by J. B. Hadley
Mike set off at a trot through the undergrowth. He knew the Hmong would circle about to the left in order to hit the line of seven Laotians at a right angle. He had no chance of stopping them, but felt it would do no harm to check out what was going on since they were taking such a hell of a long time about it. Before he reached them, he heard a long burst of automatic fire and broke into a run.
The seven Laotian regulars lay twisted in grotesque positions on the forest floor. Harvey Waller stood above one body and kicked it. An arm moved. Waller drew his Colt automatic and blew away the side of the man’s head with a .45 bullet. The Laotian’s brains, fragments of his skull, and streaks of his blood were scattered over Waller’s combat boots. He had a silly grin on his face.
Campbell turned away from him toward the Hmong. It was the only way he could control his anger. Mike knew he might have to kill this American mere if he openly defied him, and Mike knew that he himself would have to blow him away with a .45 slug as cold-bloodedly as Waller had shot the Laotian. Executing one of your men was not the best way to start a mission, but if Waller was going to call him on it, he’d do it.
Mike picked up the radio from one corpse. He received steady calls in Laotian from the wavelength to which the radio was set. The seven men were already missed! He switched to another wavelength and picked up one side of a conversation. The Hmong, picking over the dead Laotians for valuables, all stood and listened. A look of alarm came across one man’s face. He pointed to the radio and then pointed back into the trees urgently, indicating that the voices on the airwaves were almost within hearing distance.
Mike beckoned for them to follow him and hurried back to the second unit. All ten Hmong started talking excitedly together.
“Andre,” Mike said, “lay it down hard to these bastards that I’m mission commander. If they can’t hack military discipline and order, they’re on their own. We’ll fend for ourselves. If we stay together, they don’t make a move without my OK. Make sure they understand I’m not kidding.”
While Andre laid down the law to the Hmong, Campbell turned to Waller. “You can find your own way back to Thailand, you stupid fuck. I don’t want any jokers on this team who think they’re going to be calling the shots.”
The others watched Waller for his reaction. He did a slow burn at being humiliated in front of them by Campbell.
Then he said, “I was out of line. Sorry about that. Won’t happen again.”
Andre came back and said, “They were polite and said they’d do what you say. My guess is what they really think is this. They see themselves baby-sitting a bunch of soft old farts on some loony adventure.”
Mike grinned. “It’s going to be up to us to show them otherwise. Look, if that seven-man unit was from a platoon of twenty-four, like I think it was, we don’t need the other seventeen hunting us down. I wanted to get across Laos without being detected. That was nearly essential. What burns me up is that we blew it in such a dopey, asshole way. Andre, translate this for the Hmong. The rest of the platoon who we heard on the radio know the seven are not responding. They’ve probably heard the burst of fire, so they’ll be on the alert. But they’re not convinced yet that something serious is wrong. We got to take them out before they radio back to their company or battalion HQ that they have a penetration by an enemy force.”
Andre nodded. “If the whole platoon vanishes without a trace, it may take a couple of days for them to find them and move on it.”
“Meanwhile, keep your voices down, because these babies will be coming out of the bushes any moment now.”
They did not have long to wait.
Mike’s unit had taken the left flank, and Andre’s the right. There was not much chance of them hitting each other with cross fire because of the number of heavy tree trunks that would prevent bullets from traveling far. Campbell crawled to a position ahead of the others so he could control the action. He fixed his bayonet on his rifle as he waited and held it up as a signal for the others to do likewise.
Only minutes later they saw the balance of the Laotian platoon moving forward on a combat alert. Every few hundred yards they stopped and tried the radios and shouted for their missing comrades. As they got nearer, Mike had an idea. As the Laotians shouted, Mike looked at the five Hmong in his unit. One smiled and nodded, then shouted back in Laotian. Another joined him. More shouts from the Laotian regulars. Answered by the Hmong.
