13th Valley (92 page)

Pop and Egan attached the bow rope to the cart's stern corners, jerryrigging a sling for the extraction. Then they filled in at the perimeter allowing Doc and Minh the freedom to translate at least a few of the documents before the envelope was taken away with the cart.

“What's that one say?” Doc repeated.

“This says,” Minh translated as he read, “‘the great American people are behind us and against their own army. The firebase they call O'Reilly is already making American newspapers. The people of the United States are up in arms against their Imperialist War Lords. We should take strength from the proletariat, our comrades in America. If we are strong we can repeat the effectiveness of Firebase Ripcord on the American people and their Congress.'”

“This is fucked,” Brooks moaned to himself. “Why in hell didn't they just look at it? Report it? Fucken Hellman. He's going to bring a bird in here. That's it. It's over. They know our exact location, our exact plan.” Brooks called in El Paso and FO and Monk, Moneski, who had just arrived with RT Danielle. He settled himself down before he addressed them. Then he fed them his thoughts and apprehension.

El Paso acted frustrated and angry and sympathetic. This time he was no help. FO plotted the recon river crossing and suggested an immediate barrage on and about the river's south bank. Brooks agreed and had FO call Armageddon Two to lay it on. The Monk, weary from his rover team ordeal, shrugged. “Aint no problem,” he said. “Have em push the cart upstream a klick.”

“Of course,” Brooks agreed. He lit up. “Hey, sure, of course. Monk, that's genius. El Paso, get Pop on the hook.”

Alpha's recon team moved reluctantly. The ground mist was thinning with every passing minute. It was no longer dark or gray on the valley floor although visibility beneath the fog was still less than twenty meters. Pop led the patrol. Egan and Cherry walked a double slack. In order to move the cart they had to stay on a trail and expose themselves to the potential of booby traps, ambushes and snipers. They moved slowly, laboriously. They took turns pushing and pulling. The cart rolled easily but the exposure was terrifying. Each of them bitched separately. Sometimes they bitched in twos.

“Pop smoke. Over,” Hellman radioed.

“Pop smoke,” Snell whispered to Egan. Egan set off a deep green smoke grenade and the smoke billowed and mixed with the mist. “Smoke out. Over,” Snell radioed back.

“I see Lucky Lime. Over,” Hellman called.

“That's affirm,” Snell verified the color. He could hear the helicopter making its passes. First high, then low.

“Pop smoke,” Hellman ordered again.

“What the fuck,” Snell cussed. He tossed out, a purple canister. “Smoke out. Over.”

“I see Goofy Grape. Over.”

“Roger that, Red Rover. Goofy Grape. Over.” Then aside, “Goofy Fucker.”

The helicopter hovered over their location, the rotor wash pushed the ground mist away creating a hole in the fog. The sun was blinding. The pilot rocked the ship side-to-side enlarging the hole, giving Major Hellman a chance to see the ground and the cart and the troops below. Egan stood atop the cart. He was holding up a loop in the rigging. The crew chief stood on one skid directing the pilot down. Major Hellman stood on the opposite skid. “Great job,” he screamed into the roar of the helicopter engine. On the ground Doc and Minh watched him. The other boonierats had set up a wide, loose security perimeter. Doc signaled Egan that the lines below him were okay. “Great job,” Hellman screamed again. He threw a half-full mail sack toward Doc and waved. Egan secured the rope loop to the hook on the belly of the Huey and signaled the crew chief. The bird rose slightly, then more. The lines became taut. Egan jumped from the cart and grabbed his M-16. The bird lifted, rotated. The cart rose and swung. The bird gained altitude. The ground mist closed back in. Doc had grabbed and opened the mail bag. He had seen it purely by accident. On the very top there was a letter for Egan. He reached in and pulled it out. The squad reformed quickly. Doc stared at the letter. Pop urged the squad to leave quickly: “To the north and then west,” he said.

“South to the river,” Egan said. “Better cover.” Doc smiled. He grabbed Egan and handed him the letter. Doc was grinning broadly, happy for Egan. The return address simply said Stephanie.

Mortar rounds began falling and exploding.

