David A. Poulsen's Young Adult Fiction 3-Book Bundle. David A. Poulsen
looking briefcase. I had a little trouble getting it all sorted and hanging from various places on my body, but after a few tries I was more or less organized.
“Let’s make a move,” the old man said, but he stepped back to let Mr. Vinh lead. Apparently, Mr. Vinh knew better than the old man where we were going.
I fell in behind the old man, but on the way out of the camp, I looked back at Mrs. Vinh. She had stepped away from the fire and was smoking a cigarette. She looked up at me. Nodded. I waved a little wave at her and turned to follow Mr. Vinh and the old man.
I wondered if we’d be coming back here other than to get the Land Rover. I knew there was at least one tent in one of the duffel bags so maybe not. We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred metres when I learned my next big lesson about Vietnam. There’s forest and there’s woods and there’s brush and thickets and growth and timberland. All of them together don’t make jungle. Jungle makes jungle. And five minutes out of that camp, we were up to our asses in jungle.
Mr. Vinh was very good with the machete. No wasted motion. In fact, it didn’t look like he was working all that hard. He whacked away and carved a path where there hadn’t been one before. The machete had to have been ultra sharp. I decided not to do anything to upset Mr. Vinh.
6
If I’d thought Mr. Vinh’s camp felt like a sauna, I revised my opinion real quick. I figured out that back there was air-conditioned comfort. This was a sauna.
I had to walk fast because when he wasn’t carving a hole in the jungle, Mr. Vinh had this little trotting thing he did which covered a lot of ground in a short time. The old man had a long stride so he was right behind Mr. Vinh.
I had to haul ass to keep them in sight. And I noticed that neither of them looked back. That meant I either kept up or got lost in the jungle to be eaten by whatever creatures were making the noises I heard all around us.
I thought that was just in the movies. But there were noises, animal and bird noises, and not one of them sounded like any animals or birds I knew. The noises died away as we got closer to whatever creatures were out there and started up again behind us as soon as we passed them. No, not behind us … behind me. I was at the back. I hoped none of the noisemakers was hungry.
Then things got worse. We stopped at this swamp-looking body of water that stretched out in front of us for what looked like half a football field. I finally caught up to the old man and Mr. Vinh. They were at the edge of the swamp and the old man was digging into the duffel bag he’d been carrying. Pulled out two sets of rubber boots. Rubber boots with attitude. About a metre long.
“Hip waders,” he said. “Put them on.”
“We’re not going in there?” I looked at him like he was nuts. Which he was if he thought I was setting foot in that … water. With or without hip waders. “It’s the colour of sewage and it doesn’t smell good and who knows what’s in there.”
“So, what’s your point?”
“My point is I’m not going in there.”
“Okay, first of all, nothing bad will happen to you in there. You won’t drown, and you won’t get eaten by a great white shark.”
“That’s because no shark in his right mind would be caught dead in that crap.”
“Second of all, we’re crossing this, and if you decide you’re not going to, then I’ll see you back at the truck. You can leave now.”
I looked back at the jungle we’d just come through. I thought about the noises I’d heard in there. Plus, even though there was sort of a path, I wasn’t totally positive I could find my way back to Mrs. Vinh and the campfire.
“Are you sure there isn’t a better way? Like maybe we could go around this?”
“There’s no better way. If Mr. Vinh says we have to cross this, then we have to cross it. Put on the damn hip waders.”
Mr. Vinh launched into some Vietnamese lecture. Sounded like an English teacher when you don’t hand something in.
The old man nodded. “He wants us to hurry up.”
“Give me the damn hip waders.”
They were too big, and I had trouble walking in them. The old man took bungee cords and wrapped them around my legs a couple of times to keep them on. He made the cords so tight they hurt.
“You’ve cut off my circulation.”
“Then we better get going. It’d be a bitch if your legs fell off out there in the middle.” He waved his arm in the direction of the swamp.
I noticed Mr. Vinh didn’t have hip waders. “Is he going to cross like that?”
The old man shrugged. “He’s tougher than us.”
“He’s stupider than us.”
The old man actually cracked a smile. “Let’s go.” He nodded at Mr. Vinh, who did his little trot-shuffle step up to the swamp, then stepped out into it.
I was relieved that he didn’t disappear straight down and out of sight. He held his arms out to the side like he was balancing, but he moved pretty fast. I was wishing the guy had more than one speed.
The old man gathered up the duffel bag and stepped into the water, then moved off a few metres into the swamp. But this time he at least stopped and looked back to see how I was getting along. I had my canteens and backpack all arranged, but holding the briefcase up chest high meant I couldn’t use my arms to balance myself.
“This place takes brackish to a whole other level.” I don’t think anybody heard me.
There are earthworms that move faster than I was moving right then, and I figured it wouldn’t be long before I heard about it. But this time the old man was patient. Even said all that encouraging stuff. “Doin’ just fine, Nate…. Looking good, buddy.” That kind of stuff.
And I was looking good until a little past the midway point of our crossing. The water was up to about the middle of my thighs. I think my foot must have slipped off a rock on the bottom, and I lost my balance. I tried like crazy to get my feet back under me, but as I was scrambling around, I tripped over something — a submerged log or something and fell backwards into the swamp.
I was only totally in the water for like a second and a half, but I swallowed what I was sure was a lethal dose of swamp water. I scrambled and splashed my way back to my feet sputtering, choking and trying to say “Shit,” all at the same time.
The amazing thing is I kept the briefcase from going in the water. Kept my arms up as I was falling. Could’ve drowned, probably poisoned myself, but I saved a briefcase I’d never even seen the inside of. Genius.
“You okay?”
I had a feeling the old man was trying to keep from laughing.
“Just ducky,” I said.
The rest of the way to the other side went okay considering I was feeling like I’d been slimed. The water was cool so that part had been okay. At least it got some of the sweat off me.
By the time the old man and I got the hip waders off and back in the duffel bag, Mr. Vinh had disappeared into the jungle ahead. I hoped the old man knew where he’d gone.
I wanted to take time to wring out my T-shirt, but the old man shook his head.
“Saddle up. We’re moving out … now.”
Was it just me or was he starting to sound like somebody out of a war movie? I didn’t have time to think about it because he headed off down what looked like a bit of a jungle path, moving even faster than he had before.
I saddled up and hustled after him, the canteens jouncing around as I sort of jog/sloshed off into the jungle. I was able to catch up even though neither Mr. Vinh, who I could just make out up ahead, nor the old man slowed down even a little bit.
I