Guidelines vietnam groun.., p.15
Guidelines (Vietnam Ground Zero Military Thrillers Book 8), page 15
“What kind of formation?”
“Looks like some type of search party, Captain, but I don’t think they expect to find anything. They seem to be going through the motions, and aren’t paying much attention to that, either.”
“What do you think is our best course of action?” Gerber trusted Fetterman’s judgment.
“I think we should spread out a little more and let them walk past us. They’re not exactly beating the bushes. If we’re quiet, I think they’ll miss us.”
“Kit, you stay here. Crawl in as deep as you can and don’t move. Shoot if you have to, but try to avoid it. We don’t want to get into a firefight now.”
She nodded her understanding and then shifted around so that she was next to the base of the bush. She snagged her weapon and pulled it around, the barrel pointing out. Gerber slipped forward into the open. He had expected the air to change, but it was no cooler or warmer in the open than it had been under the bush. There was no breeze blowing. Only the humidity settling on him like a warm, wet blanket.
“Where’s Bocker?”
Fetterman smiled and pointed. “Climbed the tree with his antenna, reeling it in as he went up. Totally invisible from the ground.”
“Tyme?”
“Took Krung and moved to the west to the other side of the stream. There’s good cover for them there.”
Gerber looked to the west but couldn’t see a thing. He didn’t like the way the team was spread out. That would make it hard for them to support one another if a fight developed, but then, if one or two were caught, the others might get away. He sacrificed unit integrity for the possibility of escape.
“Okay, Tony,” he said. “Let’s you and me head to the south and east.”
Fetterman nodded and took off quickly. Gerber turned to make a rapid survey of where they had been. Nothing was lying around to give them away. Nothing pointed to the bush where Kit hid, and there were no footprints leading to the stream. Satisfied they had cleaned up after themselves, Gerber followed the master sergeant, dodging among the trees and bushes as they fled deeper into the forest.
Up ahead, there was a slight depression in the ground with a bush and a rock at one end. Fetterman pointed to it and grinned, disappearing into it before Gerber could react. As Gerber went by, he could see no sign of Fetterman. In fact, he knew that Fetterman could extract himself from the hiding place quietly if he had to.
A moment later Gerber found a hiding place for himself. An outcropping of tented rocks with several large bushes that provided good cover. If he was rushed from the front, he could escape through the rear while the stones on the sides would protect him. He crawled in and waited patiently, quietly, for the enemy to appear, or for the sound of gunfire if they discovered part of his team.
Lying there, his face close to the dank earth, he felt his heart pounding. Sweat poured from his face and down his sides and he wanted a drink. He wanted to scream, to shoot, to do something rather than lie there quietly. He shifted around so that he could see into the forest.
It seemed to take them forever. Gerber’s back began to itch like he was lying in a patch of nettle. His ears twitched at the sounds of the forest as the animals ran from the men or chased one another. He could hear the buzzing of flying insects and saw a single spider inch its way up the rough surface of the rocks.
Suddenly there was a burst of laughter and a shout in Vietnamese. From the sound of the voice, Gerber knew it wasn’t a warning and from the new laughs, that it had to be some kind of joke. An instant later the first of the NVA soldiers appeared.
Unlike those who were assigned to units in the South, these soldiers wore badges of rank and unit identification. One man had bright yellow shoulder boards with a red border. From the single stripe and the two stars on it, Gerber knew that the man was a North Vietnamese first lieutenant. The officer also wore a pistol in a holster held up by a belt with a red star in the center of the buckle.
Next to him was a sergeant. He was a burly man, much older than his lieutenant, with a face that had been scarred badly. He had blue shoulder boards with three stripes on them. Like the lieutenant, he was wearing dark green fatigues with collar tabs.
The rest of the men were scattered too far and wide for Gerber to see much detail. One might have been a corporal from the way he talked and gestured to the others. Each of them carried an SKS carbine, except for the sergeant, who had a new looking AK-47.
