by Dennis Foley
With so much going on at once, the noise level was almost painful. For a thousand years nothing important had happened in that little depression, but that night an event of violence and mercy was taking place. Soon the first chopper would move out and the dead man would be pulled up through the same hole in the thrashing trees.
The medevac pilot broke the squelch as the chopper’s nose disappeared from the hole in the sky. It immediately went dark again, instantly disorienting patrol members who had lost their night vision. “Two-six, we got him. We’re getting out of here. My doc says he made the trip up okay. We’ll give you a status later. Keep your heads down. You guys do good work.”
Hollister let out a breath. “Thanks, we owe you a beer. Break. Iron Mike, you still taking any fire? Over.”
Iron Mike came back over the radio. “I don’t think there’s anything left down there to shoot at us, partner. Anyway, we’re dead out of fuel and have to go home and rearm. I’ve got a pair of hogs loitering at three thousand just west of here, if you need them. I’m gettin’ outa here before I have to push this chopper home.”
“Roger, thanks. Break. Six, this is Two-six. You copy? We finished the evac and still have the KIA to get out.”
“This is Six. Roger. I’m going back to refuel. Gladiator One-five and Place Kicker are going to McGuire your KIA out. Any problems with that?”
“Negative. Holding our own. We’re ready any time,” Hollister said.
“Stand by … they’re on the way in.”
Davis and Camacho had taken a sling rope, carried by every LRP, and fastened a harness for the dead man. As Davis made final checks for strength and good knots, Camacho hooked a strobe light to the dead man’s boots.
“Two-six, this is Place Kicker. Over.”
Hollister smiled at the gravel sounds of Easy’s voice. “Go ahead, Kick.”
“I’m still ridin’ belly on the chase. We’re going to ease into the same spot the Dust-Off used and drop you a rig. That okay with you? Over.”
“You and Gladiator One-five know that the Dust-Off took ground fire in that same spot?”
“We ate our Wheaties this morning.”
“Okay, then. I’m ready when you are, Top.”
“Stand by … we’re inbound to your location,” Easy said.
The chase slick followed the same approach that the Dust-Off had. Soon the belly of the new ship filled the hole in the canopy and began thrashing those below with the downwash of the rotors and blinding them with the searchlight.
A dark object flew out of the left door and then another from the right. Easy had thrown the two 120-foot climbing ropes out of the chopper. The running ends of the ropes played out while the other ends were anchored to metal tie-down rings on the floor of the helicopter.
Davis reached for the ends of the two snaking nylon ropes. He found the two mountain climbers’ snap links at the end of each rope and double-hooked them to the dead man’s harness.
While they rigged up the dead pilot, Hollister kept looking for any signs of enemy fire. He was sure that at any moment the VC would start firing again. Even if they had killed the ones who did the earlier firing, others wouldn’t be able to pass up the chance to pop a few rounds at the second hovering chopper. He scanned the entire perimeter for any signs of the enemy, but it was silent outside the circle.
Davis finished rigging the body, then gave Hollister the thumbs-up to pass on to the hovering chopper crew. While he waited for the chopper to lift, he and Camacho held tension down on the lines to keep the slack from whipping them into the surrounding trees and getting entangled.
Hollister pressed the mike to his mouth, cupping his hand around the mouthpiece again to be heard over the noise. “Okay, Kick. Take him up. Watch the trees on the south side of the hole. A couple of them are big enough to eat your lines.”
“Roger that. Stand clear, we’re coming up,” Easy said flatly as the chopper started to rise, quieting the vibrating ropes.
As the ropes stretched and began to lift the dead man, Sergeant Camacho reached over and turned on the strobe light. It started flashing repeatedly, enabling the pilot to see his load and helping him judge clearances during his takeoff and landing. But for the LRPs the strobe meant something more.
It meant that they got the Americans out. It meant that every VC for miles could see that they didn’t sneak out at night. They went out with a strobe flashing—thumbing their noses at the VC.
