dirt collapsed in and compressed the air inside our chamber into a smaller space. Warm, moist ground cascaded across our legs, burying me up to my knees.
I scrambled free, then picked Gator up under the armpits and dragged him back. If we'd been trapped before, we were doubly so now. I didn't know how much dirt there was between me and the wooden door, but I was certain it was too much to dig through right now. Especially since the bombing continued, thundering explosions that deafened you even underground and ripped your world apart.
The earth around me groaned, and shivered. More dirt and rocks rained down from the ceiling, and I dragged Gator even further back. Now we were in the puddle, the water two or three inches deep and covering the tops of my boots.
They must have sent two flights in on a bombing run, because there was about sixty seconds of blessed, absolute silence. Or maybe I'd just gone deaf. At any rate, I thought it was over. Hoped it was over.
Then the second wave struck, even harder than the first. They sounded like they were right overhead, although they couldn't have been. Nothing would have survived in this cave if they had been. More cave-ins, so many more that we were crowded back into a narrow space maybe five feet deep at the very end of the tunnel.
'Hang on, Gator,' I screamed, barely able to even hear my own voice over the noise and fury. 'Stick with me, buddy. We're gonna get out, we're gonna get out, we're gonna-' A final blast, more powerful than all those that had come before, slammed me down to the dirt on my back, still holding Gator under the armpits. The impact must have been so painful that it woke him, because I could hear him screaming. But between my deafened ears and the noise from the explosions, I could just barely hear him.
A massive, low rumbling, then unexpectedly, light streaming down at me. One thin shaft, hazy and clouded with motes of dirt and dust and God knows what, but sunlight nonetheless. I laid Gator down carefully, propping him up against the back wall, which seemed the most solid of all. I scrabbled up the hard-packed dirt, trying to reach the opening. The wall collapsed under my fingers, cascading down near Gator. I tried again.
This time, I found a small toehold on a wedge of rock, then another. I could reach the opening, barely six inches in diameter, with my hands now. I clawed at it, raining more dirt down, not caring, knowing that this was our only chance for escape.
The loose soil crumbled easily, cascading down in a small anthill on the floor of our cave.
Big enough? It had to be.
I climbed down carefully, not wanting to dislodge the rocks that had served as handholds, and went back over to Gator. He was conscious now, quiet, but with his eyes darting around the cave like crazy. I tried to speak reassuringly. 'Stay awake, Gator. We're getting out of here. It's gonna hurt, buddy, but I need you to stay awake. Okay?'
'Okay.' His voice was weak but readable, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. 'Let's get going then. Before they find out there's a hole here.'
I hoped to God that the Tomcats would hold off for just a little while. Just a few minutes, long enough for me and Gator to get out of this hellhole before they rolled in again with the next wave of bombing. How dangerous that would be, being above ground at ground zero, I didn't want to think about. But anything beat being buried alive.
I grabbed Gator by his collar, helped him stand up. Quickly, I pointed out the handholds, boosted him up to the first one, and shoved him by his butt up to the second. He was moving now, though God knows where he got the strength. I gave him one last shove on his good leg. Then I saw him half sprawl across the opening, his feet still dangling down at me. 'Roll out of it, Gator. Roll out.'
I heard him say something, but couldn't make out the words. I started on my way up, got halfway there, and turned loose with my hands long enough to lift his legs and heave him up over the opening.
I heard Gator start to scream, then stifle it. I fell back down on the floor of the dirt cave and cracked my head against something. The shaft of light shimmered, seemed to shift and go out, then reappeared.
Gator's pale face was staring down at me from the opening. 'Come on, Bird Dog,' he said. I damn near cried ? now he was encouraging me? I felt a new burst of energy, and went at the handholds again. This time, with Gator out of the way, I made it.
We lay there for just a second, covered in mud and dirt and panting hard. Then I rolled over and said, 'Can you walk?'
Gator grimaced. 'Not much,' he admitted. 'My leg ? I don't know if it was from punching out or what.'
I shook my head. Better that he not remember, if he didn't. 'Probably the ejection. C'mon, I'll help you. We need to get out of here before the third wave rolls in.'
I stood up, and started thinking about whether or not the ground under my feet was going to collapse. That gave me more energy. I picked Gator up, slung him over my shoulder, and moved as fast as I could toward the tree line. It sure wasn't a run, more like a staggering walk, but twenty seconds later we were in the jungle.
I lowered Gator back down to his feet. 'See if you can stand on one leg.'
He tried, and found he was able to put weight on his right leg. I looped his left arm over my neck and said, 'C'mon, let's go home.' We got maybe 150 feet away from the camp before the third wave of bombers rolled in. I could look up and see them, Tomcats on a bombing run, their deadly payloads heavy on the undercarriages. If we ever got out of this, if I ever got back in a Tomcat, I was going to remember how we looked from the ground. That, and how the poor bastards we bombed felt.
There were only four Tomcats on this final run, and they did a damn fine job of it. As they banked away, I caught the squadron insignia on the tail, and realized it was the Black Vipers. My squadron ? our squadron.
The last bird rolled in, dropped a couple of five-hundred-pounders on the compound. The last one went dead into the luxurious facility we had just vacated. The entire structure collapsed, blasting a fifty-foot-wide crater in the ground where we'd been.
'Just in time,' Gator said. He looked at me with just a flash of the usual Gator expression on his face. 'You can't do anything the easy way, can you?'
I laughed a little, then hoisted him back up. 'C'mon. We're going south.'
The jungle was thicker than I thought it would be, difficult to traverse. Vines on the ground caught at our ankles, and we fell every two hundred feet or so at first. After a while, I got better at it. The sounds of the compound, the bombing and screaming and noise, gradually faded away behind us.
'We need to get some altitude,' I said. I pointed at the hill up ahead. 'Think we can make it?'
Gator nodded. 'I think we need to. I think I know where we are, and if we can get over that hill and head south, there may be some water.'
It wasn't until he said that that I realized how thirsty I was. I hadn't wanted to sample the pools of murky water on the bottom of our cave, and neither had Gator.
And hungry ? damn, was I hungry. As the adrenaline started to ebb out of my system, that hit too.
'We can get our bearings,' I agreed. 'You ready?'
He nodded.
We set out again, now getting better at this traipsing like a three-legged-man relay team through the jungle. I started hearing animals, something moving around in the trees ? at least I hoped it was animals. If it was Vietnamese, they sure hadn't figured out that they were supposed to be after us.
Finally, we pressed at the hill, climbing the last hundred feet of it on hands and knees. We broke out into a small clearing, and finally I could get a good visual on the sun.
'South of us is that way,' Gator said decisively.
I shook my head. 'I don't think so. It's that way.' I pointed in a direction ninety degrees off the angle he'd indicated.
'Who's the navigator around here?' Gator demanded. 'Bird Dog, you've never been able to find your way home alone. You know that. Now trust me ? it's that way.' He pointed back in the original direction.
'Okay,' I agreed finally. Gator did have a point ? I'd always had a lousy sense of direction.
We crossed over the hill and down into the valley beyond it. As Gator had suspected, there was a stream there. We both washed up, and checked each other over to assess the extent of our injuries.
Gator was a good deal worse off than I was. His arm had been hurt in the ejection, but it looked like the damage done to his right kneecap was all courtesy of our late hosts.
At least I hoped they were our late hosts. I'd never wished men dead so badly as I wished they were.
