by T. E. Cruise
Farris laughed. “The new guy always uses the most fuel. You’ve probably been leaning on your afterburner to maintain flight integrity.”
“Rog.”
“Let me just get the coordinates on our tanker and we’ll get us all gassed up …” There was a pause. When Farris came back on the air his voice was fraught with concern. “Ah, Warrior flight, especially you, number four. We’ve got a little problem …”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Robbie muttered. “That cloud front is moving faster than anticipated.”
“Affirmative, Warrior Four. I’m going to turn you around, Lieutenant. You can make an emergency landing at—”
“Boss, don’t send me back—” Robbie pleaded.
“Got to, son. It looks like we’re going to have to go to Instrument Flight Rules.”
“I can handle it—” Robbie began.
“Negative,” Farris said. “You’re not ready for IFR, and nobody is ever really ready for aerial refueling in the soup, but especially not bucks on their first time out.”
He’s right about that, Robbie thought. Standard procedure for a new pilot was to become an old hand at cycling on a tanker before trying it in the murk. The sensible thing to do would be accept his boss’s decision and go home—
“Boss, I can handle it,” Robbie insisted.
“Warrior Four, you’re having enough trouble learning the kicks in the chorus line in the sunshine. How are you going to—?”
“Moot point, boss,” Captain Strauss cut in. “The slop’s found us.”
Maybe it won’t be too bad, Robbie hoped as the first fingers of cloud began caressing his canopy.
“You’re right, Three,” Farris said. “Kid’ll never be able to find his way home in this … Warrior flight, make sure your lights are on,” he said worriedly.
The sky ahead was fading to white. When Robbie looked down, the ground appeared as if it were being viewed through quickly increasing folds of white lace. Robbie looked for Warrior Three, and could scarcely see him through the cloud wrapping around his Thud like a blanket of cotton wool.
Then all he could see was the light on the end of Warrior Three’s wingtip …
Then even that faded from view.
“Uh, boss,” Robbie transmitted, peering blindly through the gray mess. “Uh, boss, this is Four—”
He was having trouble getting through the radio clutter. Every pilot in the strike was suffering through the same situation and anxious to make contact with his flight mates.
“Warrior flight, go to channel seven—” Farris managed to transmit during an abrupt second of silence.
Robbie tuned to that relatively quiet frequency. “Warrior check,” Farris commanded to make sure that all his birds had followed him to seven, and then gave flight coordinates.
“Ah, boss, this is Four,” Robbie began tentatively, feeling bashful about hassling his boss after he’d pleaded to be allowed to stay. “I’ve got bingo fuel, boss.”
“I’m looking for those tankers, son.”
Robbie was sweating now. He felt claustrophobic flying through the cloud mass pressing in from all sides against his canopy. He kept watching his fuel gauges; the needles were settling toward empty. He studied his instruments, trying his best to hold to the course Farris had set for the flight. He had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was diving, even though his instruments were telling him otherwise. The feeling was so strong. He had to be diving. His instruments were wrong!
“Warrior lead, this is Four. I’ve got negative instrument—”
“No, you don’t,” Strauss cut him off.
“But you don’t even know what I was going to say—” Robbie protested.
“You were going to claim that your instruments are fouled up; that you’re climbing or falling or doing barrel rolls, am I right?”
“Affirmative—” Robbie said, stunned.
“I just had momentary tallyho on you, and you’re flying right. Your mind is playing tricks on you, kid. It’s vertigo. Like a hallucination. Happens all the time when you’re flying blind. Just try to ignore what your senses tell you and maintain IFR—”
“Warrior Three, get off the channel,” Farris said impatiently. “Here’s the coordinates to our tanker…”
Robbie set the new course. “My gauges are bouncing on empty, lead,” he heard himself chattering needlessly as if Farris could do something about it. Oh, well, so much for radio discipline, he thought.
“Warrior flight, this is Blue tanker, we’ve got you on our scope—”
Talk about your last chance gas station, Robbie thought, relieved.
