Duty and Dishonor: Author's Preferred Edition

by Dale A. Dye

  “Comrade Pilot, you will loiter, fly and do whatever else I tell you to do without further comment.”

  Loan moved back into the troop compartment to add his eyes to the ten other pairs scanning the jungle below.

  Willy Pud sat next to Cleveland Herbert Emory, Junior, on the edge of the swamp and considered the odds. They were not good. The helicopter continued to sweep over the corridor between them and the lush jungle at the foothills of the border mountain range. He had maneuvered on the edge of the swamp while the helicopter circled, looking for the shortest route across the open ground. And he was looking at the best bet, about 100 meters of low scrub, intermittent clumps of low bushes and tangle-foot with very little concealment for anyone trying to cross it undetected.

  “Can’t we just wait until they run out of gas?” Salt dropped the extra gear he’d been told to carry and watched the helicopter cutting through the sky on a regular search pattern.

  “He’s got to have troops aboard,” Willy Pud speculated mostly to himself. “If he gets low on fuel, he’ll just put them on the ground to search while he goes back and refuels somewhere.”

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “I don’t have a lot of choices. We’ve got an appointment to keep over in Laos.” Willy Pud glanced over where Salt sat massaging his game leg. They wouldn’t be very swift on foot if they decided to just make a run for it…and there were the damn rockets hanging on the helicopter.

  Salt stared up through the thick foliage, watching the helicopter cut figure-eights across their lifeline to the border. The pilot made slow, lazy turns at the end of each circuit. He counted silently…eight, nine, ten...nearly twelve seconds to reverse directions. He got to his feet.

  “Let me have your knife.”

  “I told you once before, Emory. You get no weapons.”

  “We could cut some bush and make turtles.”

  “Make what?”

  “Turtles. The VC used them all the time to hide from airplanes. I know how to do it.” Emory dropped into a squat and. scratched idly at the welter of bites on his skinny shins. “We used to make a wicker sort of thing. It looked like a big basket…a sort of turtle shell. It was very effective. You weave leaves and vines from the jungle into the frame. Every time an airplane passes, you just scrunch down under the turtle. From the air you look like just another bush.”

  It came back to Willy Pud in a rush. He’d spent hours watching large NVA formations trooping down the Ho Chi Minh Trail with the wicker arrangements covering their packs and equipment. He reached for his K-Bar and handed it to Salt. “Get hot. You make the frames and I’ll collect the brush. There’s cord and tape in my ruck.”

  It was practically impossible to hear above the laboring whine of the engines and the bellow of the wind blowing through the troop compartment. Loan pulled the headset from his ear and leaned toward the soldier pulling frantically on his elbow.

  “Comrade Captain, are we still flying over the same area?” Loan fought the urge to push the man out the open door. “Yes, why?”

  The man pulled on Loan’s elbow again and pointed at something on the ground. “Those two bushes down there, Comrade Captain, I didn’t see them there when we flew over in the other direction.”

  Loan leaned out of the helicopter and stared at the green splotches in the waving yellow morass of tall grass covering the ground. There were clumps of similar bushes in three or four other places. He rubbed his sore eyes and tried to remember if he’d seen the bushes on a previous pass. It was hard to tell. If he was on the ground, looking at it from an infantryman’s perspective…but from this altitude one bush looked like every other. Still his man seemed to be convinced he’d spotted an anomaly.

  Capt. Loan was becoming more desperate than he liked. The pilot was complaining about low fuel levels. They would have to return to the camp soon and deal with that and the fugitives would escape. As he gazed again at the bushes below, he decided it was unimportant at this point whether the American lived or died. As long as the man didn’t get out of Vietnam, there were many credible reasons why a prisoner had been killed trying to escape. He keyed his headset and ordered lower passes. They would pepper the bushes with fire just in case.

