Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [85]
“Open fire! Charrrggge!”
Instantaneously, the line of Sheridans and ACAVs opened fire into the rubber trees. The racket was such that Menzel couldn't hear a thing through his helmet earphones. All was just a cacophony of bouncing orange tracers and cartwheeling tree branches, dead leaves blasted off the ground, and NVA who were again breaking and running. Menzel saw some NVA fall in the fire and others who stood staring in shock, but still others were dragging wounded comrades deeper into the rubber trees and in moments the mob had again disappeared into the vegetation.
G Troop pressed their attack.
As they passed by the southern end of the dirt runway, Menzel saw a neat stack of 120mm mortar rounds in a ditch. Knowing who was issued such heavy weapons, he thought with elation, “We've got a regiment!”
The NVA were well aware of the firepower of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, so it was not sound reasoning to have elements of the 141st NVA Regiment make a stand in Snoul. The plantation grounds were honeycombed with slit trenches and spiderholes, even down one side of the runway where the CI8 Anti-Aircraft Company had unlimbered their 12.7mm machine guns. Each of the three U-shaped gun pits was marked by the spoil around it, and Cobras screamed in low to pump grenades from their chin-turrets. The NVA responded with green tracers as H Company maneuvered to the left side of the airstrip and G Troop to the right; then the Cobras banked off as the ACAVs of the squadron command group sped right up the runway itself. Major Franks darted over the airstrip in a Loach and could see an NVA, later identified as a lieutenant, trying to force two of his panicked troops to crank their weapon down to ground level to meet the sudden ground attack.
Major Franks quickly explained the situation before the NVA could depress their machine gun. Even before the danger really registered, the four ACAVs of the 2-11 CP jerked to a halt beside the gun pit. Colonel Starry, in steel pot and flak jacket, rolled off the back of his track and rushed the gun pit with his M16. Sergeant Major Horn, pulling his .45 from its holster, was right beside him, as were Master Sergeant Bolan and several crewmen, and they sent the NVA scrambling. A burst of Ml6 dropped one NVA, but the other two made it into an ammunition bunker behind the gun pit. Because they did not shoot, they were given the option to live.
“Get that Kit Carson!”
“Hold your fire, hold y our fire!”
“The Kit Carson's talkin' that sonuvabitch out.”
“Will you look at that little fucker?”
At the urging of the Kit Carson Scout, the NVA lieutenant emerged from the bunker with raised hands. Starry tugged him out of the way as the lieutenant muttered something in Vietnamese, which prompted the colonel to spit back some obscenities of his own in English. Major Franks had his Loach set down on the airstrip, and rushed over to the parked tracks. The tension had eased up a bit, and the Kit Carson continued to crouch right at the bunker entrance as he tried to convince the last man to surrender also.
The last man, however, would not budge, and Colonel Starry, who had just before shrugged off his murderously hot flak jacket, finally pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade. The reporter Sterba, whom they'd just picked up along the highway near The City, photographed Starry as he advanced. Starry glanced at something, then looked back and was stunned to see a grenade lying in the dirt in front of the bunker. The diehard had just flipped it out. Starry's mind reeled to a focus on Major Franks, who stood only six feet from the grenade but with his back to it. Starry lunged to knock down Franks. He wasn't sure if it was he or the hideous shriek of the explosion that sent both of them tumbling. Starry tried to sit back up, dust in his eyes and sudden stinging sensations lighting up along his face and side. He realized he still had a vise grip