P. O. W.

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  “Ha!” James pulled out his penis and tried urinating on Spencer’s head but was too drunk to see where he was aiming and missed completely. “I’ll be back in the morning, Spencer!”

  The flight of Hueys flew low-level across the border of Laos. There had been no air strikes or artillery prep fires to alert the NVA that they were coming. A forward air controller was already on station ten miles to the west and had five sorties of F-4s on call and two flights of A-1Es. General Seacourt and selected members of his staff were flying in a specially designed airborne command center. The general had the capability of monitoring numerous radio channels and controlling the operation from the large, converted passenger jet. He had direct communications to the commander of all American forces in Vietnam and a line back to the chief of staff in Washington, D.C. The prisoner snatch operation had the highest interest, and its success would be a major boost to morale in South Vietnam.

  Master Sergeant McDonald squatted behind the lead ship’s pilot and directed him the last few thousand meters to the village and the Montagnard pasture. It was ironic that an NVA general officer had used the same helipad only days earlier.

  The team helicopters touched down in a diamond formation. The door gunners sat behind their machine guns, ready to open fire at any NVA targets. They had been instructed that there would be no random firing until the POWs had been located and brought under American control. Surprise was the key element to a successful POW recovery. Any hesitation on the part of the snatch team would result in the deaths of the prisoners. McDonald had learned that lesson well.

  Woods hopped off his chopper before it touched the ground and rolled over one shoulder, then back up on his feet, running toward the buildings before the next man left the aircraft. Sergeant Lee San Ko was right behind him. The rest of the team, in fire teams of two, spread out and assaulted their assigned targets.

  Lieutenant Van Pao woke with a start when she heard the helicopters landing. She rolled off her cot, reached for the telephone, and turned the hand crank. The instant she heard a voice answer, she screamed into the handset that her camp was under attack by Americans. The duty sergeant at her division headquarters alerted the infantry company that had been assigned to react in the event that A Rum was assaulted by a rescue party. The NVA company had been hidden in the jungle five hundred meters away from the village, and its prime mission was to support the A Rum camp. Only Lieutenant Van Pao knew that the division commander had taken that precaution.

  Mohammed James was still very drunk and lay naked next to his Montagnard slave girl. She heard the helicopters and slipped off the mat to look out of the shuttered window. Escape had always been on her mind, and she was hoping that the steel birds were bringing Americans instead of the hated NVA.

  James opened his red-rimmed eyes and tried lifting his head off the rolled mat he used for a pillow. “Ahhh… it’s fucking morning already. Shit!” He closed his eyes. “Today I blow away Spencer Barnett!”

  Colonel Garibaldi had heard the choppers coming for a couple of minutes. He was an Air Force officer and had an ear for the sounds of aircraft. He could tell that they were coming from the east and that there were a lot of them. He lay flat on his mat in case they bombed and prepped the village before landing.

  Once on land, the Special Forces recon team found the South Vietnamese POW longhouse. The POWs had been chained to their cots. Lieutenant Nappa and Sergeant Cooper started cutting through the chains with their bolt cutters. One of the South Vietnamese officers spoke English. “Give me the cutters! You kill the guards!” Nappa handed the soldier the bolt cutters.

  “Are there any Americans here?” Cooper asked over his shoulder as he watched the exit.

  “Yes! They’re being kept in cages. Over there about fifty feet in the jungle.” He pointed.

  “Thanks!” Cooper started for the exit.

  “Go to the pasture helipad as soon as you can… Chinooks will be arriving soon to pick you up!” Nappa pointed back the way they had come. The South Vietnamese officer nodded and barked orders to the prisoners. He left the three Bru tribesmen with the South Vietnamese POWs to protect the group.

  Woods was the first one to open fire. He killed five NVA soldiers exiting one of their sleeping hooches. All of the guards had been confused and were waiting for orders. The surprise of the assault had been complete. The NVA guards on duty were killed quickly by the fire teams, except for the two guards with Garibaldi; they had taken up positions next to the colonel’s cage, waiting for instructions. They knew that if any Americans appeared, they were to cut the colonel’s throat before allowing him to escape.

