Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [136]
“Fire into that clump over there!”
They reared up to fling grenades.
The cacophony was only in its first minutes when someone began hollering for the medic. Doc Miller darted up to Walker, “Who's hit?”
The answer hit hard: “Lonsdale.”
“Where is he?”
Walker pointed, but Miller couldn't see anything. Then he caught a flicker of movement from the depression running along the village road. Oh, for Christ's sake, he's on the other side of the road! How am I going to get to him without getting killed? Doc Miller had been in the field four months, at the end of a line that began when he transferred colleges and lost two credits and his student deferment. He was from a conservative business family in the midwest that believed the Army was an unpleasant duty that could not be avoided in good faith. So, there he was. He was the medic and these were his guys. Word was passed to cover Doc Miller. Everyone crammed a new, full magazine into their M16 whether they needed to reload or not and blasted away into the bushes.
Miller burst across the trail and tumbled into the ditch. Lonsdale had a sucking chest wound and had stopped breathing. His M16 was dented from the AK47 burst. The ditch was too shallow to get down in and work on his man, so Miller ended up on his knees, bent over, his back horribly exposed. His heart pounded furiously at the rounds snapping past, but at the same time part of his brain was so plugged in to doing the job that he barely heard the fire. He dragged Lonsdale into the shock position with his legs elevated. He gave him mouth-to-mouth, then started heart massage, but the bullet hole was so close to the heart that when he pushed down he could feel the shattered ribs giving away.
“I need some help!”
The platoon poured it on again and Walker sprinted to the ditch. He held a piece of plastic supertight over the wound while Miller started the mouth-to-mouth again. Lonsdale was pale and rounds were snapping through the brush around them. “Miller, he's dead.”
“Give me another minute.”
“We gotta get outta here! He's dead! You can't help him!”
The NVA sniper was still placing his shots carefully. Doc Miller noticed their Tiger Scout lying behind a tree returning fire–and he was abruptly shot in place. Miller rolled to him. Hong, a baby-faced soldier, was groaning, “I'm on fire, I'm on fire!” Miller ripped off his shirt: The bullet had torn down Hong's back between the skin and the rib cage. There was a lump-shaped impression where the bullet had finally lodged.
The NVA kept firing. No one knew from where exactly.
Lieutenant Sprinkles was on the radio with the battalion operations officer: He was to pull back and recover Lonsdale's body after supporting arms had been brought to bear. They moved back the way they'd come. Walker jogged from the trees. Sprinkles and Mize stood together on a dike and quickly asked him if he knew where Miller was. He, and several others, had not pulled back.
Walker turned right around.
Doc Miller had dragged Hong to a deep depression where he tried to slip a U.S. twenty-gauge needle into the miniature veins of the Vietnamese scout so he could get an IV going. He hadn't even been aware that the platoon had left until Walker suddenly jumped into the ditch. Miller and a few GIs who had been with him got Hong between them and stumbled back as Walker knelt at the edge of the ditch with his M16 to cover them. A medevac darted in as the platoon took up positions right back along the berms where they'd