# Fortunate Snoot Chapter 2

Fortunate Snoot
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Chapter 2
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The two helis crested a ridge and swung down low and fast over the jungle towards two billowing plumes of smoke. The UHF radio crackled: “contact on the tree line, one fifty feet north of the white smoke. Friendlies by the red. Repeat, contact north of white, friendlies by red.”
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Fang hit the transmit button. “Stella, strafe that treeline when we’re in range, one fifty north of white smoke. Ground troops, get ready for dustoff.” Then over the crew headsets, “Anon, take us in on the red smoke. Reed, Trish, we’re expecting two casualties hit by shrapnel, one more took multiple rounds to the stomach.”
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A brief pause; then rockets, 7.62mm rounds, and wholly inaudible Latin screeching whooshed, zipped, and reverberated towards a treeline that had been abandoned for at least five minutes. Anon guided his chopper down beside the wounded soldiers, face characteristically blank but hands white on the joystick. A lean and fuzzy pink body jumped the last ten feet with first aid kit in hand, then sprinted towards two curled up figures, while purple hands prepared a stretcher.
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The next few minutes Reed and Trish were a blur of motion. A pallid and comatose archeopteryx with extensive stomach wounds was rapidly triaged and her wounds bandaged, then bundled into a stretcher; a caveman with nasty shrapnel wounds to his right side was dosed with morphine, the squad’s medic having used all their issued supply, then slid onto their second stretcher; a weeping stego with gouges across her face and a fractured wrist was gently led to the cabin by Reed. Calm as only a part-time medic and full-time junkie with steady and regular access to Chinese carfentanyl could be, the ex-drummer dabbed Mercurachrome antiseptic onto the wounds of his patient and nodded as she wailed.
“I hit the tripwire... I kicked it... he was right beside me and I kicked it”.
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Trish hopped back into the heli and grabbed her M16, eyes scanning the treeline as the stretchers were loaded.
Fang nudged Anon in the side. “Take us up.“
Rosa fired one last desultory M60 burst at the empty jungle as the gunship broke off, following Anon as he flew the medevac heli back to Tan Son Nhut.
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Nurses and orderlies descended on the heli, lifting the stretchers out with professional ease. Reed wandered off after them. Trish, caught between the jitters of Dexedrine and a splitting headache, defaulted to her usual personality of “control freak” and descended on a gaggle of mechanics like a tiny purple eagle attacking a litter of defenceless enlisted kittens.
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Anon and Fang stepped through the postflight checklist, then strode off over the scorching airbase tarmac to the mess hall. Anon poured two cups of military-quality coffee, while Fang retrieved her guitar and began tuning it, plucking quietly at each string.
Anon looked over at her. “Do you realise you stick your tongue out like a constipated snake when you play?”
Fang flicked a guitar pick at him. He completely failed to catch it, and it bounced off his forehead onto the table, where she retrieved it with a smug glance.
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Taking a long gulp and grimacing, Fang abandoned her coffee, and began to play. It was a nameless improvised tune in a major key, but she played it soft and slow, dragging out rests and borrowing chords from the minor. Anon rested his head on his arms as she poured her heart and soul out for just the two of them, tired notes cascading through the empty mess hall.