Under Attack

by Eric Meyer

  He gained more height and didn’t level off until we reached our service ceiling of six thousand meters. He gave me a smile that was more relief than amusement. “We should be fine up here, their triple-A can’t get close.”

  “That’s good to know, Brett.”

  “Unless of course they have those new Russian surface-to-air missiles, but we may be lucky.” I didn’t feel lucky. I was in a flying scrapyard with a crazy pilot, who had more alcohol in his veins than blood. If that wasn’t bad enough, his psychotic co-pilot didn’t know how to fly, and when he should have been trying to get the hang of it, he was busy pissing out the door, “Always assuming we haven’t taken any damage.”

  “Damage?”

  A shrug. “They fired a lot of bullets at us, and that 12.7mm stuff is like our .50 caliber. If it hit something important, we may have a problem or two when we try to land. You know, up in the Central Highlands, the strips tend to be a mite uneven. Then again, look on the bright side.”

  “Which is?”

  “The guys up there always keep a bottle back for me. You know what I mean, I hate flying sober.”

  “I noticed.”

  I heard a scream from down below in the hold, and I scrambled down the ladder, knowing exactly what I was about to find. Ray was lying on the floor, shaking his head after someone had obviously hit him with something hard. Vince had pinned Lam to the floor and was attempting to remove her shirt. Le was beating at him to try to get him to stop, but the guy was built of solid oak. I doubted he felt it more than if a fly had been batting at him with its wings. I rushed forward, bunched both my fist together, fingers interlinked to form a club, and slammed into his head. He jerked in surprise, and I hit him again and again until at last he took his hands away from Lam and turned to face me.

  I got in a hard punch in his belly that winded him, but all he did was smile and advanced toward me, hands outstretched.

  What did Brett Barnes say? He’s a killer. I’ll remind him he’s also a rapist, but now isn’t the time.

  I punched him again in the belly, and my fist seemed to glance off. Then his hands went around my neck, and he squeezed. I was fighting for breath, and I was losing that fight. I couldn’t fight this guy, hitting him was like hitting a solid plank of hardwood, but as I was seeing stars in front of my eyes, thinking I’d come to the end, the pressure suddenly eased, and I sucked in precious air to my aching lungs. The hands fell away from my neck, and I massaged the bruises, and at last managed to focus on what had happened.

  Ray had happened. He’d recovered consciousness and unclipped a fire extinguisher from the bulkhead, slamming it with every ounce of his considerable strength over the man’s head. Vince crumpled and fell to the floor. I grabbed the fire extinguisher from Ray and banged it over his head again just to make sure. He lay still, and he may have been dead, but I couldn’t give a shit. He’d tried to rape Lam, tried to kill Ray and me, and for my money we could open the door and toss him out to slug it out with the men he’d just pissed over. In the end we managed to resist the temptation and didn’t toss him out.

  Lam and Le were both okay, and I climbed back up to the flight deck to have a chat with Brett. He glanced around as I arrived. “All okay back there? Nobody hurt?”

  “Vince is unconscious.”

  “Is that right? What hit him? Was it triple-A?”

  “It was a fire extinguisher.”

  “A fire extinguisher?”

  I told him about the attack on Ray, and the attempted rape. “He’s a loose cannon, Brett. There’s no way you can trust a guy like that.”

  “He’s a good man in a fight. I’ve seen him piss all over the Vietcong.”

  “Yeah, I have, too. What do we do when he comes around?”

  “Nothing. He won’t bear a grudge. I pay him too much to hold grudges, although I’d make sure you have a gun handy. You never know, these Montagnards can be tricky.”

  “You don’t say. How long before we land?”

  “A half-hour, not long. If you could try to find out if anything’s damaged I’d appreciate it. Just look for the holes, and see if they’re anywhere near something that looks important.”

  “And if they are?”

  A shrug. “Then we’re fucked.”

