by Larry Hunt
KW6798: “RECEIVED AND UNDERSTOOD WILL COMPLY WOULD YOU QLS (can you send me a contact card)
(Ham operations exchange QLS cards when making contact with other Hams all over the world. It is sort of a trophy to make hard and distant contacts – hence the request for her card.)
“QLS? Is he kidding? Oh, yeah I’ll just put one in a bottle and throw it into our little monsoon swollen river!!”
“QLS shit! Forget it! Very professional Tinker but why 1500 hours tomorrow?” questioned Sarge.
‘Sarge, we are six hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, that is 0900 to us. Those Embassy people don’t get moving until after their second cup of coffee!”
“Right, Tinker, good thinking," Sarge surmised. “Damn, the Special Forces has got to start taking women like you Tinker!”
* * * * *
The big hand on Sarge’s watch was pointing at twelve and the little hand at two (0200 am). “Damn we’ve almost shot this whole night, but ‘good things come to those who wait,’ right Tinker? Let’s try to get a little shut-eye before sunup. Listen up! No one sleep on the ground outside. Find a ‘comfortable’ spot on our ‘yacht’. There’s too many creepy, crawler, no-shoulders (snakes) outside; you’re all that is left of my team. Can’t afford to loose any of you guys!
The little ugly I am especially worried about is the one called ‘The Seven Pacer’ or ‘Russell’s Viper’, it prefers open grassy areas similar to this – it is not fond of the swamps or water – it hunts it prey, mostly rats, mice or squirrels, at night. Well… now that’s got your attention, see you come sunup.”
Tinker trying to climb upon the boat with Spook asked, “Why do you suppose they call it a ‘Seven Pacer’?”
Spook extending his hand and helping her up on the deck replied, “Seven steps after your bitten and you’re buzzard meat!”
This really alarmed Tinker. “Is it really that bad?” she said.
“Well” said Spook “I’ve heard locals in areas where these snakes live, such as where we are now, say if you get bitten on the hand, to live, you must immediately amputate you arm at the elbow.”
Tinker replied, “Well if it kills you in seven steps how can you get to a doctor fast enough to get him to amputate the arm?”
“Oh, no, the amputation is done right there on the spot with a large machete knife!”
Tinker answered with a groan and followed, “Do you mind if I sleep close to you tonight Spook?”
Spook looking toward the heavens, quietly said to himself, ‘Thank you Sarge!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
RESCUE INSTRUCTIONS RECEIVED
During what was left of the night, a large but fast moving thunderstorm gave them a good soaking, but with the morning sunrise the rain had moved on.
The twilight of early morning was just breaking when Sarge quietly walked to the Minnow’s bow and looked upriver. The river was obscured in dense fog, he guessed about four or five feet thick floating gently above the water. Reminded him of a large grey cotton blanket. It was peaceful and tranquil – he fired up a Winston, wished he had a ‘stogie’ and surveyed all that was around.
He thought to himself, ‘what a beautiful land, a shame war has to ravage its beauty’. Pulling a drag on his Winston and letting its smoke drift out and disappear into the damp morning fog he remembered the quote by Douglas McArthur, “Only the dead know the end of war.” ‘How true, how true,’ he thought.
Slipping the ruck’ off his back he felt the need to take out the now dried blood encrusted Bible. Turning to the 1st Chapter of Genesis he read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth….” Farther down he continued, “ And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold. It was very good.”‘
”Damn right!! He said out loud. “ Right on God! This ol’ Earth IS good!! It’s just filled up with bad people!”
‘Time to rouse (German for get up) the others,’ he thought returning the Bible to his ruck’.
Tucked up against the front of the bridge house lay Spook and Tinker. Spook had his arm thrown over her side and they were snuggled close.
As Sarge stood there watching their rhythmic breathing imagining this wars end and the two of them somewhere out of this hellhole living in a brick bungalow with a freshly cut yard. And, oh yeah, a hedge that has to be constantly trimmed; somewhere out in the ‘burgs with two or three little rug-rats running around playing tag in the yard.
‘Is this wishful thinking, not reality... yeah?’ he thought – ‘the chance of all of us getting out of here alive is pretty slim.’
