Page 77 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)
South Vietnam
July
TOM’S RIBS HAD MENDED better than expected. For a time, he thought they would never heal, every breath reminding him of failure—his failure to save Quinn and his failure to rescue Hiep and the other American POWs.
The Army doctor was also concerned about Tom contracting pneumonia.
He explained that broken ribs increased the risk due to associated shallow breathing and the natural response to pain that inhibited normal coughing.
This could cause the secretions of fluids and pus to pool in the lungs, leading to infection.
Along with malaria, hepatitis, gastrointestinal illnesses, and a variety of sexually transmitted diseases, pneumonia was one of the most common ailments they encountered in Vietnam.
After four days in the hospital, Tom was discharged on light duty status, promising to return every week until the medical staff assessed he was well enough for full duty.
Backhaus had arranged for Tom to assist in the operations department of Command and Control North, located on the coast in Da Nang next to Marble Mountain three miles south of China Beach.
This allowed the SEAL to stay abreast of MACV-SOG operations while he continued to recover.
Tom suspected that Colonel Backhaus also wanted to keep him engaged with responsibilities that would occupy him so as not to dwell on the loss of Quinn and most of RT Havoc.
As soon as his ribs would allow, Tom was back on a longboard off China Beach, catching waves and looking out over the sea. Hueys frequently roared overhead in low-level passes with pilots and crew hoping to catch a glimpse of scantily clad Air Force and Army nurses soaking up rays on the sand.
Tom was not built for the ops shack, and he managed to convince Backhaus that he would be much more valuable in the air as a Covey Rider in a Cessna O-2 Skymaster.
Aside from wanting to get out of the Tactical Operations Center, Tom needed back in the fight.
The man who killed Quinn was out there, and Tom was not going to find him in the Da Nang TOC.
Soon the Frogman was airborne in the unique twin-engine aircraft that had entered service only a year earlier.
The Oscar Deuce was a push-pull configured high-wing aircraft with one engine forward of the cockpit and another behind the fuselage allowing the plane a top speed of close to 200 mph, though their mission usually required them to fly much slower.
Tom sat in the plane’s right seat and communicated with SOG Recon Teams on the ground in Laos, providing their eyes in the sky, marking targets with rockets, coordinating bombing runs for fast movers, relaying communications, and guiding teams to extract.
Covey was a Recon Team’s lifeline. As a Covey Rider, Tom was still in the game, still learning and refining his skills, skills that would serve him well when he got back on a team.
The Air Force pilots were all volunteers and extremely experienced FACs who were more than happy to let him take the co-pilot’s stick.
There was a freedom to flying, something akin to being in the ocean on his board.
If he survived, maybe he would take it up stateside.
Every now and again, he would join the pilots in their Covey barracks, a floor of which they had converted into a bar by knocking down the walls between rooms. A sign over the entrance read: “The Muff Divers’ Lounge—Where the Elite Meet to Eat.
” Chivas Regal flowed freely, poured by a large and protective mama-san who took up her post next to a refrigerator adorned with graffiti.
A makeshift library lined one wall, and a green vinyl couch stained with beer, food, and one could only guess what else was in the room’s center.
By the door was a poster of Raquel Welch in a bikini from her film One Million Years B.C.
, appropriately positioned so that pilots could give her a ritual good luck tap as they left on missions.
The bar had become a retreat, a place where SOG pilots met to trade stories, pass along lessons, mourn their dead, and party with nurses. It smelled of stale beer and incense.
For the most part, Tom laid off the booze and cigarettes in anticipation of getting back to lead a team out of Phu Bai.
Instead of making the Muff Divers’ Lounge a nightly ritual, Tom would grab a longboard borrowed from the lifeguards at China Beach, and make his way to the coast, paddling out through the surf in the dark.
The crashing of the waves under the shadowy skies offered him a reprieve from the war.
On the water, Tom spent time with ghosts.
He thought of Quinn, Amiuh, Hiep, Hoahn, and Phe.
And he thought of the living, Ella DuBois and Loelia Maxwell.
Though he tried to fight it, those thoughts were always interrupted by visions of a Russian, the man who had gutted and beheaded his friend.
He felt even more at home on the ocean when it rained. Storms pushing up from the marshes to the south brought an electricity to the atmosphere. His body, mind, and soul absorbed the charged current, energizing his depleted reserves. Sometimes he stayed on the water until sunup.
