FicWad

Chapter Five

The Dusty Trail

-xxx-

Well, with the images of Candyland etched in our minds, the Roadrunner Nine team moved on, to the first assigned OP, or Observation Post. We were still inside the Vietnamese border, at a junction in the Ho Chi Minh Trail where the main, heavily traveled supply route breaks up into a number of thin mountain trails. The trails snaked their way into the Central Highlands, one of the known strongholds of major VC and NVA forces.

The Central Highlands of South Vietnam was heavily Communist-controlled. The region included such names of terrain features and villages as the Ia Drang Valley, Plei Me, and Duc Co. All had been sites of major American engagements during the early years of the war.

Small patrols and Special Forces hamlet missions were unheard of in the Central Highlands, because MAC-V knew that every ville and hamlet in the area was thick with the enemy, or enemy sympathizers in the least. Often, entire villages' worth of people volunteered to accompany VC and NVA main force units in transporting and delivering supplies from the Ho Chi Minh Trail into their dispersal sites and supply caches.

They would leave at night when the American regular soldiers and their ARVN counterparts were tired of patrolling and didn't want to risk firefights, and then return by morning to greet the next coordinated push through the area. It was a damned efficient system, and we had the unenviable task of trying to cut off the flow of food and bullets that kept it all going strong.

You know something, I almost forgot to mention that Doggie didn't seem quite the same after seeing Candyland, and having been admonished by the veterans to remember what we were fighting for. I used to be able to read him pretty well, considering that we had a bond like that. But his eyes seemed shallower, distant. And he didn't want to talk about the sight. I think he didn't want to admit it, but he looked scared. He looked like a hollow vessel of fear inside.

It wasn't like the other fear, of being shot or blown up, even though that's been on both of our minds since Tan Son Nhut. It was a deeper fear, brought on when we saw those locals all laid out in a row, massacred. To this day, I've seen the look in a lot of eyes, but never been able to really call it something concrete.

I saw the look in Flint's eyes once, in a bombed out neighborhood in Beirut. I saw the look in the eyes of the Joes that survived the Benzheen Massacre, and in Trucial Abysmia, and in numerous battles in between. I'll bet others have even seen the look in me, when I felt scared to the core and beyond.

-xxx-

OP Alpha-9 (RVN Central Highlands)

On the Ho Chi Minh Trail

0500 hours, local time

Hong, Duc and Tranh snoozed lightly while leaning against a spreading tree, as the team settled into a sleeping schedule. Their mission profile called for sixteen hours of rest while observing and reporting from the Alpha-9 OP. Then they would "hat up", gather their gear, and hump on to the next location.

Sparks was involved in generating a spot report, and he and Candy kept to themselves near the sleeping tree, as they compared notes and prepared their materials, notebooks and scopes for the upcoming watches. A few hundred meters closer to the main trail, Hauser and Dobbs crouched in a shallow trench, scanning the route with binoculars.

The advance position that Duke and Doggie occupied was actually on the slope side of a hillock, looking slightly down into a valley that the enemy logistics trail occupied. The dividing point that the team was assigned to monitor was a large clearing, about a half-kilometer across, off to the right of the trench.

Duke Hauser rubbed his eyes for a moment, squinting to refocus after having stared through the binoculars for a long time. Doggie kept his Stoner light machinegun handy in the trench next to his buddy and stretched quietly, suppressing the urge to yawn.

"See anything, partner?" Dobbs whispered, cradling his M-177 carbine in his arms and longing for a sip out of his canteen, which was at the sleeping tree with his rucksack.

"Miles of nothin', pal," Hauser answered. All of a sudden, he put his fingers to his lips, as his sharp ears detected the sound of a twig breaking. He raised his own carbine and peered carefully through the thick foliage. "Shh. I heard something," he whispered.

Dobbs stayed silent, lowering his M-177 to the floor of the trench and tucking the stock of the Stoner into his shoulder. His ears detected the soft chirping and flitting of migratory birds and scratching sounds of scurrying insects at ground level. But no further abnormal sounds came.

Suddenly, a whispered voice came from behind them. "Kahuna," Sparks said quietly, keeping his head and body down. He was smart to assume that the newbies would freak out.

