Eagles Cry Blood

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  The observation post lost its peaceful atmosphere when the enemy soldier scrambled to get his AK-47 off the rack behind him. The rounds from Paul’s CAR-15 ricocheted around the stone room, sending sparks flying and screaming their death song. Ten seconds later all of the NVA lay dead. Paul stepped over two of the bodies and looked out of the long, two-foot-high window that had been carved through the face of Co Roc Mountain. He leaned out over the foot-thick ledge and looked down at the river four hundred feet below. The great Khe Shan plateau spread out for miles in front of him, rendering a spectacular view. He could see the friendly smoke from the Lang Vei Special Forces Camp and helicopters the size of small gnats circling in the distance over the Marine base camp at Khe Shan. The NVA soldiers had hewn through a hundred feet of solid rock to build a perfect observation post.

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  The only exit or entrance was to the east, and was controlled by the NVA. Paul laid his CAR-15 against the wall and dragged the NVA bodies over to the window sill and pushed them out, one at a time. He used a slightly oily rag that he found in the bunker to wipe most of the blood off the walls, and then threw the red cloth out of the window. Paul picked up his weapon and retraced his path back through the tunnel. He didn’t want to end up getting trapped inside the observation post like his victims had been.

  The jungle hillside was free from any signs of an NVA force. Paul closely scanned the area that surrounded his position. There were three rifle firing positions that had been built to blend with the rocks, and they commanded any approach to the tunnel entrance from the west. Paul noticed that there was a box with a waterproof canvas cover located at each end of the fighting positions. He opened one of the boxes and saw that there was a supply of loaded extra magazines for the enemy AK-47s and five hand grenades neatly lined up on the bottom. Paul grinned a stoic smile when he saw that all of the grenades were American made and still in their cardboard-cylinder shipping containers.

  The trail was the only accessible approach to the tunnel entrance, so Paul decided that he would wait at the NVA outpost for extraction. The NVA were well aware of his approximate location, and it would only have been a matter of time until they would have tracked him down. Paul figured his chances for defending himself were much better staying at the well-built outpost then being caught in the open jungle. The NVA builders of the outpost had done their work too well. Anyone who held the little fort could defend it against a much larger force. Paul returned to the observation room and quickly assembled all the NVA weapons and ammunition and hauled them back to the tunnel entrance. He returned to the stone room to remove an RPG-7 grenade launcher from its rack on the back wall and to drag a case of RPG rounds to the first NVA fighting position. He put his personal gear by the fighting position that commanded the path leading to the outpost, then spread the NVA weapons out amongst the other fighting locations, with an AK-47 loaded and ready to fire at each. Once everything had been set up exactly the way he wanted it, Paul called the Airborne Command Center.

  “Command One . . . Viper . . . over.”

  “Viper . . . Command One . . . come in . . . over.”

  “I’m turning on my homing device for three minutes . . . get a fix on my position . . . This is where I’m going to stay until you come and get me . . .

  Tell the boss that I have a rock cave to hide in so he can drop big ones right on my position if he has to . . . over.”

  “We’ve locked in on your position . . . be prepared for fast movers . . .

  ETA . . . for the first sorties is . . . four minutes . . . over.”

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  “Thanks . . . You can’t get me out of here soon enough!”

  Paul’s radio broadcast was interrupted by a voice coming from the jungle a hundred meters downhill from his position. A loudspeaker amplified the words spoken in perfect English.

  “Lieutenant Bourne . . . We know that you’re up there . . . Surrender to the People’s Army and live!”

  Paul pushed his radio switch. “The NVA have arrived . . . see ya!”

  LeBlonde swiveled in his chair and faced the Air Force colonel. “Get your planes moving!”

  Paul peered over the edge of the rock protecting him and saw six NVA soldiers standing out in the open at the edge of the jungle. One of them was holding a white piece of cloth that was tied to a long bamboo pole. Paul smiled and thought the NVA had seen too many American cowboy movies.

