Bayonet Skies

by John F. Mullins

  The choppers formed up and headed back toward the west. Although it was only a short hop across the Mekong into Laos, it would have been foolish to take that route. By now the NVA, through a spy network that had been established during the war and was undoubtedly still operational, would have been watching the camp and the approaches quite carefully. The spies would alert the air defenses and the flight would likely have run into a whole hornet’s nest of guns, everything from the AK-47s of individual troops up through the 37mm and 54mm radar-guided batteries that had proven so effective against air power on the Trail.

  Instead the choppers flew to a training area they’d used before, and the lead settled down into a small clearing while the Cobras made dry-fire practice runs. The hope was that any observers would think this just another training exercise and not pay a lot of attention when, after the lead picked up from the LZ and tucked in behind the follow bird, they flew north.

  A half-hour of this and the birds turned back to the east. They dropped altitude, flying right down on the deck.

  SMACK! Jesus, Finn thought, are we being shot at already?

  A bout of nervous laughter came over the intercom, followed by a burst of Thai, only a little of which he caught.

  “Bird,” Tienchai said, pointing at the windscreen. Their flight had scattered a flock of lorikeets, one of which had impacted the windscreen. Luckily the Perspex had held. Finn had been the passenger on a Huey back on an exercise in Louisiana when a duck had made a similar hard landing. It had ended up plastered to the chest of the copilot.

  He barely saw the glimmer of the Mekong before they were over it. Indian country now. The door gunners were anxiously scanning the foliage below, ready at an instant’s notice to return fire against any muzzle flashes. Not that it did a lot of good, generally. They were moving entirely too fast for effective fire, but at least it might suppress the gunners below long enough for the other choppers to get through.

  That was the theory, anyway.

  It was only minutes until they were in the area from where the team had last made contact. Tienchai already had his URC unlimbered and was attempting contact. For the first few moments there was nothing, and it showed on his face. Frustration, fear for their safety, anger at the men who might even now be rifling their bodies.

  Then a voice, very faint and broken. Batteries dying, Finn thought, listening in on his own emergency radio. A series of numbers he recognized as coordinates. Tienchai quickly checked the map he had unfolded on his lap, located the site, gave instructions to the pilots. The pickup ship broke formation, heading south, followed quickly by the chase. The Cobras assumed flanking positions.

  The pilot of the command ship, following Tienchai’s instructions, climbed up to a position where they could see what was going on. It was a far more dangerous spot, but you couldn’t very well influence the action down there on the deck. All you’d see would be the tail ends of the other choppers.

  Finn watched as the pickup chopper suddenly flared out, the pilot bringing it from an air speed of over a hundred miles an hour to a near dead stop. Finn could see no clearing beneath, no place to land, certainly no place to pick up a team in trouble.

  Then bundles came tumbling out the doors, one to each side, each quickly paying out line.

  Shit! he thought. Rope extraction.

  Down below the team, or what might be left of it by now, would be grabbing the nylon ropes, each of which would have four snap links attached, and would be hooking up the corresponding link on the STABO rigs they wore. The STABO rig had been invented by a couple of Special Forces NCOs in Vietnam. It consisted of a harness designed much like that worn by freefall parachutists. You wore the leg straps folded up in the back, it being a sure way of getting chafed half to death should they be kept in the ready position between your legs. When ready to go you unsnapped them, brought them up between your legs, and snapped them into the front of the harness.

  On the shoulders was an inverted V-shaped harness, the legs of which attached to the main body of the harness, the V part with another snap link. Snap in, give the signal, and the chopper would lift you straight off the ground, above the trees, then assume forward speed. You dangled beneath the bird until you reached a relatively safe area, whereupon you would be let down, the ropes would be pulled in, and you could board the chopper for the next part of the ride.

