Loon - Jack McLean [74]
After dark, Negron hatched a plan.
Without telling battalion, he ordered those of us who remained to gather all of the ammo, ordnance, and water that we could carry and follow him across the ravine to the neighboring hill that was being tenuously held by Delta Company. He knew that the NVA had our precise coordinates on LZ Loon and that the barrage would, in all likelihood, begin again at dawn.
He hoped that by moving several hundred yards away from LZ Loon we could buy the necessary moments to evacuate the next morning before the NVA were able to recalibrate their guns onto the new position across the ravine.
Although many of the severely wounded had been evacuated, all of the dead marines remained on LZ Loon. Negron left Sergeant Brazier, half of the 3rd Platoon, and all of an 81 mm mortar squad to remain behind as a rear guard for the dead and the remaining ammo. Barring a nighttime ground assault, Negron hoped that he could get Brazier, his team, and the dead marines evacuated at first light the following morning before the artillery began anew. Negron also planned a brief return to LZ Loon the following morning to blow the backhoe and the pallet of artillery ammo that had been brought in the previous day.
Darkness fell. Exhausted, hungry, scared, and thirsty beyond all imagination, we grabbed every single item that we could carry and headed into the ravine. We were each loaded with more than a hundred pounds of ammo, mortars, .50 caliber machine guns, tripods, base plates, and as many mortar rounds as we could balance on top of everything else. Negron asked Lieutenant Jackson, the Delta Company commander, to send guides across to lead Charlie Company through the eye-high elephant grass. We silently plowed down the hill, crossed a small stream, and trudged up the other side. We set up our lines on the south side of the perimeter that faced back toward LZ Loon while Delta Company took their remaining marines to tighten the lines around the other side of the hill. Lieutenant Jackson met Negron upon arrival.
“Why’d you abandon the position?” Jackson whispered in a barely audible voice.
Negron replied, “I have a feeling that this whole fuckin’ area is going to turn to shit real soon.”
There was no way that Jackson, or anyone else for that matter, could disagree with the decision.
We silently moved around our side of the new perimeter, found our holes, set up lines of fire, and armed the claymore mines in front of us. We sent out neither ambushes nor listening posts. Nor did we establish watch schedules. There would be no sleep for Charlie Company tonight. We did, however, say our prayers.
All night long, we heard the movement of NVA soldiers just outside the lines, with the squeak of their gear and the soft snap of an occasional stick. We heard the snipers climb up into the trees and even heard whispers.
It was eerie and scary beyond all imagination.
Once all of the necessary tasks were completed, there was nothing to do but collapse into our holes and wait. We knew where they were, and they knew where we were.
24
IT BECAME APPARENT WITH THE EARLIEST LIGHT OF dawn that the NVA plan had been to wear us down with the artillery attack the previous day and assault us with ground troops that morning. We knew they were in place; we’d been listening to them all night. Although short on ammo and manpower, we were ready too.
Neither side could now make a move without its registering on the other.
It was time.
The uneasy silence was broken with a roar of rifle fire. At first, all of the shots were from the distinctive-sounding Russian-built AK-47S that were the weapon of choice for the North Vietnamese Army. An instant later, we heard some light returning fire from the American MI6 rifles. It was over in less than a minute, and then there was no sound at all. The shots had been coming from the direction of the ravine between the two hills—the same ravine that we had crossed the previous evening