The CH-46 was dropping down now closer to the ground and heading for the rock sheet.
They were ten feet off the ground and over the rock when the engine quit, the rotors wound down, and the big bird dropped straight to the rock slab below.
“Hold on!” Murdock bellowed; then they hit. The landing gear smashed flat, the body of the bird slammed hard into the rock, and they all heard sheet metal crumpling. The craft slued sideways and the rotors slammed into the rocks and shattered.
To Murdock it seemed five minutes before the huge metal box stopped smashing and falling and tipping. Then it all quieted.
“Get out the doors, now,” Murdock brayed. “Might catch fire. Move, move, move.”
He grabbed Captain Samar, who seemed dazed, unstrapped his belts, and pulled him back toward the doors. The craft lay on its side. One door was facing the rock slab; the other side door was straight overhead. The big ramp door on the back had bounced open and yawned to one side.
“Out the ramp,” DeWitt barked, and the men struggled to sit up, then stand and move toward the opening. Murdock had to help the pilot. They were the last ones out, and Murdock saw that DeWitt had moved the men off the rock into the fringes of trees twenty yards away. He struggled that way with the captain.
Bradford and Howard ran out to help them.
They stared back at the bird. “Casualty report,” Murdock snapped. “Alpha Squad, any injuries?”
“Sprained ankle,” Lam said, “but I can walk on it, no sweat.”
“Twisted shoulder, but not bad,” Ching said.
“Bravo Squad?”
DeWitt spoke up. “Murdock, we’ve got one broken arm and a batch of bruises and scrapes. We’ll live. Khai has the busted left arm down by his wrist. Mahanani is working a splint on it now.”
“Everyone has his equipment and weapon?” Murdock asked.
“Oh, shit,” Howard said. He raced back to the wounded forty-six, and slipped inside.
“Thought for sure it’d be burning by now,” Captain Samar said. “Must be fuel and oil leaking all over the place. That hot engine could spark it.”
“Howard, get out of there,” Murdock screamed.
The big black man slipped past the ramp and ran full tilt for the woods. Five seconds later the whole forty-six blew up like a Roman candle in July. The explosion slammed Howard forward and drove him to the ground. He covered his face with both big hands, then when the first force of the blast was past, he stood and hurried to the rest of the platoon. He carried three rifles and a combat harness and the big first-aid kit from the chopper.
“All right,” Murdock said, staring at the shadowy faces in the darkness. “Anybody else want to try to be a fucking dead hero?” He looked around, but nobody said a word.
“We’ve got a situation here. Captain. How far do you think we’re from the last ridge to the coast?”
“Six, maybe eight miles. About three ridges over.”
“This is our situation. Oh, Domingo, you okay?”
“A little shook up but fit for duty, Commander.”
“Good. Juan and Kalibo?”
Both said they were shaken up, but okay.
“We’re eight miles from our target. We lost our transport and our only way to contact Davao. The portable radio we were going to bring with us is now melted into a puddle of cooling metal. No help will be coming from Davao. Samar here won’t be overdue for another hour and a half back at Davao. I don’t know about the Air Force’s search and rescue. Will they send out a bird on our course, Captain?”
“Not until daylight.”
“So we do it on our own. No bullshit now. Can everyone hike up and down these fucking hills?” There was a chorus of Hooo-yas. “If somebody can’t hike we’ve got to know now, so you can stay with the burned-out hulk here so the S & R can find you. Sound off.”
Silence. A night bird off somewhere wailed out a mating call.
“Okay. Captain Samar, what was our compass heading for the hostages?”
He sang out with the azimuth reading.
“Get on it, Lam. You’re point. Samar, you were shaky coming away from the chopper. Can you hike these hills?”
“Yes, sir. I can make it for eight miles.”
“Kalibo and Domingo. You both ready to move?”
Their two voices answered, and Murdock nodded.
“Okay, Lam, head out. Bravo behind you and Alpha will bring up the rear. We’re in single file at five yards. If anyone doesn’t have at least one long gun, sing out.”
Silence.
“We should have seven Bull Pups and two EARs. Lam, stay five yards in front of Bravo. Let’s chogie out of here.”
Murdock thought the jungle would be thinner up on the higher slopes of the hills. Now he decided the higher the slope, the more rain and the more vegetation. It was hard going as they hiked down the side of the ridge, across a small stream, and up the far side.
Khai fell on the way up the next hill, and screeched in pain.
“Man behind Khai, take his weapon,” Murdock said into the radio.
“Got it,” Jefferson said. “I’ll help him now that he knows he needs it.”
Mahanani found Khai’s bruised and swollen leg, and wrapped it a dozen times with tape. He gave Khai some pain pills, and they kept hiking.
Lam was just over the top of the ridge when he stopped, and used the radio. “Murdock, you and the locals better take a look at this.”
“What do you have?” Murdock asked on the net.
“I don’t have the foggiest, Skipper. Not too sure I want to go down the other side. From what I can see from here, there seem to be about twenty fires down in the small valley below and then one large fire that lights up half the jungle. Come on up and take a look.”
16
Murdock, DeWitt, Juan, Domingo, Lam, and Kalibo lay on the crest of the ridge and stared down at the fires burning three hundred yards down the hill in a small valley.
“Cooking fires,” Juan said.
“So it could be a company of regulars down there eating their late supper,” Lam said.
“Could be,” DeWitt said. “What’s the big fire for?”
“Domingo?” Murdock asked.
“Can’t tell. Cooking fires, for sure, but we’re too far into the brush here for regulars, as regular as rebels ever get. Why would they be in here? Not reasonable.”
“This is one of the areas the government has set aside for the aborigines,” Juan said. “There are more than sixty different groups of ancient and original people of these islands. A lot of them want to maintain their original culture. Lam met some of the Negritos, the pygmy tribe. There are dozens of others, like the Tasadays, here in northern Mindanao. They are Stone Age people who knew nothing of iron or steel or modern man until they were first discovered in 1971.”
“You think these could be some such tribe?” Murdock asked.
“I’ll go see,” Lam said. He looked at Juan, who grinned and stood.
“I’m with you, Lam.” The two faded into the jungle growth below the ridgeline and worked their way down toward the fires.
“Why the big fire?” Lam asked Juan.
“Looks like a ceremony of some kind. A wedding, a death, a change of leader. Maybe they killed a couple of big deer and a wild pig or two and decided to celebrate. I did a paper on our aborigines when I was in college. We toured six different tribes.”
“Friendly ones?”
“Mostly. We did get chased out of one place by all the men in the area.”
They worked closer. When they were fifty yards from the closest fire, they stopped and Lam used his binoculars.