McGrath kept his eyes locked on the security of the closing trees.
Ro-Den had been left alone in the trees bordering the canal with his radio. He hurried to snap the bottom half of his radio with the fresh battery in it to the top half and join the lieutenant. He was mad because he had been left behind. His position was with the commander. In his haste, Ro-Den dropped the battery case in the dirt. He cussed, pulled the new battery back out of the container, and started cleaning the particles of dirt off the electrical 176
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connectors. He swore again, knowing that he would not be able to catch up to the lieutenant until after he had reached the .51-caliber machine gun. The lieutenant would be very mad at him, but he had to make sure the radio worked when he got there, so he began cleaning the dirty parts.
Sergeant McGrath ran in front of his attacking commandos, trying to catch up to Lieutenant Vainbane who was almost to the machine gun the VC
had abandoned. Vainbane entered the shade of the treeline fifty meters ahead of McGrath.
The commandos were at the halfway point between the treelines and started slowing down. Two of them sensed the danger and dropped down in the mud.
The three concealed .51-caliber machine guns opened fire simultaneously on the order of their commander.
McGrath didn’t even hear the first rounds fired. One of the enemy gunners had been tracking his approach in his sights, and the first rounds from his heavy weapon hit McGrath in the face. The sergeant’s body crumpled to the ground without a head. Loau survived just long enough to realize that they had fallen into a trap. He told himself that he knew better as the steel-cased bullets smashed through the soft mud and tore his body apart.
Ro-Den had flattened against the ground at the first crack of weapon fire.
He looked up from the ground and watched the massacre. Bodies bounced in the water from the powerful thumb-sized bullets tearing into them. After ten seconds there were only a handful of commandos left alive. One of them stumbled to his feet, screamed the Hoa-Hoa war cry, and charged directly into the green machine-gun tracers merging in front of him. His body danced from the two streams of projectiles hitting him from different angles before it dropped torn to the muddy water.
Lieutenant Vainbane turned away from the prized weapon at his feet and looked back at the destruction of his patrol taking place in the unfilled rice paddy behind him. It was too early for shock and fear to set in. He looked surprised. A sound coming from his rear forced him to turn, and he saw the three Vietcong, who had earlier ran, coming back. What Vainbane saw that registered first in his mind was the smiles on their faces, and then the full impact hit him.
Ro-Den watched the muddy water in the rice paddy turn red and then pink. Sixty-one bodies lay scattered in the water.
Lieutenant Vainbane stumbled out of the treeline and started running back toward the safety of the canal. He dropped his submachine gun in the water and swung his arms trying to gain speed. Ro-Den watched as three Vietcong ran behind the American, laughing as they closed the gap between them and the lieutenant. A group of black-clad VC stepped out from the tree-177
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line and watched the chase. Twenty-five meters before Vainbane reached the trees, the first VC caught up to him and jumped on his shoulders, bringing him down face-first in the muddy water.
The lack of fire from the side of the paddy where Ro-Den lay in hiding reassured the Vietcong that they had killed all of the patrol, and they stepped from their hiding places to watch their comrades capture the American. The Vietcong who had knocked Lieutenant Vainbane down pulled the lieutenant up on his knees and forced him to stay in that position. The VC held up one arm in victory and screamed a war cry.
Vainbane looked up at his five-foot, five-inch captor in shocked disbelief.
A party of VC wearing black uniforms with tan pith helmets left the treeline and waded through the water to where Vainbane was, followed by a dozen VC who began policing the battlefield for weapons and souvenirs. One of the VC removed a French pistol from a holster at his side and placed the barrel up against Vainbane’s head. He smiled, exposing a set of perfectly white teeth.
Vainbane began crying.
The Vietcong leader laughed and replaced his pistol. He pointed to the treeline where Ro-Den lay hidden and gave a rapid set of orders. Ro-Den could make out most of the words and realized that the area he was in would soon be swarming with Vietcong searching for any survivors.
Ro-Den dragged his pack and the PRC-25 radio down to the edge of the canal. He shoved the radio into the muddy water and watched it sink, followed by his pack filled with cans of C-rations. Voices came from the treeline in whispers as the VC cautiously entered the shady cover. Ro-Den slipped naked into the water and let the strong tidal current pull him toward the A-Camp. The boy flattened out on the water and started doing a slow breast-stroke, using his legs and arms as rudders to keep him under the overhanging shrubs and brush. He ducked underwater to miss large branches and very thick clumps of brush that might harbor snakes. Ro-Den’s teenage mind thought only of survival, and did not dwell on the massacre he had witnessed.
Captain Hetten held the handset tightly in his fist and yelled into the mouthpiece, “. . . Damn it! Answer me! . . . What’s going on out there!”
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Ro-Den breast-stroked in the dark brown water, holding his head above the surface. The canal was subjected to the strong tidal currents found in the waterways of the southern Delta region of Vietnam. Ro-Den realized his good fortune in finding the current flowing back toward the American A-Camp.