Brooks had completed the debriefing of RT Cindy and was almost finished with Suzie when the recon team took its first casualty. RT Suzie had made no contacts in the four days of hide-n-hit. They were the only team who not only had no kills but also had no sightings. Why? What had they been doing? How had they operated? The team consisted of Harley, Andrews and Hill, all good soldiers from Whiteboy's old squad. Brooks pried. He found no irregularities. Perhaps Egan's team, which had been to Harley's east, had halted the traffic before it reached RT Suzie. Brooks did not push it too far. He did not reprimand, did not show disappointment. Brooks himself was critical of other commanders he called “bodycount mad.” He did not want to be categorized with them. He dropped the subject, briefed the three boonierats on the upcoming mission and dismissed them with “Good job. Thanks. Get some rest. Conserve your batteries.” He would, however, watch them more closely. Had it not been Whiteboy opening up with his machine gun on nothing who halted the move off Hill 848? The sound of mortar rounds exploding upriver halted his thoughts.

Minh was the first one hit. The first mortar rounds exploded very close and the boonierats hit the dirt. The second and third rounds exploded among them. And Minh was hit. He was hit in the back of the head and neck and up his left side. Blood gushed from his head. Doc was on him immediately. Inaccurate automatic weapons fire raked their general area from a distance.

Mortar rounds began exploding again. Metal sliced into Snell's legs. He had been on the radio to Brooks with the first explosion. He groaned, grunted. Then it did not hurt at all. He checked his legs. He could see splinters of tangled feet but he could not believe they were his feet. Pop was next to him with his compass out. More rounds exploded on them.

“Augh fuck,” Snell moaned. “I'm sorry, Pop. Oh shit, I'm sorry.”

“Quiet Rover Four, X-ray. Over,” Pop called.

“X-ray, Four. Over.”

“We dashin november. Enemy fire coming from our sierra fifty-five degree whiskey. Range maybe five hundred meters. Over. Out.”

From Campobasso Brooks radioed the GreenMan. FO radioed Armageddon Two.

Doc tied three camouflaged battle-dressings to Minh's head. Blood was coming from Minh's nose and running over his face in wide bright streams. “Get em on my back,” Doc told Denhardt. He lifted the small Vietnamese scout and fell in behind McQueen. Egan was leading them due north almost at a run. They hunched low and ran through the grass and brush. Cherry and Pop helped Snell in a kind of double three-legged race. Mortar rounds continued exploding all about them.

“Fucken gooks,” Egan hissed. Fucken gooks en fucken Hellman en his fucken bird. Egan's mind raced as he broke through the vegetation like a mad fullback. We shoulda blown the fucken thing. They're aimin in on the extraction spot. Can't see us. Can't have one a their units here, right here. Egan slowed before an area of low brush. His thoughts caught up to him. They wouldn't mortar their own people. Egan had been pumping his thighs high, breaking through brambles, leaving a mashed clearing behind him. The others had followed blindly in his wake. The NVA mortars moved east, then west. Now they were being walked north. They were falling behind the squad. Armageddon, the 105 howitzer battery on Barnett, shot out a salvo of counter-battery fire. Then another. Armageddon worked rounds quickly back and forth over the area Pop had designated to Brooks. Then the howitzers fired at coordinates FO had called in earlier. The mortars ceased with Armageddon's third salvo.

Doc had Minh on the ground. He knelt at his side and ripped the small scout's shirt open. Minh's back was a blotted mass of blood. Doc put his ear to Minh's chest. Egan rushed down to help. Cherry raised Minh's legs. Behind them Calhoun and Pop radioed Dust-Off. Nahele and McQueen cut Snell's pants and boots off and tied tourniquets at the tops of his thighs. Denhardt and Woods spread out for security. Doc raised up onto his knees. For half a second he stared blankly at Egan then at Minh's tiny chest. Doc cocked his right arm and smashed Minh's chest with his fist, smashed down hard jolting the ceased heart. He ran a finger up Minh's abdomen to the sternum, moved up two finger widths, set the heel of his hand and compressed. “Breathe em,” Doc ordered Egan who was already around to Minh's head. Egan checked Minh's mouth and cleared rice vomit from the airway. Gently, trying to stay clear of the wounds, he lifted Minh's neck and pushed his head back, then rechecked the mouth and airway. Egan covered Minh's mouth, squeezed Minh's nostrils, and blew quick hard breaths. He could feel the air inflate Minh's lungs. Doc continued pumping on Minh's chest, compressing, releasing, sixty times a minute. Egan settled down to inflating Minh's lungs every five seconds. They got their rhythms and settled in. “Check them dressings,” Doc ordered Cherry. “Come on,” he snapped when Cherry hesitated.

