Chapter Ten.

Stacey awoke to the distant sound of a bugler playing "reveille" amplified through the base's PA system. She eased her arm out from under the sleeping Alex's shoulder and glanced at the alarm clock… 08.00. She looked back at him. They both slept naked because of the heat, and his tight muscled body was half-covered by the thin, slightly damp sheet.

She smiled gently at the memory of the sensual pleasure of her warm, smooth skin against his. So, they had been slightly drunk from the serious drinking that had gone on in the mess the previous evening… but so what? Back in their quarters, in the narrow cot, she had surrendered to his gentle hands nestling her against him, exploring her; safe and warm as his arms moved to encircle her. She wrapped herself around him; her nails furrowing down his back leaving deep scratches as they moved together, giving and receiving. For a long time, nothing and nobody else existed in the darkness but the two of them, as they blotted out the dark dreams and deeper fears of just how fragile their hopes and dreams of the future were, in this vicious, and unforgiving war.

Later… much later, she had pressed her cheek against his chest; closing her eyes as she began to drift away into sleep. The feel of him inside her, against her, beside her. That had been real. This had felt like home.

It had been bound to happen sooner or later, and she didn't regret one moment of it. Alex had been slightly circumspect at first; apprehensive that it would irrevocably change their relationship; but had proven himself to be a gentle and thoughtful lover. She smiled softly to herself; it had been inevitable…she had been attracted to him… and him to her, since the first moment they had met in Long Tieng. The isolation from female company up there, combined with the continuous danger of flying as a Raven confirmed the simple truth that a man who wakes alone will long to have a woman just as surely as a man who wakes next to his wife will think of having breakfast. And who in the hell was in any sort of position to criticise them? They both risked it all every time they flew; and, as McCauley had said in a moment of supreme irony:

"Volunteering for certain death is what those dumbasses back in Washington reserve our highest honours for. It's just a pity that none of us will ever be awarded one… seeing as how we're not here."

Having showered and dressed, Stacey and Alex made their way across to the mess hall for breakfast. Half-way across the chopper pad, the line-chief met them. He looked at Stacey.

'Sorry Ma'am; your bird is dead. We're gonna have to strip her right down, and that'll take weeks. Command has notified Vientiane, and they say that you, and Sandman will have to take the twin-Beech back up there. She's due for a ten-thousand-hours major, and we just don't have the facilities here. You are scheduled to leave in an hour.'

The line-chief hadn't been exaggerating when he remarked that the Beech C-45 that they had to fly back to Vientiane needed a major service. She sat on the concrete; her battered nose straining up towards the heavens, quietly dripping oil. Her flanks were scoured and scratched from years of faithful service flying in and out of rough, inaccessible landing strips, and her paint was scuffed and fading from exposure to the merciless tropical sun. As soon as they entered the fuselage they could tell she was an old faithful warhorse. She smelled just like an old airplane ought to smell... the evocative mosaic of hot metal and "Duralac" jointing compound; old leather, warm oil, hydraulic fluid, and rubber; interspersed with a faint aroma of sweat and cigars. Sandman grinned.

'OK, Baby-Girl; d'you want to take her?'

Stacey nodded.

'No problem, Alex; I am type-approved on these old ladies.'

He nodded; standing back as she squeezed through the narrow, cabin forward bulkhead door, and eased into the left seat. As Sandman took the right seat and began the internal checks; outside, on the baking concrete, the line-chief was overseeing two mechanics completing the external pre-flight inspection. They were swinging the propellers through the specified ten rotations to feel for resistance and a possible hydraulic lock. Stacey smiled sympathetically to them. It was hard work swinging those Pratt & Whitney engines... she knew... she'd done it. After the prop swings, they would check, and if necessary, refill the oil... this old girl used about one quart-per-hour-per-engine.

She looked back to the instrument panel and controls. The cockpit was very well arranged. The instrument panel was typical, with flight instruments in a "T"-formation in front of both seats. In the centre section of the panel were the engine instruments, radios, and other equipment. The engine starting switches were on the lower console on the left side. The six tallest levers were the primary engine controls: propeller RPM, throttles, and mixture control; with the throttle levers being in the centre of the console; the prop levers to the left and the mixtures to the right.

The line-chief gave Stacey a thumbs up, and rotated his finger in a horizontal circle in the air to denote that she could start the engines. She glanced at Sandman. He nodded. Prime engines. She grasped handle of the primer located at the rear edge of the centre console and pumped six shots on number one; then switched across to number two and gave the primer six more strokes. Mixtures rich, props to fine pitch; throttles open until just after the gear warning switch 'clicked'… fire extinguishers selected... OK. Start number one... the starboard engine.