The effect was instantaneous. The regulars relaxed their cautious advance, letting their rifles hang loose on their slings. The five Hmong, to Mike’s horror, rose to their feet and went to meet them. The Laotians could just make out their figures through the trees. Fortunately, none of them sighted through a scope, and the forest gloom helped conceal the loose blue pants which would have immediately given away the Hmong.
The approaching Laotians veered away from Andre’s unit and toward Mike’s position. With the five Hmong masquerading as the missing seven, there were only three guns to take the seventeen regulars—Mike’s, Waller’s, Murphy’s. These two crawled up to join Mike at his nod, and all three got set to lay down an even wave of fire.
“Hit the mothers!” Mike snarled.
Their AK47s cut into the flesh of the communist troops, doubling them over, knocking them down screaming and clutching their entry wounds, whacking others out cold with an instant mortal blow … Three survived the deadly hail of fire. They ran.
Campbell, Waller and Murphy took after them, leaping over the dying victims in their death throes on the forest floor. None of the three had time to change his rifle magazine. Waller held his big Colt in his right hand and his Kalashnikov in his left. The Colt spat flame and barked. One of the fleeing Laotians went down with a massive wound in the back of his neck. He quivered once or twice on the ground and then lay still.
Waller was already throwing lead at Murphy’s quarry. He missed with three shots and, with the fourth, ripped a chunk out of the man’s right thigh. The regular kept going, clutching his wounded limb, hobbling through the undergrowth. Until he stumbled. Stunned, weakened, shocked, the man remained lying face down on the ground. Bob Murphy ran up and placed his right boot on the Laotian’s shoulder to keep him in place. Waller came running also, his Colt pistol still smoking from the shot that had hit the Laotian in the leg. Without pausing, Waller leaned across Murphy and split the injured man’s skull with a .45 dead center in the back of his head.
Murphy withdrew his boot from the man’s shoulder. “Thanks, Harvey.”
The Australian gave the highly excited Waller a carefully appraising look.
The Laotian Campbell chased was wiry and light-footed. He dodged in and out of tree trunks and leaped over roots and fallen branches. Under normal circumstances, Mike would not have bothered to hunt him down—but the whole point of this ambush was to cover up their presence. A single survivor who lived to tell a tale would overturn the whole applecart. They’d have every peasant army and village militia in this part of Laos, along with government and Vietnam troops, out searching for them in a few hours. Mike had to get his man.
The long hours of running on the South Carolina sands were paying off. Although the Laotian regular was faster on his feet than Campbell, the American managed to keep him in sight and gradually gain on him with his superior stamina. The Laotian lost yardage by struggling to remove his backpack. He had already lost or discarded his rifle, and the removal of this approximately thirty-five-pound load from his back would have given him a big advantage over the fully laden Campbell. But a man can’t run at full speed and wriggle out of the shoulder straps of a backpack at the same time. When he did get the pack off, it was only to provide a vulnerable area to his American pursuer, now hot upon his heels.
The Laotian looked back over his shoulder in rising panic, and Mike met the glance of his fear-crazed eyes. Campbell repressed a surge of pity for the man, tried to think of him only as the enemy.
With four giant steps, Campbell gained on his prey. Gripping his Kalashnikov firml
y about the buttstock in his right hand, he thrust it forward and drove the tip of the bayonet an inch into the Laotian’s back. The man screamed with pain and fright and lost his footing. Mike was upon him in a flash.
Clutching the rifle by the hand guard and buttstock, he used the sophisticated weapon as a primitive spear handle to drive the bayonet deep into the Laotian’s chest cavity.
The communist soldier wildly grasped the steel driving into him, severing some of his fingers in the process, and screamed maniacally as his insides were rended by the metal.
Mike pulled the bloody, dripping bayonet out of the man’s body, and since he lived and suffered still, drove it in again.
He had to skewer the Laotian repeatedly before he stopped his agonized screaming and twitching. Mike looked at the crimson running off the stainless steel and the cut-open, lifeless rag doll at his feet. He had not forgotten how dirty war could be. It was just that he had been hoping this mission would be different.