The muffled sound of an AK-47 disrupted the stillness occasionally when a Vietcong soldier performed a coup de grace on one of the wounded Special Forces commandos lying in the open rice paddy a mile upstream from where Ro-Den swam. The boy winced each time he heard the sound. He had been a commando since he was ten years old and had worked hard to become a radio operator for the Americans. Ro-Den though about the radio he had sunk in the canal and felt like crying. What would he tell the American captain when he returned to the A-Camp without his radio? Shame made the boy duck his face under the water. He swam a half-dozen strokes feeling the cool liquid wash the tears from his cheeks, and felt better. A Hoa-Hoa warrior did not cry, not even a fourteen-year-old one.
The distance along the canal from where the patrol had been ambushed to the A-Camp was about ten miles, maybe a little less. Ro-Den remembered 180
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Lieutenant Bourne telling Sergeant Loau that from the canal intersection where the A-Camp was built, to the main intersection where Lieutenant Vainbane’s patrol had just been massacred, all sixty-one men, was twelve thousand meters. Ro-Den felt like crying again when he thought about Sergeant Loau lying dead in the muddy rice field. Lieutenant Bourne had always warned the other Americans about that junction in the canal system surrounding the A-Camp. Lieutenant Vainbane and Captain Hetten had never really believed the young American, and now one of them had paid for that mistake. Ro-Den nodded his head as he swam. They would listen to Lieutenant Bourne now.
The boy’s eyes constantly scanned the near bank of the canal as he swam downstream. He let the strong current push him along, but he stroked occasionally to maintain his position
Ro-Den saw the snake’s head appear from the thick grass at the same time the reticulated python saw the boy. Five feet of the snake was already in the canal when Ro-Den collided with the reptile. The boy could feel the cold skin of the snake rub against his legs and then across his bare stomach. Ro-Den kicked out at the ten-foot python and cursed the snake under his breath. The wedge-shaped head of the snake jerked from side to side as it thrashed its coils,
trying to disengage and get away from the human. The instant the boy and the snake had seen each other they had both known that there was no threat to either of them. The boy was too big to eat and the python was almost a protected species in the Delta of South Vietnam. The villagers allowed the snakes to live in the fields and eat rodents. Only when the pythons reached a length where they threatened small children were they killed. A ten-foot snake was no threat to the boy.
Ro-Den smelled the camp before he saw the smoke coming from the cookhouse. He left the safety of the underbrush near the far bank and eased himself out into the center of the canal, so that he could be seen by the camp guards and not be mistaken as a Vietcong spy. The boy floated on top of the water and guided himself over to the boat docks that had been built by the Americans. A party of guards was standing around Captain Hetten on the dock when Ro-Den grabbed one of the loose pilings and pulled himself from the water with the grace of an otter. The boy had been raised swimming in the canals, and the float downstream had been easier for him than walking the same distance.
Captain Hetten glared at the naked boy, not knowing what to ask him.
Ro-Den flicked the hair out of his eyes and sent a volley of water pellets against Hetten’s pressed fatigue jacket. The boy watched as the water drops spread out in the dry cloth and thought about witnessing spots spreading out on fatigue jackets, but instead of water, they were blood spots.
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Hetten ground his teeth and spoke. “What in the fuck is going on?”
Ro-Den understood more English than he spoke, but the question didn’t make any sense to him and he shrugged his shoulders.
“Damn it, boy! Answer me! . . .” Hetten grabbed the young commando by his shoulders and shook him.
Ro-Den twisted free from the man and looked at one of the guards, who was his uncle. The older commando removed his M-16 from his shoulder and stood ready. If the American tried hurting the boy, he would kill him.
Ro-Den spoke to his uncle in Vietnamese, telling him of the massacre upstream. The older commando groaned and turned to inform the rest of the camp about the deaths of their friends and relatives. A patrol had to be assembled immediately to go get the bodies.
Hetten watched as the camp became a fury of activity, not understanding what was going on. He turned back to the boy, who still stood on the dock, and tried smiling before he spoke. “Ugghh . . . boy . . . what happened?
Where is Lieutenant?”
Ro-Den understood the question. “All dead . . .”
“What!” Hetten gasped and felt fear at the same time.
“All zapped . . . VC kill . . . ambush.”
Lieutenant Bourne opened his eyes slowly and then let them ease shut again. He felt the soft comforting vibration of the jet engines coming through the seat cushions and allowed his mind to drift back into a restful state of wandering thoughts.
Paul had enjoyed the five days of R & R in Australia a great deal more than he wanted to admit. The events that had taken place at My An Special Forces Camp and the C-Team at Can To had drained him of just about all his emotional reserves. Captain Hetten had plotted well with his followers, and had won the first round—on the surface. He still couldn’t believe that he had been relieved as executive officer of the team for cowardice in the face of the enemy. The thoughts running through his mind about the incident forced Paul to open his eyes. He pushed the shade back on the window and looked down at the water thousands of feet below. Anger flashed through his mind, and thoughts of violent revenge filled every fiber in his body. Paul had no way of knowing that, at exactly the same moment he was looking down at the ocean below him, Sergeant McGrath was dying along with two platoons of Hoa-Hoa commandos. Paul felt a sudden chill traverse his spine, and he reached up to screw shut the air-conditioner vent above his head.
