Luke's Story
by
Author's note: The original idea for this story comes from the story Eye of the Storm by CandyLovin Fehrian. This is a terrific story. If you have not read it, please take the time to do so. This original idea and the characters named in a small section of that story are used with her gracious permission and I would like to thank her again for allowing me to expand on it. This is a relatively short story and deals mainly with Luke's time in the prison camp.
Chapter 1
Luke Duke closed his eyes and tried to rest. He was exhausted. But it was useless. The sound of gunfire in the distance, a sound he should be used to by now, was keeping him awake. Not that he really slept in this place anyway. He hadn't had a decent night's sleep in almost two years, not since he was sent to Viet Nam with the rest of his unit. But in a few more weeks it would all be over and he would be going home. His enlistment would be up. Finally, he gave up trying to sleep and sat up on his bedroll. Slapping at one of the endless bugs that seemed to fill the air, he barely noticed the sting on his arm when it bit him. Opening his knap sack, he dug out the picture of his family. Uncle Jesse and his cousins, Daisy and Bo. God, he missed them so much. Especially Bo. He couldn't wait to go home for good. Sighing, he put the picture back in his knap sack for safe keeping.
Shoving himself to his feet, he shuffled over to the campfire and joined two other men from his unit who were sitting there. Luke poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down beside one of his best friends, Henry Lawson. Henry was only a few years older than Luke (who had just turned twenty-two a few weeks ago) He hailed from Tennessee and since the two young men had a lot in common, they had quickly became friends here in this jungle far away from their respective southern homes.
The young man sitting on the other side of Luke was relatively new. He had only been with the unit for the past two months. And he was only eighteen, one of the youngest soldiers there. His name was Micheal Guerin and he'd been born and raised in Roswell , New Mexico . Luke had talked to him a few times, offering him advice on how to stay alive in this awful place. It was a lesson that every new recruit had to learn pretty quick if they wanted to survive. One mistake in this jungle could cost you your life.
“Where are from, Luke?” Micheal asked. He knew from Luke's accent that he was from the south but he'd never found out which state.
“ Georgia .” Luke told him “A little place called Hazzard.”
“You got a girl back home?”
“No…nobody special.” Luke said with a faint smile. Back home he'd been popular with all the local girls and never had to worry about a date. With his rugged good looks and lean muscular build from his years of working on his uncle's farm, the local girls thought that he was one of the hottest guys around.
“I got me a girl. Her name's Mindy Anne.” Micheal said with a huge grin. He pulled a tiny snapshot out of his uniform pocket and handed it to Luke. It showed Micheal with his arms around a pretty little redhead with blue eyes. Luke handed him back the picture and he carefully slipped it back into his pocket “I'm gonna ask her to marry me when I get back home.” He said proudly.
“Good for you, Mike.” Luke said with a warm smile “She looks like a real nice girl.”
“She's the best.” He replied with a huge grin. “We been going together since eighth grade.”
“Hey, Luke…” Henry said “Did you get a letter from home this morning?”
“Sure did. One from Uncle Jesse and one from Bo.”
“How are they doing?”
“About the same.” Luke said. It made him homesick to talk about his family and home. It was so lonely here in this place so far away from the states. Even with twenty other men in his unit, Luke still felt so alone.
Henry started to say something else when suddenly there was a whistling sound in the air and then a terrible explosion right in the center of their camp. The three men sitting around the fire, jumped to their feet and threw themselves down behind the relative safety of the sandbags piled up around the perimeter of the camp. The sound of shouts and gunfire quickly filled the air. Suddenly, there seemed to be Viet Cong everywhere. Somehow in the confusion and excitement of the fight, Luke got separated from Henry and Micheal.
A second explosion went off, so close to where Luke was standing that it stunned him momentarily and made his ears ring so badly he couldn't even think straight for a minute. As he slowly regained his senses, he saw two Viet Cong soldiers grab Henry and start dragging him away. With a loud yell, Luke ran towards them intending to help his friend. Suddenly, Luke felt rough hands grab him from behind and a hood of some sort was pulled down over his head. He tried to struggle against the hands holding him captive and received a vicious punch in the stomach that took his breath away and sent him to his knees. He felt someone jerking his arms in front of him and then tying his wrists tightly together, so tightly that the braided rope cut painfully into his wrists. Hands jerked him roughly to his feet and then someone tied his ankles together just as tightly but with enough slack between his legs so that he could still walk. Luke felt his heart pounding with fear as he realized that he had just been taken prisoner by the enemy.
Hands pushed him from behind, forcing him to walk forward into the unknown. He could hear the voices all around him, speaking both in Vietnamese and English but in the confusion, he couldn't make out more than a few words here and there. He felt the barrel of a gun in the middle of his back, nudging him to keep him moving forward as they began to walk into the jungle. Blinded by the hood over his head, Luke stumbled on the uneven terrain as the Viet Cong and their prisoners began the march towards their camp. Whenever Luke stumbled because he could not see what lay in front of him, he was roughly pulled back to his feet by the unseen hands of the men who had taken him prisoner. They walked for hours without stopping. When Luke fell again too exhausted to stand, someone grabbed the rope around his wrists and drug him across the rough uneven ground until Luke finally stumbled back to his feet.
