When an item in the data stream is used as a count for a later item, it's often not needed in the output of unpack.
_, items, _, items2= unpack(data, "H /p1[H] H /p1[BH]")
It would be great to signal that in the format to avoid placeholders in the assignment
Mock example:
items, items2= unpack(data, "H* /p1[H] H* /p1[BH]")