BAT-21 (26 page)

Finally came the sight they had been waiting for.
A white phosphorous flower blossomed precisely in the phalanx of the
advancing soldiers. Then followed the words he knew would come. It
was the steady, almost bored voice of Birddog. "Target's marked,
gents. Here's your chance to be heroes. Applejack, bring in your
flight first."

Down they came. The F-4's sundering the silence,
their guns belching and their sonic booms sending visible shock waves
undulating across the river. Two elements came in, pockmarking
the earth around the phosphorous plume, reducing the surrounding
woods to matchsticks.

For a full five minutes the devastation rained.
Finally the last Phantom, having expended its ordnance, rocketed away
to its base to be rearmed. When the final rumble from the enfilade
had spent its echo against the hills, Morris took out a small pair of
binoculars from his backpack. He swept the area with the glasses.
Satisfied, he handed the glasses to the Vietnamese, who did likewise.

Morris looked down at Hambleton. "Those
Zoomies are sure as hell noisy. Friends of yours?"

Hambleton nodded, smiling.

"A surly lot."

"Ain't it the truth. You should ... play
poker with 'em sometime."

The Vietnamese said, "We go now."

The two men started paddling silently. They glided
along, skirting the shore, the small Oriental in the prow turning his
head from side to side, listening, sniffing the air. Downstream a
ways he motioned toward the opposite bank, and they crossed the
river, circumventing a small island and moving silently to the
overhang on the west bank. For another half hour they skimmed along
slowly until again the Vietnamese lifted his hand and dragged his
paddle. "We stop." He pointed through the leaves and said,
"Look."

There they were, a small detachment of soldiers on
the east side, waiting quietly.

"Need help," said the Vietnamese.

Morris nodded, picked up his backpack radio, and
began to transmit. There was no response. He could not raise Birddog.
Nor, by switching channels, could he raise anyone else. His radio was
dead. He tried everything short of kicking it, then looked
questioningly at Hambleton. Hambleton handed his survival radio to
the Ranger. "Try mine. Should work. Air Force equipment."

The Ranger took it and tried transmitting. Birddog
responded immediately. Giving Hambleton an insouciant look,
Morris again gave coordinates to Birddog. Then they sat back and
waited.

Minutes later the Sandys came in. They each made
several runs, and again all was quiet. The guide moved the big green
leaves apart and peered out at the river bank ahead. His white teeth
showed in a smile as he looked back and said, "We go again."

It was midmorning. For over three hours they had
been on the river, gliding silently, seeking cover in the foliage,
their bodies wet with sweat from a relentless sun that bored down
through a

cloudless sky. Where in hell was the fog when they
needed it? Several times they came within range of sniper fire, the
zing of bullets terminating in splashing thuds near the boat before
they could maneuver away from the area. As the hours passed, dragging
their heels, Hambleton began to wonder where they were taking him. He
thought it was to be a short boat trip. He had assumed a helicopter
would be waiting not far from where he had been picked up, but they
kept moving on.

After carefully nosing around a large bend in the
river, the guide once again whispered back, "We stop."

No one asked why. The eagle-eyed Vietnamese had
proved himself right all the way on this journey, and there was bound
to be a reason. There was a threat lurking in the green hills ahead.
Hiding the boat as best they could, the Ranger peered through the
leaves of a large banana plant. And then Hambleton and Morris saw it
too—dead ahead. The barrel of a large gun lay some distance away.
It was flanked by a group of soldiers, and was mounted in the turret
of a tank. From Hambleton's vantage point the 76-mm looked huge, and
so did the pillboxlike turret and the tracked, scowlike hull of the
amphibious monster.

The Marine let out a low whistle, then checked in
with Birddog, stating the problem. A Russian-made PT-76
reconnaissance tank would take a lot of discouraging. Birddog
acknowledged, and again the escapees listened to the jargon as
the FAC pilot organized the attack.

The covering planes came screaming down again, but
it turned out to be nearly a twenty-minute job. The North Vietnamese
had backed up their tank with antiaircraft machine guns spotted in
the surrounding woods. It became a real contest before the tank was
finally neutralized and the soldiers disappeared.

