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commando gasped, his mouth dry. His eyes shone with hope. "You mean you'll let me live? Really? Oh, thank God!"
    "Back to your hole!" shouted Kien."Son of a bitch! Light your last smoke, or your time is up!You others too, be quick!"
    The young man joined the three others, who now sat on the edge of the grave dangling their feet over the bodies of their three friends who had been tossed into the hole. Around the scene light blue cigarette smoke, warm and pleasant, drifted lazily into the drizzle of rain. Darkness was descending from the slopes and the stream gurgled around them.
    "Now!" said Kien, pulling the AK from his shoulder. "Line up!"
    The four pale faces looked up, afraid and intense.
    "Stand up, in one row," Kien repeated casually, pressing his thumb into the trigger guard of the submachine gun. "Move!"
    "Sir, let us finish our cigarette!" It was the same young man with the northern accent.
    "Stand up!" Kien shouted again.
    "Let them finish, Kien," a scout whispered hoarsely into Kien's ear.
    The condemned men stood up, leaning against each other. Imminent death had left them fearless, their faces hardened. They looked with hatred at Kien, who became angry as he looked at them sneering at death.
    "So, you don't mind dying? I'll satisfy you, with as much blood as you want. Like you did the girls." Kien was shouting, then laughing grimly.
    He fired. Over their heads.
    The young northern Catholic began crying. He rushed forward to Kien and knelt, his face on Kien's feet.Whining, praying, sobbing, he writhed close to the ground, but no words came.
    "You're volunteering to go first?" asked Kien, placing the gun barrel against the boy's forehead.
    "No, please, let me live, I beg all of you! Let me live, I pray, sir, I beg you!" Kien shoved the barrel hard on his head and the young commando fell back. The blow seemed to bring him to his senses and he stopped crying. Still kneeling, he raised himself slighdy, looking warily around first at Kien, then the others. His hands wandered over his wound. A cut on his forehead had started blood streaming down his nose.
    "I volunteer to fill in the grave," he said."You don't have to tire yourself doing it. I'll also tell you all the information I know.Your party's policy is to punish those who run away and forgive those who return, so you have no right to kill me. No right! Please, I beg you, beg you!"
    Someone behind Kien touched his arm, whispering to him in a trembling voice: "Kien, why don't we forgive them for now and send them to our superiors to decide?"
    Kien turned. It was Cu. Kien burned with anger and he let fly in fury, sticking his gun into Cu's mouth."If you want to show your love for them go stand in the line with them. I'll kill you too! You too!"

    "Kien, Kien, what the hell makes you cry so loud?"
    The truckdriver's beefy hand pushed through the hammock onto Kien's shoulder, shaking him awake.
    "Get up! Get ready! Quick!"
    Kien slowly opened his eyes.The dark rings under them revealed his deep exhaustion. The painful memory of the dream throbbed against his temples. After some minutes he got up, then slowly climbed down from the hammock and dropped from the back of the truck to the ground.
    Seeing how sluggishly Kien ate, the driver sighed and said,"It's because you slept back there with nearly fifty bod-ies.You had nightmares. Right?"
    "Yes. Unbelievably horrible. I've had nightmares since joining this team, but last night's was the worst."
    "No doubt," the driver said, waving his hand in a wide arc. "This is the Jungle of Screaming Souls. It looks empty and innocent, but in fact it's crowded. There are so many ghosts and devils all over this battleground! I've been driving for this corpse-collecting team since early seventy-three but I still can't get used to the passengers who come out of their graves to talk to me. Not a night goes by without them waking me up to have a talk. It terrifies me. All kinds of ghosts, new soldiers, old soldiers, soldiers from the ioth