The P.H.O.T.O. (VOL 2) The Saga Continues

by Larry Hunt

  Sarge looked back toward the river, shaking his closed fist in the air and yelling at the top of his lungs, “You son-of-a-bitch. You dog! You can’t even do the job yourself...! You have to send this kid… this beautiful young lad with his whole wonderful life all before him, to die this day for you, huh? You’re a coward Colonel Nikita Ergorov. You’re a Blue Beret Russki coward! You ‘Thumper’ coward! You... you... hell to you! You’re a f***ing damn coward!!! (Sarge had run out of expletives to call the Russian Colonel) If you were here right now I’d choke you to death with my one good arm, as God is my witness. Someday somewhere you are going to be mine!”

  “Be quite Big ‘S’! Get over here and sit down I found your aid bag and I’m going to bandage your shoulder. Just tell me what I need from it and what to do,” ‘Tinker said.

  Sarge staggered over to the ‘Minnow’ and flopped down followed closely by Tinker and she began the medic lesson: “Open up that big flap on top and take out a couple of the 4”x4” field dressings, one of the 4” Ace bandages and a roll of the 2” adhesive tape. Open the flap containing the drugs and get a bottle called ‘Mercaine” and a bag of Sodium Chloride. Unsnap the right side pocket and get a tube of antibiotic ointment out and some of those Iodine Tincture swabs. On the left is a pocket that has some suture thread and needle. Get it too and grab the 10cc syringe and a 21 gauge needle.” Tinker obeyed immediately.

  “Now Tinker help me get my fatigue shirt off…yeah, that’s good… now take that bag of saline and wash all the blood clots, dirt and any other junk out of this hole in my shoulder.”

  Tinker could not obey. Sarge’s shirt was removed and she stood transfixed on the large ‘S’ scar on his chest. This was the first time she had seen Sarge shirtless.

  "My... my... my goodness Big 'S' I though you and Little 'S' had your nicknames because of your Scarburg names... but this..." Pointing at his chest. "Who in the hell did this?"

  "Long story Tinker. I'll tell you about it later. Get Little 'S' to show you his."

  "What...! You got one too Little 'S'?"

  "No... well yeah..." laughing he said to Tinker. "Show me yours and I show you mine! Seriously tho' let's fix Pop up and you literally 'get off my chest'!!"

  "I had an idea you two were crazy, now I'm sure of it! I'm leaving this chest thing along! I’ll just wash that shrapnel hole clean and mind my own business!”

  “Good idea... now hand me my canteen… no… no… not that one it has water in it… the other one.”

  Tinker did as Sarge instructed but as she unscrewed the green plastic canteen lid she held it up to her nose… “Damn Big ‘S’ that’s not water…! That’s booze!”

  “Careful Tinker that ain’t ‘booze’ that’s Lynchburg, Tennessee’s finest 90 proof Jack Daniel’s corn whiskey! Pour some of it on this hole – careful don’t waste none – then take the swabs and clean around this bloody mess pretty good. But Tinker don’t let me catch you sneaking a snort of my ‘snake medicine’," he said forcing a smile.

  “Wow,” Sarge said winching in pain, as Tinker followed his instruction, “it’s sure better going down the hole in my throat than being poured in that hole cut in my shoulder.”

  “Cut hell! I could drive a Mack truck through that gash,” she answered.

  “Oh, I’ve had worse hurts than this on my eyeball. Come on, let’s get on with it! Now draw out about 1cc of the Mercaine and pop about ½ of it above and ½ below the hole. Good, that’s good now give it a minute to work.” They waited patiently for a couple of minutes then Sarge continued. “Now squirt some of that ointment in there and use that suture to close the gash.”

  “Wait a minute Big ‘S’ I don’t know…”

  “Oh come on Tinker you can do this – take that needle and suture, pull the skin together…that’s the way… now take that curved needle go in at the top and come out at the bottom, apply a little tension and close the skin... okay now you got the hang of it...hmmm (Sarge winched a bit)”. Breathing hard Sarge said, “use a continuous stitch it’ll be fine. I’m not worried about a scar!” Tinker although trembling and nervous accomplished closing the wound and tying the suture.

