by Dennis Foley
As he crawled along the streambed, letting his body half-drag and half-float behind him, he held his head above the water trying to push the pain of his crushing headache out of his mind by focusing on the most pleasant thing he could think of—Eileen’s face. He saw her in his mind and he heard he words. He recalled sentences from her letters and tried to imagine her long, slender fingers writing the words she sent to him. He crawled faster and tried to imagine her scent and the soft silky texture of her hair. All the while he was unaware of the fact he was talking as he moved, encouraging himself to move faster and not stop and to pull harder with his arms. It didn’t even sound like his voice. It was low and guttural and raspy. He had to get to that river. He couldn’t lay up in the paddies another night. He couldn’t last another night.
That much he knew.
The sky was clear enough, even though there were large grey-black threatening clouds still clearing on their way to Cambodia. Pascoe could hear the deep rhythmic thumping of the approaching chopper resonating in the heavy moist air. The speck on the horizon kept getting bigger as he waited for the generals to arrive for his briefing.
As he waited he repeated the words he had rehearsed in his room. Words of welcome for the two arriving general officers. He was a little uncomfortable with the fact General Duong had still not arrived to welcome Pham and Devlen. He turned and hollered into the briefing room through the open glassless window. “Jackson. Get on the horn and call over to the command post. And see what the hold up is with General Duong. Let his people know the chopper is inbound.”
Before Jackson could cross the room to make the call Pascoe saw General Duong step out into the compound from the headquarters office complex. He was wearing his best combat fatigue uniform, complete with a general’s belt and a holstered .45 caliber pistol with tortoise shell hand grips.
Pascoe was not happy Duong had not heard the briefing yet. He wanted there not to be any surprises for Duong which might embarrass him in front of Devlen. But Duong had seemed to be uninterested in the details.
The chopper circled the compound and setup up for a landing. Pascoe could see it was Devlen’s chopper flown by American pilots and not General Pham’s. He envied Devlen, having a new D Model Huey. Pascoe realized he had not seen Minh’s chopper since the day he returned it to the compound. The repairs needed were extensive enough to require it be sent to Long Binh. Even as old as it was, it had been the best chopper in the division.
Scotty shivered as he pulled himself along the stream bottom in somewhat of a trance. He blocked out the pain and ignored the nausea, the exhaustion and danger he still faced. No longer able to hold his head up because of the pain in his neck, he kept his chin just below the water line and his eyes focused on its surface.
Suddenly his hands found something under the water which snapped him out of the fog pain and sleeplessness had brought on. It was wooden—man made. He looked around at a platform on the bank connected to a slot under the water line. It was a crude device to divert water into a catch basin next to the stream where fish could be trapped.
He raised his head and saw he was not more than a hundred feet from the junction of the river and the stream. Not wanting to be swept into the faster flowing river, Scotty crawled out onto his belly in the adjacent paddy. He looked around. There were people on the bank of the river starting out their day. They carried loads of produce destined for market. To the south a boy with a long thin switch herded a water buffalo into a paddy and nearly fifteen giggling young women carrying small bundles appeared to be heading off to school.
No one on the river bank had seen him yet. He was the same color as the muddy paddy hiding him from notice. He knew he had to get on the roadway quickly before he became so exhausted he would be unable to stand or walk.
Scotty looked around in every direction. He was sure his situation was less threatened by the Viet Cong. Unless a hidden sniper were willing to risk exposing himself to get a shot off at Scotty he was unlikely to face enemy fire the last few strides to the roadway. But his mind began to spin as he realized he could still blow it all if he were to be mistaken as an enemy soldier coming out of the no-man’s land. He looked up and down the bank and quickly found what he assumed would be his only immediate threat. Down stream a small single-lane bridge crossed the river and a sandbagged guard post held two armed South Vietnamese soldiers. They were from a local unit posted to permanent sites often threatened by the Viet Cong.
