A Perilous Place

By Robert Reynolds

A young serviceman experiences many struggles with his decision to marry a pretty Vietnamese girl, as his tour of duty in perilous, war torn Vietnam is nearing its end. Liberty restrictions and military police involvement make it difficult for the two lovers to be together. As night falls, he slips away from the base to meet her family and offer his proposal. But curfew sets in finding him stranded. Danger lurks in the village and he must get safely back to the base. This is an intriguing tale or romance and danger in A Perilous Place!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781794848740

Robert Reynolds

Robert Reynolds has penned many books, including: Mackinac Drift, Gray Wolf Pass, El Paso Run, A Dark and Curious Place, Thunder Bay, Showers in the Rain, Along the Quay, Outlast the Rain and many more. 

Book preview

A Perilous Place

Robert Reynolds

This is a work of fiction.  All characters and events depicted in this book are of the imagination of the author.  Any similarities to persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.

Copyright: 2021

ISBN: 978-1-7948-4874-0

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure…  Helen Keller

A Perilous Place

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Rattles and clatters brought a startled PO3 Higgins racing to the storeroom.  He flipped on the light switch to find a marauding creature scattering 50-pound bags of flour, ripping open pasta boxes and banging canned vegetable goods against the floor.  Jagged glass from broken mayonnaise jars had turned the floor into a dangerous and slippery obstacle course. Bloody footprints marked where the small ape had mistakenly stepped, breaking open the hardened soles of the animal’s feet, causing it to scream out in pain and to become even more agitated over its entrapped situation.  It was a toss up who was the most surprised, Higgins or the monkey, but the small storeroom had the latter threatened and trapped.  Higgins grabbed a mop and began poking at the creature trying to force it back to and out the upper window with the torn mesh screen. 

        Get out of here! Higgins yelled, wielding the mop handle like a saber. The monkey lunged toward the door, but the threatening human stood between it and freedom.  Higgins blocked the doorway and the animal shrunk back into a corner baring its teeth.  Had it known, freedom did not lie beyond that door.  Had the frightened creature made it through, even more chaos would ensue when it found itself surrounded by several more revenge seeking humans.  For the moment, the small storeroom provided a greater chance of survival. 

Higgins prodded and poked, sparring with the animal as he tried to keep it at bay.  He hoped it would notice the torn window and remember how it had gotten in. However, all that it knew now was that escape was in question.  Hayes heard the racket from up front and ran to help, slipping on the wet floor and skating into a row of storage shelves before going down in an oily heap.

Help me get that thing out of here! Higgins yelled.

Hayes slid back to his feet, grabbed a knife off the shelf and began stabbing at the animal.

I want you to help me get him out of here, not butcher him, Higgins growled.  "Get the broom!

Where did it come from?  Hayes shouted, slamming the door shut behind him.  The same small room trapped all three of them now and the terrified creature was intent of surviving.  A can of Del Monte Peas hurtled their way. 

These damn monkeys live on the mountain and sneak on the base to scavenge, Higgins gasped, making another thrust to keep the animal from darting past.

We’ve got to get it out of here before it does anymore damage, Hayes said, slipping on a glob of lard that greased the floor.  He hadn’t noticed yet, but blood dripped from his hand where he’d tried to break his fall and struck broken glass.

The two men had the ape more or less cornered, but it was frightened, taking a defensive posture, snarling and baring sharp teeth. Terrified, it swatted at the wooden handles that jabbed its way.  It darted left then right, not knowing which way led to safety.  The men made a final lunge with a mop handle and a broomstick, encouraging the beast to scale the metal storage shelf beneath the breached window.  It smelled fresh air and sensed freedom.  Without looking back it scurried up the shelf leg, finding the opening. The frightened creature ducked through the torn screen and scampered off toward the perimeter fence and the safety of the mountain.

PART TWO

Chapter 2

The aptly named Monkey Mountain rested on the tip of the Son Tra Peninsula with the bay of Da Nang on one side, the South China Sea on the other.  Camp Tien Sha, a former French Army Post left over from Colonial days, was now the primary United States Navy Base in I Corps.  The base pressed against Monkey Mountain’s south side, separated by a perimeter fence and a narrow zone cleared of brush and wild grasses.  Primates lived in the foliage overlooking Camp Tien Sha and frequently crossed onto the base to scavenge. 

A paved road running north and south, Rai Bien Son Cha, came straight onto the base through a whitewashed gate on the compound’s south side, splitting the camp down the middle.  Immediately to the southwest of the base was the Vietnamese National Police Basic Training Center. Local national trainees studied there to become Canh Sat, to become White Mice, so nicknamed for their white helmets, gloves and shirts.  Some believed the name aptly described their timidity and rapid speed of departure in a crisis. 

