P. O. W. (24 page)

A half-hour later they broke out of the jungle into a large, rock-covered clearing. McDonald saw that a number of large caves
dominated the cliffs above them and a steep drop-off went down to the white-water river. McDonald signaled a break and searched
the area for signs of any enemy activity. The sky had turned dark, but not due to normal nightfall; a huge rain cloud was
moving in over the whole mountain and valley floor. A raindrop that looked like a gallon of water hit the boulder McDonald
was leaning against, followed by another one at his feet. A summer storm was about to break loose, and McDonald knew that
trying to walk a mountain trail during one of the heavy downpours would be nearly impossible. Flash floods would roar down
the narrow ravines, and the mountainsides would become slides of mud. As he searched the area for shelter, his eyes came to
rest on the mouth of a cave.

“Up there!” McDonald pointed with his CAR-15.

Arnason took the lead and climbed slowly up the rocks. Where there was one tiger, there could be two. His thoughts went to
the breeding habits of the big cats. Did they mate for life? He wished he had paid attention during his high school biology
classes.

The cave didn’t go back as far into the mountain as the large entranceway suggested. It did go back enough to protect the
three men from the storm that broke out in a fury the instant Kirkpatrick had stepped under its lip.

“It’s dry.” McDonald remained squatting with his CAR-15 ready as he looked in the back of the cave.

“Smells like an animal lives here.” Arnason sniffed the air. “Maybe the tiger’s cave?”

“Could be…” McDonald turned slowly and swept the cave with his weapon.

“I ain’t staying here!” Kirkpatrick stepped toward the entrance.

“I think we killed the occupant…. Tigers don’t stay together unless they’re mating or it’s a mother with cubs….” McDonald
spoke while his eyes continued searching the cave. The roar from the storm almost drowned out his voice. “In either case,
we would have seen the other tigers by now…. It’s safe.”

“How do you know this was
that
tiger’s cave?” Kirkpatrick still wasn’t too happy with the idea of staying in a tiger’s cave.

“They can’t stand to live close together…. This cave is too close to where we killed it.” McDonald hoped he remembered correctly
about what he had learned from the
National Geographic
special he had seen on tigers.

“It doesn’t matter… we can’t go out there now.” Arnason nodded to the solid sheet of water falling in front of the cave entrance.

The three soldiers took up positions around the cave that gave them as much coverage of the entrance as they could get. The
temperature dropped sharply with the rain, and McDonald felt himself shivering in the dampness. For the first time that day
he had time to reflect on the events. Barnett was safe. He was sure the chopper made it back safely with him on it. He would
have liked to have found James, but getting Barnett back was the important thing. He tried remembering how many men he had
lost, but couldn’t come up with a number because of the fast action. When they got back to the A-camp, he would find out.
They did catch the NVA totally off guard. He wondered where the NVA group that had attacked the helipad had come from. There
was no intelligence on a reserve force near the POW camp. McDonald inhaled a deep breath and sighed. With luck, they would
be at the camp in the morning. He wouldn’t risk traveling at night.

A soft mewing came from the back of the cave.

“Shit!”
Kirkpatrick flipped the safety off his weapon. “What the fuck was that?”

“Relax, Kirkpatrick… I’ll check.” Arnason struggled to his feet and walked slowly to the back of the cave. He stopped and
flipped his CAR-15 over his shoulder and let it hang from its strap.

“What did you find?” McDonald kept his weapon at the ready.

Arnason reached down and turned around holding a tiny tiger cub in each hand by the scruff of its neck.

“She was a mother….” McDonald lowered his weapon.

“How do you know it was a
she
?” Kirkpatrick still wasn’t happy.

“I checked.” McDonald smiled and relaxed. He was sure now that the cave had belonged to the large female tiger they had killed
on the trail. “Bring them over here.” He held out his hands, and Arnason gave him the smallest one. “They’re premature.” He
turned her around and looked at the scrawny cub. “You would never believe how big their mother was by looking at them.”

“What should we do with them?” Arnason still held the cub by its neck skin.

McDonald shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s take them with us.” He opened the front of his jacket and stuffed the cub inside.
She wiggled and hissed until she felt the warmth, and then she settled down and began purring. Arnason stuffed his cub into
his shirt and the same thing occurred. “They’re going to get a little hungry until we get back, but they should make it.”