They kept walking with no stops for the exhausted men to rest and the prisoners weren't offered any water. Under the blazing sun all of the prisoners were soon panting for breath, their mouths parched and dry. Suddenly, Luke was jerked to a stop. From somewhere beside him, he heard a scream and then a gunshot. It was so close that for a minute, Luke thought he was the one who had been shot. He heard the sound of the bullet entering a body and then thump as the body hit the ground. The man who had been shot whimpered and cried out when he realized the bullet didn't kill him. That was when Luke recognized the man's voice. It was Micheal, the young eighteen year old recruit. There was so much fear evident in his voice that Luke felt his own fear paralyzing him. A second shot rang out seconds after the first one and then there was silence. A silence so heavy that Luke could hear his own heart pounding in his chest.
Then he heard Henry's voice as he yelled at their captors to take off his blindfold. There was the sound of flesh hitting flesh and then Henry shut up. Luke felt hands shoving him from behind forcing him to start walking again. He stumbled on through the jungle, the sounds of the fighting in the distance slowly fading away until the only sound Luke heard was the ragged breathing of the men around him and the buzzing of the insects in the air.
Chapter 2
It was almost two days before they finally stopped walking through the jungle and reached the Viet Cong's hidden camp. Luke and the other prisoners were totally exhausted and seriously dehydrated. Their hoods were ripped off and their hands and feet were cut loose. Luke blinked and blinked against the sudden glare of the sun. He glanced around and realized that Henry and two other men from his unit besides himself had been taken prisoner. One of their captors waved a gun at that and said in broken English “You strip now….”
With trembling fingers, Luke started taking off his uniform and his boots. When the four prisoners were standing naked in front of them, one of the men jerked off each set of dog tags from around their necks. Another man threw each of them a pair of ragged pants with a drawstring waist and a loose fitting shirt with long sleeves. “You dress…” he ordered, keeping his gun trained on them as they did as they were told. Luke pulled on the dirty ragged clothes, his heart still pounding fiercely in his chest. When they had finished redressing, they were ordered to walk across the compound to a run down building not much bigger than Luke's bedroom at home. One of their captors unlocked the door and they were all four shoved inside with the door securely locked behind them.
The shed was crowded with other prisoners. Even though there was no light in the shed, there was enough sunlight creeping in through the cracks in the walls to be able to see clearly. Most of the other prisoners didn't even look human anymore. Their bodies were wasting away from a lack of food and their eyes were empty and dead. Most of them were covered with sores or open seeping wounds. Some injured men were holding amputated body parts against their bodies, trying to will away the pain. The air was heavy with moans and the sound of grown men crying.
Luke crawled over to a corner and sat down, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his face on top of his crossed arms. He had never been more terrified in his life. The smell in the shed was terrible, a combination of blood, sweat, vomit, rotten flesh, dirty bodies, urine and feces. The odor made Luke gag and he started to retch, his body convulsing with dry heaves since he had nothing in his stomach to throw up.
He jumped when he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. Turning his head between his attempts to bring up something in his stomach that wasn't there, he saw Henry kneeling beside him. Henry gently rubbed a soothing circle on Luke's back as he continued to retch violently. Finally the retching stopped enough for Luke to lean back against the wall, weak and exhausted.
“It's gonna be okay, Lucas.” Henry whispered softly “We're gonna make it through this as long as we stick together.”
“I hope so…” Luke whispered back trying to keep the fear from showing in his voice.
“It's okay to be scared, Luke.” Henry said as if he had read Luke's mind. “I'm scared too. I've never been so damned scared in my life.”
“Neither have I.” Luke admitted. He groaned as he bent forward and started retching again. Henry stayed by his side as he went though another bout of dry heaves that left him trembling violently by the time it was over.
“Don't worry…you'll get used to the smell soon enough” someone called to Luke from across the room. “And then it'll never go away.”
Another man dressed in rags even filthier than theirs crept forward and handed Henry a small wooden cup. It was half full of foul smelling lukewarm water. “That's all they give us to drink.” The man told Henry as he crept away. Desperately thirty, Henry forced down half the water and then handed the rest to Luke. Luke gagged at the foul taste of the water but drank it anyway, desperate for something to soothe his parched mouth and throat. His stomach churned uneasily but he forced himself to keep the water down at least for now.
As night fell and the sunlight no longer crept through the cracks in the walls, it became impossible see beyond the blackness that settled around them in the shack. But noise didn't stop, the moans, the crying, the sound of men getting sick somewhere in the darkness. Luke continued to retch off and on all through the night and Henry stayed close by his side. Neither of them got any sleep that first night.
Early the next morning, the door to the shed was opened and a guard held his gun on the prisoners as they crowded around the door. Henry soon realized that food was being passed out so he went to get some for himself and Luke. After a long wait, he returned with two small wooden bowls filled with water and a little rice. One of the other men in line had told Henry that was all they would get until the next morning. It was barely enough to keep a man alive but it was all they had. A big tub of water had been set inside the shed at the same time and that would be their rationed water for the day. They would use their food bowls as their drinking cup as well.
Henry handed one of the bowls to Luke who accepted it even though the sight and smell of the food made him start gagging again. But somehow he forced it down knowing that he had to keep his strength up if he hoped to survive this hell hole. When he had finished eating, Luke leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. In his mind, he went home. He went back to Hazzard. It was something he had learned to do early on as a way of relaxing and keeping his sanity in this crazy place called Viet Nam . At least for awhile in his mind he could leave this place and go back to the one place he felt safe and secure.