Scotty knew they were poorly trained and poorly equipped, making them more likely to spook and shoot at anything they felt might threaten them. He would have to get onto the roadway and mingle with the civilians to avoid being singled out as a target by the two soldiers leaning against their guard post smoking and laughing.
Getting to his feet was harder than he had anticipated. His head spun as he stood and he needed a few seconds to regain his balance.
The pilots put the general’s chopper on the helipad with little flair or difficulty. The rains had kept the dust down and the pathway from the chopper to the briefing room had been covered with a raised wooden walkway to keep the visitors out of the mud.
A gaggle of Vietnamese soldiers and staff officers escorted the two generals from the chopper to the briefing room and saw to it each was offered coffee, tea or a soft drink.
Pascoe felt a touch of stage fright as he looked out across the briefing room now filled with the visiting dignitaries and members of the division staff.
He looked at Jackson, standing stiffly, if not awkwardly, in a fresh set of fatigues between the easel and the tactical map in the front of the room.
The room quieted down as Pascoe took the podium to begin his briefing
Scotty stepped onto the well worn trail next to the river and began walking for the first time in seventeen days on hard packed earth. In front and behind him the nearest Vietnamese civilians were not closer than fifty meters. None of them showed any recognition he was there. Scotty knew they saw him, but could understand them not getting involved with a strange looking staggering American, bearded, barefoot and covered with mud. He walked toward the bridge keeping his eyes focused on the two Vietnamese soldiers guarding it. He wanted to be able to raise his hands to show he was not a threat to them, if needed. If that didn’t work, he walked close enough to the roadway’s edge to be able to jump back into the rice paddies to take some cover should the soldiers fire on him.
Each step was more painful than the last. Skin was sloughing off his feet after days of softening and deadening in the mud and water. His nausea wouldn’t go away and he wobbled as he walked. He tried to straighten up and not look like a drunk fighting to keep from falling off the trail as he approached the soldiers at the bridge.
One of them spotted Scotty, stared as if unsure what he was looking at and then poked his partner.
Scotty heard words in his brain as he silently prayed for help. God, don’t let this end here. Please don’t let me spook them. Then he thought it would be up to him. He held his hands were they could see they were empty as he walked the last ten paces to their bunker and forced a smile so they’d be more likely not to see him as a threat.
The two soldiers stood there frozen with curiosity at Scotty’s approach and unsure what to do. They said nothing as he walked past them to cross the bridge.
Scotty considered stopping but realized he didn’t know enough Vietnamese to explain his problem. And he could see they had neither a radio nor a phone in their small, open topped sandbagged enclosure. So he nodded politely and walked onto the bridge.
He heard them talk to each other as he passed and turned to make sure they weren’t expecting him to halt. The last thing he wanted was to be shot in the back.
As he turned around, he saw what they were talking about. He was leaving bloody footprints with each step.
He entered the heavier flow of traffic on the asphalt roadway on the other side of the bridge and keep urging himself to keep moving. He only had a thousand more meters to go to g
et to the Sugar Mill and he could feel his knees getting more wobbly. He turned around and hoped he would find some soldiers or a military vehicle headed to the compound but found only merchants and farmers quickly moving past him all in a hurry to be somewhere else.
Scotty couldn’t stop. He continued walking unsteadily down the roadway conscious of the stares he was getting from Vietnamese along the road. Then he heard something behind him. Shuffling footsteps. He turned to find an old man wearing black pajamas, a conical hat and badly repaired flip flops on his feet. The man led an ox pulling a cart which was a flat wooden platform on top of salvaged car tires and an axle. The small cart had six bamboo cages all holding chickens and roosters.
The old man smiled, revealing almost no teeth and pointed to the cart, inviting Scotty to get on.
Scotty mimed a question for the man to make sure he understood the man’s intent.
The old man responded by stepping back to the cart and patting it to show Scotty where to sit.
Scotty smiled and bowed thankfully at the old man and used what flagging strength he had to climb onto the worn wooden bed of the cart.
