“Help me get you on my back . . . I have a helicopter waiting to haul us out of here!” Paul grabbed the pilot’s harness and tried lifting him up without hurting him. The pilot groaned, but took hold of Paul around his neck. The distance back to the open field was less than twenty meters and Paul covered it carrying the pilot piggyback. He lowered the man to the thick matted vegetation and yanked out his URC-10.
“Chopper . . . Chopper . . .” Paul had forgotten the helicopter’s call sign, “.
. . chopper, get your ass back here!”
Paul saw the NVA squad the instant it stepped out of the jungle on the far side of the field.
“Chopper! Come in!”
No answer.
Paul held the small radio in his hand and eased back into the jungle. A radio transmission broke the silence.
“Unknown Station . . . this is flight leader Alpha Six . . . identify yourself . . .”
Paul pushed the rubber-covered switch, happy to hear a friendly voice.
“This is Lieutenant Bourne . . . CCN . . . I have a wounded Air Force pilot . . .”
Paul looked at the man’s rank that was sewn under plastic tabs on his shoulders, “. . . a lieutenant colonel . . . he crashed in a Phantom jet . . . I need a pick-up aircraft . . . what are you driving?”
“I have four A1Es with me . . . We heard a Mayday and came . . . We can’t land . . . Do you need air cover?”
“Hell, yes! This area is crawling with NVA! They’re crossing the rice paddy now! I see them!”
Paul covered the wounded pilot’s body with his own as the A1Es made a gun run against the exposed NVA soldiers. Dirt flew in all directions from the aircraft cannon rounds plowing through the mud, leaving a couple dozen NVA for fertilizer.
“I got them!” The voice coming over the URC-10 was younger than the first voice Paul had heard.
Paul pushed his talk button. “I’m going to take this pilot and head south to the river . . . try and cover me!” Paul slipped his URC-10 back into his pocket without waiting for an answer and lifted the wounded pilot onto his back. He was glad the fighter pilot wasn’t overweight.
The A1Es danced and swooped around Paul, spraying the jungle with bombs and cannon fire. Paul traveled three thousand meters carrying the man until his legs gave out from under him. He fell face-first to the ground. The pilot moaned. Paul reached down without looking and removed his URC-10.
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“Have you found my chopper yet?”
“Sorry . . . we saw a slick heading south on our way here . . . but he ignored our request to turn back . . .” The A1E leader’s voice dropped, “Listen, buddy . . . I hate to tell you this but we’re almost out of fuel . . . Leave him there and we’ll try to call in for some help . . . save yourself . . .”
“Bullshit!” Paul’s voice cracked. “I’ve got him this far and I’m bringing him home!”
“You’re a gutsy little shit!” A deep respect filled the pilot’s words. “I’m Colonel Wilson . . . look me up when you get back!”
The flight of four A1Es dipped their wings and the lead aircraft did a victory roll in honor of Lieutenant Bourne before they banked south.
Colonel Wilson raised his protective visor and wiped the tears from his eyes.
Lieutenant Bourne felt a little strength returning to his legs as the friendly sound of the A1Es turned into a low hum. Fear had a way of making adrenalin enter the bloodstream. He groaned with the pilot and crossed the wounded man’s arms around his shoulders. As he stood with flashes of pain bursting through his muscles, Paul looked up and saw rain clouds racing toward him from the south. He grinned and thought that he was actually happy to see a monsoon downpour. He lowered his head and struggled the first few steps forward.
The lone helicopter landed on the CCN pad. Colonel Clewell looked out of his window. A frown crossed his face. The chopper had only left an hour ago and wasn’t due back until late afternoon. Clewell raised his hand to stop the officer who was briefing him and turned to Major Galviston, who sat in the chair next to him. “Have someone go out there and find out why the resupply chopper has returned so early.”
The briefing officer from the corps headquarters was half through his weekly report when a jeep slid to a halt under the colonel’s window. Clewell stood up so that he could see what was going on. Captain Atkins had the helicopter pilot by the back of his neck, shoving him toward the entrance of the building. Clewell and Galviston met the recon company commander in the hallway.
“This son of a bitch left Bourne!” Atkins’s face was red from the anger he was venting. “This bastard flew back here to press charges against Bourne for attempting to kill him!”
“Hold on!” Clewell eased Atkins away from the helicopter pilot and continued speaking to him. “What in the hell has happened?”
Atkins adjusted his field jacket, “Sir . . . Bourne had the pilot land his chopper in North Vietnam so that they could pick up an injured Air Force pilot who had called for help . . .” Atkins reached over for the pilot, but was blocked by Galviston. “And that punk just took off and left them on the ground!”
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“You . . . what?” Clewell couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
“Sir . . . I don’t have a gunship . . .”
Clewell spoke to his deputy. “Galviston, get over to the TOC and crank up anything we can launch . . . Get a Brightlight Team in the air . . . Loveless is in isolation . . . use his team.”
Major Galviston hadn’t finished briefing Jay before the lieutenant had his team assembled and ready. Loveless didn’t wait for the black van to take them to the helipad, instead he ran over to the single helicopter on the pad, followed by his team.
