Night Work: A Novel of Vietnam (The Jim Hollister Trilogy Book 2)

by Dennis Foley

  He stopped and leaned back on his heels. He thought to wipe his hand off on his shirt before touching his head. It could have made a difference, he thought.

  His fingers found the ragged skin on his head just over his right eye and in his hairline. He had a jagged piece of metal stuck in his head. He had a horrible thought about it being iceberglike. That more of it could be in his brain than sticking out. He tried to calm himself and continued to feel his way around the wound. It felt no bigger than a quarter. The edges of the wound and the shrapnel were very jagged, and the blood was streaming out and running down his face and hand.

  He tried to gather some composure and assess the situation. He listened for more mortar rounds leaving the tube and heard none. It angered him that he only had the general direction of the mortar tubes fixed in his mind and no real idea of the distance. It meant that the mortarmen who had lobbed the rounds on them were not only very good, but had certainly broken down and gone.

  He squinted to try to keep the blood out of his eye, as well as to brace himself for a more detailed examination of his wound. He used his other hand to help pull the small patch of hair around the wound aside. As he did he felt the mortar fragment move. It wasn’t lodged in his skull, but had slipped under the skin through the hole it had made on entry.

  He wiped off his fingers on his shirt again and reached for the frag. With a good grip, he clenched his teeth and pulled. It came out in his hand, a jagged piece of dense metal no bigger than a thumbnail.

  As soon as he removed the frag, the bleeding increased. He wondered if he had done the right thing. He knew that he had to slow the bleeding and that he couldn’t do the things he had to do and hold his head at the same time.

  He pulled his floppy LRP hat from his pocket and folded the brim in on one side of it. He then forced it down on his head so that the heavier material of the brim pressed up against the wound. The salt from his sweat immediately registered on the wound and reassured him that there was some feeling there after all.

  He gave the hat one more tug and grabbed for the handset again. “Houston, Three. We are under sixty mortar fire. They have us bracketed. I need redleg flare support if that flare ship is going to take more than zero five to get here. Over.”

  Kurzikowski’s voice responded immediately, “Roger. Calling for redleg now over lima lima. Have you taken any ground fire? Any casualties?”

  “Negative on the ground fire yet. Not sure yet on casualties. Stand by.”

  Hollister reached Curtis and they spoke, though neither one looked at the other. Instead, they searched the opposite halves of the small perimeter and the surrounding area for signs of casualties and any sign of approaching enemy troops. “What you got?”

  Calmly, Curtis said, “Nothing on this side. I’ve got everyone locked and cocked, but we haven’t seen any movement yet. You suppose they’ll drop some more mortar fire on us?”

  “Plan on it,” Hollister replied. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’ve got flares on the way, and they’re ready with a reaction force back at Cu Chi. Let’s not fool ourselves. More people couldn’t know where we are if it was in the Stars and Stripes.”

  “Ah … Captain, there’s one other thing,” Curtis said tentatively.

  “What?”

  “I’m hit. I don’t think it’s a big thing, and I don’t want to be a problem. But I’m bleedin’ pretty good.”

  Hollister spun his head around and looked more closely at Curtis. He sat there, both hands down between his legs, holding a spot just above his left knee. The mottled moonlight, shadows, and blood on Curtis’s hands made it hard for Hollister to see just what was Curtis and what was shadow. “Let go. Let me see,” Hollister said.

  Without arguing, Curtis pulled his hands away and blood began to pump in strong arcs out and onto the ground beneath him. Hollister knew Curtis was in trouble if they didn’t get the bleeding stopped. He reached over and pressed the heel of his hand against the slice in Curtis’s leg. With the other hand, he reached over and felt for any exit wound or bone break. “Can you move it?”

  “Yessir. I think it’s all okay ’cept for the bleeding.”

