by Dennis Foley
The VC reached the point where Hollister estimated the wire to be and passed it, without any indication they had noticed it.
He held his breath for a few more seconds, his rifle muzzle pointed at the duo, his thumb on the safety lever, and his index finger resting lightly on the trigger.
One of the VC laughed at something the other said, and their voices started to trail off as they got farther away from the Ranger team in hiding.
The Americans lay still for another ten minutes, until Hollister waved for Fass, Meadows, and Thomas to continue to thread their claymore wires back to the dike. He didn’t have to remind them to be careful or to keep the noise down. They all realized how easy it was for someone to come down the path and catch them.
Once they were all in their positions, all facing the trail except Estlin, who was in a tree some ten meters behind the dike, facing to the rear—they were ready for any VC to come down the trail—again.
Around one in the morning, lightning began to snap off to the east. At the same time, the temperature began to drop. It took about thirty minutes for the wind to come up. The clouds boiled in, and it went completely black, save the occasional flash of the lightning.
The trees started whipping, causing even more noise. Hollister knew there was less chance they would be able to catch another VC coming down the path in bad weather, much less execute an effective ambush in the rain sure to follow. He was also worried that if they did spring an ambush, their extraction would be nearly impossible in the downpour—the ceiling was at treetop level.
He decided to cancel the ambush and move the team off the higher ground on the dike and back down into the water—for safety even if at the cost of more discomfort.
The rain followed the wind and the lightning, as Hollister predicted, and came down furiously until around three A.M. It slacked up but continued to rain at a steady, gentler pace.
By five, all six men were shivering so hard two of them pulled out their floppy hats and bit down on them to keep their teeth from chattering.
Each of them prayed for the sun to come up and the rain to blow over—for some relief from the cold and the boredom of the long, wasted night.
Hollister hugged his chest, his hands tucked under his armpits for the little warmth his own body was giving off. He had not slept. The pressure of honchoing a patrol never let up, and he knew it. He had an endless list of details on his mind. One was his concern that the rain might wash away the dirt covering the claymore wire across the path, making it visible when the sun came up. He would have to send someone down to check it and recover it if need be and hope they didn’t get compromised in the daylight.
He had been cold on ambushes so many times before and knew taking his mind off of the discomfort was the only defense against the unrelenting misery. He searched his memory for some moment, some experience he could get lost in. He shifted his weight and the old wound scar on his hip throbbed.
It reminded him of the warm night in Tokyo when he was released from the hospital at Camp Drake and met Susan. They shared a short but wonderful time together. But mostly, they shared each other. He was so excited to see her when she got off the plane. They both tried to talk at the same time—trying to catch up on so much.
He remembered the cozy room in the Japanese hotel and how she looked in the Asian-style bathroom where they shared a hot bath.
She had her hair up and wore a pale blue silk kimono. Her lips were freshly coated with a bright red lipstick.
Most vivid in his mind was when she dropped her kimono. He had waited so long to see her body again. That night, the months of loneliness in Vietnam and the weeks of pain in the hospital were all forgotten in the hot and steamy bath. He remembered holding her, inhaling her essence, and feeling the silkiness of her skin. And he remembered how she cried when she saw the ugly red-blue scar on his body. His stomach tightened at the thought of how it had all fallen apart.
He had asked himself over and over again how he could have had her, then lost her. Crouching there in the water, he had no more answers than he had when she cried back at Benning and told him they were over, they were finished.
The memory only took his mind off the cold for a few moments, but it replaced it with a dull ache he had lived with every second since she told him how unfixable it all was.
He shifted to relieve the pain in his hip. The rain fell on his face and plopped from the trees to the standing swampy water. He fished around in an outside pocket on his rucksack and found a small plastic bag. Without removing it from the pocket, he pulled out two gelatin capsules containing a painkiller Meadows had given him. He placed the capsules in his mouth and forced them down without any water.
He could tell dawn was actually coming by the increase in chopper traffic to the east. Pilots started their days early. They had choppers to preflight and breakfast and briefings and flights to pick up troops and supplies. So the sounds of the skies over III Corps were punctuated by cocks crowing and abuzz with choppers.
Hollister resisted the temptation to go down to check the claymore wires himself. He envied the others who would get to move around and shake some of the stiffness out of their joints. He knew he had to control the team and let them do most of the work. He sent Meadows and Fass to check out the demo, touch up the camouflage, and cover their tracks back to the dike.
While Meadows and Fass were gone, the others began to camouflage their positions and get something to eat.
Hollister found a point behind the dike where he could stay hidden from enemy eyes while watching Meadows and Fass circling around to the path and the claymores.
It was full light, though the sun had not yet broken through the low fog hugging the ground.
After calling in a situation report and making a weapons and ammo check, Hollister opened a pouch of LRP-ration spaghetti and poured almost half a canteen of water into the brown plastic pouch. Resealing the pouch, he slipped it into his shirt and moved it around to a point over his kidney. His body heat would soften the dehydrated rations and take some of the chill off the water. But he had to steel himself for the shock of the cold pouch against his bare skin.
