A Long Way Back

by J. Everett Prewitt

  Holland frowned. “It sounded miles away.”

  “Don’t matter,” Casper said. “At least we’re nearer than we were.”

  Turner walked with Casper. “I saw a few hills from the cave. If we could get closer and get more elevation, maybe we’d see where they’re firing from.”

  Casper squinted in the direction of the sound. “We might also see where they’re firing at so we can avoid the area.”

  “Let’s go,” Glover said, weakly pumping his fist.

  By the next day, the soldiers could see the rise. There were a series of hills running two to three hundred yards high at their peak. Bankston and Robinson scouted the closest of them.

  The howitzers let go another salvo. The echoes faded in the distance.

  “We can make it to the top,” Bankston puffed, returning forty minutes later. “And if we follow the creek bed I saw from up there, we should be headed where the big guns are.”

  “Holland and Warfield, can you make it?” Casper asked, pointing at the hill.

  The two looked at each other. “If it will get us closer, yeah,” Warfield answered.

  Holland nodded.

  Casper lifted Glover. “I’ll help with this brother. Let’s see what we can see.”

  It took two hours for the men to reach the top, grasping at any trees and vines that would help them move upward. Every part of Casper’s body ached, but he didn’t show it because each of the men was worse off than he was.

  Some energy returned when he looked out from the top of the hill. The view allowed them to see at least three miles east. There was a valley below with a small stream running alongside the foot and a narrow path beside it. Their side facing the stream was a steep drop— and impassable.

  Casper explored the hill, looking for an alternative route to descend, finally finding one to the south, the way they were headed. His stomach dropped, though, when he saw the fresh boot prints. Somebody had been there. He ducked behind a tree, looking, and listening, before joining his men.

  “Be alert. We don’t know who else might be up here.”

  “Why would anybody be up here?” Robinson asked.

  “Just be alert.”

  Robinson scratched his initials in the dirt as he thought of his situation, his father, and the promise he’d made. After calling around to find out how his son could avoid the draft, Drew Robinson eventually accepted the futility of trying. He sat his son down at the dining room table. “I wish I knew the right people so you wouldn’t have to go, but since you do, son, you do what they tell you. Do it to the best of your ability, and don’t worry about things you can’t control. Let God be your guide.”

  Robinson listened as he did whenever his father spoke. And as always, he would do what his father asked. But it was the request his father, a custodian at Shaw High School, made as he dropped his son off at the hotel where he would board a bus to Fort Benning, Georgia, that weighed the heaviest on his mind.

  “Come back in one piece, son.”

  “I will, Dad.”

  He’d kissed his mother, who’d been sobbing from the time he’d awoken until he stepped out of the car. “It will be okay, Mom. Really.”

  Really? He rubbed his chin and leaned against a tree. Here he was, with no control over the outcome. Maybe he could buy some control with the $25,000 they had talked about, but there was one thing for sure: He couldn’t—no, he wouldn’t—let his father down. His father had invested too much time in Robinson’s future.

  Robinson scratched his father’s initials next to his as he thought back to his sophomore year in high school. He had been agonizing over a trigonometry course at the kitchen table when his father sat across from him.

  “Anything I can help you with, son?”

  Robinson had laughed. “No, dad. Did they even have trigonometry when you went to school?”

  His father had chuckled. “Not that I remember.”

  Robinson smiled as he recalled his father waking him at six in the morning. “Come downstairs. I want to show you something.”

  On the kitchen table was Robinson’s trig book and some typewriter paper next to it with his dad’s handwriting.

  “Let’s go through these problems,” his father had said, opening the book and referring to his notes.

  His dad had stayed up all night reading the first five chapters and solving the questions at the end of each chapter. Robinson looked in wonder at his father, a man with a sixth-grade education, as he explained each of the questions to his son and how to solve them.

  “Your father might not be educated,” his mother, a schoolteacher, had told Robinson years ago, “but he’s not stupid. And to take time to learn and then teach you shows how much he really loves you.”

  The weight of the promise was heaviest when he had time to think, time to wonder why he wasn’t dead or wounded. Bullets had flown past him on four different occasions. Why he hadn’t been shot must have been divine intervention. Robinson rolled his eyes at the thought. But, with all that had happened, he was beginning to doubt it existed. Sampson would have.

  “You are mighty quiet over there, Robinson. Thinking about your girlfriend?” Warfield asked.

  “No. My dad.”

  It was during moments like the trigonometry episode when Robinson felt the deepest of gratitude for having been born into a family with a mother and father who were like heroes to him—each strong in their own respect and each loving in their own way. So when his father made that simple request, to come home in one piece, how could he not?

  Yes, the situation was dangerous—people were out to kill them if the jungle didn’t first, but over the past four days, Robinson felt better about the prospects of fulfilling that request. He felt better about the men he was with, and he felt better about himself being in the jungle because they’d all changed. They had to if they were to survive.

  Reverend Poole had always preached that life should be revered, cherished. But revered and cherished weren’t words used where he was now. Kill or be killed. Adapt or die. Those were the most important words, and those were the words foremost in his mind. They were survival words.