  As he’d been doing for the past 15 minutes, Willy Pud froze when he beard the clatter of helicopter blades overhead. He scrunched under the wicker shield, closed his eyes, and bit his lip. There was nothing else to do until the sound of the Mi-8 faded right or left and be could afford to inch forward. He’d been trying to keep track of their progress, estimate distance covered but it was difficult. He couldn’t afford to peek very often. Rotor wash rattled the leaves of his camouflage cover as the helicopter made a low pass. And then he heard the sustained howl of machineguns firing. The ground beneath him heaved and shook with the impact of slugs. They’d been spotted.

  “Emory…run for it!”

  Struggling to shake free of the turtle shell cover, Willy headed for the green ahead of him, watching Salt hobble in a stiff-legged gait headed in the same direction. His right foot snagged on something that refused to give and Willy Pud tumbled hard. The frame of his rucksack slammed painfully into the base of his skull. He saw the shadow of the helicopter flicker on the ground to his front as he scrambled to get himself up and running, chased by gunfire from the air.

  He had nearly reached the shelter of the foothills when a round tore into him. It felt like someone had hit him in the left side of his ass with a sledgehammer. He felt the familiar screaming jolt of adrenaline and used it to keep himself moving. Salt had disappeared into the bush ahead and Willy Pud forced himself to go on despite the red hot lance of pain he felt each time his left foot hit the ground.

  Something slammed into his back before he could stagger much more than four or five steps. Three rounds ripped through the rucksack on his back and he fell. The magazine of his rifle dug into his solar plexus and Willy Pud vomited. He pushed himself up, gasping for breath as a long string of rounds chewed up earth around him. He was not going to make it.

  Suddenly he was jerked halfway to his feet. Emory was dragging him toward the trees, limping on his game leg and hauling hard on the frame of Willy Pud’s rucksack. He got an arm around Salt’s skinny shoulders and did what he could to help with forward progress. Bullets from the helicopter tore up the ground all around them but they made it into the jungle-covered foothills.

  “They are in the trees, Comrade Captain!” Loan ignored the unnecessary update from the pilot and hung out the door of the helicopter to fire the last ten rounds in his magazine into the green where the pair had disappeared staggering like drunks.

  “Do you wish to land and chase them?” The pilot was swinging around to orient on the treeline and set up for a landing in the open field.

  “No! Go around again and then fire rockets into the trees. Aim ahead of the place where they went out of sight and cut them off before they start climbing.”

  They were still locked to each other, arms over shoulders like bosom pals, heading uphill into triple canopy. The ground was sloping steeply, and it was hard to negotiate with Willy Pud’s wounded left pip pressed against Emory’s bad right leg but desperation was sufficient crutch and they struggled as fast as possible.

  The first fan of 57mm rockets burst into the tree to their front and they were both stung by a hail of wood splinters. The rippling blasts sent them tumbling back half the distance they’d managed to climb. It wouldn’t be long before they’d have to fight it out with people on that marauding aircraft. The pilot would likely expend his rockets to box them in and keep them from climbing higher and the he’d land and let the infantry finish the job.

  The second rocket salvo slammed into the base of a tall teak tree, snapping the trunk. The huge tree tipped and settled against a neighbor, canted and pointing at the sky like a gnarled javelin on the edge of a clearing just upslope from them. Willy Pud pulled his pistol and a frag grenade from his gear and looked over where Salt w
as panting with his back against a tree. “It won’t be long before they land in that clearing up ahead and send in the grunts, Emory.” Salt just looked at him, nodded and closed his eyes again. “I’m gonna fight it out as long as I can.” He tossed the pistol and grenade toward Emory. “If you don’t want to switch sides again you can use those.”

  Salt glanced at the weapons lying at his feet while another ripple of rockets impacted the jungle above them. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Wilhelm Pudarski, former Staff Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. I came a long way to see you hang, man, but if that ain’t gonna happen, I figure it’s your choice right now. You can surrender and go back to the camp or you can help me make a stand.” Salt picked up the pistol and nodded silently.