By the time his rations had softened, the sun was breaking through the overcast. The winds had stopped, giving promise of a hot, steamy day in the mangrove swamp. He shook his head at how quickly the extremes of Vietnam replaced one another and how all of them were unbearable.
He unrolled the pouch and dug into his spaghetti. His first bite was tasty if not completely softened. Some of the noodles were still on the crunchy side. But he wasn’t going to wait any longer. By the fourth spoonful, he started getting thirsty. He raised his plastic canteen to his lips and tasted the bitter, tepid water—flavored by the telltale chemical trace of the purification tablets.
He finished most of the spaghetti and rolled up the pouch and put it in his side pocket for later.
He wanted a cigarette, but knew better—didn’t bring them either. It was an absolute policy—No smoking in the field.
The morning was uneventful. The patrol members tried to wave away flies. They took turns taking off one boot at a time, putting their foot in a sunny spot to dry out and dewrinkle. Every man was miserable, so there was no reason to say so. They knew what the situation was, and there was neither an opportunity nor a reason to bitch about it.
By midday, the sun had turned the swampy patrol site into a sweltering pool of rotting vegetation and a hundred different types of insects and leeches—all determined to improve their own survivability by feasting on Rangers.
Fass and Thomas chose to fight the heat and the boredom by eating a second meal. Hollister decided to pass, and faced his boredom by pulling his small notebook out of the plastic bag protecting it. He jotted down notes about the patrol for his debriefing.
As in all afternoons on ambushes, each man knew he faced another night without sleep, and they took turns trying to grab as much of it as they could while the sun was up. The problem was trying to sleep on cue. O
nly a couple of them were sleepy enough to sleep when their opportunity came. Hollister had trouble getting comfortable and agreed to switch with Estlin, who was the lookout in the large dense tree shading them for half the day.
From Estlin’s tree, Hollister could see considerably farther up the trail toward Cambodia and the farmlands to the south of the mangrove swamp. Out there, Vietnam went on as usual. Lambrettas on the highways, ox carts on the roadways, and choppers. Choppers were everywhere. All were in a hurry to get somewhere or back from somewhere.
The numbers were fewer than at the height of the buildup in Vietnam. Still, there were enough choppers to be a problem for Hollister. He just hoped none of them found something curious on the ground where his team was laying up until nightfall.
About five, the traffic on the nearby roads started to slacken, and the choppers began to head for their parking spots for the night—the pilots destined for the bars in their respective aviation unit clubs.
Hollister had a sinking feeling. The same feeling he always had when he realized he was facing the longest part of an ambush night.
CHAPTER 13
JUST AFTER DARK, HOLLISTER got up and peered over the dike to decide if it was time to take up firing positions on top of the dike. The visibility was better than the night before because the glow in the sky was throwing an even illumination across the entire swampy area and lit up the path with a pale light.
Hollister dropped his field glasses and listened. He tried to take in the sounds in the night but kept getting distracted by distant choppers and bats flying out of the swamp to feed. He knew the only way he was going to be able to listen was to close his eyes and concentrate.
He had learned as a young lieutenant that the night sounds were very valuable to him in understanding what was happening. He needed to remember the normal sounds—when there was no tension in the air, when there was no threat to the wildlife creating the night harmony. He listened for a long time to the symphony of insects blended into the buzz, occasionally highlighted by the last calls of birds. The swamp had its own sounds, too. Frogs and crickets were an overlay on top of the other sounds. He tried to memorize the night sounds to use the information later—when they might signal the approach of intruders.
The first two hours in the ambush droned on. Hollister felt the warmth of the day’s sun leave the ground beneath him, only to be replaced by a cold and damp chill that began its assault on his body. By nine, he was starting to feel the onset of shivering as the muscle sheath covering his kidneys began to spasm in revolt to the chill setting in.
Somewhere north of them, a few short bursts of AK-47 fire echoed through the wetlands. There was no way to tell who it was. It was just a reminder there were men out there in the dark carrying rifles who could obliterate his six-man team with similar bursts of well-aimed fire. He reached out and checked the position of his extra magazines in his upturned floppy hat.
Loomis called in an hourly commo check to Campus Killer base at Bien Hoa. By ten, Hollister could feel the approach of more bad weather.
Almost as dreaded as the calamity of making contact in an ambush was the onset of maximum fatigue. It took the form of hallucinations and uncontrollable drifting off. That place between sweet sleep and consciousness was a narrow corridor of wild disorientation every combat soldier faced on long night missions in every war.
The first sign for Hollister was when his forehead banged into his rifle. He had dropped off without knowing it, and as fast as he fell asleep, he was abruptly awakened by the pain of the metal sight.
Fass tugged on Hollister’s left sleeve and held his hand out in front of his face.
Hollister followed Fass’s hand as he pointed out at a spot as far up the pathway as they had ever been able to see in the dark. He tried an old Ranger School trick of not looking directly at the trail. Rather, he let his eyes move in a small circle around the spot. The moment he did, he was able to detect movement.
