Win, Lose or Die

by John Gardner

  3

  REFLECTIONS IN A HARRIER

  The Sea Harrier taxied to the foot of the so-called ski-ramp – a wide metal hill, sweeping upwards at 12° – and the nose-wheel rolled into perfect alignment with the dark painted strip that was the centreline.

  The legendary V/STOL (Vertical/Short Take-Off & Landing) pronounced ‘Veestol’ – aircraft responded to the tiny throttle movement and climbed so that the entire fuselage became positioned into the upward configuration.

  Bond went through the take-off checks for the last time: brakes on, flaps OUT, ASI (Air Speed Indicator) ‘bug’ to lift-off speed. The aircraft was alive, trembling to the idling of the Rolls-Royce (Bristol) Pegasus 104 turbofan which could generate an impressive 21,500 pounds of thrust.

  On the Sea Harrier the thrust is channelled through two engine propulsion nozzles, set at port and starboard, capable of being rotated, from the aft horizontal position, through some 98.5°. This is the Harrier’s great advantage over conventional fixed-wing aircraft, for the jet nozzles allow vertical lift plus horizontal flight, together with all the other variables in between, such as hover and backward flight.

  Bond’s hand moved to the nozzle lever, and he glanced down to confirm that it was set to short take-off position at the 50° stop mark. He lifted his right hand into the clear thumbs-up position, which would be seen by the deck control handling officer in his ‘bubble’ on the starboard side, and who Bond, strapped into the cockpit and angled towards a squally grey sky, could not see. At the same moment he heard the Commander (Air) give him the ‘Go’ – ‘Bluebird cleared for take-off.’

  Bond opened the throttle to 55 per cent RPM, released the brakes, then slammed the throttle hard into fully-open. The Pegasus engine roared behind him, and he could feel himself pushed back against the padded metal seat as though a pair of giant hands were pressing his chest and face.

  The Sea Harrier rocketed from the ramp, and as it did so, Bond flipped the gear into the ‘up’ position, hardly noticing the whine and thump as the wheels came up into their housings, for in the first fifteen seconds or so of the ramp take-off the Harrier was not actually flying, but was shot, ballistically, into a high, fast trajectory. Only when the ASI ‘bug’ flashed and beeped did Bond set the nozzles to horizontal flight, and click flaps to IN. The head-up-display (HUD) showed that he was climbing at an angle of almost 60° at a speed in excess of 640 knots.

  If the take-off had been from a carrier, or similar ship, the sea would lie directly below, but this, Bond’s first real take-off from the ski-ramp, was from the Royal Naval Air Station, Yeovilton in Somerset, among some of the West Country’s most beautiful landscapes. Not that he had any view of the ground now, for his Harrier had shot above the mile-high cloudbase and was still climbing as he set course for the bombing range in the Irish Sea, not far from the Isle of Man.

  Though this was his first real ski-run take-off, Bond had already done it a couple of dozen times on the simulator. He was now into the third week of his Harrier conversion course, and eight months into his return to active duty with the Royal Navy.

  His promotion to Captain was a quantum leap, as it is for any naval officer. Not that the new rank had made much difference over the past months. On all the courses Bond had taken, rank was well-nigh forgotten, and a Captain under instruction rated at about the same level as a Sub-Lieutenant.

  Since starting the courses, he had studied the new advanced strategies of naval warfare which seemed to alter at alarming speed; another course on communications; a third on ciphers and an important fourth concerning advanced weaponry, including hands-on experience with the latest 3-D radar, Sea Darts and SAM missiles, together with new electronic weapons control systems operating the American Phalanx and Goalkeeper CIWS – Close In Weapon Systems: ‘sea-whizz’ as they are known – which have now become standard following the horrifying lessons learned during the Falklands Campaign.

  Bond had always kept up his flying hours and instrument ratings, on jets and helicopters, in order to remain qualified as a naval pilot, but he had now reached the final and most testing course – conversion to the Sea Harrier.

  After some twenty hours in Yeovilton in the flight simulator, he had flown Harriers in normal configuration of rolling take-offs and landings. The ski-jump take-off marked the beginning of the air combat and tactical weapons course. The whole thing appealed mightily to Bond, who revelled in learning and honing new skills. In any case, the Sea Harrier was a wonderful machine to fly: exciting and very different.