As the last Phantom made its pass, a transmission
came over the radio that clutched Hambleton's heart with icy fingers.
It was a simple, terse message from Birddog:

"Leatherneck, got a problem," came the
cool voice. "Picked up a hit. Headin' for the barn. Will send an
FAC replacement. Birddog out."

Hambleton snatched up the binoculars and searched
the sky. And then he spotted the 0-2 low on the horizon, hedgehopping
over the hills. A stream of blue smoke was trailing the little plane
as it disappeared over a distant rise.

"Dear God in heaven," muttered
Hambleton, his eyes glued to the lingering veil of smoke, "get
that pilot home safely."

"We go now," whispered the Vietnamese.

Another half hour passed as the boat made its way
gingerly along the bank, giving a wide berth to the tank that was now
nothing but a smoking hulk abandoned by its crew. Hambleton tried to
take his mind off the crippled Birddog and address himself to the
problems at hand, but it was impossible. He didn't even know the
pilot's name. If Hambleton survived it would be because of some
faraway detached voice whose owner he had never met. It was weird. A
man had laid his life on the line for him many times, and he wouldn't
even recognize him on the street. Unless he spoke. He would forever
know that voice; the low voice that had cheered him, cajoled,
badgered, nagged, and cursed him into hanging on—the voice that had
been branded in his brain.

The sampan nosed into the shelter of a small cove.
Another delay? Hambleton managed to prop himself up on his elbows and
peer out of his concealment.

Something was moving! Were his bleary eyes fooling
him? That tree. It looked like it was moving. By God, it was moving!
And so was that bush beside it. And so was the next. Good Lord, the
scenery was coming to life!

He felt a warm hand over his mouth. And then he
looked up to see the Ranger smiling down at him. "Relax,
Colonel," he said. "These Vietnamese wear white hats. Don't
let the camouflage throw you."

The Vietnamese speaking in low, hurried voices
came to the water's edge and waited. The Ranger assisted Hambleton
out of the boat and scooped up his gear. "Come on, Colonel.
We've got to make it to the top of that little hill. And fast."

The sound of ground fire echoed in the distance.
Spurning helping hands, with an effort Hambleton tried to mount
wobbling legs and join the men who were scrambling off into the
brush. He staggered a few yards after them, and then his legs turned
to Jell-O. He fell in a heap on the bank. He no sooner hit the ground
than he was swooped up and thrown over the shoulders of a sinewy
Vietnamese half his size. As if he were no heavier than a bag of
rice, the Asian trotted with him through the undergrowth and did not
stop until they had surmounted the small hill. At the top he was
gently lowered to the ground.

A few yards away stood a cement blockhouse.
Incongruous, squatting there in the jungle; it could have been
transplanted from the Normandy beachhead or the Maginot Line.
Obviously it was a legacy from the days of the French in Southeast
Asia, the days before they had met their Waterloo at Dien Bien Phu.

He was helped inside the cement bastion and
stretched out on a litter. Someone covered him with a blanket to ward
off the musty chill, while someone else took off his heavy,
waterlogged shoes and socks. Another Samaritan began massaging the
numbed chunks of lead his feet had become, kneading them back to life
by restarting circulation.

Outside it sounded like hell was erupting. The
chatter of stuttering machine guns mixed with sporadic rifle fire and
the resounding thump of mortars that appeared to be directed at the
blockhouse. Heavier stuff soon started chiming in as well,
ricocheting shrapnel fragments off the three-foot-thick walls of
the concrete fort.

Oblivious of the pandemonium going on outside,
tender hands ministered to Hambleton's needs, giving him water to
drink, a small bottle of wine which he sampled. And then, glory of
glories, someone parted his lips with the butt of a cigarette.
Goddamn! He took a big drag, inhaling deeply, and promptly went into
a coughing spasm. His eyes watered as he fought to get his breath.
Damn, it tasted good!

