Page 9 of Cry Havoc
Come on, Tom. You need to get out of here.
What was the old adage?You can’t control the wind, but you can control the cut of your sail.If he ever had kids, he would pass that bit of wisdom along.
Tom crept to the twelve o’clock of their perimeter—their direction of travel—and narrowed his eyes, assessing the clearing that was their LZ.
The A-1 made another pass to their six o’clock, dropping bombs that sounded to Tom like 500 pounders.
“Havoc, this is Covey. Kingbees are two mikes out. Mark your position.”
Tom looked back at Quinn, who was working his way around the inside of their perimeter making sure each member of the unit knew the plan. He nodded at Tom, who then tapped the point man, an old ’Yard hunter named Tuan who had been at Dien Bien Phu, to let him knowhe was moving beyond the perimeter. The Frogman snuck toward the clearing, RPD at the ready. As he approached the edge of the tall elephant grass, he paused to look, listen, smell, and feel.
Did he catch the scent of something in the air? Or was it his imagination? The wind was swirling now. With the bugs still attacking his nostrils and the smell of decomposing rainforest mixed with the distinctive odor of charred bodies from the napalm, it was hard to tell.
He keyed his handset.
“Covey, this is Havoc, I mark you identify,” Tom said, pulling a VS17 panel from his cargo pocket.
His eyes continued to study the clearing.
“I identify orange panel,”came the reply from their eyes in the sky.
“Roger, request a low pass over the LZ. Tough to see through the grass.”
“Roger. Commencing pass.”
Tom could hear the twin push-pull engines of the unique-looking aircraft. The pilot passed so low Tom could make eye contact with him and his SF Covey Rider.
“Appear to be clear. Climbing to spot for CAS. Tossing you to Kingbees for extract.”
“Roger,” Tom replied over the radio as Quinn appeared at his side.
“What do you think?” Quinn asked.
“I think we are either lucky or dead.”
“I’d rather be lucky.”
“Yeah, me too.”
The distinctive whomp-whomp of the large Kingbees filled the air.
“Let’s go home. Squad two first,” Quinn said.
Tom nodded. The One-Zero was always the first off a helo on insertion and the last out on an extraction.
Tom turned and checked Sau’s pulse one more time. Even weaker.
Hold on, buddy.
Tom hoisted his ’Yard teammate onto his shoulders. The remaining members of his squad took point and rear security.
He looked up to see a monstrous helo. It appeared to fall from the sky in a maneuver called a Falling Yellow Leaf, in which they autorotated in a downward spiral out of the clouds to drop as quickly as possible into an LZ. The first time Tom had been aboard for the maneuver he almost threw up.
The Kingbee came to a hover and settled to earth, its powerful rotor wash beating down the dense, thick elephant grass. The H-34 landed so that its only door faced the ridgeline to the west, giving the door gunner a clear line of fire into what was unknown territory. Tom was halfway to the helo when he heard the machine gun open up.
“Contact!”
A second later an RPG ripped under the tail of the helo, impacting the ground and showering Tom’s squad with dirt.
