But if no contact were made within a seventy-two-hour period, they’d assume the squad members were all dead.
He stared through the greenery looking for anything unnatural. All the shades of green, all the shades of brown. So damned many bushes, vines, tendrils, trees…He felt smothered, buried, within all of it, with the steaming heat pushing down, the clinging heavy mud…Boy, were they coming out in a different location—somewhere. The enemy must all have gone south looking for them. Smart move to head north, farther into enemy territory.
Gene stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of Brian’s fist held high in the air. Brian had spotted a small enemy force through the thick brush and trees and was pointing to their location. Sure enough. An NVA patrol of fifteen to twenty men was thirty to thirty-five meters away. The NVA were patrolling parallel to them, but heading in the opposite direction—moving into the area they had just left.
The squad hadn’t moved except to aim all weapons in the enemy’s direction. The trigger of the 60 felt warm and smooth under Gene’s finger, as the enemy patrol moved through their kill zone. They didn’t want contact now. They had very little ammo left, no radio contact, no friendly forces…they were isolated.
We could take the patrol out, Gene thought, and take their weapons and ammo, but that would give away their own position. That would bring a lot more than the fifteen or twenty walking by. Silence, he told himself, was golden.
The enemy patrol walked past and out of sight. Five minutes passed. The squad remained still. Gene breathed softly, smelling for any scent of more enemy, alert for trouble.
They’d crossed several small rivers. The dirty brown water had felt cool, and relieved some of the heat, and washed some of the stinking mud off their hands, weapons, bodies. But the coolness hadn’t lasted long. He stood immobile, awash in sweat, thinking that patrolling out so far during daylight hours was dangerous, and they’d been out almost all day. There were about four hours left until dark. They’d be able to pick up the pace then.
Jim signaled Brian to go southwest. Glad to be moving again, the squad headed out. Later, about twenty meters into an area so thick with foliage they could hardly get through it, Jim stopped the patrol and signaled a break. Staying in file formation, maintaining their fields of fire, they came to a halt.
One by one, Jim told each of them to rest. “We’ll be here until sunset,” he said, before sending Doc and Cruz out to cover up their tracks and their point of entry into the thick brush.
As they settled in, Gene listened to Jim and Roland, in soft, low voices, trying to make radio contact.
“Manger…Manger. This is Silent Night…Silent Night. Do you copy?”
Roland tried several times before putting the handset back on his H-harness, the two straps over the shoulder with a cross-strap in the back forming the letter H that they all wore.
On the harness, they could carry ammo pouches, first-aid gear, knife, flares, grenades, and anything they’d need on a patrol. You-O wore a vest Velcroed in front. It had small elastic straps. He carried his 40 Mike-Mike for his grenade launcher with it. Probably he’d rather be carrying his little black book of who owed him what, and be back on Seafloat putting everybody in debt about now, Gene mused.
He reached to take the narrow line being passed along from man to man. He connected it to himself and passed it on to Alex. If someone fell asleep, the person next to him would pull the line to wake him up, or if they took turns getting a little shut-eye, they could use the line.
Sitting there, he picked up a small twig and removed mud from his ammo belts and the 60 while he listened to the jungle. From time to time, he zeroed in on sounds that turned out to be natural. He kept a sharp eye on the ground around him for snakes or creepy-crawlies and glanced at the others, from time to time, to make sure they were all right.
It seemed as though only a short time had passed when word came down to move out. He stood up, stiff and sore. Jim waved forward, and the patrol picked up and headed west.
The mosquitoes were out in force by the time they came to a fairly large river about twenty meters across. Its banks were covered with thick jungle. Brian signaled danger crossing, and the patrol stopped. Jim called each of them up, instructing them to inflate their life jackets halfway.
Gene nodded as he listened to Jim’s whisper. Holding to each other, they’d use the outgoing current to take them out of the area.
“Don’t let go of the man in front of you,” he said. “Brian will keep us close to the bank.”
Gene studied the river. It was a dark night. No moon, no stars. Jim had his act together, no question. With a little effort, they could make it to the Son Ku Lon before daybreak.
