Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘They’ve got the fucker! But, Sir, MacDuff, advise enemy moving fast towards us. They estimate we have only five minutes to exit area.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then MacDuff radioed:

‘Your call, Woody Woodpecker.’

Harper’s heart was racing but his body was ice.

‘I’m not leaving them.’

On the ground, Sam could hear the enemy shouting, approaching, and the chatter of gunfire. He realised the odds had just stacked up, too high, and fallen on top of him and Gonzalez. He reached for the emergency radio. He knew he had to give Harper permission to leave.

‘Hey, Harper! Do you know what haere ra means?’

In the chopper, Harper couldn’t respond.

‘It means goodbye. So get out of here.’

Seymour was listening in and looked at Harper.

‘No,’ Harper said.

He worked the controls and the chopper started descending into the foliage.

‘What are ya?’ Seymour yelled. ‘Are you crazy?’

Harper was seesawing the chopper back and forth across the top of the trees, cutting down the treetops with the rotor blades, mowing through the upper density. Startled, Sam scrambled away as branches and leaves began to fall like an avalanche around him.

‘I want to see him,’ Harper said.

He lifted the chopper. Peered down.

A sunlit space. Sam stepping into the space. The chopper was stationary, in a holding position, its rotors seeming to slice at the sun. Leaves and branches were whirling to the ground. Sam knew that Harper could see him. The situation was hopeless. Ah well. With a shrug of his shoulders, Sam motioned Harper to climb. He made a sweeping gesture with both hands:

Go.

Harper looked down. His eyes unseen behind dark glasses. His face impassive. Coming into the trees were the enemy soldiers.

I said, Go, damn you, Sam signalled again. ‘Can’t you take orders you crazy gringo American? For God’s sake, go!’

The motor of the chopper roared. But Harper wasn’t leaving. He was making jabbing motions to Sam.

Look left. Go left. I’ll decoy the enemy, make him think the chopper is going down. If I succeed they’ll come after me.

Harper put up his hand and showed four fingers.

Four minutes. Go . Rendezvous .

And Sam remembered: the derelict swingbridge.

The chopper dipped and left. Sam knelt beside Gonzalez.

‘Okay, Gonzalez, the enemy have shot up Plan A. We have to go to Plan B.’

‘What’s Plan B!’

‘We’ve got to get over that ridge. Can you walk?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Then lean on me.’

Meantime, Harper put the chopper into a steep turn, orbited, and did a fast series of 360 degree spins. He saw the astonished faces of the Vietcong as he spun over them. Next moment the belly of the chopper was raked with bullets.

Sam hoisted Gonzalez up. They were in luck. Harper’s ruse had worked. He heard the enemy moving off to the right, in pursuit of a chopper that they thought was going down.

‘Let’s go,’ Sam said.

He hauled Gonzalez through the jungle. He followed the contours of a slope and began to climb. His lungs were burning by the time he stumbled across the old track which must have been used when the swingbridge was still functioning. He ran, pulling Gonzalez with him, as fast as he could along the track.

As for Harper, he had bought Sam as much time as he could, and it was time to make the pick-up. He went flying back with the wind, losing altitude, dropping down to tree-top level, balls to the wall. The gunners portside and starboard were blazing away, pow pow pow. Tracer whizzed through one door of the chopper and out the other.

Sam heard the shouts of the enemy as they returned to the chase. Suddenly he was clear — and almost falling from the sheer cliff into the river far below. For a moment he swayed there, the edge crumbling away from beneath his feet. He paused. Immediately in front of him was the swingbridge.

‘Holy Hone Hika —’

The swingbridge hung by a thread — one long span of what looked like No.8 wire. The rest of it, a series of broken planks, dangled from the wire. So near and so far.

Gonzalez began to gibber.

‘We’re never going to get out. We’re going to die in this stinkin’ country.’

‘Shut up, Gonzalez,’ Sam said.

Sam looked at his watch. He had 65 seconds to position himself and Gonzalez on the bridge. Ah well, they’d have to do it the hard way.

‘Belt yourself on and hold me tight.’

Sam made a jump for the wire. Grabbed and pulled himself up so that his legs were also gripping the wire. The dead weight of Gonzalez was pulling at his grip as he began to work himself and Gonzalez along. Halfway across, streaming with sweat and exhausted, he stopped. Waited.

Ten seconds. Where was Harper?

‘Come on, Harper, I can’t hold on much longer.’

Sam heard the sound of the chopper approaching. The steady whop-whop-whop of the rotor blades was the most wonderful sound he had ever heard. He began to laugh and grinned at Gonzalez.

‘So what did I tell you?’

The chopper roared over the ridge and filled the ravine with its clatter. Harper heard Pike drawl out:

‘Looks like there’s two lucky sons of a bitch waiting to hitch a ride.’

The chopper dropped into the narrow corridor of jungle, its engine sending explosive echoes down the gap, and then rose like an angel, sideways on to the bridge.

Harper took off his sunglasses. Grinned.

What are you waiting for fellas?

Suddenly the tree canopy off to Sam’s right erupted with tracers. A bone-shuddering whoosh enveloped him. It was now or never. He jumped — Gonzalez screaming — and caught one of the landing skids. Dangled for a moment. Bullets zinged past him and bounced off the underside armour plate of the helicopter. He reached in panic for the entry door. Missed. But rough hands were around his and Gonzalez’s shoulders, pulling them in. The chopper banked.

‘Men aboard. Woody Woodpecker moving out.’

The chopper moved away quickly out of the ravine, heading fast out of the area. When they crossed back into South Vietnam, Seymour gave a joyful whoop and holler. Harper radioed to the Skyraiders:

‘Thanks for the help, MacDuff.’

‘Pleasure to be of service, Woody Woodpecker. Over and out.’

Back at the base Sam watched as the chopper team slapped each other and congratulated themselves on the rescue. Seymour had extra reason to be joyful. When he lifted his canteen from his web gear to take a drink, there was nothing in it but a bullet hole.

‘I’ve been shot!’ Seymour laughed as he kissed the canteen.

Sam went to find Harper. He saw him stoically flushing out the chopper. Dusk had turned the landscape into a charcoal-grey haze.

‘Thanks,’ Sam said.

‘All in the line of duty,’ Harper answered.

His glasses glinted in the sun.

Two days later Sam heard that Harper had been medevaced to a hospital for wounds sustained by automatic enemy fire during the rescue operation. He had five wire sutures attaching his two bottom ribs to his ribcage.

When Sam walked into the hospital, Harper turned and looked out the window.

‘You didn’t have to come,’ he said.

Sam tried to make conversation.

‘Now I know why you rescue pilots are the most decorated combatants of the war. It takes guts to hover over the jungle like that. To sustain all that enemy fire and hold on. You could have left me out there —’

‘And risk the wrath of your tribe, let alone the New Zealand Government? I’ve heard all about you Kiwis and you Maoris and the revenge you take. No, it was better to bring you back alive. All part of the service.’