That first day in that shed, two men died and their bodies were left lying on the ground in a corner of the shed where some of the other men dragged them. One of the other men told Luke and Henry that the guards came in every so often and collected the bodies of the dead to be buried in a common grave. That is the bodies that hadn't already been eaten by the animals that crept into the shed at night to feed on the dead and sometimes on the living too. Mainly rats, some of them the size of a small house cat. Luke and Henry had both felt them crawling over them in the darkness the night before.
The second day they were there, Max, one of the other men from their squad who had been captured along with them came down with a raging fever and by the next evening he was dead. His body was added to the growing pile in the corner. Luke was terrified that he was going to die here in this place and that his family would never know what had happened to him.
Some of the other men in this place with them had obviously gone insane, their minds and souls destroyed. Luke sometimes wondered if he would end up like one them. Maybe they were the lucky ones. They didn't seem to know or care where they were. It was a better alternative than facing the reality of the situation. Luke could already feel his spirit starting to die inside of him as his body started to weaken from the lack of food and the dysentery that Luke caught from the only food they were given to eat. Most of the men got it within a few days of being captured. It was accompanied by severe abdominal cramps and a fever which only added to their general discomfort.
Chapter 3
Luke was sitting against the wall of the shed in a daze. There was nothing else to do for hours at a time except to sit in one place, so Luke generally let his mind wander. He had been in this prison for a week but it already seemed like a lifetime. Suddenly the door to the shed slammed open and four guards came inside. Two of them stood by the door, keeping their guns trained on the other prisoners while the other two began scanning the crowd. One them grabbed Luke by the arm, roughly pulling him to his feet, while the second guard grabbed Henry and jerked him to his feet.
Luke's heart started pounding frantically as the guard gripping his arm jerked him out of the shed and into the brilliant sunlight. He blinked his eyes, the glare of the sun hurting his eyes after being accustomed to the dimness in the shed. Two of the guards took Henry in one direction, while the other two guards forced Luke to walk in another direction. They led Luke into a small hut and forced him to sit down in a chair sitting in the middle of the room. One of the guards grabbed his arms and pulled Luke's hands behind the chair, trying his wrists together tightly.
Luke tried to keep the fear he felt from showing on his face as another Viet Cong came into the room. He was obviously a higher ranking officer than the two guards who stood on either side of the chair where Luke was sitting. The man glared at Luke for several minutes and then demanded in broken English “Who are you?”
“Sergeant Lucas Kristopher Duke. United States Marines Division D.” Luke told him that answer got Luke a punch in the jaw that rocked his head to one side and made the entire right side of his face ache.
“Wrong.” The man snarled “You are nobody. You have no name. You are our prisoner. If you live or if you die, it is all up to us.” The man looked into the dark haired man's eyes fully expecting to see panic and fear however he was surprised, and angered, to find how calm Luke's sapphire eyes looked even in the face of danger. “Where are you from?”
“ Hazzard , Georgia .” Luke responded, only to receive another vicious punch, this time to his stomach, taking his breath away and making him gasp for air.
“Wrong! You have no home. You have nothing unless we tell you that you do.” The man repeated the same questions several more times, each time punching Luke viciously when he refused to give them the answers they wanted to hear. By the time they finished questioning him, Luke was barely conscious and his whole body ached from the punches.
Luke felt one of the guards cutting his hands loose and then jerking him roughly to his feet. The two guards half pulled, half drug him back outside. But instead of throwing him back into the shed with the other prisoners, the guards drug Luke further into the jungle where several small wooden cages stood in the middle of a small clearing. They shoved Luke into one of the cages and locked the door securely. The cage was so small that all Luke could do was to sit on the ground, hunched over in a cramped position and there was no room to even turn around. Luke sat there with his knees drawn up to his chest, trying to ignore the aching of his body where he had been beaten, especially the throbbing pain in his left flank where he had been struck repeatedly. He choked back the bile that rose in his throat and blinked back the tears that gathered in his eyes. He had never been more scared in his life. He might be twenty-two years old but at that moment, he felt like a small terrified child.
A noise caught his attention and Luke raised his weary eyes to watch as two guards appeared in the clearing, dragging Henry between them. They threw him into a cage across from Luke and locked the door, disappearing back into the jungle. “Hey, Luke…” Henry said in a dry hoarse voice “How ya doing?”
“I've been better.” Luke replied
“Yeah….me too.”
“Why'd they put us out here instead of back in the shed with the others?”
“I can answer that. We're from a special Unit so we get special treatment.” Henry told him with a dry laugh
“Yeah? Well….I'd rather not be so special.” Luke said
“You got that right. Me neither.”
“God, it's hot out here.”
“Yeah, I know….and it's gonna get worse.”
It was still early in the day and already the temperature was in the high nineties. The air was so hot and muggy that it burned Luke's lungs with each breath he took. As the temperature rose, sweat began to pour from his body and breathing became more difficult. It was so bad that eventually Luke passed out from the heat. The feel of something crawling across his bare foot awoke Luke with a startled cry. He swatted at the huge spider that was crawling over his skin.
