I woke up when I tried to breathe. Cold seawater is a poor substitute for air.
My gear had done its job as advertised. Sometime after I hit the water, the ejection seat had separated and the buoyant flotation pan had kept me above water. The life raft was already inflating nearby.
For a few moments, I focused on just trying to breathe. The seas were rougher than they'd looked from the sky, and every second wave slapped me in the face and tried to make me breathe it. I got my life jacket inflated, got enough air in my lungs to be able to think clearly, and then started swearing.
"Gator?" I hollered. Silly thing to do ― I doubted he'd be able to hear me over the wave noise.
"Gator, are you here?"
I set out for the raft, breast-stroking in my best fashion and trying to keep my head out of the water. All the while, I was looking for the other life jacket, the parachute, anything that would give me an indication of Gator's position. I'd seen his chute ― the seats are timed so that his fires a split second before mine does, giving him enough time to get clear so his ejection rocket won't turn me into toast.
I grabbed the raft, hung on the side for a moment to catch my breath, then pulled myself into it. A flight suit, ejection harness, and boots were a hell of a lot heavier wet than dry.
I raised up on my knees, tried to stand, and almost lost my balance.
There ― off in the distance. I could see a speck of something that looked orange, something that might be Gator. I grabbed the paddle out of the raft and headed for him.
"Goddamn RIOs," I said, as the events of the last few minutes flashed back in my mind.
I knew what he'd done. And he'd probably been right to do it. What was worse, I was going to have to admit it.
The missile had been on us, so quick and so fast that Skeeter hadn't had a chance to get to us. If I'd let him come back when he first tried to join on me, it wouldn't have been a problem. But it had been my delays ― mine ― that had kept him at arm's length and out of position.
There had been no time, no time at all. Gator had known it ― and at some level, so had I.
Still, I never believe that anything in the air can get me.
It's one of those things about being a pilot. You start believing that it's possible for you to get hurt, that your bright and shiny new Tomcat wrapped around you isn't an invincible and all-powerful weapon, and you lose your nerve. The next thing you know, you're starting to stutter on your approach to the boat, you lose the edge, that thing that makes you the very best in the air.
Fear? You can't afford it. Not with the guy in the back depending on you.
But this time, it had been the guy in the back who'd saved my ass. RIOs have no ego compunctions about admitting when they're over their head. After all, they're not flying. Gator had seen what I wouldn't admit ― that the missile was too close and that we were about to buy it.
Command ejection. When the ejection seats in a Tomcat are set to command-eject, activating either seat causes both to shoot out. Experienced pilots with a new RIO stay away from that, in case the guy in the back gets panicky and pulls the ejection handle. If they do, they're the only ones leaving the aircraft ― and they're the ones who'll have to explain it to the Inquiry Board.
But with a guy like Gator, one who's been on more cruises than I have and has been flying with me for a couple of years now, you leave it in command-eject. For just such circumstances as this.
I was a little closer now, close enough to see that it was indeed a life jacket I was looking at. Gator had his back to me, and was floating uneasily on the top of the waves. He was still, except for the water-generated motion.
"Gator!" I hollered, and paddled over to him as quickly as I could. All this water ― I was conscious of the overwhelming need to pee.
About three yards away from him, it suddenly hit me. The life jacket ― it looked wrong. And what I could see of the figure was too small for Gator.
I started swearing again, this time really meaning it. A damn Vietnamese ― it had to be. Now I could see the skin color, and I was certain it was not one of our guys. Or girls. For a moment, I'd had a wild rush of hope that it could be the tanker crew, but no such luck.
I sculled the boat to a standstill a few yards away and considered my options. If I waited a little longer, maybe he would just drown. That would save me a whole lot of trouble.
Still ― there's a kinship among aviators that transcends a lot of things. One of those being floating in the sea face-down.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn't let him die like that. I took a last look around the ocean, still searching for Gator, and saw another splash of orange off in the distance. What now? Head for Gator immediately and come back later for the gook?
Still, I was right there. I hauled ass over to him, grabbed him by the neck, and yanked him into the boat. I pulled my.45 out. Maybe not the most logical thing to do, because if I shot him I'd undoubtedly put a hole in my raft as well. But maybe it would slow him down some.
He was unconscious, pale even under that golden skin, but breathing. Nothing stuck out at an odd angle, so I figured there was nothing broken. Not that it mattered ― as long as he was breathing, I'd about reached the limit of my first-aid abilities.
I kept him where I could see him, right in the front of the raft, and headed for Gator. It seemed to take hours, much longer than it had to reach the stranger. But finally I was there.
Gator was conscious, sculling the water and clearly looking around for his own life raft. Obviously it had blown out of reach. One of his arms hung at an awkward angle by his side. I was a good deal gentler with him as I hoisted him into the raft.
"Got your radio?" Gator gasped. "I couldn't ― my arm wasn't working. I couldn't grab it and paddle at the same time."
I felt in one long deep pocket and pulled out my emergency SAR radio. It was preset to the appropriate channel, and I keyed the flat switch on the side and spoke into it.
