Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [146]
“We got it.”
The NVA had ceased firing.
The platoons bunched up at the road juncture. After getting them spread out and in position for a possible NVA attack, Lowe had Bayer, who was acting platoon leader to replace Weed, count heads in his new platoon and Mize in his. Spooky Godfrey turned up missing. Thinking that Spooky may have been hit after all as he bolted down the trail, Lowe raged at Mize for not keeping better control.
Lowe then went back up the trail alone.
He moved up the right-hand ditch, then sprinted across the road to where he'd crouched during most of the fight. There was no sign of Spooky. With a Phantom strike inbound, he was in a hurry to get the hell back. He saw his map lying in the ditch from where it had fallen from his fatigue pocket. Reaching to pick up the map and several empty magazines, he found himself looking into the face of a North Vietnamese soldier. The NVA was in a spiderhole dug in among the bushes directly across the hump of the trail crossing the main road. In an instant of recognition, Lowe realized that the NVA must have crouched in that hole during the entire battle and could have murdered his command group. But the NVA was really just a terrified kid, fumbling even now to bring his AK47 up when he realized he'd been spotted. Lowe knew he was dead. The bushes shook furiously around the spiderhole and Lowe felt a tug as a round tore through his trouser leg, and dust kicked up around him. Finally getting his body to respond, he leaned forward to extend his M16 across the trail at full arm's length and, at point-blank range, he emptied what remained of his last magazine into that spiderhole.
Out of time and ammunition, Lowe abandoned his search for Spooky and bolted back down the road. The first person he ran into was Mize, who shouted, “We found him, we found him!” Spooky had indeed been nicked during his run for safety, and had lain low in the brush. Luckily, he had wandered back on his own, because now the air strikes began. Lowe brought the Phantoms in on what he thought was the position of the NVA mortar. The jets rolled in to unleash bursts of cannon fire, confirmed the location of the mortar, then shrieked back across the company's front to loosen silver napalm cannisters, which tumbled forward and down. Rolls of flame burst through the greenery. Wump! Another strike. The heat shimmered against their faces.
Later, Bayer found a book on the trail that had fallen from the baggy thigh pocket of his jungle fatigues. It was a collection of readings from Western philosophy and it was burned black from the napalm. He thought it a morbid symbol.
Afraid that the road juncture was a mortar registration point, Lowe pulled his two-platoon company farther back and got them spread out to watch the trails running out of town. The firefight had lasted two and a half hours. Darkness fell. Exhausted and nervous, thirsty, hungry, fatigues ripped, skin rubbed raw, everyone sort of pulled in close among the trees. There was some comfort in being next to another person. Staff Sergeant Dicerbo of 3d Platoon reported seeing two figures cross the trail that he was watching. Lowe radioed them to engage and for a few moments red and green tracers crisscrossed in the dark. Then it was silent again. Lowe still had a squad at Chantrea with their rucksacks and other equipment, including precious canteens. Not wanting to leave those men in that isolated position overnight, but with no helicopters available, he had no choice but to walk back to Chantrea to get them. He took with him a squad from 2d Platoon to help carry the rucksacks. There was no point in trying to send anybody else. Lowe knew he was the only leader the grunts would follow down that road in the dark. Humping the rucksacks, his bleary-eyed column straggled back to Ph Tnaot around two in the morning.
Barely awake but unable to sleep, Lowe moved along the company line with Bayer and Mize, checking positions. Lowe