“You okay, Luke?” Henry asked when he heard Luke's startled cry
“Yeah, just a spider crawling on my foot.” Luke said, taking a deep breath to try and slow down the racing of his heart.
“Yeah, I know. They been crawling all over me too…spiders, bugs….damn insects. Suckers hurt when they bite too.”
“I'll take your word for it.” Luke muttered, trying to clear the cobwebs out of his foggy mind.
The day seemed to drag on with no end in sight. But when night fell it was even worse. The darkness was overwhelming, covering everything like a blanket. And it was still so hard to breathe. There was little relief from the heat; it was only slightly cooler than it was during the day. And what made it even worse was that the spiders and other animals that crawled over them in the darkness could not be seen like they could during the daylight. It was impossible to do more than doze off for brief periods at a time. Luke could feel himself getting even weaker than he already was. Death seemed almost preferable to this continuous torture with no end in sight.
A guard came early in the morning with a small cup of rice and water, their ration for the day. Then they were left alone. The loneliness was almost unbearable. All Luke and Henry had was each other, so they used that to keep their sanity. They talked about everything and anything they could think of just to pass the endless hours of boredom and isolation.
“Tell me some more about Hazzard.” Henry said in a tired voice
“My Uncle has a farm there. One hundred and sixty acres of the best bottom land in the south. That's where I grew up.”
“What do ya raise?”
“Cotton, corn and moonshine.” Luke told him with a soft chuckle.
“Moonshine, huh?” Henry said with a chuckle “Is it any good?”
“Best shine in three states.” Luke said proudly “Secret family recipe. Been passed down for five generations.”
“You a ridge runner?” Henry asked referring to the talented drivers who made the moonshine deliveries.
“I was till I enlisted.” Luke answered
“You got any brothers or sisters?”
“Nope…just two cousins…Daisy and Bo.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger. I'm the oldest.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“They were killed in a car accident when I was four and I went to live with Uncle Jesse.”
Henry and Luke continued talking all day trying to forget just for a little while about their precarious situation. Luke was glad that he wasn't out here in this cage by himself without anyone to talk to. If he had been, he would have lost it by now from sheer loneliness.
Chapter 4
Three long weeks passed, weeks that seemed more like an eternity in hell. By the third week in their cages, both men were so weak that they no longer had the energy to swat at the bugs, insects and other critters that crawled into their cages and over them. They didn't even seem to feel it when they got bit or stung anymore. Luke was listening as Henry started telling him a story about his Uncle in Tennessee who ran moonshine too. Only half of his mind was paying attention, the other half had drifted off into the recesses of his own mind. Suddenly, Luke felt a sharp sting on his bare foot.
“LUKE!” Henry yelled in a frantic voice “IT'S A SNAKE!”
By the time his words registered in Luke's foggy mind and he glanced down the snake had already crawled across his pant's leg and found his foot dish. Through blurry eyes, Luke saw the two little puncture marks just above his left ankle. Being a country boy, he knew far too well the dangers of getting snake bit.
A few minutes later, Luke started shaking violently. Even though it was still early morning and the temperature was crawling up into the high nineties, Luke had never felt so cold in his life. Unable to lie down, all he could do was sit there hunched over in his usual position as the poison slowly seeped into his system. Luke grew steadily worse as the day wore on. He could hear Henry talking to him but he was too sick to reply. The next few days were a blur in his mind and always would be. The only thing Luke would ever remember clearly was feeling so cold all the time and wanting to give up, to just curl up and die so he could stop the pain and misery of this place. But his mind refused to let him give up and slowly he started coming out of it. When he was coherent enough to start responding to Henry again, Henry told him that all he had done for the past three days while he was delirious was rant about Hazzard and Rosco chasing him. Luke's foot was swollen up to twice its normal size and was turning purple. He could barely move that leg and his foot throbbed with pain.
The morning after Luke started to come out of his delirium, the guards came and took Henry away. It was hours before they brought him back and when they did, it was obvious that he had been badly beaten. Henry told Luke that the Viet Cong had questioned him for hours wanting to know the location of their camps and weapon sites. They refused to believe that Henry didn't know. The next morning, the guards came for Henry again. Luke watched helplessly as they drug him away. Only this time they didn't bring him back that day. Alone in his cage, Luke felt the terror seeping into every part of his being. He could feel his mind starting to slip away without Henry there to keep him from losing it.
Two mornings later, Luke felt like he was teetering on the very edge of sanity. He was afraid that he was going to start screaming and never stop. Suddenly the guards came through the trees dragging Henry's body. They threw his dead body down in front of Luke's cage, jabbering something he couldn't understand in Vietnamese. One of the guards reached out and unlocked Luke's cage, hands reaching in to grab at him. With a whimper, Luke scooted back as far into the corner as he could get his eyes wide with terror. Then he heard it. The sound of gunfire and explosions coming from the direction of the main camp. The two guards turned and ran back towards the camp, Luke momentarily forgotten. But that wasn't all they forgot. They forgot to close the door to Luke's cage.
Luke half fell, half stumbled out of the cage, falling on the ground beside Henry's dead body. As he looked at his friend's dead body and empty eyes, something deep inside of Luke snapped. So weak he could barely move, somehow Luke managed to scrape a shallow grave out of the loose dirt in front of his cage using his bare hands. Not very deep but deep enough so that he could bury his friend. It was the last thing he could do for him, the only respect he could show for his murdered friend. When he had finished, Luke collapsed on top of the makeshift grave and let his mind drift far away.
