“Don’t worry about me,” the pilot told his copilot, who slowed because the older man had begun to fall back.
“I’m going to ask if we can’t take a break,” the copilot said to him. “I can barely go any farther myself. Surely the VC are not pushing as hard as we are.”
“Bullshit,” the pilot said. “You know better than that. Keeping the pace, we have a chance. We stop, we die.”
“Hold up,” one of the field agents called to the scouts.
The two agents squatted where they stopped and looked back at the two aviators who now walked toward them.
“No, we go,” a scout called to the Americans. “Didi mao! Didi mao!”
“VC, they come fast,” the other scout said, pleading to the Americans. “They have many look for us now. They maybe take you prisoner. Maybe. But they kill us for sure. We go, hurry. Please.”
“We see American patrol soon,” the first scout added. “Maybe ARVN. One more day anyway we reach Hoi An, Bong Son, maybe An Lao.”
During the night, they crossed the treacherous An Khe Pass, several miles north of where Highway 19 made its descent toward Phu Cat and the seacoast. The U.S. Army base at Qui Nhon offered the most attractive refuge. However, the six knew that the VC had easily considered this, too. Surely, they would look for them in that southeasterly direction. Turning around just after they had escaped the crash site, trying to skirt the VC force that had shot them down and making an attempt to reach the Army compound at Pleiku that first day seemed too risky as well. Certainly the VC had anticipated that possibility, too. Following a stair-step route northeast offered the least likely chance for encountering enemy units. That route crossed rougher country, required covering a greater distance, and only led to sparsely populated outposts.
Considering the insignificance of their weaponry and the few rounds of ammunition that they had, the long, rough route was their best chance.
However, as their fatigue had grown, so did the noise they made, and their alertness dulled.
“Let’s get a move on,” the copilot said. “We can’t lose those scouts.”
“If we can find the bastards,” a field agent said. “They’re way the fuck in front of us now.”
As the four men ran, they could hear brush crashing ahead of them.
“For two guys, they are making a lot of noise,” the pilot said, stopping to listen more closely.
“You guys wait here,” an agent said, “I’m going to take a look-see. If it’s our friends, I’ll whistle.”
The pilot collapsed in a fern and leaned against a small tree. His red baseball cap dripped sweat from its bill and had salt rings covering its crown. When he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe sweat from his gray and black hair, two gunshots cracked the air less than 100 yards ahead.
Startled, the pilot jumped to his feet to run, just as the copilot and remaining field agent dove for cover. In that instant, several bullets spit through the branches, one catching the pilot in the throat and breaking his neck. He died before he hit the ground.
“Chu hoi,” the copilot shouted from where he hugged the ground. “Chu hoi! Chu hoi!”
“Fuck!” the field agent said, and spread out his arms and legs.
“Highway engineers,” he whispered to the copilot. “When they ask, we tell them that.”
In seconds, several hands yanked the two men to their feet.
“American?” a little man with gray and black hair said. He wore a black shirt and pants, and had a black-and-white checkered scarf draped around his neck. His teeth shone white with gold trim on their edges, and he missed none of them. He had the look of an intellectual, not a rice farmer. He spoke with the eloquence of a well-educated man.
“What happened to your escorts?” he asked the copilot. “Our information says six of you, two Vietnamese.”
“We lost them a while back,” the copilot said.
“I see,” the little man said.
He looked at the copilot, feeling his flight suit and studying his shaggy hair. Then he looked at the field agent, examining the khaki trousers and utility vest over a khaki shirt that he wore.
“Neither of you are military, is that correct?” the little man asked, looking at both the Americans.
“Highway engineers,” the field agent said.
“But he is a pilot,” the little man said, taking the sleeve of the copilot’s flight suit in his fingers. “You are both armed. I know pilots wear revolvers, but why would a highway engineer carry a .45?”
“Everybody carries guns here,” the agent said. “You know that.”
“Yes,” said the little man. “I also suspect that so many armed American highway engineers and so little highway work to do indicates other motives. Intelligence, perhaps?”
