by Eric Helm
“Okay,” said Gerber. “We’ve got to get out of here.” He reached out and grabbed Thompson’s shoulder, dragging him from the water. Although his weapons and his knife were missing, he still wore his web gear.
“Tony, they can’t be far away.”
“Probably holed up in the ville.”
Gerber stood and surveyed the village. Still there was no movement. Everyone was in hiding. Now it made sense. With a dead American lying in the field, none of them wanted to be seen. It would give the Americans an excellent opportunity to shoot a few of them to get even.
“Captain,” said Fetterman. “Movement to the right, at the edge of the ville.”
Gerber eased closer to Fetterman and dropped to the little cover provided by the short dikes that surrounded the rice paddies.
Without pointing, Fetterman said, “See that large palm with all the dead leaves? Now look to the right about ten, twelve meters and there’s a rusting oil drum.”
“Got it.”
“I saw a flash behind that. Nothing more now.”
Gerber stared at the open area. All he saw was flat, dry ground covered with red dust. But there was no sign of movement. A gentle breeze stirred the dead branches of the palm, but it did nothing to relieve the heat. Gerber was suddenly aware of the heat and humidity. Sweat was running down his temples and dripping off the end of his nose. He stuck his bottom lip out and blew the droplets away. He could also feel the moisture trickling down his sides and back.
He was about to tell Fetterman to keep watching, when he saw movement. A streak of khaki dived from the doorway of a hootch to the protection of the rusted oil drum. “Albright,” he whispered, “get ready. They’re coming for us.”
Albright scrambled from behind the dike and rolled to his stomach near the front of Thompson’s jeep. Keeping the muzzle of his M-16 out of the dirt, he crawled along the side of the vehicle until he reached his own. He got to his knees near the front tire and looked over the hood at the village. Now it was completely quiet. No barking dogs, no calling birds, no bellowing water buffalo. It was as if all the civilians, knowing that a fight was coming, had fled, taking their animals with them.
Albright slipped to his left and then leaned over the passenger’s seat, reaching for the radio mounted in the back. He pulled the handset toward him, stretched it out and flipped it on. An idea suddenly hit him. The enemy had gotten to Thompson’s radio. Unless he had zeroed the radio, had twisted all the dials for the frequency to zeros, the enemy now had their company frequency. Albright made his first call.
At Duc Hoa the commo sergeant answered Albright’s whispered message.
As soon as he got the acknowledgment, Albright said, “Primary has been compromised. Go to secondary.”
“Roger.”
Albright leaned in again and changed the frequency. Once the tuning squeal faded, he slipped out of the jeep and leaned against the rear tire. He made another call.
When it was rogered, he said, “Be advised that we have located Warlord Two as KIA near Alpha Tango Hotel Four.”
There was hesitation at the other end, and Albright knew that the information about Thompson’s death was being passed around. Then came, “You are to return ASAP.”
“Roger. Be advised that we have possible enemy contact on the sierra side of Alpha Tango Hotel.”
“Do you require arty support?”
“That’s a negative at this time.”
“Roger. Keep us informed.”
Albright rogered and was tempted to toss the handset back into the jeep but then thought better of it. He turned, getting to his knees so that he could see over the rear of his vehicle.
Suddenly there was a stuttering burst of machine gun fire from a hidden weapon. The rounds slammed into the ground near Fetterman, kicking splashes of dirt and water. That was joined by a half-dozen AKs firing on full-auto.
The moment the shooting started, Gerber dropped to his belly. With his thumb he flipped off the safety, but didn’t return fire. No targets were visible.
The enemy machine gun, probably an RPD, was well hidden among the hootches and fences of the ville. He turned toward the direction where Fetterman had seen the enemy soldier, but there was no movement there, either.
Then Fetterman opened fire, squeezing off single-shots by jerking the trigger. Gerber saw the rounds hit the oil drum, kicking off great clouds of rust. The firing from the enemy increased, the rounds snapping through the air overhead.
