Take Back the Night: A Novel of Vietnam (The Jim Hollister Trilogy Book 3)

by Dennis Foley

  Xuan, too, lost his handhold on the slippery edge of the hole and fell into the water. Rat reached down and found Xuan’s sleeve and pulled him to the surface.

  Xuan sputtered and tried to wipe the muddy water from his face as he spat out mud.

  “Quiet,” Rat said.

  Xuan stifled his impulse to cough, and they listened for the helicopter blades.

  “Americans?” Xuan asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Rat’s lip began to shiver from the cold water. “I am getting out of here as soon as they fly away. I cannot stand in this water much longer.”

  Within minutes of crossing the Cambodia border, the clouds that had boiled up thinned, and the rain let up. Everyone in the chopper was silent for a long time as they looked down at the home of so much of the enemy activity in the IE Corps area. Every major operation, every large campaign, and every significant enemy contact had either started below them and moved east or was controlled out of a series headquarters concealed somewhere in the trees.

  “You could hide a whole division down there,” Tennant said, looking at a large forested area.

  “They’ve hidden lots of divisions in there, Cap’n,” Easy said, speaking over the intercom.

  “What are we looking for?” Tennant asked.

  “Just want to get a feel for it. We haven’t spent any time in this area.” Hollister said.

  “What’s first on this operation?”

  “First we put some teams in to size up the place, verify the data we have on the maps and in the intel summaries, and then we start running operations in there to screw up their way of doing things, and see what develops.”

  “Okay, where do you want to go, boss?”

  “Let’s hang a right and see what we can see,” Hollister said.

  Tennant eased the cyclic over and the chopper made a gentle turn—deeper into Cambodia.

  The ground below them was a maze of cross-threaded trails braiding back and forth across one another, taking advantage of tree cover wherever it existed.

  “Tracks every fucking where!” Easy said. “Most of ’em are washed out by the rain. But there’s no doubt folks have been through this area—and plenty of ’em.”

  “Trucks, bicycles, Ho Chi Minh sandals,” Tennant said. “Can you imagine walking all the way down here from North Vietnam?”

  “Yeah, and no travel pay,” Easy said.

  “How recently do you think they’ve used these trails?”

  “Can’t tell at this altitude,” Easy said.

  Tennant looked over at Hollister for some sign of response and instructions.

  Hollister simply raised his hand and poked his index finger toward the ground.

  “Got it. Going down. Next stop, ladies’ lingerie,” Tennant kidded.

  “Don’t I wish,” one of the door gunners said.

  “Don’t we all,” Tennant said. “Anyway, keep your eyes sharp back there. We want to get back to ladies’ lingerie someday.”

  Hollister grabbed a look at the altimeter again. It passed through fifteen hundred feet and then a thousand.

  “What’s good for you, Jim?” Tennant asked.

  “I’d guess anything below fifteen hundred we might as well be on the treetops.”

  Tennant accelerated the descent. “My sentiments exactly. Lift your feet up, folks, and hang on. We’re going tree trimming.”

  No one spoke while they passed through more dangerous altitudes on the way down. Finally, Tennant pulled a little power back into the blades and leveled off the chopper only a few feet above the tallest trees.

  The view of the ground was almost as good as standing on it. From treetop level, they were able to see fresh tracks. The key was to be able to see enough shadow detail to tell if tracks were fresh or starting to break down from natural weathering. The sharper the shadows, the sharper the edges of the tracks and the fresher they were.

  “Shit. Looks like they been holding square dances down here,” Easy said. “Look out the left here.”

  Everyone shifted and craned their necks to see what Easy was pointing at.

  “See those vehicle tracks back there?”

  “What about ’em?” Hollister asked.

  “You got wide tracks and narrow tracks staying pretty much parallel all the way.”

  “What’s that mean?” Tennant asked.

  “If they weren’t parallel they might be a truck and a jeep. But if a truck was following a jeep the tracks would slop over one another now and then. Since they aren’t, you can bet that truck’s either towing a trailer—”

  “Or wheeled antiaircraft weapons,” Hollister finished his sentence.