  Sarge, with sweat rolling off his face, complimented Tinker. “That’s fine… you (slight moan) did a fine job. Now apply a lot of the antibiotic ointment to one of those 4”x4” gauze bandages and place it and the other one on top of my cut and tape them down real good and wrap the shoulder with that Ace bandage. When she finished Sarge said to her, “Fine, that’s good… thanks Tinker you might have done well to have stayed in the medical profession.”

  “Damn Big ‘S’ you act like this is just an simple affair! Like no more than removing a splinter from your finger!”

  “Tinker’ wait until you have to sew yourself up. Doing it alone lying in a wet, bloody, pest infected hole in some un-named jungle with shells and bullets flying all around. You’ll find out this IS just a simple affair!

  “You’ve done that Sarge, haven’t you?”

  Without answering. “Thanks again, now lets get back to work. Oh... forgot.... doctors orders – give me a swig of my medicine from that last canteen!”

  * * * * *

  They did not have time to dwell on the demise of the Russian – obviously sent by the Colonel, or the recent surgical procedure. They were still brushing the dirt from themselves when once again a rumbling sound was heard back toward the direction the ‘Fritz’ came from earlier. “Yep," said Sarge, “looks like we have another visitor!”

  Little ‘S’ yelled as he ran to retrieve his weapon. “Damn… well I guess it’s back in the grave again. Spook get your M-16, at least this time we’re going to let him know we’re still here. Grab Pop’s too.”

  The sound was getting louder – just as before – they knew what to expect this time. It was another airplane, but whose, theirs or ours? They didn’t have time to give it much thought since the rumbling noise of the engine was just over the southwestern horizon. It was only a couple of minutes out and soon their question would be answered.

  It came into view, they could see it plainly, it was… no... !! No!! It can’t be!!

  “Thank you God, again!” It wasn’t Russian – it was a beautiful blue and silver single engine DeHavilland, equipped with pontoons.

  On its nose was painted this wonderful armored knight astride a charging white steed. The knight held a long lance in his arm with a flag waving in the breeze displaying the word KNIGHT. It flew almost directly overhead and continued on its northeast path of flight. “What’s happening?” someone asked.

  “Where is he going?” another chimed in. Tinker made her hand into a fist and shook it as the plane disappeared over the trees, “Damn you!! Damn you!! You HAD to have seen us – we’re right here! The fire’s still putting out lots of black smoke!” As the plane’s roar disappeared off into the distance Sarge was bewildered also. ‘Why? What was his purpose, surely he saw our signal fire!’ Suddenly the pitch of the plane’s engine changed, it was turning in a large semi-circle and heading back. “Now that’s the kind of response I wanted to see,” said Sarge gleaming.

  This time the plane was coming from the northeast on a path heading toward the southwest and it flew right over them again – seemingly not seeing or recognizing them. “What, this can’t be” said Sarge. Just as their glee and enthusiasm was about to fade the plane dipped one wing and then the other. Sarge was aware this was the International Recognition signal. “He saw us, he saw us,” was all Sarge could utter.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE SHINING KNIGHT ARRIVES

  After the wing dipping the big sliver and blue bird began turning in a huge wide semi-circle heading north then swinging to the east and a final turn south to made a direct course toward their river, which appeared to be its final destination.

  Sarge yelled, “This is it, he’s coming in!” The plane, hidden by the trees at the bend of the river, suddenly appeared over the treetops. It passed ever so close to the last tall tree one of the pon
toons slightly brushed the uppermost leaves. No harm no foul; the big bird continued its perilous descent.

  Everyone expected to see the plane slowly come gliding over the trees gently settle down and make a smooth soft landing on the flooded river - not true - as the rear of the pontoons cleared the final tree the pilot nosed the plane down – it fell out of the sky like a rock, hitting the swift flowing river hard, so hard, in fact, the pontoons cascaded the foam, water and flotsam high into the air. So high the huge propeller whipped the water into a fog-like mist that momentarily gave the illusion that the plane was magically emerging from a cloud.

  ‘Was that on purpose?’ they wondered. Landing with the raging flow of the river increased the floatplane’s stopping distance – the pilot needed, on a smooth lake, close to 2000’ to stop; he had to cut this one close. Adding to the pilot’s tense situation, all kinds of trash floated in that water – one inadvertent encounter meant ruin to a hollow pontoon.

  As their beautiful metal means of escape came roaring down the river they stood, with baited breath, hoping the wind and river current would not smash the plane’s wing into the ‘Minnow’. It wasn’t their mutilated craft they were worried about – they needed two good wings to escape from this shit hole called Pac Toul.

