U S Airways flt. 318, over Seattle 20:25hrs pst
Roy drifted in and out of a light sleep. He had the ability to drop off at a moment's notice and wake easily and alert. It was a knack he had acquired during his tour in Viet Nam and perfected much later in life as a merchant marine Captain of ocean going tug boats. After years of living the rough and tumble lifestyle he had adopted on returning from Nam, he had finally applied himself to obtain a 500 ton Master's License. He enjoyed the work even though the hours were brutal. He would work six hours on six hours off for weeks at a time while on a job.

He had arrived in Miami around midnight last night, having just returned from Port Au Prince, Haiti; with a barge of containers. He had docked the tug and barge at the facility on Dodge Island, hopped in his car and made the five hour drive to his home in the sleepy little fishing village of Cortez, just south of Tampa. He'd been asleep for about an hour when Julie had called.

As the jet flew steadily toward Vancouver, Roy reflected on his thirty year friendship with Buddy. When Roy had shipped out to Nam, Buddy was about the first guy Roy had met on his arrival "in country". They hit it off immediately. They had discovered they shared a lot of common bonds including the fact they were both dual nationals. Roy's parents had left Toronto in 1948, and gone to California where Roy's father had worked in the booming Los Angeles construction business. Roy was born in 1949. When his parents divorced in '53, Roy's dad returned to Toronto with Roy. That's where Roy grew up. Buddy was fascinated with the mirror-like image of their lives.

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Roy's mind relived the images of a day that changed his life forever. It was January, 1968 and they had been assigned to a river unit operating near Danang. Buddy, Roy and three others were mounting a river patrol in a twenty-eight foot MARK 1 fast patrol craft, in an area of suspected VC activity. They cruised moderately upstream, alert and watchful. As they rounded a bend in the river all hell broke loose. They took heavy fire from the left bank. Buddy had the fifty cal. singing, as he returned fire from midships. Roy had just turned with a fresh cartridge belt to reload Buddy's weapon when a mortar round went off, hard on the port side. The concussion not only knocked Roy senseless, it knocked him clear out of the boat. He hit the water face down, unconscious and in a world of trouble.

It took Buddy all of three seconds to appraise the situation and decide to go in after him. A split second after he dove, the patrol boat erupted in a ball of flame, and Buddy had felt the red hot poker stab of a piece of shrapnel sear into his left thigh. Buddy painfully swam the twenty yards downstream to where Roy floated, grabbed the back of his collar, rolled him on his back and struck out for the right bank.

Rounds from VC small arms were kicking up water spouts to the left and behind them, so Buddy let the current carry them farther down river. They were only twenty feet from the shore when Buddy spotted a fallen tree a little further along. That's where Buddy headed.

Once he had Roy and himself behind cover, he rolled Roy over again, slipped his arms around him and performed a quasi heimlich maneuver to clear some water from his lungs. Buddy knew he had to work fast. Roy wasn't breathing and Buddy had no firm recollection of how long they had been in the water.

He turned him over again and began to perform CPR. A few minutes later he was rewarded with a rattling breath from Roy.

"Come on you bastard, breathe!"

"Fuck you, pal" Roy choked.

Buddy sat back and smiled. Roy rolled over and puked. Two slugs tore into the tree trunk by their heads.

"The fuck?" Roy asked.

"We gotta move. We got no weapons, no transport, no back-up, and no hope of staying here. Oh yeah, and I've been hit," Buddy briefed Roy as he reacted to a stab of pain.

"Aren't you a bundle of joy?" Roy countered, "Where are you hit?"

Buddy pointed to his leg. Roy stripped away Buddy's pant leg with his knife.

"Shit"

"What do you mean 'shit'?" Splinters of wood rained on their heads as more rounds slammed into the tree trunk.

"You're right about having to move," Roy said as he ducked the falling debris. He turned back to the job at hand "I can see the metal in your leg. It's not too deep. Looks like it entered laterally up your thigh," Roy handed Buddy a piece of wood. "Bite down on this...hard."

Roy poured some alcohol from his med. kit over the tip of his knife and dug into the meat of Buddy's thigh.

"ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH" Buddy screamed.

"Quit your damn whining. That's for trying to drown me."

"Is it out yet? " Buddy gasped.

"Yeah I got it." Quickly Roy disinfected the wound and bandaged it. "Ready to roll?"

"Yeah. We need to find some cowboys. Ain't nothing but damn Indians around here."

"What do mean we, paleface?" Roy asked. They both laughed at the old joke.

They carefully picked their way from the river, moving downstream and deeper into cover. It had taken them two and a half days to get back to their base. They had traveled mostly at night, in deep cover, staying off the main trails. They had carried, dragged, cajoled and cursed each other the entire way. They had arrived in precarious condition, dehydrated and suffering from dysentery. But they made it and the bond that had been forged between them had never been broken.

As the jet made its final approach to Vancouver, Roy shook himself of his reverie and mentally steeled himself for action.