Dyin’s Easy
By Gary Prisk
Chapter 1: “Southern Burma”
Team #7
Delirious, searching for his weapon, Hardin spits through a choking spasm. The bitterness of the monsoon is harrying his vision, the jungle a mass of swirling vegetation. And yet, at times, the driving rain and pulsing wind is a tolerable distraction from the wound in my thigh. Suddenly clear-eyed, catching rainwater in his mouth, he massages his humping tackle. There is little else to comfort his survival in the jungle of southern Burma—in the jungle of northern Malaya nothing at all.
Disoriented, laughing, then screaming at a young girl, twice and then again. He is jumping from the Shackleton into a thick mist, into the night, fighting his parachute’s torn risers. Tonkin mercenaries are firing from every turn… or are they Chinese?
“Who are the sods chasing me?” Captain Hardin’s mouth is as dry as burlap, and his tongue is swollen. “Where are my bloody boots?”