21
The First at Tucson National
Hambleton could just make out the moon, covered by drifts of cloud. It was dusk; he would be able to see only a few inches in front of his face. He brought out his radio and called for the FAC orbiting above.
The voice came on instantly. He asked if Hambleton understood the mission and the airman rogered back. Then, “very casually,” the FAC said he understood that Hambleton was “quite a golfer.”
Hambleton was bewildered. “Here I was,” he thought, “about to step into a virtual minefield and he starts talking golf.” He asked the man to repeat his last statement.
“Golf, Bat. Understand you play golf.”
Hambleton confirmed he played golf and that he knew a lot of the major courses.
“I hope you remember them.”
“I do.”
“Outstanding!” the FAC replied. He said that they were going to play nine holes. The first would be the one Hambleton was most familiar with. “Play the first hole at Tucson National,” the voice said. “When you’re finished, call me.”
Hambleton was disoriented and anxious and the conversation had him utterly turned around. “Finished?” he thought. He didn’t even know what he was starting.
Naturally Hambleton remembered Tucson National. It was his home course; it lay to the northwest of the sprawling city, its green links laid out among the parched tans and purples of the Tucson Mountains. He and Gwen had played it countless times.
He closed his eyes and saw the first hole. It was a slight dogleg, 430 yards long, skirting a small pond on the right as you approached the green. There was nothing remarkable about the thing. If they wanted him to walk 430 yards, they could have chosen the seventh as well. They could have chosen half a dozen holes he kept in his memory.
Then it struck him. When you teed up the ball on number 1 and struck it, you were facing southeast. Southeast was the general direction of the river. The reason for the obscure sports code now came to him. His deliverance from Vietnam would hinge on his arcane knowledge of the sport of Hogan and Nicklaus.
Hambleton told the man he was beginning his journey and signed off.
Wearing the life preserver he’d ejected with, Mark Clark padded down the muddy bank toward the burbling water. He saw no one.
Clark pushed his way through the underbrush that choked the shore. The vegetation was thick, and his life preserver, though uninflated, was bulky. He shoved the branches aside and stepped through the tangle of vines. He was taking his first steps into the cold water when suddenly an inflation cord for one side of the life preserver snagged on an overhead branch. There was a loud whooshing noise. Clark looked down in horror as the life preserver started inflating with a hissing roar. “It scared the living hell out of me,” he said. The preserver wasn’t just making a horrendous racket; its growing shape looked in the darkness like a bright orange buoy, or a child’s balloon, which was the last thing that Clark needed as he began his attempt to escape the North Vietnamese.
Once the thing started inflating, there was no way to stop it, so Clark stood there on the bank impatiently listening to the shriek of air. After the preserver had finished filling, the noise fell away. His heart beating fast, Clark paused, listening for the sound of feet rushing toward him. But all he could hear were insects and the plashing of water. He pushed into the river.
Hambleton looked around his hiding place, his home for the past eight days, and felt a pang of fear at the thought of leaving it. He stood upright and noticed “a touch of euphoria” along with the anxiety. He was no longer hunched over like a “stalked animal,” and that simple change in physical posture seemed to boost his confidence. He took out his compass and found the heading: 135 degrees southeast. He stepped out of the foliage and ventured out onto the path, counting his steps as he went. Each stride was about a yard. He had to complete 430 of them before checking back with the FAC for his next heading.
His body felt stiff, his joints having soaked up the moisture from the mud and damp leaves. But his eyes gave him the most trouble. In the darkness, they’d lost any sense of depth perception. He couldn’t tell if a dark shape ahead of him was a bush four feet away or a tree forty feet away. He was like a blind man staggering through the landscape. “I felt my way more than saw it.”
It was dark now, with only the faintest glow in the southwest; Hambleton guessed that glow was a bridge burning after being struck by American bombs. He moved slowly. Walking the route in the dark was just barely doable because he’d been looking at this landscape for days and knew the terrain’s basic layout. But what would happen when he headed into the unknown territory beyond the village? It was terrifying to think that he would be blundering around just when he needed to be at his stealthiest.
Nothing ran into him on the path, and he managed to navigate it without tumbling into the paddies on either side. After thirty minutes, the navigator found himself exhausted; even the slightest exertion caused his lungs to burn and his legs to go wobbly. He spotted a clump of undergrowth and pushed his way through the foliage, then grabbed the radio and whispered into it. “Estimate end of first hole,” he said.
The FAC acknowledged. “Next is Number 5 at Davis-Monthan.”
Hambleton thought back. He must have played Davis-Monthan a hundred times when he was the commander of the Titan II missile site. Number 5 was laid out due east, four hundred yards. He looked at his compass and turned toward a heading of ninety degrees. He took a few minutes to rest before standing up and starting out. He estimated he was in the midst of the gravel mines now, and he grimaced slightly every time he placed a foot on the path.
The rice paddies on either side of him were rectangular pools of blackness. The only noise was the ragged sound of his own breathing. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, his range of vision increased slightly; the path in front of him now had a distinct shape, as did the bushes three or four feet away. But his physical condition was beginning to worry him. As he made it to the end of number 5, he found that he was out of breath. He was more run-down than he’d realized.
