Long Range Patrol: A Novel of Vietnam (The Jim Hollister Trilogy Book 1)

by Dennis Foley

  Hollister watched as Davis quietly slipped a brick-sized radio battery out of his rucksack and then silently unfolded a Buck knife with the flick of a finger. He pressed the tip of the blade flat against the battery and slit the plastic bag that covered it. He then slid the new battery into the large cargo pocket on the side of his tiger-striped fatigue trousers.

  Davis was merely getting the battery ready for Vinson. And Vinson wouldn’t replace the old battery and risk the snapping noises of the locking catches on the battery compartment of the PRC-25 radio. After the sun rose, when the morning rain forest noises would cover the sounds, Hollister would help Vinson do it. The battery already in the radio was probably strong enough to last the night, but Davis wanted one ready in case shooting started and there was a need to replace the old one.

  Hollister suddenly realized that there were no sounds. Not just the end of the rain. Not just night quiet. But no sounds at all. The normal night rhythms were gone, no insects, no night birds, and no mosquitoes.

  Everyone noticed it. Hollister watched as one by one each patrol member changed position from almost ready to rock serious.

  Hollister’s fingers searched out his weapon. The others did the same, and three of them felt for Claymore mine detonators. Somewhere out there in the dark someone was coming their way.

  Hollister’s mind started to leap from one thing to another—could be a large cat, or a boar, or even a monkey or two. It wouldn’t be a problem if it was something like that. He shook himself out of it.

  Supporting fires—they had to be alerted. Just as Hollister turned to his radio operator, Davis pressed the earpiece of Vinson’s handset to his cheek to silence it and squeezed the press-to-talk button four times to alert the base camp radio operator.

  Sliding the handset to his ear, Davis heard the patrol base Operations RTO respond immediately, “Unknown station, this is Quarterback Three Romeo. We have a contact likely message … Please transmit your team number. Over.”

  Davis clicked the button twice, waited for a second, and then pressed it three more times.

  The base radio operator responded in a serious whisper, “We copy, Two-three, Team Two-three. If that’s an affirm, do not respond. If incorrect, transmit your number again. Over.”

  Phuc was glad that the rain had finally stopped, because his troops might be able to dry out a little before the sun rose. But it also meant that the veil of concealment that rain had offered was gone.

  The platoon continued moving back up into the hills surrounding the valley. Phuc tried to shift his load to get more comfortable. His rucksack had not seemed so heavy on the way down. And climbing back up the same muddy hills through the wet trees was more difficult.

  The others were somber and preoccupied, but Phuc would let them have a few more moments with their thoughts before correcting them for walking as if on autopilot. Even if there might be ambushes set in the area, the chances were that at that time of the morning all of the would-be ambushers were asleep.

  The moon started to throw shafts of light through the double-canopy vegetation as Davis reacted to tugs on the commo wire. It was Camacho giving the signal that enemy troops were moving past his position. Davis made eye contact with Hollister and pointed in the direction of the hidden Camacho.

  Hollister looked at the others, who had also seen Davis’s signal. He worried that the moonlight might give them away, but even he had difficulty making out his own people in the mottled shadow patterns on their camouflage uniforms and well-camouflaged faces.

  Hollister tried to convince himself that they had done all that could be done to ensure their security at that moment. He forced his mind to move on to other things that could influence the outcome of what was sure to be an enemy contact.

  As he ran down his mental checklist, Hollister realized that his chest was tightening again and his breathing was getting shallow. Sweat was forming under his arms.

  The VC point squad, led by two soldiers and Sergeant Thanh, entered the killing zone of Hollister’s ambush.

  Phuc, with the second squad, walked immediately behind Sergeant Thanh’s squad.

  Hollister blinked to make sure that he was really seeing the first two figures in the killing zone. While he was doing that, he anxiously touched his hand grenades for the fourth time in so many minutes, just to make sure that they were still there.

  The enemy point man reached the far side of the killing zone—thirteen VC soldiers had followed him into the clearing.