As the chopper kept gaining altitude, the body slowly raised off the ground and cleared the hole in the canopy. Once Easy saw the strobe light reflecting off the top of the trees instead of through them, he called Hollister. “We’re clear, Two-six. We’re going on home now. You be careful,” Easy said as the light and the sounds of the chopper faded.
“Rog, Kick. Break. Six, this is Two-six. Evac complete. We’re going to finish up here and move to the Papa Zulu. I’ll call for the aircraft four zero minutes out. Over.”
“Roger that,” Michaelson said from a point in the sky far from Hollister’s team. “Good job. I got one more thing for you to do. But you make the call. If you have the time, work through the VC firing position and see if you can find anything. If you get hung up or have any problem with that, just pass on it. Understand that it has the lowest priority. Over.”
“I understand. Let me check it out and I’ll see what we can do. Over.”
“Bring ’em all home,” Michaelson said.
“Wilco, boss. Out.” Hollister passed the handset back to Vinson. He spoke up, trying to gain time, instead of whispering to regain noise discipline in the tiny perimeter. “Davis, you, Allard, and Camacho come over here. And the rest of you—look sharp out there. The zips would have to be blind not to know where we are. Do I have to say more?”
He expected no answer, but simply wanted to jerk them back into some sense of security.
The chopper gone, Hollister had difficulty making his eyes readjust to the darkness. After getting used to the searchlights and strobes, their absence made the night even blacker for him. While he squinted to make out things around him, he heard the rustling as Allard slipped down through the saplings on the hillside. He was also aware that someone else had moved silently to a point just outside of arm’s reach.
“Sir … it’s me and Camacho,” Davis said.
“Okay, Sergeant Davis. Wait a sec till Allard gets here.”
“I’m here,” Allard said out of the dark.
“Good. Here’s the deal. I want to tie in the gaps in our security and get a couple of things done before we head out. Sergeant Davis, you take your folks and move them to the far side of the bird dog. Leave me with one man and the thermite grenades.”
Before Davis could answer, Hollister added, “Make it Theodore. Okay?”
“Okay, sir,” Davis said. “Anything else?”
“No, you just worry about anything outside, and Theodore and I’ll take care of the aircraft.
“Sergeant Allard?”
“Yessir.”
“Keep your people up on the hillside, but tie in with Davis’s new positions.
“All of you … once we are through trashing the radios and equipment on the bird dog, I’m going to call Allard’s team to close on Davis’s and we’re going to check out the enemy position.
“Now, if we don’t find something right off, we’ll forget it. I don’t want to spend the rest of the night groping around in the bush looking for Charlie while he’s watching from the bamboo. Questions?”
There were three no’s.
“Davis, you and Allard take off. I want to go over the route of march to the PZ with Camacho.”
“Yessir,” both team leaders said.
As soon as they left, Hollister snapped his fingers to get his radio operator’s attention. “Get out your poncho, Vinson.”
Vinson took the loosely rolled poncho off the frame of his rucksack and spread it out. He ducked his head under it, taking his radio with him.
“Okay, sir,” Vinso
n said.
Camacho and Hollister got under the poncho so that all three heads were just inches apart. Hollister spread his map case out on the ground and turned on his red-filtered flashlight. Every VC in the province knew their general location, but he didn’t want to create another good target for some sniper while making a map check.
The trio took a few seconds to adjust to the light under the poncho while Hollister turned the map case around to orient the map. He then tapped a point on the side of a ridge line with the tip of his mechanical grease pencil. “Okay. Here we are.”
He drew a short line, stopped it with a small dot, then drew the line around and up the ridge line and to a different clearing than the one they landed on earlier. “We’ll go to this point, set up, and check out the VC firing positions. From there we’ll follow this route to the PZ. If you need to take some detours to get us around what looks to me like fairly thick shit—do it. Just get us to the PZ, Camacho.”
