Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [160]
Someone from the CP scrounged up a warm can of soda for the Cambodian, and Captain Lechner brought in a helicopter so the man could be taken back and questioned about what he might have seen in those woods. Lieutenant Yarashas, thanking whatever higher power had kept a dead old man off the platoon's conscience, wasn't sure if the man was shaking more because he'd almost been shot or because they were now lifting him into one of those flying machines. Finally, Alpha Company began its sweep down the grassy slope, the men of Yarashas's platoon going in from one angle on foot, in helmets and flak jackets, slung with bandoliers, the sun hard above them and weapons held ready from the waist, slings looped around necks. The smell of death carried through the trees. It got worse the farther in they went until some grunts tied their sweat towels over their noses and mouths.
The platoon finally reached the perimeter of the NVA base camp. Nothing moved. The camp had been obliterated in the bombing, the whole place turned upside down by yawning craters. Hootches had vaporized. Bunkers were caved in. Towering hardwood trees had been toppled, and NVA rucksacks and equipment lay here and there in the upturned soil or under trees.
So did NVA bodies.
Ross choked as he moved through the rubbled base camp, staring here at a smear of intestines, there at another dead man, an arm or a leg blown off, stiff, bloated, and black, tongue sticking out, covered with flies. Maggots feasted in one corpse's mouth. The back of another NVA's head had been neatly sliced off, and a hunk of black hair and scalp was plastered to a tree thirty feet away. The concussion of the bombing must have hurtled the soldier through the air and bounced him off the tree, leaving part of his head behind.
Cringing, on the verge of puking, Ross followed orders and searched the bodies for intelligence information. He turned out the pockets of his first NVA, then tried to slip off the man's rucksack. It wouldn't budge. The body was too swollen, pack straps cutting into skin that was already puffy and black. Ross pulled out his hunting knife to cut the straps, convinced that when he released the tension the putrid flesh would burst and spray him with gas and gore. It didn't. The rucksacks were thrown in a pile, until finally Lieutenant Yarashas, a citizen-soldier of the first order but no war lover, radioed Captain Lechner to let them get the hell out of there, “This is ridiculous. There's nobody alive out here.”
Not true. Another platoon found an underground hospital, and the NVA inside came out without resistance, some shivering with malaria, others suffering concussions from the bombing. Where the forest was not completely cratered, there remained trails that interconnected caches and bivouacs. A motor pool of trucks was discovered, as was a communications repair shop stacked with radios. Caches of weapons and ammunition were numerous. In one base camp the Triple Deuce searched, they discovered in a field desk a velvet sack containing a stamp that imprinted the Vietnamese characters for COSVN. The Arc Light had hit at least part of the jackpot.
Those NVA headquarters and security personnel who had survived the bombing were