The thing that surprised Gerber the most was their boots. He had expected Ho Chi Minh sandals, but instead they were wearing canvas shoes that looked like high-topped basketball shoes. Gerber suspected that the design was stolen from the French since the boots looked like the lightweight patrol shoe used by the Foreign Legion.
As they came closer to him, Gerber saw that the officer wore the collar insignia of the cavalry. Inside a red parallelogram were the crossed sabers and horseshoe that marked a NVA cavalry officer. Gerber wondered if the man was a horseman, if he could actually ride one, or if the North Vietnamese Army had changed the cavalry as much as the U.S. Army had.
One of the privates sat at the base of a tree, his back against the trunk. He lit a cigarette and took a few puffs. Suddenly the sergeant was next to him, almost nose to nose, shouting at him. The private looked startled, jumped to his feet and then handed the cigarette to the sergeant. The NCO took a deep drag, exhaled and handed it back to the private. Both men laughed and then rushed through the trees making enough noise to wake the dead.
If Fetterman’s theory was right and these men were a search party, they would never find anything. They made too much noise and weren’t looking very hard. When they finally disappeared and Gerber could hear them no longer, he crawled from his hiding place, picked up Fetterman and headed back to round up the rest of the team.
Once they were gathered together and hidden behind a screen of bushes covered with bright orange flowers, Gerber told them, “I think we’d better get out of here. We’re still too close to the SAM site at Ke Sat and to the roads leading to it. Apparently no one has discovered the fight there yet because those guys weren’t looking too hard.” He hesitated, studying the faces of the people with him. They seemed to be waiting for him to give them their orders.
“Galvin, what’s the status of the men on the ground?”
“Haven’t been picked up yet, sir. Triple A and MiGs have kept our people from getting in. That is, up to forty minutes ago. At that time we were still in radio contact.”
Gerber took out his map and studied it quickly. “Justin, I want you up on the point. Sergeant Krung right behind. Kit and I will make up the middle element with Sergeant Bocker and then Sergeant Fetterman in the rear. Compass course of one two five. Questions?”
“You sure we should be moving in the daylight?” asked Tyme.
“No, especially with search parties out. But it’ll be dark in a couple of hours and I don’t like the proximity of the SAM site. We’re still too close to it. We’ll risk moving in the daylight, staying to the cover and moving very carefully and quietly.”
“Captain,” said Fetterman, “we’ve got a fairly large, known enemy force nearby.”
“I know that, Sergeant, but I don’t want to risk a firefight with them. We let them roam unharmed and everyone feels safer. If they all suddenly disappear, or we get into a firefight with them, we’ll have a division in here looking for us. Right now, it seems to be their second string searching for lost pilots and that’s the way I’d like it to stay.”
“Yes, sir. Thought I should mention it.”
“And that’s why you’ve got the rear guard action. Make sure those guys don’t sneak up on us. Make sure they don’t find our trail. If you have to, take them out, but I’d prefer that we didn’t.”
“Understood.”
“If there is nothing else, Sergeant Tyme, please move out. Remember, slow, easy and quiet.”
George Krupp sat across the table from Robin and studied her closely. She hadn’t spoken much during the day, avoiding eye contact with him and avoiding attempts to draw her out. Now she picked at the food in front of her and sipped at the rapidly warming beer.
“Robin, what’s gotten into you?”
She took a drink and set the glass on the table, watching the bubbles rise in the beer. Finally she looked at George and said, “I’m not convinced that we should be following this story so closely.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just as Major Palmer said. We might be endangering some men without realizing it.”
“You mean your Captain Gerber and his boys?”
She smiled weakly. “Not necessarily. But that doesn’t make any difference. Palmer was right. When did we become so knowledgeable that we could make life and death decisions for everyone?”
“When did the Army? Or the government?”
“At least the government has some legitimacy,” she said. “It wasn’t self-appointed.”
