The Chinese scout knew something was wrong. His fellow scout had disappeared – without a sound as far as he could tell. It hit him the instant that he began to zag back toward their center line. His senses picked up on his counterpart’s absence as much as anything else. Alert and ready, the scout froze in position. He crouched with his rifle at port-arms. His finger slid inside the trigger guard as he scanned the trees and water for his brother in arms.
An alligator glided quietly into the water from a few yards away. It was a big bull – easily twelve feet long from nose to tail. It’s tail swung in an almost leisurely manner propelling it through the water with hardly a sound. Only its nose, eyes and a few of the scutes on its back protruded from the murky water. Despite its lack of speed, the gator obviously swam with a purpose.
The scout was not entirely unfamiliar with terrain similar to that in which he now found himself. He had grown up in the wetlands along the middle Yangtze River. The area, along with its plant and wildlife populations, was similar, if not identical, to the Okefenokee. Chinese alligators were generally smaller than those of the Okefenokee but they were no less of a danger.
The American, who had grown up in the Okefenokee, slipped behind a tangle of exposed tree roots for concealment. He was covered in mud and green slime from his foray to the bottom of the swamp with the first U.N. scout. The natural camouflage hid him perfectly. Only his eyes would give him away if the second scout got close enough. He had noticed the big bull basking in the sun just before he took the first scout. Now, as he hid, his ears, accustomed to the near-silent sounds of the swamp, picked up the almost imperceptible splash as the gator slid off the bank and into the water.
As a man who grew up in the swamp, the American knew that an alligator’s first food instinct was triggered by movement. Although the first scout was no longer moving, the American had pushed the dead body in the direction of the alligator. Pitcher, as his young friends had nicknamed him (for the Pitcher plant native to the swamp), also knew that gators were opportunistic feeders – they would eat pretty much anything that looked interesting as long as it was easy to catch. Pitcher hoped the dead body of the scout would provide just such an opportunistic meal for the nearby bull. He needed a few more minutes of time, un-interrupted by alligator attacks, to take the second scout alive.
The big gator dove stealthily under the water. The Chinese scout advanced cautiously in the direction of a large old Cypress tree with a massive tangle of exposed roots. Pitcher, unmoving and consummately camouflaged, simply waited for his prey.
A loon called and another answered. There was a quiet murmur of water trickling in a tiny waterfall over a series of fallen logs. A softshell turtle as big as a turkey platter warmed itself on a flat rock in a dappled beam of sunlight. A lone white-tailed deer flicked its ears and tail as it turned to watch the man with the blue helmet. An insect crawled into the pitfall of a Pitcher plant. The U.N. scout wiped sticky sweat from his brow with his uniform sleeve.
Yards away, the water boiled as the old bull found the floating body of the first scout. The second scout snapped his head in the direction of the noise just in time to see his fellow scout’s body drug under the water in the gator’s death roll. The scout’s rifle moved to his shoulder almost without thought. Pitcher tensed his muscles in preparation for his attack.
The Chinese scout swung his rifle slowly back and forth as he tried to spot the gator. As he swung to his right, the exposed roots of the tree to his left seemed to explode in a blur of movement. Before he could swing his rifle back to his left into position to defend himself, the scout caught a flash of muddy green rising from the waters of the swamp. Like something out of a bad movie, the slimy monster sprang at the scout clubbing him on the side of the head with a knotted Bay tree branch. The scout collapsed like a rag doll into the few inches of water in which he stood as the wily old bull surfaced to check on the action.
The mutilated and bloody body of the first scout popped to the surface near the old gator as the slimy, green Pitcher scooped up his prey. Pitcher tossed the much smaller man in a fireman’s carry over his left shoulder and snatched up the man’s rifle in his right hand.
Noting the speed at which this more active meal disappeared into the distance, the massive bull returned his attention to the body of the first scout. Grabbing the body in his massive jaws, the gator used small, quick tosses to position the head of the Chinese soldier in his throat. Within moments, the entire body had disappeared into the belly of the gator just as Pitcher and his prey had disappeared into the belly of the swamp.