The rescue team consisted of men from Luke's platoon together with some other platoons. They had been searching for the prison camp for months. When they found it, they killed every Viet Cong solider they came across and freed the prisoners in the shed. They would have missed finding Luke if one of prisoners in the shed hadn't told them about the cages hidden in the jungle clearing. Two of the rescue team, one of them a man from Luke's own squad, made their way into the jungle and saw the tiny cages. They also saw Luke lying face down on the ground in front of one of those cages.
At first they thought that Luke was dead. He couldn't speak and his eyes stared sightlessly ahead when one of the soldiers rolled him over onto his back. Only the warmth of his skin and the faint rise and fall of his chest told them that he was still alive. The man from Luke's squad barely recognized him. His hair was dirty and tangled, grown out from the regulation Marine cut, his face was unshaven, and he had lost at least thirty pounds since his captivity. He was dirty and covered with bites from insects and a seriously injured left foot, the swelling from the snake bite had advanced up into his leg almost half way to his knee. The man gently picked Luke up into his arms and carried him back to the medi-vac helicopters that were waiting to remove the prisoners to a military hospital for care.
As Luke was loaded onto a stretcher inside the copter, a nurse quickly assessed his condition. She determined that he was severely dehydrated and malnourished with a serious weight loss. He had several bites and scratches that were severely infected and a nearly critical infection in his left foot and leg. She knew that it had been caused by a snake bite; she'd seen similar infections before caused by the untreated bite of that one particular little snake. He could end up losing the leg. And she was worried about his mental status. He seemed to have withdrawn deep inside of himself where nobody could reach him. She carefully strapped him to the stretcher preparing him for the flight to the nearest field hospital. He would be unloaded with the rest of the other critically injured or ill prisoners. Other prisoners who were not as seriously ill or injured would be taken to another hospital. Once she had Luke secured to the stretcher, she quickly started an IV to get some fluids into him as quickly as possible.
The nurse examined the young man's face. He couldn't be much over twenty or twenty one. So many of the soldiers she dealt with were young men in the prime of their lives. She said a special prayer for each of them. She had became a good judge of which ones would survive and which ones wouldn't and she had a feeling that this young man would survive. She just hoped that they would be able to save his leg and bring his mind back from wherever he had retreated to. As she finished tending to him, she signaled the pilot that he could take off. A breeze filled the inside of the chopper as they lifted into the air. As they started to fly towards the field hospital, the young man with the snake bite on his leg started to get extremely agitated as if he were aware somehow that he was in a helicopter. To keep him still, the nurse quickly injected a sedative into his IV line to calm him down.
Forty-five minutes later, the chopper landed at a field hospital and medical personnel came running out to help unload the injured soldiers. Briefly the nurse on board gave a quick assessment on each man as he was unloaded from the chopper. The young man with the snake bite was unloaded last. As she watched them carrying him towards the hospital, she smiled and whispered under her breath “God bless, soldier”
Chapter 5
The young intern frowned when he saw the empty bed. Quickly he hurried to find the nurse on duty. When he found her talking to another patient at the far end of the ward, he signaled for her attention. Excusing herself, she walked over to the irritated intern.
“He's gone again.” The intern told her
“Not again.” The nurse said with a soft sigh knowing exactly which patient the intern was referring to. “Check outside. You know where to look. If he's there, bring him back in. I hate to do it but we're gonna have to restrain him. That leg has to stay elevated or he's gonna end up losing it. Get someone to help you in case he gets agitated.”
The intern hurried off to do as she ordered. She turned on her heel and walked back to the supply room. She hated to restrain the patient in question but she had no other choice. Until they could get though to him and make him understand that he was safe now and that he had to stay in bed so his leg could heal, this was all she could do. The young man had been brought in three days ago with several other P.O.W.'s from the same camp. At first he was passive and docile but then he had become agitated and hard to handle. Even with his severely injured leg, he kept trying to escape every chance he got. They couldn't seem to get through to him that he was safe now and no longer locked in a tiny cage in the middle of the jungle. Usually, he could be found outside somewhere around the building huddled in a corner sleeping.
She found a set of restraints and walked back through the ward. When she reached his bed, the intern had the young man settled back in bed and sedated for the time being. With the intern's help, the nurse fastened restraints to the young man's wrists and then to the bottom rails on the bed to keep him from escaping again. She also placed a security belt around his waist which also fastened to the bottom bed rail. Satisfied that he was secured and wouldn't escape again, she put three pillows underneath his left leg to keep it elevated. She didn't want to see him lose the leg and that was what would happen if he didn't stay in bed.
Gently she took the young man's vital signs which where all in normal ranges although his heart rate and blood pressure were both a little on the high side. With his dog tags missing and his present mental status, she didn't even know his name, rank or the branch of the military that he was a part of. So for now, he was listed in their records as John Doe #324. Once they had gotten him out of the filthy rags he had been wearing when he was brought in and got him cleaned up, she had found that he was a very handsome young man. The only other thing she knew about him was that he had a strong southern accent. And the only reason she knew that was because he talked in his sleep. Being from Alabama herself, she thought that his dialect sounded like either Georgia or the southern part of Tennessee . Assured that he was resting comfortably for now, she hurried away to tend to her other patients leaving the young man's care to the nervous young intern.