  “Okay, let’s get that stopped.” Hollister slipped the combat dressing from the first aid pouch on Curtis’s web gear and tore it open. He pulled the four long, folded ties loose and threw two of them on one side of Curtis’s leg. He tucked the other two under his leg and tied the four ends firmly on the outside of it. “We’re gonna have to put a tourniquet on it if this doesn’t stop the bleeding. You got a cravat on?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Okay, let’s see how this works. How much blood you think you’ve lost?” Hollister asked.

  “Not that much,” Curtis replied.

  Hollister didn’t believe him. He wiped his hand on his trousers to get the blood off and then reached down to the ground under Curtis and felt the puddle of pooled blood. It was at least a quarter inch deep, thick, almost jellylike, and covered an area about a foot and a half across. He didn’t really know what that meant, except “not that much” wasn’t how he would describe it.

  “Okay … sit here, and don’t move around. Let me know if it keeps bleeding. You got that?”

  “Yessir,” Curtis said as he picked up his M79 and broke it. He pulled out the HE round and replaced it with a shotgun round—for close combat. “Hope I don’t need this.”

  “You and me both,” Hollister said as he wiped the trickle of blood from his face and checked his watch. It would be two more hours until first light.

  He scooted back to his radio and picked it up angrily. “Houston, Three! I got one WIA that might be able to hold till first light. But I need some goddamn illumination before all shit breaks loose here.”

  “Three, Six. I’m going to bring up a pair of guns and alert the reaction force. Should be there in less than three zero,” Major Sangean said.

  “Negative, negative. There is nothing you can do right now. If you get out here and run short of fuel we’re sure to need you when you’re gone. We have it under control right now. Just stand by. But I need help with coordination and fire support more than I need a C and C.”

  “Understood,” Sangean said flatly, taking no offense at the curt reply.

  Less than five minutes later, three AK47 rounds shattered the calm and whipped through the trees just fifty meters west of where they were. “Hold your fire,” Hollister whispered to the others.

  He cupped the handset again. “Contact! We are taking ineffective small-arms fire. Stand by … for more… But get me that fucking illumination. Now!”

  “Should be any second now,” Kurzikowski said, the frustration in his voice matching Hollister’s.

  A second burst of enemy fire pounded into the dirt and cut down some bamboo in the same location. Hollister was sure the shooters didn’t know the team’s exact location, and their second burst gave away their position. They were shooting from beyond the downed chopper, using it to mask their location from where they thought the American patrol was.

  Hollister grabbed the handset again. “Check fire. DO NOT FIRE ILLUM. Wait for my command. And launch those gunships—NOW!”

  “Roger. They just called us, ready to fire. I understand you want to fire at your command,” Kurzikowski asked. “And you request snakes?”

  “That’s affirm. Stand by,” Hollister replied as he wiped more blood from his face and hooked his fingers under the U-shaped protective bar on the top of the PRC-77. He grabbed his gear and rifle with the other hand and scooted on his butt toward the perimeter’s center.

  “Listen up,” he whispered for all of them to hear. “I think they’re gonna make a move for the area where they think we are. Who has a good pitching arm?”

  “I do, sir,” said the only black face on the team. It was Sergeant Jackson, the team leader—a tall, long-limbed man who looked like a track star.

  “You think you’re up to hurling a rock or two in that direction?” Hollister asked.

  Jackson looked ov
er to where the incoming small-arms fire had hit. “Sir, if I don’t do something to pull my weight, I’ll never hear the end of this. You tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to drop a rock or a stick over there to make them think we’re there and moving around. If they go for it, I want you to do it again.”

  Jackson sat up and started patting the ground around him looking for something to throw.

  Many of the random light sources that had been north of them during the early evening had been put out—cook fires, lanterns, and headlights of far-off traffic. Hollister reached for the Starlight scope and scanned the trees on the far side of the chopper.

  He could plainly see the outline of two enemy soldiers moving a light machine gun to a better firing position. They hadn’t fired it yet, but he was now sure where it was.