Lieutenant Morris came in and sat down beside his
litter. "We're going to need more help, Colonel. Bastards are
really pissed. They're trying to surround us."

"I thought we were supposed to be out of the
firefight zone?"

"You know it and I know it. But somebody
forgot to clue in the Commies. Damn, they go down hard. They must
want you awful bad."

Feeling giddy from the swallow of wine and the
unaccustomed nicotine, Hambleton managed a half grin. "Now you
know what it's like ... to have your picture on the post office
wall."

Morris looked at him oddly. "Have to borrow
your radio again. Kills my heart to do it, but we'll have to ask the
Air Force for more help."

"They don't mind. They're on our side."

Morris ducked out the door to make his radio call.

For an hour the ground rocked with the
reverberations of Air Force ordnance striking close—at times too
damned close, all but knocking Hambleton out of his litter. During
the bombardment the Vietnamese never left his side and kept wiping
his face with wet rags.

At long last it ended, and all was still.

Morris came into the blockhouse, groping his way
through the cement dust that filled the clammy air inside the small
building. "Well, Colonel, the zoomies have pretty well clobbered
the trouble spots. Time to get it in gear and get you out of here."

"Let's go," said Hambleton, trying to
raise himself up from his litter.

"Just stay put. We'll take care of you."

Hambleton couldn't argue or resist. He lay back on
the litter as instructed. And then he heard a noise that made him
frown. Was he mistaken, or was that the sound of metal treads
clanking outside? The natives heard it too, and were talking
excitedly. He looked questioningly at the lieutenant.

"It's all right, Colonel," said Morris.
"It's ours. Your taxi."

Before he knew what was happening, Hambleton found
himself whisked out of the blockhouse on his litter and put into the
personnel carrier. His rescuers clambered up on the top, clinging
there to keep an alert lookout for the enemy. Then the machine
started off down the hill at top speed, those riding shotgun opening
up with bursts from time to time from their M-16 rifles.

Growling along in the bowels of the steaming
machine which was making roads where there were no roads, each jolt
was agony, each bump sent stabs of pain that penetrated his numbed
senses. Hambleton lost track of time. He had surrendered the
responsibility of keeping track of such things to someone else.
The load had been removed from his shoulders and draped over those of
his rescuers. He hardly realized that well over an hour had passed
when the carrier finally ground to a halt.

Again he found himself lifted on the litter, and
then he was out of the carrier and on the ground, the warm breeze
feeling good on his sweating body. And then he looked around, and his
eyes fell on the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

Parked in a small clearing was a Jolly Green!

Soon he was bouncing over the ground at breakneck
speed on his stretcher, and then he was in the chopper and a corpsman
was saying let's get the hell out of here, and then the rotor blades
were turning.

The chopper blades screwed through the humid air,
and even as Hambleton felt the pull of gravity on his innards, he was
being stripped and examined. Efficient fingers flew over his body; he
felt like a race car as paramedics hovered over him like mechanics in
a pit stop. They put a needle in his arm and started intravenous
feeding. They seemed to stick needles everywhere. One medic looked at
his index finger and Hambleton winced as the corpsman shook his head.
They worked on his left arm and he heard the word fracture.
Disinfectant was applied to his wounds, medical cream was rubbed on
his feet to help the circulation. He was being made as comfortable as
possible for the flight to the field hospital.

On gaining a safe altitude and swinging out over
friendly territory, the chopper pilot turned around and shouted back
to his passenger. "Welcome to the clubhouse, Colonel.''

Hambleton made a circle of his thumb and
forefinger, and lifted it to the pilot.

Gwen Hambleton was having one of her nightmares
when the shrill jangle of the telephone brought her springing up from
her pillow. She sat for a moment in the dim glow of the night-light,
trying to compose herself. The phone rang again. She reached over to
the bed lamp, switched it on, and glanced at the clock. Three-twenty
in the morning.

She guessed it had to be news, either good or bad.
The casualty center had promised to call with word of any development
no matter the hour. A chill ran down her backbone.

She lifted the phone from its cradle on the third
ring, held it for several seconds, then put the receiver to her ear.