When the truck stopped in front of operations, we got out and said good-bye to Reacher and the gunner as they took the two machine guns from our ship back to the armory tent. Leese and I went to the operations tent to drop off the dash-twelve page from the log book. Operations used that page to record the hours flown by the pilots, crew, and aircraft.
“Welcome back, late ones,” said Captain Owens snidely. “We’re not late,” said Leese. “It took this long to finish.”
“Just kidding, Ron,” Owens said without a smile.
Leese handed the operations officer our dash-twelve. “I guess I’m just tired.”
“We’ll both feel a lot better after some hot chow,” I said.
“Ah,” Owens said. “The mess tent closed an hour ago.” He looked uneasy.
“Did the cook save us something?” Leese asked.
“Have to check with him,” said Owens lamely. He had forgotten to tell the cook to save some food for us, but he did not offer an apology. We glared. If only he would admit that he’d made a mistake, but he was learning to be defensive. In a unit of assault pilots, he and his partner, Mr. White, were the only two pilots not flying combat missions.
The next morning, we got a particularly depressing sample of how poorly our intelligence-gathering system worked. Leese and I flew the last ship in a formation of sixteen slicks. The whole battalion was in the air, loaded with troops to surround a company of VC who, according to our intelligence branch, were on their way across Happy Valley to Bong Son Valley, on the coast.
Once over the pass, we turned north up the valley. After twenty miles, the three slick-ship companies separated, to land at different places around the target. Our gunship company split up in three groups to cover us.
While the formation let down for the approach, I looked ahead to find the LZ. No trees or foothills this time; it was all cleared land, dry rice paddies, and sandy, weed-patched fields. It was difficult to believe that a company of VC could be hidden there.
The lead ships got closer, and their door gunners started firing. Their tracers plunged to the earth at nothing I could see.
About a mile from a solitary tree and a hundred feet off the ground, I-saw two figures tearing across the sandy field toward the tree. More than thirty machine guns were trying to hit them.
When I was close enough to see the sand puffing up at their heels, one of them dropped his rifle and turned around to get it. He looked up frantically. The sky was filled with tracers, all coming at him. As he reached for his rifle, the sand boiled at his feet and he continued down, falling through the turmoil of bullets. He must have been dead before he hit the ground.
His terrified companion was still running for his life. As we closed in, there were even more machine guns following him, chattering. I watched amazed as the bullets churned all around the running man. “Give up!” I yelled. “Give up, you dumb motherfucker!” Realizing that he would not make it to the tree, he dove for the only cover available, a shallow depression in the sand. Door gunners all around us were pulverizing the ground around him, but Leese had not given our gunners permission to fire. That dumb fucking gook, the bravest man I had ever seen, rolled over with his rifle aimed high to take on our entire air-assault battalion, machine guns blazing. He might have got off one or two shots before he was torn to pieces.
The final score for that mission? Those two VC. The intelligence branch must have read their maps upside down. Connors suggested that the intelligence branch was getting its information from smuggled Chinese fortune cookies.
In a letter I wrote to Patience on October 15, I told about Nate getting shot down for his second time. He and Kaiser were on an ass-and-trash mission along Route 19 when a lucky shot into the engine brought them down. Riker and Gotler immediately followed them down to the road and picked them up. Before they took off, they stripped the downed Huey of its radios and guns to keep them out of the VC’s growing collection of American supplies. Nate looked proud, puffing on his pipe as he told us about his adventure. Once again, he had walked away from near disaster. Everybody agreed that it might have been a different story if the other ship hadn’t been with him. I resolved to fly higher in the secure area.
I also mentioned—or rather complained bitterly—that I had been bumped from a planned one-day rest and recuperation (R&R) to Saigon. The plan was that everybody would get a chance to visit Saigon at least once when a ship needed work that the Cav couldn’t handle. By rotating the job of flying these ships to the big depot at Ton Son Nhut air base in Saigon, everyone could make a trip sometime during his tour. These trips lasted anywhere from one to three days.
My name had come up for the next trip. A one-day R&R. I was overjoyed and spent a couple of hours gathering my stuff together, getting Marston to trim my hair, and compiling a shopping list of requests from my tent. I felt great about getting away from the Cav, even if for only one day.
The plan changed. The trip was extended to three days. It was felt by somebody that it was a waste to give a three-day trip to a brand-new warrant officer, so the ship was taken instead by two captains. Farris was angry about the sudden change in crews. Williams, the man I had impressed by shooting out the omni-gauge, probably made the decision.
While the two captains took off, I grabbed an ax and joined the work crew on the Golf Course. My opinion of our company commander was deteriorating.
On October 17 I was declared right-seat qualified by Williams. Right-seat qualified meant that I was now considered skilled enough in the Huey and air-assault operations to be an aircraft commander. A regular old salt, almost. For the rest of the day I didn’t even notice the mud as I slogged around the company area.
Another maintenance R&R trip to Saigon came up, and this time Riker and I were scheduled to go. A three-day trip.
Rather than fly directly to Saigon, over 250 miles of VC territory in a sick Huey, we first flew to Qui Nhon and turned south to fly down the coast to Vung Tau. From there it was only twenty miles to the big city.
We flew at 5000 feet, where the air was cool and the bullets couldn’t reach, a beautiful two-and-a-half-hour flight. We were both pretty excited about visiting Saigon, country boys coming in to see the big time. The crew chief and gunner were also happy. We all cracked jokes over the intercom and talked about what we were going to do. At times like this, even the Cav seemed okay.
As we cruised low level over the city toward Ton Son Nhut, Saigon was a sea of tin roofs that stretched for miles. People below us waved as we soared only a hundred feet above their huts and gardens.
“See that?” I said. “See those people waving?”
“What about it?” said Riker.
“They are obviously happy to see us. No doubt they’ve heard all about us working and fighting our asses off in the highlands. No doubt they’ll have a reception of happy, grateful people waiting for us when we arrive.”
“No doubt,” Riker said, shaking his head.
We left the Huey at the maintenance depot, jumped into a cab, and ogled the scenery on the way into town. The driver was obviously an ex-kamikaze pilot. His technique for passing cars was to lay on the horn, swing out into the other lane, and persevere. Etiquette demanded that under no circumstances would he change his mind.
We got a hotel room that featured peeling paint, no windows, and a john in the shower stall. This was fine compared to the moldy tents and dirt floors at tent city.