She selected right-hand engine; pressed the start button and counted three propeller blades moving past the top of the cowling. She counted off six more blades passing her line of sight over the cowling, then reached down and flipped up the magneto switches. The wheezing howl of the electric starter echoed across the concrete, as after five more revolutions, the engine fired up with a plume of smoke and the unforgettable sound of a big radial waking up. She repeated the start sequence with the number two port engine, and then settled more comfortably into her seat as she watched the instruments come alive.

Warming the engines was critical. She couldn't run them above a thousand RPM with the oil temperature at less than forty degrees centigrade. Even in this heat and humidity, it would take a while, but it gave Sandman time to set up the avionics and get everything organised. The needles of the pressure and temperature gauges were creeping up. OK. Time to go! She lined up the nose of the twin-Beech; reached down to the console and pushed the T-bar on the lower section of the throttle quadrant, to straighten the castoring tail wheel. OK. Try with one brake to check if it is centred. Fine... no jink one way or the other. She twisted the T-lever to lock the tail wheel; then, with a final check of the instruments, and a green light from the ground control tower; she pushed the throttle levers forward and began to roll down the long, right-hand Da Nang runway. No flaps needed for take-off. Power up to thirty-five-and-a-half inches of manifold pressure. She felt the tail wheel beginning to rise off the concrete; the old girl would lift-off and fly at about sixty knots. The control yoke was live and sensitive; the rudder pedals were shivering gently through the soles of her boots… then the rumble ceased, and the twin-Beech began her clamber into the sky. Stacey reached for the gear-up lever and accelerated to about ninety knots in the climb. Da Nang bay was approaching fast. OK. Five thousand feet indicated... Sandman's hand was on the throttles. He shouted across the cockpit above the deep snarl of the radial engines.

'Reducing to two thousand, and thirty inches MAP. In these old birds best cruise is eighteen-hundred RPM and enough MAP to maintain about one-twenty-five knots for best range, or twenty-three-hundred, and thirty-three inches MAP for maximum speed which will give you one hundred and sixty, to one hundred and seventy knots; but she will burn sixty to seventy gallons an hour at that power setting. Our best shot cross-country is gonna be one-fifty knots with a fuel burn of about forty gallons-per-hour.'

The approximate distance as the crow flies from Da Nang to Vientiane was almost four hundred miles .According to Sandman's calculations that meant that there was ample fuel provided nothing untoward came up on the flight. She nodded, and began a gentle turn onto her course heading of two-eight-five degrees west, as the sparkling aquamarine blue of Da Nang bay slipped from view beneath the starboard wing. She glanced at her wristwatch, and then across at Sandman.

'Two and a half hours flying, Alex. Home for lunch. What do you want to do then?'

He grinned, reached down, and squeezed her knee.

'I reckon we'll figure on something.'

The old Lao farmer, Xaikeo Phong was leading his water buffalo along the Nam Khong Leng river valley when he heard the approaching drone of an airplane. Apathetically, he glanced up towards the direction from which the sound was coming. He unslung the old MAS-49 rifle; a French relic of the First Indochina war, and waited. A small, silver, twin-engined airplane came into view; flying at what he estimated was a height of about a thousand metres. Casually, he aimed the rifle in the general direction of the airplane and squeezed the trigger. He glanced up again as the airplane disappeared over the tree-line, then stoically re-slung the weapon over his shoulder and ambled after his water buffalo. He usually fired a round at the passing airplanes just to pass the time. He never imagined that he would ever actually hit one of them.

This time though, it was different. Had his view not been obscured by the trees, he would have seen a thin trail of something begin to stream back from one of the little airplane's engines. In the cockpit of the twin-Beech, Stacey and Sandman heard a bang, followed by the port engine oil pressure gauge spinning back to zero. Quickly, Stacey punched the prop feathering button, but nothing happened. The engine temperature gauge was going off the clock and the port wing suddenly dropped; yawing the airplane across the sky. Sandman grabbed the copilot's yoke and, together with Stacey, heaved the airplane level. The port engine was smoking badly… the gills wouldn't operate, and hydraulic pressure was dropping fast. He swore volubly.

'Fuck! We've caught a Golden B-B. Brace yourself, Baby-Girl we're going in!'