“Man! I don’t think fucking around with tiger cubs is a good idea!” Kirkpatrick still wasn’t sold on the idea.

“What should we do? Kill them?” McDonald felt bad about killing their mother, even though he knew she would have killed them
without a second thought.

“Fuck it!” Kirkpatrick went back to the entrance of the cave and looked out. “It’s beginning to stop….”

McDonald stepped out of the cave. The rain had stopped, but wide rivers of runoff were cascading down the slope, which made
walking dangerous. He knew that staying in the cave much longer would also bring danger. The NVA would have to be close behind
them. He decided on risking the trail.

The Montagnards left the shelter of the large tree and got back on the trail. The dead tigress lying next to the trail explained
the automatic weapons they had heard firing earlier, just before the rain. The Montagnard boy’s father stopped his team and
ordered them to skin the dead beast. She was too great a prize to let rot. He lifted one of her paws and released a lungful
of air in awe. The tiger’s paw was bigger than both of his hands held side by side. She was huge. He forced the claws to extend
from her paw and smiled. A necklace would be made from her claws that would become legendary among all of the tribes. It was
a good sign that Ae Die had returned to the Bru and that the evil one, Tang Lie, was gone with the fire that had destroyed
their village and the NVA. The Bru worked quickly on the tigress and hid the skin in the hollow branch of a dying mahogany
tree.

Brigadier General Seacourt was monitoring McDonald’s movement on the ground almost by the meter. He had ordered the Special
Forces camp to send out company-sized patrols to link up with the small American team as soon as they crossed over the border.
The general told the camp commander over the secure voice radio that he hoped he wasn’t too good at map reading. The Green
Beret teams had been positioned near the border under secret orders a couple of days before the mission.

McDonald stopped when they reached a small mountain stream that had turned into a ten-foot-wide rapids. He looked for a way
to cross the fast-moving water and couldn’t find one.

“We could jump….” Kirkpatrick had been a broad jumper in high school, and the ten feet would be easy for him.

“Not with all our gear and weapons. The other side is muddy.” McDonald pointed with the barrel of his CAR-15.

“I can do it and you can bring my stuff across. The water is only a couple feet deep.” Kirkpatrick removed his web gear and
handed it to Arnason. He gave kis weapon to McDonald. “Cut a couple long bamboo poles and hand them across to me once I’m
over there. You can wade across and I’ll pull you with the pole….”

“Good idea, Kirk…” It was the first time Arnason had used a nickname for Kirkpatrick. The New Yorker had changed since his
buddy’s death and was a super soldier.

Kirkpatrick made the jump with ease—he probably could have made it with his gear on. McDonald held the pole out, and Kirkpatrick
grabbed hold of it and stuffed four feet of the bamboo under his arm. McDonald entered the fast-moving water and almost lost
his footing on the slippery bottom. The force against his legs was tremendous. He couldn’t lift either foot without being
swept away. “Pull!”

Kirkpatrick saw the predicament McDonald was in and started pulling him along the bottom of the flash-flood stream by pulling
the pole toward him, hand over hand. Once McDonald had cleared land, he laid his gear down and helped Kirkpatrick repeat the
process with Arnason.

The American team then followed the contour lines of the hills and headed due east. They weren’t going to waste any time by
trying to throw off any pursuers. The jungle was thinning out and the team could see F-4 jets and gunships making passes toward
the village of A Rum and the NVA defenders.

The voice came out of the jungle: “We’re friends… Sergeant McDonald!” There were no bodies to be seen in the wall of vegetation.

McDonald dropped down in a combat crouch.

The voice repeated itself: “We’re friends… from A Shau… Special Forces….”

“Show yourselves, slowly.” McDonald moved the barrel of his weapon toward the spot in the jungle the voice had come from.

One of the plants moved and a perfectly camouflaged Green Beret stepped out of the jungle onto the narrow trail. Arnason was
amazed because as alert as he had been, his small team would have passed within five feet of the camouflaged Special Forces
sergeant and his Bru commando team and not have detected them.

“Let’s go! I’ll guide you back to the LZ. The general is waiting for you back at the CCN compound.”

One of the tiger cubs mewed.

“What’s that?” The SF sergeant started to drop down. He was totally alert for anything to happen.

