The helicopters skimmed in above the treetops, door gunners ready to
fight for the U Feng LZ, but only isolated and scattered gunfire met
them.
That Rangers and Special Forces dropped from the helos while they were
still airborne, dispersing throughout the compound. The defenders began
surrendering. A ponderously fat general named Kol ordered all of the
Burmese troops remaining at U Feng to lay down their arms and give up.
Within moments, the rest of the defenders were following the example of
the Burmese, surrendering en masse.
The battle was over by 0830, when members of the That First Division
(Airborne) raised the national flag of Thailand over the traffic control
tower.
0841 hours, 21 January
U Feng
It had been a near thing for the Tomcats of VF-95. Fuel almost gone,
each aircraft had received only enough from one of the two orbiting KA-6
tankers to get them safely to the ground. Aircraft with enough fuel
remaining in their tanks bingoed to Chiang Mai or all the way to Don
Muong. Others, like Tombstone and Batman, set down at U Feng, dropping
onto a runway partly masked by drifting smoke.
He saw her waiting by the runway as he climbed out of his Tomcat.
“Pamela!” Then she was in his arms as his flight helmet clattered on
the tarmac. He embraced her for a long time. “Pam, it’s so good to see
you.”
After a long moment, he pulled back. “Where’s Made It?”
A shadow passed behind her eyes, and he knew Bayerly was dead. “Show
me.”
She took him to the place beyond the burned-out skeleton of an old Huey
Slick. He lay where she said she’d left him, staring up at the sky.
“Tombstone … he died saving my life,” she said. “He thought he was a
coward, but he died saving my life.”
Tombstone squatted next to the body and gently closed the man’s eyes. He
wanted to do something … something more for the man who’d saved
Pamela.
He became aware of a weight in the shoulder pocket of his flight suit.
Wondering what it was, he reached in and pulled something out.
The medal … his Navy Cross. Tombstone remembered stuffing it there,
back on the fantail of the Jefferson. He’d never had the chance to
transfer it back to the safe in his quarters. Damn. He’d almost thrown
the thing overboard, convinced that his own presumed heroism was a fake.
Impulsively, he reached down and pinned the blue and white ribbon to the
front of Bayerly’s shirt. When he stood, Pamela took his arm and
squeezed.
“It’s not the medal, you know,” she said. “It’s the man.”
EPILOGUE
The ceremony took place in the outer courtyard of the Grand Palace,
directly adjoining the gold-spired magnificence of Wat Phra Keo, the
Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The crowd had begun assembling there
hours before, old women with cropped hair and betel-stained lips,
students in school uniforms, businessmen in suits, society matrons in
pastel-hued silk, office workers, soldiers in full dress whites.
A separate block of white-clad men in ranks stood in a position of
special honor, before the throne set under the temporary awning before
the temple gates. They were a contingent of officers and men from the
U.S.S.
Jefferson, resplendent in their full dress whites, standing at attention
as one official succeeded another at the speaker’s podium in front of
the throne.
On the throne was King Bhumibol Adulyadej, also in white, with a gold
sash across his chest.
The current speaker was the American ambassador, who was thanking the
American Navy and Marines for their timely defense of American interests
in Thailand. The speech had been going on now for nearly twenty
minutes, and Tombstone wondered just how thankful a diplomat had any
right to be.
At least, Tombstone thought, he knew now what he’s been fighting for …
and what he’d been fighting against.
The coup was over. Without the support of the King or the people, with
American Marines and aircraft openly siding with the loyalists, with the
Jefferson, her consorts, and her air wing on station between Bangkok and
Sattahip, the rebellion had collapsed as quickly as it had begun. The