And lying on the port side of the bridge was his only son, Little ‘S’, sleeping soundly as always, using his ruck’ as his pillow as always, his poncho covering him from the elements. He was a Special Forces Army Captain but he was still his ‘little boy’.
‘What was to be his future? Would he survive this war? Can I get him home safely? Was there to be a girl in his future? Marriage?’ Sarge thought just briefly, ‘grandkids, can I see myself as a Grandpa?’
Almost like the fog gently drifting across the river another quote drifted into his mind. A passage from Robert E. Lee in a letter to his wife: “What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.”
He next remembered the message he was carrying in his ruck’ “1st Section, Book 26, Chapter 1, Paragraphs 5-26”. ‘What can that mean? And the ‘Z’ on the Bible – what’s all that about? They must be connected somehow, but how?’ He pondered these two items over and over in his mind trying to make some sense out of them but it was useless, he didn’t have a clue.
He quickly dismissed these mental muses and returned to the real world. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauties we’re burning daylight,” he said giving Little ‘S’ a kick with one of his number 12s. Walking around to the front of the PBR cabin he stirred the two lovebirds awake. “Up and at’em, and I don’t mean each other!” he said to them.
Sarge stepped from their ‘yacht’ down to the cool, damp, debris strewn river bank and walked a couple steps, knelt down and started a fire with a piece of C4. One of the C4 sticks of explosive that Little ‘S’ placed on the power plant generator did not ignite during Armageddon. He didn’t know why, wasn’t even going to think about it, just glad he found it. Now they were going to have a hot breakfast with steaming hot coffee.
In a matter of minutes the C4 had the coffee boiling and the eye-opening aroma was permeating the air. Its smell did not go un-noticed, the others were scrambling off the boat looking for their canteen cups!
The B-1, B-2 and B-3 cans of the main ‘entrées’ were in a steel helmet full of steaming hot water. “Get it while it’s hot, breakfast is whatever you fish out of that steel pot over there,” Sarge said pointing in the direction of the second fire with the helmet being used as a cooking utensil.
“We’ve got a big morning today! At oh nine hundred (9 am) we MUST have that radio fired up and running – Tinker that will be your responsibility. Little ‘S’ I want you to put a fresh battery on the radio before Tinkers 0900 rendezvous with the Embassy.”
Little ‘S’ took this opportunity to say to Spook, “I have been giving a lot of thought about Tinkers comment about our lowest 2200 kHz frequency, maybe a little lower after you and I fiddled with it. The highest kHz that their Radio Frequency Finder (RFF) will reach is approximately 1750 kHz; but one thing that’s in our favor is their RFFs will not have any other radios broadcasting in this vicinity that might compete with their RFF’s needle’s ability, to discern our direction. So I’m thinking Spook that if we increased the output or ‘footprint’ of our radio antenna it might give the search plane a bigger ‘picture’ to look for. What do you think Spook?”
“Heck what do I know? I only have a PhD in this stuff! I’ll try anything now, whatever you suggest Little ‘S’!”
“What I’m thinking is we need to extend our antenna – stretch a piece of wire say from the bridge of the Minnow across to that piece of tree still standing over there (pointing with his finger).
From there we’ll have to find a limb, pole or big stick to attach it to somewhere in that area (again pointing), then back here to Tinker at the radio.
When we find out that the rescue plane is in our general vicinity we will tape the CW key down and the radio will transmit a continuous signal, maybe it’s output will be enough to move the directional finding needle in the airplane. What the hell, that’s all I got!”
Spook shaking his head, “Never heard anything like it! But heck, it’s better than I can come up with! Where do we find the antenna wire? And Little ‘S’, we can’t tape the CW key down, we don’t have any tape.”
Sarge had been sitting, sipping his coffee, listening. Without turning to face the two men... not even sitting his canteen cup down he offered his observation, “First strip the wire from our boat, it’s everywhere, lights, horn, motor controls, then pull some of that green tape off the stocks of our M-16s (the SF guys would put pieces of that Army green tape on the stock and upper hand guard of their M-16 to give them a little camouflage look), it should have enough ‘stick’em’ still left on it to hold that key down.”
