by Eric Helm
Tyme swung the weapon from right to left emptying the magazine. Grouped together as they had been, the four men never stood a chance.
When his weapon was empty, the bolt locked back, and Tyme dropped the magazine onto the ground. Ripping another from his bandolier, he jammed it home, worked the bolt and chambered a round. Then he waited, listening, watching.
A sudden noise behind him made him turn around. The AC loomed out of the greenish light of the jungle, his face a mask.
“What the hell?” he rasped.
Tyme shook his head and waved the man down. He then turned his attention back to the crash site. After several minutes, with the normal sounds of the jungle growing again, the buzzing of insects and the scampering of monkeys, Tyme stood up. He moved forward cautiously, his eyes on the dead men.
One of them lay on his back, his brain a visible gray-green mass. Another’s shirt was a wet mess, and the ground near him was stained rusty red. Flies had begun to swarm, huge blue-black-green things that were diving into the blood. Already the face of one man was covered by them.
Tyme kept his eyes on the bodies. He listened for the sounds of others approaching as he moved closer. Before checking the dead men, he kicked their weapons away from them. He had to pry the butt of an AK from the dead fingers of one of the men. Then he tossed the weapons a few feet so that they were close to the crashed chopper.
With that accomplished, he began the grim task of checking the bodies. Each man had been riddled. The shoulders, chest and head of each had been destroyed by the M-16’s bullets. It was enough to make any pathologist sick.
Tyme crouched near one of the corpses and touched the pockets. He pulled a wallet from one and some folded papers from another. Dropping them onto the ground near the body, he moved to the next. Carefully he searched each of them, tossing the documents and personal items onto the ground. When he finished, he moved back and picked up everything.
As he entered the jungle again, the AC came toward him. “You robbing the dead?”
Tyme stared at the man for a moment and then whispered, “I’m gathering intelligence. Those four men weren’t just wandering the jungle and happened onto a crashed helicopter. They were enemy soldiers with some sort of a mission.”
“So what did you find out?”
“They aren’t VC. They’re dressed like VC, but they’re NVA regulars.”
“How can you tell?”
Tyme shook his head, thinking that they shouldn’t be holding the discussion in the jungle. They should be moving away from the site toward the open where they could signal a chopper. Quietly, patiently, he said, “Haircut, build and weapons. No insignia, but a wallet with some interesting information. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Before the AC could respond, Tyme pushed past him, moving toward the others. He hesitated long enough to tell them they had to get out.
“We’ve got to destroy the helicopter,” said the Peter Pilot.
“How long?”
He shrugged. “Three minutes. Shoot a couple of holes in the fuel cells, give the JP-4 a chance to drain and then toss in a grenade.”
“Or you could just open the sumps,” suggested the AC, “let some fuel out and throw in the grenade. That way you don’t have to make noise firing.”
“Then let’s do it,” said Tyme.
He turned and started back to the chopper. The Peter Pilot and the AC joined him. At the site, they moved the bodies closer to the aircraft, tossed everything they couldn’t carry or didn’t need into the cargo compartment and then moved back. The AC opened one of the sumps, staying with it until there was a large pool of fuel under the aircraft.
“Better stand back,” he warned.
Tyme and the Peter Pilot retreated into the jungle while the AC stood there measuring distances. He took a smoke grenade and pulled the pin, holding the safety spoon in place, then kept moving back until he was near a large tree. Finally he tossed the grenade. It rolled under the chopper, billowing bright yellow. The flame from it ignited the JP-4, which began to burn furiously. The fire spread rapidly.
Tyme had wanted to watch, but the fire was burning too fast and too hot. He was afraid of an explosion. Grabbing the AC by the shoulder, he jerked him to the rear.
“Let’s get out of here.”
The AC looked at Tyme, then at the aircraft. “Yeah. Let’s git.”
