them, they're just there.
CHRIS That's a nice way of putting it.
Elias cuffs a joint, keeping its glow hidden in the dark. A pause, both of them meditative.
CHRIS (CONT'D) Barnes got it in for you, don't he?
ELIAS (philosophically) Barnes believes in what he's doing.
CHRIS And you, do you believe?
ELIAS In '65 - yeah. Now ... (pause) No. What happened today's just the beginning. We're gonna lose this war ...
CHRIS (surprised) You really think so ... us?
Elias' eyes seem to go to some inner place, his passion surging.
ELIAS ... we been kicking other people's asses so long I guess it's time we got our own kicked. The only decent thing I can see coming out of here are the survivors - hundreds of thousands of guys like you Taylor going back to every little town in the country knowing something about what it's like to take a life and what that can do to a person's soul - twist it like Barnes and Bunny and make 'em sick inside and if you got any brains you gonna fight it the rest of your life cause it's cheap, killing is cheap, the cheapest thing I know and when some drunk like O'Neill starts glorifying it, you're gonna puke all over him and when the politicians start selling you a used war all over again, you and your generation gonna say go fuck yourself 'cause you know, you've seen it, and when you know it, deep down there ...
He plants his fist in Chris' gut, expelling his breath such is the force of the blow - like a power passed between them.
ELIAS (CONT'D) ... you know it till you die ... that's why the survivors remember. 'Cause the dead don't let em forget.
His eyes blazing, reliving the deaths in the village, licking the wounds for the platoon, mourning the failure of its heroism. Chris looking at him, a little awed by his intensity. Elias looks away, embarrassed that he has sermonized, looks back at the stars.
ELIAS (CONT'D) Oh shit! Sometimes there's things in my head ... man. Grass does that to me, fucks me all up like a crazy Indian ...
CHRIS Do you believe that stuff about ... knowing you're gonna die?
ELIAS Yeah, those are the guys that live. I really don't think Death gives a shit, it's like a giant garbage can, I think it takes whatever it can get ... you never know where it's gonna come from anyway ... so why spin your wheels?
He shrugs, a certain bravado masking his own uncertainty.
CHRIS ... You ever think about reincarnation, all that stuff?
A lightning quick movement follows. Elias' hand passing over his face like a mime, a click of the fingers and he leans closer to Chris. A new expression on his face. Devil's eyes, mocking child, danger in his soul, excitement, sex - the Elias that Chris saw in the smoking session in base camp. Chris smiles, sucked in, almost laughs and then the face is gone again.
ELIAS Sure, goes on all the time. Maybe a piece of me's in you now, who knows. But when you die - really die - that's a big return ticket. (soft) I like to think I'm gonna come back as ... as wind or fire - or a deer (likes the image) ... yeah, a deer ...
He smiles at the thought. Chris looks at him, looks away. A shooting star falls suddenly and dryly through the cosmos. Their eyes.
EXT. JUNGLE - STREAM - DAY (RAIN)
The Platoon moves along a shallow STREAM bordering the jungle. A thick RAIN falls amid cracks of distant thunder. Chris, Rhah, Francis, Big Harold, others are at the rear of the platoon, their ponchos pulled over them like big sad grey tents. There's a holdup ahead and the Men rest on rocks or stand. The rain makes a pointilistic pattern, the men collages of grey, their rifles slung upside down to keep dry.
Barnes is up ahead, out of the stream bank, on the radio.
EXT. JUNGLE CHURCH - DAY (RAIN)
Lerner's on point, resting in the shadow of a decaying old French Catholic Church from the 19th Century. The jungle has long ago won the battle, vines creeping into the cracks, remnants of arches layered around the church at the epicenter. Behind Lerner is Sgt.Warren and his radioman.
EXT. JUNGLE CLEARING - DAY (RAIN)
Elias, further back, is checking out the jungle alongside the clearing, noticing a number of old spider holes long since abandoned. He goes over and checks them.