  He picked up the nearest AK-47 and centered the front sight over the NVA soldier’s heart, who was standing in the rightmost position in the group.

  The loudspeaker broadcast again. “Don’t be a fool, Lieutenant! . . . We have been monitoring your broadcasts . . . We know that your friends are going to try and rescue you .

  . . The People’s famous 234th Regiment has surrounded this area . . . Many Americans will die if you do not surrender . . . We have antiaircraft guns covering all avenues to this mountain .

  . . Bourne! Save your friends’ lives and surrender! ”

  Paul thought of all the lives that would be lost trying to save just one. He thought what the NVA official had said, one life in exchange for many, made a great deal of sense.

  “We will give you medical treatment for your wounds . . . We respect a hero . . . As one warrior to another . . . I promise you will be given good treatment . . .”

  Paul squeezed the trigger.

  Four of the NVA soldiers smashed down onto the ground, dead. The handheld megaphone bent when it hit a large rock. A voice screamed in anguish up the mountainside, “You bastard! We had a white flag!” The voice had an American accent. “You fucking pig! ”

  Paul glanced over the top of his protective rock at the four bodies twitching in the clearing. That was four NVA soldiers he didn’t have to worry about later on.

  “Surrender! Or we will kill you!” The voice speaking had changed from the first one to a clearer American accent. Paul peeked over the edge of his foxhole and saw the new speaker standing next to the enemy bodies. He lowered his weapon sight onto the NVA soldier’s chest and fired just as the man jumped behind a pile of vine-covered rocks. Paul missed.

  The voice sounded off the neutral rocks. “We will kill you, Bourne!”

  A flight of four Phantom jets appeared flying in attack formation in the sky behind Co Roc. The aircraft cleared the top edge of the mountain by less 299

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  than a hundred feet and dropped their bombs in unison. The scream from the jets’ afterburners shook every living thing on the mountain, followed closely with the blast from the bombs and the heat created by the napalm. Paul dropped down in the ditch and crawled on his stomach back to the protection of the tunnel. The American jets made two more passes on the NVA positions and finished with a 20mm gun run. Paul peeked his head out around the corner of the entrance in time to see the last jet bank away toward the east.

  “Command One . . . Damn! I could have used a little warning!” Paul held his URC-10 away from his ringing ear.

  “Sorry . . . you didn’t answer your radio . . .”

  “I was being serenaded by an NVA welcoming party speaking in English, no less . . . They want me to surrender . . . They say they’re from the elite 234th Regiment . . .” Paul saw movement at the edge of the jungle, “. . . gotta go now . . . out.”

  Lieutenant Bourne leveled the AK-47 he held in his hands and watched the jungle edge for ten minutes before relaxing and sliding back down against the cool stone wall. He was tired and his leg had begun to throb again. He kept glancing up over the wall toward the jungle, expecting an attack. Paul’s eyes locked on a huge jungle warrior ant that was walking along the edge of the hewn stone wall surrounding his fighting position on three sides. Paul lowered the warm barrel of his rifle on the ledge and allowed the ant to cr
awl onto it before he lifted it and lowered the combat ant down to the dirt floor of his foxhole.

  “It isn’t safe up there, little fella.”

  The ant wiggled its antennae and turned in a tight circle before selecting a direction to walk in. Bullets bounced off the rocks and boulders surrounding Paul’s fighting hole. The NVA were launching a ground assault up the back side of the mountain. Paul ran from position to position, firing the AK-47s at the advancing enemy. A short lull in the attack allowed Paul enough time to push the talk switch on his radio and make a short broadcast.

  “Command One . . . They’re attacking!”

  LeBlonde’s voice came over the radio set. “I hope you can hold them . . .

  another flight will arrive in two minutes!”

  “Try . . . out.” Paul’s message was cut short. The bullet hitting the rocks near his head sent fragments cutting into his cheek. He reached up and felt the blood, and then became angry. Paul raced along the firing positions, stopping long enough at each to toss a couple of hand grenades at the advancing enemy soldiers. The grenades, coupled with the noise of arriving fighter aircraft, forced the NVA attack to break up.