They began to run through the jungle. Behind them was the sound of the aircraft burning. There were quiet pops and bangs as the magnesium ignited and then a rocking explosion as the fuel cells went up. Tyme was convinced he felt a hot wind from the detonation roll up his back.
At the camp Tyme stopped and turned. He was too far from the burning wreckage to see anything — the jungle was too dense — but he thought he could smell it. “That’ll bring them from all over.”
“It’ll bring in our people, too,” said the AC.
“Then we’d better get out into the open where we can be spotted.”
“How do we do that?”
“Spread a panel and throw out some smoke when an aircraft is near. They’ll investigate, and if we can convince them we’re Americans, they’ll be in to pick us up.”
“Yeah,” agreed the AC. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Unless there are VC around, thought Tyme.
Santini sat in the team house, eating a late breakfast of cold cereal and warm orange juice. He didn’t like Rice Krispies, but it was all that had been left. For variety, he had sliced a banana into them, poured on the milk that he had made from powder and water and begun to eat. It wasn’t the best breakfast he had ever eaten, but at least it wasn’t costing him anything.
The team house was a replica of all the others he had seen during his tour in Vietnam. A small structure, partially underground to protect it from mortar attacks, it was loaded with tables and chairs like a restaurant and had a refrigerator in one corner and a large tub holding water and a block of ice in another. About a third of the room was blocked by a waist-high counter that separated the cooking facilities from the dining room. There was an old stove, a sink and shelves full of canned goods.
Just as Santini finished his breakfast, the team commander, Captain Richard Bundt, entered. Bundt was a tall man who had first learned of the Special Forces in Bad Tolz, Germany, when he had engaged in a fight with several Green Berets. He had thought the green hats they wore were funny. He had lost the fight eventually, and they had suggested that he join their outfit. Now, fifteen years later, he was commanding an A-Detachment in Vietnam.
Bundt poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down opposite Santini. In English that carried only the slightest trace of an accent, he asked, “You have to go out this morning?”
Santini dropped his spoon into the empty cereal bowl. “I’d have to call Nha Trang and tell Major Madden I’ve been held up, but no, I don’t have to return this morning. What’s the problem?”
Bundt waved a hand at the empty space behind the counter where a Vietnamese woman would normally be working. “Viets didn’t come in this morning.”
“What do you mean?”
Bundt leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “I mean, since there’s a town right outside, we hire laborers from the local population. Seventy-five people come in daily to take care of the chores, cooking, cleaning, shining our boots, burning the shit, all that sort of thing. Only none of them came in this morning.”
“Christ, Captain,” said Santini. “That would mean…”
“Yeah. Something’s up. We’ve had an indication of it for the past few days — men from the strike companies reporting things to us. But this is the first tangible thing. Might just mean a mortar attack, or it could be something more serious.”
“So what’s the plan?”
Now Bundt smiled. “Well, if we can count on your help, there are a number of things I want to do.”
“As I said, I’ll need to coordinate with my boss in Nha Trang, but I think I’ll be able to stay.” Santini picked
up his juice and finished it. He set the glass down carefully, as if afraid it would break.
“Good. You take charge of the prisoners. Watch them closely if we get into any kind of fight. That’ll leave my men to take care of the jobs they’ve been assigned.”
Santini pushed his bowl away and leaned forward. “That’s not much of a task.”
“On the surface, no. But if the enemy hits the wire, it could become very important. And if we’re in danger of being overrun, having one more American in the camp will be that much more help. Right now, if you take charge of the prisoners, it’ll be the best thing for us.”
“I’ll be happy to help out, sir.”
Bundt stood. “Good. Very good. I’ll see you after you coordinate with Nha Trang.”
As Bundt left, Santini wondered what he had gotten himself into.
CHAPTER 10
HIEP HOA, SOUTH VIETNAM
It was a short chopper flight from Duc Hoa to Hiep Hoa. The aircraft landed on the short red dirt runway at Duc Hoa near the large pond and sat with its rotors spinning. Gerber, Fetterman, Albright and two Vietnamese strikers moved to it in a slow run, ducking their heads as if they believed the rotors would suddenly flex and lop them off.