Spook immediately jumped to his feet and headed toward the ‘yacht’. Little ‘S’ was just a step behind, “I’ll give you a hand.” The two of them stripped enough wire from the boat to build an antenna in just a few minutes.
Spook climbed the same set of steps the 'body' used in the attempt to kill Tinker, tied off one end of the wire to the bridge (which was easy, all he had to do was stick the wire through two of the .50 cal bullet holes - go in through one hole and come out through another, then simply wrap the wires together).
From the bridge they strung the wire to the little sliver of tree trunk that the ‘atomic bomb’ had not completely obliterated; in the meantime, Little ‘S’ jumped back aboard their boat and retrieved the docking pole. The same pole that the ‘body’ tried to use on Tinker before he developed a splitting headache.
The ‘body’ was trying to give this docking pole to Tinker - now in a roundabout way she is going to get it, but she’s really going to make good use of it now.
He passed the pole from the deck to Spook waiting on the ground – Spook found a hole where a support beam for the powerhouse was once buried and used it to hold the docking pole. He then strung the wire from the pole back to Tinker at the radio.
After attaching the antenna Spook instructed, “You’re good to go!”
Sarge glanced as his watch – 0845. “Okay folks, show time!” Everyone again ganged around Tinker; however, this time she was so nervous and so anticipatory of the 0900 deadline; see did not even notice them.
The time passed very slow - really, really slow.
They all had the feeling that time had stopped! Of course, it had not and the minute hand continued to creep sluggishly upwards to the much-anticipated 0900 appointment.
Tinker asked for a pad and pencil.
At exactly 0900, right on the top of the hour, the static on the radio became a clear series of “dots” and “dashes”. Tinker grabbed the pad and pencil and started writing:
“HS1SAD BV2CTT COME BACK”
Spook yelled: “That’s my guy!! That’s not the Embassy!”
Tinker motioned for Spook to hush, she keyed: “BV2CTT”
HS1SAD: “BV2CTT USE SAD 21 10-4” (CIA to Tinker use Code SAD 21, understand?)
“Tinker’ keyed: “10-4” (not having any idea what they meant).
HS1SAD started keying: “SAB CAD AEF NER LKH BJT KBE ALC HBN STI PAJ ADJ JHZ HIK HHH PJD NER CFL AJB 153 HRN J” (CIA sending real code in Morse Code)
The CW transmission went dead – Tinker thought, ‘What the...?’ She tried, repeatedly, to confirm the message from the sender but she got no return answer.
* * * * *
Spook without being diplomatic, grabbed the notepad from Tinker’s hand. “Sorry" he said, turned and pulled a small notebook from his pocket. “SAD 21 they said? Okay... okay... let me find this code in the code book. Oh, here it is, SAD 21…SAD 21, use SAD Code 2 and shift 1 – okay… okay... let me see…”. Spook’s mumbling and talking were not directed to anyone in particular, he was nervously talking to himself.
"Settle down Spook... settle down... you've got plenty of time," Sarge quietly said trying to calm Spook's nerves.
Looking at Tinkers’ notes Spook started decoding the actual code into words: after a few minutes he turned to the others and held the notebook up and said, “Ready? Here goes –“SENDING FLOAT PLANE FROM PHUKET EST TO YOU 1000K USING RFF ETA 2100 GMT." Then he explained message: My guys, the CIA, are sending a float plane from Phuket, Thailand, estimated distance to us is 1000 kilometers. The plane will be equipped with a Radio Frequency Finder. Expect time of arrival at 2100 GMT or 9 pm.”
Sarge and Little ‘S’ both looked at their watches simultaneously – “2100 hrs,” Sarge declared, “that's 9 pm tonight, but we are 6 hours east of Greenwich, England so, that means they should be here around 1500 hrs (3 pm) this afternoon.
Good, float plane, you say Spook? Wonder how big? River is wide enough, barely, but that bend upriver won’t give the pilot much room to land – he’ll have to come in over those tall trees and hit the water pretty fast to get slowed down before getting to our sunken boat.
A floatplane don’t have any brakes! If he can’t get stopped in time, a wing might put another dent in our ‘yacht’.” The others chuckled and snickered.
