By Nicky Cubit

The initial shallow cut across his shoulder brought Harm back from the peaceful edge of delirium. He fought against the ropes that Mac had used to immobilize him spread eagle on the floor. She knew that if he moved while she worked with that knife she could do more damage than good.

"I won't tell you anything," Harm murmured in heavily accented Vietnamese. "I won't tell you anything."

Mac stopped cutting as Harm became more agitated. "Harm. Harm?" She had no idea what he was saying.

"I won't tell you anything," Harm kept repeating in the language unknown to Mac, as he became more lucid and more defiant.

"Harm, please, it's me, Mac," she kept telling him, lines of worry creasing her face.

Finally, slowly, Harm pulled himself back to reality. He was not in the hands of the vicious Vietnamese interrogators, he was with Mac.

"Mac?" he whispered quietly, desperately.

"I'm here," she answered simply. Between the two of them that was all that mattered sometimes - that the other was there. "I'm sorry about the ropes. I have to make sure you don't move too much."

Harm simply groaned.

"What were you saying?" she then asked softly as she debated beginning again. At his confused look she tried to repeat the words he had spoken.

Slowly he put it together. "I won't tell you anything," was the answer to her question.

"In Vietnamese?" the Marine asked, shuddering, understanding the implications of what must have happened to him.

"Yeah."

Mac gasped. Harm had never shared any details of what had happened when he was 16 and combing the jungles of Vietnam for his father. "I'm sorry."

Harm smiled weakly. It was just like Mac to apologize for something that she had nothing to do with, that happened halfway around the world 20 or so years ago.

Mac again began her work with the knife and Harm stifled a scream. "Talk to me, Harm. Say anything, just talk to me."

The ropes, the pain, the heat of the day allowed for only one thing in his mind - four days out of the months that he had spent in Vietnam. Normally he kept the terrifying memories of those four days buried deep inside from whence they occasionally ventured out in the form of a bad dream. He had never spoken about it to anyone, not his mother, not Frank, not Sturgis, not anyone!

Mac knew the basics - that he was 16 when he ran away from home to go to Vietnam to look for his father because 'nobody else was doing anything', that he had met up with Stryker and his forces who helped him in the search and that he did not find his father there.

"I was armed to the hilt all the time," he began in a typical Harm monotone. He was an expert at showing no emotion. "An AK-47, an automatic sidearm, a Bowie knife in my belt and two smaller knives hidden in my boots. I used them all, too."

Mac began the arduous work of digging the bullet out of his shoulder, fighting the desire to simply stop and listen to the story he was telling her. She knew he would never, ever share it with her again.

"We had word that there were some American POWs being held in a jungle camp and we went to check it out. We split up into groups of two as we neared, normal procedure. He didn't see it," Harm went on, staring impassively at the ceiling. "He didn't see the trap until it was too late. They'd dig these deep holes, put sharp poison covered bamboo spears pointing up from the bottom. He was screaming so loud. I told him to shut up but he wouldn't. He wouldn't! I tried to get him out. I couldn't leave him. That's when...."

Harm stopped speaking and Mac was afraid he had finished, shut down, thrown up the wall that he kept around himself so much of the time. Then he gasped in pain as Mac continued her search for the bullet. Soaked in sweat, he fought back the nausea in his throat and went on. At least while he was speaking the pain was easier to manage somehow.

"That's when they found us. They slammed me in the back with the butt of a rifle, then once in the head. I vaguely recall them tying my arms behind me, one rope at the wrists and one above the elbows. They killed my partner with a bayonet. I was alone."

Mac fought back the urge to cry. Sure, she was a tough Marine but this was her Harm that they had hurt, her Harm when he was only a boy. Her life was tough at 16 but it never came close to any of this. She knew what would come next, his captors would want details - How did he know about the camp? Who else was with him? Who helped him?... She also knew that Harm would never tell. A tear slipped down her cheek and she wasn't sure she wanted to hear anymore, but Harm kept talking, his voice hoarse with pain, his words punctuated with gasps and groans.

"When I woke up they....."

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