“We’ve found a little break in this soup,” Blue radioed. “A clear spot right in the middle. We’re circling within it. Here’s the coordinates …”
As Robbie steered the way he was told, Farris said, “Four, you take on some gas first …”
“Boss, we’re all hurting,” another pilot, whom Robbie thought was Warrior Two, cut in.
“Rog, Warrior Two,” Farris said. “Warrior Four, I’m sorry about this, son, but what you’re going to have to do is take on just enough to keep your engine going, then cycle off to let somebody else have a chance. When everybody’s set you’ll cycle back on for a complete fill, got it?”
“Rog, copy,” Robbie transmitted, sighing in relief as his Thud broke out of the cloud mass. “I see the tanker!” he crowed.
“Go get him, son,” Farris ordered.
“And make it quick, Lieutenant,” Warrior Three, Captain Strauss, interjected. “I’m coming up on empty.”
It was as if the clouds were a doughnut, and the clear space in which the big jet tanker was circling was the hole in that doughnut’s center. The clearing was low, less than a thousand feet, and only a couple of miles around; a flattened oval of visibility hanging suspended in a milky white sky.
Robbie nudged forward the throttle to catch up with the tanker, holding his breath all the while. He knew that he was already flying on fumes, and that he could expect to flame out at any second. As he closed on the tanker’s tail he thought the big jet airlinerlike craft looked familiar, but he didn’t know why, and then he put the matter out of his mind. He couldn’t afford any distractions as he settled into position behind and a little below the tanker’s tail. Banking off his starboard wing in staggered formation were the three other thirsty birds of Warrior flight, anxiously waiting their turn at the watering hole.
Robbie could see the tanker’s fuel boom operator lying on his belly, peering out at him like a gunner through the big window in the turret beneath the tanker’s tail. The operator began working his controls and the boom began extending down toward the fuel receptacle in the Thud’s nose. The twin rudders on the boom twisted around like rabbits’ ears as the operator adjusted his aim. Robbie activated the control that opened up the filler tube on his Thud’s nose and concentrated on making the connection.
The boom touched the receptacle and then slid off. It swung wide, retracted, and then extended maddeningly slowly again.
And again Robbie missed.
“Come on, Warrior Four,” Farris coaxed urgently. “We haven’t got the time, son. We’re all on empty now, and visibility is decreasing.”
Robbie didn’t bother to reply. He’d already noticed that the little oasis of visibility had begun to contract; that was his problem. He’d refueled in flight before, but never when he and the tanker he was chasing were racking around in an ever-shrinking racetrack oval. The boom was reacting to the increasing centrifugal force, veering sideways as Robbie tried to make the connection. The boom operator would have to work his rudders to compensate—
And this is my last try, Robbie thought. He could hear the change in his engine’s pitch. He was going to flame out. If he blew it this time he’d have to bail out … become a prisoner of war, if gomer didn’t skin him alive …
He held his breath as he angled up his Thud’s nose toward that life-saving boom, and then the operator, God bless him, shoved it
home.
“Yeah!” Robbie cried out in triumph, and then his engine flamed out. He felt the airplane begin to fall, then stabilize. The boom’s hydraulic locks had clicked into place. The tanker was towing his Thud as it took on fuel. Robbie watched his gauges rise to a fraction above empty, and then restarted his windmilling engine.
“Come on off, son,” Farris said urgently. “We’ve got to—”
Robbie froze. The boom operator had disconnected. The boom was hovering, waiting for the next customer, but Robbie could not bring himself to relinquish his position. It took me forever to make the connection, he thought. I’ve only taken on a few minutes of fuel—
“I’m going to flame out!” Strauss cried.
Visibililty is almost gone. I won’t be able to connect again, Robbie thought distractedly. He was panicking, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Got to take on more gas now—
“Get off that tanker!” Warrior Two was shouting.
“Everybody shut up!” Farris ordered. “Lieutenant Greene, you listen now,” he said calmly. “I realize that you’re Herman Gold’s grandson and that this is a GAT AT-909 Aero-Tanker—”
Robbie smiled. He knew there’d been something familiar about the tanker.