“Since the plane is one of ours I believe I can shed a little light on the aircraft that will be coming. I’m guessing it will be an Amphibious DeHavilland Mk I Beaver. It will seat, beside the pilot, ten or twelve passengers in a pinch. Load capacity is probably 6000 lbs… ”
“Whoa, Spook you haven’t mentioned the most important part!” Sarge asked.
“Yeah, I know, kinda wanted to leave that for last – thought I could give you all the good news first, so to speak.”
“Spook I’m not liking this, not one little bit. What in the hell is Pop talking about? You two know something, don’t you?” Little “S’ was on his feet right in Spooks face. “Tell us!”
“Well! Okay, the DeHavilland has a flight range of approximately 600 miles, that’s about the distance from Phuket, Thailand to us. That's assuming as the crow flies, and the crow does not have to expend gas searching to find us.”
Tinker asked, “You mean he won’t have enough fuel to get here?”
“No,” replied Spook they have a way to add reserve tanks but the DeHavilland gets 3 miles per gallon. Starting with a full tank, it’s approximately, well it is a little less than 200 gallons, but let’s use the figure 200 anyway, for now. So 200 x 3 mpg equals enough fuel to get here straight line. You know that ol’ crow flapping its wings straight line of flight thing. Add another 40 gallon reserve tank and he’ll get another 120 miles, maybe by then he will have found us.”
Tinker chimed back in, “Well that’s good isn’t it? The plane can find us? Right?”
* * * * *
Spook looking down at the ground not wanting to see the expression on ‘Tinkers’ face when he said, “Yeah, he can get here probably but... but...
"But... but... my ass Sarge! What are you NOT saying? Tinker asked.
"He won’t have enough fuel to fly us back out.
"Whoa!" Tinker replied, "If he can't fly us back out of this hell-hole why would they send him?"
"I’m just guessing, but I’m thinking they must think we have a fuel supply so he can top off his tanks once he lands.”
Sarge said disgustedly, “We have plenty in the boat, but it’s not aviation gasoline, it’s diesel! And even before she could ask Sarge said, “No Tinker diesel won’t work.”
The mood turned at once from excitement and enthusiasm to one of dismay and frustration. They
were all thinking the same thing – why can’t we ever get a break?
Sarge slowly walked off down toward the river, hands in pocket, kicking at the grass with his jungle boots, mumblings something meaningless; Little ‘S’ stood with Spook going over the calculations once again both hoping Spook had somehow miscalculated.
Tinker sat on her little barrel and stared at the little green military radio, especially that card inside the case - she kept reading it over and over: AN/PRC 64, AN/PRC 64, AN/PRC 64 hoping the static would change to code but of course it did not. But something in her head kept bothering her, she turned to Spook and asked, “That airplane you are talking about, the one using gasoline, what if it doesn’t?”
“What do you mean, ‘doesn’t’ – they use gasoline, Tinker, how else would they fly? Rubber bands?” Spook said with a frustrated tone.
“Jet fuel, you know, kerosene!” said Tinker
Jumping into this discussion, Sarge excitedly answered, “Damn Tinker! You’re right – it could be a turbo-prop. Turbos DO use kerosene or JP-4. Diesel is nothing but another grade of kerosene. K-1 Kerosene, #1 Diesel and Jet Fuel (JP4) are all very much similar fuels.
We may get off of the water yet! Tinker if you will forget about Spook, I think I love you!!!! Spook what’s the wingspan on the DeHavilland?”
“Don’t know for sure Sarge around 50 feet I’m guessing, why?”
“We’re cutting everything pretty close; the landing, being able to stop, wingspan, type of fuel, takeoff if we are able and clearance of those tall trees at the bend up there (pointing toward the turn in the river). He’ll have to land downstream, the overhanging branches on the river south of the ‘Minnow’ will not give enough wing clearance to land north into the current.” Sarge said shaking his head. “Damn those tall trees! Fully loaded I don’t know if we can clear them or not.”
“Pop, you seem to be really worried, your actually think we might not be able to get the plane into the air and miss those trees don’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m worried about them, but we’ll also fighting a fast flowing turbulent, monsoon swollen river filled with debris of every description that will be meetin’ us head-on and a pilot that may not be experienced enough to take on such a task.