Through the briefing room window the barber pole guard gate raised. Its motion caught Pascoe’s eye from his place at the podium. He also heard the commotion coming from the guard gate as a handful of Vietnamese soldiers all began talking excitedly.
The activity at the gate also distracted everyone in the briefing room. All three generals turned to look at what was going on.
Pascoe, unsure about what to do, stopped speaking, hoping the soldiers would quiet down. But they didn’t. Instead, he saw them part as if to allow a large vehicle to enter the compound. But in the center of the wide path they cleared through the front gate walked Scotty Hayes, half staggering.
The sight of the American sergeant shot a bolt of lightning through Pascoe’s chest. What would he do? How could he explain this? What was Hayes going to say?
The word of Scotty’s return quickly spread through the briefing room and the generals got their feet and went out into the compound.
Scotty noticed the officers at the doorway to the briefing room but ignored them. Instead, he staggered directly to the parked helicopter and the two American pilots sitting inside the cargo compartment. One was reading a magazine and the other was writing a letter home. “I need your chopper, sir,” Scotty said to the First Lieutenant closest to the open cargo door.
The lieutenant looked at the American sergeant, surprised painted all over his face. “What?”
Scotty raised his arm as if it were filled with wet cement and pointed off to the west. “I have a Viet captain I couldn’t bring out with me. In need to go get him. He’s out in the paddies.”
The Warrant Officer threw on his flight helmet as the two pilots looked at each other and needed no more convincing. The lieutenant got out, helped Scotty into the chopper and got into his own seat in the cockpit. While his co-pilot ran up the turbines on the chopper the lieutenant looked over his shoulder at Scotty. “How far out?
Scotty climbed into the chopper and then onto the canvas bench seat with great difficulty and nodded west. “A couple of miles. I can show you. We need to hurry. He’s badly wounded and I’m afraid he’s in pretty rough shape.”
The warrant officer looked back at Scotty. “If he’s any worse off than you are, Sarge, we’ll put a rush on it. Hold on back there.”
Pascoe didn’t know what to do. He rushed to the side of the idling chopper and looked in at Scotty. “So, you escaped? This is great news.”
“Escaped?” Scotty asked. “Escaped, hell!” He pointed off toward the unseen border. “I walked here from where you left me, you asshole!”
Pascoe’s color drained from his face. “I can see you are not yourself. We can talk about that later. Right now you need help.”
Scotty ignored Pascoe’s comments and buckled himself in the chopper.
Pascoe looked at the chopper and back to Scotty. “Where are you going with this chopper? Are they evacuating you to medical help?”
“No, Major. I’m going to do for Captain Nguyen what you wouldn’t do for us, you son of a bitch! I’m going to go pull him out.”
Three Vietnamese soldiers somehow understood enough of what was going on in the compound to run get their weapons and climb onboard the chopper with Scotty.
Scotty looked around at the faces and realized they were soldiers he had been on patrols with. Soldiers he had been chastised by Pascoe about being too familiar with. Now, when he needed them, they didn’t even wait to be asked. He smiled and gave each of them a thumbs-up.
The chopper lifted off leaving Pascoe standing in the middle of the compound unsure how much of the conversation the general officers standing outside the briefing room had heard. However much it was, he knew it would take some quick thinking to talk himself out of the situation he had put himself in. He felt blood rushing to his face as he made eye contact with General Devlen—whose look told him Devlen had heard enough.
Scotty tried to keep from vomiting on the short flight out to Nguyen’s position. He crawled up between the two pilot’s seats and pointed them toward the area where Nguyen was hidden.
He became disoriented for a moment and had to move about the chopper to look out, first finding the small bridge and then getting the pilots to fly dangerously low so he could find his own trail in the mud which would take him back to the stream which had helped him get to safety.
His training kicked in at his moment of greatest need. Scotty found the location. Barely able to speak, he pointed at what seemed so much smaller from the air. “There! That’s it. Land there!”