Stacey didn't need telling. She was searching for somewhere to try to land. Without hydraulics, the flaps and landing gear had dropped; the stall warning horn was warbling its "Peeyo! Peeyo!... Peeyo! Peeyo!"… and there was nothing below except for triple canopy for as far as the eye could see. She glanced at him.

'Well, honey; it looks as though our love-life was short and sweet…'

Sandman gave a wry grin.

'You don't blow me out that easily, Baby-Girl. I've got one trick left.'

The triple canopy was coming up fast. As the first treetops brushed the belly of the airplane, he chopped power to the starboard engine and, with his feet braced on the instrument panel, hauled back on the yoke. The twin-Beech's nose came up imperceptibly and they hit the treetops tail-first, at an angle of about fifteen degrees. It wasn't much; but it was just enough to prevent the nose and cockpit from taking the major impact. The world dissolved into a cacophony of splintering timber and tearing metal, with a kaleidoscope of light and shade whirling around them as the fuselage plummeted down through the triple canopy. With a bone-jarring impact, the battered fuselage finally hit the jungle floor.

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Momentarily stunned; Stacey wondered if this was what it was like being dead. No; it couldn't be. She was gazing up through the shattered windshield at the dappled sunlight lancing down through the trees. What was that damned clicking noise? She slowly turned her head and saw Sandman mindlessly going through the shut-down procedure; flicking off all the switches… resetting the throttle and pitch levers… She reached across and grabbed his arm.

'Alex… what the fuck d'you think you're doing? Let's get the hell out of here. Gasoline is pissing out of the tanks. She might go up at any moment!'

He looked blankly at her; then seemed to gather his wits.

'Damn right, Baby-Girl. Let's go!'

The fuselage was buckled to hell from about the fifth frame bay back. There was no way they would be able to reach the door or the emergency escape hatch on the opposite side of the fuselage. Fortunately, the pilot's side-window was big enough for them to squeeze through; although it was quite a drop to the ground. Stacey jumped first, followed by Sandman. They lay amongst the tangled undergrowth, hardly daring to move in case they discovered that they couldn't. Sandman turned to Stacey slowly and gingerly.

'Are you OK, Baby-Girl? Not hurt anywhere?

She shook her head.

Apart from aching all over, I'm fine. How about you?'

'I'm fine… but this has really screwed it. We'll never make it back in time for Thanksgiving Turkey! Now, let's get the hell outta here!'

They found that they were a few metres from the edge of a dry rice paddy surrounded by a low ditch that rimmed the rice field. They sprinted forward and flung themselves into it, hugging the earth while they caught their breath. Behind them; suddenly there was a big whoosh, similar to the effect a Zippo lighter has after being freshly overfilled and then lit, as the leaking gasoline from the twin-Beech's fractured tanks ignited.

It was a strange noise in the early dawn that brought Stacey and Sandman out of their fitful sleep. It was a different sound from the sporadic sounds of the jungle around them. It was the grumble of heavy machinery.

Stacey opened her eyes and looked cautiously out over the rim of the low berm that surrounded the dry rice field where they had spent the night. Nothing was stirring out there. Remnants of the night fog were being dissipated by the rays of the early morning sun. She glanced at Sandman. His eyes were cautious. Should they investigate the sounds? Did any of the enemy… if they were indeed, enemy, even know that they were there? The wreck of the twin-Beech had burned out during the night. It had to have been nothing less than pure luck that the conflagration hadn't been spotted by the enemy… if, in fact, there were any enemy about at the time. Under cover of the patchy mist, could they risk investigating the source of that noise? It sounded like trucks, the throaty diesel roar of heavy machinery. Were they friendly? If so their problems were over; but, if they were unfriendly, they had to radio it in.

Cautiously they crept out over the parapet of the dry berm, and moved off, skirting around the dry paddy and creeping through the encroaching undergrowth in the direction of the noise. Carefully; so as not to reveal their presence, Stacey and Sandman crawled towards the edge of the tangled undergrowth, and furtively parted the thick hedgerow.

