was a
long rift in the ground, a mountain ridge heaved up by some ancient geological
pressures that had dented the South Asian peninsula. He passed the clearing.
“See
anything?” his backseater asked.
They
called him Little Bear. Not exactly original, but he claimed to be part
Cherokee.
Might’ve
been bull.
“Negative.
I’m trying another sweep.”
“Copy.”
Skull
brought the Phantom back around, her engines whining. Fuel burn was light.
Flaps felt a bit sluggish for some reason. He was at five hundred feet,
slipping toward three hundred as he made the pass, lower than the top of the
nearby ridge.
Nothing.
And nothing again on the third run. He brought the plane up. This much flying
over any one spot in Southeast Asia was extremely dangerous, especially at low
altitude.
But
where was Crush? On the other side of the ridge? He took the Phantom around,
still craning his head toward the ground for a sign of something.
“I’m
going to run along that escarpment a way,” he told Little Bear.
“Shit—
a mirror. Right wing. See it?”
His
backseater leaned forward past his equipment to poke him in the back and make
sure he had his attention. Skull looked over his shoulder out the F-4’s canopy,
but couldn’t see the light, couldn’t see anything but the infinite variations
of green below.
“Where?”
he asked.
“Back
there. It was something.”
“Yeah,
hang on. I’ll go back.”
He
could barely contain himself or the Phantom as he pulled around for a better
look. He put his wings almost on the trees, holding the jet barely above stall
speed, begging the mirror to catch a fresh glint of the strong, overhead sun.
He
got a nose full of heavy machine-gun fire as a reward. What seemed like a
hundred thousand 23mm anti–aircraft guns opened up on him from the ridge.
There
was a disconnect for a second, a short between his brain and his body. Knowlington’s
hand threw the throttle to after-burner, or maybe beyond; the rest of him
reacted to push the plane into a line over the ridge and out of fire. None of
this registered in his brain. All the pilot saw was black lead headed straight
at him from all directions, red muzzles burning into his eyes.
Breaking
off was the prudent thing to do, the thing any commander would have insisted he
do, the thing that was right. He did it as soon as his limbs began taking
instructions from his brain again.
It
felt very, very wrong.
They
were back at twenty thousand feet, still climbing and halfway to Burma before
his backseater’s voice pulled him back to the plane.
“Throttle
stuck,” Skull answered lamely. He began pulling the Phantom back, but he was
spooked. They were now low on fuel, so low that he couldn’t have made another
pass even he wanted to. He radioed a warning about the anti-air and headed back
to home base in Thailand.
After
that, the real drinking started.
No
one ever found Crush or his pitter. They weren’t among the prisoners released
at the end of the war, nor did their names show up among the dead, either in
the North or interred in Laos. Their names were on the Wall in Washington, D.C.;
Skull had traced his finger over them himself.
Officially,
the Air Force decided that the two men had gone down with the plane;
unofficially, Knowlington knew that was a bunch of bull, since the Vietnamese
would have recovered the bodies. The reds had definitely found the plane; they
had released propaganda photos of it as part of a campaign to prove that
America had no respect for Laos’s borders.
As
if the scumbags did themselves.
Despite
the fact that he’d driven through a cloud of flak, Skull’s Phantom didn’t have
a nick on it when he landed. A lot of guys interpreted that as one more sign of
his incredible luck. Even Little Bear was amazed.
Knowlington
saw it as confirmation that he had chickened out and was a coward at heart.
All
the recognition, all the medals that had come before that flight— and certainly
those that came later—
long rift in the ground, a mountain ridge heaved up by some ancient geological
pressures that had dented the South Asian peninsula. He passed the clearing.
“See
anything?” his backseater asked.
They
called him Little Bear. Not exactly original, but he claimed to be part
Cherokee.
Might’ve
been bull.
“Negative.
I’m trying another sweep.”
“Copy.”
Skull
brought the Phantom back around, her engines whining. Fuel burn was light.
Flaps felt a bit sluggish for some reason. He was at five hundred feet,
slipping toward three hundred as he made the pass, lower than the top of the
nearby ridge.
Nothing.
And nothing again on the third run. He brought the plane up. This much flying
over any one spot in Southeast Asia was extremely dangerous, especially at low
altitude.
But
where was Crush? On the other side of the ridge? He took the Phantom around,
still craning his head toward the ground for a sign of something.
“I’m
going to run along that escarpment a way,” he told Little Bear.
“Shit—
a mirror. Right wing. See it?”
His
backseater leaned forward past his equipment to poke him in the back and make
sure he had his attention. Skull looked over his shoulder out the F-4’s canopy,
but couldn’t see the light, couldn’t see anything but the infinite variations
of green below.
“Where?”
he asked.
“Back
there. It was something.”
“Yeah,
hang on. I’ll go back.”
He
could barely contain himself or the Phantom as he pulled around for a better
look. He put his wings almost on the trees, holding the jet barely above stall
speed, begging the mirror to catch a fresh glint of the strong, overhead sun.
He
got a nose full of heavy machine-gun fire as a reward. What seemed like a
hundred thousand 23mm anti–aircraft guns opened up on him from the ridge.
There
was a disconnect for a second, a short between his brain and his body. Knowlington’s
hand threw the throttle to after-burner, or maybe beyond; the rest of him
reacted to push the plane into a line over the ridge and out of fire. None of
this registered in his brain. All the pilot saw was black lead headed straight
at him from all directions, red muzzles burning into his eyes.
Breaking
off was the prudent thing to do, the thing any commander would have insisted he
do, the thing that was right. He did it as soon as his limbs began taking
instructions from his brain again.
It
felt very, very wrong.
They
were back at twenty thousand feet, still climbing and halfway to Burma before
his backseater’s voice pulled him back to the plane.
“Throttle
stuck,” Skull answered lamely. He began pulling the Phantom back, but he was
spooked. They were now low on fuel, so low that he couldn’t have made another
pass even he wanted to. He radioed a warning about the anti-air and headed back
to home base in Thailand.
After
that, the real drinking started.
No
one ever found Crush or his pitter. They weren’t among the prisoners released
at the end of the war, nor did their names show up among the dead, either in
the North or interred in Laos. Their names were on the Wall in Washington, D.C.;
Skull had traced his finger over them himself.
Officially,
the Air Force decided that the two men had gone down with the plane;
unofficially, Knowlington knew that was a bunch of bull, since the Vietnamese
would have recovered the bodies. The reds had definitely found the plane; they
had released propaganda photos of it as part of a campaign to prove that
America had no respect for Laos’s borders.
As
if the scumbags did themselves.
Despite
the fact that he’d driven through a cloud of flak, Skull’s Phantom didn’t have
a nick on it when he landed. A lot of guys interpreted that as one more sign of
his incredible luck. Even Little Bear was amazed.
Knowlington
saw it as confirmation that he had chickened out and was a coward at heart.
All
the recognition, all the medals that had come before that flight— and certainly
those that came later—
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