“Is this machine ready to go?” Jay jumped into the cargo area followed by his commandos.
“We’re almost out of fuel.” The copilot spoke cautiously to the armed recon men. He had warned his pilot that coming back to the CCN camp was stupid, but the senior officer had ignored his warning and had been hauled away.
“Is this the same chopper that left Bourne?” Red slivers of fire flashed from Loveless’s eyes.
The copilot was careful to answer the lieutenant holding the submachine gun. “Our pilot gave the orders—”
“Get this fucking coward’s craft off our helipad! If I ever see you here again . . . I’ll tear your fucking heart out and feed it to Vietnamese pigs!”
The copilot didn’t need to be told twice. He jumped into the cockpit and cranked the engine. He didn’t wait for the pilot or for the aircraft to warm up.
Jay sat down on the hot PSP and placed his head between his legs. He thought clearly for the first time since he had heard what had happened to Bourne. He should have kept the chopper.
Lieutenant Bourne stumbled through the bamboo thickets without paying any attention to the noise that he was making. He was walking in a pain-wracked stupor, and didn’t care any more if the NVA found him or if a tiger jumped out of the jungle and ate them. Pain attacked every muscle in his body, telling him to drop the load off his back. All of his survival instincts told him to cut the wounded pilot’s throat—no one would ever know. Paul responded to his thoughts by squeezing the man’s upper thighs harder under his arms.
The pilot released a low moan.
Paul carefully placed each boot in front of each other, taking extreme care not to slip on the mud. He knew that if he fell he would never get back up again. The sound of frogs croaking broke through the mental block that had separated him from reality. He stopped walking and allowed his knees to bend down to touch the ground. The pilot on his back slipped sideways down to the damp earth.
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Lieutenant Bourne had reached the north bank of the Ben Hai River that separated the
two Vietnams. Later, when Paul tried to recall how he had reached the river, he would draw only a blank.
Paul forced himself to cover the pilot with brush and then found himself a shady spot to rest. The sound of helicopters brought Paul back to reality. He could see a flight of three Huey slicks and six Cobra gunships flying north toward him. He reached down into the side pocket of his camouflaged pants and pulled out his URC-10.
“Unknown helicopters . . . this is Thor . . . Thor.” Paul used his secret code name.
Jay wore the headset off his ears around his neck. The Brightlight rescue ship he was riding in was approaching the DMZ from the south. He nearly jumped off his seat when he heard his friend’s voice coming weakly over the air.
“Thor! Thor! Where are you? . . . This is Bacchus . . .”
“The north bank of the Ben Hai . . . You’re flying straight at me!” Paul took a deep breath to control the pain in his body. “I’m going to turn on my strobe light . . . Now!”
The first bright flash from the strobe bounced against the Plexiglas window on the chopper as a pin mark and started growing larger. The light came from a location a mile away to their one o’clock.
“I have you located! Hang in there!”
Paul allowed his eyes to close.
“Get your gunships shooting up anything that moves around that strobe light!” Jay yelled into his mike and readied his team for the landing.
The helicopter carrying Jay and his team hovered ten feet from the ground and started a slow descent to the tops of the high grass growing next to the riverbank. Jay hit the ground running. He grabbed Paul’s flashing strobe light and turned it off. It had done its job. The chopper sat down and Jay loaded on the wounded pilot, then went back for Paul. Jay carried his friend to the waiting safety of the chopper, allowing no one else to touch him.
Paul’s head rested against Jay’s leg as the chopper made a 180-degree low-level turn and shot back across the narrow river.
The gunships continued their assault on North Vietnam and answered the thousands of green tracers flying up at them from the jungle. The NVA had been nipping at Lieutenant Bourne’s heels but had arrived minutes to late to reap the glory of their chase.
The Brightlight Team had played the modern-day role of the old wild-west cavalry, and had rescued the pair of warriors from the jaws of certain death.
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18
Captain MacReal sat alone on the wide patio outside the hospital snackbar, lost in her own thoughts. The coffee was cold as it touched her lips. She looked down at her watch and realized that she had spent forty-five minutes daydreaming.
“Natasha! Come over here and join us!” One of her coworkers waved from across the way. Natasha smiled and shook her head from side to side.
She wanted to be alone for awhile and just think things out for herself. The doctor she worked for had said he would bring her the test results before he went off shift. She checked her watch again: forty-eight minutes had passed.
“You shouldn’t be sitting alone out here without a dozen handsome young men vying for your attention!” The doctor turned the steel-framed chair around and sat down cowboy style. He began talking candidly to the waiting nurse. “Well, what you’ve suspected is correct. Let’s say that the rabbit died and you’ll be a mother in six months or so, give or take a week.”
Natasha looked directly into the doctor’s smiling eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, very sure, Captain MacReal.” He looked down at the table top. “If you don’t want to keep the child, I can perform an abortion . . .”
“Thanks, Doc, but I’ve already decided to keep the baby.”
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“Do you know who the father is?”
The hurt flashed over her face, cutting the doctor to the quick. “I’m going to be a mother—that doesn’t make me a whore.”