"Holy shit!" Doggie exclaimed, whirling around with the Stoner. He almost triggered the weapon when it came to bear on Sparks, but Duke knocked the barrel out of the way and grabbed Doggie's wrist to dislodge his trigger finger.

"Shut up, newbie!" Sparks growled, sliding forward like he was lightning and clamping his open palm on Doggie's mouth. "Do you wanna fuckin' advertise our position to the whole VC main force?"

"Sorry, Sparks," Duke whispered, patting Doggie on the shoulder to calm his nerves. Doggie fell into a sitting position in the bottom of the trench, shaking off being surprised. Sparks reached down into the trench and took a fistful of Doggie's uniform, hauling him powerfully onto his feet.

"You had best learn faster than you are, newbie," the Special Forces communications expert growled. "Because I am not getting' wasted in the bush for you. Get your shit wired and haul ass back to Candy. Hauser, you're staying here with me. We're expecting a VC supply column and I want you to observe while I call down some hellfire on 'em."

"No problem, Sparks," Hauser replied, helping Doggie with his weapons. He was struck by how sheepishly Doggie moved, like he was dwelling on a stupid schoolyard mistake.

Hauser thought that his old buddy must've been embarrassed about messing up, and made a point to discuss it with him when they both had a chance. He knew the importance of everyone pulling together as a team, and Doggie needed his confidence if he was going to stand up and deliver in a firefight.

Doggie disappeared into the underbrush, creeping up the hillock slope to the rest of the Roadrunner team, while Sparks settled into his place next to Duke.

"How's it hangin', slick?" Sparks whispered, picking up the binoculars and scanning the trail for movement. He shifted slightly in the trench as his long-range radio pack got hung up behind him and needed to be freed.

"Same, same," Hauser replied. "Nothing down there but dirt and more dirt."

Sparks checked his wristwatch for a moment and raised a finger skyward. "Just you wait," he said. "You can usually set your watch by the VC. This is their bivouac clearing. In order to reorganize for the night movement into the villes, they have to stop here and wait for the local units to come out after dusk. When they've settled in and gathered most of their column, we'll call in the big boys."

Sighing to himself, Hauser leaned on his elbows over the edge of the trench, and got lost in thought as the insect and bird sounds lulled him into a silent reverie. His mind began to drift as he thought about keeping himself and Doggie alive.

-xxx-

Duke Hauser was startled by a sharp jab in his side. He shook for a second as he realized that he was drifting and snapped back to reality.

"Wake up and stay alert, slick!" Sparks growled. "I need you to cover my ass while I call down the Iron Hand! Get your carbine and blooper ready!"

Hauser rubbed his eyes for a moment and reached for his weapons, which were both already loaded. As he refocused his eyes on the trail, what had been an empty scene was filled with a crowd of civilians surrounded by armed men in khaki uniforms and wearing pith helmets. Even from a distance, the enameled red stars on the helmets were unmistakable. The North Vietnamese Army was in town.

Long columns of civilians and sympathizers carried all manner of military goods, slung from long poles for teams of people to shoulder the weight, or simply transported in their hands or atop their heads. Everything the VC main force units and their hamlet cells needed was delivered to their caches by this method.

People carried boxes of explosives, crates of Russian AK-47 and SKS rifles, large ceramic jars of food and bags of rice. Ammunition, clothes, bicycles, farm tools, and even fresh seed for planting, was all supplied from the North to help their Southern guerilla units remain self-sufficient so they could bring the fight to Saigon.

"Start counting faces, Hauser," Sparks whispered, passing Duke a plastic sheet and grease pencil. "Jot your rough counts here. Khaki uniforms are NVA regular soldiers, white or dark green uniforms are likely officers. Anyone that looks like a farmer in black pajamas and carrying a weapon is likely to be a VC main force fighter or hamlet cell member. Keep track of the civilians, women and children. Candy wants to know what the demographics are, even if we only transmit the total figure to HQ as the body count."

I guess Candy, and the rest of the team, would want to know how many innocent civilians we killed in these raids, Hauser thought to himself, as he began classifying the people gathering in the clearing.

"Hey Sparks," Hauser whispered, "how come we haven't bombed this location before, to cut off this flow of supplies?"

