by Tom Wilson
His heading was 060 degrees, and he was flying directly down the length of the bridge. He offset, aiming at the water thirty feet right of the third northern span, settled there.
He looked at his unwinding altimeter: 6,000 feet . . . 5,700 feet . . . 5,500 feet. Pressing the target, tracking it nicely.
Five thousand feet. Good sight picture.
He pickled, felt the bombs release, and pulled. Continued pulling until he felt several g's pushing him into the seat. The foggy bubble effect clouded his canopy, but he figured there was little to see out there anyway.
The blasts from the huge bombs swatted and almost upended the bird.
He tried to initiate a right turn, but the aircraft was sinking and hardly flying. Through 2,500 feet and still sinking.
He selected afterburner.
Fifteen hundred feet and sinking!
The burner lit, kicked him, but the altimeter now read 1,000 feet, and he was still descending. Slower now, but there was little room left.
His Thud began to recover.
He began his right turn, and looked. It took a moment to see it, for he was very low.
The span was missing.
He whooped and immediately radioed, "Barracuda lead declares Giraffe!" which was the mission-success code.
There was no time for discussion. He immediately heard the sounds of an emergency beeper. He guessed that the guy in B. J. Parker's flight had punched out of his bird. Lucky cursed about the loss, as he climbed through 4,000 feet.
The RHAW was suddenly squealing. SAM launch. Eight o'clock. Damn. He hated them from the rear where you couldn't see them. He was also flying too slow, and had too little maneuvering energy.
He began a left turn, so he could at least see the damn things to try to dodge them, wondering how close . . .
The impact was tremendous, throwing him sideways against the bulkhead. Then another shook him. The aircraft shuddered, shaking like a car rolling on a flat tire. The engine surged, quieted, surged again, and he knew it was about to quit on him.
Thud Ridge was there, not far away at his ten o'clock. He banked. The controls were stiff but responsive.
He tried the radio, but it was dead.
The shuddering continued. He looked out and saw that the metal covering the left wing had been warped upward and was, panel by panel, being blown away. Except for the mangled metal skin and a jumble of wires and landing gear, there was hardly any wing left.
He glanced at his rearview mirror, saw flame licking behind his cockpit and was not surprised. From habit he also checked and noted that his MASTER CAUTION, TAILPIPE OVERHEAT, and FIRE lights were on, and it interested him because he'd never experienced all three like that. The orderly way the other telelites were coming on, one after another as the various systems became inoperative, fascinated him.
He looked back at the ridge. Not far at all now.
The surging continued. The jet might be able to fly farther, but the green, sparsely populated forests of Thud Ridge were only a couple of miles distant. It made sense to eject there rather than into the sea of people in the valley on the other side. He picked an especially rugged, high area of the ridge and decided that was where he wanted to punch out. If the airplane continued to respond, he would pull up before he ejected so the bird would proceed over the ridge and crash on the opposite side. The farther from his parachute, the better.
He rotated his left ejection-seat handle. The canopy lifted, then was swept away in the slipstream. He waited for a flash fire, for those sometimes occurred when you jettisoned the canopy. There was none, but he could feel heat from the fuselage behind him where the main fuel tank was burning fiercely.
As he waited to pull the trigger and initiate the ejection sequence, he had glimpses of old thoughts, but they were orderly and useful ones. Time had slowed to a crawl, and as he approached the position over which he'd determined to eject, he mentally went over his procedures . . . what he would do in the chute and immediately after he hit the ground.
Half a mile from the eject point. Closer . . . closer . . .
He pulled the Thud's nose up into a ten-degree climb, tucked his feet back against the seat, released the control stick, and grasped the other ejection handle with his right hand. He counted one, two, and pulled the lever.
1735 Local—Command Post, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Captain Manny DeVera
The first pilots were showing up at the debriefing tables, looking drawn and weary.