“I’m sorry . . . that statement was uncalled for . . . I just . . .”
“I know what you mean . . . The answer is yes . . . I know who the father is.” Natasha placed her hand over the doctor’s.
The path leading along the walkway bordering the hospital was lined with banana trees and flowering bushes. Captain MacReal walked along with a light bounce in her step. Now that she knew for sure, she was very happy. When she had first realized that she might be pregnant, she had felt shame and confusion. Paul Bourne had been the only man she had been to bed with since she had arrived in Vietnam, and her experiences with sex before that had been limited to one long relationship with her ex-fiancee. She was a girl from the old school, who believed in loving someone before having sex with him.
She removed a pad of writing paper from her desk drawer. Paul had the right to know, even though she wasn’t going to push him into a marriage.
Lieutenant Bourne opened his eyes. He was lying on one of the infirmary beds in the ten-man hospital that the CCN medics operated for the recon team commandos. Paul felt pain coming from all of the muscles that he tried moving.
“It’s best if you get up and walk around a little,” the medic sitting behind the desk at the far end of the ward spoke over the case of bottles that he was labeling.
“Easy to say . . . hard to do.” Paul made an emphatic effort and sat up. Black spots flashed in front of his eyes and he stopped moving for a few seconds.
“You’ve been lying there asleep for the past eighteen hours. Your muscles should be really sore.” The medic lifted the telephone receiver on his desk and dialed. “The colonel wants me to call him as soon as you woke up. We kept you under because you were really beat when you got here.”
Paul’s mind began recollecting what had happened to him and then he remembered the crashed pilot. “How’s the Air Force fighter jock doing?”
“We don’t know. They rushed him to the main hospital in Da Nang and then evacked him to Japan yesterday.” The medic spoke into the telephone.
“He’s awake now, sir . . . yes, sir . . . I’ll have him wait here. I really don’t think that he’s going to be able to go very far on his own for a couple of days, though.” He looked over at Paul and watched him struggle to his feet.
Lieutenant Bourne held the bed frame and placed one hand against the wall for support. “Shit! I feel like I’m a hundred years old!” The pain was still there, but with each short step his body began to return to normal. When the colonel arrived, Paul was walking slowly back and forth between the row of beds.
“Well, Lieutenant Bourne, I see that you’re up and about!” Colonel Clewell was followed into the room by a smiling Major Galviston.
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“Barely, sir.” Paul reached out and shook the offered hand and added,
“How’s the pilot doing?”
“Fine . . . real good! He was evacked for some repair work on his legs. I think there was some bone fragmentation. By the way, he sent a message back through our headquarters thanking you and your effort.”
Paul shook his head from side to side. “He’d have done the same for any of us. Oh . . . by the way . . . a flight of A1Es did a real super job covering for us. If it wasn’t for Colonel Wilson and his people, the NVA would have gotten us at the crash site.”
“I know. He called here yesterday and couldn’t praise you enough! In fact, the Air Force is recommending you for a Silver Star and a Distinguished Flying Cross!” The expression on the colonel’s face changed and he introduced another topic. “One other thing, Paul—what happened between you and the helicopter pilot?”
Paul’s face instantly reflected the contempt he felt. “That son of a bitch!”
“Now calm down,” Clewell’s voice released some of his own frustrated anger, “a lot has happened in the past twenty-four hours and I need some facts!”
Paul
sensed the pressure his commander was under and became sedate.
“What do you want to know, sir?”
Clewell took a deep breath and released the first question almost too fast.
“Did you place a gun on the pilot’s neck?”
“Yes.”
“Did you threaten to kill him?”
“Yes.”
Clewell flinched and Galviston broke out in a wide grin.
“Did you also threaten the copilot?”
Paul paused and then answered, “Yes.”
“Why! Damn it! ”
Paul shrugged his shoulders. To him, the answer was very black or white.
“They refused to go after the downed pilot.”
Clewell slapped his own leg with his open palm and eased out his words between clenched teeth. “Damn, Paul! Why do you always get so involved?”
The statement was more of a plea than accusation.
Lieutenant Bourne looked over at Galviston, who had taken a seat and was still grinning over the whole conversation. He had approved of everything Paul had done and had told the investigating officers that he personally would have shot the pilot and then talked to the copilot.
The colonel sighed and continued, “Do you know the pilot of the helicopter went directly to the commanding general of the XXIV Corps and demanded that you be punished for threatening a senior officer?”
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Paul had taken enough and his nerves broke. “So! If that’s the fucking bottom line . . . punish me!”
“Damn it, Bourne!” Clewell turned and left the room.
“Relax, Lieutenant. He’s on your side, but the corps commander is trying to force him into giving you an Article 15,” Galviston said.
“So? I get an Article 15. I would do it all the same if I had to do it again.
Let me ask you a question. What would you have done if you had been in my place?”
Major Galviston smiled and left the room, leaving Paul’s question unanswered.
Paul dressed, ignoring the low-key pain coming from his sore muscles, and left the infirmary. He walked stiffly toward the beach and the sound of the waves breaking against the sand. He knew that he had done what was right, and if the brass couldn’t understand that, well, then fuck them.
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