  He now checked the HUD which showed him on course and cruising at around 600 knots along the military airway. Glancing down at the HDD – the Head-Down-Display – he could see the visual map, the magic eye which gives the modern pilot a ground map view even through the thickest and most murky cloud. He was crossing the coast, just above Southport on the north-west seaboard, right on a heading for the bombing range. Now he would require total concentration as he lowered the Harrier’s nose towards the peaceful cloudscape below, the horizontal bars on the HUD sliding upwards to show he had the aircraft in a ten degree dive. Down the left hand side of the HUD he watched the speed begin to increase and blipped his airbrakes open for a second to control the dive. The altitude figures streamed down the left hand edge of the HUD showing a steady decrease in height – 30,000 . . . 25 . . . 20 . . . 15 . . . By now he was in cloud, still going fast, his eyes flicking between airspeed, altitude, and the HDD, while his feet on the rudder bars made slight corrections.

  He broke cloud at 3,000 feet and clicked on the air-to-ground sights, thumbing down on the button which would arm the pair of 500-pound cluster-bombs which hung, one under each wing.

  Below, the sea slashed by as he held an altitude of around 500 feet. Far ahead he glimpsed the first anchored marker flashing to lead him onto the bombing range where a series of similar markers were set in a diamond shape, which was the target.

  It came up very fast and the HUD flashed the IN RANGE signal almost before it had registered from Bond’s eyes to his brain. Instinctively he triggered the bombs and pulled up into a 30° climb, pushing the throttle fully open and pulling a hard 5G turn left, then right, so that his body felt like lead for a second before he turned, at speed, but more gently, to see the cluster-bombs explode from their small parachutes directly across the diamond of buoys.

  ‘Don’t hang about,’ the young Commander had told them in the briefing room. ‘There are four of you at five-minute intervals, so just do the job, then get out fast.’

  Altogether, there were eight naval pilots on the conversion course: three more Royal Navy men, a US Marine Corps pilot on liaison, two Indian Navy pilots and one from the Spanish Navy. All but Bond had already done several hours on Harriers with their home units and were at Yeovilton to sharpen their skills, with some weapons and tactical training. That afternoon, Bond had been first man away and was followed by the Spanish officer – a sullen young man called Felipe Pantano, who kept very much to himself – one of the Royal Navy Lieutenants, and the American.

  To comply with safety regulations, there was a predetermined flight path to and from the target, and Bond swept his Harrier into a long climbing turn, then gave her full throttle, stood the aeroplane on its tail and, looking down at the small radar screen on the starboard side of his cockpit, swept the skies immediately above his return course, to be certain none of the other aircraft had strayed.

  The radar showed nothing out of the ordinary, so he dropped the nose to a gentle 20° climb. He had hardly stabilised the Harrier in its ascent when a completely unexpected sound seemed to fill the cockpit. So surprised was Bond that it took at least two seconds for him to realise what was happening.

  As the sound became louder in his ears, Bond woke to the danger. So far he had only experienced this in the simulator: the harsh, rasping neep-neep-neep quickening all the time. There was a missile locked on to him – judging by its tone, a Sidewinder. Just under thirty pounds of high-explosive fragmentation was being g
uided towards the engine heat of his Harrier.

  Bond had reacted slowly, and that was the way people got blown out of the sky. He pushed the stick forward, putting the Harrier into a power dive, jinking to left and right, pulling about seven Gs to each jink, holding it for a second or two, then going the other way. At the same time, he hit the button which would release four flares to confuse the missile’s heat-seeking guidance system, then, for luck, followed it with a bundle of chaff – radar-confusing metal strips. It was another safety regulation that all aircraft using the bombing range should carry both flares and chaff, housed in special pods – another lesson of the Falklands where chaff had been stuffed in bundles inside the airbrakes.

  The neep-neeping was still there, quickening as the missile gained on the Harrier. He lifted the nose, jinked again and, at a thousand feet, performed a rate five turn, pulling a lot of G, then rolling and putting the Harrier into a second dive. His body felt like lead, his throat was dust-dry and the controls felt stiff as he pushed the Harrier to its limit.