Not ten feet away from their position they saw, what had to be the Ho Chi Minh trail. It was choked with military vehicles of every description… mostly Russian equipment; all painted up in the strange hieroglyphics of the North Vietnamese Army… and all of it was heading south. There was another road coming down from the north, joining the first road at a busy intersection. Jesus H Christ! This must be a major branch-off route for the Communist armies heading south on one of the northernmost feeders to the Ho Chi Minh trail. He glanced at her. Any radio transmission… even brief; would be a dead giveaway, using the Guard channel on their small survival radio. With the going price on a pilot's head in the Vietcong marketplace, the enemy would mount an all-out search to find them if the transmission was intercepted. The camouflaged tanks, trucks, heavy guns, truckloads of troops thundered by, churning a cloud of dust that mixed with the ground fog as Sandman and Stacey crouched in the undergrowth wondering what the hell they should do next. He motioned silently that they should get away from this road as quickly as possible. Carefully. They retraced their route to the relative safety of the paddy berm. Sandman glanced at Stacey.

'We've gotta call this in. Be ready to move if they pick up the transmission. She nodded silently.

He pulled out the survival radio and clicked it on.

'Bird-dog from Sandman,'

He whispered breathlessly.

The reply came over almost instantly.

"Come in, Sandman."

Thank the Good Lord. Bird-dog was already in the air.

'Gooks. Thousands of the little bastards; and heavy equipment… half a klick west of my location.'

"Roger, Sandman. We'll drop some gravel. Blink your mirror."

'Roger. Stand by.'

Sandman searched through the pockets of his survival vest until he found the small rectangular mirror with the hole in the centre. Searching the sky, he spotted the little plane circling high above and out to the east. He took a sighting on the airplane through the hole in the mirror, and flashed the reflection of the low sun at the high-flying airplane three times. Within a couple of minutes which seemed like hours, the radio crackled again;

"Roger, Sandman. Position marked. Sandys inbound ten-mike, Gravel drop. Bird-dog out."

Ten minutes later, they heard the unmistakable roar of a flight of Skyraiders approaching from the west. Nicknamed Sandy; the Douglas A-1H Skyraider was the oldest prop-driven combat airplane in the Air Force's inventory; but it carried one hell of a punch.

The Sandy pilots came thundering in. Their arrival was never supposed to be a secret. If the enemy knew an area was seeded with gravel they went nowhere near it. And rightly so. Gravel was a nasty little touch introduced during the Vietnam War. It was a small, innocent-looking explosive mine contained in a small green or brown camouflage fabric pouch, packed with coarse ground glass. It was released in large numbers from low-flying aircraft. When dropped; no fuse was required because the explosive became shock-sensitive after dispersal… it was capable of being detonated without a fuse on contact. To allow them to be handled and dropped from the air, the mines were stored soaked in the chemical, Freon. Once released from their container, the Freon would evaporate in between three and eight minutes, thereby arming the mines.

These devices sent out a web of feelers in all directions, very much like the tentacles of an octopus. Brushing one of the feelers was not necessarily fatal, but the explosion could neatly rip off an arm or leg. Further refinements to the tiny mine sometimes included its camouflage in the form of dog turds; a form employed with considerable success in keeping the NVA off the Ho Chi Minh trail.

On the first pass they heard the menacing rattle of the little mines dumping nearby. Immediately the sound of small-arms fire opened up from the road. Completely ignoring the barrage, the Skyraiders roared in low, making pass after pass, and seeding the entire road area. They also dropped a thick line of Gravel across the hedgerow, thus protecting Sandman and Stacey from any advance by the NVA towards their hideout. This certainly protected them, but also limited the direction in which they could move. They could plainly hear the high-pitched, excited voices of the North Vietnamese rising above the growl of the traffic, but no figures appeared; they were far too busy trying to avoid being blown up by the Gravel. Sandman and Stacey crouched ibehind the paddy berm and breathed a little more easily. Bird-dog had them zeroed in. The SAR guys knew where they were; but, as to whether they would risk a dust-off this close to the road was another matter. They would just have to wait and see what would be decided.

As the morning progressed and the last of the early morning mist dispersed; "Just wait and see" was becoming untenable. The NVA were cautiously probing the undergrowth at the roadsides and scanning the surrounding open tracts of undergrowth for any clue as to why the Skyraiders had laid an area denial corridor between them and the countryside to the east. Several of them were cautiously moving through the scattering of Gravel, watchfully scanning the surrounding terrain.

From their concealed position behind the berm, Stacey could make out at least six figures in tan uniforms... two of whom were wearing officers' green pith helmets bearing the red communist star shining brightly in the morning sunlight. She and Sandman crouched lower in the ditch. There was nowhere to run without being spotted. The NVA were casting around in a typical search pattern. They knew there was somebody there. Stacey glanced at Sandman.

