CHAPTER 24
Bug repellent was also used to repel leeches. Typically boonierats carried several plastic bottles of the fluid. By 2300 hours every soldier in Alpha had run out. That night’s position came to be known amongst them as NDP on Leech Reef. They called the night Bloodsucker’s Bitterness. The bloodsuckers were not all leeches.
It had been nearly dark when the medevac departed and Alpha had formed up again, in column again, on the road again. Brooks had opted for a quick 200-meter hump east up the roadway. He had hoped to find a passage up the cliffs to the north ridge. Tension amongst the men was high. With every step every man searched the corridor walls left and right, top and bottom. At drag Marko, Jax, Egan and Cherry walked backward. Fifty meters behind Whiteboy and his squad