  The Command One aircraft kept a continuous air-ground attack protecting Paul until dusk.

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  “Viper . . . Command One . . . over.”

  “Viper . . .”

  “We have to halt the air cover . . . The Marines are fighting a pitched battle east of here and need help . . . Are you ready for extraction?”

  “No! Too many NVA . . . See if you can divert a sortie of the big bombers

  . . . After they’ve gone . . . send in a Brightlight Team . . . I’ll be safe from any direct hits in the underground observation post . . . out.”

  Mister LeBlonde placed his headset down on the narrow counter in front of his radios. A B-52 strike would be the only thing that would keep the NVA units away from Paul until they could slip in a Brightlight Team. The Air Force colonel sitting next to LeBlonde handed the agent a folded slip of paper.

  LeBlonde opened the message:

  NEXT B-52 STRIKE IS DUE FROM OKINAWA IN THREE HOURS.

  “Send the time coded to Bourne.” LeBlonde stood up and walked rapidly down the aisle to the back of the aircraft. He didn’t think the NVA would waste the night waiting.

  Paul looked down at the luminous dial on his watch: two hours left before the B-52s arrived on the site. The sun had dropped out of the sky, leaving the surrounding jungle black.

  The NVA waited.

  Paul felt for his weapons, knowing that he was running short of ammunition. He rested the back of his head against the stone and thought. If he stayed in the foxhole until the B-52s came, he might have a chance of surviving until dawn, but then again, the NVA might just launch a more-determined daylight attack or, worse yet, an attack during the night. Lieutenant Bourne’s mind slipped back to his Officer Candidate School days and the words from one of his survival instructors: The best defense is the best offense. He smiled to himself as he thought what that particular instructor was doing right now. Paul crawled up over the edge of the fighting hole carrying only his Randall knife and .22-caliber pistol. He planned on doing some night hunting in the jungle.

  “Sir! General Pick is on the line!”

  Colonel Clewell picked up the handset and waited.

  “Clewell? Pick here.”

  “Yes, sir; I just wanted to inform you that Mister LeBlonde has already started Bourne’s extraction. It seems as though the lieutenant is wounded and has found himself a place to hide in the jungle near Co Roc Mountain.”

  There was a long pause filled only with soft static coming from the radio.

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  “Sir? Are you still there?” Clewell adjusted the volume on his radio receiver.

  “Yes . . . I was just thinking . . . Clewell—I don’t want to lose that boy now!”

  “Neither do we, General . . .”

  “I know . . . Is there anything I can personally do to help?”

  “No, sir, everyone is giving their best. I think you’ve already been briefed about the Marines making contact with a large NVA force near the border, and they’ve drawn off a great deal of the support that has been keeping Bourne alive . . .”

  “I know . . . that we can’t ignore a thousand men and support just one, but keep me posted on the results of Mister LeBlonde’s efforts. I’ve told my aide to interrupt me anytime.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Pick . . . out.”

  The radio went silent.

  Lieutenant Bourne crawled forward dragging his left leg. The thick part of the jungle’s edge was only a hundred meters away from his fort. It took Paul an hour to get to the cover offered by the jungle. He paused when his outstretched hand touched the jungle growth. Paul tuned his ears for the minis-cule sounds coming from the underbrush. He waited. A muffled cough slid along the ground, stopping at Paul’s right ear. He pivoted on his stomach and crawled slowly in the direction of the sound’s origin.

  The NVA soldier’s head was silhouetted above the lip of his shallow foxhole. Paul approached the enemy soldier from the rear and sunk the long blade of his Randall deep into the soldier’s chest cavity, entering just below the man’s voice box. Death came instantly to the soldier. Paul searched the foxhole with his hands and found the man’s rifle, but he left it. He was looking for grenades. The second and third soldiers were easy kills as Paul crawled along the NVA defense line from foxhole to foxhole. None of the NVA soldiers were alert—especially the fourth one, who had fallen asleep.