When he’d finished, the FAC announced, “Number 5 at Shaw Air Force Base.” Hambleton had to reach farther back in his memory. He thought back to his times playing the South Carolina course as a younger man, saw the hillocks and the flag bright yellow against the impossibly lush kelly green of the grass. Which way did it run? His thoughts were muddied with exhaustion. Northeast, he said to himself after a moment. When he studied his compass and looked out at the landscape around him, he realized that the FAC was taking him straight toward the village.
For the first time, doubt seeped into his mind. The FAC and the others directing his escape had a bird’s-eye view of the terrain; they must be guiding him around dangers they saw from above. But the village not only had villagers—obviously. It also had NVA soldiers he’d seen as recently as two days before, and antiaircraft batteries manned by gunners. Why would he go through there?
He checked the compass again. The heading was correct. He kept off the radio and began walking. When he’d made it two hundred paces, he had to stop. He squatted down, his hands on his knees, breathing rapidly. As he crouched over, panting, he watched the ghostly outlines of the huts.
He started moving again, bent at the waist so as to minimize his profile for anyone looking out from the village. He spotted some foliage to his left and dropped to his hands and knees, crawling over the soft earth so as not to leave any footprints. When he reached the bushes, he listened. Nothing. He couldn’t hear people stirring or chickens clucking or any sound of life. It was as if the villagers had vanished en masse in the middle of the night.
He got the FAC on the radio and announced the completion of the third hole.
His body felt wrung out; the exertion of his short walk, along with the constant anxiety about revealing himself to the enemy, had exhausted him.
The FAC’s voice whispered on the radio. “Fourteenth at the Masters,” he said.
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bsp; The so-called “Chinese Fir.” Par 4. Dogleg, 420 yards. East by northeast. Only hole without a bunker. Number 14 was famous and famously difficult. It was the spot where the big band singer Don Cherry had rolled in a beautiful putt for birdie during the qualifications for the 1957 Masters, eliminating Ben Hogan from the field.
Hambleton sighed. “That has many, many traps,” he said.
“Roger,” the FAC replied, “you are right.”
Then Hambleton thought, east by northeast? That would take him straight through the village. He got back on the radio. “Birddog, confirm. Fourteenth hole at the Masters?”
A delay. Then FAC came on. “That is affirmative.”
Hambleton couldn’t understand what the planners were thinking, but he guessed they’d photographed the entire route and saw something they didn’t like on either side of the village. The resolution on those photographs, even from thirty thousand feet, was fantastic. You could read a headline on a newspaper. “Surely they wouldn’t let me go through if they thought it was extremely dangerous,” Hambleton thought to himself.
The moon was covered by high clouds and the terrain in front of him was as black, he said, as “india ink.” He waited fifteen minutes, studying the huts and listening for any sounds. Nothing. Perhaps everyone was asleep. He could see the first faint glow of the sun to his east. He was running out of time if he hoped to make the river by daybreak. He rose up and started walking.
Hambleton sidled up next to the first building and spotted a path that led through the village to the east. He guessed it was the main route from the rice paddies and decided to take it. At least he wouldn’t blunder into any farm equipment or bicycles next to the houses, which might awaken the people inside the huts. After he took a few steps on the path, his foot struck something and he went sprawling to the ground. He looked back to see what he’d tripped over. A dead pig lay on the path.
It was a good sign. In villages as poor as this, a dead pig would have immediately been butchered for food if anyone was still around. Hambleton picked himself up and hustled over to a building just off the path. He listened. No sounds. He slipped ahead. He could see now that the town was just three blocks long. Hambleton had the feeling he was walking through a “deserted movie set of plaster and chicken wire.”
At the end of the path, he found a shed filled with hay. He was completely spent. “Except for the last few feet, I certainly hadn’t rushed, but my heart was pounding as though I had just climbed the top of Pike’s Peak.” He dropped to his knees and burrowed into the hay. He fell asleep to the sound of transports moving south on a nearby road.
Fifteen minutes later, Hambleton snapped awake. Something was out there. He listened. Soon he heard voices—young male voices. Was it a patrol, or were they pursuers coming for him? As he listened to the men talk, he realized that the voices were coming not from the road but from one of the nearby huts. It was probably a crew of one of the AAA guns that had been targeting American planes for the past few days.
As the minutes ticked by, the voices fell silent. Hambleton swept away the hay that lay on top of him and moved to the doorway. The night was dark, the fields black, and he saw no campfires or flashlights. The soldiers had to be asleep. But would one of them be left on guard, to watch for planes or monitor the radio?
Quiet. His throat was parched. He chewed on a piece of the dry grass to get some saliva working. He estimated he was halfway done with his journey; the river was about a mile away now.
He raised the FAC and whispered into the radio. “Number four at Abilene,” the voice said.
Hambleton smiled. In one of his all-time glorious moments of golfing, he’d shot a hole in one at Abilene. On the fourth hole. Obviously, someone he’d been with that day—or one of the many pals he’d bragged to—had passed on the story to the USAF. It was almost like a wink from an old friend. The exact contours of the hole were imprinted on his mind with the freshness of a childhood memory.