Holding onto each other, they slid into the water. The current was swift-moving. Carried along by it, they were getting closer to being able to make radio contact. Friendly forces and food would be damned welcome.
Moving next to the bank with the current was a scary business. What-ifs set in. What if they floated into a village or an enemy crossing? What if this? What if that? Holding on to Roland’s H-harness with his left hand, Gene kept the 60 above water with his right. At his back, he felt the pull of Alex’s grip on his own harness.
Overhanging branches and trailing vines, tree roots and twigs, seemed to reach out and grab as he floated past. It began to rain again. Though it made it hard for them to see and to hear, the rain made it just as hard for the enemy.
Suddenly the squad stacked up. Gene pushed into Roland, and Alex pushed into him.
Brian had moved into the bank and held on. They’d all floated into him. One behind the other, they pulled themselves tight into the brush and froze.
Gene held his breath as he watched three sampans pass. Brian had heard the splashing of oars in the water, grabbed a tree root, and stopped the squad, giving them enough time to hide under the brush while the sampans went by. Their point man was good. Damned good. He doubted that anyone other than Brian would have picked up that sound among the other water and jungle noises surrounding them. Damned good, Gene thought again as they moved back into the current, about two feet from the bank.
After they’d floated for almost three straight hours, they were cold. Even though the water and the air were warm, they weren’t 98.6 degrees. The squad’s body temperatures had dropped. Hypothermia was setting in. To create body heat, they had to leave the water and walk. Jim took them out of the river and back into the jungle.
Patrolling felt good. As they moved south, Gene felt the sweat begin to roll down his body again.
After about seven hundred meters, and no enemy sightings, Jim signaled another break. Resting, Gene listened to the insect hum, the jungle sounds. It was almost 0400. Enough time had passed that the enemy probably believed the SEALs had just disappeared, as usual. Daybreak coming soon. Too soon. He heard Roland get on the radio.
“Manger…Manger. This is Silent Night. Over.”
“Silent Night, this is Manger. What is your location?”
Around him, Gene caught glimpses of smiles in the darkness and heard the sighs of relief.
“Manger, this is Silent Night. Stand by.”
From a few feet away, Gene watched Jim and Roland study the map, then radio in a code telling the squad’s exact location, before asking, “Manger, what is your ETA? This is Silent Night. Over and out.”
“Silent Night, this is Manger. Estimated time of arrival is about twenty minutes. Over and out.”
Like shadows, the squad left the area to return to the river. There they set security and waited for extraction. It wasn’t until the boats came into view that Gene realized how tired, cold, and hungry he was. Friendly boats…their boats. The sight was so welcome. He tried to swallow over the lump in his throat.
Roland signaled with radio squelches, and the boats pulled into shore. As they climbed aboard, the crew slapped them lightly on their backs and shoulders. Gene caught words and phrases. “God, it’s good to see you. We thought you all might have hit the b
ig one. We heard the shit hit the fan at the objective. When you didn’t make the extraction, we figured—”
“Wrong,” Brian protested. “We kicked their asses. Man, what a hit! They walked right into it. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Bodies were everywhere. No one got out.”
Brian, Gene knew, was pumped again, the adrenaline flowing now, with safety. As was his own, but with it returned the soul-deep rage that eliminated tiredness, cold, and hunger. The rage that demanded more of the blood of those who’d killed Willie, and the blood of Colonel Nguyen. He stopped listening and turned away.
Behind him, the boat captain called out, “There’s Seafloat!”
Gene, staring into the dark water, looked up to see a group of people standing on the east end. As the boat turned into the barge, some yelled, “Hoo-Ya!” and some applauded as the squad got off. Barely acknowledging them, he headed for the hootch.
Marc was waiting at the door. They looked at each other, smiled, but said nothing. Gene went inside. Behind him, Marc’s voice was loud as the others approached. “We’ve got hot chow waiting for you guys. Get down to the chow hall.”
“Drop your weapons off,” Jim ordered, “and go eat.”
At the top of his lungs, Doc yelled, “Hoo-Ya! Chow!”
