Warrior Brothers by Keith Fennell

misgivings. She initiated some idle chitchat before farting and pushing out something that landed on the pile below with quite a thud. I was embarrassed for her and even more embarrassed for myself. But she was just so damn cool about it all. She wiped herself clean, pulled up her pants and left. I wondered if I was dreaming but the drone of the blowflies made it real enough and so did the filth below. Her spot on the log was quickly filled by another bum – one that shared my gender – and I was able to continue.

With the benefit of the early morning light, a three-man recce team – Charlie, Steve and I – moved closer to the river to look for a possible crossing-point. The area was extremely exposed; any error in making our crossing could lead to our patrol being compromised. Steve decided to set up an observation post (OP) over a small village nearby to get a feel for the area. We would hold our position for the day and make our move prior to last light. G and I were given the task of maintaining eyes on the village, and things remained quiet. We spent the day crawling from shadow to shadow in an attempt to dodge the burning sun.
    As night approached, our patrol set off again, paralleling the river. It was a calm, stagnant evening and our progress was relatively swift and unremarkable, until we became aware of a low, droning sound. We proceeded cautiously as it slowly increased in decibels, eventually surrounding us. It appeared that our safe passage was being jeopardised by a beehive! But it was no ordinary hive. There were scores of underground chambers that continued for more than 50 metres. We pressed on, and as the sound intensified, so too did the numbers of bees thudding against our bodies. Swarms were diving in and out of the holed earth but, fortunately, they didn’t appear overly concerned by our presence.We breathed a sigh of relief when we exited this noisy little cyclone of black and yellow.
    As if large tropical bees weren’t intimidating enough, we soon came across a creek filled with deep mud. Steve indicated that this would be a ‘hasty crossing’, where we would bump through one at a time, so Charlie identified a crossing-point and stepped into the mud. He promptly sank to the full depth of his boot and took some time and effort to extricate himself.
    As second scout, I smirked silently and thought I would try my luck somewhere else. I didn’t sink up to my boot – I managed to go down to over my knees. The pack on my back helped to pin me to the very bottom and it took all my effort not to have my boots sucked right off my feet. I didn’t bother looking back at the guys as I made my away across the sludge pit; I could sense their silent laughter and there was no need to confirm it. The remainder of the patrol followed the direction Charlie had taken.
    As darkness fell across the landscape, our heaving bodies were rewarded with a short rest. The feeling of elation when the weight of our packs was rested on the ground was pure ecstasy. My numb shoulders began to return to life as the ache slowly receded. But we weren’t able to rest for long. Within moments Steve made his trademark clicking noise to indicate that we were moving again. We all made last-minute adjustments to our packs before heaving ourselves back to our feet and continuing.
    The next stage of our long walk south took us through countless fields of rice paddies, which was a welcome relief after the tangled web of vines and lantana. In the early hours of the morning Steve identified an area of thicket where we would snatch a couple of hours of sleep. We positioned two command-detonated Claymore directional mines at the most likely enemy approaches, established a spot for the security piquet, and then the other five of us collapsed ontothe earth, soaked by our own sweat. So total was our exhaustion that we didn’t even bother getting into our sleeping bags. We just nestled into the heavily