by Dennis Foley
The absence of enemy soldiers only meant he couldn’t see any. It didn’t mean there weren’t any. Hollister moved out from under the overhang and hugged the bank. He wanted to find a pickup zone on their side of the stream. He wanted to avoid having to cross the stream to find one, and again to pick up Jrae and Pek, and a final time to go back to the PZ. That many crossings in the daylight was a sure invitation to trouble.
The footing under the water was uncertain. Roots and rocks made it difficult for Hollister to move along the bank and keep his head and his weapon above water. He had doubts about taking the radio with him and how much more water it could take before giving out on him. He knew if he got into trouble looking for the landing zone, he might be able to get out of it by calling for air support. Without the radio, he’d give up that possibility.
At a point where the stream began to make a gentle bend there was a stand of reeds on the inside of the turn—where the water moved more slowly. It was the perfect place for him to climb up from the water to the stream bank. The reeds hid his outline and allowed him to look quite a distance up and down the stream as well as back from the turn.
From somewhere back where they had been the night before there came three rifle shots followed by what was surely a pistol. Hollister pulled out his compass and shot an azimuth toward the shooting. He ducked back down and pulled the handset off his harness. “Golf Mike, this is Killer Six. Over,” he whispered, using Michaelson’s initials.
“This is Mike,” Michaelson replied.
“I think we need to worry about Detroit Two-Six and two crew members with him. I want to send some guns over there to check them out. Can you help me out?”
“Roger. I’m going to let Easy direct the guns to your last known, and you can work from there. Stand by.”
In what seemed like less than three minutes, the Cobras flew over at max speed.
“Mark, mark, mark,” Hollister yelled over the chopper sounds to let them know they had just overflown his position.
Joe Raymond pulled up hard and reversed his direction.
Hollister pulled the scrap of mirror out of his pocket and found the sun. As best he could guess the angle, he reflected the sun back toward the lead gunship.
“Roger. Got your shiny,” Raymond said.
Hollister looked at the orbiting gunship and pointed to the southwest, just in case Raymond could see him standing in the reeds. “Detroit Two-Six’s element is about six hundred mikes from mine at two six five degrees. Over.”
“Got it. We’ll take a look,” Raymond said as he rolled the gunship out of the orbit and headed to where Hollister thought Tennant, Moody, and the crew chief might still be.
Raymond was over the position in a matter of seconds. He and his wing man prowled the area in tight, low orbits. Before they made the first complete circle the sounds of ground fire were added to the chopper noises.
Hollister couldn’t see the firing at first. He watched Raymond roll out away from the ground fire and pick up speed and altitude to set up for a firing run.
Raymond’s Cobra dove for a target. The minigun on the nose of the chopper spit out an interrupted rope of red tracers. As soon as Raymond got to the bottom of his run, his wingman replaced him to keep the pressure on the enemy positions.
Hollister lost sight of the gunship. The trees between him and the target area blocked much of the gun run.
“Six, this is Golf Mike. You might want to move in the same direction you would from the mess hall to the orderly room for a few hundred mikes to look for that Papa Zulu,” Michaelson said, trying to not give away the direction over the radio.
The mess hall-orderly room reference meant he should move northwest—the same direction he would move between those buildings back at Tay Ninh.
Hollister knew he had to move. Had the enemy been monitoring his earlier radio transmission to Raymond, they would have been able to figure out the back azimuth and the distance from the firing to Hollister’s position.
The sounds of the gunship and ground firing helped Hollister. He knew enemy soldiers were not so disciplined that the contact would not distract their attention. It gave him the best chance to move without being detected. Any sounds he would make would be covered by the prowling choppers. Chances were everyone near him would be watching them.
He stepped up out of the marshy water and onto the bank. Gallons of water fell from his uniform and equipment as he took his first few clumsy strides to the nearby tree line.
Inside the trees, Hollister was able to survey the area near the bank and still stay concealed. He moved up the tree line, looking for a spot large enough to bring in one chopper to get them out. As he moved, he was still concerned by the amount of fire being exchanged between the enemy gunners and the Cobras. He knew it had to be frightening and disorienting for the pilots trapped on the ground—if they were still alive.
Hollister began to worry about his distance from Jrae and Pek. The farther he had to travel to find a pickup zone, the more chance they had of getting ambushed moving back to it.
The gunships stopped firing and pulled up into a high orbit. Then two of the three orbiting slicks dropped out of their orbit and set up for a landing in the contact area. Hollister hoped the shift to the slicks meant the enemy firing had been suppressed, and they had some friendlies on the ground to pick up.
Hollister continued to search for his landing zone while keeping an eye on the progress of the slick only eight hundred meters away from his location. For a moment, he considered asking Michaelson if he should think about using that same landing zone. But then he realized it would be nearly a fourteen-hundred-meter hump for them from the hollow in the stream bank.
He stepped around a thick stand of bamboo and suddenly found himself looking out onto the landing zone Michaelson had directed him to. It was large enough to land two or possibly three slicks, and the height of the trees surrounding it wouldn’t pose much of a problem for choppers.
