Ian Slater - South China Sea

In any case, the predominant emotion in the plane was fear — fear of the enemy and fear of showing it. These were not conscripts, but well-trained professionals, some who had seen action in the Iraqi War and some in the invasion of Haiti, and so knowledge of both desert and jungle warfare traveled with them. But most of the 127 in the EMREF spearhead had never been in battle, and they feared that unknown. Already in the vast interior of the plane, the smell of perspiration was heavy in the air.

There was a flash!

“What the hell—” Freeman began, seeing it was one of the two reporters he’d allowed to accompany the EMREF spearhead into action. He’d chosen a CNN reporter because he knew that way he’d get a story out if he needed it for strategic reasons. The other was a photojournalism a woman, Marte Price, from the little-known midwestern Des Moines Register. He disliked seeing all the big networks get all the scoops.

“I’m sorry,” she began, blushing, “I didn’t—”

But Freeman cut her short. “Ma’am, last thing we expect in an aircraft is a flash popping off — looks like a damn flash-bang grenade. Lucky someone didn’t shoot you.”

“I promise I won’t do it again, General.”

Freeman nodded and mumbled something about how there were going to be enough surprises to contend with once the EMREF had reached Hanoi then headed north to do business with the “red dragon,” as he collectively called the Chinese.

“Huh,” grunted Martinez, a Marine, formerly an auto mechanic, who hailed from Los Angeles. “That flash sure as hell frightened me. Damn near shit myself.”

“You and fifty others, mate,” a Brit said, nodding, his cockney accent reminding Martinez of Mr. Doolittle, Eliza’s father in My Fair Lady. The short, stocky Englishman’s accent was a bit hard for Martinez to understand, but the man’s eyes and gestures told most of the story. Martinez felt comforted by Doolittle’s frank admission of fear, especially since the Britisher wore the simple but coveted beret of the Special Air Service, among the toughest of the tough. To be SAS was to be as handy with a parachute as with the Heckler & Koch 9mm submachine gun, to run miles with a heavy pack, to be able to live off the land from grass shoots to rats — raw, uncooked, for fear of the smell alerting the enemy — and then you had to pass the hostage exam.

The SAS were so tough that the U.S. Delta Force based their training on the English elite, who had worldwide and enduring fame not from the wars they’d stopped and Communist infiltrators they’d killed, from Aden to Malaysia, but because of the stunning raid they had mounted in full view of the TV cameras on the Iranian Embassy in London in 1961. They had all worn black, including balaclavas, to protect their identity. And then they’d melted back incognito, some of them to the regular units they were assigned to, their absence usually covered by compassionate leave or some other such conventional excuse. The Delta Force and the Green Berets didn’t hop into a phone booth and do a “Clark Kent.”

Both the U.S. and British phrase “Special Forces” covered all three — Delta Force, Green Berets, and SAS — in this operation, as Freeman thought equally highly of all of them. He’d fought with all of them before at different times and had admired all three, but as the Hercules crossed the coast heading for Hanoi, the ETA less than ten minutes, he had something else to tell them — not because of the common bond they shared with one another, but because they would soon be fighting against a common enemy, China’s People’s Liberation Army, an army which Freeman’s and his men’s forebears had fought back in the Korean and Vietnam wars.

“What I want you boys and ladies—” He smiled at Marte Price. “—to remember is that it isn’t so strange to be asked to fight on the same side as the Vietnamese. A lot of your grandfathers fought with the South Vietnamese, and besides, two hundred years or so ago your ancestors and mine were fighting one another in the War of Independence, and we, the United States, lost more men in the fight between the Union and the Confederacy than we did in both world wars. So you see, as times change, old enemies become comrades in arms. It is the position of the United States of America and Great Britain that this Chinese attack on Vietnam threatens a hell of a lot more than Vietnam. It threatens, if it goes unchecked, the whole of Asia. And we’ve learned from history, if we’ve learned anything, that if you don’t stand up to bullies in the first instances, you only encourage the sons of bitches to take more and more.”

ETA Hanoi was another five minutes. Douglas Freeman saw Marte Price tucking strands of her short-cropped red hair into her helmet, but not even her camouflage fatigues could totally hide her figure. Freeman told her that once the plane landed in Hanoi the only pictures allowed would be “sans flash.”

“I’m not that stupid, General,” Marte said.

“Didn’t say you were, ma’am. It’s just that along with the truth, I don’t want you to be our first casualty.”

“In that case, thanks.” She paused. “This is my big chance. To…”

She left the sentence hanging in the air. Freeman finished it for her. ‘To break free from the pack — be your own—” He paused, “—person.”

“Yes.”

“General, ETA seven minutes,” Bob Cline told him.

“It was ETA five minutes — three minutes ago!”

“Yes, sir, but we’ve had to swing south before turning north. Captain’s afraid the Hanoi triple A might let fly, mistaking us on radar for Chinese swinging west after hitting Haiphong harbor.”

“Very well,” Freeman said, then, turning to Marte, said, “Ms. Price?’

“Call me Marte, General.”

“I prefer Price.”

She looked surprised. He hadn’t struck her as the formal type.

“Ms. Price,” he began again, “don’t take any photos till you establish where you are vis-à-vis headquarters.”

“Where will that be?” she asked, nonplussed.

“Me,” he said. “Stick with me, and whatever story you write, don’t put anything about anybody saying ‘over and out,’ ‘cause that’s a contradiction in terms. Only those movie jokers in L.A. who rarely get out of bed write that guff.”

“ETA four minutes,” came the pilot’s voice in the cavernous interior, the sound of the Hercules more thunderous than before, shaking more, but everything seemed to be going all right. As soon as they landed they would be met by the French charge d’affaires, whose staff would direct them to camouflaged trucks already painted with the outline of a black triangle signifying a U.N. truck. Likewise, all the men’s uniforms — both British and American — also sported the U.N. symbol on helmets and both shoulder patches.

“Man,” Martinez’s friend Johnny D’Lupo confided, “I hope those fuckers see it!”

“Balls,” Martinez said. “You don’t want ‘em to see it. If they can see it they can shoot it.”

“Bloody right,” enjoined Doolittle, whom the others had dubbed “Doctor.” “I hope they don’t see me but I see them.”

“Sir,” Martinez called out to the general, his élan with a superior officer easy not only because he was American, but because he was one of the elite whose forebears’ battle honors went back to the Halls of Montezuma. “Sir, how long you think we’ll be goin’ in the trucks?”

“Twenty-five miles from Hanoi to Thuong,” Freeman said. He meant Phu Lang Thuong. “Roads are pretty bad and we’re coming in on the leading edge of the rainy season. I guess about forty-five minutes to an hour. No time to dip your—” He fell silent, and this was greeted with an assortment of catcalls, whistles, and cheers.