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The A1 sputtered, making Bernie Potter wonder idly if
he was going down, too. They already had one plane on the ground, brought down
by Viet Cong small arms fire, and he was flying over it to try to evaluate
the situation. The pilot of that plane had been Jack Blake, his best buddy and
formerly his wing man. They'd been hooked up with new guys lately to spread the
experience a little more evenly.
Blake had been his best buddy, but two more unlikely
cohorts were hard to find. Bernie, back home in the Real World, or just the
World, as they called it, was a church going family man with a wife and six
children. He was quiet, conservative, nondescript, and likable. Blake was
single, fun-loving, partying, with no wife and no children that he knew of. He
was audacious, opinionated, flashy, and likable. They were both professional
pilots with hardcore values in the air and in the service. These two guys loved
each other like brothers.
"Fish-1, can you see the pilot?" came
through his earphones.
He scanned the runway below him again and still saw no
movement. He turned his plane and made another pass a little lower than the one
he'd done before
"Get your’ass back up," came through the
earphones, a little frantically.
The control officer didn't even bother to use his call
sign; everybody knew who he was talking to.
"Dammit, we don't need another plane down. Do you
see the pilot?"
"Hey, Control, what about all that radio
discipline you're always reminding me of? And how'd you know how low I
was?" he asked.
He grinned to himself. Even he agreed that radio
discipline was important, but it got modified a lot under these conditions.
He continued, "Negative on the pilot, Control.
The bird's scattered all over the runway. Don't see how anybody could have
walked away from it. Don't see a body though."
"Fish-1. We're going to have to leave it to the
ground troops. Are you expended?"
"Roger, Control. Zero on the ammo."
"Okay, Fish-1, break it off and go on home."
"Control, let me make one more pass. We don't
want to leave one of our guys down there."
He would have felt the same way if it hadn't been
Blake, but he couldn't imagine leaving Blake under any circumstances.
"Negative, Fish-1, we sure don't want to leave
two of our guys down there. Break it off."
"Control, I've got fuel for one more pass. I'll
fly it on the side away from the ground fire. Don't make me go back with fuel in
my tanks and one of my guys on the ground."
Six A1E's had flown out of Pleiku several hours
earlier to provide support for an ARVN camp under attack by a large Viet Cong
force. Major Bernie Potter had been in the lead flight, and Blake's flight had
followed them in. The ARVN camp had fallen, but they continued their attack on
the enemy forces anyway. Potter's wingman had taken a round through the
windshield and had to break off the attack.
Blake's wing man had taken a hit in a fuel tank and
had to leave, too. On the same strafing run, Blake had also been hit by ground
fire and had been forced to put his plane down on the camp's runway. The plane
had burst into flames, and nobody had seen Blake since.
"Control, do you read me? One more pass?"
"Yeah, Fish-1, I read you. One more pass, not too
low, not too slow."
He rolled around again, eased the A1E down and eased
off the stick.
"Fish-1, you're already too low and too slow.
Pull it up and break it off, dammit. That's an order!"
But by then he'd seen movement out of the corner of
his eye. He turned his head and saw that a man in an American flight suit made
the movement. He was peeking over a little hill across the runway from the ARVN
camp and waving his arms frantically.
"I got him, Control. He's north of the runway
about halfway down. He seems to be okay. We need to get a chopper in here to
pick him up right away."
"There aren't any choppers available, Fish-1.
We've got four other ops going on. All the choppers are tied up or too far
away."
He looked up at the jungle canopy and the clouds
beyond. Choppers would never be able to get here in time anyway, he thought.
Even if they found the site, they'd never get down through the cover. His flight
had only found the ARVN camp through a hole in the clouds that was more fortune
than planning. It's a beautiful country, he thought, but the foliage and the
weather play unfair favorites in this kind of war. The Ranch Hand 123's were
trying to even it up a little with their defoliation ops, but that doesn't help
at a time like this.
"Control, I see enemy troops all over the place
down there. I don't think they see our guy yet, but it's just a matter of time.
We've got to get him out of there."
As he spoke, a loud ping sounded just behind him as a
small arms round tore through his fuselage.
"Best we can do, Fish-1, is to get a couple more
A1's for suppressive fire. They're already enroute anyway."
"Roger, Control, the concentration of Charlies is
south of the runway, all over the ARVN camp. The A1's should make their first
pass there."
"Roger, Fish-1, you need to break it off. You're
low on fuel and out of ordnance, time to save your own tail."