Gerber spotted a muzzle-flash in the darkened doorway of a hootch and turned on it. He flipped his weapon’s selector to full-auto and burned through the magazine in four short bursts. Firing from the hootch ceased.
Then the enemy appeared. Twelve of them ran along the road, crouched as if in a high wind. The attacking VC and NVA were shouting and shooting as they ran. Gerber rolled to his left into the corner of a rice paddy and aimed over the top. Now back on single-shot, he aimed at the enemy, firing slowly, deliberately.
His second round struck an enemy in the chest. The man threw his weapon to the ground as if in disgust. He looked at the stain spreading on his chest and then sat down before toppling onto his side.
Gerber whipped around and triggered a round at another running target. The man stumbled, regained his balance and screamed. Gerber fired again. The enemy spun and dropped facedown.
On the right, Fetterman was firing quickly in short bursts. He hit one VC in the stomach, dropping him. A second man brought his weapon to bear on Fetterman, but the master sergeant cut him down quickly. Dirt flew from the man’s uniform as the rounds struck him.
Then as quickly as they attacked, the enemy retreated. As if on command, they turned and fled together, sprinting from the field and diving for cover among the hootches, ox-carts and fifty-five-gallon drums. The RPD kept up its chatter, the rounds whipping through the air over everyone’s head. Thompson’s jeep rocked on its springs as the slugs slammed into its side.
Gerber stopped firing as the enemy disappeared. A moment later the RPD fell silent, and there was no sound around them except a ringing echo that diminished quickly. Gerber looked left and right and saw that both Fetterman and Albright had survived the assault unhurt.
“Captain,” said Albright, “we can get out to the south. The road swings around before we reach the river and we can get back to Duc Hoa.”
“And leave what, fifteen, twenty enemy soldiers behind us?”
Albright looked over the jeep again and then back at the body of Thompson.
“Tony, what do you think?”
“They’ve got the position and the numbers. It’s their ground and their contact. We’re hanging it all out here.”
Gerber shifted around again, his eyes on the village. The simple solution was to call in artillery and let the cannon-cockers destroy the area. Except that artillery rarely was effective against troops who were dug in. The only people who would suffer would be the villagers who, if they were still around, might be killed. And if they weren’t, they would only have the rubble of their village to come back to.
“Albright, how fast can we get a company of strikers in here?”
Albright looked at his watch and then at the sun. It was late afternoon. “If we can get aviation support, probably inside of thirty minutes.”
“Then I suggest you get on the horn and arrange it. Tell them we’re in contact now, but the enemy can slip away if they don’t hurry. If they land north of the ville, then we can act as a blocking force.”
“Only three of us, Captain,” said Fetterman, “and we’ve used quite a bit of our ammo.”
“Then they can break the last ship off to drop eight or ten guys with us and to bring us more ammo.” Gerber checked the time and added, “Let’s get on with it. We mustn’t be here after dark.”
Albright nodded. “Yes, sir.” He grabbed the handset and keyed it.
Morrow reread her memo, lifting the top of the sheet off the rear of the typewriter so that she could see it. She realized that
it was a mishmash of incoherent thoughts that led to an indistinct conclusion. She understood why she had been unable to convince Hodges that something was happening. With reasoning as faulty as that displayed, and with almost no evidence to speak of, her conclusions just didn’t follow.
She let go of it and rocked back in her chair. How could she put her gut feeling onto paper? Her belief that something was going to happen soon wasn’t based on actual evidence. It was based on her observations of Major Hobbs and her belief that nothing had happened to destroy the enemy. They hadn’t had a major victory, but then there hadn’t been a major defeat. There were skirmishes and small battles, but nothing that could be called destructive.
No, her memo didn’t bring that out. It merely indicated, in a disjointed fashion, that she was bothered by the situation as it now stood. She knew that something was going to happen, but she couldn’t prove it.