An enemy patrol? A courier? A farmer? Or could it be an untethered water buffalo? Whatever it was took the longest time to get closer. Hollister and the others held their breath as they readied their weapons, rechecked safeties, and picked up their claymore detonators.
Two figures again. Hollister couldn’t tell if they were armed for several more steps, but he was sure they were men. He slowly raised his binoculars. In less than a second Hollister could see enough of them to recognize one was carrying a rifle. He couldn’t be sure about the second one. And they were moving more quietly and with far more concern than the pair the night before.
Why? Hollister wondered. What were they expecting? What was different about the path than the night before? Did they have some information there was an American ambush patrol lying in wait?
Paranoia. He knew he had to guard against it. They were different soldiers and may only have had better training. They might have been spooked earlier by something. He would only find out by watching.
They got closer. Hollister touched his ammo again and made another quick check of the others. They were ready. In no more than eight steps the two VC would enter the killing zone.
Hollister’s heart started to race. They had agreed to do the maximum damage with the claymores and not to fire on the enemy unless it was essential.
The signal to execute the ambush was when Hollister fired his first claymore.
The enemy soldiers took another two strides toward the killing zone, and Hollister picked up the detonator for his primary claymore.
Another step, and he slipped the safety clip out of place and prepared to detonate the mine.
The soldiers entered the killing zone.
Then, Hollister hesitated.
Estlin looked over toward Hollister to see if he was ready.
Hollister seemed to squint, and then turned to Fass on his left. He gave him an exaggerated shake of the head—telling him to hold.
He reached over and grabbed Meadows and leaned into his ear, whispering, “Hold it. Don’t shoot.”
The two enemy soldiers kept walking through the killing zone and approached the point where they would walk out of the blast area of the claymores. Still Hollister didn’t detonate his claymore.
The other five Rangers held, waiting for Hollister.
The two soldiers walked out of the killing zone and continued down the trail, passing by the Rangers.
Loomis raised himself up on his hands and looked over at Hollister for some sign.
Hollister raised his hand—as if to say, just wait. He then pointed back toward the trail. He wanted the others to just continue to lie in wait. But he had no way of telling them exactly what was going through his mind.
After they turned their attention back to the killing zone to watch, Hollister looked back down the trail—in the direction the two soldiers went. Where they would end up bothered him. He hated letting them pass and hoped he hadn’t made a costly mistake.
Three long minutes passed, and the Rangers held, waiting for whatever Hollister was anticipating. Then they heard voices again, and someone laughing.
Soon the main body of the enemy element came down the path. Five soldiers, two walking abreast, a single soldier, and then two more—hardly concerned for their safety.
Hollister picked up his binoculars and trained them on the five to make sure they were carrying weapons. Three of them had rifles slung across their shoulders, one had a canvas pouch tied to his back with four B-40 rockets in it, and the last man carried the rocket launcher.
He strained to see if the five were followed by even more VC. He saw nothing. And the five moved toward the killing zone. Hollister looked at them, then back up the trail, and then back to them.
With his free hand he picked up the claymore detonator again, quickly pulled the glasses from his face and looked left and right to make sure the others hadn’t missed the approach of the VC. They were ready.
He was ready.
The first two VC stepped into the killing zone.
Hollister h
eld.
They continued until the last two crossed the imaginary point on the path.
Hollister let them take two more steps and then forcefully squeezed the handle on his first claymore.
The darkness was broken first by the blast of Hollister’s claymore, then by two more, then two more—in rapid succession. Hollister made sure to count each mine. He didn’t want to have to ask the others if all the mines were detonated if he could count them.
Hollister had remembered to close his eyes to keep from losing his night vision to the flashes of light, and then quickly opened them to see what damage had been done.
The lulling zone was completely obscured by a small cloud of dust and falling leaves, branches, and twigs scattered on the ground.
Not sure if any of the VC had survived the blasts, Hollister counted two beats to himself and then whispered to the others, “Watch your eyes,” as he triggered the last claymore covering the dead space on the far side of the path.
More debris hurled into the air.
They waited, each man holding his breath as he strained to see the forms that quickly became visible. Outlines of the lifeless bodies were thrown about on the path.
Each man counted, one, three—five. All five bodies were visible from the dike.
Hollister didn’t hesitate. He reached over and tapped Fass, whispering hoarsely, “Go, go! One minute—no more. Understand?”
Fass nodded, got to a crouching stance, and vaulted forward off the dike.
From the right, Estlin took the cue and leaped from the dike, only a step behind Fass.
Hollister turned to the others and urged them to hurry up and pack their gear for a hasty move to their rally point. His efforts were unnecessary. By the time Fass and Estlin were in the swampy bog, the others had scooped up their ammo and were spooling up the claymore wires no longer attached to anything out to their front.
They watched, anxiously, as Fass and Estlin entered the killing zone. The two moved without confusion to their assigned spots on the trail, having split up the small piece of ground to a search sector for each of them.