  “Fuck me,” came quietly from one of the door gunners.

  “Well, we don’t have to go looking for ’em with a slick for bait to guess they’re in the area. Let’s let ’em be and go looking for them when we’re loaded for bear,” Hollister said.

  They flew wide, lazy figure eights over the area for another twenty minutes, and both Hollister and Easy marked areas of interest on their maps.

  “I’m going to have to head for the barn pretty soon for some fuel,” Tennant said.

  Hollister raised his thumb in a gesture of approval. Knowing they were headed back, he took one last look. For as far as he could see, the bundle of trails threaded through the trees and crossed over themselves from the north to Saigon’s doorstep. Everywhere, there were tracks of North Vietnamese soldiers, bicycles, and their vehicles.

  “Whoa, baby!” someone yelled over the intercom.

  At the same moment, Hollister saw what he was talking about. Just ahead of the chopper a lone rifleman opened up on the chopper with a long burst of small-arms fire. The tracers coming directly at the chopper first looked like green balls and then, as their arc maxed out and they fell short, they turned into green lines just before the phosphorous burned out.

  The cargo compartment and cockpit area suddenly filled with green smoke. Hollister couldn’t see the windscreen in front of him. If he couldn’t see, Tennant couldn’t see.

  “What we got back there?” Tennant yelled to the door gunners.

  Both gunners had opened up on a target below the chopper neither Hollister nor Tennant could see. “Got one in the overhang of the stream we just crossed,” the crew chief said between machine-gun bursts.

  “Damage?”

  The other door gunner stopped firing. “Hit a fucking smoke grenade on the side of my ammo can, and we took some hits in the tail, ’s far as I can tell. How’s it up there?”

  Hollister looked over his shoulder and watched the blurred image of the door gunner let go of his machine gun and lean over. At first he thought the soldier was hit, but when the smoke cleared a bit more, he realized the gunner had just reached under the bench seat, found the smoke grenade, and pitched it out of the chopper.

  Tennant leaned forward and finished scanning the instruments for any sign of alarm, and then alternately pressed each pedal, causing the chopper to fishtail a bit. He then rotated the cyclic, causing the chopper to dip, roll, and yaw, and then he raised and lowered the collective to check out the controls.

  “Seems like everything still works,” he said, coughing from the smoke. He slid the window on his door open. “Let me come around again. I want to know where that fucker’s hanging out.”

  “Ya know—unless we start throwing things at them from this slick, there’s not much we can do to screw up their day. I’ll mark this one and see if we can scare them up some other day—maybe with a team ready to kick some ass.”

  “Works for me,” Tennant said, and he laid the chopper over into a left turn—heading back for the Viet-Cambode border.

  CHAPTER 18

  ONCE THEY SETTLED IN at Tay Ninh the training continued around the clock. Hollister inspected every bit of it and gave some of the classes himself. Between classes, he read everything he could find on the enemy situation in southeastern Cambodia and sat in on several planning sessions with Lieutenant Colonel
Michaelson and Colonel Terry and General Quinn.

  The new Cambodian territory meant added hours of map study for Hollister. And because it was Cambodia, he would have to make do with the maps and aerial photographs of the area. He wouldn’t be allowed the freedom to frequently overfly the terrain in a chopper the way he could anywhere else in South Vietnam.

  “Cap’n, I got some good news for you—bad for me,” Easy said, meeting Hollister as he crossed the compound.

  “How can that be?” Hollister asked. “Aren’t we on the same side in this war?”

  “We are, sir. But you need a new platoon leader for the Third Platoon, and I don’t need any more lieutenants in my life.”

  Hollister brightened. “You got me one?”

  “Yes, sir. I aggravated the personnel sergeant major so much he sent us a body—excuse me—an officer to fill our vacancy.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s waiting in your office.”