EXT. JUNGLE - STREAM - DAY (RAIN)
Back at the stream, Rhah, looking old and whiskered under his poncho hood, lights up a roach, puffs it. Another crack of thunder. Chris comes over, sits with him on his rock. Rhah passes him the joint. He smokes.
Big Harold pulls a leech out of his open crotch area.
HAROLD Shit, lookit this little fucker trying to get up ma glory hole.
FRANCIS Hey Big Harold, put dat in your turkey loaf it won't come out your back end.
KING (ribbing) Yeah, big boy, thought you had that laundry gig all laid out?
BIG HAROLD (pissed) Shit, got to paint myself white get one of dem jobs. Get ma request in for a circumcision.
KING Gonna be a rabbi man?
FRANCIS Gonna cut your pecker down to size hunh Big Harold?
BIG HAROLD Dat's okay wid me, better to have a small one den no one at all.
KING Your girlfriends gonna look for new lovers, man. Best thing a bro's got's his flap.
HAROLD I'll drink to your flap in Chicago, King. All I gotta do is stretch it out to 15 days and I'll be short 15 and the Beast just wouldn't dare send me back to the bush.
FRANCIS You gonna get some for me back in the World, Harold? Whatcha gonna do? (dreaming of it)
HAROLD The world's gonna be ma oyster man. First's I gonna EAT - all the hamburger and french fries and steaks soaked in onions and ketchup I can get. Then I'se gonna FUCK and SUCK Sandy Bell till I sore all over and can't fuck no more, and den I'se gonna SLEEP for DAYS, for WEEKS! Den I'se gonna think bout what comes next ...
The words carry over Chris staring out at the rain, feeling a leaden fatigued high. Passes the roach, down to a millimeter, back to Rhah who points to his face.
RHAH ... you got one right there.
Chris feels for, finds the leech on the edge of his lip, cursing under his breath.
LIEUTENANT WOLFE (in the stream, on radio) All right move out.
The men start slogging on against the rain.
Junior is drinking from the stream, as Fu Sheng passes.
FU SHENG Don't drink that asshole. You're gonna get malaria.
JUNIOR Shit I hope so!
EXT. JUNGLE - CHURCH - DAY (RAIN)
On point, Lerner moves out through a remnant of an old arch, somewhat casual in his approach to point.
LERNER Hey Sarge, you wanna tell me which way or do I get to figger it out?
Sgt.Warren, picking up a quick azimuth on his lensatic compass, points. Lerner moves in the new direction.
EXT. JUNGLE - DAY (RAIN)
Lerner moves away from the clearing, working up a slight incline when the MACHINE GUN FIRE erupts out of the jungle, spinning him - throwing him into the dirt like discarded garbage.
The men are down, yelling.
SGT. WARREN Ambush! Incoming! Fucking incoming!
Suddenly an RPG rocket breaks out of the bush, sounding like an atom bomb as it devastates the front of the Platoon. Radio Talk is continuous now, back and forth between the three platoon radios, through the ambush.
O'NEILL DOC, UP HERE! Lerner's hit! ...
More machine gun fire.
FRANCIS DOC! Over here - we got ... one ... two down. Warren's hit.
EXT. JUNGLE - CHURCH - DAY (RAIN)
Chris moving up with Rhah and the others out of the stream, they hit the ground next to Sgt.O'Neill, who looks pretty scared, obviously not about to move.
CHRIS What's going on?
O'NEILL Shit they got RPG's on our ass. Fucking ambush - they was waiting for us to break trail!
KING WATCH OUT! ROCKET!
Another rocket whistling in. A huge roar. Trees shredded, dirt, dust rising.
CHRIS Who's on point?
O'NEILL Lerner and Warren.
Chris uses his M-16 to lever himself up into a crouch and suddenly dashes forward, passing Rhah.
RHAH Where you goin' man!
