Page 28 of Cry Havoc

Quinn knew Lieutenant Colonel Backhaus as well as anyone could, which is to say he knew the legend and, like most others on base, did his best to stay out of his way. Tom had met him upon arrival at Phu Bai months earlier, but had not personally interacted with him since, except when the colonel would see them off before missions. He had a tradition of shaking hands with the entire recon team before they boarded helicopters into Laos. He never said a word to anyone but the One-Zero.

Tom knew him, as did everyone in the ranks of SF, by reputation. There were a good number of Army Special Forces soldiers recruited under the Lodge–Philbin Act of 1950 who had fought for countries other than the United States in the Second World War, but there were few who fought under three flags. Even fewer who had fought for Germany, though most Finns were fightingforFinnish independence from the Soviets, notforNazi Germany.The enemy of my enemy.The idea of the Lodge Act was to recruit men fluent in European languages with firsthand knowledge of the villages, towns, and cities in which a future war with the Soviet Union would be fought, creating a valuable addition to the ranks of America’s growing force of unconventional warriors.

At fifty years old, his reddish-blond close-cropped hair was tinged with iron gray, which gave him the look of an old fox. Daily PT kept him in shape. He was a no-nonsense CO who never spent time drinking with the men in the Green Beret Lounge. Tom wondered if that was due to the loss of so many men in a career dating back to the late 1930s. Perhaps he did not want to get too close to soldiers who had such a high chance of being dead or wounded by tour’s end.

A huge German Shepherd that accompanied Colonel Backhauseverywhere was curled up on the floor to his right. How he got approval to bring his personal dog to Vietnam was anyone’s guess.

The old warrior stayed seated and slowly packed a pipe with tobacco before striking a wooden match against the top of his desk and dipping it into the bowl. He extinguished the flame, closed his eyes, and took a draw.

“Tell me about your ‘hunting expedition,’?” he said in a thick Finnish accent.

Legend had it that the Finnish-born soldier was something of a boxer in his youth and that he had Olympic potential, had it not been for the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939. He inflicted such heavy casualties on the Soviets in the Winter War that they placed a bounty on his head.

“Well?” the colonel prodded.

As the One-Zero, Quinn took the lead.

“You know about the hunting expeditions?” Quinn asked.

Colonel Backhaus nodded without changing expression.

The sweet smell of Cavendish tobacco filled the small space.

“I take full responsibility, Colonel.”

The dog lifted its head and growled.

Backhaus said something in German and the dog again rested its head on a large paw.

“What was your intent?” Backhaus asked.

“To train, sir.”

“Too much time between missions?”

Quinn paused.

“Sometimes.”

The unsettling nod again.

“I read in your report that you were testing out tactics for prisoner snatches.”

“Yes, sir. Assessing going in light with just Stens and High Standards.”

“What did you learn?”

“Wouldn’t want to try it against many more than seven. But it worked.We got our prisoner. Next time I’d take someone with an AW, a chopped RPD like Tom, I mean Petty Officer Reece, usually carries.”

“And you?” the colonel said, looking at Tom for the first time.

“A syringe of something to knock a prisoner out is going to be SOP from now on. We used morphine, and it worked, but it would be better to hold that in case it’s needed for someone on the team.”

The dog heard a truck rumble by outside and jumped to its feet, an ominous growl adding to the tension.

“Nein. Platz,”No. Sit,came the colonel’s sharp command in German.

“Braver Hund,” Good dog, Tom said, complementing the dog’s immediate response to the colonel’s command.