Jeffrey Archer - Sons of Fortune

‘That’s the least of her problems,’ Jimmy replied, ‘because the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the committee announced their decision. Both Radcliffe, where she did her undergraduate degree, and Columbia, where she completed her PhD, have offered her jobs, and that was before the opinion poll on the Today Show reported that eighty-two per cent of their viewers thought she should be reinstated.’

‘So what does she plan to do next?’

‘Appeal, and my bet is that the committee won’t be able to ignore public opinion.’

‘But where does that leave you?’

‘I still want to marry Joanna, but she won’t hear of it until she knows the result of her arbitration. She refuses to become engaged in case it influences the committee in her favour. She’s determined to win the case on its merits, not on public sentiment.’

‘That’s a remarkable woman you’ve got yourself involved with,’ said Fletcher.

‘I agree,’ said Jimmy. ‘And you only know the half of it.’

Lt Nat Cartwright had been stencilled on the door of his little office at MACV headquarters even before he’d arrived in Saigon. It quickly became clear to Nat that he was to be desk-bound for his entire watch, not even allowed to discover where the front fine was. On arrival, he did not join his regiment in the field, but was assigned to Combat Service Support. Colonel Tremlett’s dispatches had obviously landed in Saigon long before he had.

Nat was described on the daily manifest as a quartermaster, which allowed those above him to pile up the paperwork, and those below him to take their time carrying out his orders. They all seemed to be involved in the plot, a plot that resulted in Nat spending every working hour filling in regulation forms for items as varied as baked beans and Chinook helicopters. Seven hundred and twenty-two tons of supplies were flown into the capital every week, and it was Nat’s duty to see they reached the front line. In any one month, he handled over nine thousand items. Everything managed to get there except him. He even resorted to sleeping with the commanding officer’s secretary, but quickly discovered that Mollie had no real influence over her boss, although he did find out about her considerable expertise in unarmed combat.

Nat began leaving the office later and later each evening, and even began to wonder if he was in a foreign country. When you have a Big Mac and Coke for lunch, a Kentucky Fried Chicken with a Budweiser for dinner, and return to the officers’ quarters every evening to watch the ABC News and reruns of 77 Sunset Strip, what proof is there that you ever left home?

Nat made several surreptitious attempts to join his regiment in the front line, but he came to realize that Colonel Tremlett’s influence permeated everywhere; his applications would land back on his desk a month later, rubber-stamped: Refused; re-apply in one month.

Whenever Nat requested an interview to discuss the problem with a field officer, he never managed to see anyone above the rank of staff major. On each occasion, a different officer would spend half an hour trying to convince Nat that he was doing a valuable and worthwhile job in requisition. His combat file was the thinnest in Saigon.

Nat was beginning to realize that his stand on ‘a matter principle’ had served no purpose. In a month’s time Tom would be starting his second year at Yale, and what did he have to show for his efforts other than a crew cut and an inside knowledge of how many paper clips the army required in Vietnam in any one month?

Nat was sitting in his office, preparing for the new intake of rookies due to report the following Monday, when all that changed.

Accommodation, clothing and travel documents had kept him occupied all day and well into the evening. Urgent was stamped on several of them, as the CO always wanted to be fully briefed on the background of any new intake before they landed in Saigon. Nat hadn’t noticed how long the task had taken, and when he had completed the final form, he decided to drop them off in the adjutant’s office before grabbing something to eat in the officers’ mess.

As he strolled past the ops room, he experienced a surge of anger; all the training he had been put through at Fort Dix and Fort Benning had been a complete waste of time. Although it was nearly eight o’clock, there were still a dozen or so operatives, some of whom he recognized, manning the phones and updating a large operational map of North Vietnam.

On his way back from the adjutant’s office, Nat dropped into the ops room to see if anyone was free to join him for dinner. He found himself listening to the troop movements of the Second Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment. He would have slipped back out and gone to the mess alone if it hadn’t been his own regiment. The Second Battalion was facing a barrage of mortar fire from the Vietcong and was holed up on the wrong side of the Dyng river, defending itself from a further onslaught. The red phone on the desk in front of Nat began to ring insistently. Nat didn’t move a muscle.

‘Don’t just stand there, lieutenant, pick it up and find out what they want,’ demanded the operations officer. Nat quickly obeyed the order.

‘Mayday, Mayday, this is Captain Tyler, do you read me?’

‘I do, captain, this is Lieutenant Cartwright. How can I help, sir?’

‘My platoon has been ambushed by Victor Charlie just above the Dyng River, grid reference SE42 NNE71. I need a flight of Hueys with full medical back-up. I have ninety-six men, eleven of them are already down, three dead, eight injured.’

A staff sergeant came off another phone. ‘How do I reach emergency rescue?’ asked Nat.

‘Contact Blackbird base at the Eisenhower field. Pick up the white phone and give the officer of the watch the grid reference.’

Nat grabbed the white phone, and a sleepy voice answered.

‘This is Lieutenant Cartwright. We have a Mayday call. Two platoons trapped on the north side of the Dyng river, grid reference SE42 NNE71; they’ve been ambushed and require immediate assistance.’

‘Tell them we’ll be off the ground and on our way in five minutes,’ said a voice now fully alert.

‘Can I join you?’ asked Nat, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, expecting the inevitable rejection.

‘Are you authorized to fly in U.H.I.s?’

‘Yes I am,’ lied Nat.

‘Any parachute experience?’

‘Trained at Fort Benning,’ said Nat, ‘sixteen jumps at six hundred feet from S-123s, and in any case, it’s my regiment out there.’

‘Then if you can get here in time, Lieutenant, be my guest.’

Nat replaced the white phone and returned to the red one. ‘They’re on their way, captain,’ was all he said.

Nat ran out of the ops room and into the parking lot. A duty corporal was dozing behind the wheel of a jeep. Nat leapt in beside him, banged the palm of his hand on the horn and said, ‘Blackbird base in five minutes.’

‘But that’s about four miles away, sir,’ said the driver.

‘Then you’ll have to get moving, won’t you, Corporal,’ shouted Nat.

The corporal switched on the engine, threw the jeep into gear, and accelerated out of the parking lot, lights full on, leaving the palm of one hand on the horn and the other on the steering wheel. ‘Faster, faster,’ repeated Nat, as those who were still on the streets of Saigon after curfew leapt out of their way along with several startled chickens. Three minutes later, Nat spotted a dozen Huey helicopters perched on the airfield up ahead. The blades on one of them were already rotating.

‘Put your foot down,’ Nat repeated.

‘It’s already touching the floor, sir,’ replied the corporal as the gates of the airfield came into sight. Nat counted again: seven of the helicopters now had their blades whirring.