by Eric Meyer
He almost made it to the mess when the mortar shell landed feet away from him, and his last thought before he died was he’d been wrong. It was his problem.
Captain Casey heard the explosion, and he was already running, cursing not having a radio. He was racing toward the gates where his men were standing guard. When they came they were bound to assault the gate, and his men were already outside, gaping not at the site of the explosion but at the perimeter wire several hundred meters away. They weren’t assaulting the gates. Men were sprouting from the earth like moles, and they rushed forward to the perimeter wire and hurled satchel charges, dropping flat while they exploded leaving huge gaps in the defenses.
He raced up to them. “We’re under attack. Get over there and stop them getting any nearer!”
They gazed at him for several seconds, until he realized they were too shocked by the unexpected explosions to move. He dragged out his pistol. “Leave four men on the gates and follow me!”
He raced toward the breach in the wire, and already many more North Vietnamese regulars were racing toward the base. Marines were running from their huts and pilots sprinting toward their Huey gunships, ready to spool up and take off. A jeep raced out to the stand, with a half-dozen pilots crammed inside, and they ran to their cockpits. Ground crews sprinted from the hangars to prepare their aircraft for emergency takeoff. The jeep turned too fast and rolled over, flinging men out onto the tarmac. Three picked themselves up and kept running. The other three lay where they’d fallen, and they wouldn’t be going anywhere this day. Perhaps never.
A bunch of Marines raced past him led by a corporal. “Get the lead out, Captain!”
Casey didn’t reply. He was panting, out of breath trying to keep up, victim to his lack of fitness. Like that of his men, his job was principally to keep control of drunken soldiers on a Saturday night. Cut off from friendly contact they’d tumble into the Thanh Khe District in search of entertainment, usually in the form of well-stocked bars and well-stocked brothels. Fights and scuffles were inevitable, and he’d lead his men in with billy clubs to break them up, drag them back, and toss them in the tank until morning.
This was different, and it occurred to him he’d never been in action. That was about to change, and he glanced at his Colt automatic, wishing he had an assault rifle in his hands. The Marines in front reached the holes in the wire and a desperate hand-to-hand fight with the North Vietnamese. It became a confused melee. Men clawing at each other, using their fists, boots, knives, and rifles when they had the space to get in a shot. He glanced behind him, and his men were still with him. They had ten meters to go before they reached the fight, and he realized no tactical expertise was required. This was not dissimilar to the fight he and his men had broken up. The only difference was each side intended to kill the other.
Not on my watch. If these bastards want to try to penetrate my perimeter, I’ll kick their asses all the way back to Hanoi.
It was his last thought, a North Vietnamese soldier standing back from the main fight saw him approach, raised his AK-47, and delivered a burst on full auto. It tore into him, stitching bullets from the top of his left shoulder all the way down to his right hip. He fell, dead before he hit the ground. If he’d seen his men run past without pause, charging into the battle, he’d have been proud. He didn’t see them. He didn’t see anything, ever again.
* * *
The first indication we had of a problem was when the co-pilot entered the cabin and unclipped the microphone from the bulkhead. The speaker came on with a loud click, and all heads turned toward him. This was Vietnam, which meant whatever he had to say wouldn’t be anything good.
“Attention, men. We have a situation developing at Da Nang, and we’ve been ordered to divert and lend them a hand.”
“What situation?” a lieutenant shouted over the racket of the engines.
“The North Vietnamese have attacked. Since the end of the Tet Offensive, the brass has been shuffling troops around to shore up other strategic targets, like Hue and Saigon.”
Which means the air base at Da Nang isn’t a strategic target?
“What’s the enemy strength?” the lieutenant added.
He paused. “I’m not sure. They didn’t make it clear. That’s all.” He went to clip the microphone back to the bulkhead but stopped, “There is just one thing. They’re hitting the runway with mortars, so the landing could be tad hairy. The moment the wheels stop you need to get out fast, just in case.”
“Where do we go?”
