Saving Bravo by Stephan Talty

Author:Stephan Talty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

At about 10 p.m. on the night of April 10, as Clark was slowly pushing downstream, Tommy Norris and his team of Vietnamese sea commandos left the French bunker. Their faces were blackened and they each carried an AK-47 rifle, several grenades, and some spare ammunition, along with one canteen apiece. The commandos wore tiger-striped camo blouses with blue jeans; Norris had on his olive-green shirt and jeans, which made less noise than the standard-issue uniform. They knew Hambleton hadn’t gotten to the Mieu Giang yet. Tonight they would focus on saving Clark.

The team made their way to the river, rippling under the moonlight, where Norris reached his hand in and tested the water. It was cold. The current was a knot and a half, difficult for all but the best swimmers. “I said, ‘Uh-oh, I’m not going to put my guys in that.’” Norris and Lieutenant Tho decided the team would have to go overland.

The men moved away from the riverbank and headed west. The terrain was covered with small trees and underbrush—bamboo, nipa palm, elephant grass. As they pushed farther west, Norris kept a sharp eye out for rice paddies and fields; he didn’t want the men to blunder out into the open. Along with exposure, noise was a constant worry. With the enemy thick around them, one clink of a canteen neck against a knife or a belt buckle could give them away.

When they’d walked just over a mile from the bunker, Norris heard the sound of machinery ahead. He stopped his men and peered through the semidarkness. Headlights a ways off. A line of NVA tanks and transport trucks was moving across the Cam Lo bridge. As Norris watched, the lead truck turned east off the bridge and headed directly toward him.

They’d barely left the bunker and already they were in danger of being spotted. For a second or two, Norris thought about calling in an airstrike. But the trucks were so close that the American bombs might hit his men, or even Clark, if he was near the bridge. He had to think of something else.

Norris pointed toward the river, and the Vietnamese commandos slipped into the bushes and pushed their way through the thin branches and waxy leaves. Hiding themselves in the underbrush, they watched as the procession of headlights continued toward them. Stealth was their primary tactical advantage. Norris briefly considered attacking the convoy but quickly rejected the idea. It would result in a clatter of gunfire, costing them their cover and, at best, ending the operation, at least for the night; at worst, they’d be captured or killed.

When the lead truck was five hundred yards out, its headlights swerved away. The convoy had turned onto a small road and was now heading south toward the mountains. Norris breathed a bit easier.

The men stood and began walking again, watching the river for any sign of Clark. The NVA was seemingly everywhere. A patrol moved by, the soldiers talking and laughing. Norris signaled for

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