Arnason waited until a truck passed before risking a sentence. “We’ll wait here and eat until the traffic dies down in about an hour and then we’ll set up our ambush.” He rushed the words out in one long breath.
Youngbloode and Woods both nodded and guided the rest of the team into a small, tight circle. There was a slight risk that an NVA unit would be moving during the day, but it was very unlikely and Arnason didn’t want his team to burn themselves out listening to the bamboo clicking in the wind. He planned on letting them eat and then sleep until it was time to get ready for the ambush.
Woods looked hard at the faces of the new men, trying to detect any unusual nervousness, and saw three very confident recon men staring back at him. Koski scooted over to where Woods sat with his back leaning against his pack and whispered into the sergeant’s ear, “I’m not hungry. I’ll move off a few meters in the jungle and pull guard.”
Woods nodded his approval and pointed in the direction he wanted him to go. Arnason beckoned with his finger for Koski to come to where he sat; at the same time the team sergeant reached into his backpack and removed a black-dyed Marine fatigue cap like the one he wore for good luck when he played cards. He handed the cap to Koski. The huge Pole took the gift and looked at the front of it. A tab that had been sewn over the bill and centered on the cap read BAD NEWS, stitched in black thread on an olive drab background. Koski smiled and nodded his thanks. He replaced the cloth cap on his head with the one Arnason had given him and adjusted the bill. It fit perfectly. Arnason reached into his pack and removed a handful of the black caps. He checked the size in each of the bands before handing one to each team member. Even Kirkpatrick had to smile when he read the new name for the recon team. He liked the idea of being bad news for the NVA.
Youngbloode smiled. Arnason was a superb team leader and knew how to use psychology to his advantage.
The sergeant looked over at the captain and handed him one of the caps. The officer took the gift and turned it around so that he could read the embroidered word above the tab. He smiled and mouthed the words You’re good to Arnason. The sergeant winked. The word stitched above the captain’s team name was HONORARY.
Traffic was starting to die down on the highway as the afternoon waned. No one wanted to get caught halfway between outposts when darkness fell. Arnason tapped Youngbloode and nodded toward the road. It was time to start setting up the ambush. Warner woke Koski and Sanchez, who had been dozing in the hot jungle underbrush. Kirkpatrick was pulling outpost.
Warner, Sanchez, Koski, and Sergeant Woods removed the two claymore mines that each of them had been carrying in their backpacks and followed Arnason out to the road. Captain Youngbloode stepped out on the edge of the highway with Arnason and checked both ways before signaling that it was clear. The team members with the claymores ran out from their cover and started setting up the deadly antipersonnel mines.
Sanchez fixed the prongs on his first mine and shoved the legs down into the clay. He slipped back into the jungle and lay down behind the mine so that he could aim it perfectly before getting back up on the road and setting his second mine in place. He ran the detonating wires back into the jungle and smashed down a place for himself to lie down. Each of the other team members had done exactly the same thing except Warner; he angled his second mine fifty-five degrees down the road away from the kill zone of the claymore ambush. He was thinking about catching a second vehicle that would be following at least a hundred meters behind the ones that would enter the deadly ambush. He looked for Arnason or Woods and couldn’t see either one of them on the road. He would have liked to get approval before he broke the traditional pattern for a claymore ambush. He hesitated and then went ahead with his own idea; one claymore wasn’t going to make a difference to anything caught by seven other mines.
Arnason waited nervously on one knee in the shadow of a large clump of overhanging bamboo for Warner to reemerge on the road. Everyone else had set up their claymores and returned for their gear. Warner was almost to the edge of the bamboo thicket before Arnason noticed him. The boy was getting very good and was learning that being small was an advantage in the jungle.
The sound of a truck’s engine reached the team as they squatted in a tight circle receiving their last instructions before they moved back to their two-man sites for the night. Arnason looked over at Woods and then at Youngbloode. The puzzlement in his eyes was shared by everyone in the circle. The sound of the truck was distinctly coming from the left side of the road and heading perpendicular toward Highway 19.