The young intern had only been in Viet Nam for a short time and was already more then ready to go home. He had seen so many terrible things over here in such a short time, so much death and so much pain. So many broken bodies and more then a few broken minds. Like the young man he was tending to now. A young man not that much younger than he was who should be at home dating girls and having fun, not fighting in a war that made no sense to anyone.
Somewhere deep within the recesses of his mind Luke could sense the activity around him. But he was afraid to believe that he was really safe. He was terrified that if he let himself believe that then he would open his eyes and discover that it was all a dream. Instead, he would find himself back in that tiny cage in the jungle or even worse.
Whatever hope he'd had died with Henry. And he had buried a part of himself in that shallow grave with him in that god forsaken jungle.
The young nurse finished her rounds and grabbed a bite to eat before returning to the ward. As she walked down the aisle, she glanced at each bed she passed automatically checking on the occupant as she passed. When she reached the bed of the young man she had tended to earlier. She noticed that his eyes were open. It wasn't the first time he had opened his eyes but it was the first time that she noticed certain alertness in those sapphire depths that had not been present before. She walked to the side of the bed and gently reached down to touch his shoulder.
“Hello, soldier…” she said quietly “Can you tell me your name?”
There was a moment's hesitation and then he said in that unmistakable southern accent “Where am I?”
“You're in a field hospital just outside of Saigon . My name's Barb and I'm a nurse here.” She told him with a smile when she realized that he had finally come back from the blackness of his own mind. “Now….can you tell me your name, rank and serial number?”
“Sergeant Lucas Kristopher Duke. United States Marines Division D. 23-65-0947.” He responded automatically.
“A Marine….. I should have known.” She told him with a grin “Nice to meet you Sergeant Duke.”
“Why are my hands tied down?” Luke asked in an alarmed voice realizing for the first time that he was restrained.
“Because you kept trying to escape and we can't have that. Your leg needs to stay elevated unless you want to lose it. You got bit by a snake, didn't you? A little yellow and green one.”
“Yeah….how did you know?”
“I've seen the bites from that little critter before. They get pretty nasty when they aren't taken care of right away. Just like yours did.”
“If I promise to stay in bed will you untie my hands?” Luke asked. He hated being strapped down. It still made him feel helpless and afraid, too much like he was still a prisoner.
“I know you don't like being strapped down….especially after what you just went through….but I need to leave the restraints on for at least a little while longer….just until I'm positive that you're gonna stay with us and not slip away from us again. Can you handle it for just a little while?”
“How long?” Luke asked in a tightly controlled voice, struggling to control his fear even though he knew that it was irrational.
“Four hours.”
“Will you come back and talk to me once in awhile?”
“Of course I will.”
“Okay. Four hours.” Luke agreed reluctantly
“If you really can't handle it….I'll take them before that. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“I'll be back.”
Luke nodded as he watched her walk away. He let his gaze sweep around the room, noting the activity and the noise. Anything to keep his mind off of the fact that his hands were tied down. True to her word, Barb came back to his side every fifteen minutes to talk to him for a few minutes and four hours later, the restraints were removed.
Chapter 6
Luke picked at the food on his tray. Even after being on a starvation diet for almost 6 weeks, Luke still didn't have much of an appetite. It seemed like whatever he did manage to choke down, he just threw back up again. He looked up in surprise when Barb walked up to his bedside and sat a bowl of grits on the bedside table in front of him.
He couldn't help but grin widely “Grits?” he said in a pleasantly surprised voice “Where did ya ever get grits over here?”
“I have my sources.” She told him with a grin “Figured that might suit ya a little better than the stuff they been serving ya.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Luke told her with a warm smile.
“Complete with Maple syrup.” She said, taking a small sample size bottle of syrup out of her smock pocket and handing it to him. “And I expect ya to eat all that.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Luke told her. Barb gave him one last smile. It did her heart good to see the young Marine happy about something for a chance. Luke poured a few drops of the syrup in the grits and then took a bite with pleasure, savoring the taste of food that reminded him so much of home. Satisfied that he was finally going to eat, she turned and walked away.
After he'd finished eating, Luke lay there and stared at the ceiling. There really wasn't much else he could do. He couldn't get out of bed because of his leg and if he tried to read it gave him a headache. And sleep was pretty much out of the question because when he slept he had terrible nightmares where he was back in that cage in the jungle. The only way he could sleep at night was when they gave him something to knock him out so he wouldn't dream. He knew that he'd been in the hospital for two weeks. The first week he had been so out of it he didn't even remember it. It was the second week before he became lucid enough to realize where he was and that he was safe. But there was a part of him that still didn't feel safe, not as long as he was in Viet Nam . He often wondered if he would ever feel safe again.
The only real break in the boredom was when the nurses changed the bandages on his leg. He tried not to think about how close he had come to losing his leg because of that dang snake bite. His foot and leg was still swollen but it had gone down quite a bit. The doctor had operated to drain out the infection and there was a three inch incision on the side of his foot and another two inch incision on his leg just above his ankle. Just two more permanent reminders of how close he had come to dying during his time in Viet Nam .
