Free THERE BE DRAGONS by Peter Hallett

might be ahead wouldn’t be able hear the splash of water.
    Ahead of him, lit by the flashlight, lay what seemed like a never ending tunnel.
    He reached a turn with only one direction to travel. He took it, light and rifle still leading his way. Cobwebs hit his face. Rats scurried around his feet. “Damn vermin.”
    He felt a gust of air on his weathered, leathered face and saw some light flicker into the tunnel ahead of him, the light coming from the ceiling of the tunnel.
    He turned off the flash and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Then he slowly pushed his head, shoulders, and rifle through the hole.
     
    • • • • •
     
    The dirt of Nam gave birth to Stephens as his upper body exited the hole and entered the NVA room.
    The first thing he saw was a Vietcong looking at documents on a bamboo table.
    Stephens fired off three shots. All hit target.
    Puffs of black material shot from the enemy’s pajama-like clothes, blood right behind them. The lifeless body bounced off the table with a creak and hit the muddy floor.
    Stephens pushed with his legs and entered the room fully.
    He was still on his knees as he let his rifle and eyes scan left to right, making sure no one else lurked. No one did.
    He tugged on the rope once to let Cage know he was good.
    The room was square and large. To the left of it, the opposite side to where the recently departed now lay, were rows of dark green NVA jungle hammocks. Some beds looked occupied and had trails of blood leading to them.
    The wall next to the beds had shelves full of bottles of saline solution, glucose, plasma, and others Stephens didn’t recognize. Some had labels in Chinese, Russian, and German.
    Stephens stood and approached the hammocks, his rifle at the ready.
    He reached the first one to find a dead NVA soldier full of shrapnel, his body a mangled bloodied mess.
    The next one held another soldier with bullet wounds. Dead.
    The next one, a guy missing both his arms and half of his face. Dead.
    All the hammocks contained dead bodies.
    Something struck Stephens peculiar about one of them, though. He tilted his head to one side and raised his helmet higher up his forehead with the barrel of his CAR-15. “What we got here? Looks like something took a chunk outta you, fella. Took … took a bite outta you.”
    Stephens heard a noise from behind him.
    He heard the scrape of boots along mud.
    He turned.
    Someone exited the tunnel behind.
    Stephens shot … but missed.
    “Hey!”
    Stephens ignored the shout and aimed for another shot.
    “It’s me, Diaz!” His voice trembled.
    Stephens lowered his rifle. “What the hell are you doing in here? You fixing to get shot? You can’t be making an unexpected entrance like that, Diaz!” Before the private could answer, the sergeant began to curse himself. “And how did I miss you? What if you’d been another enemy soldier? I could be dead now. Son of a bitch!”
    “Sorry.” Diaz’s voice shook. He breathing was fast and hard.
    “My heart is racing … it feels good,” said Stephens.
    Diaz picked himself up from the mud. “Jacobs sent me in after we heard some shots. You okay?”
    “Of course I am. Didn’t Cage tell him I’d signaled back that I was fine?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I’m gonna go back up top to find out. There seems to be an exit from this room, back out to the jungle, towards the rear over there.” Stephens pointed to it. “Check it out. I think we’re alone anyway, or we’d be in a world of hurt right now,” he said. “We’d have been swarmed by gookie-monsters. Also, see if you can get anything from the enemy intel on the table. You speak rat, don’t you? Then join us up top. Got it?”
    “Yeah,” answered Diaz.
    Stephens took a knife from his boot and cut the rope from around his waist. He went down the hole to the tunnel and started to head back up top.
     
    • • • • •
     
    When Stephens exited the tunnel, he walked into a whirlwind of commotion.
    Cook was