RIP Lady Crazy
Dr Spleenmeister
Part 8 - The Camp
Eddie's gambit, although noble, had been, unfortunately, fruitless.
The VC soldier and his dog, thoroughly nourished, full of strength and armed to the teeth, had tracked him and caught him. Knocking him unconscious, the VC had hoisted the ten-pounds-lighter-than-when-he-had-landed American over his shoulder and carried him to the nearest P.O.W. camp.
How convenient for him that the rest of the team had beaten him to it.
-A-
Consciousness returned to Eddie with a jolt.
He awoke on his back with a dull throbbing making itself well known in the left side of his cranium and the bamboo bars of a V.C. prison camp cell blocking the view of the outside world. Jim - who was sharing the cell with him, Charlie, and Frank - helped him to slowly sit up, just in time for the two of them to see Face slam Murdock against the wall of their adjacent bamboo cage, hard enough to make the bars shake.
Eddie blinked in confusion as Face drew back his fist and slugged the taller man in the jaw, hard enough to snap his head to one side.
Murdock wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of one hand before straightening his six-foot-plus frame to its full, impressive height. His lips pulled into a mocking sneer as he towered over his subordinate,
"Is that the best you got, Lieutenant?"
Face punched him again, this time with enough force to knock him out.
Murdock crumpled to the floor of the cage and Eddie felt his face crease into a deeply confused frown; what the hell was going on? How long had he been out? And why were the two supposedly closest men on their ragtag team at each other's throats?
More to the point, how had they all ended up at the mercy of the V.C.s?
Face was shaking the discomfort caused by the cold cock from his hand, and pacing back and forth in barely contained fury.
Eddie turned gingerly to Jim to ask, "What happened?"
Jim's response was short, sharp and succinct, "Spook."
Eddie swallowed. That one, single, solitary word was enough to send a chill down his spine.
Captain Murdock was C.I.A..
Eddie sank back to lean on his elbows as he returned his gaze to the unconscious Intelligence Agent, "Shit." He tilted his head back to meet Jim's eye again, "Did he sell us out?"
Jim shrugged, clearly exhausted from the strain of the failed E&E, "Dunno. Face thinks so."
Over the far side of the other cage, Murdock began to stir, but before Eddie could even twitch Face was on him again. Dropping to his knees, Face straddled the pilot and began to rain a torrent of powerful blows against the face and head of his former best friend. Murdock's hands came up in an attempt at defense, but Face's fury was unstoppable and the taller man was soon bleeding heavily from the nose, cheek and lips.
B.A., having seen enough violence for one day, finally pulled Face off the pilot, just in time for the V.C. guards to come to the cage and open the door. Two of them pulled Murdock to his feet and all but dragged him to a corrugated steel shed two hundred meters from the team's cage.
Eddie turned to look at Jim, his jaw hanging low in shock and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
What the Fuck?
-A-
Murdock grit his teeth and bit back a yelp as the first blow came down on his back.
His wrists and ankles were tightly gripped by the bamboo frame, his body stretched spread-eagled and vertical as the top-heavy 'interrogator' - the loosest application of the term Murdock had ever encountered: the man hadn't even asked him any questions yet - did his damnedest to beat the living daylights out of his American prisoner.
The repeated lashes were quickly shredding his flight suit, the material across his back becoming tatters that fluttered with every strike of the cane. Murdock hissed and grit his jaw so tight that it creaked; he refused to give these sons of bitches the satisfaction of making him scream.
The bamboo sliced through the air, sending oxygen molecules skittering with an audible 'swish'.
A trickle of blood oozed from a fresh laceration just below his left shoulder blade and made a slow, tickly path down the hypersensitive flesh of his back, so he tried to focus on that, anything to take his mind away from the pain that was becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Again and again, the cane struck the captive pilot's bloody flesh.
There was a second of respite as the interrogator took a step back to wipe his brow and Murdock took the opportunity to flex his hands, working some blood back into the appendages and covertly testing the strength of the frame. It was no use, his arms were numb and the frame was as solid as it looked, these people used the stuff as scaffolding for crying out loud, so of course it was strong.
