And while he didn’t have a nuke now, though he would have loved to, he did have a remaining five-hundred-pounder. It would have to do.
His best angle, he figured, would again be north to south. It would carry him back over the flak trap, but he would be high enough to avoid most of the small arms, and the heavier stuff would find him a lot harder to hit. He informed the others about what he was going to do by saying simply, “Watch this trick!”
He ignored the tracer that followed him from the moment he started the run. Most of it was well behind, as he was coming in at full speed. Only a few bursts somewhere off his right wing told him that someone down there with a 37mm was getting pretty good at his job.
The old bird was vibrating like a ramshackle Mexican bus. You could damn near reach the speed of sound with an A1E in a power dive. Of course, if you did, the wings would fly off.
Now pull up! Gravity fights you, the bird is sluggish in responding, but the power of the engine is sufficient to overcome all the forces working against you. One hiccup, one slight bit of carbon in the fuel, and it is all over. Not for the first time Trucker blessed the dedicated young men who maintained the aircraft.
At an angle now, just before flying straight up. He didn’t have the indicators with which the F-104s were equipped, would have to just do this one by the seat of his pants. When he thought it was at the right point, he punched the button, felt the aircraft respond quickly as the heavy weight fell away, just had time to see it arcing above him in the opposite direction as he twisted the stick, rolled the aircraft, and sped away.
“SAM, Jesus, SAM,” he heard his wingman scream. Still fighting against the g forces that shoved his head back against the seat, he twisted to see in his rearview a telltale stream of smoke emerging from the valley. As he watched in helpless fascination, it grew into a dot, and he knew at that moment he was going to die.
He desperately fought at the controls, intending to dive, to jink and turn and do anything to avoid the deadly little heat-seeking dart.
It flashed past, missing him by at least two hundred yards. It was on a dead course to where he would have been, had he been making an ordinary bomb run. His little “trick” had damn near gotten him killed by exposing him to the SAM-7 in the first place, then saved his ass by fooling the gunner.
Time to get the hell out of there. He fire-walled the airplane, dropped down to just above the trees, and sped for the safety of the beckoning border.
Shitheads had SAMs, it wasn’t a place he wanted to hang around.
He was never to know that the bomb arced down directly upon the assembly point for the North Vietnamese company forming to chase down the recon team.
Recon Team Texas made it safely back across the border. Upon arrival at the launch site, Staff Sergeant Van Alexander was told to report immediately to the launch officer, a relatively new guy to the business.
Alexander slouched into the Tactical Operations Center, stood loosely in front of the field table the captain was using for a desk. The young officer stared hard at him, Alexander finally divining that the captain wanted him to assume the position of attention. He rearranged himself as best he could, given that he was dog-tired and wanted nothing more than to lay his head down for just a few moments. Couldn’t this have waited?
“I assume you know your rights under Article 31 of the UCMJ,” the captain said.
Alexander stiffened even more. Article 31 was the military equivalent of the civilian warning of the right to remain silent, that anything you said could and probably would be held against you.
“I’m bringing you up on charges,” the captain continued when Alexander remained silent. “Disobeying a direct order. Endangering the mission and the lives of everyone on the team. If you have anything to say for yourself, you’d better spit it out right now.”
Alexander felt the flush crawl up his neck, suffuse his cheeks. What right did this silly bastard have to talk to him like that? The story going around was that he was only a launch officer because he’d screwed up the first mission he’d been on, a fairly simple bomb-damage assessment. Alexander’s mouth opened just a crack.
Don’t be stupid, Van. All he needs is for you to shoot off your mouth, call him the asshole he is. Then you get insubordination piled on top of all the rest of it.
“Nothing to say, eh? Thought not. You know as well as I do how badly you screwed up. Consider yourself restricted to quarters. Formal charges will be filed as soon as we get back to Kon Tum. Dismissed!”
Staff Sergeant Alexander turned to go, was stopped by the captain, who said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
It finally penetrated his fatigue-addled brain that the captain was actually expecting him to salute.
The gesture, when it finally came, was suspiciously sloppy—three fingers drooping as if it were just too much effort to straighten them, only the middle finger stiff and erect.
He got out of there before the officer could respond, and before he threw it all to the wind and crawled over the desk to strangle the silly son of a bitch.
Upon their return to the Command and Control Central base in Kontum, no more was said about charges. The captain who had tried to bring them up was abruptly reassigned, some said to a leg unit down in the Delta. The commander of CCC instead declared a lengthy stand-down for the team as they rested, refitted, and retrained. The stand-down was calculated to last just long enough for the Americans on the team to finish their tour and return to the United States. It fit with his intention of recommending Alexander for the Medal of Honor and Billings the Distinguished Service Cross. You couldn’t have heroes back out there risking their asses again, possibly getting themselves killed. Army public relations people didn’t like such things.
Much to his surprise, the recommendations came back approved. The new executive officer in SOG headquarters down in Saigon recognized the value of awards and decorations, thought that his men were being terribly shortchanged by the current attitude. After all, when the war ended, they would be in competition with their peers for promotions. And those peers would inevitably be highly decorated for far less than the teams were doing daily.
