Eagles Cry Blood

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  The Forward Air Control aircraft circling above Co Roc Mountain banked hard to the right when the pilot saw the charging NVA soldiers.

  “Command One! Shit! The NVA are charging! Get those Cobras moving!”

  “Roger, out!”

  LeBlonde called the gunships that were circling two thousand meters from Co Roc and issued the orders to attack. The Cobra gunships peeled off from their holding patterns one at a time and lined up for the attack. The five helicopters cleared the rim of Co Roc at the same time and opened fire.

  Paul heard the roar of the mini-guns, but was too busy shooting to look back over his shoulder. The NVA ranks were being cut to fishbait by the aircraft guns. Paul dropped down on one knee to change magazines in his AK-47, and lowered his head so that he wouldn’t catch a stray round.

  The thud behind him alerted Paul, and he whirled around to face the threat.

  Too slow.

  The NVA soldier thrust the two-foot-long bayonet deep into Paul’s chest.

  Lieutenant Bourne pulled the trigger on his AK-47 through a reflex action. All of the rounds hit the NVA soldier in the face and right shoulder.

  Paul braced himself up against the wall, holding his hand over the bubbling wound. Bright red oxygen-rich blood dripped between his fingers.

  Paul looked down at the ground and saw the warrior ant looking up at him.

  “Well, little fella, it looks like you stuck around for the action . . .” The pain forced Paul to throw his head back.

  The Cobra pilot looked down as he passed over Paul’s position less than ten feet above him. The two men’s eyes locked on each other for a mini-second and then the chopper banked away.

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  “Command One . . . This is Gunfighter . . . An NVA just ran a bayonet through your lieutenant . . .”

  LeBlonde dropped back in his chair with tears running openly down the hard-lined face. He looked over at Loveless and shook his head.

  Paul pulled himself up and reached over for his URC-10.

  “Command One . . . Viper . . .” His voice was tired and weak.

  “This is Command One.”

  The following pause seemed like it lasted forever to the men on the aircraft and all those pilots who were listening in the cockpits of their fighting aircraft. Paul was trying to direct his remaining strength to holding down the push-to-talk switch.

  “Jay? . . . They got me good . . . Jay?”

  “Yeah, Paul . . . I’m here . . . go ahead . . .” Jay brushed the tears away. “. . .

  Hey! You fucking rookie! Don’t start talking that shit to me, hear!? Coop is on his way in to get you!”

  “Uhhhmmmm . . .” Pain ran uncontrolled through the lieutenant’s body.

  “You’re right there, Jay . . . There isn’t an NVA alive who’s got my number . . .

  ahhh . . .” The gasp of pain transmitted over the radio.

  Jay winced. One of the Cobra pilots lifted his black plastic helmet shield and wiped his eyes with the back of his gloved hand. A Marine radio operator monitoring the conversation threw his breakfast can of C-rations against the wall of his bunker in frustration.

  “Jay? Man . . . I’m too tired . . . really too tired . . . I can’t make it to the chopper . . . just want to sleep for awhile . . .” Paul’s scope of vision was narrow, as if he were entering a long dark tunnel.

  LeBlonde dropped his head in his hands when he heard Paul begin to ramble. He knew the signs all too well. Paul was dying.

  “Paul! Coop’s coming! He’ll carry you! Hang in there!”

  Cooper had been listening over his headset and slid over the steel floor of the helicopter and leaned out to see the edge of the cliff approaching. He was ready to jump to the first sign of the lieutenant. Hate was written on the young man’s face. He wanted revenge.

  Paul heard the sound of the helicopter far away, not realizing that it was hovering right above him. Paul’s vision darkened, but he saw the shape of a man jumping down at him. His vision went black and his body shuddered involuntarily, followed by his bladder releasing its contents.

  Cooper hit the rocks hard, forcing his knees to jam against his mouth.

  The taste of blood caught Coop’s attention for an instant, and then he saw Paul lying up against the stone wall.