The little man spoke to the soldiers who held the two Americans, and they immediately began binding their prisoners’ hands behind their backs.
“You are very lucky that I encountered you,” the little man said. “Most others would simply have killed you on the spot. They don’t know any better. They don’t want the trouble of escorting prisoners.
“Unfortunately, because of the weapons you carry, and because I suspect that your work is other than highway engineering, we must take you into custody.
“I am Colonel Ba. I command the People’s Liberation Army in this district. I realize you have run many miles with little rest, but unfortunately we have little time to offer you for recovery. Please follow my men now.”
Hearing the gunshots, the two Vietnamese scouts circled, and at a distance watched the two Americans leave with their captors. They counted more than thirty black-clad guerrillas. The enemy soldiers carried an array of automatic and semiautomatic rifles, and several mortars and butt plates. Many of them wore green canvas packs. No doubt these were filled with mines and other explosive devices.
The two scouts followed the well-armed VC patrol until they clearly understood their direction of travel. Due west, skirting well to the north of Pleiku. Swiftly and silently, the two scouts then returned to their northeasterly trek.
6
Farewell, Jacques
“TOP! TOP!” GUNNY Wilson shouted as he ran toward the sniper hooch, orange dust flying from beneath his heels and his opened utility shirt flapping behind him. “The skipper and Sergeant Hathcock killed the Apache!”
“Slow down, Jim,” Master Sergeant Donald Reinke said, starting up the Finger 4 trail to meet Wilson, who had just left the Operations hooch in a mad dash. “What happened?”
“They got the Apache!” Wilson repeated, nearly breathless. “Captain Land and Carlos.”
“No shit,” Reinke said as he met Wilson, and then turned to walk with him back to the sniper hooch. “You know anything about how?”
“I was at Operations, checking sit-reps, and listening to radio traffic on the com, when I heard the skipper call Fire Base Ross for an artillery mission,” Wilson began. “They spotted the Apache and her platoon, and the captain put a salvo of H-E’s1 in their mess kit. That must have killed a bunch of them, but apparently missed the Apache. So Carlos nails her when she hotfoot it up the trail.”
IT WAS LATE afternoon when Land and Hathcock finally stepped from the UH1E Huey that had picked them up from their morning patrol at a remote landing zone and now let them off at Hill 55. They had stalked through the countryside southwest of Hill 55 since well before daylight. The pair of snipers was hot, dirty, but happy as they headed up the path that led home.
“Good news travels fast, I guess,” Carlos said to his captain after the third man to pass the two Marines had offered them another “good job” compliment.
“Everyone is glad to be rid of her,” Land said. “Now, I wish I could forget what we have seen of her work.”
The two men remained silent until they neared the top of the hill.
“Me, too, sir,” Carlos said. “I keep remembering that Marine from the cooks and bakers patrol—the one she tortured all night and then cut off his gonad
s. Seeing that poor guy screaming and bleeding all the way to the wire, and dying there. As long as I live, I will never forget it.
“I thought about him today when I dropped her. That’s why I shot her twice, to make sure. I never ever felt good about killing anybody until now. But today, I feel like drinking beer and dancing around the fire. Is that wrong?”
Land smiled.
“No Carlos,” the captain said after walking several more steps. “I think what makes you feel good is not killing the woman, but knowing you have stopped her from torturing anybody else. I feel good about it. Nothing wrong with that.”
Reaching the hilltop, Land stopped across from the Operations hooch where the trail branched to Finger 4.
“I need to check in here for a few minutes, Carlos,” Land said. “You’re welcome to tag along.”
“No, sir, Skipper,” Carlos said. “I can still get to the mess tent and catch late chow if I hurry. If you don’t mind, I’ll just dump our gear at the hooch and then see if I can get a hot meal for once.”
“Just one thing, though, Carlos,” Land said, smiling. “If you get back and I’m still gone, wait for me before you start telling tales about today. I probably ought to be there to help keep your story straight.”