The whole process did nothing but piss Van Alexander off. His tour was cut short, and he was shipped back to the States. Never to return to Vietnam, he was told. Policy.
Screw policy, he often thought as he got word of this or that friend being killed while he sat back in a cushy job at Fort Bragg.
But there was nothing he could do about it.
Chapter 11
It had been almost an hour, and there had been no more artillery. McCulloden and Washington wrapped Elmo Driver in a body bag and left him in the dispensary. Along with a growing number of others. They were being whittled down, slowly. And they could afford to lose no one. Each rifle lost was one more spot that would not be covered, or one man less for their already pitifully small reserve.
Becker restrung his antennas, and soon notified Captain McCulloden that he once again had communications with the C team commander.
“You can thank SOG for the break,” Gutierrez said.
“Saved our bacon,” Finn replied. “Another hour or so of that, they wouldn’t have had much trouble walking in here tonight.”
“That’s the good news,” Gutierrez said. “The bad news is Charlie Secord’s got himself into a real shit-storm. Battalion-sized ambush. We’ve got air helping them, and ARA, but we need arty. Can you do without the one-sevenfives for a little while?”
Finn considered the request. On the one hand, he would need all the help he could get, and if the artillery took out even a few of the attackers, he would be that much better off.
On the other hand, the enemy was well dug in, and it was only by chance that one of the shells would find a bunker. His trick of driving them out into the open where the ARA could pot them would work only once. He wished they were stupid enough to fall for it again, but knew they were not. They’d hunker down, stick tight, just as he had when the 157s had
been falling.
The guns would have a lot more success against the troops in the open who were facing Secord and the rest of the Mike Force. Finn hadn’t really had much hope that they would make the camp in time to make any difference, but they damned sure wouldn’t even come close if they were chopped up.
“Go ahead,” he said. “But make sure they’re ready to divert if we call for it.”
“Roger. Understood. How are you guys holding out?”
“Lost Elmo Driver,” Finn said.
There was silence for a moment. Gutierrez had known Driver for years, ever since he’d joined Special Forces, in fact. Often the then-captain had despaired of ever making a soldier out of the tough little trooper. Way too fond of “Combat Alley” down in Fayetteville, and the inevitable fights that broke out between the SF guys and the paratroopers of the Eighty-second Airborne. Generally it started when one of the paratroopers would ask, in as loud a voice as possible, “You know who wears green beanies?”
And the response would come “Why, hell, everybody knows that. Girl Scouts!”
And the fight was on.
Driver’s inevitable response, when he was standing in front of the company commander’s desk, eyes bloused, face cut, wincing from at least one broken rib, was “You should see the other guy!”
Driver had the distinction of being the only man who’d graduated qualification course with the highest score seen in two years, and having the most delinquency reports (DRs) of any man in Special Forces.
“Others?” Gutierrez managed to ask.
“Four strike-force KIA, twelve wounded,” Finn said. “Two Mike Force KIA, one wounded. Out of that, probably seven in all will be able to go back on the wire. Others need evac. No chance of that before nightfall, is there?” He already knew the answer. It would be perhaps an hour before the sun set behind the jungle to the west, and another thirty minutes of twilight. Given that they’d already lost one chopper, it was doubtful that the Fourth Infantry Division was willing to risk another. Particularly when it was only to evacuate indigenous troops, he could almost hear the division commander saying.
“I’ll try,” Gutierrez said.
“Roger. In the meantime, we’re gonna get ready. Artillery blew the wire to shit, probably took out some claymores. Got people out taking care of that now. You’re sure there’s no more heavy stuff coming our way?”
“Not unless they’ve got more hidden that we don’t know about. Which is always possible. But I think they’d be dropping it on you right now, if they did.”
“Agreed. Well, guess I’ll get back to work, unless you’ve got anything else.”
“Vaya con Dios, mi amigo,” Gutierrez said.
“Sí. Y con frijoles también,” Finn replied, finishing the old, old joke.
Gutierrez stared at the dead handset, resisted the urge to pound it against the field table, passed it instead back to the commo man.
He would, of course, try to get an evac chopper out to the camp, but knew there was little chance of its happening. And if, by some miracle, he did get the chopper, he would have to resist the almost overwhelming urge to get on it, to join the men in the camp. He would, he told himself, be far better here scaring up whatever support he could get for the beleaguered men. In the camp he would simply be one more rifle.
But sometimes all you wanted to be was one more rifle.
“How you doin’, Lieutenant?” Finn asked.
“Just fine, sir,” Sloane replied, his voice stiff. Was the captain accusing him of malingering?
“I think we can do without the sir shit by now, don’t you? Most people call me Finn.”
I’ve noticed that, Sloane thought. Entirely too familiar. But then what can you expect out of a former enlisted man?
Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a nagging voice that said, Yeah. But have you noticed how much more respect they put into his first name than they do in your rank?
That, of course, made him hate the captain the more.
“You up to going out and helping put the perimeter back together?”