She jerked the paper out of the typewriter and smiled at the sound. Her typing teacher in high school would have flunked her for abusing the equipment, but who cared? No one worried about abusing the reporters. No one worried about the reporter’s feelings.
She wadded the paper into a tight ball and threw it at a wastebasket halfway across the floor. It hit the rim and bounced up onto a vacant desk. She smiled at that and tried to figure out why she felt sick to her stomach.
Leaning forward, she opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pawed through it, but could find nothing of interest. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry, and she didn’t know why.
Mark Hodges emerged from his cubicle and spotted her. As he turned toward her, she groaned inwardly because the last thing she wanted was to argue with him again. She shot a glance over her shoulder but could see no avenue of escape.
Hodges parked a hip on the edge of her desk. In one hand he clutched a sheet of paper as if it were some kind of talisman. He stared at her. “Where’s your Green Beret friend?”
She felt suddenly dizzy. Her stomach flipped over, and she thought she was going to throw up. “Why?”
“We’ve gotten word from MACV that a Special Forces soldier was killed earlier today in the Duc Hue area west of here.”
Morrow grabbed at the paper and scanned the four lines printed there. It mentioned nothing that would help her, except a cryptic line about Duc Hoa. It seemed the man was assigned to the unit there, but had died near Duc Hue.
“I don’t think this is Gerber. He wasn’t assigned to an A-Detachment.”
“Yeah, I thought not. I figured if it had been him, there would have been more on it.”
Morrow read the message again. “I told you things were beginning to pick up.”
“This is nothing,” said Hodges.
“Nothing? A man is dead. I hardly think that is nothing.”
“That’s not what I mean,” said Hodges, “and you know it. I mean that a single soldier killed in an ambush doesn’t mark the beginning of something new.”
Morrow rubbed her face exasperatedly with both her hands. “Have you ever had a hunch?”
“Of course,” said Hodges. He chuckled to himself and added, “I’ve had dozens of them. Some have actually been right. Those that were right were based on fact and information. It wasn’t something that I made up out of whole cloth.”
“Well, neither is this. I’m telling you that something is beginning here, and if we don’t keep our eyes open, we’re going to miss it until it falls on us.”
Hodges stood. “Robin, why don’t you go on home? Get some rest. Take tomorrow off and then come back in. See if everything looks as gloomy.”
“Christ, Hodges, this isn’t like it’s something that’s wrong with me. I’m telling you how it is out there and you just ignore it.”
Now Hodges shook his head. He looked at Morrow and then turned as someone burst into the city room. Hodges saw the man heading for his office and said, “Hey! I’m over here.”
The newcomer turned, approached rapidly and handed him another sheet ripped from the teletype machine. Hodges scanned it and handed it to Morrow.
When she finished reading it, she said, “See?”
“This has nothing to do with anything else. A missing helicopter doesn’t mean enemy action. It only means that a helicopter is missing.”
“Come on, Mark,” said Robin. “First we have a man killed and then almost immediately learn that a helicopter is missing. The action is picking up.”
“Tomorrow, Robin,” said Hodges, “I’ll want you to get out to Song Be and see if anything new has been learned about the missing chopper. Get everything you can and then get back here.”
“Then you’re attaching some importance to this?”
“Nothing other than the fact that there was a crew of four Americans on board and, according to this, one American passenger. Five men are missing, and the way things are going here, that’s the big news.”
“Song Be?” she asked.
“Yeah. Special Forces camp there. You know any of them?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know some of them. Captain Bromhead is the detachment commander. If he knows anything, he’ll fill me in on it.”
“Then go out there and find out what’s happening.”
Morrow stood up, the sick feeling still bubbling in her stomach. “I will,” she said.
CHAPTER 7
SONG BE SPECIAL FORCES CAMP B-34
The first of the two patrols had formed near the front gate. The Special Forces NCOs had used the time to check the equipment while they waited for Bromhead to reappear from the commo bunker. The NCOs had circulated among the strikers, making sure the canteens were full, that each man had all the spare ammo he required and that each man had his share of the squad equipment. They discovered that one of the men had thrown away the spare batteries, and Bocker had to run back to the commo bunker to get a couple more.
