Part 13 (1/2)
”Ah, just pa.s.sing by, Khe Sanh,” Clifton said on the new frequency of 127.1.
A new voice came on the air. ”Sabre, this is Covey One Zero. Go Covey common on Fox Mike.” Covey common, 50.4 megacycles, was known to most of the Special Forces as the discreet frequency the Coveys used to talk among themselves. The numbers were taken from the 504th Tactical Air Support Squadron. They called it the bulls.h.i.+t freq. Clifton gambled Khe Sanh Control did not know what it was.
Both Sabres switched to 50.4 and checked in with Covey One Zero.
”Roger, Sabres, what's your position?”
”About ten miles east of Lang Tri. What's the weather there? Do you have contact with the camp?”
”The weather, comrades, is delta sierra, but usable if you're a duck.
Many buildups in the LOCAL area extend up to thirty grand or better. The low stuff is thin for the moment.
Rainsqualls pa.s.sing through. Altimeter twenty-nine thirty-two. I do have occasional contact with the camp on their survival radio, but their battery is low. Are you gentlemen here for an exfil?”
”That's affirm, Covey. Sabre One is a guns.h.i.+p, Sabre Two a troops.h.i.+p.
What's the situation on the ground?”
”Grimsville. I just put in a B-57 and some Navy A-Is.
They got one tank and a bunch of gomers. But there are maybe two other tanks grinding around. Lots of bad guys, heavy groundfire. What are your intentions?”
”We want to get those guys out of there. What frequency are they on?”
Clifton asked.
”Uniform two four two point five.”
”Sabre, go two four two point five.” When Sabre Two and Covey checked in, Clifford tried Lang Tri.
”s.p.u.n.ky, this is Sabre, do you read?” There was no answer. He tried twice more with no results. He called the Covey FAC.
”Look, Covey, we got to get on the ground. I'm going to be over the camp in about two minutes. I'll find what I think is the best LZ, prep it, then my number-two man will land and off-load troops and take off.
I'll gun around as required, two will orbit off to the side. Can you get any air in the next ten minutes?”
”Sabre, I've had a standing request for the last hour. It all depends on the weather. I'll have to say right now it ain't gonna improve.”
Clifton motioned to the SF man with the RPG. ”Load that thing,” he said, ”hang out the right door. Point the tube forward parallel to the fuselage. Get your buddy to hold you. If I see a tank, I'll aim at it and tell the door gunner to point it out to you. Get ready.”
The man checked the five-pound projectile mounted in the mouth of the three-foot weapon and positioned himself outside on the skids. His a.s.sistant held him by the back of his collar and his belt.
Clifton suddenly was over the camp at fifty-feet alt.i.tude.
For a few precious seconds he had the element of surprise.
The camp looked like a burnt-out junkyard on the moon.
Craters, ashes, hulks of jeeps and three tanks, and burneddown structures littered the area. Smoke rose from half a dozen smoldering fires.
”Over there,” Clifton shouted to his copilot and door gunner. He spun the Huey toward a lone tank crouched under a tree clump outside the camp where it had hidden from the air strikes. The man holding the RPG-7 on his shoulder hung out the right door, left leg kneeling inside the helicopter, right leg extended to the skid. The door gunner slapped his shoulder and pointed at the tank. The man s.h.i.+fted the tube slightly and squeezed the trigger. There was a tremendous backblast and the rocket sped on its way. In a fountain of red fire and black smoke, it impacted just under the turret. Immediately, flames poured from vents.
The hatch slowly opened, an arm appeared, then fell back in the tank as fire shot into the air.
As soon as he had fired, Clifton swung his Huey back and forth, spraying an area next to the command bunker. There was very little return fire.
No fighting positions or mortar pits in the open parts of the camp were occupied by the NVA soldiers, probably, he reasoned, because of the air strike.
”Land your people, Two,” he ordered the warrant officer, who immediately started down. The Special Forces men began spilling out even as it flared to a moving hover five feet off the ground. In less than ten seconds all twelve men were out and deployed in a tiny perimeter around the helicopter.
As the last man leaped out, the warrant officer lowered the nose of his craft and sped off across the camp and pulled up sharply to clear the trees.
In the silence after the helicopter disappeared over the treeline, Wolf made arm signals to deploy his men in a wider perimeter around the bunker. From Wolf's pre-brief, each three-man team knew in which direction to extend. They quickly flopped into craters and the old fighting positions.
They carried a mixed bag of weapons: M79 grenade launchers, heavy slings of grenades and ammunition for their M16s and CAR-15s, every third man carried a SOG-60, a cutdown version of the M60 machine gun. One team stayed next to Wolf.
”Okay, George,” Lochert said to the leader, George Heaps, ”let's crack that bunker.” Bent over, they ran to the bunker. Lochert carried a PRC-25 radio and his MI 6. Next to the bunker was a burned-out tank hull and two dozen or more green-clad NVA bodies testifying to the immediateness and accuracy of the B-57 and Navy A-1 strikes. With Heaps and his two men, Wolf Lochert ran to the steps leading down into the bunker. Bodies and pieces of bodies littered the way.
The dirt walls, even though sh.o.r.ed up by PSP (Pierced Steel Planking, used to make runways), had collapsed on the bottom of steps covering the door to the command post. One man on each team had a folding shovel.
”Start digging,” Wolf said. He positioned himself on the lip of the steps and took the handset of his p.r.i.c.k-25. Rifle fire started to pop and rattle. He heard his people returning fire with their M16s and M60 machine guns. He spoke into the handset.
”Sabre One, this is Dakota Six. The bunker is partially collapsed.
We've got to do some digging. Might take a few minutes. Starting to take some fire. Not heavy yet.” Sabre acknowledged the call. ”Hurry up, guys. Gonna get mighty black here toot sweet.”
Wolf looked back down the steps. All three men were digging, one with the shovel, the other two with torn pieces of the pierced steel planking used to build the bunker. They had the top five inches of the door exposed.
”Start knocking,” he commanded. ”See if anybody's alive in there.” The fire picked up. He heard the bloop of the M79 and the bang of exploding grenades. His men beat on the door with the shovel. There was no answer. They continued their frenzied digging. The fire outside was rapidly increasing in intensity.
Major Doug Clifton banked his guns.h.i.+p sharply around the perimeter, keeping low over the trees so the NVA could not get a clear tracking shot on him. Searching green-andred tracers crisscrossed the sky directly over the camp and disappeared into the overcast. Sabre Two orbited to the east.
He checked his fuel.
”Time, gentlemen, time,” he transmitted to the men on the ground.
Wolf Lochert heard the caution on his radio. He was shooting from the bunker stairwell at the heads that would pop up from a gun pit to fire at his troops. He s.h.i.+fted as the fire picked up to his left. Nearly a full squad of NVA was attacking one of his teams. Through the smoke he could see the enemy figures dodging around wreckage, hopping from hole to hole, making a probing thrust from the south side of the camp.
”From the south, they're coming from the south,” he warned over the FM.
”I got 'em,” a team member radioed back.
” Rolling in,” Doug Clifton said from his helicopter. He turned sharply from his position over the trees and swept the south compound with his four forward-firing guns. Both door gunners and SF men were shooting out the side, sweeping the ground with their fire. The helicopter took several hits in the tail section and one through the front windscreen.
The attack subsided, ”You got anybody out yet?” Clifton asked.
Lochert's men had just cleaned the dirt from the scarred and battered door, but couldn't open it.
”Hey, in there,” they shouted, and beat on the door.