  McDonald and Reed entered the longhouse and saw the Montagnard girl standing spread-legged over James. She was holding a bloody Montagnard ceremonial knife in her hand. The look of extreme hatred on her face did not need to be interpreted.

  “Dammit!” McDonald rushed forward and shoved the girl off to one side. He leaned over the soldier and checked for a heartbeat. James was still alive, but bleeding badly from the wound in his chest. “We’ve got to save him, Lieutenant! This is one man I want to see face a court-martial!”

  “Go! I’ll give him first aid and carry him back to the choppers!” Lieutenant Reed waved with his CAR-15 toward the door. He knew that McDonald was looking for Barnett.

  “Thanks!” The sergeant ran out of the longhouse, holding his weapon at the ready.

  Nappa and Cooper broke through the thick jungle into the POW clearing before they could stop. The guards opened fire. Cooper rolled over on his side and instinctively fired a burst. The guards ducked down behind Garibaldi’s cage, giving Nappa enough time to assault. There was no time for any kind of delay. Nappa knew that he would die or live, and the next five seconds would decide which one would happen. The guards were not expecting a frontal assault and were caught by surprise. Nappa killed both of them.

  Garibaldi looked up from his mat and saw the camouflaged face of the Special Forces officer. “Thank God!”

  Nappa saw that the gate to the cage was locked. He shook his head angrily because he had left the bolt cutters behind. He saw that the bamboo bars were tied with bamboo and removed his Randall survival knife from its sheath and began hacking at the bindings. The knife cut through the strands quickly, and he tore apart the bars so Garibaldi could squeeze out between them.

  “I thought there was another American.” Cooper had been acting as guard.

  “There was, but they shot him last night….” Garibaldi felt sick. Spencer had missed being rescued by a single day.

  “Where’s his body? We’ll take it out with us.” Nappa turned a full circle with his CAR-15 ready as he spoke.

  “Back over there is where I heard the pistol shot. It can’t be more than fifty meters away.”

  “Can you walk?” Nappa looked at the frail man.

  “Today I can walk as far as you want me to!” Garibaldi felt his heart beating faster. He looked toward Spencer’s cage, hoping that they had sneaked him back inside during the night, but it was empty. His eyes rested on Mother Kaa’s cage. The huge python was coiled up in one corner. Her skin had dried out and was turning white in large spots. She was a prisoner too. “Let me use your knife, Lieutenant.” Garibaldi held out his hand.

  “Why?”

  “There’s another POW that needs to be helped.” Garibaldi took the knife and walked over to Mother Kaa’s cage.

  “Holy shit!” Cooper saw the huge python for the first time. “What the fuck is that!” He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Colonel Garibaldi hacked at the knots that held the bamboo poles in place where she lay coiled up. Her weight popped the bindings against the poles she was coiled against when Garibaldi had cut only partially through them. Part of her coils fell out onto the ground, and the colonel stepped back away from her. “You’re free, Mother Kaa… you’re free to go home.”

  “Come on!” Nappa was getting nervous. “Let’s get the other POW’s body.”

  Woods and Lee broke th
rough the edge of the jungle ten meters away from Nappa and Cooper.

  “Shit!” Cooper blinked. He had nearly fired, thinking they had been NVA, but all of their training had paid off. Every target during a POW snatch had to be positively identified before firing. POWs could be running around all over a camp during a snatch.

  “Where’s Spencer!” Woods screamed the words when he saw only one old man standing with Nappa.

  Colonel Garibaldi pointed in the direction he had heard the shot come from the previous night.

  Woods took off running in the direction the colonel was pointing. He held his CAR-15 in one hand with his finger on the trigger and the safety off. Woods followed the narrow path through the thick undergrowth and ran fifteen feet out into the clearing before he could bring himself to a stop. He nearly kicked Spencer in the face.

  “Oh God!” Woods dropped his CAR-15 in the dirt and fell to his knees. “Oh God, what have they done to you, Spence?” He placed a hand on each of Barnett’s cheeks and tried lifting the soldier’s head out of the dirt.