Arnason gave the hand signal for the men to take their places. Woods and Warner were teamed up and Koski was with Kirkpatrick. Arnason had kept Sanchez and Captain Youngbloode with him. He would feel better splitting the men up after their first shakeout mission, but the first night in the jungle on a recon patrol was bad enough when you had an experienced recon man with you. Arnason didn’t believe in practicing suffering.
The highway curved slightly before it came to the ambush kill zone and curved again before it straightened out for a fifteen-kilometer stretch. That’s why the site had been chosen for the ambush; trucks would have to slow down for the curves.
Arnason’s eyes were starting to water from the strain as he stared hard down the road. There were still three hours of good light left and he wondered if an ARVN convoy was trying to make it out to Due Co before dark. He had to be careful, because his orders were that he could attack anything after dark.
The edge of the jungle opened up exactly where the road had started to curve and Arnason’s question about the truck was answered instantly. A perfectly camouflaged set of bamboo gates were being held open by four NVA soldiers dressed in neat khaki uniforms. The front end of a camouflaged truck pulled out of the hidden trail and stopped before negotiating the shallow ditch that bordered the road. A bamboo roof had been attached over the Russian-built truck that camouflaged the vehicle perfectly from the air when covered with fresh vegetation.
Youngbloode grabbed Arnason’s arm and squeezed. A lot of very complex problems for the staff were being answered, and the NVA were so damn confident that they were moving during the day! Youngbloode couldn’t help but render a tight-lipped grin in respect for the NVA tactic. They planned their convoys perfectly to time with the mess hall hours of the helicopter pilots and the American patrols! The NVA knew that they could expect the Americans to stop patrolling around four o’clock and get set up for their night lager sites and for the gunships to head on back home for chow. The camouflaged entrance to the road also told Youngbloode that the NVA had their own road network that skirted around the American and ARVN fire bases and used Highway 19 only when they were far enough away from the bases so that they wouldn’t be detected.
Arnason held his hand up with the palm facing his men. They were waiting for the signal to attack or to allow the convoy to pass their location.
The driver of the truck opened his door and looked down at the ditch as he slowly maneuvered onto the road. He laughed and called back to the NVA operating the camouflaged gates. One of the soldiers ran up to the side of the truck and reached up for the package of cigarettes the driver was holding out for him to take. There was no doubt in Youngbloode or Arnason’s minds as to the brand the NVA was giving away; the bright green-and-white package unmistakably said SALEM.
The guard ran back to his friends laughing and holding up the cigarettes. Arnason wondered how they could have missed seeing his team out in the road when they were setting up their claymores and felt a finger of fear sear its way into his guts. Maybe they had and were baiting him! He felt the sweat of indecision beading up on his forehead and then Youngbloode’s voice whispered in his ear. “We attacking?”
Arnason looked at the captain and whispered back. “If it’s only one vehicle.”
Youngbloode nodded and leaned forward. “If you agree, I’ll slip around behind those gate guards with Sanchez and take them out when the truck starts moving again.”
“Go!”<
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Youngbloode tapped Sanchez and started slipping back around the rear of the ambush team. The truck jerked and then started moving slowly down the highway. Arnason could see a person riding shotgun holding a map up to the window so that he could read it in the light. He assumed there were at least two more guards riding in the back of the covered vehicle.
Arnason closed his fist. Kirkpatrick had been watching him and turned to wait until the truck was centered in the claymore kill zone before detonating his claymores.
Warner kept twitching his nose as he waited with Woods. They could see the NVA truck and they had seen the guards come out of the jungle, but they couldn’t see Arnason. They had to wait until they heard Kirkpatrick’s claymores go off as the signal to execute the ambush. There would be only a couple seconds’ delay before they would fire theirs.
The truck slowed down almost on cue in front of Kirkpatrick and he fired his claymores. The first mine tore through the passenger’s door and the second mine blew the rear tires to shreds.
A light Russian machine gun opened fire almost instantly from a position next to the secret entrance to the highway and was answered by Warner’s redirected claymore. The machine gun stopped firing.
