BAT-21 (25 page)

He closed his eyes. What should he do? What could
he do? Had the last ray of hope just been extinguished? Crazy,
irrational thoughts entered his head. Why should he prolong this
agony? Why must he endure this pain and suffering any longer when
there was no chance, no chance at all, of survival? Why should he
keep flailing away at insurmountable odds, endangering equipment
and the lives of men bent on rescuing him? Why subject any crazy,
brave FAC pilot to more of this? There was no reason. No further
reason.

"Birddog to Bat Twenty-one. You there, Bat?
Over."

Birddog sounded relieved when he acknowledged the
call. It had been a good two hours with no contact.

"No luck," said Hambleton. "Could
not retrieve."

Birddog's voice went flat. "Son of a bitch!"

"Shall I stay and try again tomorrow?"

"Negative, Bat. Natives are restless. There's
a large village on the other side of that hill. You have to get back
into the Suwannee."

"Now?"

"Right now."

Hambleton sagged. He didn't think he could move.
Yet there was no choice. He had to get the hell out of there. "Roger,
Birddog."

"One thing more, Bat. A bit of good news that
might help. Your buddy is now in the clubhouse."

Hambleton had to think on this for a moment before
the meaning came through. "You've recovered the observer?
Clark?"

"Affirmative. He's safe and sound."

"Thank God."

"You're next. Now get cracking. Birddog out."

Hambleton signed off. So they had yanked young
Lieutenant Clark out. Somehow they had snagged the observer out of
enemy territory. The best news he had heard since being shot down. He
said a silent prayer of thanks. Maybe there was hope for him too. He
felt renewed. Time to get up off the knuckles. He had heard the man.
Time to get cracking!

He dragged himself down to the bank where his log
lay half buried in the mud. He laboriously launched it, waded with it
out into the river. He hooked his arm around the tie and started off
for the seventeenth hole, more dead than alive, but now motivated by
a tiny glow of new hope.

In the Joint Chiefs of Staff Pentagon briefing
room Admiral Moorer rose and examined the wall map with the overlay
of Hambleton's golf course. He studied it silently for a moment, then
tapped the map and turned to the briefing intelligence officer. "So
he made it to the green of the seventeenth? Right here?"

"Yes, sir," replied the intelligence
officer. "He should be starting the last hole shortly."

"How is his condition?"

"Very weak, sir. He was unable to recover the
supply canister that was dropped to him."

"Tough break." Moorer returned to his
chair. "Gentlemen, it's going to be close. Maybe our golfer's
not going to make it to the eighteenth. But I want that man pulled
out of there. If we have to steam up that river with the U.S.S.
Enterprise
, I want that man recovered."

There was a silent nodding of heads as Moorer
turned to the Air Force Chief of Staff. "John, if Hambleton
makes it, I think we should let the public affairs people run with
this one. What do you think?"

"I agree," said Ryan. "We've laid
an awful lot of bad news on the American people since the Communists
started this invasion. I certainly think they're entitled to what
little good news comes out of it. And if Hambleton makes it, it's
quite a story. But we should keep a security lid on his method of
escape and evasion. Just in case we might need to use it again."

"Agreed. Now gentlemen, we owe this navigator
a large debt. I know sometimes we think we've got it pretty rough. We
get caught between the Pentagon, the National Security Council, the
Hill, and the White House. It's a full-time job just trying to hang
onto sanity. We all tend to get feeling real sorry for ourselves. But
we have it easy when you think about that poor guy down there in that
mess and what he's been going through the last eleven days. Compared
to him I realize we've got no problems at all. None. And that's the
message here. A lesson for us all."

"I agree, Admiral," said Ryan. "He's
certainly demonstrated how far you can go on sheer guts."

"And an amazing will to survive." Moorer
turned to the briefing officer. "Colonel, I want to be kept
right up to speed on this, advised of every development."

"Yes, sir."

Moorer leaned back in his chair and spoke softly,
almost to himself. "The President himself is interested in the
progress of this man."

Hambleton's head went under. He came up spitting
and choking. He was getting so feeble he could not keep a firm grip
on the slippery log. He put both arms around it to keep from sliding
off. He looked at his watch. If it was still working it would soon be
dawn, but he had twenty yards to go on this last hole.