That lieutenant was persistent kind of guy. I’d already worked out the answer, but the co-pilot gave it to him anyway. “Toward the shooting, Lieutenant. It shouldn’t be hard to find. We land in forty-five minutes. That’s all I know.”
He went back to the cockpit, and the Marines glanced at each other, buzzing with questions that had no answers. There was only one answer they needed. ‘Lock and load.’ They locked and loaded, and I glanced at my pistol and at the lieutenant.
“Say, would you happen to have a spare rifle?”
He sneered. “What happened to yours, did you lose it?”
He was younger than me, and the kind of guy you took an instant dislike to. Wealthy parents, Ivy League university, and he’d be looking to score a few brownie points on his war record before he started up the corporate ladder, or maybe the political ladder. His ODs were pressed and smart, with no evidence of stains, rips, or tears, the uniform of a rookie. His Marines looked at him and looked at me. Maybe they were waiting for me to knock his teeth down the back of his throat, but I had something better.
“Sure, I lost the first one in a tunnel in Cu Chi. The second one I lost on a hillside outside Khe Sanh Combat Base. How about you, Lieutenant? You ever lose a rifle? I guess not if you’ve never seen action.”
He went red as a beet and looked away, mumbling something to a guy sitting next to him. Moments later, a rifle was produced with four spare magazines, and I clutched the familiar wooden stock of an M-14. It felt good, reassuring.
I glanced at Lam. “You have a weapon?”
She shook her head.
I took the Colt out of my holster and passed to her. “Take it, you may need it. The magazine is full, seven .45 caliber rounds. You ever fired one of those?”
“No, they issued me with a revolver, a Smith and Wesson.”
“That’s a heavy gun.” I meant for such a slight girl as Lam, but I didn’t say it. I didn’t need to. She understood.
“I managed quite well, thank you. And thank you for the Colt. If I need to use it, I won’t let you down.”
Time would tell, and that time would come soon. We were flying into a shitstorm of assault rifle and machine gun fire, mortar bombs landing on the runway, and I recalled the defense of Khe Sanh Combat Base. They’d shelled the strip on a regular basis, causing more than a few aircraft crashes. “You’re not nervous?”
She flashed me a brief smile, and I could see she was nervous but determined to do whatever was necessary. “Just a bit.”
“You’re a cop. You can always go out and arrest them.”
The smile widened. “I doubt they’d come quietly.”
I was beginning to like Lam. She had plenty of guts, and I could imagine her pitching into a gang fight on a Saigon street, using her big Smith & Wesson like a club to separate the assailants. This was different, but I had a shrewd suspicion if the occasion warranted, she’d pull the trigger of my Colt, and the Commie she was aiming at better watch out.
As we drew nearer to Da Nang, the cabin became silent, apart from the roar of the engines. The co-pilot reappeared.
“We have ten minutes left before we land, and the moment the wheels touch the ground, the crew chief will lower the ramp. Like I said, the moment we stop, get out, and you’ll know where to go. Any questions?”
There were no questions. The young lieutenant looked scared, and he was chewing gum, his mouth moving rhythmically and fast, and I could imagine the adrenaline surging inside him
. This was the moment of truth, when he could wind up a hero, a coward, or dead. He glanced aside and looked at me, and I could see the whites of his eyes as they moved from side to side. I’d recalled the lessons of Khe Sanh, and I moved next to him so I could talk without being overheard.
“Lieutenant, when we hit the tarmac, get your men out. Don’t wait for the wheels to stop turning.”
His eyes widened. “What you mean? If they try to leave the moving aircraft they could get hurt.”
“If they’re shelling the runway, and they hit the aircraft, they could be dead. You’re in command of some good men here, so get them out fast.”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but I could see reflected in his eyes and ears in his brain turning as they computed what I’d just said. I was a warrant officer, and he was a 1st lieutenant. Which meant he outranked me, and who was I to give him advice? Then again, the Army held warrant officers with a deal of respect. They were soldiers who’d earned their spurs the hard way, and many had forgotten more than this young officer would ever know. He could tell me to go screw, but he now knew I’d been at Cu Chi and Khe Sanh. He was savvy enough to know it wasn’t advisable.
