Page 41 of Cry Havoc

“That’s pretty new. How did that get over here?”

“Hell if I know, man. This war is crazy.”

“True.”

“Well, if you see Stoner before I do, give him one of our cards,” the man said, handing Tom a worn and dirty business card with frayed edges that read:

China Beach

BÃI MY KHÊ

HÔI QUÁN TRUOT NUÓC

Surf Club

DANANG Vietnam

Membership Card

For 1968 of

Honorary Member

“And if you go out, be careful. Charlie don’t surf, but Charlie still shoots. One day they might get lucky.”

“Thanks. Who should I say said hello?”

“Larry. Larry Martin.”

“Thanks, Larry. I’m Tom Reece. This is Frank Quinn.”

The three men shook hands.

“Come back when we get a tropical storm to the east. That’s when you want to surf this break.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

A Vietnamese waitress delivered two huge cheeseburgers and fries.

“Enjoy your sliders and beers,” Larry said.

He left them to it and went back to the shade of his makeshift shack.

“Nice fella,” said Quinn. “Fucking Navy. Lifeguards. Surf shops.”

“It’s not for everyone,” Tom said, taking a bite of his burger. “Now this is proper hangover food. Greasy. Perfect. I guess that’s what got me to SOG.”

“Greasy burgers?”

“No, the Navy. Someone in Saigon wanted a SEAL who had jungle experience assigned to CCN to advise on riverine ops. NVA was using rivers and streams hidden by the triple canopy jungle to raft supplies south. CIA had a mission to booby-trap fifty-five-gallon fuel barrels being smuggled into the south via the river system. SOG and CIA brought me in to advise. I had done the SAS exchange program, so I’d been through their jungle warfare phase in Malaya, had two tours in ’Nam working the rivers and deltas, and had been to DLI for Vietnamese.”

“Did it work?”

“It did, but the Agency had a Nung who could barely swim on the hook for it, so I ended up doing more than advising. Launched out of Eagle Mountain just north of Phu Bai. Went in with RT Idaho. Took three days to get to the river, but I’ll tell you, there must have been hundreds of fuel drums floating south with NVA barrel tenders on wooden rafts positioned every hundred yards or so. They had no idea we were there. They felt safe, yapping away in Vietnamese, laughing and joking. Looked like a scene out of Huck Finn. We observed for a day waiting for it to get dark and gettingthe timing down between barrel tenders. I re-camoed my face and went in with just my Browning.”

“Did you have fins?”

“Oh yeah, otherwise I never would have gotten that barrel to shore.”