Immediately before entering Camp Tien Sha, the road split to the left and skirted the bay.  If one followed the road around the western side of the mountain, he would come to Spanish Beach, passing along the way an ARVN, Army of the Republic of Vietnam camp, and DeLong Pier; the deep water port where the large ships and tankers docked.  One could turn away from the bay and follow a road that led farther up the mountainside to where a target range was located. There, marksmen could practice using weaponry by firing into the hillside.  From that lofty pinnacle, a person could look out over the Bay of Da Nang and the South China Sea.  The location offered a most beautiful site for target practice.  Here is where the ‘newbies’ received refresher weapons training before they assumed the responsibility of carrying a rifle or operating more serious weaponry. Higher still, a radar site sat on the very top of the mountain.

The view from Monkey Mountain provided breath-taking vistas of water, earth and sky.  From atop the mountain, one could see the ocean, the bay, the coastal plains, or the city of Da Nang, depending on the direction of observation. A sprinkling of ocean-going vessels, both Navy and commercial, sat moored in the harbor. If one watched carefully, he might see the wake of a Harbor Security craft patrolling the waters. 

The rest of the peninsula was mostly flat and sandy, with marshes in the low-lying areas and a smattering of rice paddies where the soil was rich. Small rural villages dotted the peninsula. 

American armed forces used much of the isthmus for military interests.  The Naval Support Activity Reefer and Covered Storage Area, including a large ammunition depot, and the marines at the III Marine Amphibious Force were located a few miles directly down the road from the Navy base.

***

An easterly-running dirt road, if one envisioned it as a road, paralleled the camp’s perimeter fence on its southern flank.  Potholes, mud holes, and protruding rocks made it more a pockmarked obstacle course than a thoroughfare. 

Clusters of shanties, small houses and decrepit hovels alongside this road made up the hamlet of Nam Tho. Fishermen and peasants, laborers and artisans, women of honor and women of pleasure, good people and bad occupied these ramshackle houses. Their nearness to the base presented boundless opportunities for employment or for providing services, many of them dubious. 

I know every skivvy house in the vill, Fowler bragged.  And there are a lot of them.

That’s quite an accomplishment, Hauser chided, raising his beer in a mock toast. It’s something you can write home about.

Do you know any girls who don’t work the street or in the bars?  Donovan said.

Of course I do, Fowler said, offended by his friend’s lack of belief.  He reached in his wallet and pulled out a black and white photo.  Check this out.  She’s my girl from over in Da Nang.  She’s from a wealthy family.

Maxwell peered closer in the dim light of the club. 

Pretty girl.

You’d better believe it, Fowler finished off his beer.  He slammed down the empty Schlitz can and stormed out of the club.

I’ve seen that picture, Maxwell said after Fowler was out of earshot.  The next time you’re up on Doc Lap Street, check out the photos on display at that Chinese photography shop on the corner.  You can buy a stack of those photos for 50P. 

***

The rear perimeter of the Navy base butted against the upward slope of Monkey Mountain, although the base itself was practically flat.  There were no foothills to speak of and Seabee bulldozers had flattened the minor fluctuations toward the rear of the compound; where the base ended, the mountain began. 

The mountainside was only moderately steep; not sheer, and it angled down then broke away onto the sand plain that made up most of the peninsula. The perimeter fence followed the contour of the mountain, although there was little to the contour, as it was almost straight, as straight as one could expect in nature.  Cyclone fencing, topped with razor sharp barbed and concertina wire kept potential intruders out. Well, it kept out most intruders, but not the determined, agile furry ones. 

Do you know the guy in Engineers with a pet monkey? Maxwell said.

I’ve heard of him, Hauser said.  But I wouldn’t want one.

I think they’re cool, Brinks said, picking up on the tail end of the conversation.

No way! Hauser said.  You never know what to expect from something wild; too many diseases.  No thanks, I plan on getting out of this place alive. 

Wooden guard towers rose at the corners of the base, and a few additional towers spread along its rear.  Beginning at dusk, brilliant spotlights shone outward from the towers, bathing the perimeter in stark white light.  Navy Security Guards manned the towers, protecting the base.  The rear perimeter guards looked almost directly into the mountainside, into the forested jungle, into scattered tufts of elephant grass and the small rockslides where the earth had given way.

Ain’t no one gonna attack us from the rear, Maxwell said. All I’ve ever seen back there is those wild monkeys.  As long as they ain’t armed, that’s all I care.

Although no man would have dared try to scale the barrier, apes, on the other hand, were not so timid.  As darkness fell, the monkeys would descend from the mountain and scamper across the few naked yards between the jungle landscape and the base, scale the protective fence and drop inside.  They would scavenge their way to the dumpsters and trash containers behind the dining hall, clubs and snack bars; anywhere they might find morsels of food.  They were talented scavengers and they could raid the base of its refuse practically undetected.  When their task was complete, they would leave the same way they came in, returning to their safe haven on the mountain.

***

Seaman Jonathon Spencer flew into Da Nang with dozens of other anxious young men dropping into war, cramped into the narrow canvas seats that lined the cargo hold.  The C-130 rumbled in and touched down at the air base, taxied across the sun-blistered tarmac and came to a halt.  The wide-eyed men did not know what to