We
“ re
moving into enemy territory,” said the flight
lieutenant as if he were crossing a busy road. “Are you receiving me, ground
leader?”
There
was a crackling on the line before a voice said, “I hear no you, Blackbird One,
what’s your position?”
Nat
recognized the southern drawl of Captain Dick Tyler.
“We’re
approximately fifty miles south of you.”
“Copy
that, expect you to rendezvous in fifteen minutes.”
“Roger.
You won’t see us until the last moment, because we’re keeping all our external
lights off.”
“Copy
that,” came back the same drawl.
“Have
you identified a possible landing spot?”
“There’s
a small piece of sheltered land on a ridge just below me,” replied Tyler, “but
it will only take one helicopter at a time, and because of the rain, not to
mention the mud, landing could be a hell of a problem.”
“What’s
your current position?”
“I’m
still at my same grid reference just north of the
Dyng
River,” Tyler paused, “and I’m fairly sure that the VC
have
begun crossing the river.”
“How
many men do you have with you?”
“Seventy-eight.”
Nat knew that the full complement of two platoons was ninety-six. “And how many
bodies?” asked the flight lieutenant, as if he were asking how many eggs the
captain wanted for breakfast.
“Eighteen.”
“OK,
be ready to put six men and two bodies into each chopper, and make sure you’re
able to climb on board the moment you see me.”
“We’ll
be ready,” said the captain. “What time do you have?”
“Twenty
thirty-three,” said the flight lieutenant.
“Then
at twenty forty-eight, I’ll put up one red flare.”
“Twenty
forty-eight, one red flare,” repeated the flight lieutenant, “Roger and out.”
Nat
was impressed by how calm the flight lieutenant appeared to be when he, his
co-pilot and both rear gunners could be dead in twenty minutes.
But
as he had been reminded so often by Colonel
Tremlett
,
more lives are saved by calm men than brave ones. No one spoke for the next
fifteen minutes. It gave Nat time to think about the decision he’d made; would
he also be dead in twenty minutes?
Nat
then endured the longest fifteen minutes of his life, staring out across acres
of dense jungle lit only by a half moon while radio silence was maintained. He
looked back at the rear gunners as the chopper skimmed above the tree line.
They were already clasping their guns, thumbs on the buttons,
alert
for any trouble. Nat was?
looking
out of a side window when suddenly a red flare shot high into the sky. He
couldn’t help thinking that he would have been having coffee in the mess around
now.8This is Blackbird One to flight,” said the pilot, breaking radio silence.
“Don’t switch on your underbelly lights until you’re thirty seconds from
rendezvous, and remember, I’m going in first.”
A
green tracer of bullets shot in front of the cockpit, and the rear gunners
immediately returned fire.
“The
VC
have
identified us,” said the flight leader
crisply. He dipped his helicopter to the right and Nat saw the enemy for the
first time. The VC
were
advancing up the hill, only a
few hundred yards away from where the chopper would try to land.
Fletcher
read the article in the Washington Post.
It
was
an
heroic episode that had caught the imagination
of the American public in a war no one wanted to know about. A group of
seventy-eight infantrymen, cornered in the North Vietnamese jungle, easily
outnumbered by the Vietcong, had been rescued by a fleet of helicopters that
had flown over dangerous terrain, unable to land while encountering enemy fire.
Fletcher studied the detailed diagram on the opposite page. Flight Lieutenant Chuck
Philips had been the first to swoop down and rescue half a dozen trapped men.
He had hovered only a few feet above the ground while the rescue took place. He
hadn’t noticed that another officer, Lieutenant Cartwright, had leaped off the
aircraft just as he dipped his nose and rose back up into the sky to allow the
second helicopter to take his place.
Among
the bodies on the third helicopter was that of the officer in command, Captain
Dick Tyler.
Lieutenant
Cartwright had immediately assumed command, and taken over the counterattack
while at the same time coordinating the rescue of the remaining men. He was the
last person to leave the field of battle and climb on board the remaining
rescue helicopter. All twelve helicopters headed back to Saigon, but only
eleven landed at Eisenhower airfield.
Brigadier
General Hayward immediately dispatched a rescue party, and the same eleven
pilots and their crews volunteered to go in search of the missing Huey, but
despite making repeated sorties into enemy territory, they could find no sign
of Blackbird Twelve. Hayward later described Nat Cartwright-an enlisted man,
who had left the University of Connecticut in his freshman year to sign up-as
an example to all Americans of someone who, in Lincoln’s words, had given “the
last full measure of devotion.”
“Alive
or dead, we’ll find him,” vowed Hayward.
Fletcher
scoured every paper for articles that mentioned Nat Cartwright after reading a
profile that revealed he had been born on the same day, in the same town and in
the same hospital.
Nat
leaped off the first helicopter as it continued to hover a few feet above the
ground. He assisted Captain Tyler as he sent back the first group to board the
Huey while a wave of bullets and mortars shrieked across the nose cone.
“You
take over here,” said Tyler, “while I go back and organize my men. I’ll send up
half a dozen at a time.”
“Go,”
shouted Nat as the first helicopter dipped to the left before ascending into
the sky. As the second helicopter flew in, despite being under constant fire,
Nat calmly organized the next group to take their place on board. He glanced
down the hill to see Dick Tyler still leading his men in a rearguard action
while at the same time giving orders for the next group to join Nat. When Nat
turned back, the third chopper was dropping into place to hover above the small
square of muddy ground. A staff sergeant and five soldiers ran up to the side
of the helicopter and began to clamber on board.