  I climbed back down to the hold and explained what we might face. The girls began to prepare for a possible crash-landing, looking for the best place to pile the mattresses, and Lam kept her pistol trained on Vince, who’d started to come to. After a few minutes, he climbed up to the flight deck, and the two girls relaxed. Ray and I searched the fuselage for signs of any damage, and it wasn’t too hard to find it.

  I climbed back up to the flight deck. “There’s a hole in the floor next to the starboard undercarriage wheel.”

  He chuckled. “That’s nothing to worry about. As long as the wheel is still there it’ll be enough for us to get down.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The wheel. It isn’t there. It’s gone.”

  “Shit. You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Shit. This could get hairy.”

  “Can we land?”

  “Sure, we can land. The question is in how many pieces.”

  “Maybe we should turn back.”

  “We can’t turn back. They’re counting on the weapons and ammunition we’re carrying, and if it fails to arrive, they’ll go ape.” He nodded in the direction of Vince, “If you think he’s bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  I climbed back down the ladder and gave them the good news. “It’s going to be bumpy. We have a wheel missing, and we’ll be landing on a rough strip. I guess all we can do is hold tight and hope for the best.”

  We droned on through the morning and eventually reached the Central Highlands. Barnes began to lose height, until machine gun fire reached up to pluck us from the sky, and he pulled back on the column to gain height.

  “It looks like the Communists have brought in more troops, and I’m betting they’ve guessed the reason we’re heading for Montagnard territory. The bastards want to shoot us down.”

  In my opinion they didn’t have to waste ammunition. The chances of Brett Barnes crashing the aircraft and killing us all were pretty high. He started his descent, and because of the danger from enemy gunfire, he took us in a plunging dive straight toward the ground. I was watching through the side window, and I could see the strip. It didn’t look long enough to land a helicopter let alone a four-engine jet cargo plane, but he aimed straight for the leading edge of the field, chopped the engines at the last moment, and slammed the aircraft onto the ground.

  It bounced once, twice, three times, and finally stayed down, but the missing starboard wheel was our undoing, and the fuselage slid along the rocky ground with a loud screeching of tortured metal. The aircraft turned a full circle and another half-circle before it careered off the field, heading toward a circle of stone huts. I could see people running, desperately trying to escape the charging behemoth that threatened to tear them and their homes into ruin. Up on the flight deck I could hear Barnes screaming curses, as if he could threaten the wildly yawing into submission.

  We came to a stop within a few meters of the first hut, and the cacophony of the crash-landing abruptly ceased. Everything was quiet, except for the ticking of hot metal, the engines already starting to cool, and then Barnes slid down the ladder.

  “Not a bad landing, if I say so myself. We’re still in one piece, and we didn’t cartwheel which could have caused us a few more problems. All things considered, I’d call that a win.”

  “Brett, how do we take off for Dong Ha?”

  “You have to be kidding me. This old crate isn’t going anywhere, and there’s no way to repair it out here. The locals will break up the scrap, and their huts will have shiny new aluminum roofs. They’ll chop the tires into sandals, and inside of a few days, it’ll be like it never existed.” He walked aft and inspected the ramp and came back shaking hi
s head, “It’s twisted out of shape. We’ll never get it open. They’ll have to unload through the front door. I’ll get Vince to organize them. Why don’t you come out into the fresh air and meet the locals? They’re good people, when they’re not trying to kill you.”

  “You mean when they’re not flying a four-engine jet after a night’s hard drinking?”

  “Hey, we made it, didn’t we?”

  “We were heading for Dong Ha.”

  He waved it away. “Don’t worry about Dong Ha. I’ll fix up transport to get you there. But first, let’s get out of here and find that bottle.”

  He greeted an elderly, wizened man, who didn’t seem in the least surprised an aircraft had almost demolished his village. He smiled, revealing a single tooth in the top of his mouth.

  “Barnes, my friend. What have you brought us?”

  “It’s all yours, Hong. The aircraft and the contents, guns, ammo, and explosives.”

