DON'T MISS NEXT WEEK: Linky and Dinky lay badly
wounded and bleeding in a shallow mud ditch,
20 clicks outside of De Nang. Unable to move to
the cover of the nearby treeline, they were helpless
and unable to fight. One of Linky's legs was now more
bone than flesh, an anti-personnel mine having
blasted away his entire calf and much of the thigh.
Dinky suffered a wide gash in his left side from flying
shrapnel, and with no way to close the wound, it now
soaked in the filthy sludge of the ditch. The water and
it's teeming organisms lapped in and out of his body
with every breath. Hungry, vicious jungle dogs waited
nearby, attentive for signs of weakness, watching,
creeping slowly closer.

Their weapons lost, Linky and Dinky knew friendlies
weren't likely to find them, but the Viet Cong would, and
surely before morning. Even if Charlie miraculously
overlooked their plight, they would soon sicken from the lethal
bacteria seeping into their open sores, or die from the
attack fangs of poisonous snakes -- if the blood leeches
didn't get them first.

And at what point would the pack of wild dogs start
to rip and tear into the found meal?

Rain gave way to a relentless blast of hot sunlight,
followed by blinding rain again as Linky and Dinky tracked the
coming of night. Three hours until darkness, now two hours.
The light began to fade. One hour left to live. In the
darkness they would die. Earlier, Linky & Dinky shared their
only knife, cutting leeches off each other's exposed skin,
but since that just increased blood loss, they gave up on
it, and actually appreciated the growing numb spots, a gift
from the leeches. They spoke little, and as the hours
passed, dementia kept them awake more than conversation.

A rumble far down the rutted Vietnamese footpath grew
louder, until it nearly roared upon them, but they could
only watch as it approached... helpless. It was a native,
pushing a mechanical wagon, and they saw him waving his
arms, gesturing them away. Get out of the way! Move away!

Linky & Dinky only stared.

The roar stopped. Sudden silence.

"Get out of that rain puddle, you're in the way of
the lawn mower!" Uncle Url barked. "Get inside and change
your clothes, you're all wet and dirty now. What a mess!"

Linky & Dinky hopped up from the grass, looked down at their
soaked clothes, and ran toward the house. Uncle Url yanked
the lawnmower back to life and deftly skirted the big
puddle in the yard, never to know the incredible drama
imagined on that spot.

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