Twenty yards. Didn't sound like much. But could he
make them? It had taken three hours to shoot the seventeenth, and
almost two hours of rest before he could even crawl back onto his log
and start the eighteenth. This last hole had been the toughest of
all. The river had turned east and broadened, reducing the speed of
what little current there was. He had had to pull himself along the
bank, grabbing overhanging brush to propel himself forward. It would
have been a back-breaking chore for a man in good physical condition,
let alone for one who was beginning to resemble a corpse.

Fifteen yards. That damned Birddog pilot had shown
absolutely no sympathy. Had been no help whatsoever—egging him
on, getting him mad. Buzzing him when he wouldn't talk to him on the
radio, or when he was trying to sleep on the log. If he ever met him
he'd hang, draw, and quarter him. Absolutely no respect for age or
rank. Insubordinate little bastard.

Ten yards. Promising a clubhouse after the
eighteenth hole! Come on! Who were they kidding? Did they actually
think he was going to fall for that? Why were they suckering him
along, giving him false hopes to cling to? Fighting to keep him
alive—for what?

Five yards. OK. He could make five yards. Go all
the way. Just to prove to that smart-assed FAC airplane driver that
he could. When he finished the game and there was no clubhouse he was
going to throw rocks at that buzzing son of a bitch.

He was startled by something in the river up
ahead, coming straight at him. He squinted blurry eyes, trying to
bring them into focus. Was it the Loch Ness monster? No. It was a
snake. The biggest damned snake he had ever seen, coming at him,
eyeball to eyeball. He slapped the water. The snake took off,
zig-zagging across the river.

Damn good thing. That frigging reptile come any
closer, he'd have bit his head off, skinned and eaten him.

He clicked off the four hundred and fifteenth
yard—the distance of the eighteenth hole at Tucson National. Just
up ahead was a small indenture in the river, with a sloping, muddy
bank. Slipping, falling, floundering, he grunted the log up to the
bank and gave it a last energy-sapping shove to secure it in the mud.
Then he flopped down beside it. This was it.

Rescue or no rescue, he could go no farther. This
was the end of his rope.

He looked around. No clubhouse. No line of golf
carts. No pro shop. No bar. Just a line of thick brush that ran down
to the muddy bank. He wiped a mud splat from his eye and fumbled for
his radio. It took both hands to punch it on and get it to his mouth.
"Birddog ... from Bat Twenty-one."

"Roger, Bat. How you doing?"

That cheery goddamn voice. He'd like to throttle
it. "Have finished ... the last hole."

"Outstanding!"

"But...somebody moved the clubhouse."

"Just relax. Tote up your score. And keep
your eyes open."

"Wilco ... Bat out." And he was out. Too
weak to even crawl into the underbrush, he rolled over next to the
log and, from sheer reflex, covered himself with mud as best he
could, digging in like a salamander. Only his eyeballs moved.

Looking for God only knew what.

The biting of a mosquito on his cheek snapped
Hambleton awake. Too tired to swat it, he simply shoved it off his
face. Should he try and summon the strength to put on his mosquito
netting? No. To hell with it. It hurt too damned much to move. The
pain of his shoulder was a throbbing ache. He rolled over on his side
to favor it. As he did so he saw something that chilled the very
marrow in his bones. He blinked, hoping it was a dream. It was no
dream. Oh, sweet Jesus, no! No! Not after all this.
Not after all
this!

He stared, bereft of hope, at the Vietnamese
sampan coming around the bend of the river.

Silently it came, materializing in the dawn mist
like some horrible apparition. In the prow of the boat was a
Vietnamese, paddling slowly.

Hambleton went rigid. Should he try and make a
break for it? Would his dead limbs respond even if he tried?

The sampan came closer. He could not think
straight. He had to do something—at least crawl into the
underbrush. Maybe he could make it... but his extremities were no
longer taking orders. Struck dumb with fear, he could only watch as
the sampan slowly swung into the little cove and headed directly for
his railroad tie.

