Saving Bravo

by Stephan Talty

  The navigator was fading in and out of consciousness. The rescuers began to worry that Hambleton might pass out for good along the riverbank. If he was well hidden and they didn’t get to him soon, he could slip into unconsciousness and die of exposure or dehydration.

  29

  The Sampan

  After a few hours of agonizingly slow progress, Hambleton could hardly pull himself along. His arms were old ropes. He stumbled on, feeling drunk with tiredness. An image of the Mieu Giang did register faintly in his brain; it was lovely in the fading light, “like a smooth but cloudy mirror.”

  The navigator saw something slipping over the surface of the water toward him. Jesus Christ, a snake. His heart pounded painfully in his chest as he watched the thing slither toward him, leaving a dark trail in the water. In his panic, it looked to be fifty or sixty feet long. It was the biggest one he’d ever seen.

  He couldn’t draw attention to himself. Maybe it would just move on past him. Hambleton watched the snake fearfully, “wondering what I would do when we were eyeball to eyeball.” Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He slapped his hand on the surface of the water. The snake immediately veered away. As he watched it go, Hambleton spotted a second one coming at him from behind. He hit the water again and the thing darted away.

  Had they been apparitions, creatures from deep in his subconscious? He couldn’t be sure, but he was shaken. Had he entered some kind of breeding ground for the goddamn things? Was he going to have to fight snakes all the way to his rescue team? He couldn’t bear to think of it.

  In his rare moments of lucidity, Hambleton was increasingly anxious. “A fear came over me that maybe they didn’t know where I was . . . Maybe they had misunderstood some of my directions.” He obsessed over the idea that they were looking in a completely different section of the river from where he actually was. “Frantically,” he called the FAC and asked if he was absolutely positive the rescue team knew where he was.

  “Everything is fine,” the voice told him.

  Hambleton asked how he would be able to identify his rescuers.

  The FAC told him to call out with his rank—lieutenant colonel—and his favorite color. If the individuals responded with a different color, it was his rescue team.

  He couldn’t feel anything below his knees. He had to stop. Hambleton pushed to the shore and found a place underneath the tree cover. He looked down. The skin on his hands was pushed into pale ridges from being in the water; they were the color of a fish belly. But his feet were in worse shape, completely without sensation. He took off his boots and socks and tried to massage some life into them, but he had little strength left. Exhaustion was lapping at his mind like a tide. He sprawled back on the ground and fell asleep instantly.

  Thick clouds covered the moon that night as Norris and Kiet, disguised as local villagers in long dark shirts, slipped down to the riverbank. They began walking upriver, following the wandering course of the Mieu Giang to an abandoned village they’d spotted the night before. When they reached the outskirts, they squatted down and studied the huts. Everything was dark; there were no fires burning, no flashlights, no movement at all.

  Convinced the huts were empty, the two men waded into the water and felt under the surface until they found a bunch of sampans that had been intentionally sunk in the river. (The villagers did this so the canoes’ reeds wouldn’t dry out.) After pulling up several of the boats, they finally found one that looked to be in good shape. They hauled it out of the river and dumped the water out. Then they got in one by one with their paddles and laid in the radio, medical supplies, canteens, compass, and AK-47s, along with extra ammo cartridges.

  The men sat cross-legged on the bottom of the boat and began paddling toward a thatch of thick vines hanging over the riverbank. They swept under the foliage, then pushed ahead, their paddles making small splashing noises. As the pair pulled the oars through the water, they were looking ahead for the next section of brush; they crossed the river several times to take advantage of the overhang.

  Enemy soldiers were walking along both banks, scanning the shore and the nearby fields. Norris saw others talking, cooking, and relaxing. No one stopped the boat or called for it to stop; at a glance, they would look like villagers returning home after a long day of fishing.

