I heard the boys start to whimper, even Kevyn's original group. I quickly got his attention and started running my finger across my throat, that age-old hand sign that meant for-carp-sake-shut-up-before-the-puss-brains-notice-us.
There were a few adults trying to make some noise as well, but Sgt. Shelly got that shut down quicker than I expected. I guess no one was really interested in being chomped on.
And about that time is when some pretty frisky puss brains started trying to break into the cab of the giant truck, reminding me of how Toddie used to crack nuts in winter. They'd have all the reinforcing metal bits off in a jiffy and be able to get at the meat inside. Not because puss brains are particularly stronger than an uninfected person, but because they were more immune to pain. Oh they felt pain, but their hunger was worse than injuries that would heal quickly. I could see the three men screaming and pounding on the top of the cab, even if I couldn't hear them over the sound box and the grunts and cries of the puss brains, and that's when I realized they couldn't turn off the sound box.
"Stupid," was all I could think. And with the next thought was that we needed to turn off the sound box, but do it without drawing attention to ourselves. Sgt. Shelly and some of the others must have been thinking the same thing because they were "locked and loaded" but weren't pulling the triggers. We were all looking at a serious Catch-22.
Watching those guys get chomped was not the easiest thing I've ever done. Afterwards Gayle, doing her thing as our patrol medic, sounded me out and when she heard my feelings she said, "Pip, you wouldn't have been human if you hadn't felt something. Those kinds of odds makes everyone foxhole friends regardless of which side the battle line you are on. But what you have to remember is that not only could you not do something for those poor schlubs, doing anything at all could have put the rest of us at risk."
Gayle wants to think the best of me. What I didn't explain at the time was that I might have felt sorry for them, but I would never have gone to their rescue because I understood the concept of triage long before I knew what it was called.
The smell of the men's guts being ripped open barely registered because of the foulness of all the puss brains and their waste below. So far they were all too busy fighting for a little taste of what was levered out of the truck like an oyster out of its shell. I knew soon enough that would change. They would either move along or they would notice us. I'd never seen a puss brain climb a tree, but I'd seen them climb stairs and if a real horde developed, and it was led by one of those "adapted" puss brains, we were in trouble.
Suddenly, on top of the noise of the puss brains and noise box, there was a kind of loud whining whistle. The soldiers had an "oh carp" look on their face for about half a second before ducking harder and hanging on to anything close. I was all but squashed by two bodies right before there was a huge explosion. Before I could even clue into what had happened, I was being drug backwards, closer to the main trunk of the tree I was in.
"Let go already! I gotta check on …"
"You ain't gotta do nuthin'" Shelly said calmly and closely to my ear. "The monkey's are already on the move. And no, no one fell out of the tree. Now stay put so Josie and I can go help Gayle with the wounded. That was a targeted hit, and a damn good one to hit that truck under this tree canopy."
That was not the last "targeted hit" that got a little close for comfort. There was one more that nearly shook us from the trees but the rest of them were further downstream. I kept praying that whatever was going on stayed downstream because upstream was the only remaining direction I had to get forage to feed everyone with; and even more importantly, was the sole source of fresh water remaining.
Night fell and it got cooler than usual but that wasn't why groups huddled together for comfort. The bombing continued all night. You'd think they'd finally let up and then it would start right back up. I heard some of them counting "waves" of bombing runs. But it was Limmer that summed it up the most succinctly when he said, "Some one is sure and the hell pissed at somebody."
It took a couple of hours, but we eventually realized that the bombing waves slowly moved away from our location. The consensus was – and if I never have to listen to a bunch of people come to a consensus it will be too soon – that either they were pushing back or bombing down a line of some type. Either or, but since the push was going south everyone thought it likely that the ones doing the bombing were on our side and they were dealing with the reported incursion. It was mid-day the next day and we still weren't absolutely positive, but we had more immediate worries to contend with.