  Willy Pud looked up at the shattered teak tree above them and thought about a way they might keep the helicopter from landing. Wounded and short of ammo, they wouldn’t last long against a determined infantry push. They’d land the grunts up ahead in that clearing shortly so they were in position to stop any further uphill climbing. Then they’d sweep down and…but Willy Pud was determined not to let it happen. He moved upslope a little and took a closer look at the big teak tree leaning precariously on the edge of the clearing. Helicopters and trees didn’t mix well. If there was a way…but the helo would have to come close…be in just the right position…

  Willy Pud explained the desperate plan to Salt as they struggled up toward the clearing. The helicopter was circling now, checking for damage and slowly descending with each pass. They didn’t have much time.

  “Cease fire! One of them is coming out of the trees into the clearing.” Loan craned out the door of the Mi-8 and watched the American emerge, limping and waving. It was the prisoner. Likely the others were dead or wounded. Or perhaps they’d just given up their prize and ran to save their lives. His men could run them to ground, but the important thing now was to get the American. If he returned with the man alive, a lot of errors could be overlooked. The important thing was to recapture the prisoner.

  “Land and we will pick him up.”

  The pilot lowered the collective to lose altitude and executed a pedal turn to point the nose of the Mi-8 at the man staggering around on the edge of the clearing. He judged the clearance for his rotor fan was sufficient and dropped toward the ground. If he could just get in there and get out again quickly, they’d have just enough fuel to make it back to the camp. His map said they were nearly at the Laotian border. If they ran out of fuel, he didn’t want it to happen here.

  He pulled into a hover, dancing the tail rotor away from the nearest trees as his co-pilot helped direct him into the clearing and shoved the collective steadily downward for a slow, cautious descent. He could see the effect of their rotor wash on the American who was backing away into the trees with his ragged clothing flapping and snapping against his body.

  When the helicopter was 50 feet above the ground and descending slowly, Willy Pud lit the short fuse and limped away from the charge he’d jammed under the splintered end of the teak tree damaged by rocket fire. He’d tamped the charge well to direct the explosive force. When the charge detonated, the tree should sail up like an arrow.

  He was well down from the clearing, hoping Salt was in some similar safe position, when the last of his C-4 detonated with a loud crack. The helicopter was right at tree-top level when it happened. The teak tree sailed into the air impelled by expanding gases from the demo charge and directly into the helicopter’s rotor fan. The first blade to strike the dense wood shattered into a thousand slivers. The tree was still ascending when the rest of the helicopter’s rotors hit it, tore from their mountings, and tumbled into the jungle.

  The Mi-8 whirled madly for a moment in an agony of frustrated torque, flinging passengers who were standing ready to charge out on landing into a jumbled pile of flesh. The helicopter careened into the hillside and exploded in a wave of heat and flame that drove Willy Pud to ground. He lay still for some time until the rain of smoking debris stopped. Then he began a slow, painful climb to the clearing, looking up at a column of black smoke that rose from the fire and nearly blocked out the sun rising in the east.

  He found Salt unconscious about 20 meters below the clearing on the other side of it. He’d been too close to the crash, but he didn’t look badly hurt. Willy Pud rolled him over, but there was no blood beyond a little that trickled from his nose and ears. Just had his bell rung, he decided, and poured water from his canteen over the man’s face. While he waited for Salt to recover, he checked his watch. They had to get moving, but the route was likely clear at this point, assuming they didn’t run into marauding bandits or any other unexpected obstacle.

  Salt sat up groggily and looked at the smoking pyre above them on the hill. “I guess it worked.”

  “I guess it did.”

  “Where are we?”

  “About two klicks from the Laotian border.” Willy Pud refolded his map and stood, ignoring the pain in his leg and hip. “We need to start humping. There’s a ride to Thailand on the way shortly, and we need to be in the right spot to meet it.”

  j

  While Cleve Emory packed sulfa powder into the wound channel in Willy’s left buttock and applied a fresh battle dressing, Willy Pud finished his map work. Rechecking the math on his back-azimuth, he decided they’d made nice time for a pair of shot-out gimps. His navigation put them on a hill some 300 meters above the surrounding terrain according to the contour intervals on his map and just a bit more than three kilometers inside the Laotian Republic.