Hollister tried to study the PZ and commit its features to memory before he returned for Jrae and Pek. He didn’t want to have any difficulty finding it again. He noted the major landmarks in the area and figured its proximity to the stream. He then looked around for any signs of enemy traffic. The trails seemed to be undisturbed, and there were no signs of broken branches or twisted limbs of bushes.
He turned to start back to the stream overhang when he caught sight of a slick coming to a hover over the contact site. He saw two sandbags fly out the cargo door just as the chopper flew over the site.
What he saw concerned him. He hoped his earlier insistence on cross training the pilots and crews would help Tennant and the others. They were going to have to come out on a McGuire rig.
He remembered how he had insisted the pilots get a ride at the end of those ropes. He knew the familiarization would help Tennant. But being extracted at the end of 120-foot nylon climbing ropes was difficult even for experienced Rangers. And doing it for real, under fire, was a tricky stunt to pull off.
The bags thrown to Tennant contained the harnesses they would need to attach themselves to the end of the ropes that would later be thrown from the choppers.
CHAPTER 33
HOLLISTER BEGAN TO WORK his way back to Jrae and Pek. His route was just under the widest of the orbits of the circling helicopters. He shielded his eyes from the sun and looked up. Above him, he saw the numbers had grown to four gunships, three slicks, and another lone chopper. He assumed it was an ARVN aircraft.
He was careful not to take the same route back to the stream-side hideout. If he had been seen on the way out by enemy troops, they might have moved into position to fire on him on his return.
Hollister wanted to make sure his route back would still leave him a way to make his third trip along the same general route once he picked up Jrae and Pek. The repeated travel, the randomness of the enemy elements, and the unpredictable nature of the ARVN soldiers somewhere nearby troubled Hollister. Still, he had no options. He didn’t want
to look for a hole in the trees to try a McGuire rig extraction with two Montagnards who had never seen the technique. He had to get them to the PZ he had found and hope to be able to get a chopper in to pick them up—and not be discovered.
It was a long shot. He put the risks out of his mind and tried to focus on how to tilt the weight of the advantage the enemy had. He knew if he could get to the PZ with Jrae and Pek, he could call on the choppers and gunships to improve his odds of making it out. And they would be available if the weather held.
He looked up at those parts of the horizon he could see through the trees. The sky was blue and clear of threatening cloud formations.
Hollister stopped and slipped into a thick stand of bamboo to look back over the route he had taken. He wanted to have as much of the area committed to memory as he could. He didn’t want to waste any time or hesitate or to be forced to stop to check his map on the final trip back.
The sounds of the pilots’ pickup chopper grew. Hollister looked over to the area where he heard the pistol shots and had seen the first chopper drop the McGuire rig harnesses.
A chopper came to a high hover over the spot. Three climbing ropes flew out of the cargo compartment, thrown by the belly man. Hollister could tell by the sudden tension pulled into the whipping ropes that someone on the ground had grabbed the snap links tied to them.
Arrival of the chopper was the best time for Hollister to make the last dash to the stream. Attention would be focused on the chopper again, and the sounds would help cover his move. He left the bamboo and grabbed the shoulder straps to his radio backpack. Breaking into a trot, he only had a hundred and fifty more meters to go.
He reached the stream bank, and leaped over it and into the rushing water. As he hit bottom, he reached out and grabbed a handful of edge grasses to keep him close to the bank.
He turned and saw the chopper, some six hundred meters away, rising straight up. Two of the air crew members dangled under the chopper, holding on to the limp body of a third—connected to the ropes, but unable to hold himself upright.
He couldn’t tell who each outlined figure was because he was looking into the sun. But he was sure the third figure was seriously wounded or dead.
The three dangling crew members hung helplessly beneath the chopper as its pilot tried to gain enough altitude to clear the trees while he rolled forward.
Hollister caught the thin green line made by a tracer from somewhere to the south of the chopper. They were taking fire. And the pilot’s options were severely limited by the fact that he had three live Americans hanging under his aircraft while he was taking fire from the same direction he was trying to fly his chopper.
Hollister raised the handset to his ear to listen to the cross talk. The net was filled with competing message traffic from the gunships, the pilot in command, and the C & C chopper.
More fire leaped from the ground, reaching for the chopper and the passengers swinging beneath its belly. Hollister saw DeSantis step out onto the skid of the chopper, flame spitting from the muzzle of his M-16 as he tried to help the door gunners suppress the ground fire. He leaned over at the waist, held in the chopper by a nylon monkey strap that allowed him the freedom to work out on the skid.
“Killer Six, are you clear of this?” a voice asked over the radio.
Hollister couldn’t make out the voice over the din, but didn’t care. “That’s affirm. I’m clear. Don’t worry about me.”
Tracers defined the web of fire aimed at the pilots—in and under the chopper. Some of the fire found the thin skin of the chopper. Hollister couldn’t tell if both sets of crew members were surviving the heavy fire.
Once the chopper gained enough altitude to make the move, the pilot put the craft into a hard right turn to avoid the intense ground fire. The maneuver pitched DeSantis backward into the chopper and swung the crew members dangling below in a wide, out-of-control arc, nearing the horizontal.