Manny waited. After shutting down the ATM and pickling off his bombs at the Termite Hill, he'd had to ham-fist the bird to keep it in the air. But he'd insisted they return all the way to Takhli rather than land at Udorn or another of the forward bases.
The crew chief had confirmed the problem with the ATM, and that made him feel better somehow. He'd wondered if he had deluded himself about it and chickened out.
After drinking a cool beer at the squadron, he and Henry had wandered to the command post to wait for the guys to arrive for debriefing and see how the mission had gone. Lieutenant Colonel Encinos was already there in the debriefing room, speaking in reverent tones to Colonel Lyons. The two were seen together a lot. The guys in the squadron said the Bad Injin was feeling better now that he'd found someone to brownnose. They said he'd tried it with B. J. Parker but that Parker had shunned him, so he'd taken up with Lyons, who acted as if the deferential treatment were his due. Manny saw that Billy Bowes was also waiting in the room, wearing a grim look, so he waved him over to join them.
"What are you doing here, Billy?"
Bowes paused a bit before answering. "Major Lucky flew my bird. Before he took off, he told my crew chief he wanted to see me at debriefing."
Colonel B. J. Parker came in the door. He'd just landed and his face was still creased with the red marks left by his oxygen mask. He glanced about, cast a nod toward Lyons and Encinos, then came over and joined the group from C-Flight.
Parker rocked back onto his heels, as he liked to do, and pursed his lips, silently eyeing DeVera. Then he said, "Good to see you made it back okay, DeVera."
Manny shrugged. "Sorry I bugged out on you, Colonel."
"You can't fly combat with a broken bird. Are they gonna have to replace the ATM?"
"Yes, sir."
The colonel wearily exercised his shoulders and looked at Manny again. "Lucky's not coming back. No one saw him go down, but we heard the beeper. We weren't sure who we'd lost until we counted noses. It was a real donnybrook up there."
Manny muttered, "Jesus. The boss?"
Parker motioned toward the message center. "We're waiting for confirmation from the recce people, but Lucky called the success code just before we lost contact. If anyone knocked the bridge down, it was him. It was standing when the rest of us left it."
Manny choked up. "Jesus," he whispered again.
"Where'd he go down, sir?" asked Henry Horn.
"We don't know for sure. Don't even know what got him."
The three members of C-Flight looked mournful.
Lyons and Encinos came over. Encinos looked deferential and Lyons wore his haughty expression.
"I just heard about Major Anderson," said Lyons. Manny swore that a smile lurked beneath his surface, and his disdain for the man intensified.
Encinos's expression grew sad, as if he'd tasted bitter alum. "It's a great loss to the squadron. I don't know how I'll replace Lucky. Perhaps . . ."
Parker looked at him with a grim expression. "Hell of a way for Captain DeVera to make flight commander, isn't it?"
Encinos was puzzled for only a split second, then began to nod vigorously. "Just what I was going to say, Colonel."
Lyons regarded Manny with distaste, obvious in his disagreement.
Encinos was still bobbing. "I've got great faith in Captain DeVera. I was just . . ."
Parker shifted to Billy. "Lucky said he had something to tell me about you after we landed, Captain Bowes. You know what that was about?"
Billy
Bowes, already distraught, looked like an added weight was dropped onto his shoulders. "Yes, sir."
"Lucky said it was one of the most heroic things he'd seen since he'd gotten to Takhli."
Bowes's expression turned incredulous. "Sir?"
"Said it happened on the morning mission. Didn't have time to tell me what it was."
Henry Horn was watching closely. He interrupted before Billy could speak. "This morning Captain Bowes attacked a SAM site that threatened our flight, sir. During this afternoon's flight briefing, Major Lucky asked if I'd help write up the medal."
Bowes's mouth gaped.
Joe Walker came into the debriefing room, thin-lipped and angry. Doc Roddenbush pushed a cup of mission whiskey into his hand. Walker bolted it down, then walked over.
"Shit," was all he said.