  He stopped.

  Lieutenant Bourne’s arm was lying extended out on the ground. The index finger on his right hand was touching the ground at the very tip of 305

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  a flag that had been drawn in the dirt. The grooves in the rock dust that outlined the flag were filled with dark red blood that had run down the lieutenant’s arm.

  Tears burst from Coop’s eyes, and then he acted. He reached down and picked up the paper-light body of his lieutenant. A stinging pain traversed the sergeant’s arm, and he blinked the tears away so that he could see. A large warrior ant had sunk its pincers into the flesh of Coop’s thumb.

  Sergeant Cooper shifted the lieutenant’s body and flicked the ant to the ground. The warrior insect landed at the top of the flag’s staff and clicked its jaws.

  Cooper ran with the body in his arms over to the waiting helicopter.

  The pilot pushed the radio switch on his radio. “Command One . . .

  Gunfighter slick . . . We have his body and are headed home.”

  The Airborne Command center was quiet.

  Lieutenant Paul Bourne was dead.

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  Epilogue

  Lieutenant Loveless paused outside the locked door to Paul’s hooch.

  Sergeant Cooper stood next to him, looking out over the South China Sea at nothing in particular, just trying to keep his mind off the task confronting him.

  Coop looked over at the lieutenant and saw the pained expression on his face. “Sir, I can do this by myself . . .”

  “No, Cooper; I told him that I’d take care of his stuff if anything happened . . . and I will.”

  The two men entered the plywood-and-tin shack. Paul’s cut-offs were lying on his bed. Jay looked up in the rafters and saw the pair of surfboards.

  He knew then that he couldn’t stay, and he walked back out of the hooch.

  “Coop . . . go ahead . . . I just can’t.” Jay called back over his shoulder.

  “No problem, sir; I’ll get it together,” Coop’s voice quavered but held.

  Jay walked back to his own hooch and sat on his bed. He leaned his back against the wall and stared at the Playboy poster collection covering all of the wall opposite from where he sat. He saw only dim outlines of the beautiful girls as he fought back the tears coating his vision. He had been with Paul for a long time and felt closer to him than he did to his own brothers. War had a 307

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  way of really binding two people together, sort of like psychological Siamese twins.

  Jay recalled a friend of his father’s, who had served in the Rangers with him during World War II. Whenever the man would call asking for a loan or for help, his father wouldn’t hesitate giving him money or finding him a job somewhere. Jay’s mother would get very angry and call his father a fool for constantly helping out the drunk, but now Jay understood the bond between his dad and his war buddy.

  The stack of mail lying on the window shelf caught his eye and he remembered Paul’s letters. Jay sorted through the pile and separated Paul’s mail from his own. He stuffed the three letters in the side pocket of his jungle fatigues and walked down to the beach. A strong wind was blowing from the east that felt good against Jay’s tired face. He found a quiet spot between two newly formed sand dunes and sat down. The first letter was a bank statement from Paul’s bank in California. Jay read the last entry in the column: $18,867.89 in deposits. Paul had saved almost every penny he had earned in Vietnam. He tucked the bank statement under his leg to keep the wind from blowing it
away and opened the second letter. It was from a Captain MacReal.

  Dear Paul,

  I really thought about this a lot before writing to you and decided that you should know. I am six months pregnant. I’ll be leaving for the States soon to have the baby. I’m not going to force you into a marriage or any child support. I enjoyed making this baby as much as you did and I don’t feel that you’re obligated for anything.

  I just wanted you to know, and felt you had the right to know, that you’ll be a father soon. You can rest assured that the baby is yours. You are the only lover I’ve had since I came to Vietnam . . .

  Natasha

  The letter was short and to the point. Jay read the note three times. Paul was going to be a father! Then the joy over the news left Jay when he realized why he was reading the letter. It was hard for him to accept the fact that Paul was really dead. Loveless folded the letter and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

  The third letter began:

  A Department of the Army Special Review Board has reviewed your records against those of your peers. It is the decision of the board that your file does not meet the high standards needed to be an army officer.

