spring-activated pencil flare gun, either of which could be operated with one hand the instant I caught sight of the next rescue craft. Somehow, even in this confused state of mind, I immediately realized that just because my primary and most natural course of action had been thwarted, I had resisted the paralysis of anger or shock and moved on to other possibilities. This was a principle inculcated by training and one that would serve me well in the immediate future.
The eerie stillness of both water and air enhanced the dreamlike aspects of my predicament. Indeed, as if echoing back out of some sheet-soaking nightmare came my urgent call—ordering yet also imploring: “Eject, Bob! Eject! Eject!”
Had he made it out of our doomed Vigilante too? Had the interconnect system between my ejection seat and his worked? I visualized the initiation of my own ejection activating the process of each little cartridge firing properly in series sending hot gases through the winding, bending lines to ignite the next cartridge, and the next. One caused the entire seat to pre-position for ejection, another activated the complex arm and leg restraining system, another activated a larger charge that blew the heavy cockpit canopy open and away, and finally the cartridge that activated the biggy—the seat rocket itself—propelling seat and parachute and Bob up and out of the plane, all a split-second before the same ingenious sequence had propelled my own seat out. A similar pyromechanical system would then deploy the drogue chute, braking seat and man to a speed allowing safe opening of the main chute without shredding, then a charge to instantly inflate the rubber bladders in the seat back, thereby popping the airman out and away from the seat to avoid entanglement between seat and chute. Finally, a barometrically activated cartridge deploying the main chute drogue and then the main itself.
All of this I reviewed in a few seconds almost as a backdrop for my immediate concern: Where was Bob?
SPWAT-TING! Something smacked the water a few yards away. SPLOCK! Off to the seaward. SPLAT! SPLAT! ZINNNG! The rippled surface exploded in two tall geysers ahead of me, and zinging sounds trailed off to my right. Instinctively, I twisted myself to the left, toward the shore. The puffs of blue-gray smoke hovered in the still air above the approaching boat. Now more flashes and smoke off to the right: another boat. THWACK! THWAP! THWAP! The spray flew around me. TZNNNG! TZINNNG! More flashes from the left: still another boat. Bullets whined above my head and fell into the water all around me, some skipping off the surface and going farther out to sea. Four boats were coming toward me, all very low in the water, each with a crowd of semiuniformed gunners. My instant picture was of rag-tag khaki and greenish clothing, some steel helmets, some pith helmets with camouflage material; they were probably mostly militia.
The muzzles of their rifles and automatic weapons were ablaze and the smoke was incredibly thick. The air and water around me erupted with the deadly barrage so I could hardly tell the difference between the two. I couldn’t believe that I, too, wasn’t already riddled with bullets. I could feel their impact in the water, vibrating through my body. I had a sudden image of my own red blood swirling together with the bright green of the dye around me in wavy, concentric patterns.
In another agonizing instant, the reality of my situation crystallized: This wasn’t a fuzzy dream. My aircraft had been hit. I had ejected but I was still alive, miraculously alive. Yet, how could I be? My plane had been plummeting into the Tonkin Gulf at just less than the speed of sound. Although more than eight years of military flying had prepared me to face a myriad of “what ifs” such as actually ejecting from a tumbling aircraft, my post-ejection actions must have been as much intuitive as trained.
Finally, I caught a glimpse of Bob floating low in the water between me and the boats. He was surprisingly close by, only a hundred yards or so away. He seemed to be inflating his tiny rubber raft as plumes of white water bracketed his position as well. Even if he had been conscious the whole time, he appeared to be too far away to have assisted me.
Yes, it had to have been almost instinctive: Somehow I had removed my oxygen mask and thereby hadn’t suffocated. I had released the clips on my parachute harness, thereby—except for the entangled shroud lines that had almost done me in—allowing it to sink harmlessly away. And I had pulled the toggles on the CO2 cartridges that had inflated my flotation gear. All the training and practice had left indelible patterns in my subconscious, and had assured my survival—even while unconscious and incapacitated. The survival instinct!
Now, could I evade? Could I keep from being captured? Could I resist? It was clear that to resist would be crazy. Obviously I couldn’t outswim the boats even though they appeared to be no more than crude dug-outs, powered by single oarsmen sculling astern. With my arm apparently broken, weighted by the survival gear in the pockets of my torso harness and cutaway G-suit, and with the bulky flotation gear up under my arms, I could barely thrash away from them.
I was strangely oblivious to the threat of being torn to shreds by the continuing hail of lead. Just the thought of resisting drew my hands to the .38 pistol holstered firmly to the left breast of my harness. Grandpa had carried it for years as a deputy sheriff and had solemnly presented it to me before I left. “I’ve never once had to use this, son [he was very proud of that], and I hope and pray you won’t have to either.” He and I had been especially close when I was just little.
Every summer he’d put me to work with his migrant work crew in the peach orchards of the San Joaquin Valley. Sometimes I rode with him on his “ditch tender” rounds, scheduling irrigation water for the neighboring farmers. He’d talk politics with his cronies at each stop, and usually end up with “I tell ya the gov’ment’s goin’ to hell in a handbasket and we’re gonna rue the day! You and I might not live to see it, but I feel sorry for this little kid here” as he poked the chewed-up end of his cigar in my direction. Is this what you had in mind, Grandpa? As if preprogrammed but still with a pang of regret, I slipped the steel-blue weapon from its leather holster and released it into the water. Better the deep than them, Grandpa. I watched it swirl down and down; it seemed to take forever. I still had that final image in my fuzzy consciousness as I realized the shooting had stopped.
The enveloping sound of the shooting had been replaced by the cacophony of words and shrieks in a language I realized I’d never heard before but might soon come to know well.
Regaining consciousness to find myself injured, confused, and so totally out of my element had been bad enough. But now, confronted by this hostile flotilla of natives, I felt like I’d been transported into some sinister world from which I might never return. Had I been able to think clearly, I would undoubtedly have felt the first pangs of fear, maybe even terror.
I was startled to realize how quickly they had drawn so near; they were only a few yards away now. Still they shouted excitedly, either to one another or at me; I couldn’t tell which, and it would have mattered little even if I could. I just stared back into a couple of dozen pairs of eyes, all glaring widely above the muzzles of their rifles and machine guns.
For the first time now, I confronted my enemy face to face, an enemy that until now had been an abstract collage of Viet Cong, headlines of war, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, green jungle tops, road junctions on maps, and toy sampans on counterpane mirrors below. Now he had come alive and was real. These were men and boys of flesh and blood making hostile animal noises and gestures at me.
I felt more confused than ever. War was supposed to be clean— mechanical and technical, soldier versus soldier, rocket against tank, missile against plane, all crisp and decisive. Instead, I felt like some helpless cornered prey about to be pounced upon by a pack of savage animals as soon as they had sniffed out my fear.
Suddenly they were as hushed as the air itself as they contemplated their enemy. Had I until now been as abstract to them as they had been to me?
In how many movies, books, and dramas had I seen this first-time confrontation between foes, one with the drop on the other? How many times had I seen the intensity
