The men stirred and tried to ignore it, but the screaming only grew more intense and more agonizing. Finally, the gun captain switched on a flashlight with a shrouded red lens and motioned for two men to follow him into the night. A few minutes later, the screaming stopped. The gun captain and the two men returned. Visibly shaken, the gun captain headed for the nearby cave that housed the command post to report in. Tran was waiting by the entrance. The young Vietnamese spoke in a low and trembling voice describing how a young woman who was searching for privacy to relieve herself had triggered a booby trap set by the Bru. She had broken a trip wire that released a bamboo stalk bowed horizontally that drove a sharp spike through her abdomen and severed her spine. The gun captain had applied pressure to her carotid arteries until she passed out, and then held it until she stopped breathing. Tran motioned him inside to brief the colonel from Hanoi. “He needs to hear it from you.”