  The problem of the split river reappeared. There were channels cut into the Mieu Giang, separated by sandbars, and it was difficult to tell in the darkness which one was the main tributary. At one point, the two men struck out on a broad stretch of river but soon found they’d chosen badly. It brought them only to a leafy shore; there was no way forward. Hidden underneath a bunch of the foliage, Norris pulled out his map and studied it by penlight, the circle of white shining on the rubber. Then he got on the radio and asked the FAC to find them and tell them where to go. When he was confident he knew where they were headed, the two men moved out again.

  An hour into the journey, Norris and Kiet found themselves enveloped in mist. A fog bank had come sliding down the river. The mist hid them from the patrolling soldiers along both banks, but it confused Norris’s sense of his location even further. Again, the pair moved up a branch of the Mieu Giang, only to find themselves stranded. They paddled back and tried another stream and finally hit on the main tributary.

  The fog swirled around Norris and Kiet, opening to reveal sudden glimpses of the landscape. At one point the mist parted and Kiet spotted several NVA soldiers in a bunker on the north side of the river. They were asleep. Sounds drifted by. Men talking in Vietnamese, the tramp of marching soldiers, the snap of wood fires. All at once, Norris heard tank engines revving loudly in the mist. “It was like pulling into a bus station,” he said. What on earth was out there? He peered ahead, but the fog was too opaque to make out anything. Finally, after a few minutes, the mist thinned and Norris saw a row of tanks lined up to be refueled. He and Kiet quietly paddled toward the other side of the river and kept going.

  Hours passed as the two men ducked and hauled their way up the river. Finally, they reached the spot on the map where Norris believed Hambleton was hiding. The sampan moved slowly along the south shore. It was difficult to pick out details on the bank: in the fog, trees and rocks looked like men crouched over or lying on the ground.

  As Norris and Kiet watched the water, the fog parted and then swept downstream. The sampan was suddenly in the clear. Norris looked up and spotted the Cam Lo bridge just a few yards away. NVA soldiers marched across, their eyes pointed forward. Norris and Kiet eased away from the crowded bridge, turned, and headed downstream. In the fog, they’d passed the unconscious Hambleton.

  Hambleton was back in the water, barely moving. Something loomed up ahead. It looked like a hill emerging out of the water’s surface. The navigator stared at the mound with growing dismay. How was he going to climb that hill in the middle of the river? He was far too weak; climbing anything was out of the question. He would have to get out of the river and call the FAC and tell the voice that he was done, that he could go no farther and they would have to look by the hill and come get him.

  But wait a minute. Could hills grow out of rivers? The water didn’t curve around the dark shape he was seeing. Instead, it seemed to flow right up its slope to the top and then topple over the summit. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Hambleton felt his tenuous grip on reality slipping further.

  He thought he heard someone speaking. “There can’t be a hill there.” It was his own voice. “Get back on track,” it said.

  He took a few more steps, but the hill stubbornly remained. He decided he would leave the river and rest for a while. Perhaps the hill would go away. He clambered out of the water and lay on the bank, closing his eyes. He was almost afraid to open them again. If he looked downstream and the large mound of earth or whatever it was still stood in front of him, what would he do? He couldn’t arrive at a plan of action.

  Finally, he opened his eyes and pushed himself up on one elbow. He turned and glanced nervously downstr
eam. The hill had disappeared. It had been a hallucination. He was almost giddy with relief.

  His flight suit reeked. It was covered with mud, and more of the foul-smelling stuff stuck to him as he crawled back to the water. He lurched forward, holding on to the railroad tie. But after thirty minutes, he had to stop. If he went any farther, he was afraid he wouldn’t have the power to get out of the water.

  He pulled himself out and lay on the bank. He brought the radio up to his mouth. The FAC asked him how he was feeling. “Very weak,” he said. The FAC told him he was doing beautifully, that he was on hole 16. If he could just manage two more, he would be close to home.

  “I’ll try,” he said. “But can they be short ones?”

  He thought: Two more and I’m done. Just two. He got back in the water and staggered on. After an hour, he spotted a little sandy beach that sloped up gently from the river. He got to it and rolled out of the water. Then he crawled on his hands and knees toward some foliage.