  About 50’ out from the assembled group standing on the riverbank, the roar of the mighty engine stopped. The prop turned a couple of more times and ceased rotating. The pilot, dressed in civilian attire, stepped out onto the pontoon with a coil of rope in his hand and yelled, “Grab this line and tie me off.”

  Little ‘S’ caught the line, tied it to one of the steel piling and pulled the rope taut, securing it tightly. The big plane settled into the current following the same path as their ‘Minnow’ – it was turning with the current with it nose pointed upriver and the tail downriver. The pilot tossed another line and requested the tail be secured also, Little ‘S’ and Spook obliged.

  Once the plane was secure the pilot stepped from his pontoon upon the deck of their ‘yacht’. Stretching out his hand to greet Little ‘S’ who was standing the closest, “Hello, I’m Captain Hugo Knight, I’m guessing you guys are OPS 113, right?”

  ‘Right’, thought Sarge, ‘now I get it.’ As he thought about the plants nose art and name.

  While still shaking hands Little ‘S’ said, “We’re damn glad to see you Captain Knight. I am Captain Robert Edward Scarburg, 5th Special Forces. The beautiful lady on my left is Ling Wu of the Peoples Republic of China; this gentleman is the distinguished Dr. Spurgeon Loo Kim. This last gentleman is the commander of Special OPS 113 ‘Photo Search’. May I introduce our one armed Master Sergeant Robert Edward Scarburg, 5th Special Forces.”

  Captain Knight looked puzzled, “I thought you were Robert Edward Scarburg?

  “I am,” said Little ‘S’.

  “Well I’m now more confused than ever,” spoke the pilot.

  “Junior," said Little ‘S’, “Master sergeant Scarburg is Senior.”

  “And don’t you forget it either!” looking at Little “S”. “These young whippersnappers these days!” Sarge laughed while executing a weak hand salute to Captain Knight.

  “Sergeant! Are you okay? You look like you are in pain.”

  “Nah, I’m fine, just a little cut on the shoulder but one question Captain,” Sarge asked grinning, “What would you have said if we had not been OPS 113?”

  “Then I guess landing here would have been wrong not ‘knight’!”

  “I knew I was going to like you,” responded Sarge, grimacing but laughing.

  “Seriously tho’, my RFF needle brought me right to your camp.”

  “Damn, our homemade homing antenna worked!” Sarge said.

  “But one question Captain Scarburg, meaning no disrespect Sergeant Scarburg, why is a Sergeant in command of a Special Forces team and not you Captain, the higher ranked team member?”

  Little ‘S’ answered, “Captain we ARE Special Forces, rank to us is just a title, it is something that will get you killed out here in the boonies if you don’t know what you’re doing. Pop, uh, Sergeant Scarburg is the more experienced man; therefore, he is the commander. In fact, he’s probably the best-qualified man in the 5th Group. In Special Forces this is not unusual, the man who ‘can do' is the man who gets to ‘do’.

  After all the introductions and small-talk Sarge spoke to Captain Knight. “Sir, we understand you have had a long flight and I suppose we are going to try to get out of here at first light tomorrow morning, but we’ve got one question? That sounded and looks like a radial engine, is it? We were hoping for a Turbo. We have plenty of diesel fuel for a Turbo but our tanks are empty if you need gas. Hell, after that ‘atomic bomb’ if we even had a gas pump it would have been blown away too!”

  “Shoot." said the Captain. “Yeah my tanks are dry... I was sucking air as I dropped over those last tall trees...oh, the bomb crater! Yeah couldn’t help but notice it, or the burning wreck. And Sarge, you know your planes. My baby is a DeHavilland U-6A Beaver, 9 cylinders, radial piston R-985 engine delivering 450 Pratt and Whitney horsepower. Most have been converted to Turbo but this is one of the older models, still chugging alone on good ol’ gasoline. The ‘Company’ (slang for CIA) gave it to me to use.”

  Sarge responded, “Glad you didn’t get here earlier Captain or you might have met our burning Russian pile of junk,” pointing toward the LA-9 “Fritz”, “before he decided to attempt a nose down landing.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like a good story for later.”