  This decision has been based on your officer efficiency reports with emphasis being placed on the recent report written on your performance by Captain A. D. Hetten.

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  You will be released from active duty no later than ninety days after receipt of this letter. . . .

  The official letter continued, giving details on his separation from the service for reasons of substandard performance. It was too much for Jay to mentally absorb. He stood up and screamed his rage at the ocean.

  “Those bastards! Those faceless stupid bastards!”

  Sergeant Cooper heard Jay’s yelling and ran down the beach toward Loveless, who had dropped down on his knees and was pounding the sand with his fists.

  “Sir?”

  Jay looked up at the puzzled face of the sergeant and hissed out the words he felt tearing at his throat. “Those bastards have thrown Bourne out of the Army! Can you believe that? For substandard performance, of all things!

  Can you believe that shit!”

  Cooper looked puzzled. How could they throw the lieutenant out of the army? He was dead.

  “They’re going to pay for this fuck up!” A look crossed Jay’s face. He knew what would happen if the letter was placed in the right hands, especially if it were given to the newspapers who had been covering the story on Paul’s lone adventures.

  The officer on duty in the Stovall Building on the outskirts of Washington sat with his feet crossed on the edge of his desk. The half-empty coffee cup he held up to his lips had the insignia of the Chief of Staff of the Army emblazoned on its side along with the dates that the lieutenant colonel had served in that section of the Department of the Army. A young major sitting across from the career lieutenant colonel was reading a copy of the Washington Post.

  “Colonel, get a load of this headline: LONE GREEN BERET LIEUTENANT DESTROYS

  NORTH VIETNAMESE AMMUNITION DEPOT—STOPS MAJOR ENEMY OFFENSIVE!”

  The lieutenant colonel casually dropped his feet down to the highly polished floor. “It’s about time those damn reporters let us have a hero over there!”

  He started shuffling through some papers cluttering his desk and then, as an afterthought, asked, “Does the article give the lieutenant’s name?”

  “Yeah . . . I just read it . . . let’s see . . .” The major paused and ran his finger down the printed lines of the article and stopped. “His name is Lieutenant Bourne . . . Paul Bourne.” The major looked up and added. “The article states that Congress has had a special vote and approved a Medal of Honor for him!”

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  The lieutenant colonel stopped sorting through the stacked papers and looked straight ahead at the wall partition. “Did you say a Lieutenant Paul Bourne?”

  “Yes, sir.” The major looked over at the senior officer. “Something wrong?”

  The lieutenant colonel reached for a list of names on a roster he had Scotch-taped to the side of his filing cabinet. He ran his finger down the alphabetical listing and stopped. “Holy shit! ”

  The major dropped his newspaper as the lieutenant colonel ran from the room saying, “We’ve just sent a letter of substandard performance to Lieutenant Bourne!” The colonel stopped just outside the door, ran back to the major’s desk, snatched the newspaper from the junior officer’s hands—and took off for the commanding general’s office.

  Colonel Clewell stared out his window while he waited for the sergeant to locate Lieutenant Loveless. Thoughts of Lieutenant Bourne kept waving through his mind. He recalled the first time he had seen the young lieutenant outside of the Nha Trang headquarters. He had been very impressed with the proud bearing the young man had possessed, and the confident grin the kid would give you when he knew that he had performed well. He wished that he could have traded one of the many assholes he knew hiding back in the States for Bourne’s life.

  A knock on the door disturbed the colonel and brought him back from his personal thoughts. “Come in.”

  Loveless entered the room and reported to the colonel. Clewell sensed a change in the young lieutenant’s attitude but attributed it to Bourne’s death.

  “Jay, Headquarters has approved your being selected as the escort for Lieutenant Bourne’s body.”