They leaped up into the cargo compartment. The crew chief looked around from his well, saw that they were all seated and then rocked back. The chopper lifted up in a swirling, dense cloud of dirt and began to race along the runway, leaving the din and whirling debris behind it.
They climbed rapidly and then broke to the northwest. Below them was the shimmering shape of the Oriental River, known as the Song Vam Co Dong. An expanse of light green sparkled in the afternoon sun, marking the Plain of Reeds. They stayed close to the river. Gerber saw sampans littering the bank. It appeared as if the occupants had heard the chopper and rowed ashore, abandoning their boats so that the Americans wouldn’t shoot them. There were dozens of little tributaries off the river, many of them weed-choked and partially overgrown. The scattered bush and tough grasses would make travel through the swamp difficult but not impossible. It was exactly the terrain everyone would avoid, which made it perfect.
To the east was another swamp, but there was more dry ground in it. Large clumps of trees hid farmers’ hootches — three or four hootches to a cluster, with water buffalo pens and family bunkers. There were people in the fields, working without looking up, except for the young men who stared defiantly into the sky. Gerber expected them to flip him the finger, but they only stared, their faces glistening with sweat and hate.
The chopper turned east then, just south of the sugar mill, which was a wall-enclosed plant. Gerber suspected that at one time it had actually been a sugar mill, but as far as he knew no sugar was being processed there now. They came up on the camp at Hiep Hoa and crossed at altitude. Suddenly the chopper rolled onto its side and dived toward the ground, its nose pointed at the center of the camp. Gerber grabbed the edge of the troop seat, figuring that the pilot had suddenly gone insane. At the last possible instant, the helicopter leveled out and the nose rose. They seemed to be lying on their backs, the snout of the aircraft pointing straight up. The forward motion was arrested, and as the nose dropped and the aircraft started to settle, the pilot sucked in pitch. The touchdown was so gentle that Gerber wasn’t sure the skids were on the ground.
As soon as they made ground contact, Fetterman and Albright leaped out. The Vietnamese followed and then Gerber. Almost before his feet hit the dirt, the chopper lifted and began a racing takeoff, climbing into the sky rapidly.
They all stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, until a short, stocky man with black hair and a sunburned face came up to them. He was wearing sweat-damp fatigues, a pistol belt that held a single canteen and a .45 automatic, and jungle boots. His beret was molded to his head, and his captain’s bars, pinned to the flash, caught the sunlight and reflected it.
He came close but didn’t hold out his hand to be shaken, and no one saluted. He stood there for a moment. “You’re the special team?”
“That we are,” said Gerber.
“You can wait in the team house for dark, if that’s what you want, or I can show you the way out.”
Gerber checked his watch. “We’d like to rest in the team house for an hour or so. We don’t want to leave too early.”
“Fine.” He turned to go and then spun, grinning. “Sorry. Name’s Hampton. Figured you boys wouldn’t be here very long and didn’t see the point in talking about it.”
Gerber raised his eyebrows. “Whatever.”
“Like I said, I didn’t mean to be rude. Figured the less I knew about this, the better off I’d be.”
“I understand.” Gerber watched the men shoulder their equipment, then followed Hampton as he walked deeper into his camp. It looked just like a hundred other camps: buildings that looked half-finished with screens in the upper levels and tin roofs, surrounded by four-foot-high sandbag walls. Inside a couple, Gerber saw cots with sweating men lying on them.
They passed between several buildings and entered a redoubt, an earthwork wall about five feet high. There were a few buildings in it. One was obviously a dispensary because of the red cross on it. Hampton took them into the team house and told them to make themselves comfortable.
As they sat down, he asked, “How long you boys going to be here?”
“Give us an hour.”
“You want something to drink, you ask My Tran, and she’ll rustle it up for you. I’ll be back in about an hour.”