He hoped that someone had notified his family that he was alright. He knew they had to worried sick since he hadn't written. He had written religiously twice a week since he'd been here. Always sending two letters. One for Jesse and Daisy and a separate one to Bo. He missed them so much. He couldn't believe that it had been over two years since he had actually seen them. Bo would be eighteen now and Daisy would be twenty-one. Their letters had been all that had kept him going sometimes when he wanted to just give up. Letters that talked about all the things he was missing back home and reminded him just how much he loved them and missed them. How much he wanted to go home. He kept his letters to them vague, never going into any details about the things he had done or seen in this place, never telling them about the constant danger he faced every minute of the day. He knew that Jesse realized the danger because he'd been in his own war but Bo and Daisy didn't know what it was really like and Luke didn't want them to know. He hoped and prayed every day that Bo would never have to go through what Luke had been through in the past two years.
Luke was pulled from his thoughts when Barb came up to his bedside. Smiling, she handed him a long white envelope. Luke recognized the marks on the envelope. New orders. He fingered it nervously, not sure that he wanted to open it after all. Noticing his hesitation, Barb said gently “Would you like me to open that for you?”
“Would you mind?” Luke asked anxiously, handing the envelope back to her. He knew he was being foolish but he knew that his immediate future was inside that envelope.
Barb took the envelope from him and tore it open, taking out the single sheet of paper it contained. Unfolding the paper, she glanced over it and then looked at Luke with a huge smile “Congratulations, Soldier. It's a medical discharge. You're going home.”
“Home?” Luke said, his voice barely above a whisper, his heart pounding with excitement and relief.
“Home.” Barb repeated “Looks like you're gonna be one of the lucky ones. As soon as your leg is healed enough to ship out, you'll be outta here.” She was geninuely happy for the young soldier. He didn't belong in this place. She handed him back the envelope. “Where is home by the way?”
“ Hazzard , Georgia .” Luke told her with a happy grin.
“I knew by the accent that it was either Georgia or Tennessee .”
“Can you find out if my family knows that I'm okay?”
“I'll see what I can do.” She promised him “Would you like for me to help you write a letter to them?”
Luke shook his head “No, I'll probably get home before they even get it the way the mail is over here.” His last letter had taken almost two months to reach his family back in the states.
“Okay….well I need to get back to work but I'll be back later to visit with you for awhile.”
“Okay….and thanks.”
“No thanks needed.” She told him as she walked away
Luke leaned his head back against the pillow unable to keep from smiling broadly. He was finally going home. It was almost too good to be true. He fingered the discharge papers, reading them for himself, still trying to believe that it was real and not just a dream. He blinked back the tears that gathered in his eyes, feeling foolish at his display of emotion. Luke had always been a very reserved person and kept his feelings closely guarded and hidden from everyone except Bo. And he had become even more guarded when it came to his emotions since he had been in Viet Nam . But realizing that he was finally going home had broken a crack in that wall and he was having trouble controlling the emotions that were surging through him at the moment. Suddenly, the floodgates burst open and he found himself crying uncontrollably.
Barb suddenly appeared at his side and gently put her arms around him, holding him close as he let out all the fear, pain and horror of the past two years. She had waiting for this to happen. It usually did with the ones who had been in prison camps. She was glad that he was finally letting some of the emotions out instead of keeping them bottled up inside. Finally he calmed down and gently pulled away, wiping away the traces of his tears with the back of his hand.
“I'm sorry….” He mumbled, lowering his eyes to avoid looking at her, ashamed of his outburst.
“There's nothing to be sorry for, sugar. You earned a good cry.” She smiled and leaned in close so she could whisper in his earn “I think I could sneak ya a beer as long as you don't tell nobody. It's even a real beer from the states and not the crap they call beer over here.”
“That sounds good.” Luke said with a smile
“Be right back.” She told him with a wink. True to her word, she returned shortly with a paper cup that she handed to him. It was filled with ice cold beer that had never tasted so good to Luke before.
Chapter 7
Luke carefully balanced himself on his good leg as he slowly made his way down the aisle of the bus, using the crutch under his arm to help him walk. It was dark outside but he could see a light on in Cooter's garage across the street. He grinned. He knew that Cooter would be glad to give him a ride out to the farm. He hadn't told anyone he was coming home on the bus. He wanted to surprise them.
He paused at the bottom of the steps while the driver pulled his duffle bag out from the storage compartment under the bus. “Just sit it by the bench.” Luke told him “Nobody will bother it this time of night.”
“You sure about that?” the driver asked looking at the young Marine with a slight frown on his face.
“I'm sure.” Luke told him. The driver did as Luke instructed and then climbed back on the bus. Slowly, Luke began to make his way across the street towards the garage. He still couldn't put much weight on his injured leg even though it was healing nicely. He paused in the open door of the garage and glanced around looking for his childhood friend, the local mechanic, Cooter Davenport. He grinned when he saw a pair of legs sticking out from underneath the old sedan parked in the middle of the garage.
“Hey, Cooter.” He said
“OWW!” Cooter's voice said from underneath the car as he jumped at the sound of the strangely familiar voice and banged his head on the undercarriage of the car. He shoved himself out from beneath the car, his eyes widening in shocked surprise when he saw the young man standing in the doorway of the garage. Shoving himself to his feet, he blinked to make sure he wasn't seeing things and stammered “L..L..Luke?”
