Once Berry was inside the room, he immediately noticed the smell.
It was dark in there.
It reeked of excrements and was unbearable. He was processing information at lightning speed when he noticed something lying on the floor.
Berry lowered both his head and rifle at the same time once he could confirm they didn’t pose any kind of threat. Moving up closer, he understood they were people.
There were three of them, all unarmed and chained to a tree trunk embedded in the floor.
They slept chained to each other– Berry thought.
Stepping closer, he stared at their faces more attentively and discovered they were Americans.
My god.
Calm down – he thought, as he swiftly probed the room.
It was small and dark, and in one corner there were steps which lead downwards.
Calm down - he told himself again.
Berry felt stunned for an instant, almost in shock, because those faces had very little human left in them at that point.
Their skin was transparently thin, their eyes sullen and their eye sockets had become black.
Even if they could still look around, they were nothing but skulls.
My God – he repeated to himself in an attempt to regain his breath.
Berry was so jumpy that when one of prisoners moved to cover his face with his hands Berry jerked to shoot him. The battle was still raging on outside the hut, and it was starting to get to everyone.
At this point Messner slid past Berry and in a blink of an eye was at the prisoners examining them. Berry, on the other hand, kept back, still somewhat shocked.
-
“Are there any other guards?” Messner asked.
“Downstairs, are there any other guards?”
“I am covering you, Snake” said Krakauer from their backs.
“Go” said Messner too.
“No” said one of the three prisoners, the only one who had enough energy to mumble something a loud.
“There are no other guards, no, no”
Then, with a quivering voice, he asked:
“Americans?”
His eyes were almost teary.
Messner smiled, and then answered:
“Snake is a nigger. Don't you see he is a nigger? Of course we are Americans”
The prisoner looked at him as if he didn’t understand a word.
“We’re here to free you,” exclaimed Messner.
-
Berry started climbing down the steps one at time, with extreme caution.
It was dark down there and his eyes hadn't adjusted yet.
After his third step down, he heard a sob and came to a halt. Without hesitation, he turned and pointed his AK in the direction from where the noise had come.
Keep those nerves steady, Delmore.
You don't want to get yourself killed down here, nor do you want to kill a prisoner by accident either.
So, steady those nerves, black man.
Some kind of a cry or subdued scream sounded for a second time, but they were coming from upstairs. The prisoners had probably understood that they were there to free them.
When Barry finally got around to climbing the steps down again, everything else in his surroundings disappeared.
His mind was completely focused on the corridor below him and his heart started thumping inside his chest.
At the bottom of the stairs there was a door which was closed from the outside with a bolt.
It must have been the solitary confinement hole.
There couldn’t be anything except other prisoners in there, and yet, for a second, Barry felt more in danger than ever.
He was too edgy and feeling a little hysterical.
Before pulling open the bolt he put the AK behind his back and took out his Browning. As he searched for his flashlight, he recalled it had a red filter so he decided on his zippo lighter instead. Once he lit it, he reached out for the bolt.
*
His hand was so shaky that the Zippo just about went out.
Barry took another step keeping the flame above him and suddenly saw a face came out of the shadows in front of him. Two faces, to be precise.
One was standing and the other was sitting on the ground, but it was the second one's face that captured Barry's attention most.
His forehead was split in the middle as open as a melon. His inner grey matter was almost visible and his eyes were fixed into space, like he was dead even if he wasn’t.
If he hadn’t been breathing, you wouldn’t have guessed he was alive.
Worst of all was the smell. Even if he was alive, it reeked of decay.
Barry knew that smell from his first tour.
He always knew he would have smelt it again, sooner or later, but never would he have thought to smell it on a living human being.
They had cracked his head skull, probably with a nightstick, judging from the wound itself. Then, they had left him there to die with his brain almost exposed and naturally without bandaging it.
Animals... Those Vietcong are nothing but animals, inhuman.
Barry turned away.
It never seemed to end in Vietnam.
The atrocities had no limits, no end.
After Alex Roland Simmons' death, Berry thought he’d seen it all, but that wasn’t the case.
Every time he thought he’d seen the worst the world could offer, Vietnam could hurt him again. It always dragged him further down and took him to such dreadful places that even the sickest fantasies couldn’t imagine.
He had to cover his mouth.
Enough – he thought.
That’s enough.
It wasn’t over though.
It's not over, Delmore.
It's not over till it's over...
And you can bet this mission is not over yet.
It was pitch black at the bottom of those stairs, the same darkness as that night, three years ago, when the Vietcong tortured and killed Alex Roland Simmons.
Barry closed his eyes and held them tight.
Not again – he thought.
How many times will I have to re-live that damn night?
The other figure, the one standing, swiftly brought him back to reality because he may still pose a threat.
Barry turned to him, but the other man instantly said:
“No”
Then he lifted his arms up over his face like a child in the face of danger.
“No, no, no”
Berry cautiously moved closer to him trying not to scare him even further.
