Page 141 of Cry Havoc
You better move!
You are leaving so much sign, you will not be hard to track.
Tom heard the barking of dogs.
He needed to slow them down.
Tom stopped and pulled the claymore from his satchel, attached the time fuse, and listened, forcing himself to wait.
Be patient.
There, that bark was close.
Tom initiated the time fuse.
Two minutes.
He ran, newly invigorated.
Had he timed it right?
It felt that way.
An explosion reverberated through the jungle.
He heard a man screaming.
Make up time in the chaos.
You are Havoc.
Should I hit the trail?
No, they will likely be on it, moving into positions to flank or ambush.
Tom needed them to think he was headed in the direction of the crash site. That would be the natural play. The NVA would assume he was making a run for the crash site in the hopes that he could make contact with U.S. forces working to recover the helo and bodies of the dead.
You will never make it.
I know.
I have another destination in mind.
He kept running.
What are the enemy assumptions?
That you are going to the crash site and that you are MACV-SOG.
They don’t know you are a Frogman.
Get to the water.
Tom’s map study indicated that there was a river, about 10 klicks from his current location—the Sepon River, which he knew eventually formed a natural border between Laos and South Vietnam. With the recent rains, and with some luck, he could find a closer tributary that was flowing into it. The trick would be making the NVA continue to believe he was going for the crash site.
How do I do that?
You need to trick the dogs.