"I dunno," Sparks replied, unfolding his tactical map and calculating the position of the target using his compass and some list of formulas that Hauser hadn't yet been taught. "But we've watched this area a lot. My best guess is that the high muckety-mucks in MAC-V are loosening the reins a bit."

"You see," Sparks explained softly, making adjustments to his coordinates by scribbling with a grease pencil on the plastic-laminated map in front of him. "The politicians seem to be in more control of this war than the people who know how to fight it. We couldn't heavily engage the enemy while patrolling out here, because we didn't want to encroach upon Laos and Cambodia. We can't bomb the North, where all these supplies are coming from. All of it is to keep the big, bad Chinese and Russians from getting mad at us and sending nukes over the pond to hit our homes."

"Yeah," Hauser agreed, nodding his head. "But the politicians aren't the ones who are out here dying for this little scrap of geography."

"Exactly, slick," Sparks said. "The Regular Army and ARVN units have been pushing their way in and out of the Central Highlands since the start of major operations here. They are trying to fight this battle conventionally, carving the VC out inch by inch and ville by ville, despite the fact that firepower and mobile operations aren't cutting the mustard here."

"I get it," Hauser said. "Not to mention, we were warned about some of the government types and ARVN regional commanders. They seem to like executing VC suspects whether they've been tried or not."

"That's why I like hanging out here with people I know I can trust," Sparks said. "Other than calling down the big guns, we're fighting the war on the enemy's terms. And if you don't understand the way the enemy thinks and fights, you won't be able to have a sound strategy to defeat them. Sometimes, even the things we do are subject to political approval, and we can't kick ass like we should."

"With all the restrictions, isn't all this just academic?" Hauser asked. "They'll eventually win, if we're not allowed to. How would we make a difference here?"

"We just have to follow our orders," Sparks whispered. "We make our difference for America by coming home alive. And then we can tell our story here. We still fought. We still bled. And lots of good men still died. But we still have to believe in the fact that our fighting here is in America's best interests. The peaceniks over in the States that are protesting the war are trying to avoid the responsibility of defending America. We might not know - or like - why we're here, but we're making our sacrifice for America, our homes and our families. There is a big difference between soldiers and peaceniks, even if they say there isn't. Let that burn into your headgear, slick."

-xxx-

I watched the trail as a long, single file line approached from the west. Most of the people were unarmed - Shanghaied civilians, local VC sympathizers, I wasn't sure which. The civilian types were being used as porters, to carry the supplies and hardware sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

By the time most of the column had finished assembling at their rally point, I had counted at least two hundred seventy-five civilians, and two companies' worth of NVA and VC main force soldiers. That had to have been some three hundred fifty or more fighters, at least. And I had to keep tallying as the tail-end Charlies arrived. All told, I think they had a whole battalion's worth of bad guys assembling just a few hundred meters from us.

Their strategy was sheer efficiency on the enemy's part, in my opinion. The VC did a lot to survive under the noses of the American regulars and the ARVN. They knew that we would patrol the main roads and bomb truck convoys. So they moved their goods and weapons by hand, across terrain that was too thick for our FAC aerial scouts to see through.

Many of the local guerillas materialized from nowhere, because they lived in supposedly "safe" hamlets. After raiding a military target or ARVN police station, they'd disappear once more. If they didn't live among the South's population, then they spent their time in the Communist enclaves in the Central Highlands, in places so fortified our combat units have to engage them in brigade strength, in order to have any noticeable effect.

Hundreds of irregulars taking on a five thousand strong U.S. Army infantry brigade? And winning? That was something the brass just couldn't believe. Despite the relative victories of massive search and destroy operations like "Junction City", the VC movement in the Central Highlands hadn't appeared to quit yet.

I wonder why the big thinkers didn't commit the Special Forces and our CIDG units to independent operations. Honestly, having seen what these guys could do up close and personal, I think we could've won the war, taking the fight to the NVA just like they took it to us in the South. Just one good raid - perhaps a hit on Hanoi...

But nobody listens to us, other than our commanders. Well, so far as I knew at the time, no one up the line did. I hadn't met the spooks from CIA that inhabited those parts just yet. They played the game a lot differently. But that's a story for later on.