Seconds later, Gene stood alone beside his bunk. He opened a can of tuna and then carried the 60 out to the cleaning table to make her ready. He spent half an hour cleaning before breaking out eight hundred rounds of new ammunition. Back inside, he put the ammo and the 60 on his rack. When he turned around, Marc was standing there with a cup of coffee.
“Here, buddy,” he said, handing Gene the cup. “Why aren’t you at chow? We’ve got steak and eggs waiting for you.”
“Thanks anyway, Marc. I ate some tuna. But thanks for the coffee.”
“You really had us scared. We were ready to go in to see if we could find you.”
Gene looked into the light blue eyes. “Eagle, who’s going out?”
Marc straightened. “KCSs. Got an op after lunch.”
“Thanks.” He turned back to the 60.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. Seen Johnny?”
“Yeah. He’s at the chow hall talking to Jim. What happened out there?”
“Nothing, really. We had an objective. We hit it.” He looked in the Eagle’s eyes. He saw the concern, the caring. “Thanks, man. Thanks.”
His reply was swallowed up in the shriek of Seafloat’s siren.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“ALL PERSONNEL! MAN YOUR battle stations! General Quarters! General Quarters! All personnel! Man your battle stations!”
They were running before the order was repeated. Gene grabbed his 60 and tore out the door.
“All boats and choppers depart Seafloat!”
People rushed in all directions. Gene ran past a sandbag barrier wondering what the hell was going on. Every other attack had come in the dark of night.
“We have a large number of sampans coming in from the west!” the voice over the loudspeaker finished.
Gene dodged SEALs returning on the run from morning chow to get their weapons, and headed for the helo pads. The choppers were warming up. He could see sampans in the distance, coming in on their location. Looked like fifty or sixty of them. Boats were pulling away from Seafloat to intercept. Maybe today would be the day Charlie and the NVA overran them.
He squinted in the wind. One chopper gone…two choppers gone…He spun, looking in every direction. From what other direction would the enemy hit? Seafloat personnel were set. SEALs roamed the decks looking for sappers trying to float explosives in. The sampans were closing…about three or four people in each one. It was hard to see, to be sure. He tuned in to the open communications, between the boats and choppers, coming over the loudspeaker.
“Float, this is Airborne. We have about forty or fifty boats. They are flying the white flag. Weapons are stacked on bows. I repeat, they are Flying white flag.”
“Float to all crafts: Escort them into north bank.”
By that time, Gene was flanked by Brian, Jim, and Cruz.
Brian, looking through binoculars, suddenly yelled, “It’s the old man! It’s Raggedy!” Grinning, practically dancing up and down, he turned to Jim. “Can I take a Whaler out?”
Jim shook his head. “Wait.”
Good move, thought Gene. The boat people could be a decoy or a diversion. As the sampans neared within five hundred meters, riverboat crews directed them into the north shore. There, KCSs, Seabees, Montagnards, and two squads of SEALs from other platoons waited. Their platoon, Lima, was ordered to remain on Seafloat and hold their position at all costs if they were actually being attacked.
About half the sampans had banked. Armed SEALs were meeting the beaching sampans and directing their occupants to Solid Anchor’s landing strip. Brian, Gene saw, couldn’t stand it.
“Jim, can I get the old man now? I know he’s scared. Let me bring him back!”
Jim looked over at him and shook his head. “Go ahead, get the old fart. Bring him back. But be careful. Cruz, go with him.”
Brian spun around and took off in a full run yelling, “Hoo-Ya!” with Cruz right behind him.
Gene continued to scan the area. With General Quarters still in effect, all sides of Seafloat were carefully watched. If there was any other movement out there, they’d see it. If the surrender was a ploy, the prisoners would be cut down. They couldn’t allow enemy on Solid Anchor. The Seabees had completed too much construction on their north shore.
He shifted the weight of the 60 slightly. Seeing the old man, they knew the sampans had come from Twin Rivers.
“Your little psych job worked,” Jim said.