"This is Viper Leader, does anyone read?" I unkeyed the mike and waited for a response. Blessedly it came within seconds.
"Viper Leader, Angel 101 en route to your position. I have a visual on you."
Never have words been so welcome in my ears. I let out a wild shout, which Gator echoed weakly. Our companion in the raft still appeared to be unconscious.
I slumped back down on my butt in the ass end of the life raft ― like you can tell one end from the other ― and gazed fondly at my RIO. His face was battered and bloody, white with pain, and his arm looked like shit. Still, those SAR guys knew how to get us back up in their bird without doing permanent damage ― I hoped. At least they claimed they did. "First time for everything," Gator said finally.
"Last time too," I said. "And last time I leave us in command-eject." Gator managed a weak frown. "Don't give me that bullshit," he said, his voice faint. "If I hadn't punched us out, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Maybe you're right," I said finally. The urge to argue the point with him was overwhelming, but there was one factor that stood in my way.
He was right.
"So what do we do with him?" I said, gesturing at the Vietnamese pilot. "I vote we throw him overboard."
Gator shook his head slowly. "I know you're not serious."
"And what if I am?" I said, trying to salvage some degree of ego out of this whole thing. "So it's okay to shoot 'em down but not to drown 'em?"
Gator sighed and shifted slightly. He reached out with one hand and touched the Vietnamese pilot. A low moan issued from the still form, and the Vietnamese stirred slightly.
"We take him back with us. On the helo."
"There it is." I pointed off toward the west. The tiny, ugly insect ― Angel 101. "Hurry up, you guys," I said into the radio. "And we've got an extra passenger for you here ― one of the bad guys we fished out of the water."
"Roger, copy three souls," the SAR crew chief answered. "We've got room for you."
Off to the east, I could see the air battl
e still raging. The fighters circled and danced in the sky, the Tomcats using their greater power against the MiGs' more maneuverable form. I saw another hit, but couldn't tell who it was. Please, God ― not one of ours. I offered up the silent prayer, as contrite at that moment as I ever had been in my life.
Somehow, I'd always envisioned the war stopping when I left it. I knew it wasn't true, at least on an intellectual level. The flights who replaced me while I went to plug and suck on the tanker or back to Jefferson to rearm still continued the battle. Although it seems like you're at the center of the universe when you're in the cockpit, it really isn't so, as the battle off to my east was now making patently clear to me.
I saw one of the small figures break off in hot pursuit and head our direction. Gator was watching too. I heard him say, "Oh, no. No, not that."
My only excuse for what I said next was that I'd just come out of air combat, been ejected from an aircraft, half drowned, and wasn't thinking straight. It didn't make sense, not even as I said it, but I said it anyway.
"They're not gonna strafe us."
Gator shot me a look of sheer, hellish disgust. "Maybe not at first." He gestured with his good arm toward the helo. "They're after the Angel first."
It was simply no match-up. The MiG came no closer than two miles, circled for a moment, then fired two missiles at the CH-46. The helo dove for the water, trying desperately to shake the missiles among the clutter of waves, but the sea state was simply too light. I'd never seen a helo move that fast, or that nimbly. Their pilot did a helluva job.
It wasn't good enough. The first missile hit dead on, shattering the canopy, then plowing part of the way into the fuselage before exploding into a fireball. The second missile detonated upon hitting the suspended shrapnel in the air, creating a secondary explosion that was completely unnecessary. The crew had died in the first moments of impact.
"No!" I was trying to stand now, shaking on my feet in the fragile life boat and lifting one hand at the air and shaking it. "No, you bastards."
I felt a hand on my back, and something yanked me down hard. I lost my balance, fell half out of the raft. My head was submerged in the cold water, and it must have cleared my brain. I grabbed for the side of the raft to keep from falling out, and in the process lost my gun. Two hands hauled me back into the raft and tossed me across to the other side. I sputtered, choked, then puked over the edge.
The Vietnamese pilot was awake ― and clearly had been for some time. I clenched my right hand reflexively, felt the absence of the pistol as keenly as I'd ever noted a loss before.
Our eyes met ― his black, battered from his own ejection and colder than the water. No blinking, just staring. I broke the gaze first and looked down in his left hand. A pistol, not an American one.
"Oh, Bird Dog," I heard Gator say softly. "Jesus, Bird Dog."
The Vietnamese whirled on him, pointing the gun in his direction. He made a motion, clearly indicated that Gator should move to my end of the raft. He did so, dragging himself and his crumpled arm painfully down the length. As soon as he was within arm's reach, I grabbed him and pulled him up toward me. "Just hold still, buddy. They'll be back."
Gator groaned, now past the point of having a coherent discussion.
In the far end of the raft, the Vietnamese settled down, seated, but with the gun pointed implacably in our direction.
We just sat like that for a long time, staring at each other. I checked Gator over, did what I could to make him more comfortable. There was nothing I could use on the boat to splint his arm except the oar, and the gook had gotten hold of that.