-xxx-

Duke Hauser's nose wrinkled as his nostrils picked up a pungent scent, wafting up the slope from the clusters of Vietnamese assembled in the clearing. He couldn't observe all of the goings-on, since thick woods blocked a lot of the view.

"Do you smell that?" Sparks whispered. "That stink, that smells like roasting rat guts?"

"Yeah," Hauser replied. "What the hell is that rancid stuff?"

"The locals call it /nuc nom/," Sparks explained. "It's Vietnamese fish paste, often made from every part of the fish they could prepare, like the innards, fins and so on. It's actually a staple of the Vietnamese diet, usually eaten with steamed or cooked rice. It's pretty easy to prepare, which is why the gooks carry it around on their operations as a food ration."

"Is that what they carried in some of those large ceramic jars?" Hauser asked, remembering seeing women carrying what looked like large, terra cotta cook pots on their heads.

"Yeah," Sparks said, squinting at the notes he scrawled on his map. "They sometimes add other ingredients to help preserve the paste and then ferment it, which makes the stuff even more powerfully rancid. I personally think nuc nom tastes like three-day-old shit, but guys like Tranh, Duc and Hong have no problems tossing plates full of it down their throats. If given a choice, I would even say the ham and lima beans C-rations are more palatable than /nuc nom/. If you can believe that."

"I didn't think that any food existed, that was worse than C-rats," Hauser said with a smile. "But I guess I can believe you."

"Well, that smell means the gooks are encamped," Sparks said. "They've finally settled in and lit cooking fires. Now's the time to roll in the Iron Hand, before they set out security pickets and locate our observation post. If there are any survivors, they'll be asking themselves how we knew when to hit them. It does wonders to scare the shit out of the later columns when they report back and spread the word."

"Okay," Hauser said. "Should we tell Candy?"

"I have my orders," Sparks said. "We can call the fire down on our own. As soon as the indigs pick up the smell of nuc nom in the air, they'll surely be coming on down to watch the fireworks, with Candy and Doggie in tow."

"Then I defer to your discretion," Hauser said, flipping up the simple ranging post for his M-79 launcher. He rammed a 40mm grenade into the blooper's breech and snapped it shut.

Sparks brought the radio handset of his signals pack up to his lips and cupped his hand around it so the sound wouldn't carry. "Rugrat Nine, calling Devil. Iron Hand fire mission. Stand by to copy target coordinates."

"Devil Five Oh Five, calling Rugrat Nine," said the voice of the airborne Iron Hand strike pilot, Lieutenant Jack "Razor" Barlowe. "You've got Razor with his ears on. My bombardier and I are in orbit and standing by."

Sparks quickly relayed the target coordinates to the Navy A-6B Intruder, which was flying a high orbit patrol route between the Central Highlands and its home carrier at Yankee Station. Razor's Bombardier-Navigator plugged the grid references into his plane's navigation/attack computer and returned a course and distance for Razor to fly.

"Devil Five Oh Five copies your numbers," Razor said after acknowledging Sparks' targeting coordinates. "We are rolling in hot. Inbound from east to west for a napalm drop. I've got to cover sixty-seven miles first. It's gonna be about fifteen minutes or so."

"Roger that," Sparks said. "We're not goin' anyplace. Be advised, Five Oh Five; danger close on your bomb pass. My OP is about three hundred meters north of the target, on the up-slope of a major terrain feature. Don't roast me on the way in, 'kay?"

"You got it Rugrat," Razor replied. "I'll park 'em to the south and burn out those bad guys. See you when I see you."

"Rugrat Nine is out," Sparks added. "Good hunting, Devil Five Oh Five."

-xxx-

Less than ten minutes before the expected arrival of Razor's bombing run, Candy and the rest of the team arrived, slipping into the broad trench or behind the cover of a stone outcropping that also overlooked the clearing.

The VC and NVA soldiers seemed to be arrogantly laughing and carousing in their lay-up area, rather than seeing to security. They must've thought we couldn't touch them, or that we didn't know where they were. So, their discipline went out the window.