Chapter 17
THE Hmong watched in fascination as the Westerners got ready for the day’s trek. They themselves slung weapons and ammo over their dark blue clothes in ultracasual fashion. They carried a few first aid items, but, among all ten, probably less than the average American family would take along as a precaution on a picnic to a state park.
Mike’s team were all similarly equipped. How each man distributed his load was his own business. Mike washed in a clear mountain stream. He pulled on his heavy canvas fatigues which allowed heat to escape in the daytime and kept it in at night, protected his skin against sharp stones and thorns and biting insects. He wrapped his spare underpants and socks about his calves beneath his pants before pulling on his U.S. Army jungle boots. Next he circled a medical wrap about his chest after checking on its contents: pills for malaria, morphine for pain, uppers for when he needed to keep alert for a long period, scalpel blades, sterile tissues for dressing wounds, elastic bandages and antibiotics in the form of pills, salves and syringe cartridges.
In his shirt pockets he had stores of aspirin, antinausea pills, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, salt tablets, needles, thread, and scissors, a gun-cleaning kit, and numerous odds and ends. Mike used his trouser pockets for dried figs in wax paper, Lifesavers, raisins, chocolate and so forth. He stashed his C rations and K rations along with his ammo in two dobie bags, one slung across each shoulder. His Ingram miniature submachine gun was slung over his back and held in place by the dobie bags. He strapped on his belt, to which was attached his Colt .45 automatic—the standard M1911A1—a magazine pouch, two canteens and six hand grenades.
On his H-harness he hung an empty Claymore carrier to hold extra AK47 magazines, a rifle grenade, a USMC bowie knife and whatever else he had no room for elsewhere. He carried his Kalashnikov hanging on its sling from his right shoulder.
Mike had given away his machete to one of the Hmong, but the others kept theirs. They took it in turns to carry special equipment such as the two antitank rocket launchers and the rockets.
The first morning the Hmong had kept a distance. Now, on the second morning, all ten watched the preparations as they might the strange behavior of hitherto-unknown creatures.
Mike consulted the map before he moved out. “We have a minimum of a six-day trek to cover the 130 to 150 miles from here to the Viet border. Even if it takes them a few days to find the bodies we hid, twenty-four regular troops don’t just disappear off the face of the earth without a big push to find out what happened to them. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves in the middle of that big push.” He waited for Andre to finish translating this for the Hmong, who seemed to find what Mike was saying hilarious. “Unlike our friends here,” Mike went on with an edge in his voice, “who seem to have a yen to die in the homeland, I have no intention of having my bones scattered in these hills. Those who think like I do had better listen to what I tell them. We got no room for crazies on this mission.” Harvey Waller avoided his eyes. “We got to find something to take us across Laos fast, instead of spending six days at it. We’ve got to stay on the ground when we get to the Viet border, because of the mountains. Look here on the map. This looks like a major north-south route. It’s no more than ten miles away if we follow this river valley. Andre, ask the Hmong what they know of the place.”
Andre spoke to them, and they looked at the map. “They say there are a lot of trucks on that route, but no private cars. A truck is what we need anyway, not some damn Russian imitation of a Ford. They also say the river course is the only way to go. However, we will have to watch out for peasants along it—men fishing, women washing clothes, children playing or tending animals.”
“Let’s move out,” Mike commanded.
After about three miles, the forest and its canopy of leaves grew less dense, and they found themselves entering hilly country with dense stands of trees in deep valleys, with hillside fields and occasional villages and with wild, scrubby hilltops. Mike located the river he had selected on the map, and they descended through the trees to its bank. It was a tributary to the Mekong, so they had to follow it upstream till the highway crossed it. The streambed was wide, dry and littered with big boulders. The dry season flow of water was restricted to a narrow channel at its center. They found themselves making excellent time on the unobstructed riverway, although every now and then they had to retreat back into the trees when they spotted people by the water.