While Bocker retrieved the batteries, Bromhead left the radio and walked up the short flight of stairs and stepped into the bright afternoon light. He stopped and looked at the men standing near the gate. He walked over to the patrol to wait until Bocker returned.
“Okay, Galvin,” he said, “don’t press it too hard tonight. You’ve got only four or five hours of light left. I doubt you’ll get much outside the range of our big mortars. Play it by ear and don’t push it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And remember, we’ll have another patrol out there as well, so don’t get trigger-happy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The odds are that Justin’s helicopter is down more than fifty miles from here. The choppers from Cu Chi and Tay Ninh will probably locate the aircraft before you do.”
“I understand that, Captain, but we’ve got to do something.”
“Yes,” responded Bromhead, thinking about what Mildebrandt had said. He studied the older man. Bocker was fairly big, but his hair was thinning and starting to go gray. There were deep lines around his eyes and on his forehead. Bromhead knew that Bocker had two daughters at home, and a wife who didn’t understand why her husband had to go to Vietnam when the husbands of other wives stayed in garrison in the World for years on end.
Finally Bromhead pulled him to the side. “Galvin, I think this is a futile gesture. We’d be better off to wait for the choppers, then make an aerial search. Keep everyone on standby here until we have something to go on.” He saw that Bocker was going to protest and held up his hand to stop him. “No, go on out. Who knows what might happen? But I don’t want you taking any chances. I don’t want to get anyone killed for no good reason.”
“Captain, I don’t want to sit on my hands around here. If I can get into the field, I might learn something.”
Bromhead slapped Bocker on the shoulders. “Okay, I read you. Make normal radio checks. Keep it slow and easy and don’t get too far to the west tonight.”
“I’ve done this before.”
“Right.”
Together they moved closer to the patrol.
The other Special Forces NCO, Staff Sergeant Alvin Wright, was waiting patiently. He was a thin man with black hair and almost no lines on his face. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was a staff sergeant in the Special Forces, everyone would have thought Wright was a high school student.
“Let’s get them going,” said Bocker.
Wright nodded and waved a hand. The point man broke away from the group. He ran through the gate, then loped down the road that led to the edge of the runway. Keeping to the side of the peta-prime, he circled back to the west, outside the perimeter wire. As he moved across the short grass, cut down for the killing fields around the camp, he slowed, then followed a path to the jungle, which he entered. As he disappeared, there was a screech, and a giant red bird windmilled out of the trees, swooped toward the ground and then began a fluttering climb.
The patrol followed the point, spreading out, with Bocker at the rear. Just before he entered the jungle, he turned and took a final look at the camp. In the distance a helicopter was approaching, and Bocker figured that either Bromhead or Mildebrandt would climb on board for the aerial search. For a moment he wished he had waited. Then he realized that waiting wasn’t always the answer.
He stepped between two tall teak trees and noticed that the light had changed from the bright afternoon sun to a diffuse green glow that filtered through the trees to the ground. He moved deeper into the jungle, and the light faded. It was dim around him. The ground under his feet turned mushy, and he could hear water dripping somewhere.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, “maybe the captain was right.”
At first there was only a quiet popping in the distance. Gerber scanned the horizon and finally spotted the flight of ten helicopters as it came at them. In the past twenty minutes, while Albright had worked the radio, Fetterman and Gerber had kept their eyes on the village of Ap Tan Hoa Four. Since the enemy soldiers there had made the abortive assault on them, there had been no activity.
Gerber shifted slightly, taking the weight off his left side. He lay behind a rice paddy dike, his weapon pointed at the village. The sun had slipped lower in the sky, and the weather wasn’t as hot as it had been. Gerber was thirsty, but refused to get out his canteen. Instead, he ignored his discomfort and kept his attention focused on the ville.