Captain Youngbloode and Sanchez had passed Woods’s position and the captain had used hand signals to tell the NCO what he was going to do. The NVA guards were scrambling for their weapons when Youngbloode and Sanchez smelled the smoke from the cooking fire. The NVA had been eating when the truck had disturbed them. The machine gun crew had stayed behind and finished eating before they returned to their weapon. War was filled with luck, and today the majority of the luck was going to the Americans.
Youngbloode crouched and opened fire, killing one of the NVA soldiers instantly and wounding his partner. Sanchez threw a hand grenade that took out two more on the hidden trail and killed another soldier sleeping in a hammock on the side of the trail.
“I think we’ve got them all, Captain.” Sanchez risked speaking.
“I only saw four when they opened the gates, but let’s not take any chances and quickly sweep the area around the entrance.” Youngbloode thought for a second and added, “Look for documents.”
Sanchez nodded and lowered himself into a combat crouch before stalking along the edge of the trail.
Arnason was the first one out to the truck. The driver and his passenger were both dead. Koski flipped up the back cover on the truck and saw that it was filled to the tailgate with boxes. He reached up with his free hand and pulled the first row out onto the road, checking to see if any NVA were behind them. He wasn’t taking any chances. Kirkpatrick nervously scanned the jungle bordering the highway. He didn’t like being out in the open.
Arnason tore the folded map out of the passenger’s bloody hands and shoved it into his side pocket. He searched the cab for anything else that might be of value and saw that the dead passenger was wearing a Russian pistol. He started reaching for the man’s belt buckle and then decided against it; he could always come back for it. Arnason backed away from the cab, spun around and checked the jungle, and then slipped back to join Koski and Kirkpatrick. He saw the boxes on the road and the back of the truck filled with similar containers. A small stack of black cases caught his eye and he jumped up to reach them. As the top case slid down he grabbed it and broke its fall to the ground. A cloud of red dust billowed up over the shiny steel case.
“Kirk … open it up while we guard you.” Arnason was becoming very nervous.
Kirkpatrick leaned his weapon up against the side of the truck and opened the latches on the long case. “Shit! Look at this stuff!”
Arnason glanced into the case and saw a long black scope. It looked like the kind you would put on a sniper rifle, but it was too big around. “What in the fuck is it?”
Kirkpatrick picked up a small pamphlet and read the title of the instrument. “It says here that it’s a starlight scope.”
“You read Vietnamese?” Arnason risked another glance away from the jungle to what Kirkpatrick held in his hand.
“Fuck no! It’s in English.”
Arnason’s eyes focused on the side of one box lying in the road and he read a felt tip marker message: RECON CO/IBDE/ICAV. He spun around and looked at the boxes inside of the truck. Half of them had the same markings and all the rest had marker notes written on them designating other American units. He felt the anger welling up inside of him as he turned the boxes around to read their contents: everything he could reach was medical supplies.
“Motherfuckers!” Arnason removed his fighting knife and cut the felt tip marker notes off two of the boxes and stuffed the pieces of cardboard into his pockets. He reached back in the truck to pull out another box when the jungle erupted in a volley of automatic rifle fire and hand grenades.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here. Koski! Frag the truck! Use white phosphorus!”
Koski obeyed. He removed the grenade off his web gear and pulled the pin, tossing the live explosive into the back of the truck. He paused, saw the black case containing the scope at his feet, and reached down to pick it up by its handle before running down the road to join Arnason and Kirkpatrick. The truck went up in a fireball with only a small secondary explosion from the gas tank.
Youngbloode and Sanchez had walked side by side down the narrow trail about fifty meters back into the jungle and were just about satisfied that the trail was empty when an NVA platoon came from out of nowhere. The relief force had been hidden in a bunker complex a hundred meters away from the secret entrance onto Highway 19. The bunkers had been built close enough to the road to protect them from arc light bombing and artillery fires at night. The NVA knew that the Americans were not going to bomb a road they used.
Sanchez’s reflexes were slightly faster than the captain’s and he opened fire with a long burst killing the first five NVA soldiers before they could fire back. Youngbloode’s burst caught the second group, and the rest of the NVA platoon scattered into the jungle.