The Vietnamese man, having spotted the muscles in Murdock's back flexing, assumed he was trying to escape so he switched devices, picking up something more sturdy than the bamboo cane and resumed his attack on the tall pilot's body.
Murdock grunted, his body actually lurching with the impact this time and the shallow cut that had produced the trickle of blood was widened. The trickle became a stream, its stickiness quickly dribbling down his back and soaking into the waistband of the wrecked flight suit.
The grunted reaction - the first vocalisation of pain that Murdock had issued - seemed to please the interrogator because the rod came down again and again on Murdock's body, harder and harder until the whumping sounds of impact became wet crunches, heralding the cracking of ribs. The wounds that Face had inflicted upon him paled into insignificance.
He finally cried out, breaking his own promise to himself not to make a sound, the literally side-splitting pain too much to bear.
-A-
In the holding cage Face was pacing angrily, his rage rolling off him in waves as he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists.
The colonel was seated on a dry palm leaf on the ground, leaning back against the bars of the cage, his arms folded in a deceptively comfortable looking pose. He chewed thoughtfully on the damp stump of his last cigar as he watched his lieutenant pace a rut into the floor.
"Face, sit down, you're making me dizzy."
Face didn't answer; he continued to pace, his hands balling again into fists so tight that his knuckles turned white, his unguarded state causing his emotions to play across his face as the sting of betrayal burned in his chest.
"Faceman, chill out." called Eddie from the adjacent cage, "So he's an agent, so what?"
Face whirled on Eddie and the point man jumped at the impossible maelstrom of cold fire in the other man's eyes,
"So what? SO WHAT?! He lied to us, he sold us out to the enemy, that's what!"
Ray tried to come to Eddie's rescue before Face ate him alive, "We don't know that, and besides, you lie all the time, Faceman, hell you've made a career of it, so what's your problem?"
Eddie took a deep, relieved breath as Face turned his wrath away from him and redirected it at Ray. Ray was unfazed and slouched back against the bars.
"Face, if he sold us out what's he doing in the same cage as us?" He cocked his head suddenly at a distant sound, and blanched before waving a hand in the air and saying weakly, "Hear that, Face? That's your so-called sellout getting beaten."
The rest of the team fell silent, morbid curiosity urging them to listen to the cries of pain from the steel shed. Face finally broke the silence, uncertainty lacing his voice, "I thought I- we could trust him, I thought he was one of us, and all along he's working for the feds!"
"Wouldn't you be working for the feds given the chance?" Ray's voice had raised in an attempt to drown out the sounds from the shed. Despite the situation he felt the urge to smirk as the wind of righteous indignation was visibly knocked out of Face's sails, "They pay a hell of a lot better than the army, and don't tell me you wouldn't love to be the one wearing that badge. Besides, think of the glory; man, anyone would be stupid to say no to that."
His expression tightening, Face stalked to the far corner of the cage and gripped the bars, testing their strength with his back to the others. He whispered too low for them to hear, "You just don't understand."
He didn't care about glory.
He didn't even care that much about the money.
He cared about loyalty.
Early on in life Face had learned that he could only trust himself and always played his cards very close to his chest. As a child he had worn his heart on his sleeve where anyone could hurt him if they turned their hand to it, which eventually they all did. He got close to people and they always, without fail, let him down in one way or another.
Leslie Becktall had been the worst, the last, the spectacularly defining moment in his life where he had finally learned once and for all not to allow himself to get too close to anyone else.
Then Murdock had come along.
No-one, not Leslie, not the colonel, not even Father Maghill back at the orphanage had been able to read him so well and so quickly as the pilot had. Murdock had gotten under his skin.
No. Correction. Murdock had gotten under his skin, taken hold of the last, tiny, glimmering shred of Face's trust and ripped it clean out of him.
Face hated him for it.
His hands tightened around the bars of the cage until the knuckles of both hands went white again; if Murdock came back from that shed alive, he'd better pray he wasn't put back in Face's cell.
The sound of a heavy door slamming open sliced through the thick jungle air and Face turned from the bars in time to see three men - two conscious and one not - emerging from the interrogation hut.