“Yeah, last time I checked.” Luke told him with a grin “What's the matter with you? You look like you've seen a ghost.”
“I'm looking at a one.” Cooter said in a disbelieving voice “Do you know that you're supposed to be dead?”
“What are you talking about?” Luke asked in a startled voice
“Uncle Jesse got a letter from the Marines…..they said you were listed as missing in action and presumed dead.”
“Didn't they anyone let him know when I was found in that prison camp? They told me at the hospital that they did!”
“No….nobody told him anything about that.”
“God…Cooter…I gotta get out to the farm. Can you give me a ride?”
“I'd be glad to… I just hope Uncle Jesse's got a strong heart or you're gonna give him a heart attack. Why didn't you call and tell somebody that you were coming in on the bus tonight?”
“I wanted to surprise them.”
“Well, you're sure gonna do that, buddyroo…..cause you sure gave me a quiver in my liver.” Cooter told him with a crooked smile.
“I swear to god, Cooter….I thought he knew I was okay and that I'd be coming home soon….” Luke said a trace of anger creeping into his voice as he thought about the torment his family had been put through needlessly by the military screwup. “I guess I should have called when I got back into the states to make sure the military had notified him. Leave it to them to screw things up.”
“Well, let's get you home.” Cooter said, wiping his hands off on a rag he pulled out of his back pocket.
“My bags over by the bench in front of the bus stop.” Luke told him
“I'll get it. Can you get into the truck by yourself?” Cooter said
“I can manage.” Luke said as he followed Cooter outside. As Cooter went across the street to fetch his duffle bag, Luke pulled open the door on the old tow truck and hoisted himself inside, carefully positioning his injured leg so it wouldn't get jarred around too much on the ride to the farm.
Cooter threw the duffle bag behind the seat and climbed under the wheel. Turning on the engine and lights, he pulled into the street. He stole a glance at the oldest Duke cousin as he headed towards the outskirts of town. He looked tired and pale and it was obvious that he'd lost a lot of weight. Cooter was really glad that he was alive and well, the Duke family had been devastated believing that he was dead. Bo, especially, had been seriously depressed. Everybody was worried about him. Well, he'd sure perk up right quick now.
It was just past ten o'clock when they pulled up in the barnyard behind the Duke farm. There was a light on in the living room when they pulled up and the kitchen light came on as Cooter parked the truck. Jesse Duke opened the back door that opened into the kitchen of the old farm house and peered out into the darkness with a frown wondering what Cooter was doing stopping by so late at night. Cooter climbed out from under the wheel and walked away to the other side of the truck. Jesse watched as he opened the door and reached up to help another man from the cab of the truck.
Jesse's heart started pounding in his chest like it was going to burst as he saw the young man's dark hair and that crooked smile that Jesse knew so well. ‘LUKE!” Jesse yelled, running down the back steps and to the young man as he started to walk towards the porch, gathering him into his arms for a heartfelt hug. There were tears in his eyes as he stepped back and looked into his oldest nephew's face “Luke, my boy…” he said in a broken voice “You're home….you're alive…..”
“Yes, sir.” Luke said with a lopsided grin. Before he could say anything more, two more figures came running out of the house. Luke immediately found himself being tackled by his two cousins, Daisy and Bo. Daisy was trying to kiss him while Bo was hugging him so tightlyly that he thought his ribs were going to break. They were both trying to talk at the same time and Luke was having trouble concentrating on both of them at the same time. “Okay…okay…” he said with a soft chuckle “I'm glad to see y'all too.”
“They said you was dead.” Bo said, his voice cracking with emotion as the tears streamed down his face without shame “They told us you were dead.”
“It was a mistake.” Luke said “They were supposed to notify you when I told them who I was in the hospital.”
“Well, them dang fools never did.” Jesse said gruffly, his voice edged with anger at what his family had gone through thinking all this time that Luke was dead. Noticing the crutch under Luke's arm, he frowned “Are you okay, Luke?”
“I'm just fine, Uncle Jesse.” Luke reassured him “I got bit by a snake over there that's all.” He told him, deciding to leave out most of the details for now, including the fact that he'd been in a prison camp. He didn't want anything to ruin this homecoming.
He turned his attention to his two cousins, noting how much they had each grown and changed while he had been gone. Especially Bo. He'd been sixteen the last time Luke had seen him two years ago and he was just starting to fill out and loose his youthful awkwardness. Now he was a strapping young man over three inches taller than Luke. But he still had the same infectious smile that Luke loved. And Daisy had grown into a very beautiful young woman with a figure that could make a man sit up and take notice.
“Well, I gotta get back to town.” Cooter said, politely excusing himself so the Duke family could have their private reunion with Luke. “I'll see y'all later. Stop by the Boars Nest tomorrow night, Luke…the beers on me.”
Luke nodded “Thanks for the ride, Cooter.” He said as he turned to follow his family into the house, One arm around Daisy's waist while Bo stood on Luke's other side with his arm around his older cousin's waist as if he was afraid to let him go. Luke was finally home. Back in Hazzard where he belonged with the rest of his life ahead of him. And he couldn't have been happier.
THE END