Major Max Foley came into the room from the command center, and also came over to join them. He looked dog-tired.
"I just got off the phone with Benny Lewis at Seventh Air Force," Max said to Parker.
Manny noted that Colonel Lyons's expression also tightened at mention of Benny's name, and he wondered who the man did like.
"What did Benny have for us?" asked Parker.
"Film's not processed yet, but the recce pilots report one span's down on the north side of the bridge."
"Shit hot!" yelled a pilot who'd overheard. Several others picked up the chorus, and the mood in the room was transformed into a happier one.
Manny DeVera's head spun with it all.
Parker and his horse-holders left them then, and Manny, Billy, Joe, and Henry were left to commiserate the loss of their leader.
"Get your debriefing over," Manny finally told Joe Walker, "then we'll go to dinner. Lots of things to talk about, and I'm going to need support from everyone in the flight."
"I'll see you guys over at the club," said Billy Bowes, who'd recovered some of his composure. "I'm going out to talk with my crew chief. That was our bird Major Lucky went down in, and Sergeant Hughes is going to take it hard."
He left.
While Walker was going over the mission with Lieutenant DeWalt and they waited for him, Manny thought of many things. Among them was the fact that a lot of people seemed to have crossed Colonel Lyons the wrong way. He'd noticed reactions to the mention of Major Lucky, Benny Lewis, Billy Bowes, and, of course, his own appointment as C-Flight commander. At dinner he would advise the guys to steer clear of Lyons. Things were screwed up enough without looking for trouble from that source.
When Walker had finished and they were preparing to leave, Manny asked Lieutenant DeWalt where Major Lucky had ejected. DeWalt said they didn't even know when he'd gone down, for no one was sure when they'd first heard his emergency beeper.
"He could have gone down about anywhere in pack six," said DeWalt.
On that sour note Captain Manny DeVera joined the others as they filed from the debriefing room.
1800 Local—Phuc Yen PAAFB, DRV
Air Regiment Commandant Quon
Quon had flown two missions that day and begrudgingly admitted to himself that he was getting too old for that sort of thing. Since bailing out of his MiG in late June, he'd grown aches as never before. When he flew now, he used one of the unbearably hot Russian antigravity suits, but even so, the gravity forces were becoming too much for his body to endure.
It was difficult enough, evading the Phantoms and trying to get at the more vulnerable Thunder planes. But now that the auxiliary bases were no longer safe havens, they had to return to Phuc Yen, and since the time Quon had been shot down in his approach pattern, the MiG pilots remained wary until they were safely on the ground.
Periodically observers at Phuc Yen warned of Mee Phantoms and Thunder planes lurking over the nearby Viet Bac mountains, waiting for fuel-starved MiGs to return to their roosts. At such times Quon's MiGs were diverted to bases in southern China, and on two occasions MiGs had been lost because they'd run out of fuel trying to get there.
He decided to fly less often, perhaps only once or twice a week.
Quon entered his office and glared at the mounds of papers in the wooden communications baskets. He had little time for them, for General Tho would arrive in two hours accompanied by a Russian Air Force colonel. He and Quon would entertain the Russian and try to convince him that they should receive additional MiG-21 interceptors, preferably the modern and stable PF big-tails. Tomorrow the Russian would inspect the flying operation, and Quon had encouraged his pilots and mechanics to be most correct.
It was dark outside and Quon was forced to work by lamplight, as an example for the others. Electricity was no longer readily available. Since the last Mee attacks upon the Hanoi electrical distribution yard, only generator power had been available at Phuc Yen. But diesel fuel to power the generators was also scarce, since it was prioritized for the supply convoys. So Quon had directed that electricity be provided only for essential operations.
Since his last trip to Hanoi, the subject had become a bitter one for Quon. Power was off in most of the capital city, and at night the people lived like ancient cave dwellers, their only light from tallow lamps, candles, or small, illegal bonfires in alleys. All petroleums, including lantern fuel, were used for the "critical war effort." But of course there were rows of large generators constantly powering the People's Army headquarters, Ba Dinh Hall, and the important government offices, even when there was no one inside.