  The STABO rig had been designed to replace the McGuire rig, nothing more than a loop of canvas in which you sat, with a smaller loop you were supposed to put your hand and wrist through to hold on to. It had worked well enough, had saved any number of recon teams in trouble, but the problem was that if you were wounded you stood an excellent chance of falling out of it when you lost your grip. After a couple times watching helplessly as a team member made the long trip to the ground, the inventive SF men had decided that, clearly, something needed to be done.

  The STABO rig even allowed you to bring out the dead. You could also, at least theoretically, return fire at people shooting at you from below. In reality, since you were probably spinning out of control as the wind buffeted you, it was likely all you really wanted to do was hang on.

  The system worked great in training. In practice, when all too often the only time you would call for rope extraction was when you were in deep shit and couldn’t get to a cleared area for extraction, you were likely to be under fire. And helicopter pilots, when under fire, tended to try to exit the area as soon as possible. A bird slowly lifting until the people underneath were clear of the trees was an irresistible target.

  Back in the Advanced Course Jim Carmichael had told the story of one such extraction, when the pilots had dragged him through the trees for at least a hundred meters (though with each telling the distance got longer and longer), and how he’d been stripped of everything but the rig itself.

  Finn had laughed, along with the others, at the thought of Carmichael’s skinny white ass being displayed for all the world to see, but suddenly the thought didn’t seem nearly so funny.

  Still no firing from below. Had the team managed to break contact well enough that they’d gotten away? Didn’t seem likely, them calling for a rope extraction and all.

  He was just on the point of calling for the backup F-5s, thinking it possible that this was the setup for a giant ambush, when the copilot let out a string of oaths and dived toward the deck. Finn was on the cusp of asking “What the fuck?” when he heard a Whoosh!

  Dirty gray trails of smoke suddenly appeared outside the open door, followed moments thereafter by twin explosions as two rockets hit the jungle below. Finn craned his neck to look behind them, saw something that chilled his blood.

  Two helicopter gunships jockeying for position, and even as he watched the lead let go two more rockets.

  Down on the ground the team leader had just snapped in when he heard the explosions. He swore. He knew it was all going too smoothly. They’d been compromised shortly after insertion, and it had been a mad chase ever since. The radio man had been killed in the second firefight and there had been no chance to salvage their only contact with the FOB. They’d broken contact, only to be discovered again by a team of NVA beaters, who, it appeared, were trying to channel them into a kill zone. He’d surprised them by attacking, bursting through the lines in a hail of fire that took out one more of the team. There had been no chance to determine if he had been killed or was just wounded.

  Each of them had known at the outset that this would be the way of it. They had committed their lives to the cause, and hoped it would be enough for the Buddha.

  Two more days until he’d finally made contact with an unknown station, which had told them to hunker down, avoid contact, and that they’d call for extraction.

  Another day of hiding, wondering if he was doing the right thing, or if he should take his surviving soldiers back to the west and attempt to cross the Mekong into safety. He knew the likelihood was that the NVA would have a cordon in that direction, that the chances of fighting his way thro
ugh it again were slim to none, but it had seemed preferable to just sitting there and waiting for someone to come kill them.

  Then the call on the radio. He’d recognized Tienchai’s voice, and hope sprang up again. And when everything had gone so smoothly up to now the hope had increased to near-certainty that he was going to live.

  Fool! he told himself.

  They were ignoring the lift ship, and that was, Finn supposed, good. It would have been nothing more than a big, fat target. The 2.75-inch rockets weren’t really intended for precision, served more as aerial artillery, and when the warhead landed anywhere within fifty meters it was considered good. But at the ranges the attack choppers could get—just outside standoff distance so the explosion wouldn’t take them out as well—they really couldn’t have missed.

  As it was the pilot of the command ship was applying all the maneuvers he’d learned in flight school and several years of flying thereafter. He was, Finn knew, a graduate of the U.S. Army flight school at Fort Rucker, had received advanced training as a member of the Cobra Division in Vietnam, and had another five years of practice under his belt since.

