Title: "Captive" (segment of Origins of a Hero series)

Fandom: G. I. Joe - Duke

Characters: Staff Sergeant Conrad "Duke" Hauser, U.S. Special Forces (Vietnam)

Prompt: 055. Spirit

Word Count: 652

Rating: PG-13, adult language

Author's Notes: None at this time. If I think of any, I'll let you know. Disclaimers, disclaimers, yadda-yadda-yadda. Duke resists the enemy as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese Army.

***

Rain began to fall in the remote jungle outpost, as Duke tried to find a comfortable position to rest his weary body. The bamboo tiger cage was purposefully built too short in every dimension to allow a male of average stature to stand fully erect. And, the trunks of the rough-hewn bamboo plants were uneven and thick, so a man couldn’t even lie on the floor of the cage without some sort of eventual affliction in the back or sore muscles somewhere.

The balancing act to keep the suspended tiger cage steady while Duke shifted his weight seemed comical to the AK-47 toting NVA guards, who laughed at the spectacle. Duke was doing everything he could to refrain from upsetting the winch that kept his cage hanging out of the rancid pool of water that his captors were dipping him into between interrogations from Lieutenant Huyang, the young soldier with his devilish grin and two gold-capped front teeth.

His skin still felt tight and wrinkled from the last two-hour dip in the smelly water, which had been filled with all kinds of excrement, mud, and river leeches. The slimy creatures were the worst, because they bored into his skin and caused great discomfort while they slowly weakened his body through their blood feeding.

Granted, Duke knew what the survival manuals said about removing leeches. However, his Special Forces Zippo had been confiscated along with everything else when the platoon of NVA searched him. God only knew whose war booty the lighter had become. The heat the lighter could’ve provided would have caused the leeches to ease their round jaws and sharp rows of teeth out of Duke’s skin and made for less pain when peeled from their sticking places.

Without the Zippo, or his Ka-Bar combat knife, or even simpler tools that the survival manuals said could be employed in a pinch, all Duke had at his disposal were the lengthening fingernails on his hands. With them, he had to set about painfully prying off the leeches and putting himself at risk for major infections if the parasites didn’t fully come out.

Sure, the leeches hurt. The heaviness in his lungs from what felt like the onset of pneumonia was of concern. But, Staff Sergeant Conrad Steven Hauser was set in the knowledge that neither Lieutenant Huyang, nor any other cutthroat the Vietnamese Communists could lay their hands on, would ever break him.

The longer he waited before giving the interrogator anything at all, bought his colleagues in the Roadrunner Nine reconnaissance team more time to escape the enemy patrols that were after the Americans and their Montagnard teammates. Duke wouldn’t give up the team’s escape routes, strength or mission. He would rather die first.

When the sun dipped below the V-shaped valley formed by two shallow peaks west of the camp, the sergeant cringed at the cackle of the two NVA soldiers posted near the winch that held his cell out of the pool. It was just a matter of time before Huyang would release the winch lock and drop him again. The fall of night always brought the harsh questioning.

Duke wondered for a moment as he gazed at the faces of the two NVA soldiers looking up at him and chortling over his captivity. What would Huyang’s new tactic be to pry the tactical information he wanted out? Thumbscrews? Electricity? Drawing a razor-sharp bayonet across his flesh? Water torture? The possibilities were endless for the cold, Russian-trained NVA lieutenant inasmuch as what he could do to Hauser in the one room, bamboo shack with the leaky thatched roof.

But Duke was an American, and he believed in what he was doing. He believed in his unit and in the reasons why he served in the Army. He also had a plan to resist as long as possible. His spirit wouldn’t break until he had at least attempted an escape…