The Rescue

Hey, Sloan said,
there's a Cobra down in the river.
He ducked into the bunker for binoculars.
I squinted across the valley at the Ba Long.

Olive motion on jungle green,
a gunship wheeled,
hung nodding at a point on the far ridgeline,
circled to clear profile above the horizon,
then dropped toward a blob in the river.

From his field-mount laser-ranging glasses,
The artillery observer
scanned the opposite ridge
for movement at known firing positions.
When the Cobra settled clear,
he called in a few rounds.
One-Five-Five millimeter shells whistled overhead.
Dust rose from the ridge with a belated mutter.

A pair of Hueys
droned in from the coast
and angled down to orbit the wreck --
at that distance,
small and silent as dragonflies.

The advisor on the hill
reported the action,
but his rear base had nothing on the story,
and his radio had no aircraft bands.

The miniature dance
rose and fell over the river.


Sloan thought they were trying to raise the wreck.
Through the binoculars
he could see it lift, drop, and lift again.

One Huey broke off
and landed on a gravel bar
downstream from the wreck.


The other, with the gunship, held orbit
till a Chinook lumbered onto the scene.

The lighter craft climbed away.
The Chinook settled, wagging over the wreck,
typically slow to connect its sling.

Finally, yard by yard,
it lifted the Cobra out of the water.

The Huey on the bar
rose behind the Chinook
and led the others out of sight down the valley.

Weeks later,
a Huey settled in and shut down
on the pad above our bunker.

Sloan took up our mail
and jawed with the door gunners.
They had the story line
for the airborne mime we had seen.

The Cobras were coming back
from rocketing positions near Khe Sanh
when a 51-caliber plugged the lead ship.

The pilot held it upright
as it hit the river,
and climbed free.

His buddy machinegunned the 51-cal position
and called in the Hueys for the rescue.

They dropped a lifeline to the pilot
and lifted to pick him up.
But the slack snagged on the wreck.

The lift on the lifeline
jerked him under --
and the snag held.