  He had the aircraft right down almost to sea level before the growling signal suddenly stopped. There was a flash far off to the starboard, in the direction of the target range. Bond took a deep breath, lifted the Harrier’s nose, reset his course and climbed to 30,000 feet with the throttle right forward. As he went up so he switched his radio to transmit – ‘Bluebird to Homespun. Some idiot almost put a Sidewinder up my six.’ Taking the points of a standard clock, ‘six’ meant directly behind.

  ‘Say again, Bluebird.’

  Bond repeated and Yeovilton asked him to confirm no damage, which he did, adding that it was more luck than judgment. Of the four aircraft detailed for the bombing range that afternoon, no one carried anything but cluster-bombs. The range, however, belonged to the RAF, though its use and timings were strictly monitored. It was just possible that a Royal Air Force jet had accidentally been scheduled and had arrived either early or late.

  ‘Bluebird, are you certain it was a missile?’

  ‘Chased me all around the sky. Of course I’m sure.’

  Bond reached Yeovilton without further incident and, once landed and out of his flying gear, he stormed into the office of Commander (Air) – known to most as Wings – set in the control tower.

  ‘Who was the fool?’ Bond snapped, then he stopped, for Commander Bernie Brazier, an experienced officer, looked both angry and shaken. He motioned Bond to sit. ‘There’ll be an investigation, sir.’ His eyes had the weary look of a man who had seen it all and never really got used to it. ‘There’s a problem. Nobody from here was carrying missiles, and the RAF say they were not using the range today. We’re checking your Harrier for possible malfunction of detection electronics.’

  ‘That wasn’t a malfunction, for God’s sake. It was a real missile, Bernie. I’m filing a report to that effect and heaven help the cretin who loosed one off in my direction.’

  Commander Brazier still looked unhappy. Quietly he said, ‘There’s another problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve lost an aircraft.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Captain Pantano. The Spanish officer. He was second away, bombed on time then went off the radar during his climb out. Nobody’s reported seeing him go down and we’ve got S and R out looking for him, or wreckage.’

  ‘Perhaps a Sidewinder popped him.’ There was a large segment of sarcasm in Bond’s voice.

  ‘There were no missile-carrying aircraft around, sir, as I’ve already told you.’

  ‘Well, what do you think the one up my backside was, Wings? A Scotch mist?’ Now, quite angry, James Bond turned on his heel and left.

  In the wardroom bar that night before dinner, the atmosphere was only slightly subdued. It was always a bit of a shaker losing a pilot, but the strange circumstances surrounding this loss, coupled with the fact that the Spanish pilot had not been a natural mixer, helped to calm what often causes a slight twitch among young pilots.

  So, when Bond entered the wardroom, the bar hummed with near enough the usual high-spirited pre-dinner chatter. He was about to go over and join two of the other Navy pilots from the course, when his eyes landed on someone he had been watching from afar since reporting to RNAS Yeovilton. She was tall and very slim; a WRNS First Officer (Women’s Royal Naval Service – ‘Wrens’ as they were referred to) who was always much in demand, as she had the kind of looks and figure that make middle-aged men regret their lost youth: a sloe-eyed combination of self-confidence, together with a hint of complete indifference to the many officers who paid court to her, ‘Like hornets around a honeypot,’ as one crusty old visiting Admiral commented. Her name was Clover Pennington, though she was known to many, in spite of her upbringing in the bosom of a well-connected West Country family, as ‘Irish Penny’.

  Now this dark-haired, black-eyed beauty had the usual quota of three young Lieutenants toasting her, but, on seeing Bond, she stepped away from the bar towards him. ‘I hear you had a near-miss today, sir.’ Her smile lacked the cautious deference her rank demanded when approaching a much senior officer.

  ‘Not as close as our Spanish pilot it would seem, Miss . . . er, First Officer . . .’ Bond let it trail off. Recently, he had not been given the chance of spending much of his time with women, a fact which would have gladdened M’s heart.

  ‘First Officer Pennington, sir. Clover Pennington.’

  ‘Well, Miss Pennington, how about joining me for dinner? The name’s Bond, by the way, James Bond.’