“But just because your grandpa built this gas station,” Farris continued, “doesn’t mean you own it …”
Robbie laughed, and in the process of laughing found the handle he needed to gain control over his fear. He dropped away from the tanker. Strauss instantly replaced him, and within seconds the veteran combat pilot was hooked to the boom and taking on fuel.
“Boss, everyone. I’m sorry,” Robbie muttered thickly.
“We’ll talk later,” Farris said. “Now get your mind right, kid. We still have a target to hit.”
“We still going for the primary?” Strauss asked. He had taken on enough fuel to keep him flying and was in the process of disconnecting from the tanker, to be replaced by another Thud.
“Let’s find out,” Farris replied, giving the order for the flight to tune back to the main communication channel. Together, Warrior flight monitored the advance recon reports.
Sounds clear over the target right now, Robbie thought, watching as Farris cycled onto the tanker and filled his tanks. Then it was Robbie’s turn to go back on, this time to take on all the lovely fuel he could carry.
He was pleasantly surprised to find that hooking up this time was no big deal. He guessed that a lot of this business was kind of like working an automobile’s clutch: It was easier to do if you didn’t think about it, but just did it …
“We’ll do a fly-by,” Farris told his pilots as the flight veered away from the tanker to rejoin the strike force. “The way this freak weather system has been acting, there’s just no way to tell what we’ll find when we get there … In about ten minutes, I’d say…”
The weather had cleared. Visibility was excellent. The word had gone out across the strike force that the primary target was a go, and the swarm of Thuds had banked west, to follow the Song Ma River to the trestle bridge at Song Sen.
“Warrior flight, drop down to fifteen thousand.”
Robbie felt his spine tingle. They were on attack approach. Their flight would be the first in.
Robbie clicked his mike. “Boss, shouldn’t we punch our tanks?”
“Negative, son,” Farris replied kindly. “You only want to do that when MIGs are around. This far south they’re pretty rare.”
No MIGs? Robbie thought, disappointed. This combat initiation was not turning out at all the way he’d hoped …
“Let’s have some radio discipline now,” Farris said.
Robbie understood the need for quiet. A few months ago the enemy had introduced a new weapon: SAM, for Surface to Air Missile. The Thuds had electronic gear to warn of a SAM launch, but once those thirty-foot-long telephone poles were airborne the only way to keep them out of your tail pipe was to eyeball them early, take evasive action, and spread the word so that the other Thud drivers could duck and feint. The radio had to be clear of chatter if any pilot was going to be able to sound that alarm.
“Warrior lead, this is Lodestone lead,” the radio crackled. Robbie listened. Lodestone was the call sign of the flak-suppression F-100 SuperSabre flight.
“This is Warrior lead,” Farris said.”We’re three minutes from Initial Point—”
“Warrior, we’ve got a problem,” Lodestone overrode. “There’s enemy barges parked underneath the bridge. We think they’re heavily armed. We tried to hit them, but our cannons and rockets can’t penetrate the bridge—”
“I copy, Lodestone,” Farris replied. “What about the ground defenses?”
“Same old story,” Lodestone replied, sounding frustrated. “Gomer’s got his guns placed in his so-called village on both sides of the river. Just like you guys, we’re not allowed to hit villages, even if they do have more gun barrels than chimneys sticking up.”
The enemy was so fucking sly, Robbie thought in disgust. And our politicians are so fucking dumb—
The politicians back home cringed whenever gomer went whining to the press about how the big, bad, war-mongering Imperialist American pilots were stomping on their peace-loving, rice-farming peasants. Accordingly, the politicians had tied one arm behind the Air Force’s back by formulating strict rules of engagement. MIGs could not be shot at unless they were in the air, and SAM sites could not be attacked unless they had already launched their missiles. The worst of it, however, was that nothing even remotely resembling a civilian-populated area could be attacked, even if those peace-loving, rice-farming peasant types happened to be firing at the war-mongering pilots …
“All the jinking we’ve been doing to avoid the flak has us low on fuel,” Lodestone lead said. “Afraid we’re out of here, Warrior.”