“Shit,”
said the staff sergeant looking back, “the captain’s hit.”
Nat
turned to see Tyler lying
facedown
in the mud, two
soldiers lifting him up. They quickly carried his body toward the waiting
helicopter.
“Take
over here, sergeant,” said Nat, and then ran down toward the ridge. He grabbed
the captain’s M60, took cover and began firing at the advancing enemy. Somehow
he selected six more men to run up the hill and join the fourth helicopter. He
was only on that ridge for about twenty minutes, as he continued to try and
repel the waves of advancing VC, while his own support group became fewer and
fewer because he kept sending them up the hill to the safety of the next
helicopter.
The
last six men on that ridge didn’t retreat until they saw Blackbird Twelve swoop
in. As Nat finally turned and began to run up the hill, the bullet ripped into
his leg. He knew he should have felt pain, but it didn’t stop him running as he
had never run before. When he reached the open door of the aircraft, firing as
he ran, he heard the staff sergeant say, “For fuck’s sake, sir, get your ass on
board.”
As
the staff sergeant yanked him up, the helicopter dipped its nose and lurched
starboard, throwing Nat across the floor before swinging quickly away.
“Are
you OK?” asked the skipper.
“I
think so,” gasped Nat, finding
himself
lying across
the body of a private.
“Typical
of the army, can’t even be sure if they’re still alive. With luck and a tail
wind,” he added, “we should be back in time for breakfast.”
Nat
stared down at the body of the soldier, who had stood by his side only moments
before. His family would now be able to attend his burial, rather than having
to be informed that he had been left to an unceremonious death in an
unceremonious land.
“Christ
Almighty,” he heard the flight lieutenant say.
“Problem?”
Nat managed.
“You
could say that. We’re losing fuel fast; the bastards must have hit my fuel
tank.”
“I
thought these things had two fuel tanks,” said Nat.
“What
do you imagine I used on the way out, soldier?”
The
pilot tapped the fuel gauge and then checked his milometer. A flashing red
light showed he had less than thirty miles left before he would be forced to
put down. He turned around to see
Nat still lying on top of the dead soldier as he
clung to the floor.
“I’m going to have to look for
somewhere to land.”
Nat
stared out of an open door, but all he could see was acres of dense forest.
The
pilot switched on all his lights, searching for a break in the trees, and then
Nat felt the helicopter shudder. “I’m going down,” said the pilot, sounding
just as calm as he had throughout the whole operation. “I guess we’ll have to
postpone breakfast.”
“Over
to your right,” shouted Nat as he spotted a clearing in the forest.
“I
see it,” said the pilot as he tried to swing the helicopter toward the open
space, but the three-ton juggernaut just wouldn’t respond.
“We’re
going down, whether we like it or not.”
The
whirring of the blades became slower and slower, until it began to feel to Nat
as if they were gliding. He thought of his mother and felt guilty that he
hadn’t replied to her latest letter, and then of his father, who he knew would
be so proud of him, of Tom and his triumph of being elected to the Yale student
council
comwd
he in time become president? And of
Rebecca, whom he still loved and feared he always would.
As
he clung to the floor, Nat suddenly felt very young; he was, after all, still
only nineteen. He discovered some time later that the flight lieutenant, known
as Blackbird Twelve, was only a year older.
As the helicopter blades stopped whirring and the
aircraft glided silently toward the trees, the staff sergeant spoke, “Just in
case we don’t meet again, sir, my name’s Speck Foreman, it’s been an honor to
know you.”
They
shook hands, as one does at the end of any game.
Fletcher
stared at the picture of Nat on the front page of the New York Times below the
headline an American hero. A man who had signed up the moment he’d received the
draft notice, although he could have cited three different reasons for claiming
exemption. He’d been promoted to lieutenant and later, as a warrant officer,
he’d taken command of an operation to rescue a stranded platoon on the wrong
side of the
Dyng
River. No one seemed to be able to
explain what a warrant officer was doing on a helicopter during a front-line
operation.
Fletcher
knew he would spend the rest of his life wondering what decision he would have
made if that plain brown envelope had ended up in his mailbox, a question that
could only be properly answered by those who had been put to the test. But even
Jimmy conceded that Lieutenant Cartwright must have been a remarkable man. “If
this had happened a week before the vote,” he told Fletcher, “
you
might even have beaten Tom Russell-it’s all in the
timing.”
“No,
I wouldn’t,” said Fletcher.
“Why
not?” asked Jimmy.
“That’s
the weird thing,” Fletcher replied.
“He
turns out to be Tom’s closest friend.”
A
fleet of eleven helicopters had returned to search for the missing men, but all
they could come up with a week later were the remains of an aircraft that must
have exploded the moment it hit the trees. Three bodies had been identified,
one of them Flight Lieutenant Carl
Mould’s
, but
despite an extensive search of the area, no trace could be found of Lieutenant
Cartwright or Staff Sergeant Speck Foreman.
Henry
Kissinger, the national security advisor, asked the nation to both mourn and
honor men who exemplified the courage of every fighting soldier at the front.
“He
shouldn’t have said mourn,” remarked Fletcher.
“Why
not?” asked Jimmy.
“Because Cartwright’s still alive.”
“What
makes you so sure of that?”
I
“I
don’t know how I know,” Fletcher replied, “but I promise you, he’s still
alive.”
Nat
couldn’t recall hitting the trees, or being thrown from the helicopter. When he
eventually woke, the blazing sun was burning down on his parched face. He lay
there, wondering where he was, and then the memory of that dramatic hour came
flooding back.