The medical evacuation helicopter was in the air within three minutes of notification. It headed inland from Camp Evans and rendezvoused with two escort Cobras above the Rach M
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nh River. The artillery unit on Firebase Barnett fired half-battery harassment salvos once each minute until the Dust-Off reached the valley. Pop handled the Dust-Off systematically. He established direct radio contact with the medevac pilot and gave him an approximate 265° vector from the firebase. A firebase RTO came on the net and informed the pilot, “We have winds at 90°, five to seven knots.” Pop took over again. He briefed the pilot on the tactical situation. “There aint a friendly in a klick radius. Over.”

“Roger that,” the pilot answered. He asked several questions about the LZ and about the wounded.

“Low brush area to our november,” Pop said. “Ground fog burning off. It's still maybe ten feet thick. When your skids hit the fog you'll be right atop us.” Pop kept up constant directions. Nahele took Snell to the south edge of the pick-up site. McQueen, Denhardt and Woods secured the north side. Calhoun relinquished the radio to Pop and moved east. Pop moved into the low brush area. All the time Doc and Egan rhythmically worked over Minh's body.

“You can quit,” Cherry said. “He's dead.”

Neither answered. Neither stopped. Cherry lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and let it out. He took another drag then held the smoke for Doc. Doc scowled and shook his head.

“Doc,” Cherry said matter-of-factly. “He's dead. I can see his brains. They spillin out all over.” Cherry reached over to Minh's head. He flicked up the edge of the field dressings. A blood pocket beneath released. The blood flowed thickly onto the earth. A mass of bloody gray-pink-white sponge-like tissue followed it. Cherry lifted the dressing higher exposing the opened side and back of the head and neck. Egan stopped the inflations. He stared at Cherry. Cherry's eyes were intense, crazy.

Doc continued the compressions. His eyes were shut. He was crying. Cherry looked closely at Minh's head. He poked a finger into the cavity. “That's the cerebrum,” he said. He leaned closer. “That's the area of the brain stem. That there must be the medulla oblongata. And this back here is the cerebellum.”

The sound of helicopters returned to the Khe Ta Laou as it had not been since the operation's sixth day. Charlie, Delta and Recon were all resupplying. Chinooks resupplied the firebase. The day became hot. The sky cleared. Only a vestige of ground mist remained about the valley, mostly along the river and at valley center. Alpha was together, all seventy-two boonierats at Campobasso. The last of the rover teams had arrived at noon. The recon team returned at 1230 hours. Brooks continued to tell Hellman and the GreenMan that Alpha was split up all over. “But on their way back in … right now,” he said. If they'll just stay out of here until we debrief, he thought, then we'll have the munition to delay resupply.

“This I want to hear step-by-step, minute-by-minute,” Brooks said when he had them together. He and FO and El Paso along with all three platoon lieutenants debriefed the recon team. Pop looked very weary. Doc did not speak. McQueen was glassy-eyed, Cherry indifferent. He had bruises on his face, “from slamming his face into the ground when the mortars fell,” he said. Egan's hands were bandaged. “Maybe from the cart,” he told Brooks. In his pocket was the letter from Stephanie. He wanted to get away to read it in private but Brooks wanted to debrief. At first the debriefers had to drag details from them. Slowly they all came around, came to, and began to tell and retell what they saw. Egan went into great detail about watching the changing of the guard or the observers at the knoll. He told them about the two parallel trails a meter apart and about the trench. “Before we skyed we checked out the trench,” Egan explained. “They got land-lines running up the side. That's what the dude who pissed on McQueen was coverin.” The questions continued. Numerous inquiries were directed to the subject of the scopes. McQueen had had the best view but he still had not seen them clearly. They all speculated and FO said he was certain if the dinks had nightscopes for patrols, they would have nightscopes for the observers on the knoll.

More details. Where did the trails and trench go down to? The recondos were not sure. “We circled back goin downhill and a little farther west,” Egan explained. “Then we hit the red ball. That thing had so many cart tracks, Man, I can't tell you. My guess is it feeds a bunker complex and my guess is the complex is at the bottom of that knoll. They aint goina have shit up top except the OP.”

More questions. The shape of the slope? The steepness of its sides? Again the team could not say for sure. “Map looks right to me,” Cherry ventured. He spoke awkwardly, working his jaw with great effort to control the words. “It's maybe steeper than the map indicates.”