The Last Bridge

Chapter Forty-two 0415 Hours

The rising sun gave George McKuen no comfort. There was a dull ache along his ribs; the shrapnel cut had not altogether stopped bleeding. He stumbled forward through the jungle, and the dancing light of recklessness was all gone from his eyes. The heavy, sticky rain forest trapped him. Mist cleared slowly out of slimy bogs. The stub-barreled chopper hung across his back on its canvas sling. Both his hands were cut and half scabbed, knotted with cloth. He paced a slow track through fungus and sludge. His mind executed quick, disordered jumps. He felt exposed in the steamy daylight. His eyes sought mines and traps in the earth.

Shortly after dawn he stopped and lighted a cigarette. He pulled up his pants legs and deliberately burned eight leeches off his legs with the end of the cigarette.

His expression was wooden. He had nothing to eat, and he did not know which jungle fruits to trust. The complete silence of the day’s first hour seemed terribly dangerous. The gunsling bit into his shoulder, and he shifted it. He opened his jacket to look at the wound in his side. The wadded cloth against it was rust-brown.

He felt the residue of night chill, but the temperature was climbing sharply. He rolled his pants down and stuffed them into his boots and walked on, threading the jungle without strength or purpose. He knew from the angle of the sun, visible now and then in brief glimpses, that he was heading north. He would go north until he was beyond the mountains, and then he would turn east to the sea. That was as far as his thinking took him.

He came to the river, and it seemed deep and treacherous. Instead of trying to get across, he stayed on the bank and went along the river. He knew the river flowed into the sea. The jungle was too thick to travel the river bank. He had to circle back and forth. Keeping the river in earshot was enough. Perhaps he would come upon a sampan.

He almost stepped on a scorpion. The river was deep and gentle, not particularly noisy. He moved slowly across the patchwork shadows of the forest tops. Footing was spongy, and he had to use his knife continually. It was slow going, and he wished he had a machete. The jungle was lonely and unfriendly, and fatigue, long overdue, had crept into his muscles and heavy-lidded eyes. He stopped reckoning time.