Krupp put down his fork and looked at her. “I’m not going to do anything to intentionally hurt anyone, but I am going to get the story. If we don’t keep the pressure on, then those elected officials are going to think they’re above the law and we’ll be no better off than the people in Russia.”
“I’m only saying that we should go easy until we’re sure that we’re not accidentally hurting someone.”
“What’s really on your mind?” asked Krupp. “This isn’t about some unidentified pilots who might have bailed out over North Vietnam.”
Robin started to tell him. The words formed in her mind and she could hear herself speak them, but before they got to her mouth, they were gone. She couldn’t tell George about her love for Gerber, or how her heart had soared when he reappeared in Vietnam. She couldn’t tell him that she knew he was free of her sister because Gerber had left her in the States without even a farewell phone call. There were so many strange twists and turns to the relationship that she had no idea where it was going. All she knew was that if Gerber happened to be in North Vietnam and was killed there, she would not have the opportunity to explore those feelings with him.
Instead of all that, she said, “We shouldn’t file our story until we’re sure of the facts. Even if someone else beats us, we have to be sure of what we know.”
“I can live with that, Robin.”
She finished her beer. “Then let’s go over to the embassy and see what they have to say. If we hurry, we can still make the evening press briefing.”
Tyme heard the enemy soldier, and dropped to the soft forest floor, the decaying vegetation cushioning him. He slipped to the right until his side was against a hardwood tree. A lacy fern, dripping moisture, was directly in front of him. He could smell the rotting vegetation, the damp dirt and wet bark on the tree.
As he inched toward the sound that he had heard, he was careful not to put all his weight down at once. He moved slowly, cautiously shifting his hands, hips, knees and feet until he was sure he would make no noise. To move silently in a jungle, or forest, required total concentration. It could take him an hour to move fifty feet, but he didn’t have to crawl that far.
Then, in a clearing, he saw a single man dressed in a green fatigue uniform. He wouldn’t have been concerned, except the man wore a chest pouch that held three AK-47 banana magazines, a rucksack, and an entrenching tool. The noise he had heard was the quiet tap of the tool against the rounded, metal canteen on his hip.
Tyme slipped away and eased to the left. Movement caught his eye and he spotted another NVA soldier. Tyme froze, one hand out in front of him as the enemy pushed aside the branches of a bush, his hands fumbling with the buckle of his belt. As Tyme looked up, his eyes met those of the enemy soldier.
Before the enemy could move or shout, a hand snaked out of a dense bush and was clamped over his mouth as his head was jerked back. An arm flashed and Tyme was sure that he could hear the sound of a throat being cut. For a moment there was only a thin line on the skin and then blood blossomed, bursting from the severed arteries and veins, spilling down the front of the man’s uniform, staining it crimson. One hand clawed futilely at the air and then dropped.
An instant later Tyme was on his feet, moving toward the first soldier he had seen. He waited until the man stepped from the clearing into the trees, then swept his feet out from under him. The man hit the ground with a grunt, the air forced from his lungs. At that moment Tyme struck, burying his knife in the hollow of the throat, twisting it savagely as he clamped his free hand over the man’s mouth.
The man’s hands shot up and grabbed Tyme’s shirt, dragging it close to his face. The soldier’s eyes were on Tyme. They went wide with fright and then seemed to glaze over, staring into the trees. As his grip loosened and his blood stopped spurting, his eyes rolled up into his head. He died with a dry rattling deep in his throat.
Tyme jerked his knife free and spun. Krung stood near the body of the other soldier. He pointed to the rear and Tyme nodded his agreement. He pushed the body of the dead man under the protective leaves of a bush to conceal it. Then he helped Krung hide the first body. He picked up the NVA’s ammunition and the weapon and slung it over his shoulder.
Before they retreated to the rest of the team, they watched the clearing and the forest, but saw no sign that anyone else was there. Tyme was convinced that the two men would not be out on their own. In minutes, an hour or two at the most, there would be more enemy soldiers around, hunting them.
When Tyme was sure that no one would appear quickly, he withdrew toward the rest of the team.