“You don’t have to do that, sir,” Carlos said, shuffling backward toward the sniper hooch, so that he could still see his captain’s face while he laughingly spoke. “I ain’t never told no fib in my life.”
Then Hathcock turned, still laughing, and jogged down the trail.
AN HOUR LATER, Jim Land sat, eating C rations behind the sniper hooch, his legs astride an empty ammunition crate turned on its end. The captain had just scraped the last bite of cold beef stew from the bottom of a can when Carlos sauntered up.
“Sorry you missed hot chow again, sir,” Carlos said as he took a seat on another of the empty wooden boxes. “It wasn’t that great, though. Just hot. I think all that they do anyway is open a bunch of C rations and pour ’em in a pot.”
Master Sergeant Reinke cleared his throat to get Captain Land’s attention.
“All right, Skipper, now that our star has finally graced us with his presence, tell us about it, sir,” Reinke said.
“Go ahead, sir,” Carlos said, lighting a cigarette and taking a sip from a can of Sprite that Burke had handed to him. “I’ll make sure you keep your story straight.”
The dozen students attending sniper school, and several other Marines, mostly from neighboring work sections, sat with Land and his colleagues this evening. The men, a mix of enlisted Marines and junior officers, sat on ammunition crates, upside-down buckets, and other makeshift chairs, crowded together in a circle, their eyes trained on Land. They, too, wanted to hear how the Apache had met her end.
“Correct me if I am wrong, Carlos,” Land began.
“Oh, I’ll be sure to do that, sir,” Carlos interrupted.
“I guess I asked for that.” Land chuckled. “Looking at it in retrospect,” he continued, “it was sort of an accident.
“Carlos and I had set up in a hide before daylight, and we saw little to nothing all morning. We took turns, as usual, on the spotting scope and then on the rifle.
“So then it comes time for my shift as sniper, and I said, Carlos, it’s time to trade.
“He whines back at me, ‘Oh, no, Skipper, just another minute.’
“About that time old Nguyen Schwartz comes slipping out of the trees with an AK-47 in his hands.
“Carlos sights in on him, and I tell this knucklehead here to pass me the rifle. I’ll shoot him.
“Carlos says, ‘No, no, I’ll get him.’
“ ‘Let me have the rifle, damm it,’ I said.
“Carlos pulls back on the rifle and says, ‘No, Skipper, let me shoot him.’
“In a few seconds, Carlos and I are wrestling over the rifle. Rolling around in the weeds. And old Nguyen Schwartz sees us and takes off.
“By the time I finally got the rifle away from Carlos, Charlie was long gone.
“After a while, here comes a whole band of VC snooping and pooping, and I think that they are looking for us.
“Of course, we had moved our hide. So we watched them search around our old spot. Since they are all in this little cluster, I had Carlos read out the grid coordinates, and I called in a fire mission. I figured we could just bombard the shit out of them.
“The salvo lays in, and wipes out most of the platoon, except for a couple who took off running. A woman and a man.”
Carlos laughed. “We figured out she was a woman about the time she rolled up her britches’ leg and squatted down to pee. She was far enough away from the others that she didn’t get hit by artillery, but I’ll guarantee you this, she dang sure wet her pants.”
“That’s right. She jumped straight up, right in midstream, and took off running, still squirting piss,” Land said, laughing so hard he could barely talk. “That’s when we recognized her as the Apache.
“The other was old Nguyen Schwartz himself. The same VC that had watched Carlos and me wrestle over the rifle. That’s when I realized that this guy must have been a scout for the Apache, and he had actually led her to us.
“With the shells landing on their position, old Schwartz takes off up the hill like he’s got blue flames shooting out his ass. Then the Apache gets so screwed up she runs right at us.
“Meantime, Charlie dashing uphill suddenly remembers that we are somewhere down below, and tries to warn her. But old Hawkeye Hathcock, here, dumps her wet butt first. Now she’s writhing on the ground, so Carlos cranks another round downrange and finishes her.
“Old Nguyen immediately turns, beats feet up the hill, and Carlos drops him, too.