The Hmong displayed no urge to kill these ordinary working people, to Mike’s relief, although he knew there was no love lost between such lowlanders and the mountain tribesmen. Waller had taken his upbraiding better than Campbell had expected him to, and was on the move like a hardened pro today. Murphy’s constant goodwill and shrewd friendliness were a big help to the unit. The Hmong seemed as friendly as the language barrier would permit.
Andre had told Mike he was getting on OK with Nolan and Richards, and that the five Hmong with him seemed intent on keeping their part of the arrangement. With a bit of luck, they might now reach the Viet border and avoid another senseless flare-up like the one of the first day. Even if they were communists, Mike felt no better about leaving twenty-four men needlessly dead behind him when all contact with them could so easily have been avoided.
A group of women were at the water up ahead. They could see them soaking clothes, beating them on stones and spreading them in the sun to dry. Mike’s unit began its detour through the bankside trees and heavy growth, followed by Andre’s after about five hundred meters.
Mike’s group was about to cross a path leading down to the river when the Hmong at point raised his left hand in warning. They all froze where they stood—it was too late to dive for cover. On the path, literally only a few feet ahead of the lead man in the unit, two gnarled, weather-beaten peasants ambled toward the water, one with a wooden rake over his shoulder and both smoking awkwardly rolled cigarettes. They passed without seeing the eight heavily armed men watching them in the bushes like cobras rearing to strike.
The man at point did not move, so the others held their position. Right away, the huge bulk and great horns of a water buffalo appeared. Mike was amazed at the silent tread of this leviathan along the path. A wizened old man walked by his head, oblivious of his surroundings.
A girl maybe four or five years old sat atop the hummock of the water buffalo’s shoulders and stared with wide brown alarmed eyes at the members of the unit. She said something to the old man, probably her grandfather, and pointed. He looked up at her and then into the bushes at the eight armed men. The old man’s eyes glided over the Hmong and settled on the Westerners. For some reason, the water buffalo chose this moment to stop to eat a tender morsel of grass by the pathside.
“Hold your fire,” Mike said in a calm level voice.
Mike met the eyes of the old man, broke the look to glance up at the child, and then stared at the old man again.
The Laotian said nothing. His eyes also expressed that he knew he had no hope of saving her, yet was trying all the
same.
“OK, Grandpa,” Mike said to him in a kindly voice, raising his rifle barrel in the air, “I’m going to take a chance on you.”
With no visible urging, the water buffalo resumed its forward motion and in a few moments was disappearing down the path. The child looked back at them with her beautiful brown eyes.
Mike felt the glances of the Hmong on him, whether in approval or disapproval he did not know. Or care.
“Let’s go on,” he said quietly.
Murphy gave him a friendly poke in the ribs as they moved out.
They came to the highway in early afternoon and spent twenty minutes observing traffic on it from a heavily wooded area close by. The roadway was surfaced with tarmacadam which heaved in dips and swells because of the poor foundation beneath. The bulk of the traffic was carts drawn by water buffaloes along both shoulders of the road and heavily laden bicycles either ridden or wheeled on its surface. In the twenty minutes they watched, only one truck passed, traveling north.
“If we can bag ourselves a truck like that,” Mike said, “every hour we spend driving it, even on a dirt road, will save us a day’s trek.”
“We should bivouac here tonight,” Andre said, “and grab one at dawn tomorrow.”
Mike shook his head. “If we capture a truck now and drive for five or six hours, we’ll hit the Viet border just as night falls. Even if things go wrong, we’ll have the cover of darkness not far away.”
“That’s a good point,” Andre conceded. “Let me talk to the Hmong.” He came back to Mike in a short time. ‘They say it will not be easy to take a truck. The drivers are heavily rewarded when they resist an attack and likewise heavily punished when they lose a truck. A few shots and a threat won’t stop them. They say we must allow them to set up an ambush by blowing a hole in the road.”