Gene nodded, watching the activity. All boats had pulled in, and the last prisoners were being checked and counted. Command would have to call for helo transports to move them to Binh Thuy, to a U.S. POW camp. Brian, Cruz, and the old man motored past in the Whaler. Brian wore a huge grin, and the old man was patting him on the shoulder, smiling from ear to ear, and saying, “You number one…you number one.”
Brian was heading toward the east end of Seafloat, to their hootch. Looking at them, Gene was reminded of little kids on Christmas morning. And with the thought came the sobering memory of Tong’s two little girls and Willie. The small feeling of joy disappeared, and on the bank now, instead of the old man’s people, he saw the enemy.
They were prisoners. He couldn’t touch them. His hands tightened on the 60. In a few hours, he’d be going out with the KCSs, and he’d get a head count. A head count of any enemy bearing arms. Much as he wanted to, he knew he’d never be able to kill just anyone. But the enemy, and the colonel…They were his.
“Stand down from General Quarters!” ordered the voice from the speakers.
Gene walked slowly back to the hootch, Jim at his side. “Can I go out this afternoon?”
Jim looked at him, a strange expression on his boyish face. “Okay.” He frowned. “You feeling all right?”
“Yeah. I am.”
They walked on. Marc, silent too, joined them a short distance from the hootch.
The first people Gene saw, as they entered, were Brian, Cruz, and Raggedy. They were sitting on the floor next to the refrigerator. The old man was chugging a bottle of JD. After a long swig, he lowered the bottle and looked up, focusing on Gene and Marc. The smile disappeared from his face. His eyes widened. Gene could almost feel the old man’s extreme fear as he cowered next to, and almost behind, Brian. He began babbling.
“It’s okay,” Brian said, patting him as though he were a child. “It’s okay.” But the old man wanted nothing to do with them.
“He’s calling you evil spirits,” one of the Vietnamese SEALs said. “Devil gods. He’s boo-koo afraid of you two.”
Gene touched Marc’s arm, and they went outside. “Brian knows we’ll have to question the old man soon. I’m sure nobody’d object to our doing it in the briefing room. We just need to know who and
what is still down there.”
“Anything we can use or destroy,” Marc said.
Johnny walked up. “Drinks on me, guys.” He set a six-pack on the cleaning table. “You two pulled it off. There are one hundred twenty-eight men, women, and children over there. Some ninety weapons.” He turned the gold class ring on his finger with his thumb. “Shit-hot idea, man. Really was a shit-hot idea.”
“Glad it worked.”
“I hear,” Johnny continued, “you’re going out with the KCSs.”
“Yup.” Gene turned to Marc. “And I hear we’ve got a guide for this op. Something about saving somebody’s daughter.”
Marc nodded. “Yeah. One of the boats coming in off an op with Tommy Blade’s squad—its wake swamped the guy’s sampan and the daughter fell overboard. She couldn’t swim. A couple of Tommy’s men jumped in and saved her.”
“Uh.” Johnny took a drink of his beer.
“Don’t know much more,” Marc said, “but the op’s on some tax collectors at the regional level, and it’s in a Secret Zone.”
Gene relished the icy coldness of the beer sliding down his throat. It would be his only one. Drinking stopped when an op was coming up. It ran through his mind that, on the hammer-and-anvil op he’d just come off of, they’d eliminated tax collectors and their escorts. But regional collectors were higher up the ladder. Secret Zone. Free kill zone. Good.
“I’m ready.” He reached in his pocket, closed his fingers around Willie’s cross, and felt the stiff fabric of Nguyen’s shoulder patch.
Finished with his beer, Gene left the two men and walked barefoot to the edge of the helo pad on Seafloat’s west end. Feet dangling in the water, he looked downriver, thinking of the hammer-and-anvil op and how easy it had been to blow the enemy away. Real easy. Some one of the bastards out there had killed Willie at Nguyen’s command.
Memories surfaced again of the village burning, Tong holding his wife, the faces of the two little girls as he had covered them with his shirt, Willie, inside the drab-green body bag…His rage mounted. They had reason enough for being there, with all the horror, the killing. Those poor people. The raping, the murdering, had to be stopped. If the assholes wanted death, he’d bring them death.
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