As soon as Elroy brought his bird down, Break on Through hit the ground running. It was an exercise known as a “flip-flop.” Charles sure enough knew there was going to be an extraction, but he wasn’t expecting an insertion on the same flight. Ondine and I helped the Second Recon corpsman load two wounded Montagnards onto the Huey while the rest of the Break on Through laid out a quick perimeter. One of the Yards was squirting blood from his femoral artery while the other had a sucking chest wound. Both appeared to be in shock: their dark faces were ashen, and both seemed to be beyond the realm of pain. I knew they would both be dead before they got back to Da Nang and exchanged a look with their babyfaced corpsman, a kid who didn’t look old enough to be in the war. Still, he looked a good deal older than the prisoner the team had grabbed on their “snatch” mission. The young NVA’s hands were secured behind his back with wire, and whenever he looked up, a powerful marine poked him in the mouth with the flash suppressor of his M-16. “Get used to it,” the marine said. “It’s called the Flavor of the Month, motherfucker.”

I knew it was the first of many new exotic treats in store for the prisoner and was thinking that if it were me, I’d jump out of the bird as soon as they had some suicidal altitude. Over the wash of chopper blades, the corpsman was telling Ondine that the rest of the Second Recon ran for another LZ. “Make no mistake,” the corpsman said, “Charlie has got spotters and fuckin’ bloodhound dogs. You boys just bought the green wienie. Chuck is going to come looking presently.”

“I can dig it,” Ondine said.

“I’m glad you can,” the corpsman said. “Because, man, I cannot. No shit, man! I’m getting too short for any more of this bullshit. I’m getting seriously flaky. I don’t know if I can hack much more.”

“Sounds like you got a personal problem,” Ondine said.