Part 15 (1/2)

Gritting his teeth at the commands but thankful all the boosted same, Wolf helped his men to the helicopter and them inside. Except for a few rounds the firing had stopped.

Wolf took a good look at his rescuers. It was as he had thought when he first saw the camouflaged uniforms they wore: they were Marines- He wondered why there were so few, or where their officer was, but didn't have time to ask.

Warrant Officer Bob Berry looked out from his seat on the right side of the c.o.c.kpit and beckoned Wolf to him. Wolf climbed in and bent his head next to the pilot.

”You got to dump all your weapons or I can't take off with these extra guys,” Berry yelled. Wolf relayed the message but couldn't bring himself to part with his own .45. He had to roar at the Marines before they would part with their big guns. Ten seconds later Berry lifted off the overloaded Huey slick and headed for Khe Sanh.

He flew under the weather down Route 9 toward the Marine base. The sky was overcast and dark. After a moment Berry yelled back over his shoulder, ”Is Covey Four One in here?”

”Yeah,” Toby Parker said. He was sandwiched in with all the other men and bodies and couldn't move, Berry said something into his boom mike, listened for a moment, then called back to Toby. ”Covey One Zero says well done and he'll see you back at Da Nang,” Toby nodded at this message from his boss, Colonel Charles Armillo.

Berry snaked his heavy helicopter up the road, then climbed the ridge to the Khe Sanh plateau. He radioed the Marine operations people that he was enroute and just needed a little gas, He decided not to mention his Marine pa.s.sengers. Wolf Lochert wormed his way around inside, talked to his men, and checked their condition, congratulating them for a job well done.

He slammed each Marine on the shoulder. ”I owe you guys,” he said.

”We may just need a job,” the smallest one, a gunnery sergeant, said.

”Talk to you on the ground,” Wolf said, puzzled. He turned to Lopez, who had finished tending a wound in Heaps' leg.

”Let's see that Air Force guy,” he said. Toby Parker sat next to Lopez on the floor, jammed up against a bulkhead.

”Hey, Wolf,” he said wearily. ”You sure get around.”

”Got to keep you Air Force pukes out of trouble,” Wolf said, a huge grin splitting his grimy face. The two men clasped hands briefly, Five minutes later Berry put the Huey down on the ramp near the heavily sandbagged operations center at Khe Sanh and stopc.o.c.ked the big Lycoming turbine engine. In the distance the burned and twisted hulk of an Air Force C- 1 30 lay blackened and bare. Wolf Lochert jumped down.

A lance corporal ran up to him. He looked dirty and hara.s.sed. ”You guys have about two minutes to get the h.e.l.l out of here. We're under constant mortar and rocket attack.

Your chopper is a magnet.” He skidded to a stop and saluted when he saw he was talking to an officer and not a warrant officer. Wolf returned the salute, surprised the man was saluting in a combat zone. The corporal pointed to the north. Fog rolled just to the edge of the east-west runway.

”Sir, the NVA has heavy guns and the biggest mortars in the world looking at us. The minute that fog burns off and he sees your bird, he'll shoot. Probably already trying to zero in on the sound.”

”All we need is a little fuel and some oil, Corporal,” Bob Berry said as he climbed down. One by one, most of the men untangled themselves and stiffly climbed out. They walked around and stared at the holes in the machine. Three stayed inside tending the wounded. Four dead lay under the rear canvas pull-down seats. Wolf began checking the Marines.

Two were lightly wounded.

”n.o.body stays on the ground long enough to refuel anymore,” the corporal said. ”Our fuel facilities are all blown to h.e.l.l anyhow.”

”Where is your operations officer?” Wolf asked the gunnery sergeant.

”Actually, sir, we didn't have one right now. You see, he was. .h.i.t . ..”

A Marine major in battle gear leading four Marines with rifles walked up. The major nodded at Lochert, and, with the help of the riflemen, began to round up the seven Marines next to Wolf.

”Wait a minute, Major. What's going on here?” Wolf asked.

”Sir, these men are under arrest for desertion in the face of the enemy.”

”THEY ARE WHATT' Wolf Lochert thundered.

”Sir, they're-” the major began.

Lochert cut him off. ”WHERE IS YOUR COLONEL, YOU BLITHERING s.h.i.+THEAD?”

”Sir, the colonel is the one who sent me to arrest these men.”

”Do you know where they went or what they did?” Wolf rasped. Without waiting for an answer, he called the gunnery sergeant to him. ”Tell me, why did You come to Lang Tri?”

The man, whipcord muscled and thin, looked embarra.s.sed. He licked his lips and glanced at the major. ”Ah . . . well, you see, sir, we, ah, were part of the original team, and when we heard you were in deep s.h.i.+t, but we couldn't go, weren't permitted, you know, so, ah, a few of us decided to, ah, you know, sort Of Mount a patrol . . .”

” Were you or your men on any a.s.signed duty at the time?” Wolf asked.

”No, sir.”

”Did you desert any post or miss any duty because of the patrol.”

”No, sir, we did not.”

Wolf Lochert turned and leaned toward the major, fists on hips. ”Then why is the charge desertion in the face of the enemy?”

The major licked his lips. ”Because we could have been attacked at any time, and they would have failed to meet an all-hands muster.”

”Were you attacked?” Wolf asked.

”No, sir,”

”Then how do you know they would have failed to make the muster?”

”Sir, they were absent without leave.”

The major was fl.u.s.tered. ”Sir, I'm only doing what my colonel told me to do.”

”I want to see this colonel.” Wolf knew he was violating all protocol by subjecting a fellow officer to abuse in front of junior officers and enlisted men. Yet he felt it only right.

Americans had rescued Americans, by G.o.d, and no one was going to get in trouble over that. A mortar crumped on the runway, then another.

Warrant Officer Bob Berry stepped forward. ”Sir, we've just enough fuel to make Quang Tri. The oil we can do without. We are ready to launch.

In fact, we've got to launch if you want to get the WIAs to Quang Tri today. There are no hospital facilities here.”

The gunnery sergeant from the rescue team stepped forward. The name sewn on his blouse was Woods. ”Sir, we'll be okay.”

Wolf clasped the man's hand. ”You're right, you'll be okay. I'll be on the horn to COMUSMACV tonight.” He turned to the major. ”These men just saved our lives. I'm putting each one in for a Distinguished Service Cross, and it will be approved-outside of Marine channels. Tell that to your colonel.” He spun toward Berry. ”Okay, let's get out of here.”

For the first part of the forty-minute run to Quang Tri, Major Wolf Lochert talked to his men and wrote into a green field notebook. Then he sat next to Toby Parker and gave him a bear hug that bulged Parker's eyes.

”You dummy air jockey, you stupid zoomie. Don't you ever learn? You're supposed to run around the sky, not the ground See, look at your feet.

Just look at them.” Wolfs simian face looked concerned. He and Toby Parker had become close two years previously during Toby's time at Bien Hoa. Lochert and a few members of the III Corps Mike Force had been cut off and trapped. Toby had been overhead in the backseat of a tiny O-1 with a pilot who found the team. Then the pilot had been killed, and Toby, who had been an administrative courier, not a pilot, at the time, had kept the plane aloft long enough to call in a rescue team.

Then the plane had crashed. Toby had been extracted with Lochert and his men.