Брайан Гарфилд - The Last Bridge

Corporal Smith’s voice was a lifeless drone. He added, “I rolled into the trees and tried to find something to shoot at. By the time I cleared my weapon, the shooting had stopped and I couldn’t see anybody, except some of the boys out in the road. I counted eight dead. I couldn’t find the Captain or Lieutenant Chinh, so I figured they must have got to cover the same way I did. There was a couple big holes where the mortar had hit us. I backed away through the brush and hid myself out good in a patch of trees. After a while I heard some talking and laughing and a bunch of troops came by. I kept quiet. Tried to get a look, but it was dark by then. They seemed to be prodding a couple prisoners along, and the only ones from our team that wasn’t dead on the road had to be the Captain and Lieutenant Chinh. I didn’t see their faces, though, so I wasn’t sure. It took me a while to get out of the area. Then I taped the radio call to you and sent it out by balloon so they wouldn’t be able to get a fix on me.”

“When did you find out that Captain Kreizler and the exec had been taken prisoner?” Tyreen said.

“I found that out for sure when I got back to camp. Some of the Montagnards had been down in Chutrang peddling opium when the troops came in. The Yards saw them bring Captain Kreizler and Lieutenant Chinh into the militia compound. Lieutenant Chinh was wounded. The Yards told me Captain Kreizler looked like they’d pushed him around a little, but he wasn’t bleeding or anything. We’ve had people keeping watch ever since. Last I heard, they hadn’t moved either one of them out of the compound. There’s kind of a grubby little jail where they keep prisoners locked up. No windows, just a steel door with a little hole in it, like a slot — they shove bowls of food in through that. It’s right beside the troop barracks. They keep a pretty heavy guard on it around the clock, especially when they’ve got prisoners they figure are worth the trouble.”

Tyreen said, “That’s a battalion headquarters at Chutrang. If they think Kreizler’s important enough, they’ll want to have him removed to higher headquarters tor interrogation.”

Saville said, “Or they’ll send their best torture experts down to question him at Chutrang.”

“We’ll have to find out,” Tyreen said. “But first we’ve got to get there.”

Saville stood up and walked around examining each man’s pack adjustments. Tyreen got up slowly and walked away, and Saville said, “Okay, let’s move out.”

They went single file through the brush, spread in a ragged line. The rain held off, but it was clear that a squall had the mountains roughed up; if McKuen was up there, he would not find the weather any help. The peaks reared up out of sight into the clouds, and it was impossible to miss the shadow-streaks of heavily falling rain over the slopes.

Tyreen moved like a mechanism, bruised in his joints and irritably weak. The exertion of walking less than a mile over flat terrain left him short of breath and profusely sweating. They broke out of the high elephant grass onto the dirt-tan stripe of the road, and Tyreen said, “Sergeant Khang.”

The team milled around, spaced between mudholes in the road. Sergeant Nguyen Khang came up and stared at Tyreen with his slightly bemused expression. J. D. Hooker said, “I can string a wire across the road and plant a Claymore mine, Colonel. Anything comes along, we’ll blow it to pieces.”

“That won’t do us a hell of a lot of good, Sergeant. If we can stop a truck, we’ll want it in one piece. Sergeant Khang, if a truck comes along, you’ll walk out on the road and flag them down. Tell them you’re a noncom from the Third Volunteer Regiment — the one that infiltrated south about a week ago. Tell them you got sick, and the regiment left you behind. Get them talking — try to get everybody out of the truck and arguing it over.”

Khang’s smile was lopsided. “What happens if they decide to shoot first and argue afterwards?”

“Why should they?” Tyreen said.

“Colonel, you don’t know this country too well after all, do you?”

“You just act like a North Vietnamese sergeant who’s lost his outfit. You’ll get along fine. Get rid of your equipment and peel down to your undershirt.”

Khang said, “Okay, Colonel. I’ll do my best to save the Goddamn world for democracy.”

He turned away, and Tyreen watched him lug his gear into the bush. Tyreen felt faint, not altogether present. He wheeled on Saville: “Set up the machine gun to command the road, and post the men.”

Saville turned to J. D. Hooker: “Deploy the men, and get that machine gun set up.”

Tyreen barked at him: “If I’d wanted the sergeant to execute that order, I’d have issued it to him, Captain!”

Saville’s mild glance swiveled around and rested against him. Saville didn’t say anything. He walked over and picked up the machine gun as if it were a light carbine and carried it back into the grass. Tyreen slung his submachine gun over one shoulder and walked angrily off the road. Hooker and Sergeant Sun watched him speculatively. Corporal Smith stood back with his hands locked around his gun, and Saville, coming by, spoke to him: “Post yourself across the road, Corporal, and don’t do any shooting until the Colonel calls for it.”

Out over the sea, the rim of the sun was a red hump on the horizon.

“Begorra,” said George McKuen. Engulfed in cloud, the gooney bird plowed forward. McKuen peered downward with his face touching the glass.

“The needle says six thousand feet, Lieutenant. I can’t see a damned thing. Suppose the mountains—”

“Quit supposing and help me fly this thing.” McKuen put the nose down, and the old craft went into a glide like a safe going down an elevator shaft. The engines started to whine, and Shannon screamed at him:

“ What are you doing ?”

McKuen leveled off; the altimeter swayed around to five thousand feet and hovered there. “Trying to bust through under these clouds,” McKuen muttered. “There — there. See it? A hole, Shannon.”

He circled into the wind and pushed the elevators down and abruptly they plunged through the undersurface of the clouds.

Cold rain was awash on the windshield. The wipers made brief arcs of visibility. Ten miles to the west loomed the mountains, vague heavy masses in the half-light. “Navigate, Mister,” McKuen said curtly, with none of his brogue.

“Damned hard to tell. Can’t see any landmarks.”

“That’s a town down there, about two o’clock. That help you?”

Shannon pored over his map. “Could be Thot Nuoc. Or maybe this one, Cai Dam. It depends on how far north we drifted on that crosswind while we were up in those clouds. I wish that direction finder worked. Have they got any radio beacons around here? Jesus, Lieutenant.”

McKuen said very mildly, “Make a guess, Mister, and make a good one. Make it soon, now, because if you don’t, we’re going to fly right into one of those mountains, and if I pick the wrong gorge to fly up, we might as well kiss the whole wake goodbye.”

“There’s a pair of twin peaks over there,” Shannon said. He pointed with his arm. “Eleven o’clock. If you want me to make a guess, then I’d put that landing strip on the north side of the far one.”

“If that’s a wrong guess, you’ll get no chance to apologize.”

“Cut it out, Lieutenant. You want me to shit in my pants?”

McKuen made a dry chuckling sound. “At least the bloody wings haven’t iced up. Temp gauge reads thirty-four outside. Three degrees less, and we’d be icing. Shouldn’t we be able to see that runway?”

“I can’t see a damned thing.” Shannon wiped at frost on the inside of the windshield.