  First Lieutenant Buck Deming was older than Hollister expected. His uniform showed signs of mileage respected in their business. He was a Ranger, senior parachutist, diver, jungle expert, and pathfinder. He looked like just what Hollister needed.

  Deming sat drinking a cold soft drink while Hollister went over his file. “How much time have you spent over here?”

  “Well, sir, I was a squad leader and platoon sergeant in the Airborne brigade of the First Cav—in sixty-five and sixty-six.” His voice was thick with a distinctive dialect Hollister hadn’t heard since Sergeant Thibideaux, the MP, ex-LRP, who saved Hollister’s butt back at Benning.

  Hollister listened to Deming speak and grabbed a look at the place-of-birth box on a form. As he suspected—Deming, too, was from Louisiana. He listed Saint John the Baptist Parish as his home.

  “First Cav where you got the Purple Heart and two Silver Stars? I can’t remember the last lieutenant I’ve ever met with a pair. I’m impressed.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I’m real sure I didn’t deserve it, though. It was the la Drang Valley,” Deming said.

  “After that?”

  “I went back to the States—the Hundred and First Airborne Division at Fort Campbell. Spent a bit over a year there, and then got selected for OCS. After OCS, I went to Ranger School and stayed on there as an instructor for a while.”

  “Deming, Deming—oh, yeah,” Hollister said. “You were at the mountain camp in Dahlonega, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Great assignment. You don’t learn much about mountaineering in bayous.”

  “Then?”

  “I got orders back here and spent most of last year as a platoon leader in the Eighty-second Airborne Brigade and then a few months as company commander before the brigade rotated home.”

  “You extended over here?”

  “Yes, sir. I had to do some heavy evasive action to keep from getting sucked into some headquarters job in Cam Ranh Bay. The field force sergeant major used to be my drill sergeant at Fort Polk. He was a great friend to have over here. That’s how I ended up here. I hope you have a job for me.”

  Hollister took a sip from his coffee cup and thought for a moment before speaking.

  “How do you feel about being a platoon leader again? I mean after having commanded a rifle company?”

  “No problem, sir,” Deming said.

  “Well, I’ve got a hole for you,” Hollister said.

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Good. I expect you to suck up as much as you can from the more experienced members of the company. I don’t mind telling you, we place experience over rank when it comes to a toss-up around here. We can’t afford the luxury of measuring dates of rank when the shooting starts. You start by going along on patrols headed by folks junior to you. Any problem for you?”

  “No, sir. The last thing I want to do is try to pull off looking like I know what I’m doing when I don’t. They’ll spot it in a New York minute, and I’ll never be able to gain their respect then.”

  “I like officers who remember what it’s like to be a PFC. It’ll go a long way around here.”

  “I’ll never forget being in a rifle squad in the Cav or a fire team at Fort Riley. It’s where I come from. All I want to do is a good job. I figure I do that, and everything else’ll pretty much fall into place.”

  “Good. We’re going to get along well. So, welcome to Juliet Company.”

  At the end of the week Hollister had to report his progress to Colonel Terry and General Quinn. He arrived early and set up his small charts he had put together.

  A small briefing room had been set aside. And Hollister paced the room, going over notes he had put on homemade three-by-five cards.

  Finally, Quinn, Terry, Michaelson, the operations sergeant major, and Reed, the G-3 aviation officer, entered.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Hollister said. “The purpose of my briefing this morning is to give you an update on the training and readiness status of Juliet Company and direct supporting units.”

  Some in the room sat back; Michaelson and Reed began taking notes.

  Hollister flipped up a chart and held it vertically on the small podium.

  “My combat strength looks fairly good on paper—eighty-six percent available for duty is a bit misleading. I’m short of several specialties—radio operators and medics being the worst. Medics, I’m at eighty percent and would like to be at a hundred plus.”

  Colonel Terry smiled at Hollister, knowing, as would any colonel, that his motives for wanting more medics than he was authorized was for all the right reasons.

  “My equipment status is improving. I want to tell you the G-4 has been terrific at reassigning equipment from units rotating home. I should be at deployable status on equipment, vehicles, and commo gear within six days.”