Woods and Warner heard the firefight and looked over at Arnason before tapping Warner and taking off in the direction the captain had gone. Woods wasn’t about to repeat what had happened to Spencer Barnett; he would never leave another teammate behind on the battlefield, regardless of what they were up against.
Woods saw Youngbloode before the captain could see him and opened fire to the captain’s left, killing a pair of NVA who had flanked the two-man team’s position. Youngbloode looked behind him and saw Woods and Warner. He smiled. Woods used his hand and pointed back toward the truck. He was ordering a withdrawal. Youngbloode nodded, and according to his agreement with Arnason, he obeyed the second in command of the team. Sanchez followed, walking backward and firing his M-16 at anything that moved.
Less than ten minutes had passed since the claymores had been detonated, but the time span seemed like years. A light machine gun opened fire to the team’s left, but the gunner was firing high as he searched for the Americans.
Koski pushed the black case under some matted bamboo next to the road and pointed in the direction Youngbloode and the rest of the team had disappeared in.
Arnason nodded. They would link up with the rest of the team and fight their way back to the Special Forces camp if necessary. He wasn’t going to try and call back for reinforcements until there was a lull in the fighting. Right now the team needed every working gun it could muster.
Koski was the first to see the team coming through the jungle and he alerted Arnason. The linkup was smooth. Arnason counted heads; they were all there without any wounded, but the jungle was crawling with NVA.
“Back to Due Co … or as far as we can get before it gets dark.” Arnason reached up and placed his hand on Warner’s shoulder. “Bobby, you take point and get us back to Due Co.” Arnason glanced around at the thick growth of bamboo and elephant grass. “Reading a map and compass in this shit is impossible. Do you think you can do it?”
Warner swallowed and his dry throat hurt. The firefight had him
scared, but he knew that he could get the team back to where they had come from; he had never been lost in his life after having looked at a map. It seemed as if he had a special computer in his head that recorded the map and his location on it; wherever he went on the map, he knew exactly where he was. He was scared, but he calmed down almost instantly when Sergeant Arnason called him by his first name. Up until then it had been “Warner.” He nodded his head.
“Good!” Arnason pointed west. “Woods, follow him and cover his ass!”
A rifle fired a single round to the north of the team and was answered by a rifle firing in the direction Arnason had pointed. He knew what that meant: the NVA were surrounding his team, and if they could keep a rescue team away from them until it got dark, they could wipe out the Americans.
Youngbloode caught the look in Arnason’s eyes and winked. He knew how serious the situation was and didn’t need to be told. The only thing that bothered Youngbloode was that it would be a waste to die on his first mission. He couldn’t let that happen; it would look bad.
Koski poked Arnason and pointed back toward the burning truck. A column of black smoke billowed straight up in the windless sky. The Special Forces camp would have to see it. He couldn’t risk taking the time to make a radio call back to the camp until they had stabilized the situation.
“Let’s go!” Arnason pointed with the barrel of his CAR-15.
Warner started breaking trail, moving slowly and ready to use his rifle any second. The task was nerve-racking. The NVA were nearby and closing in around them. It had been a near miracle none of the team was wounded. Sanchez had a couple of deep cuts on his cheek from running through a patch of elephant grass and Koski was holding his right shoulder down a little and could have taken a flesh wound, but the rest of the team was functioning superbly.
A single round went off in the jungle a couple hundred meters in the direction the team was moving. Warner paused for a second and changed course. He headed directly north. Woods frowned and glanced back over his shoulder at Arnason. The team sergeant nodded his head in support of Warner’s decision. He had told the boy to get them back to Due Co and he trusted that the kid knew where he was going. In fact, Warner knew exactly where he was headed. He remembered a tiny knoll that had been marked on the map in the Special Forces operations room that had been used by the First Cavalry Division as a company outpost. The site was only a few hundred meters away and he figured if they could reach the old position, there would be some foxholes and fighting bunkers from which they could defend themselves. More importantly, the Special Forces team knew exactly where the outpost was, and with a little luck they would still have the position’s defensive fires on file. Warner was banking on the fact that if they thought enough of the site to keep it on their maps, they would keep the rest of the data.
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