The whitecapped South China Sea gave way to a dark green landscape to the west of the aircraft. The coast of South Vietnam drew closer to the bank-ing aircraft. Paul looked over the back of his seat at the row of faces staring 182
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out the window. It didn’t take much imagination to guess what most of the returning soldiers were thinking about. Paul’s mind was occupied with the same thoughts: Would he return from this landing in Vietnam alive, or in a cold steel coffin?
Paul reached over and yanked the window shade shut. He forced himself to think about happier thoughts and the good times he just had in Australia.
A friend he had made, who was serving with the Australian SAS unit in Vietnam, had given him the address of his family at Kingscote on the island of Kangaroo, located in the Indian Ocean south of Adelaide, South Australia.
Paul had taken a great risk leaving the R & R port of Sydney and flying to the island. His R & R pass had been only good for the large capital city, and travel around Australia without permission was forbidden. But he had taken the risk and had enjoyed the freedom from the military tremendously, especially after leaving My An.
Paul thought of his Australian friend’s female cousin. He had told Paul that she was cute, but when Paul had seen her sitting in the dust-covered Land Rover, he had nearly embarrassed himself by busting the steel buttons on his Levis. She was a red-blonde with a smile that forced you to smile back at her. The loose bush jacket she had worn was solely to keep the sun off her well-tanned shoulders. She had had on a tight black swimsuit under the long jacket.
The three days and nights they had spent together on the very private beaches of the island were etched forever in Paul’s mind. People dreamed of just one night in their lifetimes like the ones he spent swimming and making slow love on the beach. The second day, Paul had asked her to take him out to the small islands and do some scuba diving with him. She had laughed, and told him that first they would go on a little boat cruise. They had boarded a fifty-foot oceangoing craft that belonged to a friend of hers and headed out to the small rock outcroppings that surrounded the larger island. The boat captain kept his craft well away from the sharp rocks hidden under the breakers, but they had gotten in close enough for Paul to learn why she had laughed when he had said he wanted to go scuba diving off the small islands. Seals covered most of the rocks and cruising off the sanctuaries were white sharks hunting in large numbers. She had told Paul that Kangaroo Island was famous for the record-breaking white sharks taken off the coast. Scuba diving around the island when the seals were there in large numbers was the best way to commit suicide in Australia.
The jet hit a small pocket of turbulence and brought Paul out of his personal thoughts. He felt the solid erection pressing against his pants and adjusted the light blanket on his lap to hide it. He thought that maybe he should have made love to his Australian girl just one more time before he had 183
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left, but grinned; they had made love five times during the last four hours he was on the island. He was sore.
The wheel wells on the aircraft opened, and the loud hum from the motors that lowered the landing gear alerted Paul that they were about to land in Saigon. He sat up in his seat and adjusted the seatback for landing. A sigh slipped out of Paul’s mouth. The war would be very real again, very soon.
He knew the colonel who commanded the Special Forces group in Nha Trang, but he had already decided that he was going to leave Special Forces and get back in a regular line unit. Captain Hetten had cured him of serving on an A-Team again. The only way he would ever go back to an A-Team site was if he were the commander and could control the team. He had had his fill of glory-grabbers for a lifetime.
The smell of burnt jet fuel filled Paul’s senses the second he stepped from the aircraft. A wall of heat and dust hit him in the face shortly thereafter; welcome to Saigon, the thought flashed across his mind. Paul gave a cock-sided grin and jauntily hopped down the steps
to the waiting tarmac.
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The helicopter Paul was riding in was the daily courier flight between Saigon and Nha Trang. The flight was a fairly long one, lasting two hours. The chopper landed on the private pad behind the main Special Forces complex. Paul could see a clerk waiting to exchange courier pouches with the chopper’s crew chief. Paul threw his B-4 bag out the door onto the PSP matting and jumped off the low-hovering helicopter without giving the pilot the customary thank-you wave. He walked around the building and headed directly across the large asphalt quadrangle toward the BOQ office.
A group of senior officers stepped out of the officer’s club entrance located at the far corner of the large parade grounds just as Paul reached the sidewalk. Paul continued walking, without trying to identify any of the officers. He heard his name called and paused a second to look back over his shoulder. Paul wasn’t in the mood to talk to any of the acquaintances that he had met in Special Forces.
“Get over here, Lieutenant!” The voice of a lieutenant colonel boomed over the open pavement.
Paul watched the senior officer jog toward him from the waiting group.
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The officer stopped a few feet from Paul and grinned, “Didn’t you hear him calling you?”
Lieutenant Bourne saw one of the officers wave for Paul to join him.
“That’s the group commander, boy . . . get your ass moving!” The lieutenant colonel’s voice was good-natured, but it irritated Paul nonetheless.
Paul gave the senior officer a glaring look and dropped his B-4 bag down on the sidewalk before he took off at an easy lope to join the commander where he waited. Later in the evening, the lieutenant colonel would tell one of his friends how he thought the young lieutenant was going to kill him with a look of pure hate emitting from the young man’s eyes. He hadn’t been far from the truth.
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