13th Valley (72 page)

“What's that,” Cherry whispered.

Egan grabbed his face. He was silently crying.

In the dark, in the rain, two NVA sapper teams noiselessly crawled up the cliffs of the north escarpment to the rock outcropping which held Delta's NDP. Below, half of Alpha was asleep, half was on vigilant watch. Egan was in the midst of dream. The sappers slid silently to the perimeter edge then froze and observed. For two days the NVA had been watching the Americans from above. Delta barely altered their alignment from the moment they set up and they quickly established a routine movement pattern. The sapper unit studied Delta's fighting positions, the positioning of the poncho hootches and the behavior habits of Delta's troops. They carefully conceived and detailed their attack. At dusk they began to execute the plan.

The two teams climbed straight up the cliff, one settled among the rocks at the cliff edge, the other veered and followed the path which Alpha's rendezvous element had used during the afternoon. For three hours the sapper teams motionlessly watched as Delta troops fidgeted and fussed and divulged their positions. Then the team at the cliff edge penetrated the perimeter. The sapper team leader found two Delta soldiers asleep with their M-60 machine gun on bi-pod between them. Noiselessly the sapper thrust a thin-bladed bayonet into the first soldier's throat. He drove the blade upward toward the back of the head, twisted and withdrew. The body twitched then relaxed. Next to him his buddy slept on. The sapper cautiously circled the dead man. The second guard awoke, startled. He tried to sit up to scream. The sapper smashed stiff fingers into his Adam's apple knocking the man back, stifling his scream. Then, quickly, he bayoneted the man's throat. The team infiltrated the NDP, worked to predetermined points among the rocks and brush and became rigid. At Delta's CP two men were smoking.

The second sapper team remained outside the perimeter. Slowly, soundlessly, they crawled about Delta's claymore mines. As they found each one, they turned it around and aimed it in upon the defenders. Then they all lay quietly. After a pause of fifteen minutes the outside sapper team again began to move. They made a little noise. Delta did not react. The sappers moved again making more noise.

“Sir,” a Delta perimeter guard came to the CP. “I think we got movement inside the claymores.”

“You see anything?” O'Hare asked. He was up. He put out his cigarette.

“Whatcha got, Bobby?” an RTO asked.

“I aint sure. Bat Man thought he heard somethin.”

“Throw a frag at it,” the RTO said.

“No, wait a minute,” O'Hare said. “Call the firebase,” he directed the RTO. “Tell em we want some illum.”

The guard returned to his position and several minutes later a mortar-launched illumination flare popped over Delta casting the rocks and vegetation in a queer flat light. The sappers remained low and motionless. More flares popped and floated gently downwind on their parachutes. The sapper team within Delta's perimeter eyed their foes. The illum glimmered on the wet poncho-hootches. More flares popped. The mortar team kept the area lighted for twenty minutes until O'Hare cancelled the mission. Delta went back to sleep.

Two hours passed. The sappers had not moved a hair. Delta twisted beneath their poncho tents. “Let's keep it down,” O'Hare called out to a perimeter position at one point.

“Augh, Sir, it's Willie,” a troop called back. “The fucker keeps snorin.”

A third voice called out, “Bullshit. Now shut up.”

From another position a man giggled. Then the chatter subsided and Delta slept again. The sappers moved. The outside team infiltrated between two sleeping guard positions. The inside team spread out. On a single click-signal all the sappers unloaded and fused their sachel charges. Then deftly they placed the charges by and where possible between the heads of the sleeping Americans. Immediately they began their withdrawal. The first team in crawled back to their cliff entrance and grabbed the M-60 and the ammunition. The second team crawled out. The first sachel charge exploded. Then another and another. All the GIs were up. People were running, screaming. More sachel charges exploded. O'Hare's RTO found one between him and the captain and flung it out of their hootch. It exploded wounding a perimeter guard who had run for the CP as the blasts began. Someone yelled, “SAPPERS!” An M-60 opened up firing into the NDP. Other soldiers fired at their own men. Several Delta troops began running, shouting, trying to organize the unit. The M-60 fired upon the running troops. There was mass confusion. Delta did not know who was who. Then came a quick succession of small explosions.