He would wager that Colonel Nguyen Wu had lights and even air-conditioning at his office at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Wu was a conniver, the kind of elusive sneak who could be dropped into a bo-bucket of shit and emerge with a flowery smell.
As he lifted the first piece of correspondence from the nearest stack of papers, he frowned, then dropped it back on the stack, and thought.
Today the Americans had destroyed a span of the Long Bien bridge. On two previous attempts they'd not succeeded, and Xuan Nha had predicted they would not begin an all-out campaign against the other bridges until they'd succeeded at Long Bien. Long Bien, he'd said, was their test, the one most heavily defended and perhaps most important, for across it came supplies from both China and Haiphong harbor.
If what Colonel Xuan Nha said was true, and the Mee had successfully completed their test, they could expect a series of bombing attacks upon other bridges. He decided to meet with Xuan Nha and Colonel Trung. So far the most successful defenses had proved to be Trung's artillery. How could he get his interceptors to . . .
His adjutant came into his office, interrupting his thoughts. "A radio message was just received from Hanoi for your attention, comrade Commandant."
"Yes?"
"Two Mee aircraft were shot down by artillery at Long Bien." His adjutant referred to a note. "Both have been located. One had the white letters RU on the tail, the other RM."
Quon held his breath. RM was the Pig Squadron initials.
"One of the pilots has been captured, and they expect to have the other by first light in the morning." The adjutant stopped reading from his notes. "Our liaison officer at the command center said you wanted this kind of information."
Quon felt his pulse quicken. Other blue-tail aircraft had been shot down in the past month, but none of those pilots had been on his list. Had his luck changed?
"Contact my driver and have him pick me up immediately," Quon said, standing. "I will go to Hoa Lo Prison."
"But the general will be here in less than two hours, comrade Commandant."
"You are a good adjutant," Quon said with a grin. "Make an appropriate excuse. I will be back before the pig-fornicating Russian colonel finishes his second bottle of wine."
CHAPTER TWENTY
1st Day, 1900 Local—Southern End of Thud Ridge, North Vietnam
Major Lucky Anderson
He'd done precisely what his survival instructors had told him not to do. He'd hit the ground, hastily gathered his few essential items into a panel hacked out of his parachute, and threw the remainder aside. Then h
e'd determined directions with the survival compass he carried in his vest, tossed his sack over his shoulder, and began to put as much distance as possible between himself and the point where he'd hit the ground. First through the thick growth, pushing his way through brush and vines and stinging bamboo, crawling over fallen tree trunks, moving ever northward. When he'd come to a rude dirt path that wandered in that direction, he'd gotten on it and ran like the wind, not caring that he might be leaving tracks.
His immediate concern was to get the hell out of there. The possibility of being cornered by soldiers closing in on the area was greater, he reasoned, than being successfully tracked down. During the summer monsoon it rained daily, and it was likely that his tracks would soon be washed away.
And there were few men around who could catch Lucky Anderson when it came to long-haul running.
He had reasoned it out before he'd made his second swing in the parachute and was now simply carrying out his plan.
Half an hour after he'd gotten on the road, he burst into a small clearing with a thatch shack at one side, but he gritted his teeth and ran on past that one and then a second dwelling. No one had been outside, but if there had been, he'd have done the same.
He ran until it became too dark to see obstacles on the path clearly, and he feared he might do something dumb like sprain an ankle. Then, chest heaving from the long, difficult effort, he slowed to a walk. At 1900 he stepped off the path into a thicket and sat back against a ledge, rubbing his legs and working his shoulder muscles, and drained the second of his three plastic baby bottles of water.
Remember to refill them the first chance you get, he told himself.
He was traveling northward on the eastern slope of the series of mountains they called Thud Ridge.