Then again, half of the armed men were guerillas. The soldiers probably did what they could to mold them into a cohesive fighting unit. But, being that the Communist soldiers in the NVA were merely civilian conscripts, most of them probably wanted to get down and party with their Southern brethren than listen to their officers.

Doggie seemed to have calmed down since he went back to our makeshift campsite for some rest and chow. He was quiet and watchful as he settled in next to me with the Stoner, ready for action, but not as scared or visibly excited as before.

We waited as a group for the final ten minutes, not talking much. Candy had ordered the campsite abandoned, so all our gear was piled up neatly behind the trench where we could get it. The El-Tee wasn't sure if we'd be ordered to make a bomb damage assessment - basically to go count the dead - down there in the clearing, but we were prepared to move in whatever direction we were told to.

Now, up until this point, Doggie and I had never been anywhere near a close air support strike. All we knew was that bombs were big things and nobody but God controlled how they fell and where they exploded. We wondered for a bit what might happen if the Navy boys sent one astray.

Candy and Sparks said that they had been too close to an "Arclight" target once. The high altitude B-52's couldn't be told to stop bombing once they had started. The guys said it was pretty bad, noisy and hot as the high explosives went off over their covered position. They were lucky that the observation post was far enough from the bomb line that the worst they got was the noise and heat, and a few bucket loads of dirt thrown into the trench with them.

Candy admitted that he was more worried about NVA stragglers during the bombing, since the explosions put the enemy into survival mode. His team's position wasn't too well camouflaged at the time, and he said that any NVA soldier on the run might have tripped into their spot. The fight would've been up close and personal then.

It was good that they warned us. Doggie and I fixed bayonets onto our M-177's, just in case, and we made sure that the machete we shared for these patrols was also at hand.

-xxx-

Devil 505

Navy A-6B "Iron Hand" Intruder

0735 hours

The Navy attack bomber vibrated slightly at the low altitude it was flying, due to the gusts of wind that sped between the rising hills and craggy mountaintops of the Central Highlands. Lieutenant Jack Barlowe held the plane steady as he descended to the level of the mountaintops and followed the course his Bombardier-Navigator had instructed him to take.

"How are we doing, Boxer-man?" Razor asked. The Lieutenant had flown with the Red Devils attack squadron ever since he qualified on the A-6 and got sent overseas as a Lieutenant, junior grade. His Bombardier / Navigator (B/N), "Boxer", was already a Lieutenant Commander, and veteran of many strikes over the 'Nam.

"We have ground lock, Razor," Boxer replied. "Get ready to follow my cues. I'm arming the napalm on the racks. Eight miles to target."

"Those Roadrunner guys said the target was a VC marshalling area on the Ho Chi Minh Trail - a soft target," Razor added. "How many are we dropping?"

"We've got orders to switch to on-call support after this run," Boxer said. "That means we can drop half our load here, and then keep the other four napalm canisters while we burn up our gas over Da Nang."

"Okay, four it is," Razor said, checking the analog displays on his weapons panel. The indicator lights from the ordnance computer showed that only half of the Intruder's bomb load of eight, napalm canisters were ready to release.

The Intruder swept low over the trees, Razor's stick motions jinking the plane in between the rolling up-slopes and protruding mountain summits that jutted up out of the Central Highlands. Its non-afterburning turbojet engines were improved over the A-6A model, and had a setting that put out less noise while cruising. Although the engines were still comparatively loud and detectable by ground sound-ranging equipment, the average VC peasant with a rifle wouldn't know the bomber was approaching until it flew right over someone's head.

Candy waved to get his team's attention and then put his finger to his lips. He listened carefully to the daytime sounds to detect what he thought he heard. The teams of pack animals that accompanied the VC brayed or mooed in protest as the members of the supply column manhandled them into a corral with their heavy burdens.

The nocturnal insect noises had diminished a lot, but crickets and water bugs continued to make the occasional chirp or buzz. Sounds of hundreds of hushed conversations and barked orders in Vietnamese wafted up from the enemy's assembly area. And, from a distance, there was a whoosh. The soft whoosh slowly rose to a low growl, audible only to the trained ears of someone that had been close to an air strike before. Razor and Boxer were on their approach.