  Still, it was everything he could do to evade the rockets. And now the other gunship was jockeying into position, trying to triangulate them, thus cutting down his room for maneuver even more.

  They knew what they were doing. They wanted the command ship specifically, knowing that the high-value targets would be inside, hoping that the operation would collapse into chaos without command and control. Then they could pick off the lift ship and possibly the chase as well, somewhat at leisure.

  Even if the lift got the troops off the ground and past the trees it would still be an easy target. It couldn’t very well maneuver with the team on strings down below. The crew chief and pilot would then be faced with a stark choice—wait for the rockets to hit, as they surely would, and lose everyone, or cut the team loose to fall screaming into the jungle below. Every time you went out on a rope extraction the crew chief maintained a very sharp machete close at hand. All too often someone below would get caught up in the trees, and the chopper would be straining to lift him and a two-hundred-foot-high banyan tree as well. A quick swipe with the machete, and it would be over.

  Finn saw a glimmer of a chance when the second chopper swept around to their left, crabbing suddenly into firing position. “Shoot!” he screamed to the door gunner.

  The gunner, just a kid, was frozen into position, undoubtedly praying to Buddha to keep him safe and forgetting completely about the M-60 machine gun he was clutching so tight Finn had to muscle him away from the spade grips.

  Now if this sonofabitch will just work, Finn thought as he pressed the butterfly triggers with his thumbs. And they kept it lubed, and didn’t put the belt in upside down, and there’s no missing parts, or any of a dozen other things that would keep the temperamental gun from working. Back in the old days they would have test-fired both weapons as soon as they’d reached a free fire zone, but there were no free fire zones inside Thailand, and by the time they’d crossed the border they hadn’t dared attract the attention the chatter of the guns would bring.

  The gun roared into action, the sound deafening even through the headphones. Brass clattered on the floor, the disintegrating links of the belt falling with them, powder smoke quickly filling the air.

  Too low and left. The tracers were falling below the enemy chopper. Finn directed the gun like a fire hose, watching as the arc of bullets moved up toward the front windscreen of the Huey, seeing the mouths of the Vietnamese pilots inside suddenly working.

  The chopper veered away, the two rockets they’d managed to punch out shooting harmlessly wide. Finn followed it with the tracer stream, was rewarded with the sight of at least a few of the rounds impacting into the tail boom.

  His own pilot, seeing the action and a small chance of at least stinging the enemy, swung their own chopper around, clearing the field of fire of the crew chief on the other side. The chief, a grizzled old veteran of perhaps thirty, needed no prodding. His gun roared, tracers reaching out for the following chopper, forcing it to also break off its rocket run.

  The enemy choppers, obviously communicating, suddenly changed tactics. Fed up with the inaccuracy of the rockets, they decided any number could play the same game. The chopper Finn had been shooting at suddenly pulled pitch and rose while the chase machine slewed sideways. Finn saw green tracers flash by, heard even over the roar of his own machine gun the heavier boom of the enemy weapon.

  Shit, he thought. They’ve mounted 12.7s on the pintle mounts. The 12.7mm was the Soviet bloc equivalent of the .50-caliber Browning Machine Gun. As his chopper was armed with 7.62mm M-60s they were seriously outgunned.

  Just aside from being outnumbered.

  And if the other chopper got above them they were seriously screwed. The M-60 mounts were intended for ground support. There was no way they’d elevate enough to shoot at someone above them.

  Shit!

  The Thai team leader was amazed to feel the lift of the chopper, his feet leaving the ground so abruptly he almost dropped his weapon. He gave a moment of thanks to the pilots above, and another to the Buddha. He was pulled steadily upward, glancing over at surviving members of his team to make sure everyone was properly hooked up, that no one stood in any danger of getting snagged on the trees. All clear.

  He looked up to see the face of the crew chief, eyes shielded by the smoked plastic visor of his helmet, grinning down at him. The chief raised a thumb in question. He returned the gesture. All clear.