  The FAC promised him that he was doing well. Just one more hole.

  It was about 3:30 a.m. He told the voice that he would do his best, but he doubted he could go any farther. He picked himself up and walked toward the wooden tie. But his foot caught a rock and he tumbled to the ground.

  Could he keep on going? He had an image in his mind of himself wading through the current and falling in the river and sinking unconscious into the water, then drowning there. He didn’t want to die like that, not after coming all this way.

  He turned and crawled back to the bushes. “I just don’t know if I can play another hole,” he told the FAC. The voice told him to hold on, he would get right back to him.

  For forty minutes, Hambleton lay under the foliage. Finally, he heard the voice of the FAC calling him. He picked up the heavy radio and listened. The voice told him that he had to go on. The next part was very short. His “playing partner” would join him soon. Couldn’t he just get back in the water and wait?

  Hambleton asked how long before this playing partner showed up. “Not long now.” A few minutes.

  The navigator took a few breaths, trying to animate his muscles with just enough energy to get him into position. Then he began to crawl. He could see the sky starting to lighten. Day was coming.

  He got to the river and sat by the bank. He wouldn’t move; he would just wait here as instructed. The minutes rolled by and his mind blinked on and off. The color of the sky changed from blue-black to pewter. He listened for the sound of his rescuers but heard nothing.

  There was a bend in the river just ahead of him and he watched it closely. It was about 5 a.m. Dawn was approaching. He peered through his mud-smeared glasses.

  He thought he spotted something moving. He took off his glasses and looked. There was something poking out from beneath the overhanging branches. It was a sampan, occupied by two figures. Hambleton was about to yell, but the thought crossed his mind: What if it’s just some Vietnamese fishermen? What if he gave himself away at the very end of his long journey?

  His throat had gone dry, whether from excitement or mere thirst he couldn’t tell. He wanted to get a look at the men in the sampan. He peered at the front of the boat as it emerged a little more from the foliage but he was immediately disappointed. It was a Vietnamese face, probably just a villager trawling the river. “My spirits sank to a new low.”

  At almost the same time Kiet saw Hambleton. “Tom,” he said quietly and pointed. Norris quickly spied the survivor up ahead. Hambleton continued to watch the craft from about forty feet away. The sampan was behaving strangely, paralleling the shore at ten feet or so, barely advancing in the current. It drifted closer toward him and he caught a glimpse of the second man. Hambleton was astonished. The man’s skin was white. How was that possible? Hambleton wanted to “jump up and down and holler and yell,” but he still wasn’t sure these were his deliverers. His body was shaking with excitement, his heart beating wildly.

  The sampan came closer. Fifteen feet, ten. Hambleton stared intently at the second man. His skin was pale white and he had round eyes. The navigator felt relief flood through him. The sight was “the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.”

  Finally, Hambleton decided he had to signal the men. He moistened his lips and called out, his voice hoarse, “Lieutenant colonel. Red.”

  “White,” the second man said immediately. The two men put their paddles in the water and the boat stopped moving.

  The sampan pulled closer and Tommy Norris said quietly, “Colonel Hambleton, get your ass in here.”

  30

  Journey’s End

  The navigator was too weak to climb into the boat. The two men reached over, gripped his flight suit, pulled him across the sampan’s edge, and lowered him onto the bottom. Hambleton was shaking from the cold. Norris told him his name and Kiet smiled at him. “Colonel,” he said. The sea commando, like Norris, was overjoyed to have found the navigator. “It was like diving to the bottom of the sea and finding gold.”

  Norris crouched over Hambleton’s body, checking him for wounds. He looked at the infected finger. The puffed-up flesh was oozing pus and Norris thought it might be gangrenous. Hambleton was little help. He was delirious, mumbling to people and things that weren’t there. They had gotten to him as the man was spending his last reserves.