-xxx-

"Sonufabitch!" Candy exclaimed in a low tone, as he stared through his set of binoculars. The movement in the enemy assembly area had changed. An officer was motioning for a number of armed troops to gather, and within the line of sight of Roadrunner Nine's observation point.

"What is it?" Sparks whispered, with a look in his eye like he already knew the answer. And the answer wasn't good.

"Someone was staring at my binoculars, while I was looking at him," Candy said. "They're coming to check us out." Candy raised his voice only slightly, so the whole team could hear. "Lock and load, guys. We have zips coming."

And, sure enough, an element of fifty NVA soldiers formed up and began to pick their way through the undergrowth between the trail and Roadrunner Nine's OP. At first, single shots from the officers' Russian-made Tokarev automatics rang out along the sloping valley. Then, the soldiers joined in with a volley of rifle fire from their AK-47's. The scouts in the NVA security party tried to send grazing fire up the slope, using their chattering 9mm sub-machineguns.

All of the Roadrunner team stayed down, ducking behind the natural cover in front of their position, and keeping inside their slit trench. Doggie shook and had a concerned look on his face as the enemy bullets ricocheted around them.

"Stay calm, Doggie," Hauser whispered, loading an antipersonnel grenade into his M-79 "blooper". "They can't hit us in here. They're just trying to probe by fire to flush us out."

"This is what Candy talked about, Duke," Dobbs said, clutching his Stoner tightly against his body. "The enemy will just run us over up here."

"Keep it tight, Dobbs," Candy growled. "We need you to rock and roll when I give the word. We're not goin' down without trying to break contact with these motherless bastards. Get ready to waste 'em on my command."

Sparks stayed calm while he raised the Iron Hand A-6B. "Devil Five-oh-five, this is Rugrat Nine. We've got zips in the wire. Can you lend additional assistance after your first pass?"

Razor's voice came over quickly, with the whine of his fully throttled turbojets in the background. "Devil is inbound on the strike, Rugrat Nine. We plan to lay down four gas cans. Do you want a full spread?"

"We'll take everything you have," Sparks said. "We're going to break contact and head for high ground until the smoke clears."

"Roger that," Razor said, nudging Boxer to arm all the napalm canisters on his wing racks. "We're laying it all down on your target. Keep your heads down; the first drop is in sixty seconds."

Tranh spotted the shrub branches about thirty feet in front of him rustling, and the first NVA scout appeared, pointing his K-50 SMG at the Roadrunner team's trench. Without even shouting a warning, the ARVN interpreter and commando popped up out of his spot in the zigzag trench and opened up with the WWII M-1A1 carbine that he carried.

Three .30-caliber bullets tore through the NVA scout, throwing him backward off his feet and making him tumble down the slope toward his comrades. The falling corpse hastened the other NVA as they moved up the slope, firing randomly over the brush.

Candy saw the NVA scout just as Tranh popped up to put his carbine to work. "Pop up!" he yelled, bringing his M-177 up to shooting position and tucking the adjustable butt stock tightly into his shoulder. "Aimed fire only! Conserve your ammo!"

-xxx-

That's right, dear readers, this was my very first REAL firefight. There I was, with six guys on my side, deep in enemy held territory. We were facing down a security force of about fifty NVA at least, working their way up the hill to us with what looked like a blood fervor in their eyes.

They didn't know that the silent, screaming death was on the way, in the form of our Iron Hand air cover and Razor's eight napalm-armed cluster munitions.

But that didn't matter to the patrol. At odds of better than seven to one, they were planning to overwhelm us. Even if we took all of the NVA in the security party out, they still had 287 others right behind them. And then there was the 160 VC. And after that, perhaps some of the 275 civilian men, women, or children being used as laborers would take up weapons from the fallen and try to bring us in.

When I fired my first volley into this lop-sided battle, I could see the faces of the two NVA conscripts that I killed. They were scouts with sub-machineguns, coming at me in a dead run, screaming blood-curdling battle cries. My instincts kicked in before my brain really had a chance to think things through.

I know that I aimed and fired ten shots from my carbine, as the two scouts went down. Then, my ears registered three things. One was the screams of the conscripts that I had shot, which didn't compare to this screaming in my head. The second was Candy yelling for us to take cover and get ready to hump out of the trench. And the third was a steadily growing whine from above.