  “We kill plenty Cong.”

  “Yeah, you do that. You got my bottle?”

  “Of course, in my hut. Is waiting for you, with a bonus.”

  “What’s she look like?”

  “As beautiful as sunset in the mountains.”

  “Okay, then.” He glanced at us. “Make yourselves at home for a few hours. I have business to attend to.”

  “I’ll bet,” Ray murmured, “Say, before you go, how do we get to Dong Ha?”

  “Ask around. Maybe Hong will have some ideas.”

  “How will you get out of here?”

  He chuckled. “If this girl is as pretty as he said, why would I be in any hurry? Good luck with getting to Dong Ha.”

  He ducked into a hut, and men and women were already unloading the wooden crates from the aircraft. Hong gave as an ingratiating smile. “We have food prepared. Come, you must rest and eat.”

  We followed him into a larger hut, which appeared to be the communal meeting place. Women brought us bowls of food, rice mixed with some unrecognizable meat. It wasn’t too bad, which was more than could be said for the women, for whom the word ‘desirable’ would have been wide of the mark. Life for the Montagnards in the Central Highlands was a hardscrabble existence, and not only did they have the difficult living conditions, the Communists hated them as much as they hated the Communists. The two sides waged a constant war, every bit as fierce and brutal as that fought by the Republic of South Vietnam and their American allies.

  Vince ate with us, sitting on the far side of the hut, thankfully not close enough to stage a sudden revenge attack for his meeting with a fire extinguisher. Maybe it was like Brett Barnes had said. He didn’t harbor a grudge. I recalled his iron strength when we struggled inside the aircraft, and if he tried anything, I’d have to put a bullet in him. I doubted the folks in the village would miss him any more than we would.

  Hong was the perfect host, making sure the women kept our plates and earthenware mugs filled, until we couldn’t eat any more. He produced a bottle of whiskey and offered it around. I assumed he bought it in by the crate especially for Brett Barnes. I allowed him to pour whiskey into my empty mug, took a sip for appearances sake, and poured the rest on the earth floor when he wasn’t looking. He knocked back the remainder, about one third of the bottle, and gave us a beatific smile. I reckoned it was time to do business.

  “My friend, we need transport to Dong Ha.”

  He burst into laughter, spitting phlegm over all of us. “Dong Ha, no. Impossible. Many, many Cong. They kill you.”

  “Nonetheless, it’s vital we get there. Do you have an SUV we could hire, something with four-wheel-drive?”

  “No, no, you would not get far, not in a vehicle. They kill you.”

  I got that bit. “There has to be some way to get to Dong Ha. Do you not have any motor transport in the village?”

  “Too dangerous, no. We use motorcycles.”

  “Motorcycles. You have motorcycles here, in the village?” He nodded his head vigorously.

  “Sure, we have motorcycles. Best way to travel through the jungle, drive fast, Cong no kill.”

  I glanced at Ray. “We may be getting somewhere. Can you ride a motorcycle?”

  “Sure I can.”

  I looked back at Hong. “We need to hire two motorcycles. How much?”

  He sucked in air past his single tooth, shaking his head, like I’d just asked him for the keys to the treasury of the Republic of South Vietnam. “Not possible.”

  He was angling for a steep price. “How can you make it possible?”

  “Many dollars.”

  “How many dollars?” We settled on five hundred dollars for the hire of two motorcycles, and I promised him we’d arrange to get them back to him, but he shook his head. “We go Dong Ha every month for family visit. My sons will collect motorcycles.”

  “That sounds fine.”

  “Fine, yes. You pay money now, cash dollars.”

  I had to interrupt Barnes’ leisure time, and I shouted through the door of the hut over the groans of ecstasy coming from inside. “I need cash to rent a couple of motorcycles to get us to Dong Ha. Can you help out?”