  Sergeant Lee San Ko stepped out in the clearing seconds after Woods. He saw Woods on his knees in the dirt holding Barnett’s head in his hands. It looked to him as if Barnett had been decapitated. He felt like puking and gagged instead. Sergeant Lee saw the NVA soldier step out of the jungle, but she had the advantage and fired first. The AK-47 rounds drove his body back into the jungle.

  Barnett opened his eyes at the sound of the automatic weapon and saw Woods’s face. “David?” His voice was a whisper.

  “He’s alive!” Woods screamed the words, ignoring the NVA lieutenant who was swinging her weapon over to where he sat in the dirt.

  Barnett’s eyes focused, and he saw the CAR-15 rounds from Nappa’s weapon tear into the woman’s chest. Her back arched and she fell to the ground, dead. Barnett smiled and the blood flowed from his cracked lips, but he didn’t care. Sweet Bitch was dead.

  “Help me!” Woods screamed and started digging with his hands in the lose soil around Spencer’s head. Nappa acted as guard while Woods and Cooper dug with their hands. Colonel Garibaldi tried helping, but his efforts were extremely weak. He had thought he was in pretty good shape, until he saw how fast the healthy Americans were digging. He gave up after a couple of minutes and sat down to rest.

  “Take it easy.” Lieutenant Nappa handed the colonel Woods’s CAR-15, just in case they got some company before they were through digging him out.

  Garibaldi took the weapon. “Thanks…” He felt useful.

  Woods and Cooper dug Barnett out down to his elbows, and then Woods straddled the hole and pulled Spencer out. The odor that followed Spencer out of the hole was extremely foul. “What is that smell?” Woods set Spencer down on the ground next to the open hole and looked back down inside. He could see a small hand sticking out of the dirt and realized that Spencer had been sitting on top of a small child’s body. “Those motherfuckers!” A clump of dirt broke loose from the side of the hole and fell down to cover the exposed hand. Only Woods had seen it.

  Spencer groaned and drew Woods’s attention away from the hole. He was lying on his side but his legs were still curled up under him. Woods tried straightening out his legs and Spencer screamed.

  “Just carry him. Once the blood works its way back into his legs, they’ll straighten out.” Colonel Garibaldi reassured Woods that he hadn’t hurt his friend.

  “Are there any more POWs?” Nappa asked the colonel.

  “There are some South Vietnamese being held back in the longhouses.”

  “We’ve already found them.”

  “And there’s James….” Garibaldi’s voice lowered.

  Barnett heard the names and raised his head off the dirt. “Kill him… David… kill him!”

  Nappa looked puzzled. “Where’s James?”

  “He turned traitor and is working with the NVA.” Garibaldi frowned. “He’s dangerous, and I agree with Spencer…. If you see a black soldier, kill him. He won’t be taken alive.”

  Woods picked up Barnett and carried him in his arms. “Let’s get back to the helipad.”

  The other three Americans joined him, with Cooper taking the lead and Nappa bringing up the rear.

  Lieutenant Reed threw James over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran back to the waiting Chinook that was loaded with the South Vietnamese POWs. The chopper took off as soon as he hopped on board. Gunships opened fire on the jungle that bordered the open pasture on the sides away from the village. The Chinook took a dozen rounds of 12.7mm antiaircraft fire in its rear section but made a good escape.

  McDonald tied in with Arnason and Kirkpatrick and they fought their way through the guards over to Lieutenant Van Pao’s office. It was empty. Kirkpatrick threw a white phosphorous grenade into the building, and the hooch burst into flames.

  McDonald saw Sergeant Cooper appear around the corner of a longhouse, followed by Woods, who was carrying a small man wearing only the bottom part of a peasant’s suit. A taller man followed wearing the same black pajamas, but he carried a CAR-15, and then Lieutenant Nappa shot around the corner, turning around to check their rear. The man in Woods’s arms was covered with dirt and filth, but McDonald knew who he was.

  “Let’s go!” McDonald signaled the men with him, and they started withdrawing to the helipad.