Sloane stiffened. Was that an appropriate job for an officer? Stringing wire, driving stakes? Shouldn’t he at least be helping to plan for the final defense of the camp?
“Sure,” he said. “Where do you want me?”
“Olchak could use some help on the south side. You sure you’re up to this? Andy, what do you think?”
“No sign of intracranial swelling,” the medic said. “He’s past the bad point. Wouldn’t recommend pounding in any stakes with your head though, LT.”
Finn smiled. “Be careful out there,” he said. “Most of the snipers, ones Bucky hasn’t killed in any case, are keeping their heads down. Could take a pop any moment, though. You’ve been shot once today. Next time you might not be so lucky.”
Sloane pulled on his shirt, gingerly touched the bandage on his head, decided against putting the hat on. He ached to go back to his tiny bunker and grab the steel pot that waited there. No matter how much it might hurt. The shock of the bullet smacking against his skull had shown him just how vulnerable he was. Now everything was a threat.
He grabbed his rifle and headed toward the door of the bunker. Back stiff, legs working as if he were on a parade ground back at the academy. Ignore it all, he told himself. The fear, the looks he knew must be directed against his back, the snickers that would follow as soon as he left the bunker.
“Ben?” he heard.
To his horror tears started to his eyes. The last person to call him Ben had been his mother. Who had, according to the death certificate, succumbed to a nameless disease, etiology unknown, while he was a plebe at West Point.
Sloane knew better. All those years she had taken his father’s abuse, protecting her son when she could, consoling him when she couldn’t. Herself suffering his drunken rages. His endless philandering. His denial of anything that might have confirmed that she was of any use at all, much less a human being worthy of love, of respect.
And when her son hadn’t needed her anymore, she had simply given up. Stopped eating. Stopped responding. And within months she had died.
To his own everlasting shame, he had found himself agreeing with his father, who told anyone who would listen that his late wife was simply too weak, too delicate for this world. That she was proof positive that only the strong survive.
For the most part, Bentley Sloane was able to keep up that facade. Only in the long watches of the night, when he questioned his own worth, his own strength, did he miss her quiet patience, the inner strength that had allowed her to go on for so long.
He kept his back turned so that McCulloden could not see his face, would not laugh as he expected him to at the sight of tears running down his cheeks. “Yes?” he said.
“Watch your ass out there,” Finn said.
“It’s them that better be watching their asses,” Sloane replied, affecting a bravado he did not feel. In truth, he would much rather have stayed in the dispensary, kept out of the open where death waited, coming from sources he could not even imagine. And he had a vivid imagination.
Finn shook his head as the lieutenant exited the bunker. A prickly one, that. Getting shot in the head hadn’t taken all the piss and vinegar out of him. He might just grow up to be a good soldier, if he survived.
Finn turned to Inger, who was deeply involved in debriding a shrapnel wound in the buttock of one of the strikers. The medic worked quickly and steadily, cutting away the discolored dead flesh, clamping bleeders, probing deeper into the wound and finding the pieces of metal that had gone every which way. The striker bore it stoically, chewing on a great wad of betel nut, wincing only when Inger probed particularly deep.
Couldn’t do it better myself, Finn thought. And even though he had been one himself, he was once again amazed at the capabilities of the Special Forces medics. This operation should have been done in a sterile operating theater, by a highly skilled surgeon backed up by an anesthesiologist and a team of surgical assi
stants. Inger was working by the light of a hissing gas lantern, the camp generators having been turned off during the artillery barrage and not yet restarted. His surgical instruments had been sterilized by placing them on a tray just above the boiling water in a pressure cooker. His one assistant was a Montagnard medic who, a couple of years ago, would have been wearing a loincloth and hunting monkeys for sustenance.
Inger pulled the last piece of metal from the wound, dropped it in an emesis tray to join the half dozen other pieces there, flushed the wound with sterile saline, dabbed it dry, and inspected it. He grunted his satisfaction in seeing only a little capillary oozing. He snipped away one more tiny piece of flesh, then packed the wound with sterile gauze, leaving the Montagnard medic to finish the bandaging. He would not close the wound, at least not now. Better to allow it to drain. God knew what pathogens had been carried into it, and despite one’s best efforts, you couldn’t get rid of all of them. Close it up and they would fester and spread. Leave it open and you could inspect it at each bandage change, look for the telltale signs of infection. Debride that, keep filling him up with antibiotics, and wait for the flesh to granulate. Worse came to worst, the wound would someday close itself, although it would leave a hell of a scar.
They wouldn’t have to worry about that, Finn thought. Either they would hold out, in which case sooner or later the siege would be lifted and the striker would be evacuated back to a proper hospital, or they wouldn’t. And if they didn’t, the Montagnard would have a much worse problem than the wound in his ass.
“How are you holding up, Andy?” Finn asked as the medic stripped off his gloves and gauze mask.
Inger grinned. “Tired. So what else is new?”
“Anything I can do?”
“Yeah. Get us the hell out of here.”
“Sure. Business class okay, or do you want up front with the rich guys?”
Napalm Dreams Page 18