  The howitzers boomed again.

  Casper pointed in the direction of the sounds. “They are firing from over there. Let’s rest here, get our strength back, and move down to the stream in the morning.”

  Casper didn’t share his earlier discovery of the footprints, hesitant to spook the men any further. When everyone settled, he explored the rest of the hill, only satisfied they were alone after a half hour of surveillance.

  “Where were you, Casper?” Warfield asked.

  “Just looking around.”

  The men shared the last of the rice cakes and slept. Casper kept watch. He looked at the six remaining men and shook his head. Despite what they’d gone through— the heat, the rain, the diseases, the battles— they’d accomplished little except to survive.

  Some might say they’d won the battles they’d waged because they’d killed more VC than they’d lost of their own. Casper grunted. But did body counts distinguish who was right—or just who was left? And with all the firepower in America’s possession, we can’t defeat a small, backward country like Vietnam? Was it some Supreme Being’s way of telling us we shouldn’t be here? He’d ask Robinson when they were back at base.

  Early morning, Casper was trying to map the most direct and safest route to the howitzers when an ominous sound of men moving snapped Casper back to attention. He peered over the hill, looking in all directions but saw nothing. Just then, the dry bushes crackled as soldiers in khaki-and-green uniforms appeared. Their outfits identified them as NVA, the regular army of the North Vietnamese.

  A searing sensation knifed through Casper’s stomach as he ducked, then peeked again. They kept coming, moving along the creek bed, stopping, then dispersing, most moving quickly through the jungle, their presence cutting off any hopes of his men following the stream. Were the boot prints theirs? Probably. Nobody would set up under a hill
unless they knew it was vacated.

  Casper tiptoed to each man, waking and shushing them at the same time. He pointed his rifle toward the NVA. Each of the men quietly grabbed his weapon and watched Casper for orders.

  The soldiers waited as Casper squatted, thinking. If they tried to move in almost any direction, they would be captured as soon as they left the hill. Their only option was to stay on the hill until the NVA moved on. But how long would that be? Days? Weeks? He stared straight ahead as he ran his hand across his face. As close as they were to home base, there was still a long way to go.

  Casper looked through his field glasses. As far as he could see, there were NVA. He chewed his lip in frustration. There were two choices: die of starvation if the NVA were setting up a permanent camp or be captured. Casper started to lower his field glasses when he noticed movement through the trees about two and a half kilometers away. He raised his field glasses again, squinted, put them down, then raised them once more. “Damn!” he whispered.

  “What?” Warfield asked.

  Casper handed Warfield the field glasses and pointed over the trees to a distant opening in the jungle canopy.

  “Those are ours!”

  “Yep.”

  Bankston joined them. Casper pointed downward then outward. Each had a similar look of surprise, despair, and finally, resignation. Bankston frowned as he slid backward. The other men watched carefully as Casper, Bankston, and Warfield approached them.

  Bankston rubbed his rifle barrel, repeatedly. “This ain’t good.”

  Casper signaled the men to gather. “The enemy is directly below us—a lot of them. They are waiting to ambush our soldiers coming this way.” Casper glanced at Turner, but Turner, eyes narrowed, said nothing.

  Glover rose on his elbow. “We got to warn them.”

  The men turned to Glover, surprised, thinking he was out of it.

  Glover looked at Casper. “Attack.”

  “Too many,” Warfield said.

  Bankston leaned his rifle against a rock. “If we attack right before our guys come in contact, it will be a warning.”

  Robinson shook his head. “Yeah, but then they’ll attack us.”

  Warfield paused and rubbed his forehead before speaking. “We got the hill. They can’t get up here from there.”

  “They might from there, though,” Casper said, pointing to the thick vines and bushes south of the hill where he first saw the boot prints. “Plus, they got the numbers, they got mortars, and they got the big guns.”

  The men sat in a circle as Casper went back to the edge to scan the area once more. “Our soldiers will be within range in less than ten minutes. What do you think?” he asked when he returned.

  With all the turmoil, fear, and deaths, the past days had been a series of miracles: Having Sarge as a leader, winning those battles with the VC, seven surviving when there probably should have been none, Turner thought as he stared at the ledge of the hill. Most people never experienced one miracle. They’d exhausted their quota long ago. Had the miracles run out, or was there one more in the hopper? But at this point, who cared? He was tired, bone tired—tired of running, tired of fighting. He sighed. Right was right.

  “A lot of our guys will die if we do nothing,” Turner said.

  Holland sniffed. “Who gives a damn about them? They didn’t care about us.”

  “It wasn’t them who sent us out here,” Casper responded. “Plus, if we stay here and do nothing, we will either starve or be captured. We can’t go anywhere if they remain.”

  “Maybe we should wait,” Robinson said.

  Bankston glared at Robinson. “For what? And starve to death after all we been through? Lay down like wimpy-assed sissies?”

  “You are starting to sound like Fletcher,” Robinson retorted.

  “No. Actually you are,” Bankston said. “He’s the one always talking scared.”

  “I…”

  “Gentlemen,” Casper said, quietly but forcefully. “Let’s talk this out rationally. We’ve come too far together to fall apart now.”

