Thorne and the Cryte Adventure
               
      To start off with I'll try to describe the type quarters we lived in back at the fire base. We lived in something like a Bunker which was big enough to house about 20 men. The bunker was made of a wooden frame with sandbags up the outside  walls about 4 feet. From there up was screen wire to keep out the mosquitos which were very big and many in number. The roof on the bunker was sheet metal and didn't afford much protection from marter and rocket fire, but at least we were more or less protected from gunfire as long as we stayed below the sandbags. There was a bunker attached to the north side of the building which had one entrance and that was right next to my cot. In case of  incoming rounds if we didn't take a direct hit on the roof we would have time to head for that bunker.

      Our bedding was the Military type that most of the older folks are familiar with. (Wooden folding frame with canvas for the actual sleeping area. ) The mosquitos were so bad that we had wooden racks attached to the cots to hold mesquito net. The typical way of  going to bed was to get in your cot, secure the mesquito net so that none could get in and then take a can of military insecticide and spray inside it well to kill any mesquitos that might have made it in there with you.

      One night I had the mesquito net up and was sitting on my cot listening to some of the chatter of some of  the other guys cutting up. All of a sudden one guy ran over and grabbed my arm and gave me a good enough jerk to pull me off into the floor. At the same time he yelled Cryte. Now let me stop here for a minute to explain Cryte. I may have the spelling wrong, but there was another name for them. (the two step snake) and the reason for the name was supposedly you had about enough time to take two steps after being bitten by one before you died. We all know this is an exaggeration, but never the less they were very deadly and the chances of getting medical help in time to save you was slim if none.

      Anyway back to the Cryte! As I got up the guy that had jerked me off of my cot had grabbed a stick and was trying to get the snake (about 18 inches long) off ot the top rail of my mesquito net rack. Where the snake was in comparison to where I was sitting would just about have been in striking distance of my right temple. We finally got the snake down and killed it. More than likely the Cryte had made it's way through a crack between a couple of sandbags and through the bunker exiting at the leg of my cot. From there it climbed to the position that it was at when I got pulled off of the cot. If we would have had to hit the bunker as we had to do fairly often there is a good chance someone would have been bitten by that Cryte before it got out of the bunker. From then on when we hit the bunker it was carefully rather than just scrambling right in. 

      Copyright (C) 1997 By David Thorne Smith