  Emory finished his first-aid chores and began to fiddle with the rucksack shoulder straps. He’d relieved Willy Pud regularly on the trek and the heavy burden raised blisters along his collarbone. “Do you know where we are?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “OK if I ask where?”

  “In Laos, Emory. You ought to start recognizing the neighborhood any time now.”

  Rubbing one of the blisters, Emory felt water begin to dribble down his chest. There were a million questions he wanted to ask, but the man who brought him safely out of Vietnam wasn’t being overly talkative.

  “I guess we’re safe.”

  Willy Pud shot him a disgusted look and climbed to his feet, bounding gingerly on the wounded leg. “That’s a relative term right now.” He kicked at the rucksack and motioned for Emory to don it. “If we don’t get nailed by a gang of bandits, if we don’t get stopped and arrested by border patrols, if our ride shows up on time and where he’s supposed to be, and if he can get us back to Thailand…sure, then we’re safe.”

  j

  They nestled in the lumbar region of a rocky spine overlooking the clearing where Keo Kittiphan’s Huey was due to land. There was no fixed time for his arrival. Willy Pud knew the man didn’t keep any sort of banker’s hours or appointment schedule. Sometime on the appointed day was the best he could hope for, so he’d placed his air panels in the clearing, checked the little FM radio for battery power, and sat down to watch.

  Salt found some tasty wild scallions to spice the last rice-ball and they chewed slowly, stretching the food, taking tiny sips from the last remaining canteen. The sun was directly overhead, and it seemed like they could afford to eat a little lunch while they waited for the helicopter and watched from high ground for any border patrols that might be canvassing the area.

  “Mind if I talk?” Salt lit a borrowed cigarette. Willy Pud shrugged and kept his eyes on the horizon. For the very first time since he’d begun this mission, he was thinking about what he was going to do when he got Cleveland Herbert Emory home. The whole thing had seemed so outlandishly difficult that he hadn’t thought much about what he’d do if he succeeded.

  “It’s been so long since I spoke English, you know, had a conversation with someone?”

  “You’ll get plenty of practice where I’m taking you. You got a lot of explaining to do.”

  “Well, there’s a lot I want to say.”
>
  Willy Pud pulled his eyes away from the horizon and arched an eyebrow. Salt shrugged and waved his cigarette in the air. “One of the things I want to say is thank you. I was beginning to think I would die right there in Camp 413.”

  “No need to thank me, Emory. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for about 58,000 dead men and I don’t even know how many others who served honorably in Vietnam. See, those guys answered up and did what their country asked them to do…unlike you.”

  “I did what my conscience told me to do!”

  “Emory, you are so full of shit. You know that? Don’t give me that conscience crap. If you were having a major conscience problem, you could have gone to Canada or somewhere like all the other self-righteous assholes. You didn’t just bug out on the war, Emory. You came over here, defected to the goddamn gooks, and fought on their side!”

  “Look, I don’t expect you to understand, but the original idea was to take a stand, you know? I wanted to do something beyond just going to Canada or protesting against the war. I wanted to…”

  “You wanted to do what, Emory? You wanted to make a name for yourself among the entire anti-war crowd. You wanted to be the guy who took action when everybody else was just standing around bitching about it. That about right?”

  “In hindsight, I guess that had something to do with it. At the time, I thought the communists had it right. They were fighting against an oppressor.”

  “Last time I heard a bullshit story like that was from your buddy Clay.”

  “He was a very angry man for a lot good reasons. At least he thought so.”

  “Well, Clay ain’t coming back. You’re gonna have to face what you did all alone, and frankly, I hope they lock your ass in another prison. You’d be used to that.”

  “That’s the real reason you came to get me, isn’t it? You want to see me tried and convicted of treason.”