  Hollister hoped that the trailing element, which he couldn’t see, was no more than a few men. His biggest fear was of executing the ambush only to find that he had fired on the smaller portion of the enemy unit, and that the larger part was still outside the killing zone and able to flank his people.

  It was a crapshoot.

  Davis was the first to detonate his Claymore mine. The blast ripped through the night, instantly dropping five VC.

  The other Americans opened fire. Then the night again lit up with two more Claymore explosions and four grenades that landed in the killing zone fractions of a second apart.

  For a few very intense seconds the only sounds Hollister could hear were his patrol’s weapons. Seven more VC fell, mortally wounded by the violent bursts of well-aimed American small arms fire.

  The other VC realized what had happened and started to return fire in the general direction of the Americans—but they were shaken and forgot their training. For most of them, their aim was much too high.

  Soldiers had fallen all around Phuc. He was dazed, confused, and completely disoriented. What could he do? He had allowed them to walk into the middle of the ambush and now he had even lost contact with the squad behind him. “Pull back! Keep firing!” he yelled against the wall of noise that filled the night.

  There was no response. He could barely hear the words leaving his mouth; none of his men could hear him. Then the man in front of him seemed to fly apart as he was hit by an M-79 grenade-launcher round. The body kept walking a few steps even though his head, shoulder, and one arm had been blown away.

  Phuc wanted to vomit. He thought of death. He thought of Ly. Then he felt something heavy hit him on the leg. Before he could wonder what it was, the night flashed red and yellow with a deafening crack as a hand grenade exploded at his feet. For him there was no pain, no sound. It just ended.

  Phuc had been right. He would never see Ly again.

  Scrambling on his hands and knees in the brown oatmeal and deadfall of the forest floor, Hollister grabbed the radio handset from Vinson and yelled over the firing, “Quarterback, this is Two-three. We have contact! I say again—we have contact! Launch pickup choppers now. Will break contact and move to the PZ immediately. More to follow. Out!”

  Hollister threw the handset back to Vinson. Enemy small arms fire was still passing over his head, cutting through brush, showering him and the others with debris.

  Uncertain, Hollister strained to detect any enemy movement. The green and red tracers that had been coming from the killing zone had stopped. He took a chance, shouting, “Cease fire! Cease fire!”

  The others stopped firing, more from his example than his voice. They were excited and worried that their night vision was shot by the brilliance of the Claymores, grenades, and muzzle flashes.

  Davis was the only one who had been cool enough to keep his night vision. He had learned to keep one eye closed so that when the shooting stopped he could open the dilated eye and see as well as he had before the shooting started. Hollister knew the trick, but never remembered to pull it off.

  Hollister quickly called out each man’s name. One by one they let him know that they were unharmed by replying with a simple Airborne “Okay.” Nobody down.

  “Stay awake,” Hollister cautioned. “They’re still out there!” Over his own heavy breathing he turned to Davis. “What d’ya think?”

  Davis got up on one knee to get a better look, then whispered, “Looks like maybe a dozen KIA out there.” Davis then held his
breath to listen some more.

  They could hear frantic thrashing noises below their position—down the hillside. Viet Cong soldiers were slipping and falling on the muddy path as they tried to escape.

  “Go check out the KIAs. But make it last. We got to get to the PZ. The whole world knows where we are now.”

  Snapping his fingers to get their attention, Hollister raised his voice only enough to be heard. “Vinson, you cover Davis. Don’t take your eyes off him. If anything moves anywhere near him—blow it away.”

  Davis put his rifle down and pulled out a .45 pistol. He looked around at the others. “Any more Claymores out there?” The others shook their heads. Satisfied, Davis crawled toward the killing zone.

  As Davis started to move, Hollister had a second thought and looked over at Doc Norris. “Go with him. There might still be some wounded.”

  Hollister looked back at Vinson to make sure that Vinson knew that two of them would be entering the killing zone. Vinson whispered, “I got ’em, sir.”

  Doc shouldered his aid kit, pulled out his pistol and scrambled after Davis.

  Still watching Doc and Davis, Vinson picked up the radio handset and tossed it toward Hollister. “It’s already on arty freq, sir.”

