Incident in the Cambodian Jungle

By Daniel Cashman

In the Spring of 1970, the war in Viet Nam spilled into Cambodia and brought a squad of American soldiers into contact with a hidden civilization. Their god is a monstrous beast that they feed with human sacrifice. Cut off from their unit, the soldiers fight to escape an unseen enemy that is purposefully driving them into the depths of the ruins. To an abattoir where death comes disguised in a hypnotic vision. A vision that entrances and draws the victims, one by one, to a lair where the beast lives and feeds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Cashman
• Release date: Aug 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463055243

Daniel Cashman

The Author is a Viet Nam veteran. Currently residing in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Book preview

INCIDENT IN THE CAMBODIAN JUNGLE.

Daniel J. Cashman

Copyright 1995 Daniel J. Cashman

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Cambodia

April, 1970

1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile)

2nd Battalion Aid Station

Captain Mark Meddleman sank down onto the cot and pulled out a pack of Marlboro’s. Two straight days of sewing teen aged GI’s back together had left him drained, both physically and emotionally. He shook a cigarette out of the pack and lit up. The smoke in his lungs conducted the nicotine to his brain and he groaned as he lay back on the cot saying to no one in particular, I’ve never seen anything like that before. He took a second deep drag from the cigarette and blew a thin jet of smoke at the bunker door. In the shadow shrouding the far corner, a body stirred. Doctor Cashon raised his head just enough to swallow another mouthful of coffee and grunted at him. Hang in there, Mark, after you’ve worked triage for a while you’ll get used to it.

Meddleman squeezed his eyes closed and dragged deep on the cigarette again, No, that’s not it. That last trooper I patched up, he rose and walked to the bunker door and looked out at the medivac chopper on its pad being loaded with the remnants of human beings, the one they are putting on the chopper now. He had the weirdest wounds. I’ve never seen anything like them before. . .

Chapter one

THE CAV

My eyes opened from the darkest night I had ever known and into the whirlwind of a helicopter’s rotor. Strapped to a stretcher and sedated with morphine, my head rolled from side to side as two medics lifted me into the bird for the ride back to base camp hospital. The edges of the nightmare faded with the return of the pain. I had been hit bad. . . No, I wasn’t hit. I don’t remember a land mine or artillery or. . .or something else. . .

The shuddering of the helicopter and the shrieking of the wind rocked me back to sleep. Gravity fell away as the bird left the ground and my eyes closed. I could see myself, a life time ago, in the Bravo company mess hall, picking up a bottle of Tabasco sauce and slipping it into the leg pocket of my field pants. Ali Brennan grinned at me and picked up a nearly full bottle from the next table. We shared a knowing glance about the taste of Charlie rats and the wonders a dash of Tabasco could work.

Freddy Scott, the squad radio operator, trailed behind us. That’s his assigned position; ready to hand the telephone to Ali or myself at a second’s notice. We stepped out into the brilliant sunlight and choking heat of a Viet Nam jungle afternoon and I put on my sunglasses.

A bolt of lightning, hot pain shot through my mind and body. I screamed into the whirlwind but no one could hear me. The rocking of the helicopter lulled me, the morphine soothed me and softly, I slipped back into a fuzzy, gray world on the edge of sleep. I heard the door open. . .

The squad’s hooch is a galvanized metal Quonset hut surrounded by a three foot high sand bag bunker. As we stepped in, I striped off my sunglasses but even with their protection, I was almost blind in the gloom and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the low light level. The hooch was a bee hive of noise and intense activity. Doc Lewis’ new tape deck was pounding out Jim Morrison while the new guys tried desperately to get their gear stashed