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.