  Hollister smiled at his ever-efficient radioman, took out a green pocket notebook and flipped it open to a page marked by a rubber band. He pulled his right-angle, red-filtered Army flashlight from his web gear and wrapped his fingers across the lens. Turning it on, he allowed a tiny sliver of light to slip through his fingers to illuminate the list of artillery targets he had plotted before the patrol left the base camp. He raised the handset and used his own call sign rather than Team 2-3’s. “Saint Barbara, this is Quarterback Two-six, fire mission. Over.”

  A faint voice responded immediately, “This is Saint Barbara. Send your fire mission. Over.”

  “Fire targets two niner five, two niner seven, three zero one, and three zero five. Over.”

  The radio operator at the Artillery Fire Direction Center answered immediately and repeated the target numbers.

  Hollister gave the handset back to Vinson. “We gotta move! Choppers are inbound and arty is on the way.” He turned back toward the killing zone and whispered loudly, “Goddammit—let’s go, Davis! Get it in gear.”

  Hollister could hear the two men searching the bodies for documents and equipment, but couldn’t really see them well. Davis and Norris each finished searching the last bodies and collected weapons from the dead VC. Davis slung his VC’s rifle over his shoulder with two others, and Doc Norris hung his around his neck with the length of twine that its dead owner had used. One clunked against another.

  The noise made Hollister more anxious. A reorganized squad of VC survivors could pull off a very effective counterattack against his small patrol if he didn’t get his men moving.

  Policing the battlefield was important, but Hollister didn’t want to take more risks for filthy VC ammo pouches or comic books. He split the difference and gave Davis and Doc a bit more time to gather anything of intelligence value.

  Finally, unable to wait any longer, Hollister reacted. “Now, Davis! Get back here. We’re moving. Leave anything you can’t carry and torch it.”

  “Roger, boss. Just a sec,” Davis whispered.

  Vinson pulled the handset from his ear. “Sir, redleg sent an ‘on-the-way’ message.”

  Hollister nodded. “Davis, get your ass back here. We’re moving—now!”

  “Look away! Friendly fire!” Davis yelled, warning the others of the threat to their night vision. He dropped an incendiary grenade on the equipment that they couldn’t carry. The grenade made a small pop and then hissed as it burned with intense white light. Hot enough to melt through safes, the incendiary grenade would destroy anything it rested on.

  Stumbling on the slick muddy ground—enemy rifles clanking—Davis and the Doc jogged back to Hollister’s position.

  Burdened by half a dozen weapons each and two VC rucksacks filled with captured documents and equipment, they reached Hollister and dropped to their knees. Without saying anything, Davis held out his three M-16s for Hollister to see.

  The find was a surprise to Hollister. It was almost unheard of for a Viet Cong unit to have American equipment. It was an important piece of intelligence.

  Suddenly, Hollister got a whiff of the repulsive smell that clung to Davis. He had brushed up against the spilled contents of a dead VC’s shredded intestines. Hollister tried to suppress the urge to gag.

  In the distance he heard the American howitzers firing. Then a second volley. Then Theodore and Camacho ran into the ambush site.

  “Okay, we’re all here,” Hollister said. “That’s our covering fire. Split up this VC gear and let’s get to the pickup zone. Camacho, you know where we’re going?”

  “Yessir … home. We’re going home, sir.”

  The patrol fell in behind Camacho and was on the run before the first six 105mm howitzer rounds racked the trees along the flanks of the patrol’s route to the pickup zone.

  Awkwardly, Hollister ran with the others while trying to talk on the radio. His corrections to the artillery were interrupted as he and Vinson dodged the limbs and bushes that seemed to jump between them.

  Even with the breaks in commo, Hollister was pleased with the response of the base operations, the artillery and the chopper jocks. Communications helped him control the variables of the night and adjust to the changing situation. And somewhere out in the dark there were the remaining VC who had escaped his ambush, and he had no idea exactly how many got away or how many were still capable of attacking his patrol on the way to the pickup zone.

  Over the blackness of the rain forest two Huey slicks and two gunships were racing toward him and his patrol. He hoped that the choppers would find them before the VC did.