“Well, thanks for trying, Lodestone,” Farris radioed.
“Rog, Warriors. Happy hunting. Lodestone out.”
“I’ve seen this before,” Farris announced. “Gomer likes to move those barges around, depending on where he thinks we’re going to strike. Expect pedestal-mounted heavy machine guns, and lots of automatic small-arms fire. Gomer will try to hit us with flak all the way coming in and all the way going out, but those barges will come into play when we’re at our most vulnerable: just corning out of our attack dive at about three thousand feet, when our noses are up and our bellies are exposed.” He paused. “I wish Intelligence had apprised us of those barges,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” Strauss cut in. “We could have arranged for flak suppression to have escorted us during our attack instead of prior to it. A little cover fire would give those fuckers on the barge something to think about …”
I can do that, Robbie thought. He clicked his mike. “Boss, this is Four. I can do that—”
“What are you talking about, son?” Farris demanded. “There’s no way a Thud carrying a full load of ordnance can—”
“But I’m not carrying a full load,” Robbie said. “All I’ve got are a half dozen bombs.”
“That’s right, boss.” Strauss chuckled. “You wanted the kid to fly light his first time out, remember?”
“That’s one thing I do remember,” Farris argued. “It is his first time out—”
“I can go in with you and your wingman during your attack,” Robbie said. “Then, once you’ve toggled off, you can do the same for Strauss and me.”
“Think about what you’re saying, Lieutenant. You’ll be exposing yourself twice to the enemy.”
“I’m willing to do it,” Robbie said firmly, all the while trying to control the trembling in his voice. He wasn’t totally sure he had the balls to expose himself once to the enemy.
“It’s totally against standard procedure,” Farris said worriedly.
“One minute to IP,” Strauss said quietly.
“Sonofabitch,” Farris cursed. “Okay, kid! We’ll try it your way! We’ll come in as planned. You come in from the southeast.” He laughed. “From out of the sun,
you fucking cowboy.”
“Affirmative, boss.” Robbie began working the switches to go from air-to-ground bombing mode to gun mode.
“And Lieutenant?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“If this works … I’ll buy you a beer when we get home …”
Farris tersely informed the other flights about Warrior’s change in tactics. This was necessary because the strike force’s attack specifics were all set during the briefing. The slightest unanticipated change in that complex choreography would cause major foul-ups down the line.
They were almost over the target now. The top of the two-lane steel trestle bridge was coming into view from out of the jungle. Robbie could see the first white, puffy balls of flak expanding in the sky from the 37-millimeter guns nestled in the village; the guns the SuperSabres had been restricted from attacking. Blue puffs of smoke—from larger 57-millimeter guns—added to the fireworks display. Then small-arms gunfire began pouring from the twin jumbles of thatched-roof shacks and huts clustered around the roads leading onto the bridge. Already the muddy riverbanks were obscured with a drifting haze of gun smoke.
Robbie peeled away from his element lead, Captain Strauss, then racked his Thud across the river, groaning in pain from G-stress as he whipped the mammoth jet into its tight turn. He did a sideslip barrel roll, letting his nose drop down, and began his strafing run. As he did so, just for the hell of it he glanced at his watch: 9:11. Punch your time clock, Lieutenant. Welcome to the war…
A half dozen barges bristling with weapons had moved out from beneath the bridge. Their many guns were now tracking Farris and his wingman, who were executing their attack dive following the course of the river, perpendicular to the bridge. The sensible approach would have been an angled dive traveling the length of the bridge, but that approach had been forbidden by the big shots safe behind their desks in Washington, who’d warned that there would be hell to pay if any bombs overshot the bridge and landed in the villages on either side.
As the bomb-laden Thuds screamed down, the heavy machine guns on the boats opened fire. The red tracers crisscrossed upward, joining with the flak coming from both riverbanks. Then the automatic rifles on the barges began to wink. Gomer had added the last fine strands to the net of death he’d woven to pluck the Thuds from the sky.