Thomas "Tommy" Sullivan awoke to a blinding headache and extreme nausea. He vomited almost immediately, but his breakfast went up his nose and into his eyes - as opposed to down his front.
"The fuc..." he mumbled weakly, before the obvious dawned on him. He was upside down, suspended by the strap of his backpack that had hooked itself on a twisted tree branch.
He wiped the vomit away from his face, which of course encouraged him to throw up the morning's coffee too. After a second attempt of cleaning himself up, he peered around to get some vague idea of his bearings. Upside down, in a tree - about six feet off the ground. He could see his M16A1 down below, snapped in half at the slipring, along with his helmet.
Shouts sounded suddenly, off to his left. For the first time, he became aware of the smell of burning fuel, and with the more of his consciousness that returned, the more he was able to gauge the shouting - and gather back some of his memory prior to his situation.
He'd been in a helicopter, returning to base after a job well done. Then he remembered being spun around like a rag doll, and then he remembered falling.
And those shouts weren't American.
He fumbled for his Ka-Bar knife, and sliced at his backpack's sling. He had a split second to regret the decision before he fell six feet to the floor, but had what felt like an eternity to embrace the feeling of having the air knocked out him. After rolling around in quiet agony for a couple of minutes, he clambered to his feet - urged on by more angry shouts.
Tommy looked down bitterly at his shattered M16. He thought about gathering it up, to have a go at fixing it later on - but the shouting was getting louder, and all he wanted to do was run in the opposite direction. He checked his holster for his Colt M1911A1, and felt a wave of relief when his fingers edged around the weapon's cold metal. Not wanting to get caught up in whatever commotion was taking place a few dozen feet away, he started to crawl off into the surrounding shrub.
"I SAID I SURRENDER, YOU SLOPE EYED MO-" the owner of the new, Americanised, shout was promptly cut off.
Tommy froze - he knew that voice, and knew it well. It was Doc Wyatt.
"Fuck," he mumbled quietly. He couldn't leave Wyatt, he just couldn't.
He crawled back towards the shouting, and flinched as a shot rang out. He sat motionless for several seconds, thought about running, but then decided against it. Some things could haunt a man to his end, and leaving Wyatt would be one of them. He continued, drawing his Colt and prepping it for duty. He stayed low to the ground, using trees, stumps, rocks and shrub to carefully mask his movements - though for all he knew, Charlie was watching him and laughing. He pushed those thoughts down into the abyss, and carried on.
The shouting drew him to a small glade in the jungle, torn and carved by his Huey's awkward descent. Judging by the way it sat neatly - albeit shot to shit and bent to fuck - on the grass, the pilot must've lived long enough to affect the situation in some way. Tommy peered over a large green leafy plant in front of him, and saw 3 men wearing those stupid conical hats and carrying avtomat fuckovs. They were laughing, shoving each other in jest.
Tommy growled when he saw why.
Wyatt was sitting in front of them, on his knees. His face was puffed up, with his left eye swollen shut.
So these fuckers liked beating a defenceless man, did they?
He raised his Colt, took time to line up each of the three men going from left to right, and then repeated the motion - but pulling the trigger at each stop. They never had a chance, and fell to the ground before they could even bring their weapons to bear. Tommy surged forwards, putting an additional shot in each of the downed Charlies - you could never trust those freaks to stay dead.
Wyatt glanced up at Tommy with his one working eye, and gave a bloodied smile. Tommy helped him up, and they went about collecting what gear they could - namely an M16 replacement. Wyatt, stumbling with light concussion, managed to grab most of his gear up. Tommy asked about the rest of the Huey's occupants, but Wyatt just shook his head.
Their little foraging session was abruptly ended, as the distinctive sound of AK tore into the glade. Tommy saw a muzzle flash flare up from the other end of the clearing, fired back a few shots with his M16, then grabbed Wyatt. They fled to what Wyatt thought was south, retreating as quickly as they could without tripping on a root. Shouts followed them, and more gun fire - bullets slamming into the earth and trees around them.
###
The first seven shots had sounded pretty distant to Ryan and his men.
Of course, the next thirty or forty had been getting gradually nearer, as if some form of epic running gun battle was taking place. Charlie was up to something - but what? The other two Hueys? Maybe. No one knew exactly where they'd gone down, the squad had been too busy being spun around like a catherine wheel as the jungle rose up to greet them.
"WYATT, COME ON MAN!" came a very distinctive Irish sounding voice, just beyond the thickness of the trees north of the squad's current position.
Ryan and his men deployed themselves in response, not quite sure what to expect, but knowing their guns were going to have to do some work. Sure enough, two flailing figures emerged, shifting past trees, jumping recesses and cursing every time a bullet hit something near them. But cursing in English!
Behind the two flailing figures, were a score more - except these guys weren't flailing. To Ryan and his men, they were just black silhouettes arrayed into a loose line. But their distinctive conical hats were a telling sign of who they were. A rough count would have put them at 20 strong, maybe less, maybe more.
Tommy and Wyatt had barely the time to both mouth "SHIT" as they almost slammed into Ryan and his men. They threw themselves into the undergrowth a few feet ahead of their comrades, to avoid being cut down by the impending cross fire.