By mid-July, Tom’s ribs were back to normal.
He was off the penicillin. His body was lean and strong from daily surf sessions, and his mind was sharp from his numerous combat flights over Laos.
His primary doctor at the 95th Evacuation Hospital signed him off as fit for full duty, and the next morning he was on a Huey bound for Phu Bai.
Tom wanted a team. He was prepared to make his case to Backhaus.
Tom wanted to reconstitute RT Havoc, and his sights were set on the One-Zero position.
From working at CCN, Tom knew that 5th Special Forces Group was set to deploy a new group of SOG volunteers from the States.
One of them would be his assistant team leader.
He would get Mang and Tuan back and rely on them to select four additional ’Yards to complete the team. Tom was ready.
The Huey departed Da Nang and rose through the mist that hung between the sea and the Annamite Mountain Range. The pilot used Highway 1 as a guide and maneuvered through the Hai Van Pass, the coastal road slicing across the blanket of emerald jungle like a jagged scar.
La Rue Sans Joie.
Tom ran his fingers over the double crosses of the Croix de Lorraine rosary in his pocket, the rosary once carried by Amiuh and then Quinn.
One day, Tom would give it to Amiuh’s son.
The Frogman said a silent goodbye to the ocean and turned his attention to what lay ahead, the distinctive rhythm of the helicopter’s main rotors, powered by a turboshaft engine, hypnotic as they cut through the air.
Tom felt like he was returning to a home occupied by the spirits of dead teammates.
They haunted him. Perhaps they always would.
He recognized Phu Bai airport and then the Republic of Vietnam Training Center below, noting the high fence that separated it from FOB 1.
As the Huey settled onto the pad, Tom spotted Backhaus in a tiger stripe camo uniform leaning against his command vehicle, a rusted-out 1940s-era Land Rover still sporting the bullet holes and dents of conflicts past. Barely visible were the faded “clasped hands” of USAID sandwiched between stars and stripes on the door.
He was smoking a pipe, his German Shepherd sitting obediently at his side.
Another man was with him. A man in civilian clothes with a leather satchel worn crossbody.
Tom instinctively ducked as he moved beyond the rotor wash, an olive drab seabag in his left hand. The three men waited until the slick lifted off for its return flight to Da Nang.
“Sir,” Tom said, acknowledging Backhaus and shaking his hand.
“I believe you know Nick Serrano,” the colonel said, with an ominous edge to his Finnish accent.
“I do,” Tom said, shaking the CIA man’s hand.
“Welcome back, Tom. How are you feeling?” Serrano asked.
“I’m good to go. Ready to get back across the fence with a team.”
That neither man affirmed his statement was concerning.
“Before we talk about your future, Mr. Serrano has some business to discuss,” Colonel Backhaus said. “Toss your bag in the back and climb in. I’ll drop you at the Lounge.”
Tom was joined by Backhaus’s dog in the back of the Rover as the colonel drove them across Highway 1 and through the gate onto the FOB.
Stacks of sandbags lined the dirt road as they passed bunkhouses, team houses—one blaring “We Gotta Get Out of this Place” by The Animals—the command bunker, post office, operations shack, intel, supply, comms, mess hall, and officers’ quarters before pulling to a stop in front of the Green Beret Lounge.
“Are you joining us, Colonel?” Tom asked, as he hopped from the vehicle.
“Not today, son. Come see me later.”
“Yes, sir.”
The club was quiet at midday. Part biker bar and part pool hall, the Green Beret Lounge was the unofficial headquarters of FOB 1 SOG Recon Teams. Black leather stools were nestled against a long wood bar with a red leather top.
Behind it, two barmaids tended a well-stocked selection of liquor, flanked by two naked pinup girl posters.
One of the barmaids was preoccupied feeding peanuts to a pet gibbon monkey that would let out a banshee-like screech when it wanted another.
Christmas lights were strung overhead, and war trophies covered the walls.
A large plaque from the 1st Special Forces Group in Okinawa commemorating the contributions of Detachment A Team 214 hung next to an NVA flag, stained with blood from the last man to carry it.
The mesmerizing psychedelic melody of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s “Fire” hummed from the jukebox.