Explosions vary in length of time depending upon the amount and type of explosive. A quick explosion makes a sharp sound. Slower, longer burning materials cause a deeper sound, more of a roar. The sachel charges were slow and of relatively little power. The first few blew heads apart but most at best only blew out eardrums or eyes. At Alpha, a kilometer away, the old-timers recognized the sound. Four months earlier, on Hill 714, the NVA had killed five Alpha boonierats using similar tactics. Now the NVA were throwing sachel charges into Delta's perimeter to increase the chaos, get the GIs up and running so they would be shot by their own men.

The unmistakable crackblast of a claymore resounded from Delta. Everyone in Alpha was up then down. Alpha lay perfectly still, prone, in the mud. On 100 percent alert. At Delta a perimeter guard had squeezed his claymore claquer firing device. The claymore removed his face.

“What's that?” Cherry whispered to Egan.

“Sappers. Nobody up there firin. See if you can monitor.”

“I don't know their freq.”

A call came from El Paso. “Pass the word. Sit tight.”

Egan slithered off to check his platoon. “Lie quiet,” he repeated to each position. “Ambush team and LPs comin in. Watch for em. Don't fire em up.” At Jax and Marko's location Egan found the two talking. “Stop the chattering. Keep it down.”

Jax rolled over. “Oh Man. Cut it out. If yo was a dink, would yo come tricky-trottin inta our AO? Theys fuckin wid Delta, Man. They aint even gowin fuck with us after they woke everybody up.”

El Paso radioed the platoon RTOs. “L-T says we're movin when the Dust-Offs come. Have em packed up.”

When the medical evacuation helicopters reached the Khe Ta Laou they repeated the night medevac procedure they had used when Bravo had been hit five days earlier. A flare ship circled high above dropping flares and illuminating the entire sky. Four Cobras and two LOHs escorted the four Dust-Off Hueys. Above the flock of birds was the charlie-charlie of the GreenMan. The noise was tremendous after the silence of the night.

On the valley floor Egan led off. Jax walked his slack. The LPs and the ambush team, all accounted for, formed a rear drag. The light above the medevac site glowed in the fog over the valley but on the ground it was dark. Egan bulled his way through the vegetation. He did not cut a path. He moved slowly. Sometimes he crawled, sometimes he sidestepped, but he never stopped. He used a lensmatic compass for direction and he led Alpha east. He walked as if he knew the terrain, as if he had been expecting to lead the column on this exact move, as if he had practiced it. The medical evacuation from Delta took over an hour. The birds did not extract all the dead or the routine wounded. They would be evacuated during daylight. The birds removed only the eleven seriously wounded.

Alpha had moved almost 200 meters east by the time the last medevac and the escort fleet left the valley. Egan stopped. He sat down and waited as Brooks had instructed. Behind him the entire company sat. And sat quietly for the rest of the night. The next day would begin their fight.

SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES

THE FOLLOWING RESULTS FOR OPERATIONS IN THE O'REILLY/ BARNETT/JEROME AREA WERE REPORTED FOR THE 24-HOUR PERIOD ENDING 2359 18 AUGUST 70:

RAIN CONTINUED ON THIS DATE THROUGHOUT THE OPERATIONAL AREA CAUSING THE CANCELLATION OF 18 TAC AIR SORTIES AND THE POSTPONEMENT OF ONE COMPANY-SIZE ASSAULT.

ONE KILOMETER WEST OF FIREBASE BARNETT, AN ELEMENT OF CO B, 7/402 ENGAGED AN UNKNOWN SIZE ENEMY FORCE IN A BUNKER COMPLEX KILLING ONE NVA AND CAPTURING AN NVA 1ST LIEUTENANT. THE POW WAS EVACUATED FOR INTERROGATION. THE UNIT ALSO CAPTURED ONE AK-47 AND TWO RPG LAUNCHERS.