“I am American” he said.
The horror in his eyes was so deep that Barry felt it inside him. He’d never seen that look before. It was far beyond fear itself. That man expected Barry to kill him.
My God – thought Barry.
“Stop, please”
“I am here to free you”
“Leave me alone. Stop, stop, stop...”
It was then that Barry noticed his arm.
It was swollen, no smaller than football, and with an enormous black hole in the centre of it.
It was a bullet hole.
They had shot him and left him naked.
Barry got nearer and gently touched his shoulder.
“Look at me” he said.
The men started.
“Robert is sick”
“We have to leave”
“Robert is sick”
Barry turned to the stairs and shouted.
“Messner!”
Messner ran down the stairs in a hurry holding his AK.
“Robert is sick” the prisoner said again.
Berry threw Messner a confused look.
“Robert is sick”
Messner stared at the prisoner with the cracked head for a while.
His skull was open and its grey matter was exposed while the blood between his eyes was dried and obviously daysold.
There wasn’t anything the Baker team could do for him in these conditions.
Barry waited patiently, and when he finally turned to Messner again, Doc shook his head as if to say there was nothing to be done.
Barry then slowly started dragging the other prisoner up the stairs.
“NOOOOO” the other man screamed.
“NOOO! I AM NOT LEAVING WITHOUT ROBERT! NO, NO, NOOOOO! LET ME GO! ROBERT! ROOOOBEEEERT!”
In the meantime, Messner had returned down the stairs and without the prisoner noticing, he jabbed him in the arm with a syringe.
“Robert” he repeated again, but his voice was already weaker.
With a tranquillizing substance in his bloodstream, Barry brought him upstairs more easily.
-
To kill the prisoner with the crushed skull, Messner didn’t even bother changing the needle. He reloaded the piston with three times more liquid than before.
What he was about to do was absolutely horrendous. It was one of those kind of things that stayed with you for the rest of your life.
His name was Robert.
The man Messner was going to kill was Robert.
In a better world, Robert may have survived, maybe by loading him on board a helicopter, or somehow.
The world they were in however, certainly wasn’t a righteous one.
Among so many 'what ifs’, there were some certainties as far as Messner was concerned.
After all the destruction the Baker team had caused to free the other hostages, he couldn't leave Robert there alive. God only knew what they would have done to him after in payback for all the North Vietnamese the Baker Team had killed. No, he couldn't leave Robert there, just like that.
So, despite all his doubts, Messner knew exactly what to do.
That's the reason he had filled his syringe with morphine without second thoughts.
It wasn’t even his fault.
Honestly speaking, Ortega had sentenced Robert to his death once they’d decided to storm that construction site.
That's not true. he said to himself.
That doesn't make any sense so just stop it.
When you are at war there is no such thing as right or wrong.
And this man, really is no time to start thinking about it.
That's right.
Messner had to be quick.
Regarding the consequences of his actions, he could reflect later, and probably the rest of his life.
“Robert. Can you hear me Robert?” Messner said while preparing himself to give the injection.
Robert's head moved a little.
It was astonishing that he was even conscious.
“You can't come with us, Robert. We’re too late to save you”
It wasn’t the whole truth however, and Messner felt sick for having even said it.
He’d just lied to a dying man.
“I k-now” said Robert in a whisper.
Near death, he half-closed his eyes.
Messner showed him the syringe.
“I have this, if you want it”
Robert nodded again.
He saw it, comprehended and accepted it.
Perhaps, in all his suffering, he was looking forward to it
“In that case, I’ll proceed”
Again, he nodded yes with his head, but when Messner was about to go ahead with the injection; he noticed that Robert was trying to do something.
Messner moved his ear close to his mouth but he did understood anything anyway.
Then it looked as if Robert was trying to scratch his neck.
He was reaching for his dog tags.
For some reason, the Vietcong had not taken them away from him.
Messner then took them off for him.
One of the two tags was scratched very distinctly with four letters:
WMLW – said the dog tag.
“My-wife. She'll understand,” said Robert.
Messner nodded, opened the chain up and took the scratched dog tag only.
He put it inside his waterproof map-bag, which was for an SOG member one of the safest places in the world.
I will bring this to your wife if that's what you want – Messner thought to himself.
“Now close your eyes Robert”
“You won't feel a thing”
Robert closed them.
Messner put the needle in his arm, put one hand over his eyes and then turned away because death is a private thing.
Messner waited a few seconds.
There was too much adrenaline in him to feel the bitterness of the moment but he certainly wasn’t proud.
What a shitty war – he thought.
He waited until he felt necessary and then he touched his neck.
Nothing – he concluded.
He put the syringe back in his backpack and picked up his AK again.
Although he was in a hurry that didn’t stop Messner from looking at Robert one last time.
Goodbye, Robert.
His closed eyes had no expression by then.
Then Messner disappeared back up the stairs.
We have already lost one– he thought.
And this is only the beginning.