“You’re sure?”
“Sure as I can be.”
The pilot tilted the nose down at the last moment, so it almost looked like he was going nose in first to pile up on the ground. At the last moment, he hauled back on the control column, the aircraft righted, and the wheels touched down with a huge bump. We bounced back into the air several times before it settled, and by then the ramp was already halfway down.
The lieutenant had listened, and he was already out of his seat and shouting orders to his men.
“The moment the ramp touches ground I want everyone out. You know what to do. Roll on the ground to absorb the impact, then get up, and head toward the sound of the shooting.”
A chorus of affirmatives echoed around the cabin, and the lower edge of the ramp was already scraping along the ground. They went out like veteran paratroopers, exiting the aircraft and rolling onto the ground. I watched a dozen men get up and start scanning the area for hostiles before it was my turn, and I pulled Lam with me toward the ramp.
“You know what to do?”
“I think so.”
“Make sure you don’t break a leg, and keep hold of the gun. Go!”
She skipped down the ramp like she was playing a game in a children’s playground, and she rolled out onto the ground, and I followed her. She landed well and got to her feet. I grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her down as a storm of machine gun bullets roiled the air above her head.
“Stay down. They’re everywhere.”
“Where can we go?”
I took a quick look at the perimeter fence, the place of maximum danger. They were pouring through like water over Niagara Falls. “There.”
The machine gun had shifted its aim, and we were able to get to our feet and run doubled over toward the mass of struggling men next to the fence. The area was strewn with bodies, most of them wearing North Vietnamese uniform and the iconic pith helmets. The danger as we approached was stray bullets, the attackers desperately trying to force their way onto the base.
There was no point in joining that heaving mass of humanity, and the newly arrived Marines had already pitched in. But off to the side a smaller group of a half-dozen enemy soldiers carrying a light machine gun had broken away. They were trying to get past, attempting to penetrate further into the base to create more casualties, madness, and mayhem. I led Lam toward them.
Two MPs were trying to stop them, and they stood bravely in their way firing their pistols, but automatics are not the most effective answer to assault rifles, and the North Vietnamese shot them down with long bursts of automatic fire. They almost had a clear path to penetrate further into the base, with nothing standing in their way. Except me and Lam. I pointed at the running men.
“We need to take them, and it’s just us.”
She didn’t object. “Yes.”
I ran toward them, firing from the hip, and two went down. Outside of the wire, someone fired a small caliber infantry mortar, and his aim was lousy. The shell arced higher into the sky, and instead of landing in the middle of our men, it fell close to the four remaining North Vietnamese. It showered them with hot shrapnel that sliced through two of them. Two left, which evened up the odds, and we ran at them like madmen, and they ran toward us like madmen. We met in the middle. Lam squeezed the trigger of my Colt M1911 and hit one man, but it merely took him in the left shoulder, and he kept coming.
She stood in front of him, took aim, and fired three more shots, but I didn’t stop to look. The remaining man carried the light machine gun, and I recognized a Soviet-made PK, a squad automatic weapon similar to our M249. If he got past, one man could do wicked damage with such a weapon, and I veered toward him, squeezed the trigger, and fired four shots. At the exact moment, he swerved to one side, and the four shots all missed. There wasn’t a fifth shot. I’d lost count of my rounds, and the firing pin clicked on empty.
I grabbed a spare magazine, but he was bringing around the machine gun waist high to train it on Lam. With no other choices, I hurled myself at him, hands reaching out to grab the barrel of the gun. The weapon vibrated and juddered as he squeezed the trigger, but I’d just managed to drag it to one side and pointed it up at the sky. The bullets tore harmlessly at the clouds, and I let go with one hand, grabbing the box magazine to get a better grip. He screamed a curse, or it could have been an insult, and wrestled with me to try to keep hold of the gun, but I wasn’t letting go.