Chris tearing up. Past Flash - the hip black head with the colored beads. He's dead, torn and shredded, his face and eyes stuff with dirt. Next to him Doc is frantically tourniqueting Tubbs, shot in the legs. He's screaming.
Chris keeps moving to the front as if compelled.
EXT. JUNGLE - BARNES' POSITION - DAY (RAIN)
Barnes is laying out fire.
BARNES Goddamit, you assholes get fucking' firepower out there! (to Hoyt on radio) Get Two Bravo up here. Get me a gun. (to others) Spread it out! More to the flanks! Look for a fuckin' target!
Another explosion.
EXT. JUNGLE - FORWARD POINT - DAY (RAIN)
Chris comes alongside Francis near the point, throws himself down. Banging his head against his helmet as he falls. The incoming rounds are tearing up the front of the platoon.
CHRIS (to Francis) Where's Lerner?
FRANCIS (terrified) Out there man - behind the log.
Looking. A body - moaning, sort of moving, wriggling, as if trying to escape the pain.
CHRIS Oh Jesus!
His eyes moving to Sgt.Warren lying alongside a tree - calmly trying to stack his intestines back into his ruptured stomach. Another RPG comes in.
Chris makes a conscious decision, moves up - bit by bit, shielding himself with tree stumps, ant hills, laying out fire, trying to get closer to Lerner.
Francis following his progress, bug-eyed.
Fu Sheng now comes up with his M-60 - Harold his loader, belts of ammo flapping against their bodies. He fires from the hip, providing cover fire for Chris, then pops down.
EXT. FORWARD POINT - JUNGLE - DAY (DRIZZLING RAIN)
Chris, firing out another magazine, crawls closer to Lerner, trying to ascertain if he's still alive.
CHRIS Lerner! Lerner, can you hear me man?
Lerner groans. A fresh burst of AK fire rakes the area. Lerner jerks spasmodically with the impact of the rounds.
Chris spots the sniper. In a hole in the ground. Twenty-five meters off. Snapping the magazine out of his AK to reload. A live gook.
Chris tears off a volley at him but the gook disappears in the hole. This is the moement, Chris realizes it, it's now or never if Chris intends to get the gook. He's got to make a move before the man has reloaded his weapon.
He pulls his grenade, pops the pin. He lets the spoon fly off, activating the grenade-timer, as he humps to his feet and runs for the gook hole, concentrating, concentrating. That head is going to pop up any second with a freshly-loaded weapon and tear his head off.
Chris won't make it back to the hole. The throw has to be perfect. He won't get another chance. He heaves the frag, drops and rolls away. The throw is perfect, the golden arc of flight from the outfield nailing the baserunner. It twists cleanly in the hole. The explosion muffled but deadly.
Chris scrambles to his feet, a look of almost total surprise on his face. He can't seem to believe he did it. Pointing his M-16 before him, he advances on the hole, looking over the muzzle to see the badly-mangled NVA man twisted at the bottom.
Chris hurries over to Lerner. He's in bad shape, hit in several places, vaguely conscious.
CHRIS (CONT'D) Gator! Gator! (Lerner groans) I'm gonna get you out man. You're gonna be okay Gator ... okay?
Fu Sheng laying out fire to protect them, Harold splitting off to get more ammo.
Chris getting Lerner to his feet, hauling him back with all his strength, past Francis ...
EXT. JUNGLE - WOLFE'S POSITION - DAY (RAIN)
Lt.Wolfe seems disorientated, struggling with the rain water washing off his map, trying to read the coordinates for an arty fire mission.
WOLFE (into the radio) Redleg, Redleg ... Ripper Bravo Two Actual. Fire mission. Grid six-four-niner ... four-zero-two. Direction six-one-zero-zero. Dinks dug in bunkers. Danger close. Adjust fire, over ...
RADIO VOICE Rog, Two Bravo. Solid copy, stand by for shot, out.