When Hampton was gone, Fetterman got a glass of ice water. He was tempted to get iced tea, but he only drank it with sugar, and the last thing he wanted was something with sugar in it. He returned to the table, sat down and asked, “Now what?”
Gerber shrugged. “Now we wait. Then we move into the field.” He pulled his map out of his pocket and opened it carefully on the table, smoothing out the creases. Then he began to study it.
Fetterman slid his chair around so that he could see it also and Albright came over to stand behind them. They had done it all at Duc Hoa, but Gerber liked to be familiar with an area before he moved into it. The problem here was that there weren’t any landmarks, just lots of open, swampy ground and rice paddies with villages and hamlets near them, some so small they had no names. Others were so temporary they moved with the changing seasons. A mud hootch could be put up quickly and would literally melt in the monsoon without someone there to repair it.
Albright left them, got a glass of water and returned. He looked at the Vietnamese woman, a pleasant-looking girl of twenty who dressed in the style of the Americans. She wore a blouse and a skirt and wore her long hair straight. Though she smiled at them frequently, she kept her distance.
“There’s not much there,” said Albright, pointing. He kept his eyes on the girl.
“We’ll just have to be careful,” said Gerber. He finally picked up the map and put it away. Then he picked up his weapon and began to check it again. Fetterman followed the lead.
In almost no time Hampton was back. “If you’re ready?”
Gerber stood, shouldered his pack and nodded. The pack didn’t contain much because they would be operating close to their base and didn’t plan to be out long. There were C-rations in the pack, the crummy stuff such as the canned bread and the ham and lima beans weeded out and given to the Vietnamese. He had clean, dry socks and extra ammo. He had two spare batteries for the URC-10 radio because he knew the trouble they could have in the swamp if they needed to make radio contact with anyone. And he had a flashlight, along with his first-aid kit, bug repellant that he was reluctant to use and his toothbrush.
Wiggling his shoulders, he got the rucksack seated properly, folded his beret and stuck it inside. As he donned an OD green baseball cap and nodded, he saw that the other team members were ready, too.
Hampton escorted them to the flimsy gate and opened it. He held out a hand. “Good luck.”
Albright and one of the Vietnamese headed down the dirt road that
led to the short runway. They traversed it, their feet stirring up little clouds of dust in the hot afternoon sun, then entered a field of elephant grass. They seemed to descend, as if walking down a ramp, until only their heads and shoulders were visible.
Great place for the enemy to form for an attack, Gerber thought, but as he followed he realized it wasn’t all that great. The ground was soft and spongy, and they quickly left the elephant grass. The water from the swamp was at first only ankle-deep and then knee-deep and finally waist-deep. Gerber had thought walking through the swamp would be a cool proposition, but the water was tepid and the exertion made him sweat. Within a hundred yards he was breathing as if he had run a kilometer. His mouth was dry and the sweat stained his face, dripping from his forehead and stinging his eyes.
He reached down to splash some of the water onto his face and caught a whiff of it. There was a foul stench to the water as if something had died in it. The whole swamp stunk like an open sewer, and Gerber felt his stomach turn over at the thought of walking through it.
At first they moved south from Hiep Hoa, figuring that any Viet Cong in the local strike companies would be interested in their movements. As soon as they were out of sight of Hiep Hoa, hidden from the camp by the elephant grass and the lay of the land, they turned north. Eventually they came to a tree line and climbed out of the water. Once inside the clump of trees, they spread out for a quick rest. Gerber checked his weapon again, making sure he had kept the barrel out of the water.
Spread out like a carpet around them was the swamp, punctuated here and there with a few tree lines that reached out like giant fingers trying to pull the carpeting out from under them. Gerber moved through the trees and looked out the other side.
Fetterman approached and said, “You know, Captain, if we follow this, it’ll provide us with cover and won’t take us that far away from our target. After dark we’ll be able to slip into place.”