  Daylight was approaching. Norris brought out a survival vest and pulled Hambleton’s arms through it. In case they capsized, at least he wouldn’t drown. Norris debated what to do next. Should they try to outrun the daylight and make it past the patrols and outposts, or should they hole up and wait for darkness? The foliage was thick. If they decided to hide, they would probably be safe for twelve or fourteen hours. But he gave it only a few seconds’ thought. Hambleton couldn’t wait for medical attention. He might die right there in the sampan.

  Norris signaled to Kiet that they would take the chance and head downriver. The Vietnamese commando brought out his knife and sliced fronds from the foliage hanging over the water, then draped them across Hambleton’s body. As he did this, Norris called the FAC on the radio and, using their prearranged code, told the man that they had Hambleton and would try for the base that morning. “I also told them that we were going to need some air cover, as there was no way we were going to make it past all those NVA troops and bivouacs without some help.”

  Kiet finished covering the navigator with the fronds and said quietly, “We go now.” The two men pushed off the bank with their paddles. As they took their first strokes in the water, the FAC came back on the radio with an update. There was no air support available.

  Norris was gobsmacked. The Air Force had diverted a massive amount of assets to save Gene Hambleton, and here he had him in his sampan and there were no planes available? Norris grabbed the handset. What about fast movers, Air Force or Navy? The FAC came back: Nothing. The problem was twofold: The airfield at Da Nang, where a large proportion of the Air Force’s planes were stationed, was under a major rocket attack. Nothing could get in or out. And the US Navy aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin had not yet begun launching aircraft for the day’s missions.

  Norris couldn’t believe his luck. He’d have to proceed downriver naked to the NVA guns. All he could rely on was Navy artillery.

  The sampan hugged the riverbank; Norris and Kiet proceeded slowly, as if they were out for a leisurely paddle. As the two men bent over their oars—Hambleton, in his delirium, could hear the sound of rushing water through the skin of the sampan—the light was getting stronger. Norris and Kiet scanned the shore for NVA. It was one thing to steal through enemy territory under the cover of night; it was another to do so in clear daylight.

  Hambleton was now perhaps a mile from safety, but he’d actually entered the most dangerous part of his journey. On the surface of the Mieu Giang, he was exposed as he’d never been before. And with his extra weight, the freeboard on the sampan was down to three or four inches. Any sudden movement could tip them into the river.

  The current pu
lled them along. They slipped underneath the hanging vines, moving as quietly as possible. Kiet’s and Norris’s eyes swept the riverbank continuously. Norris spotted figures in his peripheral vision, but no one called out. They must have resembled two villagers fishing for the day’s first meal. The extra speed of the current helped; by the time the NVA soldiers had a chance to register the sampan with the two strange men, they were almost past them.

  For fifteen minutes, the boat moved in silence. Then, a hoarse shout from the riverbank. “Eh, lai day!” (Hey, come here). Kiet shot a glance toward the men who had called out. Three armed North Vietnamese soldiers, at least one of them high-ranking—Kiet spotted a white star on one man’s belt buckle, signifying elevated rank—were gesturing and yelling at the two of them to stop. Two soldiers were carrying rifles and the third a K-54 pistol. All three were staring intently at the figures in the sampan. “It sent chills up my spine,” Kiet later recalled.

  The commando turned back and looked at Norris, who made a sign with his finger. Get ready to shoot, it meant. Kiet nodded. Then without speaking, he and Norris began to turn the boat slowly away from the men, pretending not to hear them. They bent over and dug their paddles deeper into the water, putting their backs into the stroke.

  Clearly suspicious, the men began chasing the boat, shouting at the two to stop. How much longer would it be before the bullets came? The sampan was ripping downstream now, crashing through vines and foliage extending out from the bank. Norris waited for the water around him to erupt with rifle fire. He spotted a bend ahead of him. If they could reach it, they might lose their pursuers. The veins on his neck popped as he and Kiet whipped the paddles into the water and pulled with every ounce of strength they had.