The other fellow pulled out his own version of a SAR radio and spoke briefly into it. My heart sank as someone answered. It took them about thirty minutes, but the patrol boat finally found us. We saw them well before they saw us, and our not-so-good friend guided them straight in on us.
They took him aboard first. Then two of them climbed down in the raft to hand Gator up. They went pretty easy with him once they saw he was injured. I saw Gator start to scream at one point when his arm joggled the wrong way, and the guy we fished out of the ocean said something in a nasty tone of voice to them. I don't speak Vietnamese, but I could guess what it was by the expression on their faces.
Something else struck me odd about the entire exchange. Our good old buddy in the water, the one I'd been so tempted to drown, looked like he might be something a little bit more than your average fighter pilot. There were no insignia on his uniform, nothing to give away his rank ― a standard precaution when flying combat patrols ― but I could tell from the way the rest of the men on the boat reacted to him that he might be somebody special. Maybe real special. I should have drowned him when I had the chance.
But for what it was worth, it got Gator fairly decent treatment. The fact that I'd fished him out of the water to begin with seemed to count for something.
It took us two hours to get to shore, a rolling, gut-puking journey in what looked like a converted fishing vessel. It must have had no draft whatsoever ― we bobbed around even in the mild seas like a cork with a trout on the other end.
Finally, we pulled into a naval base and pulled up to the pier. Once again, my buddy departed the boat first. That clued me in too ― last on, first off is the rule for senior officers. He stood on the pier, a bedraggled, soaked, and exhausted figure, with something burning inside of him that kept him upright and snapping out orders. A stretcher was waiting for Gator, and two men who looked to be the Vietnamese equivalent of medics were at his side immediately. Not a routine evolution from the looks of it ― I expected our friend's extended conversation on the ship-to-shore radio had something to do with it.
Nobody paid much attention to me, other than a tough-looking guy patting me down real thoroughly. He took away my knife and my radio. He left me with a chocolate bar and my plastic bottle of water.
Finally, old Fred ― and that's how I was beginning to think of him, because I was tired of thinking of him as a gook or simply that guy ― motioned to both of us. We marched off to an ambulance and a panel truck. They tried to pull me away from Gator's side and stuff me in the truck, and I protested vigorously.
"You are American?" The words in English surprised me, and I spun around to see a small, delicately made Vietnamese woman looking up at me. She smiled. "I am the translator," she said carefully, her words precise and accented. "You are American?"
I nodded. "Lieutenant Commander Curt Robinson, 78322-9872. United States Navy."
She nodded, as though she'd expected nothing more. "And your friend?"
"Commander Gator Cummings, United States Navy. I don't know his Social Security number."
Again she nodded, an odd, cryptic expression on her face. "I have some questions to ask you."
"I don't answer questions."
"They are very easy."
I shook my head in the negative. "No questions. And I go with him." I pointed to Gator, who was being loaded into the ambulance.
It was her turn to shake her head, and a frown appeared on her face. "You had General Hue in your boat," she began, and pointed at Fred. He was standing off to the side and watching this all with a cynical expression on his face.
"A general?"
"Yes. He has ordered for us to take care of you in light of that fact. And your friend. But your friend must go to the hospital, and you will go to…" She struggled with the phrase for a moment, then came up with it. "A holding facility."
She blew it when she glanced over at the general to see if she'd gotten it right. I knew at that point that good old Fred spoke a good deal more English than he'd let on. I turned to him and spoke directly to him.
"You know what happened. So you just explain it to her. And I gotta go with my buddy." The rear doors to the ambulance were now closed, and Gator was out of sight. I was growing increasingly desperate. "C'mon, you'd feel the same way if it were your backseater, wouldn't you?"
General Hue regarded me for a long moment, as though
trying to decide whether or not to admit that he spoke English. Finally, without a word, he nodded. He rattled off a short series of commands in Vietnamese, then turned back to me.
"Thank you." The words were harsh and guttural, and barely understandable. It was evidently one of the few phrases he was willing to admit that he knew in English.
I stared back and gaped. None of this was making sense, none of it. I was certain that the general understood a good deal more than he was letting on.
But then again, you're not really in a position to challenge a general's word when you're a prisoner of war. I settled for being handcuffed and placed in the back of the ambulance with Gator.
With a rough squeal of tires, the ambulance took off from the edge of the pier. They lit up the siren, but only for a few minutes, evidently to clear traffic out ahead. I looked back at the pier through the rear window of the ambulance, and saw the general standing there talking to our interpreter.
The hospital looked like any hospital ― smelled funny, lots of white walls, a lot of people doing things that seem either painful, embarrassing, or downright pointless. Nevertheless, they seemed to treat Gator pretty well. I refused to leave the room, so they just ignored me as they wheeled in a portable X-ray machine, took some shots of his arm, then motioned to me to follow as they wheeled him down the hall.
An hour later, Gator had a real fine smile on his face, the result of whatever painkiller they'd pumped into him shortly after we arrived. He also had a nice white cast on his arm, and a neatly tied scarf in place for his sling.
"How you feeling?" I asked quietly. "Listen, you know where we are?"
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