by Tom Wilson
"You General Bill Dortmeier's son?"
"Yes, sir," he whispered, still gritting.
"No feeling at all in the legs?"
"No, sir. . . . Something's wrong . . . with my neck."
The tapping came again.
"Just a second. Be right back."
Glenn had tapped out D-O-R-T-M-E-I-E-R– –W, and was about to terminate when he heard a noise. He turned to see the lieutenant trying to see what he was doing. He slumped and made a final gurgling sound, his head slipping to an odd angle. Glenn hurried back in time to be at bedside when Dortmeier stopped breathing. Artificial respiration didn't help.
They didn't take the body away for two days.
23/1520L—Vinh, Route Pack Two, North Vietnam
Chickenplucker Crawford
They were flying at 6,000 feet over the flat land west of Vinh. With the mounting losses in pack six, the mission to the lower-threat area had thus far seemed a respite. Crawford's radar warning receiver was quiet, and he'd heard nothing about threats from the others in his flight.
The mission objective was to again eliminate the elusive Vinh ferry, which reconnaissance photos showed had been rebuilt and placed back into operation.
It was a large, bargelike ferry they would be looking for, and the recce photos had shown it loaded with trucks full of supplies. Hundreds of barrels of something had been stacked on the Vinh side of the wide Ca River, waiting their turn.
On some previous missions they had found other Vinh ferries and destroyed them. On other missions they had not found any sign of the ferry. It was thought that the present barge-ferry was somehow flooded and sunk during daylight hours, then raised and used at night and during bad weather to carry supplies and people across the wide river.
Today, Chickenplucker was leading the first flight on the target. There was no flak suppression flight, for the defenses would not be as concentrated as they were in pack six. There were no Wild Weasels, for they were presently banned from flying on anything but pack six strikes.
Too bad, thought Crawford. The Vinh SAM site was infamous for its trickery. He didn't worry much, because he had great faith in his own ability and in the discipline and resourcefulness of his fellow fighter jocks. Still, he would have felt easier if the Weasels were roaming about up there, trying to sniff out and preoccupy the radar defenses.
A gun radar came on from somewhere up north of Vinh and chattered on his radar warning equipment. It posed no threat to his flight, so he ignored it.
He saw the muddy Ca River at his eleven o'clock and adjusted his course slightly to fly toward its mouth.
"There's the river up ahead, Tonka flight," he radioed. "We'll make a fast pass south of the ferry's last known position, then make a one-eighty out over the water and come back for a better look. Keep the speed up. I don't want to be caught lollygagging around Vinh."
"Two!"
"Three!"
"Four!"
He felt buoyed by the precision of his flight's response. They were ready for the cagey Vinh commander Benny Lewis had warned him about before takeoff.
Only the steadily tracking gun radar was on the radar warning scope. Periodically, he heard a beep and saw the flicker of a single strobe from his left, but he ignored that one too because it wasn't ready and tracking.
The river loomed and grew. He kept it off to his left, staring hard to search for the ferry. Nothing he saw resembled the barge in the photos.
They approached the coastline and no one had yet seen the ferry. Damn, if they hadn't hidden it well.
He led his flight farther out over the water, the single Firecan gun radar still tracking them, the periodic beep in his headset still annoying him.
Crawford pushed his radio button. "Lead and three'll be making a right turn in one minute, Tonka flight. Tonka three, you and four continue out another ten seconds before you start your turn. I want you back a couple miles when we're inbound. When we coast in I want four sets of eyeballs glued onto the south bank of the river. Look for the barge, camouflage, even a shadow in the water, and call out anything that looks suspicious."
"Two!"
"Three!"
"Four!"
He turned right, waited for his wingman to settle into position, and adjusted his throttle so they were flying at 420 knots true airspeed. It appeared safe enough to fly at the slower speed.