  “Captain Knight this is our team. Miss Lu is not Special Forces but due to her expertise and considerable contributions to this mission I am adding her name to our official Special Forces Mission Manifest. She will be the first woman ever accorded this honor.”

  “Sergeant, I was under the impression that you had more men, where are they? I was ordered to bring your entire team home.”

  Sarge digging deep down into the lower recesses of his torn, dirty and bedraggled jungle fatigue leg pocket pulled out his accumulation of blood-encrusted dog tags. Clenching them tightly in his fist he held them up to Captain Knight’s face, “You asked where are the others? They’re right here, and damn straight they ARE going home...WITH US! When we started we had 13, 14 counting Miss Lu, the four standing before you is all that are left, the others are right here in my hand.”

  Captain Knight stood speechless – there was no comeback to the Sarge’s statement.

  Sarge, however, broke the silence by saying, “Captain, I don’t know if you have any fuel left. But if you’ve got just enough to get us off this damn river and into the air I suggest we head due north into Thailand. Dr. Kim has contacts up there. We have some Special Forces camps there too, so when the time comes and you run your tanks empty then… then… then hell do whatever you pilots do when you run out of gas. If we’re still alive when we get on ground we will figure something out.

  Sarge speaking again to Captain Knight, “We know you have had a long arduous flight it will be getting dark in a little while, and it wouldn’t surprise me to get another thunderstorm tonight. You are tired and hungry too I suppose. We have a few Cs (C Rations) left. Most of the good ones are gone I’m afraid, but you’re welcome to what we have left. We can rustle you a ruck’ for a pillow and you can bed down on our ‘yacht’. I’m afraid that’s about as good as it gets around here. Can’t sleep on the ground, to many critters slithering about, and we lost our hammocks in the explosion.”

  “Thanks for the offer,” replied Captain Knight, “sounds fine, but first Captain Scarburg would you assist me at the plane?” Crossing the ‘Minnow’s’ deck Captain Knight asked Little ‘S’ to mount the pontoon and reach inside the cabin and remove the two red ice chests.

  The first chest was passed to Captain Knight who warned Captain Scarburg to be careful with the four 55 gallon drums lashed together in the storage compartment. Little ’S’ eyed them cautiously and handed the second red chest to Captain Knight. “Oh, by
the way, reach around one of those barrels and hand me that wire thing-uh-ma-jig.”

  * * * * *

  “By the way to you Captain,” Little ‘S’ asked, “why are you hauling these four heavy ‘Fuel Oil’ drums marked ‘AN3enbHOe TonnbO’ written in Russian?” I would have thought you wanted to be as light as possible?”

  “Oh, them!” answered Captain Knight nonchalantly, “they are nothing… nothing but four barrels of good ol’ 92 octane GASOLINE we need to get us out of here!!! Why do you suppose they call these DeHavilland Beavers trucks? We put the Russian words on them so if found later they cannot be identified as being American.”

  “Pop! Pop! Come here and see what wonderful gifts Captain Knight has brought for us!” Little ‘S” yelled.

  Sarge walked to the side of the boat and looked down at the one red box and quietly said, “Yeah I see it’s a red box, so?”

  Still standing on the pontoon at the plane’s open cargo door Little ‘S’ said, “No dumb ass!! Not the red ice chest, look in here... four 55 gallons of… of… wonderful… gorgeous … GAS... O... LINE. Captain Knight brought his own filling station!” Now that got Sarge’s attention and he was elated.

  After the two men placed the two red boxes on the boat’s deck, Little ‘S’ hurried back to retrieve the metal gizmo for the pilot. He heard Spook and Tinker yelling and dancing around – he knew Sarge had told them about the cache of gasoline.

  Little ‘S’ found the pilot’s metal ‘what-ever-it-was’ and returned as Captain Knight was loosening the latches and opening the lids on the red boxes.

  Little “S” peered over Tinkers shoulder into the first one, “Gosh no! Oh no! This can’t be right! What are you trying to do to us Captain Knight?”

  He could contain his excitement no longer he yelled, “Steaks...!!! Steaks...!!! Wonderful, beautiful fresh T-bone steaks!” Steaks packed in ice. Now he knew the purpose of the pilot’s wire thing, it was a rack for a BBQ grill! He quickly jumped down from the ‘Minnow’ and started picking up pieces of the ‘house’ - concrete chunks, bricks, stones, anything he could use to throw together to construct a makeshift BBQ pit.