For the next few hours morale was relatively upbeat. We now knew where we were, we had managed to make contact with headquarters, and an evacuation was in the works. The betting was that at 1200 we’d get the word that a dustoff would be made that night, as soon as it was dark and the Hueys could spool up. The reality was somewhat different.
At noon I had Thompson do his thing and took the handset from him. “Whiskey Zulu calling Whiskey Home. Whiskey Zulu calling Whiskey Home. Do you read?”
“Whiskey Zulu, this is Whiskey Home. How do you read?” This was a different voice and response. Foxtrot Delta Four, the E2C AWACS, must be simply relaying us back to Tegucigalpa.
“Reading you five by five, Whiskey Home.”
“Say condition, Whiskey Zulu, say condition.”
“Same as before, Whiskey Home. Two dead, multiple injured, low on food and water, locals not aware of our presence.”
A new voice came over the line. “Put Whiskey Zulu Actual on the line!” This was a request for the Actual, or commanding officer of the detachment.
I shrugged at Thompson, who was following along, and answered, “This is Whiskey Zulu Actual.”
“This isn’t Donovan!” was the angry response.
I gave Thompson a curious look. I triggered the mike. “Whiskey Home, be advised, this frequency is non-secure.”
“Who is this? Where’s Donovan!”
I rolled my eyes. This was a violation of every radio procedure in the book. “Captain Donovan is dead. This is Captain Buckman.”
“Who?”
Christ! “Bravo-Uniform-Charlie-Kilo-Mike-Alpha-November.”
“Where’s Lieutenant Fairfax? Who are you? Why isn’t Fairfax in command?”
“I assumed command.”
“Why?”
I glanced over at Fairfax, who was following this. “We can discuss this back at base, sir. When can we expect pickup?”
There were a few more minutes of blank air, and then the first voice returned. “Whiskey Zulu, at 1400 contact November Lima Four for recon check. We need to pinpoint your location.” He gave us a new radio frequency for November Lima Four, and then cleared the frequency.
I looked at Thompson and shrugged, which he returned to me. Two hours later we were on line with November Lima Four. Curiously, November Lima Four had us ignite a pencil flare and then douse it after fifteen seconds, and then repeat the process twice. Afterwards, we were told to call Whiskey Home on yet another frequency at 1600.
A couple of the men asked what was going on. I said, “What I think is that somebody is flying around in a recon bird that can read that flare, and they just found us on a map.” Most of the guys started looking up at the sky, but we were under some trees and nobody could see or hear anything. “Guys, I don’t think you’re going to see anything. It’s probably some sort of infrared sensing system. They might be miles away and miles high.”
At 1600 we called Whiskey Home again. Extraction would be tomorrow, Saturday the 14th, but we needed to continue north, to a suitable landing zone. At 2100 we started north again. This march was tougher that the previous one. We had to go farther, and skirt around an even larger town, and military traffic was increasing. It looked like we were heading into a fortified area. By 0500 we were exhausted, and the injury list had grown longer. We were almost out of food, and running low on halazone tablets. Private Gonzalez had broken his ankle falling in the dark, and while he wasn’t being carried, he was now as slow as I was, and could no longer act as a scout.
I made the men keep moving. My knee was in agony by now, but I kept moving back and forth up and down the line, urging them on and telling them a pickup was ahead. Private Smith said that we should leave him on the road, and that somebody would be able to pick him up in the morning. At that point I gave him a good-natured chewing out. “Listen, we all jumped in and we’re all getting out. I don’t care if I have to cut the damn leg off and tie a stick to the stump and then kick your peg-legged ass back to Texas, but we are all going out together. You guys have been watching too many god-damned movies!”
Morale was dropping at this point. Our morning radio call was not telling us when we were to be picked up. I was getting the impression that Whiskey Home and General Hawkins wanted us to walk home. Hawkins was a political general, not a combat general, and we weren’t his men, but his problem. I had the sneaking suspicion that he would have preferred that we had crashed with the Gooney Bird (if that was what had happened to it) since then he could blame either the Hondurans or somebody else and forget about this mess.
The 1200 radio call confirmed that there was no pickup scheduled for that evening. We were to continue marching north. I had already reviewed our status with Briscoe and the other noncoms. Thompson told me that the batteries for the Prick 77 wouldn’t last much longer. We were out of food. When we ran out of halazone, we’d start dropping from dysentery and God knows what else. I’d had dysentery once, back on the first go. It’s not enjoyable. We needed a dustoff. Most importantly, our medic said that Smith needed immediate dustoff. He was running out of morphine, and by this time tomorrow would be screaming in agony. In two days time, gangrene would start to set in and he’d have to remove the leg.
After being told to keep marching, I replied, “Whiskey Home, negative on continuing the march. We need immediate pickup. Injuries are increasing and time is of the essence.”
Another voice came on the line, Hawkins again, ordering us to keep marching. I looked over at Doc, who glanced over at Smith and then shook his head. “Negative, Whiskey Home, we need immediate pickup. Unit condition insufficient for continued march without further loss.”
“Buckman, I am ordering you to keep marching!”
I had just about had it by that point. I knew I was throwing my career down the drain, but I needed to get these guys home. “Whiskey Home, that is a negative. Now pull your head out of your ass and whistle up some Hueys! If we have to make another march it’s going to be to the nearest town to find a hospital and a police station to surrender to! Now make it happen! Over!”
There was about five minutes of silence before the original voice came back on the air. “Whiskey Zulu, can you make it another four klicks north? There’s an abandoned airstrip north of you.”
Briscoe and Janos nodded at this, and I agreed with them; that we could do. Still, an abandoned airstrip? Here? Who the hell would build an airstrip in this neighborhood? There was nobody around. And how could they tell? No way was it on any maps. Who knew about it? DOD? CIA? DEA? Some other three letter agency?
“Can do, Whiskey Home. Four klicks north. We can make it by 2300. We’ll call when we get there.”
“Whiskey Zulu, this is Whiskey Home. Copy and out.”
I decided not to wait. I sent my three scouts out, to find this abandoned airfield, and detailed a few more men to follow them and station themselves along the way. It was slow going, but it was daylight and we wouldn’t be falling in the dark and breaking any more bones. We got there a little before 1800 and discovered our next problem.
The airfield wasn’t abandoned. The scouts reported that an ancient flatbed pickup truck had rolled in with a half dozen barrels loaded on the back. If I called home and said we had visitors, the pickup would be cancelled. I circled all the able bodied troops together.
“We need this airfield. It’s probably being used by drug runners or somebody like that. We need to capture this place, but not make it look like Americans. Only speak Spanish. If you can’t speak Spanish, keep quiet. Take prisoners. No killing. You guys are that good. Understood?”