Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [167]
The truth was he wasn’t out yet. Mortar rounds began exploding around their position. Grunts and corpsmen rolled for cover and the wounded lay terrified and immobile, but the NVA didn’t have their exact location. None of the rounds hit home.
Finally, a Sea Knight came in behind the tree line and landed in a dry paddy, rotor wash swirling dust high; the back ramp was down and grunts hustled through the whirlwind, humping in the loaded ponchos. No sooner had they gotten the last casualty inside than the mortar tube began thumping again. The overloaded Sea Knight pulled pitch, then banked to gain altitude and passed too near the side of Hill 381. Green tracers began whizzing past the helicopter, but somehow it rose through the fire and flew out of sight.
Besardi stood rooted, amazed, thanking God.
Lieutenant Ronald came up with the platoon’s reserve squad. He’d taken some RPG shrapnel but had refused evacuation. He told Besardi he was the squad leader and that they were moving back towards Hill 381. Besardi didn’t have much of a squad left—only Ball, Dean, Johnson, and Sterling—but they scrounged what ammunition they could from that left in the LZ by the casualties and got going.
Lieutenant Ronald said to move out.
“Okay,” Besardi replied, “I’ll walk the point.”
“No, I’ll walk the point.”
Lieutenant Ronald led the way, Private Besardi walked slack, and they worked their way into a tree line about forty yards back from where they’d been mauled. They set into some dugouts that appeared to be abandoned NVA positions. The grunts in the reserve squad asked questions while the survivors of the first two squads sat shocked and silent. The sun was orange along the ridge line as more Phantoms crashed their bombs and napalm into the crest. Artillery rounds slammed against the bouldered slope. Between salvos, the men could see NVA moving along the face in groups of six or eight, toting AK47s and RPGs, leaves secured to their pith helmets. Oh shit, Besardi thought, don’t tell me they’re going to assault. But they didn’t.
In fact, the 1st NVA Regiment was pulling out.
Chapter Twenty
Finish
By the time the men of Bravo 4th of the 31st Infantry straggled back to where they’d dropped their rucks, the valley was dark. Fearing an ambush or booby trap, Captain Gayler had the company set in thirty meters east of their campsite; only with daylight would they retrieve their gear. As a perimeter was being organized along the terraced dikes, Private Jandecka noticed a dark clump in some bushes. He walked over, stuck the barrel of his M16 into the cushy object, and made sure to note its location. It was one of their rucksacks and, by morning, the canteens on it would be refreshingly chilled by the night air.
At daybreak, Jandecka walked over to get his drink. The ruck was gone, which was not too startling, until a sentry said he’d seen something crawl away from that bush during the night. Jandecka suddenly realized the thing he’d prodded with his M16 was probably an NVA straggler doing his best to hide from the American company setting up around him.
At first light on 29 August, Bravo 4–31 prepared to retrieve their four missing men. Before they moved out, Colonel Henry radioed Captain Gayler to delay his sweep until the arrival of Alpha 4–31. Alpha Company came up the road shortly, and Gayler was amazed to see two USMC M48 main battle tanks from the 1st Tank Battalion raising dust with them. Captain Mantell was grinning to him as he came in the perimeter, “Well, I knew an old tanker like yourself