He held the course, aiming for a point that would carry him a couple of miles to the south of the big river. Another Firecan radar joined the first one, making a buzzing sound in his helmet's earphones, showing two strobes now on the small scope. Both showed that the radars were well to his right, across the opposite bank of the wide river.
He could still define no threat to his flight.
He flew over the coastline and began his visual search.
What happened then was so fast that he never really could reconstruct it or get it straight in his mind.
A squeal and a red light. LAUNCH. The headset rattled. He looked and saw a chattering strobe, so powerful it illuminated a segment of the scope. He looked at two o'clock, in the direction of the strobe, and saw a missile already dropping its booster off, accelerating, close. Damn!
"SAMs! Break!" his wingman yelled. He nosed over and started a hard right turn.
The missile was upon him, then exploded. For a split second he was engulfed in the copper-red fireball. The engine gave a giant belch, causing the airframe to shudder.
He kicked the right rudder, and the Thud responded. Then it was no longer flying. He tried to determine where he was, realized he was heading for the ground too fast, rotated the handles, and pulled both levers. A giant kick in the butt!
He swung in the parachute. Watched the Thud impact the ground. Felt he must be in a dream. Disoriented. Looking about wildly, finally seeing the ocean to his left. Before him was a large field pocked with deep craters from naval shelling, with a half-destroyed shack at one end. He twisted about and saw, behind him, the river. It was only a mile away.
He released the right catch of his oxygen mask and let it swing away, and tried to prepare for his parachute landing fall.
Tracers shooting up from behind him. The ground racing up at him. Yellow, inflated life raft beneath him. The raft hit first, then he fell in an awful PLF, ended up on his side, his head and shoulders, then completed the somersault and landed flat on his back.
"Damn," he muttered. The chute was still floating, billowed by gusts of warm wind, white against the blue sky.
He determined he was okay after lying there for a few seconds. The chute billowed higher and tugged at him. He found the catches and released it, shucking off the parachute harness while he was about it.
Which way's the water? He was disoriented.
A Thud soared overhead.
His beeper was still on. He found the harness, fumbled around, and turned off the emergency location beeper.
He looked around and saw the building in the distance, a shack really. Uninhabitable? People inside? He remembered its position from his look while in the chute. The water was straight in front of him!
How far? It had looked to be three or four miles. A long way to haul the raft.
He grabbed his tether to the raft and started to pull it behind him. He got hung up when the survival kit he was also inadvertently pulling along snagged on a bush.
"Calm down, dammit," he muttered.
He pulled the kit and the raft into one of the craters he'd seen from the air. The hole was ten feet across and half as deep.
Yelling in the distance. Vietnamese voices. Crawford hunkered down in the crater so he couldn't be seen.
He pulled out a radio from his survival vest, switched it to Guard channel, then to REC ONLY. Nothing. He switched it to TRANS/REC and broadcast.
"This is Tonka lead. I'm down." There were no side tones, no static. It wasn't working. He examined it quickly, then tried again with the same results. He tossed it aside.
A Thud flew low overhead, and the sound
was loud.
He pulled out a backup radio and tried again. Static now.
"This is Tonka lead." Side tones, so it was working.
"Ah, roger, Tonka lead. This is Lionel lead." Sam Hall's familiar Southern voice.
A soldier in a ragged uniform was suddenly there at the crest, peering down and aiming his rifle at Crawford's head.
"Hands up!"
Crawford almost pissed his pants. He was caught, and his damned gun was still in its holster.
As he slowly raised his hands, the radio came alive again. "Say your condition, Tonka lead."
The soldier became very excited, and Crawford felt he was about to shoot. He dropped the radio and stretched his hands higher yet. He tried grinning, but the soldier just kept yelling "hands up" over and over until more soldiers arrived.
He eyed them warily. "Hello, chickenfuckers," he said. This time there was no brass around to complain.