Camacho took a long look at the route before he spoke. “Yes-sir,” he said, copying the route onto the small section of his own map that he had pulled out of his shirt pocket. “But we’re going to play hell trying to fool ’em. They’ll be selling tickets along our line of march. They know that we need to go home sometime.”
“That’s why I want to get us to that PZ and the hell out of here before folks get too comfy in the bleachers,” Hollister said.
Camacho tapped three points on his map with his pencil. “And there are only a few LZs near here. They got at least a one-in-three chance of picking the one we have in mind.”
“I know. That’s why I picked the shiftiest one. So, let’s try to be back at the base camp by the time they figure it all out.”
“I’ll get us there just as fast as it can be done, sir. Let’s hope nobody gets dinged up on the way. Carrying a wounded man’ll slow us down plenty.”
“I hear you. Now, I’m planning on having the guns circle a PZ we’re not going to use to draw them off, and then come over to the actual PZ at the last possible minute. That might just confuse them a little,” Hollister said.
“I hope it works, sir.”
“You ready?” Hollister asked as he fastened the igniter to the end of the fuse.
“Yessir. I got everything packed up,” Theodore said.
“Okay, get in here and check out my setup.”
“Me?” Theodore said, surprised.
“Yes you. How you ever going to become a team leader if you don’t get on top of every detail?” Hollister asked.
“Uh … I guess I … I mean I’m not sure I …”
“Just get in here and double-check me. You’ve been through this in demo training until you can do it by heart. Now it’s the real deal.”
Hollister carefully slipped out of the collapsed front seat section of the airplane and Theodore squeezed in.
With his flashlight, Theodore traced the igniter up the length of fuse to the thermite grenade on the top of the instrument panel, across to the second and third thermite grenades spaced along the full width of the panel. With his fingers he traced the fuse down the far side of the instrument panel through a wide loop, which would add burning time, and finally to a block of plastic C-4 explosive.
“If this works, the grenades’ll ignite and burn down through the instruments,” Hollister said. “After they’re pretty much destroyed, the C-4 will scatter what’s left of this bucket over about an acre of prime Viet real estate.”
“Looks good to me, sir,” Theodore said.
“Well, light the fuse.”
Theodore looked back at his platoon leader. “You want me to do it?”
“That’s right. If you checked it—it should work. Right?”
Theodore looked at the fuse path one more time. “Yessir.” He took the igniter in his hands and yanked it forcefully. A tiny flame worked its way along the fuse toward the thermite grenades. Theodore quickly stepped back out of the aircraft. “We better get moving, sir!”
Hollister grabbed Theodore by the sleeve. “More guys’ve been hurt hurrying away from demo than just walking away. Now, you just take a breath and relax. I cut that fuse for twelve minutes before it even reaches the first thermite grenade.”
Camacho held up the patrol and walked back to Hollister. “If I’m right, the VC position is just ahead of us by about fifty meters,” he whispered.
Patting Camacho on the shoulder and nodding his head to show that he understood, Hollister reached back and motioned to Davis that he was going forward with Camacho.
“Don’t go doin’ nothin’ crazy now, Lieutenant,” Davis whispered.
Hollister and Camacho edged forward on their stomachs. The area was very faintly lit by the light from the crash-site fire that had grown to a football-game bonfire size. They stopped frequently to try to detect any movement. Dancing shadows and light from the flames made it difficult to distinguish real motion; it was doubly hard when they too were moving.
After a few minutes they came on a narrow corridor that had been cut into the trees by the repeated passes of the gunships. Open to the sky, it was littered with bits and pieces of trees, palm fronds, and branches. They stopped again and watched, looking up and down the channel. Nothing was moving.
Then Camacho tapped Hollister on the arm and pointed off to their right front.
Squinting against the harsh light, Hollister saw something. There, in the fallen branches, was a foot—a man’s sandal-clad foot. Camacho started to move forward. Hollister grabbed his arm. “No, my turn. You just watch my ass.”
Just then the C-4 in the bird dog detonated with a ground-shaking crack. The debris rained down around them for several seconds.