  All of them had been told that they were hunting a single American soldier, and they were very confident that they would find him hiding under some bamboo in the morning, shaking with fright. Paul capitalized on their foolishness and killed five more enemy soldiers before he realized that he had crawled too far away from his fort and that morning would be lighting up the jungle floor within a matter of hours. Paul crawled faster up the hill leading to his protective fort once he had reached the portion of the NVA defensive line where he had made all the kills. Paul flipped over the low stone wall of his fort and fell down the three feet to the ground. He sensed immediately that something was wrong and noticed that all of his equipment was gone. The NVA had paid him a visit during the night. Paul was glad that he hadn’t been home when they had arrived. A noise filtered down 302

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  the tunnel from the observation post. Paul listened to the soft scraping sound of bare feet slipping over crushed stone that covered the floor of the tunnel. He pressed his back against the stone next to the exit and removed his silenced pistol. Two enemy soldiers dressed in solid black uniforms stepped out from the entrance of the cave carrying all of Paul’s personal gear and the three AK-47s.

  “Hi!” Paul spoke with a smile on his face.

  The NVA soldiers responded too slowly to live. Paul pushed the bodies over the rock wall and listened to them roll down the slope and then stop.

  Paul reestablished his defensive position and then turned on his URC-10.

  “Viper . . . Command One . . . Command One . . . please come in . . .”

  The voice sounded very tired and bored from saying the same thing over and over again for hours.

  “Viper . . . over” Paul whispered.

  “Where in the hell have you been!” The voice was angry but filled with relief.

  “Out hunting . . .”

  “What?”

  “I went to visit the NVA lines . . . They were getting too overconfident and I caught some of them sleeping.”

  The group of soldiers and airmen who stood around the speaker on the aircraft shook their heads in amazement. Jay crossed his legs on the console and smiled.

  “The B-52s were cancelled . . . We had
a night extraction set up for you, but because we couldn’t reach you they had to go back and refuel . . . We’ll try again at first light . . . which should be very soon . . .”

  “Roger . . . I’ll leave my URC-10 on so that you can pinpoint my location

  . . . Man! I’m ready to come home!”

  Paul pushed his rucksack up against the wall and stretched out to relax.

  He could detect movement better listening in the dark than by trying to see, so he rested his eyes. A slight throb flashed up his leg. Paul dozed, and between the pain from his leg and the night sounds, he rested.

  Dawn broke gently over the jungle trees and reached Paul’s eyelids. He woke. The jungle was very quiet. He felt hunger and tried to ignore the growling coming from his stomach. Paul kept his eyes on the jungle until the sun was up full in the sky, then he sat back against the wall. He thought, and then started tracing an outline of an American flag in the loose rock dust at his side. He drew the flag waving in a breeze and placed dots in the corner of the flag for stars. Paul waited and drew and thought about the Brightlight Team arriving soon to take him home.

  The radio crackled, “Viper . . . Command One . . .”

  “Viper . . . over.”

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  “We’re going to prep your area for twenty minutes, and then be prepared for a single ship to come in and pick you up . . . Oh . . . Cooper wants you to know that he’s with the team coming in after you.”

  “Roger! I feel better already!”

  Sergeant Cooper had been listening to the radio with the headset in his helicopter that was circling above the Khe Shan plains waiting for the air strike to finish. Cooper smiled and felt better. He had been suffering from severe guilt over leaving the lieutenant alone. If anything happened to him while he was trying to get to the lieutenant, at least he would know that he had tried.

  Paul started gathering up his gear, but then he caught himself. He didn’t need to haul all of that stuff out, just his ass.

  The sound of a brassy bugle crashed against the side of the cliff. The unnatural noise scared Paul out of his personal thoughts. He looked over the edge of his defensive position and saw over a hundred charging NVA soldiers with fixed bayonets. He didn’t have time to call Command One. Paul grabbed the nearest AK-47 and filled the air with automatic-rifle fire.