Murdock's battered, unconscious form was dragged back into the team's cages by two heavily muscled V.C.s. They dumped him unceremoniously in the middle of the cage where he landed hard, the deadweight of his body unable to catch itself as it fell.
Face blinked hard, torn in two directions.
They had put the unconscious traitor in the other cage, but as he lay twisted awkwardly, face down in the dirt, Face couldn't bring himself to maintain his rage.
Especially when Jim moved away from where he had been crouched over Murdock's unmoving form and Face saw the state of the pilot's back.
His lips thinning into a tight line, Face thought back to part of the code of conduct drilled into him as part of his S.E.R.E. training: 'When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.' Had Murdock remained loyal to his country?
Face scowled. Liars tend not to be prone to loyalty.
"How is he, Jim?" Hannibal's voice sounded from behind Face, his concern masked by a commanding tone.
Jim's face was tight as he turned to face the other cage and Face felt his stomach sink, "He's pretty bad, Colonel. His breathing's shallow, his pulse is racing and I'm sure you can see the state of his back from there." He took a breath to continue but Murdock stirred and Jim quickly spun and dropped to his knees again as Murdock mumbled something from broken lips before fading out of consciousness again.
Jim rose to his feet and turned to face his officers with a worried smile, "He says he didn't tell them anything."
Face sagged back against the bars of the cage, a conflicting mix of relief and fear churned in his gut, topped by the hint of lingering hatred. His stomach was a veritable sundae of emotion.
Murdock would have been proud of the metaphor; he would have even put a cherry on the top.
-A-
Under the cover of night, Fast Eddie had been living up to his namesake by working his ever-nimble fingers at the ropes that held the cages together. He could only work in short bursts, as the V.C. maintained their patrols of the camp 24 hours a day; he would have a few minutes to loosen a loop or two before hitting the dirt and feigning sleep. Once the patrol had passed, he would return to his task, repeating the cycle over and over.
The rope of the cages was rough and coarse, and Eddie's fingertips were soon a shredded mess. Still he kept at the knots. Night after night he would work a knot, then he would move to its neighbour, until after five days and nights without sleep he had a small section loose enough to lift out of place, ready for when the opportunity presented itself.
The Colonel had to order Eddie to rest, otherwise he would have kept going until he died. The point man had worked his fingers into ten bloody digits, and he was so pale through lack of sleep, the shadows around his eyes so deep, that he looked like a walking corpse. He finally allowed himself to rest and fell into an exhausted sleep so deep that the others could speak at full volume right beside him and he wouldn't stir.
While Eddie worked the bars, Murdock worked the distraction. He did everything in his power to ensure that it was him that was taken for the daily interrogation; being a pilot made him a tasty treat for the V.C. interrogators and he made sure they knew that. In his eyes he was the one who had gotten them into this mess by crashing, and he was not about to let any of the others get hurt for his error if he could help it. However, he wasn't always successful; sometimes they took the colonel, on a couple of occasions they took Ray, and once they took Face.
Murdock didn't know what they had done to his former best friend but he was returned to the cage after that one time looking extremely shaken; his eyes had remained haunted for several hours afterwards and he had stared at Murdock as if he had finally realised something.
The interrogations were taking their toll on Murdock's increasingly damaged body. He hadn't been overly bulky to begin with, and with the lack of real food to aid the healing process after each beating he had grown dangerously thin. He suspected that his body had taken to feeding off of itself in an attempt at recovery; the increasing fear in his comrades' eyes every time he was returned to the cages gave him an idea of what he must look like.
Dead man walking.
Eddie had done his part, Murdock was still doing his, Jim was tending to the others as best he could and B.A. had managed to secure some small assistance from the outside, in the form of the non-political camp cook, who would sneak the team small amounts of bread whenever he could in discrete packages that they could hide until they needed it.
With escape route planned, distraction in place, and a small but steady stream of extra food, the colonel was planning the team's escape as quickly as he could. He was conscious of the fact that if he didn't get his men out soon they would lose Murdock. The lanky captain was quite literally wasting away, and even the support of Lin Duk Coo - the cook - wasn't enough to speed his recovery from the repetitive torture. His wounds were barely given enough time to stop bleeding before he was dragged off for another round of interrogation.
