“Now all of ya soldiers, hear this!” Sgt Briggs bellowed.
“Nobody moves without me stripes say so, nobody breaths without me stripes say so, nobody shoots without me stripes say so.”
Nobody cared to go toe-to-toe with the stupid sergeant deep in that rat’s ass of a place called Tong Bay. Only the Aussie attachment looked operative and unconcerned. Aussies don’t give no shit for sergeants, we had all heard before…
“Wish he shad up, don’t speak loud like my factory’s hooter, or we end up with a rocket up our asses, we all are…” Wallabee murmured under his filthy mustache.
The Aussie was now peering intensely into the jungle.
“What?” Wallabee said, bringing his M16 up as the rest of us craned our necks in the direction the Aussie was seeing something.
“Now all of ya soldiers, spread out,” the sergeant groaned, still not conscious of how his voice carried.
We tried to move silently.
The dak-dak-dak of the heavy machine gun didn’t come as a surprise… only, for the sarge, that was his last no-surprise.