From knotholes in the pinewood, she watches them spike the ancient trees Ho Chi Minh sandals on the hallowed ground, on beds of needles children in black pajamas come to reinforce the frail, stoop-shouldered nymphs of her command braving the potshots, chainsaws, and bulldozers of lumberjacks deaf to the cries of saplings, the query of owls and the many warnings of the old women of the wood. The spikes break chains, and the shrapnel taps the trunks of men the sugared gas tanks and punji ditches slow the rout to a crawl, the survivors harried by the undying spirits of the trees.