  Four other soldiers were moving on their bellies in the paddy water toward the chopper. His guess was that they were going to try to hit the team and get to the chopper at the same time. He dropped the Starlight and tapped the team members who were looking away from him. “Jackson, when I say so, throw that rock. Curtis, give me your M79.”

  “Sir, I’m really good with this.”

  “You think you can hit the chopper with an HE round? You only have one chance.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Okay, who has the clacker for the chopper claymore?”

  A hand came up with the detonating device in it.

  Hollister took it. “I want them to get the chopper, and then we’ll take the initiative. Curtis, put a second round in the trees directly behind the chopper after you hit it.”

  He spoke into the handset. “Tell the snakes to hold south of my position and come loaded for troops in the open. Illum standing by?”

  “Roger the snakes. Affirm on the ilium. The flare ship got diverted.”

  “Fuck!” Hollister said over the radio.

  “We roger that!” Kurzikowski said.

  “Okay, when I call for illum, I may want it for quite some time. Do you have HE capability with the same redleg, or is that too much to ask?” he said sarcastically.

  “Affirm. They are confident they can provide HE and illum at the same time.”

  “Stand by,” Hollister said.

  He dropped the handset into his lap, wiped the blood from his eye, and raised the Starlight. He could see four, then five, enemy soldiers at the chopper. Three of them were inside.

  Hollister grabbed the handset. “Fire the illum, NOW!” He didn’t wait for the reply.

  “Okay, Jackson—do it!”

  Jackson sat up, grabbed a small tree for leverage with his left hand, and hurled a full canteen up and over the trees to the area the VC had fired into only moments before.

  The canteen landed with a thud. Two AKs opened up from the trees, painting green lines across the tops of the rice plants.

  Hollister grabbed the claymore clacker with both hands. “Okay, Curtis, NOW!” he said as he squeezed the detonating device.

  The claymore went up immediately, momentarily rocking the chopper before igniting the fuel cell. Before the fireball reached its full size, Curtis’s M79 round hit the fire wall behind the door gunner’s seat. The combination of the explosives and the fire scattered burning chopper parts in all directions. The VC who were on board were lost in the fireball, and the two who had been standing by the chopper were already facedown in the water.

  The artillery flare popped and blossomed to the east, bathing the area in near daylight.

  The LRPs then opened up with rifle and machine-gun fire. The two M60s from the chopper, plus the one the team had brought, chewed up the dike and tree line that held the enemy machine-gun team.

  “I got ’em,” Curtis yelled as he saw the two-man machine-gun team stand to try to get away from the fires the LRPs were pouring into their position. Curtis calmly raised his M79 to point far above the machine-gun team, then kept lowering it until they were in his sights. The illumination gave him all the time he needed to aim and fire.

  The M79 thumped, hurled the HE grenade accurately across the open field, and detonated in the trees just above the VC.

  “All right!” Hollister yelled, unable to contain his excitement.

  They all hesitated—waiting for more enemy fire. Nothing. It was silent, save the heavy breathing of the team members.

  “Here,” Curtis said, pushing the M79 into Hollister’s hand. “I can’t do any more right now, Captain. I’m sorry.”

  Hollister took the grenade launcher and looked back at Curtis, who had pulled his cravat off and was tying it around his thigh. The pool of blood under him had grown to the size of a card table and was an ugly, black-looking ooze under the flare light.

  “Houston, give me continuous illumination,” Hollister snapped into the mouthpiece before reaching over to help Curtis with his tourniquet.

  They came to a grunting agreement over how tight the tourniquet should be. Hollister then turned to Jackson. “Medic?”

  “Not on this team.”

  “Did you bring a first aid kit?”

  Jackson pointed to a breadbox-size canvas bag wedged into the crotch of a bush to keep it up off the ground.

  A second artillery flare popped, replacing the dying light of the first. Under the light from the flare and the burning magnesium in the chopper, Hollister could see that Curtis was starting to lose his color and that his eyes were starting to look bad. He knew if he didn’t get some fluid into Curtis’s bloodstream, he would die from shock. The wound itself was serious, but didn’t need to cost him his life.