Hollister waited for the wreckage to stop falling and then crawled forward to the foot. It was still in the same position. As he got closer, his mind started to work on him. Was this a live VC playing possum? Was he just unconscious? Was he likely to wake up and freak out? Did he have a grenade in his hand? Had his buddies booby-trapped him and left him for Hollister to find? Hollister decided to just focus on what he was doing and stop running all the wild possibilities through his mind.
The safe thing would be to shoot first and check out the body later. But if the VC was really just unconscious, that would be murder. He finally decided to just keep the muzzle of his rifle trained on the area where he presumed the rest of the body to be—beneath the vegetation. That way he’d be ready to fire a burst of well-aimed M-16 fire if he had to. It meant that he had to give up the initiative.
He got closer. Nothing happened. Still no movement. The VC had to hear his uniform scraping across the ground cover and deadfall. He was close enough that he could smell the sickening sweet smell of heavy organ blood. He was dead! Hollister thought. No, it could be from another soldier nearby. The odor didn’t mean that the guy attached to the foot was seriously wounded or dead.
Finally, Hollister was within arm’s reach. No movement, no sounds, no signs of life. He poked at the foot with his rifle muzzle. Nothing. He did it a second time and the foot flipped over, revealing the splintered stock and part of a blown-apart receiver of an AK-47 rifle beneath it. Hollister reached up, hooked the stock with the front-sight blade of his rifle and yanked it backward—away from the foot.
The rifle remnant came away freely and the leaves slid off the top of the foot, revealing that the foot was not connected to a leg or a soldier or anything. Just a foot.
Enough! That was all he needed. A probable KIA and a weapon. If there were more bodies around, someone else could find them. Not him. Not his LRPs. He grabbed the AK-47 stock in his left hand and crawled backward to Camacho’s position.
CHAPTER 11
TIRED AND HUNGRY, HOLLISTER was still in his field uniform, dirty and smelling of aviation fuel from the downed bird dog, when he arrived at the orderly room. Bernard was sitting behind the first sergeant’s desk reading a Playboy magazine.
“The Old Man want to see me?”
“Yessir,” Bernard said, getting to
his feet. “Let me check.” He hurried over to Captain Michaelson’s office and tapped on the door frame. “Sir, Lieutenant Hollister’s here.”
Captain Michaelson must have motioned to Bernard to send him in because Hollister could hear no response in the outer office. He also knew whatever it was the detachment commander wanted to talk to him about was not good news. He could feel it in Bernard’s tone.
Inside Michaelson’s office Hollister stopped in front of the captain’s desk.
Captain Michaelson stood facing out the window into the night. “Sit down, Jim.”
Hollister took a chair and sat upright. His mind ran quickly over the recent events. He tried to discover a mistake he might have made or a missed step during the rescue operation that might be the topic of Michaelson’s meeting.
Captain Michaelson turned around and grabbed the pack of Pall Malls on his desk. He popped one out and offered the pack to Hollister, who waved him off.
Michaelson pulled a well-worn Zippo out of his pocket, lit the cigarette, threw the lighter on his desk, and exhaled, deliberately gaining time. “There’s no easy way to tell you this. Lucas died last night at Camp Zama.”
The words jarred Hollister but didn’t surprise him. The loss was something he had thought about several times since seeing Lucas at the hospital. The announcement of his death pushed several buttons at once for Hollister. The loss of a good friend, the loss of a fellow platoon leader, the reminder of their mortality, the random nature of who gets hit and who doesn’t—all of it clicked through his mind.
“Oh, there’s something else. His parents want you to escort his body home.”
“Me? I don’t even know his parents.”
“I guess they must know you from Lucas’s letters,” Michaelson said as he pulled out his chair and sat behind his desk. He leaned back in his chair to be able to see the far side of the outer office. “Bernard, bring that paperwork in here on Lieutenant Lucas.”
Bernard entered Michaelson’s office with a folder containing odd pieces of paper. He handed it to Michaelson and left, hardly making a sound as he walked.