“Tiger cub.” McDonald unbuttoned the front of his shirt and the cub stuck its head out and called for its mother. She was
hungry. So was McDonald.

The Green Beret sergeant raised his eyebrows but said nothing, and gave a hand signal for the team to slip back into the neutral
jungle.

The whole atmosphere at the Command and Control North compound was jubilant. The success of the prisoner snatch mission spread
like wildfire over the Special Forces radio network. The Marine Corps guards located atop Marble Mountain fired multicolored
hand flares when the helicopter carrying McDonald, Arnason, and Kirkpatrick arrived at the CCN pad.

Brigadier General Seacourt was waiting for the chopper to land, along with half of the Green Berets in the camp. Even though
only two Americans had been rescued, the event was a landmark mission. Five of the South Vietnamese in the POW camp were commandos
from CCN, and the success of the mission proved that the North Vietnamese system of rotating POWs from camp to camp had failed
and that Americans were capable of rescuing their own people. The ill-fated Song Tay raid in the north had totally demoralized
the troops; nothing had been spared in support of the operation, and yet it had fallen flat on its face. So the A Rum raid
was a sweet victory.

McDonald was the first one off the chopper. He smiled shyly when the men started clapping and whistling. Kirkpatrick took
a New York bow and then raised his fist above his head in a victory salute. Arnason tried slipping into the crowd.

Seacourt shook hands with McDonald. He didn’t even try talking above the noise and waved the three-man team over to his jeep.
The top had been removed, and the team jumped in the back with the general riding shotgun. The tiger cub in Arnason’s shirt
mewed and scratched his stomach when he tried squatting down on the jump seat. Arnason, who had forgotten all about the cub,
opened his jacket and removed the young beast, which snarled and spat. The assembled crowd went wild when Arnason held the
striped tiger cub up in the air so they all could see it. Seacourt shook his head and smiled. He leaned over and yelled in
McDonald’s ear, “Where the hell did you find that?”

McDonald opened his jacket and removed the female cub. “The Recondo School has a new mascot, compliments of the NVA!”

Seacourt had his driver take the team directly to the U.S. Navy hospital where the POWs had been taken. He knew without being
asked that McDonald would want to see Barnett.

James lay on the clean hospital sheets and watched the black MP sitting in the chair at the foot of his bed. The knife wound
the Montagnard girl had inflicted on him was deep, but it had missed his vital organs. He would heal quickly.

“Hey, brother… how about unlocking this handcuff and let me stretch.”

The MP ignored the wounded soldier.

“Hey, bro!” Mohammed James tried sitting up in the bed. “How about lighting me up a cigarette?”

The black MP continued ignoring James.

“Hey! Motherfucker! Can’t you talk?” James screamed out the words.

The MP left his seat and went over to the side of the bed where James’s arm was handcuffed to the steel frame. He looked at
the smiling soldier and without warning slapped his face. “You shut the fuck up… hear?”

“Man! Why did you do that?” James rubbed his stinging cheek. “Us black brothers have got to stick together!”

“Listen good! ‘Cause I’m only going to say this
one
time!” The black MP poked his finger against James’s bandaged chest. “The
only
reason I don’t blow your black ass away is because every decent black soldier in Vietnam is waiting to see your ass
shot
in front of a firing squad!” The look on the MP’s face scared James. The MP started turning away from the traitor. “You’ve
set our people back a hundred years! Maybe you don’t know it yet, but your picture has been posted in every MP station, PX,
company orderly room, and bar in Vietnam!” The MP removed his .45-caliber pistol and cocked the hammer as he pointed it between
James’s eyes. “So don’t you say another damn word to me about being
brothers
.”

Seacourt walked next to McDonald as they followed the doctor down the hallway to the room where Barnett and Colonel Garibaldi
were being treated.

“I talked with both of them yesterday for a little while….” Seacourt reached over and grabbed McDonald’s elbow to slow him
down so that he could brief him before they entered the room. “I want you to know that Colonel Garibaldi—he’s the other POW
with Barnett—has recommended Barnett for the Medal of Honor….” Seacourt paused to let the impact of what he said sink in.
“And from just the few things Garibaldi has told me, there won’t be a problem. I’m personally going to sign and hand-carry
the paperwork to the MACV commanding general and then take it to the Pentagon. If there is one person who has performed above
and beyond the call of duty, it’s that
teenager
in there!”