Another loud ping emphasized Control's last statement.
Potter looked down to try to see where the ground fire was coming from. A large
group of VC was heading toward the runway, toward the downed A1. They're
probably trying to confirm that the pilot is dead, he thought. When they don't
find him, they're going to start looking harder.
"Fish-1, you're out of time. Get out of
there."
"Negative, Control, I'm going down. I'm gonna
pick him up."
"What? You're nuts. You can't do that. You'll get
yourself killed. And you've got zero chance of picking him up. You don't even
have enough fuel for that. Get out of there."
"I've got fuel for one more pass, Control. If we
don't get him out, he's dead. I'm going down. See if you can get some
suppressive fire on the south side of the runway. Tell them to look out for
me. If I'm going to get my tail shot off, let it be by the enemy."
He turned once more and lined up the A1 with the
runway. He saw things he hadn't noticed before. The runway was short, maybe too
short for what he needed to do, land long, pick up Blake, turn around, and take
off again. In addition to being short, the runway had been mortared in the
initial attack on the ARVN camp. There were eight or ten pockmarks strategically
spaced to cause him the most problems. Also, the runway was cluttered with a
variety of debris. There were rocket pods and fuel barrels. There were expended
flares and shell casings. And there was the burned out A1 that Blake had
crash-landed.
Is it too late to change my mind, he asked
himself rhetorically, as he eased forward and sank toward the runway. As his
wheels touched down, the supporting A1's screamed by on his right, strafing the
ground along the south side of the runway with their 20mm cannon. Out of the
corner of his eye, he saw black uniformed figures running away, jerking
spasmodically, and falling in strange and twisted positions. He rolled down the
runway steering frantically to avoid the mortar holes and larger debris,
knocking the smaller stuff aside, and braking furiously as the end of the runway
rushed toward him.
He couldn't quite stop in time and ran off the end of
the runway. He feared momentarily that the wheels would sink into the dirt. They
didn't, and he strained at the controls to turn the aircraft around and get it
back on the runway. As he turned, he squinted his eyes and searched the north
side of the runway attempting to see Blake through the smoke and dust. He didn't
see anything except the smoke and dust.
He turned his attention to the other side of the
runway. There was more smoke and dust there. But through breaks in the haze, he
saw the black clothed men moving around again. They appeared to be trying to get
organized, to form up again. They also appeared to be moving toward the runway
again.
He taxied up the right side of the runway much slower
than his instincts told him to move. He strained his eyes toward the little hill
where he'd seen Blake earlier. Through breaks in the smoke and dust, he thought
he saw the hill, but he did not see Blake.
As he was considering whether he'd have to stop the
plane and go out to look for Blake, a louder ping sounded right behind his head.
He ducked and turned his head toward the sound. A group of Viet Cong was visible
through the haze, weapons raised, firing in his direction. Another ping told him
a round had passed through the tail fin.
He looked up hoping for another pass by the support
planes, but he didn't see them anywhere. Oh, man, he thought, I can't
abandon Blake after all this. That wasn't really a conscious decision, but
his body had already started moving toward the right side of the cockpit to
allow him to get out of the plane and go look for Blake. He looked up again,
thinking the A1's ought to be back by the time he'd be ready to take off. Then
he immediately thought, How dumb is that; if they're not back long before
then, chances are we aren't going to be taking off anyway. He reached for
the canopy latch and looked out the right side of the airplane to plan his route
when he hit the ground.
Suddenly, through the haze, he saw two wild red eyes
off his wing. They were closely followed by a dirty face and a straining body in
a flight suit. "Blake," he shouted.
"Help me, Man," screamed Blake, grasping for
his arm.
He reached out, grabbed Blake by the seat of his suit,
and hoisted him into the plane. Ping, ping, ping reminded him that they still
weren't over the worst part. He squirmed back under the controls and forced the
shuddering airplane down the runway. Ping, ping, a couple more rounds struck the
plane as it lifted all too slowly off the runway. A final ping seemingly right
between their heads was a parting shot from the Viet Cong on the ground.
As they cleared the runway and got out of range of the
small arms fire, Potter saw the support A1's rolling in for another run. A lot
of those guys on the ground are going to be out in the open, he thought. He gave
Blake a thumbs-up. Blake slowly shook his head and raised his thumb.
"Control, this is Fish-1. Do you read me?"
"Roger, you maniac, I read you. What's your
situation?"
"I love you, too, Control. Where's the closest
place I can land this thing?"
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