As fast as the pickup chopper rolled out, Joe Raymond led his Cobras in on the enemy firing positions. He let loose with three pairs of rockets.
The rockets found their mark in the dense bamboo, exploding with sharp cracks, little flame, and lots of smoke. Joe’s wingman fired off two more pairs of rockets and flew blind through the huge clouds of smoke, while Joe came around for a second pass.
Hollister looked for the pickup chopper with the string riders below it, but they were masked by the horizon.
Inside the overhang, Hollister explained the plan to Jrae while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. They had no option. They would have to move overland in the daylight to the clearing he had found, signal the chopper, and wait for an extraction.
He waited for Jrae to translate to Pek and then explained he would point out a rally point halfway to the PZ. If they were separated on the way before he picked it, they were to meet back in the overhang. If they were broken up after he identified the rally point, they would meet there.
Expecting the greatest need for air support would come near the PZ, Hollister called Michaelson and asked him to send all but a pair of gunships back to refuel. He wanted them on standby while the trio moved to the PZ.
Their move was slow and deliberate. Hollister decided to point out intermediate landmarks that would take them to the PZ and then let Pek move to them first. Pek could pick the best route for noise and concealment. He was also more familiar with the enemy markings for mines or booby traps. And he was likely to avoid being fired upon if they made a chance contact with enemy patrols. His native features, familiar clothing, and lack of a weapon might cause the enemy to assume he was an ally or an unarmed mountain man.
They were held up twice by what they thought was enemy movement. In each case it proved to be a false alarm. By midafternoon, Hollister held the Montagnards up and edged forward to see if the clearing was still void of enemy soldiers.
He found a place on the east side of the PZ and crawled under the bushes to look out across the clearing.
Seeing nothing alarming, he closed his eyes and listened. The wind was soft and made a slight swishing sound as it blew through the waist-high grasses in the clearing. The trees rustled. The sounds of birds were positive noises. They hadn’t been spooked.
He opened his eyes again and noted the prevailing wind was out of the south at no more than three knots. It was perfect for the pickup.
The sound of the arriving choppers gave Hollister some hope of being able to pull off the extraction. He looked to Pek and Jrae to see if they recognized the presence of the two pickup ships that fell into orbit with the gunships and the C & C.
“Anytime you are ready,” Hollister told Michaelson over his fading radio.
“We are going to come in from north to south. Our guess is any trouble might be on the west side of the Papa Zulu. Joe’s going to check it out,” Michaelson said.
“Roger. Put some fire in here, and we’ll get on board. We don’t have much in the way of options.”
“Stand by. They are five out,” Michaelson said.
Hollister passed the word to the others and looked around the PZ and then behind them—away from the clearing. He felt his gut tighten and tried to focus his senses on being as alert as he could to anything out of place. The effort was complicated by the long hours without sleep and the high level of vigilance he had sustained.
He fought off the impulse to be angry. He tried to convince himself he would postpone it until he got back inside Vietnam. Focusing on how incensed he was over Valentine’s actions was wasted energy. They were there, and God only knew how many others had already been killed and wounded by Valentine’s grab for glory. Hollister needed his strength and tried to divert his anger to getting them out of that hole in the Cambodian jungle and back to safety. There he would make sure he settled the score.
The momentum picked up after the arrival of the other choppers. Michaelson counted down the minutes to touchdown, and Hollister relayed the information to Jrae and Pek.
They all held their br
eath as the nose of the pickup ship peeked over the north edge of the clearing and exposed its belly to slow and settle into the grassy field.
Hollister pointed at Pek—launching him from his ready position into a flat-out run in spite of his casted arm toward the landing chopper. Pek reached a point half the twenty meters to the chopper’s side door when Hollister got himself and Jrae up to follow.
As he took his first step, Hollister heard the gunship passing behind him belch out an angry burst of minigun fire somewhere to his left rear.
He saw Pek leap up and into the chopper and then slump to the floor—spread-eagle. The chopper jerked and bucked as the window next to the command pilot’s seat blew out from enemy fire that had crossed through the cockpit of the chopper from the far side of the PZ.
Suddenly the chopper rolled forward and up, not waiting for Hollister and Jrae. Hollister reached out and grabbed Jrae, who was running toward her wounded brother more than for the chopper as a means of escape. One hand firmly wrapped around her ankle, Hollister tripped her up and fell next to her in the tall grass.
Her eyes were wide and showed the terror of her reality. She had just seen her brother take gunshots in his back and legs. Hollister guessed she was anticipating the chopper might also crash in its attempt to get out of the line of fire—crippled and unstable.
He pressed the radio mouthpiece to his lips. “Tell me what we are doing,” he yelled, hoping Michaelson could hear him in the C & C and see him and Jrae faceup in the grass—ten meters from the tree line.
“Stay! Stay put!” Michaelson yelled. “The chase is inbound to the same spot. Get ready to move.”
It was all Hollister needed to hear. He rolled over on his belly and raised up enough to see the second chopper coming in hotter, more deliberately than the first.