Not having heard anything for several minutes in the tunnel, Freeman, still on hands and knees, edged his way from the bamboo swing door into the first curve of what turned out to be an S and not a U bend. Somewhere above him he heard the faint stutter of what he guessed was an M-60, probably chopping down a PLA soldier who’d felt trapped on hearing tunnel rats coming for him from two directions at once. At the end of the S turn, Freeman came adjacent to an alcove about four feet deep, four feet high, and six feet long, containing two bunk beds of bamboo, and, set into a small recess, an oil wick candle. Beneath the bottom bunk were several dozen plastic hoops, known to the Americans as “Beijing hoops.” When twigs and leaves were attached to the plastic rings, a soldier wearing them could turn his head 180 degrees without the camouflage moving.
At the end of the bottom bunk was a small first aid kit. Freeman knew that whether your enemy had morphine was one way to tell how well-equipped he was. But to find out that bit of intelligence would have meant opening the box, which he didn’t do. Seeing a deep shadow off to his left about three feet away, he determined it was another alcove and made his way toward it. Its three walls contained rolls of curtainlike muslin that could be unrolled to form cloth walls insects couldn’t penetrate.
In the middle of the alcove, taking up about half its length, was a bamboo operating table with various instruments laid out, including forceps, suturing needles, scalpels, and clamps. There was a large light overhead, its socket set into the earthen ceiling. The wire leading from it went across the roof of the tunnel to a smaller alcove, no more than two feet deep, five feet long, and five high, where Freeman found an old Flying Pigeon bicycle on rollers. When pedaled, the turning wheels would produce electricity to light the small operating theater.
Seeing a cone of light ahead of him at right angles, the beam moving farther to his left, Freeman released the safety on his .45, lay flat, and held the revolver in two hands. The beam went out, its images still dancing on Freeman’s right retina, the general, from experience, having kept one eye closed. He opened it now, shutting the right eye. “Delta two!” he called.
“Lima!” came the correct response from one allied tunneler to another.
Freeman could hear his own sigh of relief. “Nothing is better than hearing a friendly voice down one of those godforsaken gopher holes,” he’d once told Bob Cline. He switched his flashlight on then off. The other tunnel rat did the same. Freeman could see he was approaching a T section, with the other soldier about to cross it. Though becoming more claustrophobic by the minute, he whispered, “I’ll take it, son. You head back. Make sure you let our boys know it’s you coming out.”
“Don’t worry,” the soldier whispered. “I will.”
Freeman patted the youngster, then crawled cautiously across the junction to cross the T and follow the tunnel to its end, and in so doing added to his legend, to the mystique of those commanders before and since Caesar whose men knew they would never be asked to do something by their commander that he would not be prepared to do himself.
When Freeman crossed the T and was alone again in the enemy’s subterranean world, an involuntary shiver passed through his body. He felt the claustrophobia worsening, the ever-present danger of suffocation so heavy upon him that he had to fight not to throw up. Combined with his own body stench, he smelled the damp mold of the tunnels themselves, and felt an overwhelming urge to go as fast as hell and get out. But speed, he knew, was as sure a killer as a hidden grenade or trip wire. “Carefully does it,” he told himself, and when he moved forward, felt the rush of gut acid up his esophagus and cursed himself for not bringing antacid pills — next to his .45 and knife, a tunneler’s best friend.
He felt ahead with the base of the flashlight in his right hand, careful of any traps. The ground was holding. Now he gave it the full weight of his right hand as he moved forward with his left. Suddenly the ground went from under his left hand, his body driving it down hard on the punji sticks. It was the first time anyone had ever said they’d heard Freeman scream. Two punji sticks, each tipped with excrement, had penetrated his left hand. Simultaneously he saw a shadow flitting ahead left to right. He challenged, got no answer, and fired two rounds that echoed eerily in the subterranean world. Freeman slumped for a moment, then regained his composure enough to back up out of the tunnel, his hand bleeding profusely.