We fought like maniacs, and it was as if the entire battle for Da Nang had condensed to this tiny bubble close to the perimeter fence. In the distance, I heard a rain of mortar shells hammering down onto the tarmac, but I wasn’t involved. There was just me and Charlie. Suddenly, he let go of his grip on the gun, and I had it in my hands, but he snarled in triumph and pulled a huge machete from the sheath hanging from his belt. He came at me spitting hatred, and I saw the blade slicing down ready to split my skull in two. It was too late to do anything.
Chapter Four
The bullets came out of nowhere, and the VC’s head disintegrated into a bloody mush. The machete fell from his lifeless hand and dropped at my feet, and I whirled. The last person I’d expected to see, apart from the Grim Reaper come to collect his dues. To pluck my soul from this earth, but it wasn’t to be.
“Massey! Ray!”
Sergeant Ray Massey, Army Rangers was standing with an M-14 in his hands, and was I pleased to see him. He hadn’t changed, the familiar broad shoulders, tough physique, leathery skin, and watchful eyes set in a face that seldom expressed emotion.
“Carl Yeager, what the hell are you doing here? Apart from trying to commit suicide.”
“I’m not entirely sure.” I shook my head to clear it, still amazed to be alive. I thought that Viet was about to dice me into bite-size chunks, and how Massey had come to be in this place at this particular time seemed more than a coincidence. Fortuitous, like a gift from the gods, not that they owed me any favors.
Lam came up to me, and he gave her a curious look. “How come you always travel with a pretty girl in tow?”
I explained about her belonging to the Saigon police, until she got linked with her sister’s investigation and fired. “We’re on our way to Quang Tri, or at least we were.”
I glanced around, and the battle was winding down. They’d brought out a couple of Bradley M113s with turret-mounted autocannon, and jeeps that mounted Browning M2s. A lot of heavy firepower, and in addition the gunships had taken off and were circling the ground outside the perimeter, pouring on heavy fire. Someone fired a couple of rounds from a mortar, but the gunships swooped, the machine guns hammered, and the mortar went quiet.
“It looks like it’s over.”
He nodded. “For now, but they’ve done some damage.” He was gazing at the runway, and it was pockmarked with craters. “There ain
’t any fixed wing aircraft gonna take off from here until it’s repaired. I guess you came in on that C-130. At least it’s undamaged.”
The pilot had taxied across to the stand, and if he’d stayed on the runway, the chances were his aircraft would be a smoking ruin. “Ray, you know what this reminds me of?”
“Khe Sanh, it’s déjà vu. How come we let them get so close?”
“They’re hard to stop, like moles. They keep digging.”
We started walking toward the main buildings, at the side of the huge, curved hangars erected nearby. There was no sign of the troops I’d arrived with, but I found a harassed colonel, whose tape told me he was Fisher. He looked to be in charge, hurling out orders as men rushed past him, and I waited my turn.
He suddenly turned and looked at me. “Who’re you?”
I gave him my name and rank. “We were on the way to Quang Tri when they diverted us here.”
He shook his head. “I guess you’ll be wanting transport for the rest of your journey. You can forget it. The runway is out of action until we’ve fixed the damage, and I need every helicopter to carry out a sweep for any of those insurgents that got away.”
“Colonel, it’s essential I reach Quang Tri ASAP. If you contact my boss at Tan Son Nhut, he’ll confirm my mission has high priority.”
He snorted, and his eyes squinted, as he looked up and down at Lam. Liking what he saw. “You’re traveling with a civilian? What’s the game, Mister, you going up there for a vacation while the rest of us do the fighting?”
I kept my temper. “Sir, I’m investigating the air crash south of the DMZ. Indications are there’s more to it than a simple missile strike.”
“Is that so? Well here’s the deal, Mr. Yeager, I have my own problems here at Da Nang, and it’s possible the enemy will hit us again. So I couldn’t give a fuck about Quang Tri or any air crash.”
“What about the soldiers who were on their way when they diverted here?”