Platoon
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.
