The General wore a tan uniform with no insignia but it was clearly Deng. He was a man in his early seventies, with thinning gray hair that he wore in a swept-back fashion. His smile was warm and revealed a great deal of gold dental work. Deng walked with a limp. His left foot was shorter than his right by several inches. This was not from a war wound but rather a hereditary condition. With aides on either side of him, Deng leaned on his cane and spoke to the commander of the tracker platoon, who pointed back at the jungle. L. D. Pfieffer mimicked the sort of lame excuse he imagined the platoon commander must have been reciting to General Deng, who had to be very concerned with the knowledge that the Americans were in Cambodia and had made their camp. You could barely see their lips moving but Pfieffer supplied the dialogue. “Oh yes man! We lit a fire under their ass, General. You betcha! Jar-head took a number one run through the jungle.”

Pfieffer twisted his head to the side, screwed up his face, and took on the part of Deng. “What! You mean you let them escape! You bungling fools! B-52s come now. Boom Boom! Efferybody, get down and give me fifty. Very bad. Very bad.”

Singh and I cracked up until Pink shot us a look and then Ondine raised his head and told Pfieffer to knock it the fuck off. Felix T. pointed his M-16 at the General and kept it trained on the officer as he moved back into the bunker. “He’s a motherfuckin’ ant.” With a scope, the shot was doable from where we stood; it was just that we would have been pinned down on the same ridge where Second Recon had caught hell. We were out in the open.