-xxx-

The A-6B Intruder made one screaming pass at full military power, the banshee wail of its engines temporarily distracting the NVA security party from their advance. With the American team returning fire, the scouts wisely slowed down and the riflemen following them adjusted their advance accordingly.

The sound of the passing jet came and went. And then, the earth shook.

KARUMPH!

KARUMPH!

KARUMPH!

KARUMPH!

Four loud thunderclaps resounded in the small valley, as Razor's bomb run laid the napalm right on target. Thousands of pounds of chemical accelerants and gelled fuel oil spread through the campsite, burning the animals, the enemy supplies, the porters and soldiers alike in thousand-plus degree fire.

Duke and the others flattened inside their trench, protecting their eyes from the exploding ordnance. Even from the distance they were in relation to the impact points of the bombs, they could feel the great heat of the expanding firestorm.

But the team was still in danger and couldn't run, without the few remaining NVA trying to shoot them in the back. Candy and Sparks waved for Hong, Duc and Tranh to rise up and return fire, and then the "hairless devil" grabbed Doggie by his web gear.

"Get your machine gun rocking, slick!" Candy yelled over the roar of the napalm fire. "Hauser! Lay some Willie Pete into the enemy patrol before we duck outta here!"

Hauser popped his head up and saw the hellish scene below. Where the marshalling area had once been a scene of control and order, it was now nearly a burned-out wasteland. Hundreds of bodies were lying out, dead from the fires, or from asphyxiation when the napalm flames ate up all the oxygen within the conflagration.

Many of the people that still moved were covered in deep burns that penetrated their flesh, all the way to their exposed organs. Many of them were collapsing as they ran. They couldn't hope to survive very long out in the target zone, especially since the only burn care was at an American field hospital more than twenty miles away in the ARVN "safe" area.

Hauser dropped his M-177 and tucked the M-79 into the small of his armpit. He didn't care what was loaded in the tube when he yelled out, "Fire in the hole!" and sent the 40mm grenade flying towards the few NVA soldiers that were safely out of range of the napalm run.

The first shot was a beehive round, an antipersonnel type that was good for area denial, but only marginally effective when there were a lot of obstructions. Candy knew Hauser had shot the wrong round when he heard the grenade's characteristic burst, its effects muffled and diminished by the jungle vegetation.

"Willie Pete, not beehive, Hauser!" Candy yelled. "We can't break contact until you blind those enemy gooks!"

Hauser snapped out of his horrified reverie, and his fingers found the right grenade. He pulled the white phosphorus round out of the ammo bandoleer across his chest, and loaded it, snapping the breech of the M-79 shut with its hollow click.

"Fire in the hole!" Duke shouted again, bringing the barrel up and letting the grenade go. Everyone in the team ducked behind cover and waited.

The White Phosphorus round exploded in a shower of hot sparks, the chemical and metal inside the grenade reacting to create an unnaturally bright, white-hot light. It flash-blinded the few survivors of the NVA security unit and drove them down to the ground, screaming in fright and pain.

"Move it!" Candy yelled. "Get to the rally point on the summit! Go! Go! Go!"

Sparks tore out of the trench first, stumbling forward as he ran up the slope. As he moved, he instructed Razor over the radio to put his second pass along the slope behind the Roadrunner team, in order to completely burn out any surviving enemy soldiers.

The rest of the team moved out in pairs, covering each other with their carbines. Doggie slung his machinegun across his back before struggling to climb out of the trench. Hauser almost left his M-177 behind, but he remembered to reach back into the trench to haul it out. He took one final look at the hell fire the bomb run had started before running off with Doggie.

-xxx-

We were too busy running up-slope to the rally point at the summit of our hill, to see what Razor and Boxer did on their second pass. It was a repeat of the first run. When they released the other four napalm loads on their wings, the ground shook, and the jungle burned to a crisp.

No one could've survived that. I'm surprised WE survived that. And the Navy can claim another victory. Some seven hundred seventy-two NVA, VC and civilians were dead.

That was one Helluva body count for the brass, eh?

-xxx-