The pilot looked at Scotty and yelled over the noise of the rotor blades, “We’re going to make one quick circle before we put it down. We’d just like to know there’s nothing down there to surprise us.”
Scotty nodded and sat back on the floor of the cargo deck hoping they would find nothing. The chopper descended and the dwarf trees hiding Nguyen were soon visible out the left door. Scotty tried to be another set of eyes to make sure there was no one laying in wait to ambush a chopper coming to rescue Nguyen. As he looked out at the trees and the chopper got closer he noticed several crows flying out of the treetops. He hoped they were not signaling what he most feared—Nguyen dead. He told himself they were not vultures; they were just crows. He hoped he hadn’t taken too long to get help. He hoped he had left enough water and food with Nguyen to sustain him. And he found himself again asking God for help.
The chopper pilots put the aircraft down in the flooded rice paddy next to the trees hiding Nguyen, the chopper’s blades not more than forty feet from the violently whipping branches.
Scotty slid across the floor of the cargo compartment then stepped out onto the muddy ground with little concern for the pain he felt in his feet. Instinctively, he looked around for anything or anyone who might threaten the rescue party. Seeing nothing obvious he pointed at three likely spots where the Vietnamese soldiers needed to position themselves to provide some modicum of protection for the helicopter crew now so vulnerable sitting on the ground at flight idle.
As the soldiers took up their positions, Scotty moved to the trees. With each step he was announcing his desires. “Let him be okay. Let him be okay. Let’s get him home.”
His eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness inside the thicket. At first he couldn’t see Nguyen where he had left him. But he forgot he had covered him with leaves and deadfall to keep him warm and hidden. His eyes finally detected the unnatural shape of the butt of Nguyen’s rifle. He fell to his knees and crawled to his side, still half speaking, half hoping. “Day Uy? You awake? We’re going home. We’re getting out of here.”
Nguyen’s body was still, his eyes closed.
Scotty reached out and touched him. He was wet and clammy. But his skin was hot. Scotty was thrilled to find the man still had a fever. “Dai Uy… come on. Wake up, he yelled over the sounds of the nearby idling chopper.
T
he captain moved his hand, tried to open his eyes and moved his lips, as if to speak. But no words came. At least, none Scotty could hear.
“Get ready. ’Cause we’re leaving now!” Scotty grabbed the captain’s arm and with great difficulty, pulled it over his neck to get him up to a point were Scotty could boost him up on his shoulder into a fireman’s carry.
He picked up the rifle with his free hand and bounced once to adjust the captain on his shoulder then turned to leave the thicket.
The first steps screamed an alarms to Scotty: That he probably wasn’t strong enough to make it to the chopper. And he had to move now and move quickly if he hoped to get the man to help.
He stepped forward more worried about his balance than his safety as the thorns, snags and branches reached out to tear and rip at his face and neck. He kept moving until the trees gave way to the daylight, now revealing still another downpour. He looked at the chopper which hadn’t seemed that far away when it landed.
The pilot was waving for Scotty to hurry. Scotty could tell he had already started to increase the RPM of the turbine engine to take off as soon as possible. The new rain streamed off the tips of the spinning rotor blades throwing a widening circle of water.
Each step was less steady than the last and the chopper seemed not to get closer fast enough. Scotty kept talking to himself: “Move. Faster! Get to that chopper.” He felt a knee buckle and then the other. It was as if his legs had turned to jelly. Not five paces from the chopper he went down in the mud.
He found himself on his knees, still upright, still holding Nguyen on his shoulder but on his knees when he should still be moving forward closing on the waiting aircraft. As much for himself as for Nguyen he yelled, “Don’t worry. We’re gonna’ make it, Dai Uy. Don’t worry.”
Scotty struggled to maintain his balance while he pulled one leg up to place his bare foot on the muddy paddy beneath the water and discovered how much less stable he became in that posture. At the moment he thought he had lost control of himself and his load he felt a hand under his armpit. It was one of the Vietnamese soldiers. Then a second grabbed him by the other arm.