The two SEALs studied the ravine. It was a twin for the one they had just come up. Far down Ostercamp pointed to a blob. It had to be a mile away. “What is it?”
Bradford put his Pup scope on it. “A damned Jeep. No wonder they got ahead of us. Range?”
Ostercamp had his Bull Pup up as well and sighted in. “More than a mile. Range on these pups is only twelve hundred. Let’s laser it and try a couple of rounds. Shooting downhill we get more distance. Might scare them.” They laser sighed on the jeep, and fired. The two rounds air burst forty yards short of the target, but enough shrapnel slammed that way that the jeep-type rig dug its wheels as it raced down the slope and out of range.
“Give the bastard something to think about,” Bradford said. He saw something and fired a quick shot from the 20mm at a rock twenty yards from the ruined mortar. A man screamed, lifted up and tried to fire a rifle, then crumpled and didn’t move.
“We’re clear up here,” Bradford said in his Motorola.
“Come on down,” Murdock said. “We’re going up the other side. Thanks for silencing that mortar. We picked up a couple of scratches in the exchange. Nothing to worry about. We’re moving.”
“Cap, we scared away a vehicle of some kind, jeep-like. It went blasting out of range down the ravine. We won’t have to worry about that mortar or those infantrymen.”
“Roger that.”
It took the SEALs ten minutes to work up the sharp incline of the right-hand side of their ravine. Once on the crest, they saw that it angled into a far higher ridge in front of them that was slanting more to the west. Murdock checked his compass.
“Yes, let’s get down that slope and into the valley down there, more of a ravine, maybe thirty feet wide at the bottom, but it will be easier working to the west.”
They hiked.
Twice in the next hour they heard aircraft. Once it was a pair of what they figured were MiGs slanting across the sky up high and well to the north of them.
The second aircraft was a chopper. It worked away from them, then came back. Murdock decided it was following the ravines, hunting for them. This time it was closer.
“Let’s find something to hide under or around. Rocks, shrubs, anything and get dirt and rocks over you. Can’t tell how close this bastard will come.”
They covered up as well as they could. There wasn’t enough dirt and growth here to do a perfect job. Anyone with good glasses from five hundred feet could pick them out. Murdock lay in his small depression next to a boulder and behind a small shrub and hoped.
Then it was too late. The chopper swung over the ridge and aimed right for them. It turned away from them, and flew up the canyon to the source two miles away.
“Hold tight, he’ll be back” Murdock said in the Motorola. “Be ready for him. If he finds us and fires, we take him out with the twenties. Be ready to fire.”
They waited.
Five minutes later the chopper came back. It slowed fifty yards from them, then came forward again, slow, then hovered. It was about two hundred feet and the rotor wash blew away some of the sand on the ground.
Then the Chinese bird inched forward until it was over the first SEAL. In a quick move the chopper pilot turned the bird in a small circle around the SEALs and the door gunner got off a murderous burst with a 30-caliber, door-mounted machine gun aimed directly at the SEALs.
25
With the first muzzle blast from the machine gun, four SEALs fired with their twenties. The machine gun rounds splattered into the rocks around the SEALs. Three of the four twenties hit the bird and exploded on impact. The gunner slumped over his 30 caliber before he could fire again. One 20mm round detonated inside the cockpit, shattering the instruments, killing the pilot and sending the craft into a whirling and gyrating dance as it dove power on into the ground and exploded fifty feet from the SEALs.
“Any casualties?” DeWitt asked on the Motorola.
“Only the Chicoms in the fucking chopper,” Jaybird chirped. “That was a big bird, a lot like our forty-sixes. Must be used for transporting troops. So I wonder where they are?”
“Yeah, Lieutenant, I’m not exactly a casualty, but I’ve got me a little scratch,” Guns Franklin said, his voice missing its usual twang.
“On it,” Mahanani said. He lifted from the ground and looked around for Franklin. He was at the edge of the group. The medic ran to him and knelt in front of Franklin. He couldn’t see any blood.
“Where, buddy?”
“Arm, a ricochet I’d guess. Fucker hurts like my arm was blown off.”
Mahanani saw some blood then, halfway up Franklin’s left forearm. He peeled back the cammy shirt gently.
“Yeah, just a scratch, Guns. About three inches long and to the bone. Gonna need some stitches in there. I’ll use some butterfly bandages to pull it together.”
Mahanani dumped antiseptic on the wound, then pulled it together and bound the whole thing with a roller bandage.
“There you go, Guns. You want a morphine?”
“Hell, no, just a damn scratch.”
“Fit for duty, Commander, and ready to roll,” Franklin said to his lip mike.
“Yeah, we better move,” Murdock said. “If there’s any more Chicom air in the area, this burning chopper is another damn signal flare to them where we are. Let’s choggie.”
They hiked.
Lam kept them on a generally western course, heading into the closest friendly territory, the Sikkim area of India. Murdock wondered if there would be any border guards. India and China had never been on good terms. Now with the overflights and the shoot downs, tensions could be running high. Even so, he figured that border guards up in this remote most northern part of India were unlikely.
They moved out for an hour down the small valley, then had to go up and over another ridge when the valley turned south. They were on the side slope with no vegetation at all when they heard a jet plane.
“Down and don’t move,” Murdock barked into the Motorola. “We don’t know where he is or if he’s coming this way. We play it safe.”
They waited for five minutes.
The jet sound faded and was gone.
The SEALs moved again to the west.
Murdock couldn’t help but think about the pilot on the first 46 that bugged out on them. It was mortar fire, not pinpoint target shooting. Chances were that the bird would not have been hit at all, even with a fire-for-effect, six-round salvo from the Chicom mortar men. A mortar is an area weapon, not a direct targeting one.
When they got out of here, Murdock was going to make every effort to contact that pilot in person and take him apart verbally and physically if possible. The bastard had run out on them. Yellow-bellied out, and Murdock would have some satisfaction.
“You never leave your men behind in combat.”
It was a principle that every officer had to commit to. This fucking pilot chickened out and flew away when the first mortar round hit. Murdock let his anger rage as he walked along. He was going to write up a scathing letter of objection, critical and asking for a reprimand, a letter in the officer’s permanent personnel file, and a court-martial if possible.
Murdock came out of his reverie with sound in his earpiece.
“Looks like some trouble up ahead,” Lam said.
“What?” Murdock asked.
“Not sure, come on up, skipper and take a look.”
Murdock called a halt and put the men down, then moved up to where Lam lay at the top of the ridge looking down the reverse slope.