  Hollister spoke into the handset. “Gladiator, this is Two-six. We are three-zero-zero mikes from the Papa Zulu. Over.”

  “Mornin’, Two-six. This is Gladiator Three-six. We’re about zero five out. What’s your situation?” the air mission commander asked.

  Hollister signaled for the patrol to hold up. Responding to his signal, passed from man to man, they each stopped and fell to one knee. “We’ve broken contact, but I’m sure enemy stragglers are still in the area. How about a hose-down first?”

  “It’d make me a happy man. I’d like to make a marking run across the PZ to make sure I got the right one, if you don’t have trouble with that,” Gladiator 36 said.

  “We haven’t had contact since we left the ambush site, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t followed. Affirm on the dry run. And you can put in the gunship fires anytime you’re ready. Over.”

  “Roger that,” Gladiator 36 replied. “Iron Mike’s flying gun lead tonight. I’m sure he’d rather shoot ’em into the dirt than hafta unload ’em back at his palatial home. Over.”

  “Hey—remember who has the gunships, truck driver,” Iron Mike broke in.

  Hollister smiled. “Okay, Gladiator. Break. Iron Mike, this is Two-six. Over.”

  “Don’t listen to that slick driver, Two-six. Iron Mike here with gun support that’ll make your eyes water. Got two Charlie models loaded for bear. Got miniguns, rockets, and a shitload of 40mm grenades. What’s your pleasure, Two-six?” Captain Iron Mike Taylor was the leader of the gunship platoon that usually supported the patrols. The playful and reassuring voices of the pilots always had a calming effect on troops on the ground.

  Holding the handset against his ear with his shoulder, Hollister dumped the magazine out of his rifle and dropped it down the front of his shirt. He pulled a fresh magazine out of his shirt pocket and tapped Vinson on the shoulder with it before seating it into his rifle.

  Vinson nodded, did the same, then signaled the others to load magazines of full tracers into their weapons. All the while, Hollister was mentally recording the inventory of ordnance that Iron Mike listed.

  “Once you have a lock on the PZ, I’d like you to
burn a ring around it. My lead element will remain three hundred into the tree line on the west side till you’ve finished your firing runs. Call for a mark if you have any doubt. I have artillery firing west and south of the PZ. So, if you have any movement anywhere else on the perimeter, just consider it bad guys. All of my element will be firing full tracer during the extraction. Adjust your fires accordingly. Over.”

  “Roger that. We’ll punch their tickets for the show. Stand by for a prep. Out,” Iron Mike said.

  Hollister looked around at the others and raised his voice over the building sounds of the choppers. “The guns are going to make a few hot passes over the PZ.”

  They waited, trying to keep their eyes on the darkness that encircled them and trying to resist the temptation to watch the choppers go through their preparatory motions.

  The pickup chopper was first to reach the edge of the landing zone. It was flanked by the two heavily laden gunships which stayed out over the trees surrounding the landing zone. Behind the guns a second slick, the chase ship, held high and broke short to the right, ready to go in and pick up survivors of any downed ship.

  As the pickup slick passed over the center of the landing zone, Hollister yelled into the handset, “Mark-mark-mark.”

  In response a smoke grenade came flying out of the cargo door tossed by an unseen door gunner. As it fell to the ground the detonator created a spit of sparks followed by a plume of violet smoke. As it hit the ground the small flame at the end illuminated the billowing smoke like a large purple bubble.

  Hollister watched the slick as it reached the far end of the PZ. Gladiator sucked it up over the trees and continued to gain altitude as he broke hard right to see where his smoke landed. “How’s that, Two-six?” Gladiator asked.

  “You got it. Park it on the grape and we’ll meet you there. Over.”

  Iron Mike and his wingman turned toward each other at the end of the PZ, crossed over and started back toward the PZ in the opposite direction.

  Through the plastic windscreen of his Huey gunship, Iron Mike could clearly see the margins of the black hole in the stand of trees that Gladiator had just marked. “Okay, Gladiator. I got it. Break. Two-six, put your head down. We’re gonna burn ’em a new asshole.”