ACE Sir, Bravo Three is inbound from the Sierra Whiskey. Should be here in two zero mikes if'n they don' hit any shit.
WOLFE Fuckin' A!
Elias runs up to him. Fire all around, incoming and outgoing, makes them yell to each other.
ELIAS Lootenant, they're kickin our ass, they know we're gonna bring heavy shit on 'em pretty soon so they're gonna get in tight under the arty. I spotted a cut running around to the left. Lemme take some men and roll up that flank .. (pointing) I can work right up on 'em ...
Wolfe unsure, looks up for the artillery.
WOLFE (to Ace) Get me Barnes ... I don't know 'Lias, we got four down up there, if I split you off, we ...
Elias grabs a stick, urgent, starts drawing their position in the dirt for Wolfe.
ELIAS Look, Lootenant ...
Wolfe looks up, relieved as Barnes splashes into the CP group. Thunder peals.
BARNES (yelling at Wolfe and Ace) Where the fuck is red platoon! Tell 'em to get their asses up here! What the fuck you doin' back here Elias? Round up your assholes and move 'em up front, we're getting chopped to shit.
ELIAS (yelling back) Barnes, listen to me ... there's 5-6 spiderholes back there (points) next to the church. (draws it into the ground as he talks) Third Platoon's coming up the stream to reinforce us. Flank's wide open, dinks get 3-4 snipers in these holes, when Third Platoon comes up, they'll get us in a crossfire with 'em. We'll shoot each other to shit, then they'll hit us with everything they got. It'll be a massacre!
Barnes looking at the drawing.
WOLFE Sounds pretty far out to me 'Lias.
ELIAS Maybe but I seen it happen at Ia Drang in '66, First Cavalry and they cut us to fuckin' pieces! (back to Barnes) Give me three men, if I'm wrong, I can still roll up that flank.
BARNES
(a look) Take off, but keep your radio here.
Elias goes, stops, looks at Barnes ...
ELIAS ... You keep pouring out that suppressing fire, Barnes. I don't wanna be caught out there with my ass hanging out you hear me?
BARNES Don't tell me how to fight this fucking war, 'Lias, you go crying to fucking brigade on your time. Out here you belong to me. Now move.
A look. Elias goes fast. More thunder peals. As the 155mm howitzers - sounding like deep tom-toms some three miles distant - beat out their shells. An ominous sound. Closer.
ACE Sir! Shot out. Arty's on the way!
BARNES (hurrying back to the front) Get that asshole O'Neill up here willya!
EXT. JUNGLE - FU SHENG'S POSITION - DAY
Fu Sheng is laying out fire when he senses something, looks up. The artillery shell sounds too close. Getting bigger and bigger on the horizon. Too big, too loud. A groan of fear on his face, then knowledge. Then ... a huge EXPLOSION engulfs him.
EXT. JUNGLE - HAROLD'S POSITION - DAY (RAIN)
BIG HAROLD Short round! It's short, man! They fuckin' got Fu Sheng! BARNES! OVER HERE!
EXT. JUNGLE - DAY (RAIN)
Barnes hearing it, starts forward. Another huge shell starting to whistle in on them.
BARNES That fuckin' idiot!
It explodes. This is about three times the intensity of the RPG. The jungle floor shakes, trees splinter. Barnes is knocked to his knees, rimaces in pain. Hoyt, Barnes' radio operator, screams out as a fist-sized chunk of hot shrapnel sticks in his back. He's screeching, frantically trying to shuck the radio from his back, his fatigue shirt smoking.
Barnes jerks the radio off Hoyt's back, knocks the man to his knees and unsheathes his bayonet. Ripping off the back of his shirt, Barnes sets to digging out the shrapnel.
EXT. MOREHOUSE'S POSITION - DAY (RAIN)
Morehouse is decimated by a third explosion, chunks of shrapnel whirring like battleaxes into the tree trunks.