Gerber was surprised when Tyme and Krung appeared in front of him. “What happened?” he asked.
“Ran into part of another search party,” said Tyme. “Krung killed one and I got the other. Figured there were more of them, but we didn’t see anyone.”
“Shit!” said Gerber. “I suppose there was no choice in the matter.”
“No, sir. The one guy almost stepped on me. Krung had to take him. That meant I had to kill the other one.”
“Damn!”
Tyme was crouched on one knee, his rifle in his left hand. He was breathing rapidly, as if he had run the distance back to the team. With his right hand, he wiped the sweat from his face and wiped it on his blood-stained uniform.
“I suspect there are others around,” Tyme repeated.
“I agree, Captain,” said Fetterman, his voice barely audible. “There are a lot of people out here looking for those downed flyers.”
“We could break for the coast,” said Gerber. “Our orders are open-ended.”
“Or we could try to find the flyers,” said Fetterman.
“If we do find them, we might get airlift out. We provide LZ security for the choppers and then hop on when they come in to rescue the pilots,” added Bocker.
Gerber hesitated, his eyes roaming the forest. Small, skinny trees, bushes with broad leaves, grass and vines and ferns. A carpeting of wet and decaying leaves. It was possible to see forty, fifty meters in the forest as they moved through it. Very easy for the enemy to spot them.
“Krung, you take the point. Kit, you’re right behind him with Fetterman. The rest of us will bring up the rear. Do not engage the enemy unless it is absolutely necessary. Same compass heading as before.”
Krung didn’t move immediately. He stared at the group with him and then got to his feet. Slowly he stepped between two trees.
A second later Kit was up and moving, following Krung, her rifle held in both hands. As she reached the two trees, she glanced back over her shoulder and nodded to Gerber.
With that, the rest of the team was on their feet, moving among the bushes and trees of the forest. They spread out in a thin line, moving quietly, listening for sounds of pursuit and the sounds of a search party, hoping that they wouldn’t stumble over something before nightfall.
CHAPTER 12
THE FORESTS SOUTH OF KE SAT, NORTH VIETNAM
At nightfall they stopped long enough to eat a cold meal of tasteless C-rations. Afterward they rested for a moment, and then were up and moving again. Their path meandered to the south and east, avoiding the usual peasant and game trails, villages that weren’t marked on the maps, farmers’ hootches and open fields. From overhead came the roar of jet aircraft as American air strikes against Hanoi and SAM sites were sent in. They heard the rumble of distant bombs and the popping of the large-caliber antiaircraft weapons.
And even with all that, each was surprised at how deserted the countryside was. Farmers rode in groups to their fields in Soviet-made ZIL trucks and returned to the larger towns at night, apparently afraid of an impending American invasion. There were no lights on because those would provide beacons for the American bombers and fighters.
They avoided one large group of the NVA who had spread out in a clearing, drying themselves in the last of the fading sun. Near the center of the group was a fire under a huge black pot. Three men stood around it, tossing in vegetables and hunks of raw meat. They had stacked their weapons near the cooking pot as they began setting up their camp, apparently planning to stay where they were for the rest of the night.
Once, as Gerber and his team began to move after the evening meal, they heard the distant pop of rotor blades. They knew it was one of the rescue teams searching for downed American flyers. Firing had erupted then. Small arms from the ground and cannons from the fighter escort. It sounded as if the rescue craft had been driven off before they had a chance to pick up the flyers.
Krung, who had been on point, fell to the ground again and waved at Kit, signaling her to the right. Gerber saw the activity and hurried forward.
After a short distance, he dropped to his belly and crawled the rest of the way, being careful not to make noise. Again they were at the edge of a clearing where an NVA unit was spread out. In the center of it were three men. Two of them wore the remains of U.S. Air Force uniforms. The last wore black pajamas and looked as if he had been badly beaten. The flickering firelight played across his features, illuminating them. Gerber felt his stomach turn as he recognized the man in the black pajamas.
