The Cave
by
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Listen! What’s that sound? Good Lord - truck engines! The sound came from somewhere below him. Now he knew full well where he was; they had drifted quite some distance to the east before he got out of the stricken airplane. He was right back over the Trail! He looked down between the toes of his jungle boots but saw nothing; only blackness. But the sounds of the engines were drawing nearer - and they seemed to come from right below. He pulled on his risers to steer the parachute away from the noise. What was that? Lights? Yes, now he could see lights on the ground 1,000 feet below him. He knew what they were; the shaded lights of the truck headlights. Invisible from the altitudes at which they flew, the narrow beams were becoming visible as Toby drifted closer to them. And he heard voices. That was even worse. Evidently there were enemy troops on the ground somewhere beneath him. He pulled harder on the risers until he was moving in the direction he thought was west. His eyes had gotten used to the darkness. As his parachute carried him closer to the ground, Toby could see the outline of the ridges. The truck lights were in a gorge; he could see the tops of the ridges on either side. His best chance would be to land on top of a ridge. Even a tree landing would be better than touching down in the valley. That’s where the North Vietnamese were. If he came down right in the middle of them, he would be dead. Or on his way to the Hanoi Hilton. He temporarily forgot about the trees and the rocks; his main concern now was to avoid the humans who would definitely do him harm. Could they see him? Did they see him? Was his parachute silhouetted against the sky? There was no moon, but the sky was full of stars. Surely they could not see him. No one was shooting at him, anyway. Besides, they had no real reason to be on the alert for his descent, in spite of the fact that they had just shot him down. The airplane was several miles away when it blew up. They probably thought everyone had gone down with it. At least he certainly hoped that was what they thought! He was getting closer and closer to the ground. He could see the trucks themselves, now - and the soldiers walking along the trail beside them. Troops heading south to fight the hated Yankee dogs! He seemed to be drifting away from them, toward the top of the ridge that was his target. Yes, he was going to make the ridge. But where would he hit? He only saw the troops in the shaded headlights of the trucks; he could make out no features on the landscape other than the general lay of the land. Were there trees where he was headed? If so, how many? Was the ridge densely covered, or was the vegetation sparse? He reckoned he had about fifteen seconds before he found out. Toby attempted to relax, in spite of the fact that his heart was beating probably 200 times a minute. His legs - he had to be ready to let them bend quickly as soon as his feet touched, to fall on one side and let his body absorb the shock. A broken leg out here would reduce his chances of survival and rescue to next to zero. And then he felt the ground come up to meet him.
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About the Book
THE CAVE
About the Author
Sam McGowan is a retired commercial pilot, an author of numerous magazine articles on military and other subjects. During the Vietnam War, he served as a crewmember on USAF C-130s flying highly classified missions over North Vietnam and Laos. A Tennessee native, he currently resides in the Houston, Texas area.