'Fuck this, Alex. We're not going to just roll over and let these little assholes give us a long vacation in the Hanoi Hilton.'

She drew her sidearm, and cocked the hammer. Sandman was about to say something when the survival radio crackled softly.

"Sandman from Firefly Three Actual... Sandman from Firefly Three Actual; Come in."

Sandman snatched at the radio.

'Firefly Three from Sandman. Go to Baker Channel,'

The reply came fast.

"Sandman from Firefly Three Actual... Fuck that. You figger they don't already know y'all there?' Blink me three."

Sandman scanned the skies. They could hear the distant, deep drone of Firefly Three... where the hell was he? Suddenly Stacey motioned out to the south-west. There! A solitary black speck orbiting about five klicks out. Sighting through the hole in the mirror, he caught the sun and wiggled the mirror three times. The radio crackled again.

"Gotcha, Sandman. You didn't think we'd leave y'all out there with your butts hangin' out did ya'? Stand by to haul ass outta there, toot-sweet. I'm packing nape and I'm comin' in hot."

The radio went dead. Out to the south-west the black speck was turning on a short roll in and the engine roar was rising fast.

The tan figures out in the field hesitated. Whistles shrilled out on the road...

With its supercharger shrieking and its propeller screaming; Firefly Three came howling in as a cacophony of small-arms fire erupted from the road. At a thousand yards out, the Skyraider came streaking in at full-throttle; almost brushing the treetops, with smoke streaming from the wings as he opened up with his four, twenty-millimetre cannon. The tan figures in the field disappeared in a maelstrom of bursting HE shells, boiling dust clouds; splatterings of blood and God knows what else. Sandman and Stacey broke cover from the relative safety of the paddy berm and ran as hard as they could for the tree line to the east as Firefly Three released his ordnance of four, silver BLU-1/B 750lb napalm canisters. Each one contained about one hundred U.S. gallons of Napalm B. Sandman's gut tightened. He had glimpsed that the fins had been removed from the silver canisters. This would cause them to tumble unpredictably and create a wider dispersion pattern for the napalm component. He grabbed Stacey's arm and yelled.

'C'mon! Run like fuck! He's gonna fry the whole goddamned strike zone!'

A dull, rolling "Ka-boom" hit them at the same time as the shock wave and a great blast of almost unbearable heat. They were hurled to the ground by the visible shock waves undulating over the terrain, and stared back, appalled by the nightmarish sight of the rolling and tumbling wall of exploding fire burgeoning up from the road and tree-line like a massive, deep-red, orange-and-yellow chain of chrysanthemum blossoms that sucked the very air from their lungs, leaving them gasping for breath, with their eyes and throats stinging from the stench of petroleum mixed with what smelled like burning plastic bags, rubber, and something else... yes, that was it... Sunday roast.

The flaming clouds rolling up into the blue skies turned black as the thick, stinking smoke billowing up from the roaring furnace that used to be a jungle blotted out the sun. Sandman dragged his body across Stacey and pressed her into the ground. The exploding ammo on the trucks was flying everywhere. They lay like that for perhaps, thirty seconds, feeling the wind whipping over them as it was sucked out of the surrounding jungle across the fields into the dead area of the road. They could breathe more easily now; the warm smells of the jungle was easing their discomfort. Firefly Three came blasting overhead so low that its black shadow seemed to be snapping at its heels, then whipped up into a sweeping climb-away through the stinking smoke cloud.

The survival radio crackled into life.

"Sandman from Firefly Three Actual... Sandman from Firefly Three Actual; Come in. Y'all OK down there?"

Sandman pressed the transmit button.

'Firefly Three from Sandman; That's a Rog. Sierra-Hotel strike, right on the button. Outstanding! Thanks a lot.'

"Sandman from Firefly Three Actual... No sweat. Pleased to assist. Jolly green outbound to your position. Y'all have a nice day down there! Out."

Stacey glanced at him.

'Sierra-Hotel strike?'

He grinned.

'Yeah! Sierra-Hotel translates to shit-hot!'

He peered towards the devastation that had once been the road and tree line. There was no sound and no movement other than the crackling flames and pall of black smoke that was stretching across the western horizon. The drone of Firefly Three was becoming fainter as he headed for home somewhere across the Vietnamese border. He rolled off her and brushed a smear of dirt from her cheek. He pulled a smoke flare from his survival vest pocket and laid it on the ground.

'So now, I guess we just wait for the Jolly. Jeez, I could murder a beer!'