Now it was too late even to call Birddog. The
sampan gomers would hear. Why the hell hadn't he brought his gun? If
he were doomed, he might at least go down fighting. Stealthily he
reached for his knife, trying not to breathe. If he were spotted he
would play dead, and when the Vietnamese came over to investigate, he
would spring. Catch him unawares. If he could move.

The sampan nuzzled the bank right next to his tie.
Hambleton mustered his last ounce of strength, readying to strike as
soon as the Vietnamese disembarked.

But the Vietnamese seemed in no hurry to get out
of the boat. He merely sat there quietly, his oar resting in his lap,
the slow dripping of his paddle a metronome clicking off eons.

At first he thought it was a mirage created by his
burning eyes trying to peer through clenched lids and muddy glasses.
But then it happened again. The banana leaves stacked in the center
of the boat moved. Then before his unbelieving eyes two of the large
fronds parted and he found himself staring into a pair of eyes that
were peering at him from under the leaves.

Hambleton blinked.
Not Oriental eyes—round
eyes!
The roundest eyes he had ever seen!

"What's your dog's name?" queried a low
voice.

Hambleton tried to speak, to squeeze words around
his swollen tongue. He swallowed, then tried again. "P—Pierre."

"Congratulations, Colonel. You've just
finished the eighteenth hole."

It took both the men in the sampan—the
Vietnamese and the Marine Ranger—to roll Hambleton into the
longboat and get him covered with the banana leaves. Then the sampan
nosed back into the river, the sinewy shoulders of the diminutive
Vietnamese Ranger in the prow bending to the oar.

As they headed downstream Hambleton looked out
from under the leaves. Above them were two Sandys patrolling both
sides of the river. Above the Sandys was a flight of Phantoms
stitching vapor trails in the dawn sky.

The Ranger produced a canteen; he unscrewed the
cap and handed it to Hambleton. "Nothing like a brisk eighteen
holes to stir a man's thirst."

Hambleton thanked him with his eyes and took a
long pull.

"Sorry it's not a cold Manhattan, but we'll
take care of that shortly. Got some Jolly Greens waiting for us a
couple clicks downstream."

Hambleton nodded and managed a tired grin. "Name's
Hambleton," he said, foolishly, trying to extend his hand.

"I know," said the Marine. "I'm
Lieutenant Morris. Call me Tom."

"Thanks, Tom."

"Anytime, Colonel."

Hambleton lay back. He couldn't convince himself
it was true. He had been found. He was among friends. He was still
far from safe, for the gauntlet of the enemy-held river still had to
be run. But at least he was no longer alone.

With his pickup he had expected the Rangers to
move out into the river and lay into those paddles. But they hadn't.
They were going slowly along the bank, hugging the shoreline, taking
advantage of the overhang. After an hour of almost smothering
silence and snail-pace travel, the Vietnamese whispered, "We
stop."

It was obvious the American Ranger had confidence
in the small Vietnamese, for they stopped immediately. It had also
soon become apparent the Vietnamese knew all the roads that led down
to the river and where all the little villages were located. The
sampan moved in tight against the bank, completely covered by
overhang. The Vietnamese Ranger spread the foliage apart carefully
and nodded downstream. "Look."

On the left bank, half a mile away and high up on
a hill, were enemy soldiers. Hambleton now knew for sure that his
transmissions had been monitored and triangulated by the enemy.
A welcoming party was gathering to meet them. The Vietnamese Ranger
turned to Morris. "Get on radio. Get help."

Morris did as instructed. He reached for his
backpack radio, opened his map, and called the FAC. He gave Birddog
his coordinates, then, "Black hats are going to try and head us
off at the pass. Can you do something?"

"Roger," said Birddog. "We're
riding shotgun. Pull in your neck."

They sat quietly, blending into the overhang, the
stillness violated only by the dripping of sampan oars and the hum of
insects. They could hear the voices of the soldiers as they came
closer, crashing through the brush.

Hambleton peered nervously out of his camouflage.
He could see the hill off to the left, and the small figures darting
through the brush toward them. He sucked in his breath. With nothing
else to do but keep a nervous eye on the approaching enemy, he turned
on his radio low and listened to the chatter as Birddog talked to the
unseen fighter pilots overhead.