5. Extraction

They reached the valley floor at 1547. The extraction point was a flat field edged by a low tree line—helicopter landing zone, marked on the map with a circle that for once corresponded to actual geography. Dung radioed ahead. Static. He tried again. More static, and then, through the noise, a voice. "—confirm position—Battalion Six?—" "Battalion Six, confirmed. Twenty-one personnel, two stretcher cases, under intermittent fire. Request immediate extraction." A pause that lasted too long. "—copy that, Six—ETA forty minutes—hold position—" Forty minutes. He turned to Hieu. "Forty minutes." Hieu looked at the tree line on the northern side of the field. "They'll use the tree line." "I know." "We can't hold the open ground." "We can't go back to the ridge either." Dung studied the field. There was a drainage ditch along the eastern edge—not ideal cover, but something. "Get everyone into that ditch. Medical cases in the center. Lan, Bac, north-facing. Hieu, you take the south." They moved into position with the economy of people who have been moving under fire for two days and have nothing wasted left in them. Dr. Phuong positioned her cases with calm efficiency. The young soldiers looked at the open sky with expressions that Dung recognized: the specific look of people who have started to believe, cautiously, that they might survive. He did not tell them to stop believing it. He had learned that hope was not a liability. At 1612, the enemy came out of the northern tree line—a probe, eight men, feeling for the edges of resistance. They found it sharply. After four minutes, they withdrew. At 1623, there was firing from the south. At 1638, Dung heard the rotors. The helicopters came in low and fast, and for a moment the entire field was sound and wind and dust. Dung moved through his people, counting them onto the aircraft by hand: one, two, three— Twenty-one. He stepped on last, as he always did, and did not sit down until the doors were closed and the ground was falling away beneath them. Below, the valley was a strip of gold between dark ridges. The hill they had come through was invisible from here. The map had not shown it at all. He pulled out the topographic sheet and looked at it one more time. Then he folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. He would submit a correction when they landed. Someone would update the map. It would not help Quoc or Viet. It might help whoever came next. He closed his eyes and listened to the rotors count out the kilometers home.