Dead Village by Gerry Tate

on the ground in the throe’s of death, as his blood spread fast and thick around his body.
    â€œYou little piece of shit,” Lieutenant Jones had shouted across, as the rest of his men seethed with rage and indignity.
    Another sneering guard had sprinted across to Jones and clubbed the injured lieutenant hard on the face with the butt of his rifle and was about to kick him, when Jones suddenly lashed out with a startling uppercut to the man’s chin, catching him cleanly. He grabbed the injured and disorientated man’s AK47 assault rifle and cracked him viciously around the head with the barrel.
    â€œGet them,” he ordered, as he opened fire, killing four or five of the enemy straight off.
    His colleagues reacted bravely, and soon a bloody fire fight was blazing wildly, as his men grabbed the dead Viet Cong soldier’s weapons and returned fire. There were too many though, and the lieutenant knew they couldn’t win this fight as he watched his men get cut down in a hail of bullets.
    â€œRun, run,” he yelled, just before he and two of the others were mown down in their tracks.
    The remaining men scattered into the dense jungle, ignoring the heavy monsoon like rain that had started to fall.
    Two of these men managed to stay hidden in the dense trees and eventually made it to the American lines. They related the story of the atrocity meted out to Skunk, and of Lieutenant Jones bravery, and in due course his now grief stricken widow was informed of his untimely death. She received her hero husband’s medal of honour with pride. This medal, and others, she kept on display in a glass cabinet, alongside his picture. Now remarried, she would often tell Timmy the stories of his brave father.
    For eleven years this widow talked solemnly of how her loving husband was taken from her, and how she often thought about him and still missed him so much. While she was alive though, she would firmly state, his memory would live on. She would often attend conferences and meet up with other wives of veterans who were killed or missing in action, while her understanding husband would take a back seat.
    When Lieutenant Jones turned up alive and kicking though, this charade soon came to an abrupt end.
    Lieutenant Jones had been shot all right, but a caring VC officer by the name of Koe Dhang had ordered that he should be humanly treated and given medical aid. He had survived and had been held captive ever since.
    Now he was back, but instead of being greeted by his grieving widow, he was shunned by her. She would not bow to pressure from the military or John’s family either, and refused to meet him or even let him see his son. She was very happy in her life now; with her four growing children, and loved her second husband Pete dearly. Nothing was going to spoil this life for her. ‘What’s buried should remain buried,’ she selfishly related to anyone who would listen. ‘I just can’t deal with this,’ she coldly told one reporter.
    Lieutenant Jones had witnessed the vilest cruelty of war first hand as a young soldier, and not only by the enemy. He had been present when his own men had thrown an injured prisoner from a chopper one time, at two thousand feet.
    This was war though, and he had accepted a long time ago, that in war, unjust and inhumane things can and do happen. At the time of the chopper incident, he had tried to stop the men doing this barbaric act, but they had laughed in his face. What could he have done anyway? He was only a grunt.
    He could never get over that senseless act of cruelty that day though. But this cruelty he was now receiving was something even he could never have mentally prepared himself for.
    This distraught man who had bravely fought for his country would have to take her through the law courts if he was to have access to little Timmy, who was now a grown boy, and didn’t really want to meet him anyway. She had even written to her ex husband,