“So, I call it kind of a freak accident—him seeing Carlos and me fighting over the rifle, and then bringing back the Apache and her gang. It couldn’t have turned out better even if we had planned it.”
“It don’t matter how we did it,” Carlos added, “the important thing is, we got her.”
“That’s right,” Land said. “She’s history.”
“Fuck-an-a-skippy,” an ITT Marine said, pounding his fist into the palm of his other hand with a loud pop. Several other of the neighboring Marines joined in his exclamatory expression of celebration, congratulating the snipers.
“Now, to bigger and better things,” Land followed, holding one hand up, asking for silence.
“Yesterday, I briefed you on that operation fixing to happen down south. Well, I finally have some details for those of you going.”
“Rio Blanco, sir?” Gunny Wilson asked. “I heard some word on that today while I was up at Operations, listening to you guys on the radio.”
“That’s right, Operation Rio Blanco,” Land confirmed, spreading out a tactical map with a laminated clear-plastic overlay on which the captain had drawn arrows and unit symbols with red and black grease pencils.
“We will operate off of Hill 263,” the captain continued, pointing with a ballpoint pen, “and patrol along the north side of Song Tro Khuc valley, here, about twenty-five miles below Chu Lai. We will directly support the four ground force companies, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Mike, 7th Marines, and provide supplemental forward observation and fire support coordination for the two reinforced artillery batteries assigned from 11th Marines.
“It is vital to our personal safety that we remain on the north side of the river when patrolling on our own. If we venture south of the river, we must be attached and in coordination with the unit whose mission puts them over there. We must also coordinate our movements through S-32 with the ROK3 Marines’ Dragon Eye Regiment, and that ARVN division. What’s their name, Top?”
“Lien Ket 70,” Master Sergeant Reinke added.
“That’s right,” Land said. “It’s one of the local ARVN divisions that operates down in that country.”
John Burke sipped from a can of Orange Crush and noticed Carlos cracking a smile. The area Land had circled on the map included some of the same plac
es from which the two of them had returned only days earlier.
“We know about three boom-boom honeys we might run across down there,” Carlos said, grinning.
“Boom-boom honeys?” Wilson said with a smirk. “What were you guys really doing down there, Sergeant Hathcock?”
“B-A-R boom-boom, Gunny,” Burke said. “As in Browning Automatic Rifle–type boom-boom honeys. Sergeant Hathcock calls them the BAR Team. There used to be five, but we retired a couple of ’em the other day.”
A day and a half later, Captain Land, Carlos, Burke, Roberts, Wilson, and eight sniper school students scrambled from the side door of an H-34 helicopter atop Hill 263. As the captain and twelve snipers jogged toward the 7th Marines compound there, the men could see the many channels and islands of the Tro Khuc River, below, and the wide, flat valley that spread from it. It looked like an excellent hunting area.
Master Sergeant Reinke and the four other students had remained at Hill 55 where they manned the sniper command post and supported 1st Battalion, 26th Marines.
MORE THAN FIFTY miles south of where the Song Tro Khuc flows past the city of Quang Ngai, the two Vietnamese scouts who had survived the helicopter crash lay hidden in a thicket. They had lost count of the Viet Cong patrols that they had eluded. By now they had walked nearly two-thirds the width of their homeland, still managing to remain free.
Silently, they watched from their cover of leaves, branches, and thick grass as another enemy patrol passed less than twenty yards away.
The two scouts had spent the past week eating mostly bird eggs, grubs, worms, and bugs. All of it was raw since they didn’t dare build any cooking fires.
Now beneath the cover of the thicket, they nibbled bugs and worms that they had gathered by dragging their fingertips beneath the dead leaves and debris that covered the ground. Throughout their ordeal, the men not only remained alert for the Viet Cong, but they kept their eyes open for any protein-rich morsel that they might snatch and eat. Like horses, the Vietnamese scouts grazed on the move, slept on their feet, and never stopped smelling the air and listening for danger. For them, survival meant becoming more animal than man. Following primitive instincts. Quick-witted and ready as jungle cats.
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