There were a half dozen of them, and they kicked him and beat him with heavy rifle butts as they stripped him of his survival vest, g-suit, flight suit, watch, wedding band, dog tags, and boots. Then they kicked and shoved him a couple more times to encourage him to walk, and finally holed up with him in the deserted shack until the Thuds had departed. They kept the muzzles of their guns aimed at him, but didn't mistreat him badly.
He heard bombs exploding in the distance, and was surprised that their concussions could be felt even here. The rickety building rattled and shook.
At the first shadowy signs of the falling sun they led him away, walking on a roadway pocked with so many craters they were hard to circumvent.
They walked for an hour, and he wished to hell they would give him his boots back. All he wore was his skivvies, socks, and T-shirt. When he motioned to one of his captors that he wanted something, the soldier hit him in the belly with his rifle butt, then was upset because of the delay while he doubled over to regain his breath.
It grew darker as they walked. He started to think of escape. He'd been schooled to attempt escape as soon as possible after capture. That was when you had your best chance.
The gomers must have read the same book, because they stayed close.
They came to the river and a small village there. He was herded toward a bamboo cage at the side of a small hut. He was pushed inside, and the door tied behind him. It was relatively dark, but he could see someone else huddled into a corner of the cage. A Vietnamese?
A soldier looked his work over, shaking the door to make sure it was secure. The gomers withdrew, leaving him behind to stand guard.
"Howdy," said the other guy.
Relief flooded him. Another American.
The guard came over and spoke excitedly in Vietnamese.
"Fuck off," said the other American.
The Vietnamese jabbed inside the cage with the barrel of his rifle, an old Garand, and the guy yelped with pain. The gomer didn't like them talking between themselves, Crawford decided.
A while later the guard was relieved by another soldier, much younger and not very intelligent looking.
Chickenplucker tried this time, keeping his voice very low. "Major Pete Crawford. Thud driver from Takhli."
The guard overheard and looked over at them, grumbled once, but didn't do anything.
"Captain Red Williams. Misty Fac. F-100's out of Binh Hoa." He was a forward air controller flying F-100 Super Sabres from South Vietnam.
"Good to see you, Red."
"I was shot down south of here, near Dong Hoi. Lucky bastards got me with small-arms fire."
"Got me with a SAM."
"I saw it. Ringside seat right here. The gomers like to leave you out in the sun."
"How long you been with them?"
"Five days now. I tried to escape the first night. Almost got out of the hut they had me in, but then I heard them coming so I got back inside and acted like I was sleeping."
"They keep this cage? Take it with them when you travel?"
"No. I think this is a regular route for their prisoners. They take you from place to place, walk at night and hole up during the daytime. They walk you about every other day, tie your hands, and put a rope around your neck, like you're a dog."
"Damn," whispered Crawford. He didn't like the sound of that.
"When they move you, you walk all night. I see they took your boots like they did mine. It's hard on the feet, walking with no boots."
"I'll get used to it," said Crawford. "I went barefoot back in Tennessee so long they had to run me down and shoe me like a horse. My feet'll toughen up."
"They'd better," whispered Red. "They don't like you walking slow. I've stubbed my toes about fifty times, and my feet feel like hamburger."
The guard grew restless, walked over to them, then once around the cage. He was young, unenergetic, and not very interested in what he was doing. He went back to the front of the hut and lounged against it. They both watched him closely.
"I call them names, like the seven dwarfs. This guy's Dopey, and if we're gonna get out of here, I figure he's our best chance."
"He doesn't look very motivated."
"Two of the other guards, I call them Happy and Sleepy, they're not much better. The rest of 'em are more alert. Watch out for Doc. He's a real little guy, but he's mean."
"How many of them altogether?"
"Seven, like the dwarfs. Maybe more now they've got you. I figure if we can get out of here, we should either try to walk out to the west, or try the water. How far are we from the ocean?"
"Three or four miles."
"Thought we were still close, 'cause you can smell the salt water. Where are we?" asked Red Williams.
