Fairfax immediately ordered search parties out into the darkness, without any plan that I could see. I promptly countermanded his orders. “Lieutenant, why don’t we wait on that until we get some better light?” I could see several of the men looking relieved as I said that.
“Sir, we have to begin moving towards the exercise area,” he protested.
“Lieutenant, do you know where the exercise area is? I certainly don’t, and neither do these men. We should be waiting until sunrise and figuring out where everybody is and where we are,” I answered.
“Sir, our orders were very specific. We need to move out!”
“And I’m countermanding those orders.” I took off my helmet and set it on the tree next to me, and rubbed my hands through my hair. My leg was throbbing and I needed an ice cold beer, and morphine!
“Captain, you can’t do that!” Rather than speak to me quietly, he had raised his voice and was speaking in front of the group.
I motioned him closer. “Lieutenant Fairfax,”, I said lowly, “You’re a second lieutenant and I’m a captain, and I’m a line officer in the combat arms, just like you. I hereby inform you that I am taking command. Do you understand?”
“You can’t do that, sir! This is my platoon!” The idiot couldn’t keep his voice down, and now everybody knew I had assumed command.
“I can and I have. Now, when Captain Donovan gets here I will be happy to relinquish command to him, but for the time being, my orders stand. Drop your gear and get comfortable. It will be dawn in a few hours. We’ll worry about things then,” I told him.
He gave me a dirty look, and moved to the edge of the clearing.
One of the men, a Private Martinez, glanced at his platoon leader, and then looked over at me. “Sir? Any idea where we actually are?”
I smiled and shrugged. “Not a clue, Private, not a clue. I wouldn’t worry about it though.”
“How come?”
“Well, that Gooney Bird dropped us somewhere in Latin America. Tomorrow morning, all we have to do is figure out where the sun comes up, turn left, and start marching north. Sooner or later, we’re bound to hit Texas!” Martinez grinned at that, and most of the others chuckled or laughed. The mood lightened considerably. “Listen, guys, we’re the Eighty-Second-Fucking-Airborne! We’re going home if we have to walk the entire distance! Is that understood!?” A chorus of loud grunts and HOO-AHs rang out in the woods, and I relaxed. “That’s more like it! For a second there I thought I’d been transferred to the One-Oh-Worst!” The One-Oh-Worst is the 82nd’s favorite nickname for the 101st Airborne, who now rode to battle in helos. That earned me a string of catcalls and insults.
I just smiled and relaxed. After a few minutes one of the guys dug out a big bottle of Tylenol and passed it around. I dry swallowed a half dozen myself, then dug out my canteen and took a swallow.
Just as I predicted, a few hours later, the sun rose in the east. The guys dug out some Lurps (LRRPs), Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol rations, and made what would pass for breakfast. The Army was just starting to issue MREs (’Meals Ready to Eat’, or ‘Meals Refused by Ethiopians’, take your pick) but we hadn’t brought any to Honduras. Lurps generally sucked, but they were better than nothing. The problem was that they were freeze-dried, so you needed lots of water, which was in short supply. If we couldn’t find potable water, we would need to start using the halazone tablets, which made the water taste lousy, but prevented diarrhea and all sorts of even worse diseases. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Welcome to the Army.
In the morning light I started to get very worried. I didn’t think we were anywhere near the drop zone. I wasn’t even sure what country we were in! The drop zone and the surrounding region was an upland plateau sort of place, but this was a lot more mountainous. It was entirely possible the Gooney Bird pilot had dropped us somewhere we weren’t supposed to be.
As soon as there was enough light, and the men had at least gotten something to eat, I sent a patrol of four men down the hill, in the direction the rest of the stick had landed. They returned in an hour, leading another eight men, including the senior sergeant in the plane, a Sergeant First Class Briscoe who was several years older than the rest of the men. He had organized his little group last night much like I had, and waited for sunlight before looking around. Most importantly, he had a Spec 4 radio operator with him, along with a radio! I could have kissed the pair of them!
“Greetings, gentlemen! Welcome to the party!” I said as a welcome.
The new group mingled with the group already there. Sergeant Briscoe came up to where I was sitting. Lieutenant Fairfax did not join us. He was sitting alone and pouting. Briscoe glanced at him curiously, but then turned to me. It was obvious he had figured out where things stood, or maybe the patrol that found them told them. “Captain Buckman?”
I held out my hand and shook his. “Welcome to the party, Sergeant. How are your men?”
“Good shape, sir.” He pointed down the hill, and said, “The ground levels off somewhat. I think this is the rough section. Who’s missing?”
“I was about to ask you that. Captain Donovan hasn’t shown up. He jumped before me, so he must still be up the hill. I don’t know your men well enough to say who else is missing.”
Briscoe looked at the group and started mentally counting off names. “We’re missing Privates Masurski and Smith.”
I nodded. “First things first. We need to find those men. We need to send out search parties.” I talked it over with him and it looked like the stick had landed in a pattern about two klicks long and half a klick wide. The two privates were in the first half of the stick to drop, so they were probably on either side of us or back up the hill. Captain Donovan was almost certainly up the hill.
“Sergeant, I am going to need you to organize the search. I’m not going to be moving much. I fucked my knee up. We aren’t leaving here without all our men. Understood!?”
“HOO-AH, sir!” He pointed at my leg. “How bad is it, sir?”
“I’ll live, but I won’t be doing any marathons for a bit.”
“DOC! FRONT AND CENTER!” he called out, and a trooper with medic’s insignia bounced over. He was armed just like the rest of the troops. According to the Geneva Convention, medical troops were to be unarmed and festooned with red and white crosses indicating their non-combat nature. Viet Nam had shown that those crosses were excellent aiming points for snipers. Since then most medical troops went about as heavily armed as their patients, and rarely wore any kind of insignia.
“Thank you, sergeant. Leave me the RTO, too. Maybe we can raise somebody on the net.”
“Yes, sir!”
Sergeant Briscoe organized a search pattern, with various noncoms and PFCs leading in different directions, and then led one of the groups up the hill in the direction where Captain Donovan should be. The medic, whose real name was Gerald and was called Doc, like every other medic in the Army, wanted to cut my pants from me, but I just stood and dropped my trousers. I wasn’t sure how long we were going to be like this, but I didn’t need shredded pants along with a shredded knee. Meanwhile, the RTO came over with his radio and tried to call home.
After a few minutes I learned two things. First, my leg wasn’t broken, but I had definitely screwed up my knee. Doc thought I had ripped a tendon or some cartilage, but without X-rays, we were guessing. I could walk, painfully, so I wouldn’t need to be carried. He cut up some parachute and wrapped my knee with it, along with some parachute cord. It wasn’t an Ace bandage, but it did feel better, and I could hobble around.