  “And your problem areas?” General Quinn asked.

  Hollister flipped up another small chart showing subject areas essential for each team member and the percent of completion of training. “You can see our weak areas are those requiring the most training resources. I have to run dummy inserts and extractions with every team to be sure the coordination between teams and choppers is adequate before I put them on the ground. I haven’t seen anything yet to convince me the teamwork is anywhere near where I want it.”

  “How long?” Colonel Terry asked.

  “I’d guess about another five days, if I continue to get the same chopper availability.”

  “Let me tell you five days is about all we can give you. I’m getting heat to quit burning up assets and to start putting your teams on the ground. Maneuver units can’t understand why a single Ranger Company needs so much blade time when it’s not even putting any notches on its belt.”

  “I understand,” Hollister said. “But on top of that—I have to train my operations people, my ops officer, and my platoon leaders. They’re all very short in specialty training.”

  “How can we help?” Terry asked.

  “I could use some help from a pro,” Hollister replied.

  “A pro?”

  “I sure could use Colonel Michaelson to teach a class or two,” Hollister said, shooting a hopeful glance at his old friend.

  Colonel Terry turned and looked at Michaelson. “What do you say? You want to spend a few days with the troops? Get out of the head shed for a while?”

  Michaelson smiled. “I’d love it, sir.”

  Terry turned to Hollister. “It’s a deal. But I expect you to work him hard. His life is too easy for him here.”

  The briefing continued on for an additional hour as they discussed details of Hollister’s problems. The general explained that more and more large chunks of Vietnam would be given to Hollister to screen as U.S. units pulled back to prepare to return to the States. During the upcoming week of training, the troop strength in Vietnam would drop even deeper below the halfway mark of the one-time high of five hundred thousand plus.

  The training continued, and Hollister was able to import some additional instructors. The evac hos
pital provided doctors to assist in the training. In the beginning, the doctors bristled at the thought of teaching mere medics their trade. But Hollister got Doctor Plummer to explain how the Rangers needed their training. That and the promise of a few sets of camouflage fatigues loosened their objections.

  Hollister asked Michaelson to overlook operations while Hollister took Thomas up in a chopper to control dummy inserts and extractions in a relatively safe area of western III Corps. Having Michaelson stand in as the acting commander allowed Hollister to show Thomas the operations officer’s job.

  Hollister and Thomas boarded a Huey flown by Captain Dale Tennant. The team going in was from the 2d Platoon. Staff Sergeant Chastain had drawn a training mission and was patrol leader of Team 2-3. Lieutenant McIlwain squeezed in as assistant patrol leader.

  Thomas only brought along his .45 pistol. Hollister raised his M-16. “Next time, bring a real weapon. You go down with a forty-five and you’ll be one very sorry captain.”

  Hollister then checked out Lieutenant Jack Donaldson, the artillery forward observer. He carried his own PRC-77 radio, maps, binoculars, a thirty-eight on his belt, and a pump shotgun. It was obvious to Hollister that Jack Donaldson had gotten religion somewhere along the line.

  The formation of choppers rendezvoused over a major intersection in the Dong Nai River. Hollister had insisted each training mission include a full insert package, loaded with full weapons and fuel.

  Chastain’s team, 2-3, was given the mission to land in a small PZ that had once been someone’s manioc field. On the ground, the team would head north to watch a canal junction with a large river tributary. Their task there was to establish an artillery ambush of the junction. Should an enemy convoy of sampans slip from the canal into the river, Chastain would be expected to identify them as enemy and call effective field artillery and chopper fire on the boats.

  Since it was an exercise, one of the slicks would drop two empty fifty-five-gallon oil drums in the canal and let them drift into the river. Then Team 2-3’s markmanship and artillery adjustment skills would be tested.

  They would spend no more than twenty-four hours on the ground. Hollister regretted it, but he had to cut the training missions short in order to get each team on the ground at least once before the company went fully operational in Cambodia.