  “Can’t a man have some rest?” It didn’t sound to me like he was resting, but it takes all sorts, “Go to the flight deck, and you’ll find a metal box underneath the pilot’s seat. It’s locked, but the key is tucked behind the radio.”

  “Appreciated. Does the radio work?”

  “I guess so. You’re welcome to try.”

  I walked over to the aircraft. They’d already hacked away an aluminum panel beneath the flight deck, and when I went inside, I was looking down to a Montagnard working to strip away the electric wiring. They obviously didn’t intend to waste any time. I found the key, opened the lockbox, and retrieved five hundred dollars. After a moment’s thought I took another five hundred dollars, on the assumption we may need it on the journey to buy gas and anything else we needed.

  Before I left the aircraft I switched on the radio, and to my relief it was still working. My hopes of sending a warning to Dong Ha faded when I discovered I could listen, but not transmit. Something had broken during the crash-landing, but I turned the tuning knob and found a station transmitting from Quang Tri Province. The first thing I heard was the last thing I wanted to hear.

  “The President’s visit is due to take place in five days, and he will land at 11.00 to make his address thanking the defenders for keeping the country safe. Everyone is welcome, and you should get here early. We’re expecting large crowds.”

  Five days, that was bad news. Plenty of time for Bao Ninh to set himself up in a good shooting stance, or plant explosives to detonate at the right time. Maybe underneath the President’s rostrum, or a roadside bomb due to detonate as his motorcade drove past. It wasn’t hard to envisage the chaos that would follow. Senior members of the military would move quickly to take over the government with the backing of Hanoi, and within weeks the entire country would become Communist. Painted a deep shade of red, and there was little doubt the rest of South East Asia would soon follow. They called it the domino effect. A line of dominoes and when one fell the others would topple in succession, an unstoppable cataclysm that would threaten the entire peace and security of the Western world.

  I climbed out of the aircraft and dodged as they ripped away another aluminum panel that crashed to the ground inches away. Ray was waiting outside the hut with the two girls and Hong. “He’s going to show us the motorcycles.”

  He held out his hand “Money first.”

  I counted out five hundred dollars, and he chuckled gleefully, allowing a dribble of drool to roll down his chin. We followed him to the edge of the village. Inside a dilapidated three-sided shelter with a bamboo roof he showed us what we’d just hired. They were Russian IMZ-Urals, copies of the German BMW R/71. Bought by the Soviet Union at a time when Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler were bosom buddies, the Soviets developed a major manufacturing plant, and in a short time produced more than thirty thousand of the iconic machines.r />
  Like their BMW predecessors, they were a V Twin engine configuration, with shaft drive to the rear wheel, and almost identical to the BMW from where they’d drawn the design. The reality was somewhat different. Produced in the Soviet Union with their dubious manufacturing standards, they had little of the reliability and sophistication of the BMW. A reputation was of a rugged, generally reliable, but exceptionally heavy motorcycle that was a pig to drive in most conditions.

  These IMZ-Urals were no advert for the output of the factory. Chrome that had all but disappeared, mufflers spattered with rust spots and holed in places, and the headlamp of one machine had disappeared. Clearly, they didn’t plan on riding it after dark. There was another problem that suggested they hadn’t been used for some time. The tires on both machines were flat.

  Ray stepped forward and sat astride one machine. “I guess the first problem is to see if the engine runs.”

  He put his boot on the kick-starter and stamped down. I was unsurprised when nothing happened. He fiddled with the knobs and switches in front of the handlebars and tried again. Still nothing. “Maybe we need to prime some gasoline into the carburetor.”

  He pushed a button up and down on the float chamber, and I smelled gas. Probably they’d been standing for so long the fuel had evaporated, for when he kicked down again the engine coughed, belched a cloud of black smoke, and suddenly caught and started to run. It was ragged and uneven, but he gently twisted the throttle to warm the engine, and gradually it settled into an uneven but steady beat. He switched off and looked into the tank.

  “It’s almost empty. We need fuel.”