  “Attack,” Glover whispered again.

  Casper looked at the men, their faces grim as they pondered. “We don’t have much time, gentlemen. What will it be?”

  The men sat silent. Robinson scuffed the dirt with his feet. Bankston sighed. Warfield tapped his leg repeatedly.

  “If we fire a few rounds each and pull back before they can retaliate, we might be okay,” Turner said.

  Warfield looked at Turner. “At least we get to choose our poison.”

  “If we do save those guys,” Turner continued, “it will probably be the most decent thing we do in this war.”

  The men sat in silence before Holland put out his hand and stared straight ahead. “Wolverines.”

  After a few seconds, Casper covered Holland’s hand with his. “Wolverines,” followed by Warfield, Glover, Turner, Bankston, and finally Robinson.

  “Wolverines,” they whispered together.

  In some ways it made sense to Casper. In other ways it would be suicide if the NVA directed all their firepower toward them, whether they pulled back or not. If they fired for ten seconds then withdrew from the edge, as Turner suggested, then all they’d have to worry about would be mortars and the VC charging up the path to the south. He sighed. Hope you’ll be proud of us, Sarge.

  Chapter 48

  T

  he men spread about ten yards apart and crawled into place. Each soldier who still carried a grenade pulled it out. Casper spread his hands wide, then closed them into a fist. The men responded with the same motion. In another second, Casper raised his fist to shoulder level and thrust it forward three times. The men threw the grenades and commenced firing.

  Bankston targeted the two mortar men. The rest fired into a cluster of men who appeared to be giving commands.

  The Vietnamese soldiers scrambled for cover, and within seconds returned fire. A wall of bullets concentrated toward the hill made the seven American soldiers hug the earth as they scooted back from the hill’s edge. The noise was deafening. It seemed every NVA who’d dispersed to the jungle had reappeared to shoot at them.

  Casper motioned his fighters to continue edging backward as the bullets tore trees and foliage to shreds. He pointed south of the hill. The men crawled in the direction of the area where the enemy would attack if they tried taking the hill.

  Seconds after the initial barrage, Casper heard the American M-16s, 50- and 60-caliber machine guns, and grenades exploding. The firing toward the hill stopped as the staccato speech of one of their leaders gave instruction.

  Casper wished he’d paid more attention in language class. Minutes later, mortar shells dropped amid the NVAs’ position. The seven dug in even more as a shell hit the side of the hill. The howitzers boomed as those shells fell perilously close to the soldiers on the hill. Shortly after, the drone of helicopters could be heard as their guns opened fire on the enemy.

  Casper sweated, waiting for an assault on their hill, but it never happened. Maybe they thought they had taken us out when there was no return fire, Casper thought. Or maybe they had to concentrate on the superior firepower of the soldiers they’d tried to ambush. Either was good for him.

  The fighting lasted three hours as the seven soldiers lay waiting and watching. In the distance, Casper watched helicopters filled with troops sink below the tree line to deposit the replacements, then rise with men who were probably wounded or dead.

  During a lull, Casper peeked downward to a creek and a trail littered with dead khaki-and-green–clad bodies his men had killed. In time, the sound of shooting became sporadic.

  “What now?” Warfield asked no one in particular.

  The men continued to watch the path for any enemy.

  A Huey, flying higher than typical, hovered over the battleground, then flew over the creek bed. Casper, Bankston, and Warfield waved excitedly as the helicopter flew past them, then turned and flew over them again.

  In another forty minute
s, an assault squad of American soldiers entered the area below the hill, looking up. The men on the hill waved again as the men below cautiously waved back.

  “Who the hell are you guys?” Lieutenant Dillard Maynard asked.

  “We’re from the 25th, sir,” Casper answered.

  “25th what? What battalion? What company?”

  “Division headquarters, sir.”

  The lieutenant’s head tilted as he looked at each of the men. “Headquarters? How the hell did you get out here? Where’d you come from?”

  “Cambodia, sir,” Turner answered.

  “What the hell?”

  “Yes, sir,” Robinson affirmed.

  The answers seemed beyond the lieutenant’s comprehension, so he changed the subject. “You responsible for them?” he asked, pointing to the dead NVA along the creek.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you’re the ones who saved our asses.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The lieutenant called to his RTO. “Reese. Call in a chopper to take these men back to base, then call Captain Valentine to tell him what we found.”

  “We going back, too, sir?” a rifleman asked.

  “Yeah, but they get their own chopper.”

  Part III

  Chapter 49

  O

  ctober 23, 1969

  The call from Terrence Means in New York was unexpected.

  “I got some good news.”

  “Shoot! I mean what?” Anthony Andrews chuckled.

  Means laughed, too. “I got a call from Marcus Glover. I didn’t even know he was in the city. He got busted for attempted homicide in Cleveland, but got released after they found it was self-defense.”

  “How’d he find you?”

  “He’s got some relatives here. He found I was active with the Panthers because he’d met a couple of our guys in the joint. One of ’em put him in touch with my dude, Foster, and Foster called me.”