  The bag was heavy and hard to maneuver while kneeling. Still, Hollister pulled it free from the bush that supported it and dragged it to his side. He quickly unzipped the top and searched around in the tightly packed contents. The kit was stuffed with advanced first aid needs, more than most field-trained medics could use.

  He found it An OD can, not much larger than a soup can. He peeled the top back and dropped the contents into his hand—a bottle of albumin, a blood expander, and an IV tube and needle. He showed it to Curtis, who nodded his head. Hollister looked around and whispered over the sounds of the hissing flare and the burning chopper, “Anyone ever done this?”

  No one offered so much as a reply.

  Hollister shrugged. How tough could it be? He’d seen it done, but had never tried himself. He readied the tube and bottle and tried to find somewhere to hang the bottle high enough so gravity would move the fluid into Curtis instead of dripping Curtis’s blood into the bottle. Finding nothing obvious, he picked up his M16 and shoved it, muzzle first, into the soft earth. He reached into the second first aid packet on his own web gear and pulled out his compass. The dummy cord, made of a boot lace, came free with a jerk at each end. He tied the bottle to the lower sling swivel on. his upturned rifle butt.

  The easy part was behind him, and Hollister knew it. He pulled the belt off Curtis’s trousers, wrapped it around his arm, and began to search for a vein. Finding one, he decided not to screw around and make it uncomfortable for Curtis—so he plunged the needle into it.

  Curtis flinched, and nothing happened. The fluid failed to drip into him.

  Hollister apologized. “I’m going to have to try this again. Stay with me.”

  There was little recognition out of Curtis, who was beginning to get more distant. He made an effort to reply, but his lips only moved.

  A second try was more successful. Immediately, blood began to flow out of Curtis’s vein into the low spot on the IV tube, where it stopped.

  Hollister raised the tube so that it was a straight shot from the bottle of blood expander to Curtis’s arm without a loop lower than his arm. The orange-colored section of the fluid reversed itself, and the albumin began to run into Curtis. “Okay, man. Just relax. We’ll have you out of here in no time. Let me know if you need anything,” Hollister said, and then waited for some sign of recognition from Curtis.

  Curtis looked up at Hollister and smiled.

  The g
round fog and the low-hanging smoke from the fire and the flares made it more difficult to see beyond twenty meters. That bothered Hollister. He called Operations and requested a medevac to pick up Curtis.

  A cock crowed somewhere near the team. And the horizon made the transition from black to the slate color that often came just before dawn in Vietnam. With it came a slight breeze and a change in temperature. It warmed them for a few minutes, and then the breeze caused the wet uniforms to become colder. Hollister tried to suppress his shivering, but failed.

  Jackson tapped Hollister on the arm and handed him the radio handset. “Six,” he announced.

  “This is Three. Over,” Hollister whispered into the mouthpiece.

  “We are seven minutes out of your location with a Dust-Off. Your WIA ready to be picked up?”

  “That’s affirm.”

  “We’ll pick him up with the Dust-Off and then put the slick in to get the remainder of your element. Have you had any more movement or fire?”

  “Negative. But I wouldn’t trust them.”

  “I want to make very sure I have your location confirmed before we bring in the choppers. I’m going to have the snakes down in the treetops to give you the max support, but I don’t want to make any mistakes.”

  “I sure can’t argue with that. Roger, identification. We’ll put out some panels and have flashbulbs standing by.”

  The Cobras were the first choppers to reach the team’s location. As they began to circle, looking for any signs of the enemy that had made a feeble attempt to kill the LRPs and steal what they could, they found signs of the firefight. “Houston Three, Reptile One-three.”

  “Glad to hear the call,” Hollister quickly answered. “This is Three. Is Dust-Off far behind you?” He motioned for Jackson to flash a signal panel at the chopper headed directly for them.

  “Right on our tails. We’re just gonna poke around in the brush here for anyone who might just be too stupid to live.”