  Now they were in the upper canopy. A few more feet and they’d be clear. Procedure was to get them a few more meters above the tallest of the trees around them, then pull pitch and assume forward speed. The inertia of the bodies below would cause the ropes to swing backward, raising them even higher.

  Then it was a straightforward ride to the border. Once across they would be safe. Or at least he assumed so. As many troops as he’d seen on this side, he couldn’t be sure they hadn’t already crossed into his own country.

  They’ll get a proper welcome, he thought.

  They cleared the trees and the sight that greeted him was such that he hung there stunned. Three helicopters in an intricate aerial ballet, the long fingers of tracers reaching out for each other.

  This doesn’t look good.

  “Better get him to climb,” Finn shouted to Tienchai. “That guy gets on top of us, we’re well and truly fucked.”

  As Tienchai passed on the information Finn fired another burst at the following chopper, this time seeing the bullets pass right through the opened door from which the 12.7mm bullet were coming. Suddenly the enemy fire stopped.

  Got your ass! There was grim satisfaction in the thought. You might have the better gun, asshole, but I’m the better shot.

  The lull lasted, at most, a few seconds and then the tracers came again.

  Damnit! Either they put a replacement on the gun, or the guy I just shot, I didn’t shoot good enough.

  They had balls, anyway. He felt a grudging respect even as he sent the bullets their way that would, he hoped, take those balls off right at the stomach.

  The pilot pulled pitch, clawing for altitude. Too late, Finn thought. He chanced a look outside, saw the enemy chopper at least twenty-five meters above them and moving fast to block their ascent.

  Always wondered how it would end. About to find out.

  Another burst from the chase chopper and this time the bullets found their mark. The Whang! as they punched through the thin skin of his bird was deafening. Imagine your head inside a five-gallon bucket and someone beating on the outside of it with a hammer and you still won’t even come close to the noise.

  The pilot had swung the bird around again to allow the crew chief a clear field of fire. Finn looked behind him when he didn’t hear any noise, only to see the chief dangling from his safety harness outside the door. The smear of blood and brains he’d left behind told Finn that he’d be wasting his time try
ing to get the man back in.

  The young door gunner Finn had pushed away was staring at the smear in horror. The horror was soon replaced by determination as he got up, unclipped the safety harness that would keep him away from the crew chief’s gun, and grabbed the weapon. The enemy chopper was still slewed to the side, a momentary air pocket causing the 12.7mm rounds to go wide. The Thai gunner opened up, spraying rounds from nearly the cockpit door all the way to the tail boom. Sparks struck off the metal as the rounds punched through the thin aluminum skin and the chopper suddenly veered away.

  It would be only a momentary respite. Finn was desperately trying to elevate his gun enough to take the chopper above them under fire, finally gave up, flipped the release and pulled the M-60 off the pintle mount. He leaned as far as he dared out the door and let off a burst that came close enough to the enemy to cause him to veer away as well. The Thai pilot jinked suddenly as yet more rockets came whooshing by and Finn lost balance, forcing him to let go the gun and grab hold, barely, of the chopper. His feet started slipping as the chopper banked hard left and he watched as the gun slid out the door, the belt trailing as it fell to the jungle below.

  He pulled himself back from eternity, clawed his way back to where he’d left the CAR-15. Not much of a weapon at these distances, but he didn’t really have much of a choice, did he?

  Tienchai had abandoned the radio and was now unlimbering his own weapon. He ran through a magazine of 7.62mm, firing once again at the chase chopper, which was now maneuvering slightly to the left rear, the better to allow its gunners to take them out. Without tracer he had no idea if he was hitting anything or not. The gesture was more one of defiance than one with any real tactical purpose.

  The chopper above them was once again maneuvering into position. If it got atop them it would be a simple matter to fire down into the cockpit, the heavy bullets making short work of pilot and copilot. Both sat on folded flak vests, and the floor of the bird was armored with steel plate, but the only thing above them was thin Perspex.