LATER IN THE MORNING, RECON, CO E, 7/402 WAS AMBUSHED BY AN UNKNOWN SIZE ENEMY FORCE IN THE VICINITY OF HILL 848 AT YD 193303. THE UNIT RETURNED ORGANIC WEAPONS FIRE KILLING ONE NVA AND CAPTURING ONE POW. THE POW WAS EVACUATED FOR MEDICAL TREATMENT.

AT 1805 HOURS CO A, 7/402 DISCOVERED A CULTIVATED CORNFIELD VICINITY YD 158320. THE FIELD WAS DESTROYED BY ARTILLERY FROM FIREBASE BARNETT.

ARVN UNITS MADE NO SIGNIFICANT CONTACTS ON THIS DATE.

C
HAPTER
26

19 A
UGUST
1970

In the gray yet dark Egan rose. He rose from the exact place he had sat hours earlier. He had not moved all night. Nor had he slept. Jax fell in behind Egan. They did not speak. Next back, Cherry was on the radio. He keyed the handset and whispered almost inaudibly, “Four, Two. Moving. Out.” He did not wait for a response.

Behind the point Alpha rose, moving now in three silent, unequal, parallel columns. 1st Plt and the Co CP led down the center. The formation looked like a wide based bi-pod. 2d Plt moved south 50 meters toward the river then turned and followed 1st, lagging back 150 to 200 meters on the right flank. 3d Plt moved left 50 meters toward the road and followed 1st by 100 meters. The formation gave Alpha partial sweep advantages plus surprise drags to catch enemy followers and flanking and maneuver elements should they ran head-on into the enemy. Egan led the head column eastward over successive undulating rolls through brush then bamboo and brush again. The valley floor rose toward the headwaters. Rain fell. The mist thinned.

In column formation action usually happens at point, sometimes at drag, seldom in the middle. To middle-soldiers days passed as endless meaningless humps, walking, carrying a rack and a weapon, following the man in front. Many middle-soldiers neither knew nor cared to know where they were going. Some did not care to know why. Some men gravitated to the middle. That was how they wanted it. To Cherry, it was maddening. He had spent most of six days at middle. Now as third man back he was eager, almost zealous. His passions were boiling. He did not know why. Twice Jax motioned him to back away, to keep his interval. He calmed himself by singing marching songs within his mind.
I don't know but I been told
, Cherry as march leader sang out.
I don't know but I been told,
his fictitious platoon answered back all in cadence.
That her pussy's made o gold,
he sang.
That her pussy's made o gold,
they answered. Cherry yelled,
Sound Off!
The platoon,
One Two.
Cherry,
Sound Off!
The platoon,
Three Four
. Cherry,
Cadence count.
They,
One two three four, Onetwo—threefour.
He began another verse.
Had a girl from North Korea …

Egan led Alpha east then south then east again. The valley floor swelled and fell yet each rise was higher than each fall. By dawn Alpha had crossed a kilometer of jungle and risen 100 meters. It was still raining. The mist was below them. Egan climbed slowly up the first real hill in the valley floor. At the crest he stopped and squatted. He motioned Jax down and Cherry forward. From the crest they could see the river to the right and rolling hills before them. On the side of a mound, perhaps 170 meters away, there was a squad of NVA soldiers. They were walking in column, spaced, swinging their arms freely, seemingly oblivious to everything. Egan flattened. Cherry squatted slightly below him. Egan counted: eleven soldiers, eight with rifles, three unarmed. Every enemy soldier wore a pack. Egan immediately, instinctively, estimated their rucks to weigh forty pounds. They were traveling heavy, east, uphill. Maybe toward Bravo, Egan thought. He grabbed Cherry's radio. He called Brooks, reported quickly. The flank columns stopped. Egan called the battalion TOC directly. Simultaneously he produced a small set of binoculars from his ruck and a topo map from a fatigue leg pocket. Egan handed Cherry the binoculars. “Watch em,” he whispered. Cherry's excitement doubled.