Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [145]
The rest of the squad followed Spooky back.
Lowe helped Walker pull Macomber into the ditch with him, then stripped away his shirt to see where he was hit. A single piece of shrapnel had entered his heart. Miller started mouth-to-mouth on the unconscious man. He kept trying to bring him around but Macomber only gave a long gasp.
Sergeant Macomber was dead.
Bayer and Walker rushed back across the road to where a group of grunts had rolled Weed into a poncho and were trying to lift him out of the ditch. Weed was barely breathing, but kept moaning as blood matted his blond hair, “I'll be all right, I'll be all right, take care of the others.”
Lowe shouted at Mize to keep the suppressive fire going. Miller got a bandage around Weed's head, then Miller, Walker, and a dazed and bleeding Danny Wood started back down the road with the poncho. They tried to run, but Weed was a big man and they were exhausted. The lieutenant's head hung over the poncho and bounced on the ground. They stopped to shove it back in. His feet dragged. They could see 3d Platoon GIs among the bushes, and they fell exhausted to their knees as Walker hoarsely screamed for help.
Again, no one got up to help.
“This is your lieutenant!”
In a rage, Walker emptied an M16 into the air, then threw the rifle to the ground. They finally managed to drag Weed to a medic, then headed back to their own platoon. Doc Miller stumbled across Voeller, who in obvious agony was trying to crawl back, and he was stunned by the wound. It took three compress bandages to wrap the gory mess, then he tried to help Voeller back. The kid grimaced, “That's all right. You got enough to do. I'll walk.”
“You can't walk like that!”
But he did.
When Lowe got word that dust-offs were coming in back at the road juncture, he told Bayer to take command while he checked on the casualties. Lowe slung several abandoned rifles he saw, then he took hold of one of Macomber's arms while Miller took the other. They started back down the road to the clearing where the wounded were being collected; AK rounds cracked overhead. Two grunts pulled back with a guy named Nick between them. Nick was not hit, but he was pale as a ghost, stumbling, unable to speak.
A Huey medevac landed. Wood, Nick, Janovic, Robinson, Breault, and Voeller were helped aboard. Lowe and Miller lifted in Weed, who was unconscious by now, then hefted Macomber's body into the cabin.
Doc Miller had had to argue with Robert Breault to get him aboard the medevac. Breault was a little Cajun from Louisiana who always kept the guys laughing with his mannerisms and fractured English; he didn't say, “Hi, Doc, how you doing?” but, “Hi, Doc, how you was?” Peppered with shrapnel along his side and back, Breault vigorously protested that he was all right and should stay with his buddies, until Miller locked eyes with him, “Look, you coon-ass, do you want to stay here and die?! Get your ass on that chopper and get out of here now!” Breault didn't say a word. He was crying. Legs dangling from the chopper door, he watched Doc Miller until he was too far away to see. Miller watched him until the medevac was a speck.
Men were brothers, then never saw each other again.
It was time to get out. Making sure everyone else had pulled back, Lowe and Miller picked up helmets and M 16s that lay on the ground, then started back themselves. They bumped into Walker, who was headed back up the