Midnight Runner. Jack Higgins
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son, Paul, was born in 1921. From an early age, Paul was obsessed with flying, and in 1940, while a student at Harvard, he’d travelled to England on impulse and, using his father’s name, joined the RAF as a fighter pilot, an American volunteer.
His father, anti-Brit, was horrified and then proud of him. Paul earned a DFC in the Battle of Britain, and then moved on to the American Army Air Force in 1943 and earned another one there. In 1944, however, Paul Quinn was badly shot up in a Mustang fighter over Germany. Luftwaffe surgeons did what they could, but he would never be the same again.
Released from prison camp in 1945, he went home. His father had made millions out of the war, and Paul Quinn married and had a son, Daniel, born in 1948, though his mother died in childbirth. Paul Quinn never completely regained his health, however, and contented himself as an attorney in the legal department of the family business in Boston, a sinecure, really.
Daniel, a brilliant scholar, also went to Harvard, to study economics and business administration, and by the time he was twenty-one, he had his master’s degree. The logical next step would have been to go into the family business, which now numbered hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of property, hotels and leisure, but his grandfather had other ideas: a doctorate, and then a glittering future in politics were what he had in mind.
Strange how life often swings on small things. Watching TV one evening, seeing the death and carnage in Vietnam on the news, the old man expressed his disapproval.
‘Hell, we shouldn’t even be there.’
‘But that isn’t the point,’ Daniel replied. ‘We are there.’
‘Well, thank God you’re not.’
‘So we leave it to the black kids who never stood a chance, to the working-class kids, to Hispanics? They’re getting slaughtered by the thousands.’
‘It’s not our business.’
‘Well, maybe I should make it mine.’
‘Damn fool,’ the old man said, a little fearful. ‘Don’t you do anything stupid, you hear me?’
The following morning, Daniel Quinn presented himself at the downtown Army recruiting office. He began with the infantry, and then joined Airborne as a paratrooper. His first tour brought him a Purple Heart for a bullet in the left shoulder and a Vietnamese Cross of Valour. Home on leave, his grandfather saw the uniform, the medals, and cried a little, but Irish pride won the day.
‘I still say we shouldn’t be there,’ he said, looking at his grandson’s tanned face, the skin taut over the cheekbones. There was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
‘And I say again, we are, so we have to do it right.’
‘What about a commission?’
‘No, Granddad. Sergeant is fine.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘I’m Irish, aren’t I? We’re all a little crazy.’
His grandfather nodded. ‘How long have you got home?’
‘Ten days.’
‘Then straight back?’
Daniel nodded. ‘I’m going into the Special Forces.’
The old man frowned. ‘What’s that?’
‘You don’t want to know, Granddad, you don’t want to know.’
‘Well, try and have a good time while you’re here. See a few girls.’
‘I surely will.’
Which he did, and then it was back to the green hell of Vietnam, the constant throbbing of the helicopters, death and destruction all around, all the roads inevitably leading to Bo Din and his own personal appointment with destiny.
Camp Four was deep in the bush north of the Mekong Delta, the river snaking through marshland, great banks of reeds and the occasional village. It was raining that day, a monsoon kind of rain that hung like a grey curtain, making it difficult to see much. Camp Four was a jumping-off point for Special Forces deep penetration operations, and Quinn had been ordered there just as they’d lost their master sergeant.
As usual, he’d hitched a lift in a Medevac helicopter, but, things being stretched, this contained only one pilot and a young medic-cum-air gunner named Jackson, who sat at the heavy machine gun and peered out the open door. The helicopter dropped lower as visibility became worse in the rain. There were paddy fields below, the brown line of the river, and Quinn stood, held on, and looked down.
A sudden explosion came over to the right, flames mushrooming, and as the pilot banked, a village emerged from the rain, some of the houses on stilts on the river. Quinn saw canoes and fishermen’s flatboats, people crowding into them, some of them already pushing off. He also saw Vietcong in straw hats and black pyjamas, heard the distinctive crack of AK47s, and below him people began toppling from boats into the water.
As the helicopter approached, the VC looked up in alarm and some of them raised their rifles and fired. Jackson returned fire with his heavy machine gun.
‘Christ, no!’ Quinn told him. ‘You’ll get the civilians, too.’
The pilot called over his shoulder, ‘We’d better get out of here,’ and banked away as a round or two hit them. ‘That’s Bo Din. Lots of VC activity in this area.’
It was at that moment that Quinn saw the mission on the edge of the village, the tiny church, the small group of people in the courtyard, Vietcong moving up the street.
‘It’s a nun with a dozen kids,’ Jackson said.
Quinn grabbed the pilot by the shoulder. ‘We’ll have to put down and get them.’
‘We’d be lucky to get off again,’ the pilot shouted. ‘Look down the road.’
There were Vietcong everywhere, at least fifty, swarming between the houses, hurrying to the mission.
‘Courtyard’s too small. I’d have to land in the street. It won’t work.’
‘Okay, just drop me off, then get the hell out of here and bring in the heavy brigade.’
‘You’re nuts.’
Quinn looked down at the nun in her white tropical habit. ‘We can’t leave that woman or those kids. Just do it.’
He stuffed the pockets of his camouflage jacket with flares and grenades, slung pouches of magazines around his neck, and found his M16. Jackson fired a long burst down the street that scattered the Vietcong and knocked several down. The helicopter hovered just above the ground and Quinn jumped.
‘I guess I’m nuts, too,’ and Jackson followed him, clutching an M16, a belt of magazines around his neck, a medical bag over his shoulder. There was a storm of firing as the Vietcong started up the street again, and the two Americans ran to the entrance of the courtyard where the nun was coming forward with the children.
‘Back, Sister,’ Quinn called. ‘Get back.’ He pulled his grenades out and tossed one to Jackson. ‘Together.’
They pulled the pins, counted to three, stepped out and lobbed. The explosions were deafening. A number of Vietcong went down, the rest retreated for the moment. Quinn turned to the nun. She was in her early twenties, with a pale and pretty face. When she spoke, it became clear she was English.
‘Thank God you came. I’m Sister Sarah Palmer. Father da Silva is dead.’
‘Sorry, Sister, there’s only the two of us. The helicopter’s gone for help, but God knows how long it will take.’
Jackson fired a burst down the road and called, ‘What the hell do we do? We can’t hold this place. They’ll be all over us.’
The wall at the rear had crumbled over the years. Beyond, great banks of reeds at least ten feet tall faded into the