  Loveless looked out the window, failing to show any response to the colonel’s words.

  Clewell paused and then spoke again, “Lieutenant Loveless, is something wrong?”

  Jay’s eyes flashed silver sparks when he turned his head from the window and looked at the colonel. Hate formed wrinkles around the lieutenant’s eyes.

  “No, sir! I’m just fine!”

  “If you would rather have somebody else . . .”

  “No, sir! Paul is my best friend! I’ll escort him home!”

  Clewell stood up. “Tonight . . . the plane will leave for Travis Air Force Base in California and then the . . . uhh . . . body will be flown to the international airport in Los Angeles.” The tough Special Forces colonel blinked his eyes and cleared his throat before continuing, “Lieutenant Bourne lived near there before he entered the service, and he stated on his data card that he 310

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  would like to be cremated and his ashes spread out over the beaches at Malibu.” Clewell reached down and picked up a piece of teletype paper. “Also, there will be another casket aboard the aircraft. The soldier is a nominee for the Medal of Honor, a Private First Class O’Toole from the 173d Airborne Brigade.” Clewell looked at Loveless. “You’ll be responsible for escorting both of the caskets until you reach California, and then a Stateside escort will be provided for the paratrooper.”

  “Who should I give Paul’s personal items to, sir?”

  “You might run into some difficulty when you reach California.

  Lieutenant Bourne left a will with Captain White that left everything he owned to a Captain Natasha MacReal. It seems that she’s a nurse working in one of the hospitals here in-country. Do you know her?”

  Jay became more attentive with the mentioning of the woman’s name.

  “Yes, sir, but not personally . . . I know of her.”

  “Well, we’ve tried reaching her at the hospital she was working at, but she’s left for the States.” Clewell looked out of his window over the sand and buildings toward the hidden sea. “I know you and Bourne were close friends and you should know that he’s a Medal of Honor Winner. Congress approved his award last week. We were going to present it to him when he was extracted.”

  Jay’s mind backtracked to the letter he had read from the Department of the Army. He stood and placed both of his hands on the edge of the colonel’s desk. Anger possessed him when he spoke. “Those fucking bastards! I can’t believ
e those rear-area motherfuckers did that to him!”

  Clewell watched the lieutenant and wondered if the young man had cracked under pressure. “Jay? What are you talking about?”

  “Talking about? . . . You want to know? . . . All right! I’ll tell you!” Jay pulled the Department of the Army’s letter out from his side pocket and slid the envelope across the colonel’s desk. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

  Colonel Clewell opened the crumpled envelope and looked up over the edge of his wire-framed glasses at Jay, then read the letter. He couldn’t believe what he had read, and he reread the last three paragraphs. “Damn! I can’t believe this!”

  “Believe it, sir!” Jay turned his back on the colonel. “. . . and can you believe the reason was for substandard performance!” Jay turned and took the letter out of the colonel’s hands. “I’m going to shove this down their fucking throats!”

  Lieutenant Loveless left the colonel’s office and went back to his hooch to pack for his trip to the States. He planned how he would use the letter as he threw what few traveling things he had into a well-worn suitcase. Mister Michaels from Newsweek would know how to handle the story. Jay was going 311

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  to make the Army eat a hell of a lot of crow for what they had done to his best friend.

  Colonel Clewell sat behind his desk with his fingers pressed together making a tepee. His two index fingers were pressed against his forehead and his thumbs were tucked under his lower lips. He used that position for his hands when he was in deep thought. General Pick had to be notified about the Department of the Army letter. Colonel Clewell knew that no one could take the letter from Loveless, because Bourne had signed an authorization card for his friend to pick up and handle his personal mail. The military was going to suffer a really bad black eye if they didn’t move fast. Clewell picked up his telephone and placed a call.

  General Pick slammed the door to his office so hard that the frame cracked. The aide-de-camp who was sitting behind the desk in the attached office jumped to his feet.