It was east-facing, 195 yards, dead straight. When he looked at his compass and studied the landscape, he saw that the route went right through the village and out toward the open spaces beyond it. He felt pinpricks of fear. He had no idea how many NVA or VC were roaming out there. And he didn’t know if the men whose voices he’d heard were really asleep.
The navigator edged out onto the main road, trying to make as little noise as possible. The dirt was hard-packed here, and once he was past the hut he thought the voices had come from, he moved swiftly.
He saw no one in the darkness. The soldiers he’d heard must be passed out. After counting a hundred strides, he spotted a burned-out hooch just off the road, its roof gone. He needed to rest. A hundred yards was about the maximum he could do in one go. He moved off the road and approached the darkened doorway.
As he stepped inside, something came rushing out of the shadows. Hambleton fell to his knees in shock, then realized it was just a chicken that had been rooting around in the hooch’s interior. The navigator’s heart was slamming in his chest. He hadn’t been prepared.
Hambleton watched the chicken skitter out onto the road. Suddenly, he felt ravenously hungry. The bird would be his first real meal in many days. He had to catch it. He would eat it raw if he had to.
The chicken was perched near the ditch at the side of the road closer to him, pecking for bits of food in the gravel. As he got closer, Hambleton realized it wasn’t a hen, as he’d first thought, but a rooster. A less appetizing meal. But he was determined to catch it and have it for dinner. He reached into his pocket and brought out his survival knife with his right hand.
Hambleton held his breath and watched the bird as it came closer to his right foot. He leapt at it in the semidarkness and fell to his knees as he attempted to grab it. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something else emerge from the hooch in the semidarkness. This time, a human figure.
22
Dark Encounter
Hours into his journey, Mark Clark was weak, cold, and exhausted. The river was leaching heat from his body, and progress was agonizingly slow. The current pulled him along, but he was having trouble staying upright. The river bottom would drop away suddenly and send him tumbling downward. The effort drained him. Every hour he would pull out his radio and call the FAC: “I’m still on my way down. Don’t give up hope, I’m coming.”
Clark was far younger than Hambleton, but he found the river, which was full of snags and submerged branches, to be unusually treacherous. At one point he was walking along when he felt his feet snarl in some branches below the surface of the water, dragging him toward the bottom. Clark went under, spluttering for air. As he thrashed beneath the surface, he managed to reach up and pull the handle on his life preserver, inflating the other side. The airbag bloomed out in the darkness, and Clark found himself being pulled back up. He cleared the surface and took a huge breath. “I just about drowned myself,” he thought ruefully.
As he went, Clark spotted soldiers walking in patrols along the riverbank. There were tanks and transport trucks and troops, but no American faces. He kept on.
Hambleton stood stunned. The man or woman—he couldn’t in the confusion and darkness tell which it was—came flying at him, crashing into his left side. As the figure crossed the last few inches, Hambleton saw a flash of something bright and metallic raised in the air. Then he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.
It had happened in a second or two. His heart was beating furiously. He’d been found at last, and now this person was trying to kill him. Hambleton shoved the figure away and scrambled to his feet. He still had the knife in his right hand. The figure came at him again and he saw the blade, held up high, catch the moonlight. Hambleton rushed at the figure and brought his knife forward, stabbing at the shadowy thing. He felt the blade chunk into the chest wall. The figure rushed close to him, and Hambleton could see its face. It was male, a Vietnamese peasant, the smell of fish oil on his breath. The man grunted in pain.
Hambleton jerked the knife back a
nd the man seemed to deflate, slumping to the ground. Hambleton was breathing hard, staring at the figure in the blackness. The body didn’t move. His assailant was clearly dead or dying. The rooster was clucking in the distance. All else was quiet.
Hambleton felt as if he was going to vomit. Then it occurred to him: What if there are more? He needed to get away. He turned and started running down the road.
Raw fear pushed him forward. His arms and legs shook with the exertion and his heart stabbed painfully in his chest. He felt like he was having a coronary. He was barely able to stay upright, and then he wasn’t. He went tumbling to the road, rolling along the dirt before he lurched back up and careened forward.
He knew he was making too much noise and that he would attract anyone in the area. “Stop it!” he thought. “Stop it! You can’t blow it now. You can’t blow it now. Calm down. Calm down.”
His breath was coming in gasps. He collapsed to his knees, completely spent. His body gave way and he fell back, his arms flung out, his back smacking against the roadbed. He lay there, breathing hard, listening to the rasp of his breath. He couldn’t go any farther.
The image of Gwen came to him, but it almost immediately slipped away. His vision was blurred; he tried to concentrate on the moon, but when he stared at it, there was a second one next to it, and then a third.
Hambleton turned his head and looked toward the roadside. He spotted a shape in the darkness. It was a wooden pig trough. It would offer him shelter, to get out of sight of any pursuers. He crawled over to it, so spent that he didn’t smell anything, even though the place reeked of pig shit. He felt “slightly more alive than dead.”
Saving Bravo Page 17