EXT. JUNGLE - HAROLD'S POSITION - DAY (RAIN)
Big Harold is tearing blindly away from the front, helmet gone, rifle dragging in the mud when he stumbles, sprawling face down. He jumps up, looks back, sees now the wire over which he tripped. It takes a second to register. He shares a look with Bunny who's already on the ground.
BUNNY Satchel charge! GET DOWN!
Harold goes for the ground the same instant the satchel explodes.
EXT. JUNGLE - CHURCH - DAY (RAIN)
Chris, further back, dumps Lerner with Doc who's got more than he can handle.
CHRIS Take care of him Doc! Please!
Doc looking at him, a dark look of hopelessness. Lerner is a mess, groaning, reaching for Chris' hand.
LERNER ... don't ... don't leave me man ...
A look between them. Rhah instersecting.
RHAH Taylor - get your ass over here. Move!
CHRIS Hang tough, Gator. Hang in there, man, you're gonna be OK ... just hang on.
Feeling like a liar, peeling the man's hands off him, leaving him there looking numb. Chris is shaken, Lerner's blood all over him.
He tears out after Rhah, linking up with Elias and Crawford. Elias motioning them to hurry. Another huge artillery round exploding out to the front.
EXT. JUNGLE - O'NEILL'S POSITION - DAY (RAIN)
Sgt.O'Neill, scared out of his mind, hugging the earth, tries to crawl into a small cut in the ground but finds it occupied by a cringing Junior.
EXT. JUNGLE - WOLFE'S POSITION - DAY (RAIN)
Barnes rushes up out of the forest like Achilles, towering in his rage, at Lieutenant Wolfe, ripping his handset from him as the Lieutenant reads off the coordinates off his map.
BARNES YOU IGNORANT ASSHOLE! - What the fuck coordinates you giving! You killed a bunch of people with that fucked up fire mission! You know that? ... ah shit!
Wolfe stares at him, open-mouthed. Disgusted, Barnes hunkers down to read the coordinates from his own map into the handset.
BARNES (CONT'D) Redleg Romeo .. Ripper Bravo Two. Check your fire, check fire, you're short on our pos! I say again, check your fuckin' fire! ... From Registration point, add one five zero, left five zero, fire for effect!
New incoming fire drowns out Barnes.
EXT. JUNGLE - ELIAS' POSITION - DAY
Elias - a defiant look on his face - moves fast but cautiously back across the Church landmarks. Chris following then Rhah and Crawford. The RAIN has now settled into a mist hugging the ground.
ELIAS Move it! Move it!
Elias comes to a stop, looks. Behind them we hear the sounds of battle, gauging their distance from the main body.
The spider holes are still empty. But he listens, senses something out there getting closer.
ELIAS (CONT'D) They're coming ...
Chris looking at Rhah. How does he know?
Elias points out an imaginary line across the breaking mist.
ELIAS (CONT'D) Stagger yourselves across this line, shoot anything that moves. They'll be coming from here.
RHAH (team leader) Gotcha.
ELIAS One of them gets through it's curtains.
RHAH Where you going?
ELIAS Down along the river 'bout 100 metres, 'case they try to flank us there. Third Platoon's coming up on our rear so watch for 'em.
CHRIS I'll go with you.
ELIAS No ... I move faster alone. (a grin)
Elias, his pack stripped, is gone, like a fleet leaf, vanishing into the Jungle.
RHAH (stringing them out) Okay Crawford - over here. Taylor - down twenty yards behind that tree.
EXT. JUNGLE - WOLFE'S POSITION - DAY (MIST)
Barnes has finished correcting the fire mission, hurls the handset back at Wolfe, a wild look in his eyes, studying the incoming fire. Makes a decision.
BARNES Let's move back, link up with Three. Let the arty do a little work. (to Ace on radio, ignoring Wolfe) Push Two Alpha and Two