The broken arm could not contribute normally.
Water added resistance.
Fatigue reduced coordination.
Losing the log could become fatal.
Reaching the opposite bank required more than direction.
It required enough strength to continue until the ground returned beneath him.
Day crossed.
After roughly ten days of escape, depending on how the stages are counted in different retellings, he had reached the area of the demilitarized zone and moved into the southern side.
The psychological meaning must have been enormous.
He had done what his captors probably believed an injured prisoner could not do.
He had escaped their camp.
He had survived alone.
He had crossed difficult terrain.
He had reached the river.
He had crossed it.
American forces were now near enough that their artillery could be heard clearly.
Aircraft passed overhead.
The longest part of the journey seemed to be behind him.
Day no longer needed to cross all of North Vietnam.
He needed someone friendly to notice him.
That proved far more difficult than it sounds.
[End of Part Two]
Part Three β The Most Dangerous Distance Was the Last One
Reaching the southern side of the Ben Hai River did not produce the ending Day had imagined.
There was no American patrol waiting at the bank.
No helicopter suddenly descended.
No radio operator announced that the missing pilot had been found.
Day was still alone.
He was simply alone in a different place.
American artillery could be heard nearby.
The sound must have carried enormous emotional meaning.
For days, every sign of military activity had represented danger.
Now some of those explosions were being produced by his own side.
American aircraft passed above him.
Each aircraft represented rescue power.
A pilot could report him.
A helicopter could eventually retrieve him.
The problem was visibility.
From the ground, an aircraft can appear enormous and close.
From the cockpit, a single man beneath vegetation can be almost impossible to detect.
The speed difference makes the problem worse.
Day might see an approaching aircraft for many seconds.
The pilot might see the exact patch of ground containing Day for only a moment.
The man below knows exactly where to look.
The pilot must search thousands of acres.
Day tried to signal.
The effort failed.
The aircraft continued.
Another opportunity appeared.
Another signal failed.
This became one of the cruelest phases of the escape.
During the days in North Vietnam, Day could at least tell himself that friendly forces were distant.
Now they were physically close.
He could hear them.
He could see aircraft.
Yet the gap between visible and rescued remained impossible to cross.
The psychological strain of near-rescue can be worse than simple distance.
A person begins imagining safety in detail.
Food.
Medical treatment.
A bed.
Other Americans.
A message home.
Then the aircraft passes without turning.
Day had to return mentally to the same rule that had brought him this far.
Keep moving.
The DMZ presented a confusing battlefield.
Lines on military maps appear precise.
Real frontiers are not.
Enemy forces can cross.
Patrols operate forward of larger formations.
Small units move through gaps.
Local control can change during the day.
A man can be south of a political boundary and still encounter hostile soldiers.
Day knew this intellectually.
After everything he had survived, the knowledge may have been difficult to feel emotionally.
He was closer to friendly lines than at any previous moment.
That proximity created the illusion that the hardest part was finished.
In reality, the final miles of escape frequently become the most dangerous.
A fugitive who has traveled far becomes exhausted.
Searchers can predict the destination.
Friendly troops may mistake the escapee for an enemy infiltrator.
The escapee may relax too early.
Navigation errors become more frustrating because the goal seems near.
Day was also becoming increasingly disoriented.
Exhaustion, hunger, pain, injuries, and exposure can affect judgment.
He had already pushed his body well beyond normal limits.
The body does not reward determination forever.
Eventually, physical damage begins changing perception itself.
Day continued trying to find friendly forces.
At times, American activity seemed so close that rescue felt inevitable.
He was approaching the part of the story that later readers naturally assume must end successfully.
A man survives a crash.
He survives capture.
He escapes.
He crosses North Vietnam on foot.
He eats raw frogs.
He reaches the river.
He crosses it.