"That's the Ca River, and Vinh's just across. We were looking for the ferry when I got hammered by the SAM."
"It's bad when they take you through a town. The civilians come out and poke you with sharp sticks and throw rocks and things, spit on you."
"Well," said Crawford, his mind churning, "let's try to get out of this thing as quick as we can. When do you figure is our best chance?"
"Hard to tell. You don't know when they're going to change guards. Sometimes it's every couple of hours, sometimes longer. Our best bet's probably as soon as possible after guard change."
"Maybe we won't be here much longer if we pick the right time. Like now? I think we can untie the door without making much fuss." Crawford didn't like the idea of being in the cage, not at all, and Dopey did not appear alert. He was slumped against the side of the hut and only periodically shifted around to look at them.
"Maybe so," said Red, "except it's almost feeding time. They only feed you once or twice a day, and not much."
"I think we oughta take our chances getting to the water, maybe somehow make our way to the Navy ships out there." Crawford slowly edged toward the cage door, but that was when the guard came alive, stretched, and walked over to them and peered inside. Like he was trying to appear alert.
Another soldier came around the corner of the hut and spoke in Vietnamese. He was carrying bowls of food.
"That's Doc," whispered Red Williams.
The new guard heard him, rushed over to the cage, and berated the prisoners. He chewed out young Dopey, who stood with an embarrassed look, then had him hold his rifle on the prisoners as he opened the door to shove in small bowls of rice and some water. He carefully retied the door and motioned for Dopey to leave.
Doc was more alert, nervously pacing about and glaring at them as they quietly ate their pittances of food with their fingers.
Red tried to whisper something a little later, but with his first syllable, Doc rushed over, screeching angry words and jabbing him savagely with his rifle barrel.
The opportunity for immediate escape was lost. Following Red's lead, Crawford curled up and tried to sleep. They should stay rested and retain as much energy as possible. With the meager diet, they would rapidly lose weight and muscle tone. When their time came, they'd need every possible edge.
He finally dropped off into i
ntermittent, troubled sleep, thinking about escaping to the coast and what they should do once they got there.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Wednesday, January 25th—1935 Local, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Bear Stewart
The wing was going through pilots as fast as they got them in and the maintenance crews hardly had time to patch up an airplane before it was again holed by flak.
Since he and Benny had been working on the tutorial directed by Colonel Mack, Pudge Holden and Lyle Watson had been flying in their place, and that fact had kept the Bear grumpy. Tonight, though, he felt proud of the Weasel crew. A few hours earlier they had found and bombed a SAM site in pack six.
It seemed a tiny ray of light in the bleakness, so he and Benny had dropped their work on the briefing and come to the club to help them celebrate.
Benny Lewis bought the SAM-killers a round. Max Foley, the wing weapons officer, came over and clapped Pudge on the back. "Nice work up there."
"Thanks." Pudge beamed, and they all knew he was justifiably proud.
Someone started singing Sammy Small—a favorite—and everyone joined in. They sang it loud, because they were tired of being gloomy.
Oh my name is Sammy Small—
Fuck 'em all
Oh my name is Sammy Small—
Fuck 'em all
Oh my name is Sammy Small, and I only have one ball,
but that's better than none at all—
So fuck 'em all.
They continued with several verses, about poor Sammy, who had shot a man in the head, with a bit of fucking lead. Now Sammy was going to swing, what a silly fucking thing. Fuck 'em all.
The Bear looked around. Les Ries and Dan Janssen were at the other end of the bar, near the outside door.
Lyle tried to interrupt his thoughts. "Just call me Super Bear," he said, not trying for a modesty award. "Told you I was the best, Mal." He was inebriated.
The singing continued. Sammy Small was going to swing from a silly piece of string. The parson would come, with his tales of kingdom come, he could shove 'em up his bum. The sheriff he'd be there too, with his silly fucking crew, they had fuck all else to do. So fuck 'em all.