  A pair of Huey slicks waited on the pasture with their skids barely touching the ground. The pilots were anxious to load up and get the hell out of there. The landing zone was becoming very hot. Just as McDonald’s team arrived at the LZ, a pair of NVA gunners fired their RPG-7s. The twin choppers exploded in balls of flame and collapsed in junk heaps on the green grass that turned black from the heat almost instantly.

  “Go to our alternate LZ!” McDonald barked the order and waved the team back.

  The FAC pilot circling above the LZ saw the helicopters explode and then saw the mass of NVA soldiers approaching the LZ from the jungle. “The LZ is too hot! Abort! Abort!” He screamed over his radio for the remaining rescue choppers to pull away.

  The second pair of choppers were already making their approach and could see the Americans standing at the edge of the LZ. The chopper flying in closest to the jungle banked to its left and flew over the top of the other aircraft to escape the ground fire.

  The remaining chopper continued its approach on course. The pilot kept his hands on both levers as he made his touchdown. He had been one of the oldest men to have graduated from flight school and had taken a lot of ribbing by the younger trainees because of his age. They had nicknamed him Pappy, and the name had stuck. He was living up to his name; Pappy to everyone, he wasn’t going to leave any of his children down there on the ground.

  The door gunners had started out firing short bursts from their machine guns, but the NVA targets became so abundant, they ended up just holding down the butterfly triggers on their weapons and moving the barrels from one group of targets to another.

  McDonald saw the chopper coming in under the intense ground fire and started spraying the jungle. His team followed suit as they ran for the last extraction aircraft. Nappa, Cooper, and Colonel Garibaldi ran around to the left side of the chopper, and Woods, carrying Barnett, went to the right side with McDonald and the rest of the team.

  McDonald, Kirkpatrick, and Arnason were spraying the jungle while the rest of the men loaded up. The engine from the chopper screamed for them to hurry up. Holes popped in the skin of the vehicle everywhere. A round went through the Plexiglas in front of Pappy and nicked his left foot pedal and veered up to smash into his right kneecap. The chopper jerked its tail around to the right, forcing McDonald and the other men outside of the Huey to drop to the ground to escape being cut up by the rear prop. Pappy’s hand involuntarily jerked, and the chopper started banking away from the LZ. He tried banking back, but the maneuver was causing him to lose his lift and airspeed, and if he continued banking back to the LZ the chopper would crash. He gave it more power and continued pulling away. He would make a c
ircle and return to pick up the remaining three men.

  “Let’s go, Pappy!” His copilot screamed over the intercom system.

  “We can’t!”

  “Yes! Look down there!”

  Pappy looked down over his left shoulder and saw the LZ covered with brown uniforms. His copilot was right. They couldn’t go back. The air was filled with green tracers flying up at them. He banked away from the LZ and headed for the Special Forces camp at A Shau. The chopper left a stream of black smoke behind it as it limped toward the camp.

  McDonald saw the black smoke and hoped that they would make it. He slipped back into the jungle with Arnason and Kirkpatrick. The NVA unit was concentrating on the chopper and gave them time to escape. McDonald led the way through the burning POW camp and into the jungle on the opposite side. He passed the cages where the Americans had been held and saw a narrow trail leading off into the jungle. He pointed with his CAR-15, and Arnason took the point, followed by Kirkpatrick.

  Mother Kaa was a hundred meters ahead of them. She was using the trail to get down to the river. Arnason nearly stepped on her tail and did a series of quick high-steps to miss her weaving coils. He looked like a football trainee running through tires. Kirkpatrick saw Arnason running funny and then saw the huge python.

  “Hot fuck!” The New York soldier had never seen a snake that big.

  McDonald caught up to him and slapped Kirkpatrick’s rear end with the barrel of his CAR-15. “Go around it!” He took the lead and led Kirkpatrick through the jungle growth around the snake and then back onto the trail. “Move it!” Arnason was out of sight and Kirkpatrick ran hard to catch up to him.

  Mother Kaa was pissed. She was sick of those smelly things bothering her. She slipped off the trail, and the cool, damp vegetation felt good against her dry skin. She would be very happy if she never saw another one of those creatures again in her life. She flicked out her tongue and sensed the air. The taste and smell of water made her feel at home as she neared the river.