Face's fears regarding Murdock had been unfounded; despite being allied with the C.I.A., Murdock had not sold the team out, nor had he told the enemy anything they could use. He had done as he had been trained to do, and gave his name, rank, service number and date of birth at the start of every interrogation session, but after a while he had gotten concerned that the V.C. suspected the truth, that he really didn't know anything they could use. Terrified that they would turn their attentions to one of the others, Murdock had taken to speaking nonsense that could be misconstrued as some sort of code.
The problem was that this made up code was starting to spill out of the interrogation shed and into the prison cells.
After the first week in the camp, Face had let go of his doubts and fears concerning Murdock - realising that the pilot wouldn't be having to endure this punishment if he had in fact sold them out - and took on the role of his nurse. Jim was up to his elbows in the other guys' injuries inflicted from their comparatively light torture and he was glad for the help. Naturally, with Face being the one to tend to Murdock's injuries, coaxing him back to full consciousness after being bludgeoned into oblivion, he had been the first to pick up on the subtle change in Murdock's speech, when murmurs of boats and pirates mingled with usual conversation.
"Colonel, I'm worried about Murdock."
The colonel looked up from the estimated plan of the camp that he had drawn on some rice paper swiped from a passing guard's pocket. "So am I. They'll kill him if we don't get out of here soon." He looked back down at the plan.
Face grimaced and sank down to crouch in front of his C.O., "It's not just that. Your plan will work, I know it will, but I think Murdock's starting to lose it."
Smith's steel blue eyes snapped up to his, "Explain."
"He's been distracting the interrogators by hinting that he knows more than he does. He invented a code to talk in so they'd think he was talking about something important."
"And?"
Face ran a hand through his lank hair, pushing the matted mess off of his forehead, "It's creeping into his normal speech and he doesn't even realise he's doing it. Yesterday he kept talking in code for about ten minutes after he got back. When they brought him back into the cells this morning it took me half an hour to make him talk sense, and even then it was like he couldn't get enough breath to speak at a decent volume. His ribs are definitely cracked, they're getting weaker with every session and his grip on reality is starting to slip."
Smith furrowed his brow in thought, "He's coherent now though, right?"
"For now, yes. But it will get worse; I've heard of similar things happening to soldiers under interrogation. They start to show cracks in their sanity and their interrogators force them open." He looked his C.O. square in the eye and said, "He's lucid enough to know that he's dying. I'm worried that when we go to leave he's going to run a last ditch distraction so we can get away."
The colonel made a low exclamation, "That's suicide."
Face's response was no more than a whisper, "He knows."
-A-
The next morning, when the team woke up Murdock wasn't with them.
When Lin brought food to the cages at midday, Murdock wasn't with them.
As night fell on the camp, Murdock wasn't with them.
The team didn't sleep that night.
-A-
"It's too quiet."
"What's going on?"
"Maybe they killed him."
"Shut your fucking mouth, Charlie."
"Haven't seen Lin today either."
"Colonel, what do we do? Do we move?"
"We don't leave without Murdock."
"Face, he might be dead."
"Shut up, Eddie!"
"We could go for help; come back for him."
"Are you kidding me? They'll kill him."
"You. Colonel." The men had been crowded around the North side of the cages, trying to see into the interrogation shed; they hadn't heard the V.C. guard approaching.
Smith went to the gap in the bars where the guard was holding out a small hessian pouch towards him. Slowly, as if afraid of getting his hand cut off, he took the bag from the Vietnamese man, who walked away as soon as the bag was out of his grasp.
Looking at his men in rarely-displayed trepidation, Smith opened the bag and peered inside.
He dropped the bag as if it was on fire, turned away and was violently sick in the corner of the cage.
Face cautiously reached for the dropped bag, picked it up and looked inside. All the blood drained from his face as he met the gazes of the others. He reached into the small sack and pulled out what was inside, holding it up for the others to see.
It was an eyeball.
It was a brown-irised eyeball.
It was a brown-irised eyeball with the optic nerve still attached and a small section of brain dangling wetly at the other end.
Murdock was dead.