against the green of the jungle. Look, listen, step … look … listen … step … look …
Tiger Cole lay on a boulder, about knee-high, on his back with his arms outstretched downward. His head was bare; his helmet was beside the rock.
Tangles of shroud line lay around and over him. He had landed near a stream in an area strewn with boulders and stones.
Cole’s eyes were closed and his lips parted. His face was mottled and swollen, apparently from insect bites. Jake touched his cheek. It was warm.
The chest was moving.
Dear God! He was alive!
He remembered the planes overhead and turned the radio back on. “I’ve found him and he’s alive but unconscious. We’re right here under this chute.”
“Roger.
Jake gently moved Cole’s head back and forth and massaged the cheeks.
“Hey, Tiger! Hey, Tiger! Wake up! It’s me, Jake.”
The eyelids flickered, then opened. Tiger gazed into the distance before bringing his eyes to rest on Jake’s face. Finally his eyes focused.
“Jake?”
“Yeah. I’m here, shipmate. The good guys have found us and the bad guys haven’t. You’re going to be okay.”
Jake unzipped Cole’s vest and took out one of his bottles, unscrewed the cap, and elevated the bottle to the bombardier’s head.
The back of Cole’s head felt pulpy. Grafton looked It was covered with blood. He looked again at the helmet at the base of the rock. It was broken almost in two, the helmet that had probably saved Cole’s life.
Jake trickled some of the water between the parted lips. Cole’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Jake poured more water into Cole’s mouth.
“Enough,” Cole spluttered.
“Where’re you hurt?”
“Back’s broken. Can’t move. Can’t see too good either. And I think I pass out once in a while.”
“Maybe it isn’t broken. Can you feel this?” Jake grasped the nearest hand.
“Yeah.”
Jake grasped Cole’s thigh. “This?”
“A little, but I can’t move.”
He put his hand on the bombardier’s forehead. Partly to wipe away the perspiration and partly just to touch him. A tear or two dropped down Jake’s cheek Through his own watery eyes, he saw that one of Cole’s Pupils was dilated.
“Get me off this fucking rock.”
“Moving you might kill you.”
“We all have to go sometime. Now get me off this fucking rock and lay me out in the leaves.”
Jake unsnapped Cole’s Parachute-release fittings an pulled away the tangles of shroud line. No, Cole’ spinal cord was still intact, and moving him might kill him or paralyze him for life. “You’re going to have to stay on that rock until the chopper crewman can help me get you into the litter.”
Cole cursed Jake, who ignored him and picked up the shroud lines and tried to pull the chute down. He tugged from several angles, even hanging on the lines with his feet off the ground in spite of the pain in his side. The chute was in the treetops to stay. The sky was visible through several open places in the forest canopy because, in this rocky terrain, the jungle foliage was thinner.
“I got us into a helluva fix this time, Tiger. We’re really in deep . ..” but Jake saw that Cole had passed out. Jake unzipped a pocket of his survival vest and found the only bandage he had left. He tore off the wrapper and placed the bandage under Cole’s head. At least it was softer and cleaner than the rock. He picked up Cole’s radio from the ground. He had apparently dropped it during the night-and turned it off to save the batteries. Then Jake checked in again with the Sandys.
That done, he turned his attention to Cole. “Wake up, Tiger, wake up! Come on, Virgil.” He sprinkled water on Cole’s face. Cole opened his eyes.
“Jake, what the hell? Are you baptizing me or is this the last sacrament?”
“You stay awake. It’s gonna take both of us to get our asses out of this one. Stay awake now. You’re not gonna die on me, you sonuvabitch.”
“No way. Hey, you have something on your neck. Looks like a leech.”
Something cold and slimy met his touch. Trying not to tear the creature in half, Jake pulled and felt a stab of pain as a piece of skin came with it.
He trembled with revulsion. If there was one, there were others. He quickly unzipped his survival vest and torso harness and felt himself frantically. He found another on his back, just above the shoulder blade, and ripped at it, tearing it apart. Two more were on his left arm. Three were attached to his legs just above his boot tops. They were fat, swollen with blood. When he had plucked them all off, he wiped his bloody hand on his thigh.
He inspected Cole and ran his hand down inside Cole’s clothing. He could find nothing. He began to unzip Cole’s gear.
“Don’t. I got enough blood to spare a little. Just let me lie here.”
Jake put on his torso harness and survival vest and made certain the pockets were zipped closed. He sat down near Cole’s head and put the revolver in his lap “I heard voices last night,” Cole whispered. “The gomers are around.”
Frank Allen had a problem. He had not yet seen a sign of the North VietNamese, yet they must use the road frequently. If there were guns positioned on the steep karst ridges that ran east and west and towered several thousand feet up to the base of the cloud nothing that flew would be safe in this valley. No doubt the N V A were waiting for the helicopters to arrive before they showed themselves.
Allen banked the plane and thundered down the road again, hoping to draw fire or to spot a camoflaged flak site. No luck.
In a few minutes the sun would be high enough to shine down this east-west valley and muzzle flashes and tracers would not be so easy to see. Acutely aware how dangerous this was, he trolled across the rising ground for a mile on either side of the downed crew position. His wingman flew above and off to one side behind him, in position to attack enemy fire. But there was nothing.
It’s too quiet,” he told his wingman, Captain Bob “Pear” Bartlett, an excellent pilot on his first tour. “Let’s strafe the south side of the road and see what happens.”
“Okay.”
Frank flew toward the east. The sky was bright there, and the two Skyraiders, framed low against the bright sky, would make a tempting target.
Allen repeated to Grafton, who could hear their radio transmissions, their intentions, then lifted a wing and turned to go back down the road.
The red dot in his gunsight walked across the trees. When he reached an altitude of 1000 feet, he squeezed the trigger on the stick.
The Skyraider shuddered from the recoil of its twenty-millimeters as tracers floated down toward the jungle. He waggled the rudder as he kept the trigger down. After a one-second burst, he released the trigger and Pear fired a burst. On they went up the valley, firing alternately.
A squirt of tracer reached for them from the north side of the road. Both pilots saw it at the same time and jinked violently.
“Looks like a twenty-three nuke-mike under some kind of camouflage netting,” Pear Bartlett opined.
They made a turn just under the broken clouds at 400 feet above the jungle and started back down, Allen in the lead and Bartlett behind him and off to one side. Allen concentrated on the spot where the invisible gunner should be. Again the red dot in his gunsight paced across the jungle.
Now! He squeezed the trigger and his shots ripped into the forest.
From both sides of the road gunfire erupted, reaching for the lead plane.
“Pull up, Frank,” Bartlett shouted.
