‘Well, could you at least look interested in what I’m saying, and perhaps even take the occasional note?’
‘Why should I bother to take notes when it’s you who grades my papers?’
‘Because you won’t be pleased with the grade I’ve given your latest effort,’ said Joanna, as she joined him in the shower.
‘Oh, and I was hoping for an A for that particular masterpiece,’ said Jimmy as he began soaping her breasts.
‘Do you by any chance recall who you suggested was the biggest influence on Napoleon?’
‘Josephine,’ said Jimmy without hesitation.
‘That might even have been the correct answer, but it isn’t what you wrote in your essay.’
Jimmy stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. ‘What did I write?’ he asked, turning to face her.
‘Joanna.’
Within minutes, all twelve helicopters were flying in a V formation. Nat looked behind him at the two rear gunners, who were staring intently out into the black cloudless night. He slipped on a pair of earphones and listened to the flight lieutenant.
‘Blackbird One to group, we’ll be out of allied air space in four minutes, then I anticipate an ETA of twenty-one hundred hours.’
Nat found himself sitting bolt upright as he listened to the young pilot. He glanced out of a side window at stars that would never be seen on the American continent. He could feel the adrenalin pumping through his body as they flew nearer to the enemy lines. At last he felt he was part of this damn man’s war. His only surprise was that he sensed no fear. Perhaps that would come later.
‘We’re moving into enemy territory,’ said the flight lieutenant as if he were crossing a busy road. ‘Are you receiving me, ground leader?’
There was a crackling on the line before a voice said, ‘I hear you, Blackbird One, what’s your position?’ Nat recognized the southern drawl of Captain Dick Tyler.
‘We’re approximately fifty miles south of you.’
‘Copy that, expect you to rendezvous in fifteen minutes.’
‘Roger. You won’t see us until the last moment, because we’re keeping all our external lights off.’
‘Copy that,’ came back the same drawl.
‘Have you identified a possible landing spot?’
‘There’s a small piece of sheltered land on a ridge just below me,’ replied Tyler, ‘but it will only take one helicopter at a time, and because of the rain, not to mention the mud, landing could be a hell of a problem.’
‘What’s your current position?’
‘I’m still at my same grid reference just north of the Dyng River.’ Tyler paused. ‘And I’m fairly sure that the VC have begun crossing the river.’
‘How many men do you have with you?’
‘Seventy-eight.’ Nat knew that the full complement of two platoons was ninety-six. ‘And how many bodies?’ asked the flight lieutenant, as if he were asking how many eggs the captain wanted for breakfast.
‘Eighteen.’
‘OK, be ready to put six men and two bodies into each chopper, and make sure you’re able to climb on board the moment you see me.’
‘We’ll be ready,’ said the captain. ‘What time do you have?’
‘Twenty thirty-three,’ said the flight lieutenant.
‘Then at twenty forty-eight, I’ll put up one red flare.’
‘Twenty forty-eight, one red flare,’ repeated the flight lieutenant, ‘Roger and out.’
Nat was impressed by how calm the flight lieutenant appeared to be when he, his co-pilot and both rear gunners could be dead in twenty minutes. But as he had been reminded so often by Colonel Tremlett, more lives are saved by calm men than brave ones. No one spoke for the next fifteen minutes. It gave Nat time to think about the decision he’d made; would he also be dead in twenty minutes?
Nat then endured the longest fifteen minutes of his life, staring out across acres of dense jungle lit only by a half moon while radio silence was maintained. He looked back at the rear gunners as the chopper skimmed above the tree line. They were already clasping their guns, thumbs on the buttons, alert for any trouble. Nat was looking out of a side window when suddenly a red flare shot high into the sky. He couldn’t help thinking that he would have been having coffee in the mess around now.
‘This is Blackbird One to flight,’ said the pilot, breaking radio silence. ‘Don’t switch on your under-belly lights until you’re thirty seconds from rendezvous, and remember, I’m going in first.’
A green tracer of bullets shot in front of the cockpit, and the rear gunners immediately returned fire.
‘The VC have identified us,’ said the flight leader crisply. He dipped his helicopter to the right and Nat saw the enemy for the first time. The VC were advancing up the hill, only a few hundred yards away from where the chopper would try to land.
Fletcher read the article in the Washington Post. It was an heroic episode that had caught the imagination of the American public in a war no one wanted to know about. A group of seventy-eight infantrymen, cornered in the North Vietnamese jungle, easily outnumbered by the Vietcong, had been rescued by a fleet of helicopters that had flown over dangerous terrain, unable to land while encountering enemy fire. Fletcher studied the detailed diagram on the opposite page. Flight Lieutenant Chuck Philips had been the first to swoop down and rescue half a dozen trapped men. He had hovered only a few feet above the ground while the rescue took place. He hadn’t noticed that another officer, Lieutenant Cartwright, had leapt off the aircraft just as he dipped his nose and rose back up into the sky to allow the second helicopter to take his place.
Among the bodies on the third helicopter was that of the officer in command, Captain Dick Tyler. Lieutenant Cartwright had immediately assumed command, and taken over the counter-attack while at the same time coordinating the rescue of the remaining men. He was the last person to leave the battlefield and climb on board the remaining rescue helicopter. All twelve helicopters headed back to Saigon, but only eleven landed at Eisenhower airfield.
Brigadier General Hayward immediately dispatched a rescue party, and the same eleven pilots and their crews volunteered to go in search of the missing Huey, but despite making repeated sorties into enemy territory, they could find no sign of Blackbird Twelve. Hayward later described Nat Cartwright — an enlisted man, who had left the University of Connecticut in his freshman year to sign up — as an example to all Americans of someone who, in Lincoln’s words, had given ‘the last full measure of devotion’. ‘Alive or dead, we’ll find him,’ vowed Hayward.
Fletcher scoured every paper for articles that mentioned Nat Cartwright after reading a profile that revealed he had been born on the same day, in the same town and in the same hospital.
Nat leapt off the first helicopter as it continued to hover a few feet above the ground. He assisted Captain Tyler as he sent back the first group to board the Huey while a wave of bullets and mortars shrieked across the nose cone.
‘You take over here,’ said Tyler, ‘while I go back and organize my men. I’ll send up half a dozen at a time.’
‘Go,’ shouted Nat as the first helicopter clipped to the left before ascending into the sky. As the second helicopter flew in, despite being under constant fire, Nat calmly organized the next group to take their place on board. He glanced down the hill to see Dick Tyler still leading his men in a rearguard action while at the same time giving orders for the next group to join Nat. When Nat turned back, the third chopper was dropping into place to hover above the small square of muddy ground. A staff sergeant and five soldiers ran up to the side of the helicopter and began to clamber on board.