  ‘Delighted, sir.’ She gave him a dazzling smile and turned towards the wardroom. Daggers were invisibly hurled in Bond’s direction from the eyes of the three young officers still at the bar.

  Tonight was not a formal wardroom dinner, so Bond seized the chance while it was on offer. ‘Not here, First Officer Pennington.’ His hand brushed her uniformed arm with the three blue stripes, denoting her rank, low on the sleeve. ‘I know a reasonable restaurant about a quarter of an hour’s drive away, near Wedmore. Give you ten minutes to change.’

  Another smile which spoke of a more than usually pleasant evening, ‘Oh, good, sir. I always feel better out of uniform.’

  Bond thought unpardonable thoughts and followed her from the bar.

  He gave her twenty minutes, knowing the ways of women when changing for an evening out. In any case, Bond also wanted to get into civilian clothes, even though it would have to be almost another kind of uniform, Dunhill slacks and blazer complete with RN crest on the breast pocket.

  Before taking up his new duties, M had advised, ‘Shouldn’t take that damned great Bentley with you, 007.’

  ‘How am I supposed to get around, sir?’ he had asked.

  ‘Oh, take something upmarket from the car pool – they’ve a nice little BMW 520i, in an unobtrusive dark-blue, free at the moment. Use that as your runabout until you set sail for distant shores.’ M, Bond would have sworn, was humming ‘Drake’s Drum’ as he left the office.

  So it was that the dark-blue BMW pulled up in front of the officers’ Wrennery, as the women’s quarters were known, twenty minutes later. To Bond’s surprise she was there, waiting outside wearing a fetching trench-coat over civilian clothes. The coat was tightly belted, showing off the neat waist and adding a touch of sensuality. She slid into the passenger seat next to him, her skirt riding up to expose around four inches of thigh. As Bond swung the car out through the Wrennery gates he noticed that she did not even bother to adjust the coat and skirt as she pulled on the obligatory seat-belt.

  ‘So where’re we going, Captain Bond?’ (Did he imagine the throatiness of her voice, or had it always been there?)

  ‘Little pub I know. Good food. The owner’s wife is French and they do a very passable boeuf Beauceronne, almost like the real thing. Off duty, the name’s James, by the way.’

  He heard the smile in her voice, ‘You have a choice – James. My nickname’s “Irish Penny”, so most of the girls call me Penny. I prefer my real name, Clover.’

 
‘Clover it is, then. Nice name. Unusual.’

  ‘My father always used to say that mother was frightened by a bull in a clover field when she was carrying me, but I prefer the more romantic version.’

  ‘Which was?’

  Again, the smile in her voice, ‘That I was conceived in a patch of clover – and my father a respectable clergyman at that.’

  ‘Still a nice name,’ Bond paused to negotiate a long bend. ‘Only heard it once before, and she was married to someone very big in intelligence matters.’ The reference to Mrs Allan Dulles was a calculated come-on: almost a code to attract Clover into the light in case they were both in the same business. M had said there would be other officers around, on this deep cover assignment. But Clover Pennington did not rise to the bait.

  ‘Is it true about this afternoon, James?’

  ‘Is what true?’

  ‘That someone tried to put a Sidewinder up your six.’

  ‘Felt that way. How did you come to hear about it? The incident’s supposed to be low-profile.’

  ‘Oh, didn’t you know? I’m in charge of the girls who maintain the Harriers.’ On most stone frigates, as shore stations are called by the Royal Navy, maintenance and arming was, to a large extent, performed by Wrens. ‘Bernie – Wings that is – passed me a curt little memo. He writes memos rather as he speaks, words of one syllable, especially to the Wrens. I always imagine he regards us as having very limited vocabularies. We’re checking on all your aircraft’s electronics, just to be sure you weren’t getting some odd feedback.’

  ‘It was a missile, Clover. I’ve been at the receiving end of those bloody things before today. I know what they sound like.’1

  ‘We have to check. You know what the Commander (Air) is like: always accusing us of infesting his precious Harriers with Wrenlins.’ She laughed. Throaty and infectious, Bond thought, something he would not really mind catching himself.