Platoon
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.
