by Wilbur Smith
make himself heard above the din of mortar bursts and rapid small'arms
fire.
"Just enough time for a cup of tea," he said. He pushed a few twigs into
the embers of the previous night's fire, then rummaged in his small
emergency pack for the last of his tea bags while Sapper placed the
smoke-blackened billycan back on the burgeoning flames.
They only had one mug between them. "Girls first," said Nicholas,
passing it to Royan. She took a swallow and scalded her lips.
Good!, she sighed, and then cocked her head. "This time it is definitely
Big Dolly I can hear."
Nicholas listened and then nodded. "I think you are right." He stood up
and went to the radio. "Big Dolly. You are audible."
"Five minutes to landing, Pharaoh."
From where he stood, Nicholas looked down the long strip. Mek's men were
retreating, flitting like smoke through the thorn scrub and firing back
in the direction of the river. Nogo was pushing them hard now.
"Hurry along, Jannie he murmured, and then adjusted his expression as
he turned back to the two women. "Plenty of time to finish your tea.
Don't waste it."
The rumble of Big Dolly's engines was louder than the sound of gunfire
now. Then suddenly she was in sight, coming in so low that she seemed to
brush the tops of the thorn trees. She was enormous, Her wingspan
reached from one side of the narrow overgrown strip to the other. Jannie
touched her down short, and she blew out a long rolling cloud of brown
dust behind her as he put the engines into reverse thrust.
Big Dolly went barrelling past the clump of acacia, and Jannie waved to
them from the high cockpit. The moment he had bled off enough speed, he
stood on his footbrakes and rudder bar. Big Dolly spun around in her own
length and came roaring back down the strip towards them, her loading
ramp beginning to drop open even before she reached them.
Fred was waiting in the open hatchway, and he ran down to'help Sapper
and Nicholas with the wounded men on the litters. It took only a few
minutes to carry them up the ramp, and then they started loading the
ammunition crates. Even Royan gave a hand, staggering up the ramp with
one of the lighter crates clutched to her chest.
A mortar shell exploded a hundred and fifty yards beyond the parked
Hercules, and then half a minute later a second shell fell a hundred
yards short.
"Ranging shots," Nicholas grunted, picking up a crate under each arm and
running up the ramp.
"They have us in their sights now," Fred shouted. "We have to get out of
here. Leave the rest of the cargo. Let's go, GoV
There were only four crates still lying under the NMI-, MOrJL
spreading branches of the acacia, and both Nicholas and Sapper ignored
the order and ran back down the ramp.
and raced back.
They snatched up a crate under each arm "Me ramp was starting to rise
and Big Dolly's engines roared as she began to taxi out. They hurled the
crates over the tailboard of the rising ramp and then jumped up to grab
a handhold and pull themselves aboard. Nicholas was the first up and
reached down to haul Sapper in.
When he looked back, Tessay was a small, lonely figure under the
acacias.
"Give Mek my love and thanks," he bellowed at her.
CY
ou know how to contact us," she screamed back.
"Goodbye, Tessay' Royan's voice was lost in the blast of the great
engines, and the dust blew back in a sheet over Tessay so that she was
forced to cover her face and turn away. The ramp hissed closed on its
hydraulic. rams, and cut out their last glimpse of her.
Nicholas put an arm around Royan's shoulders and hustled her down the
length of the cavernous cargo hold and into one of the jum seats at the
entrance to the cockpit.
"Strap yourself in!" he ordered, and ran up the steps to the cockpit.
"Thought you had decided to stay behind," Jannie greeted him mildly,
without looking up from his controls.
"Hold tight! Here we go."
Nicholas clung on to the back of the pilot's seat as bank of Jannie and
Fred between them pushed forward the throttle levers to full power, and
Big Dolly built up speed until she was careering down the strip.
Looking over Jannie's shoulder" Nicholas saw the vague shapes of men in
camouflage battledre.ss amongst . Some of them the thorn scrub at the
end of the runwa raced tow huge aircraft as it ards were firing at the
them.
"Those popguns aren't going to hurt her much," Jannie . "Big Dolly is a
tough old lady." And - lifted her grunted into the air.
They flashed over the heads of the enemy troops on the ground, and
Jannie set her nose high in the climb attitude.
"Welcome aboard! folks, thank you for flying Africair.
Next stop Malta," Jannie drawled, and then his voice rose sharply, "Oh,
oh! Where did this little piss-cat come from?"
Directly ahead of them the Jet Ranger rose out of the thick scrub on the
banks of the Nile. The angle of the helicopter's climb meant that the
approaching Hercules was hidden from the pilot's view, and he continued
to rise directly into their path.
"Only five hundred feet and a hundred and ten knots on the clock," Fred
shouted a warning at his father from the right'hand seat. "Too low to
turn."
The jet Ranger was so close that Nicholas could clearly see Tuma Nogo in
the front seat, his spectacles reflecting the sunlight like the eyes of
a blind man, and his face freezing into a rictus of terror as he
suddenly saw the great machine bearing down on them. At the last
possible moment the pilot put his aircraft over in a wild dive to try to
ear It nose of the approaching Hercules. It seemed impossible to avoid
the collision, but he managed to bank, the lighter, more manoeuvrable
machine over until it rolled almost on to its back. It slipped under the
belly of the Hercules, and the men in the cockpit of Jannie's plane
barely felt the light kiss of the two fuselages.
However, the helicopter was flung over on to its nose by the impact,
until it was pointing straight down at the earth only four hundred feet
below, While Big Dolly flew on, climbing away steadily on an even keel,
the pilot of the et Ranger struggled to control his crazily plummeting
machine. Two hundred feet above the earth the turbulence thrown out
astern by the massive T56,A-15 turbo-prop engines of the Hercules, each
rated at 4900 horsepower, struck the helicopter with the force of an
avalanche.
Like a dead leaf in an autumn gale she was swept away, spinning end over
end, and when she struck the ground her own engines were still squealing
at full power. On impact the fuselage crumpled like a sheet of aluminium
cooking foil, and Nogo was dead even before the fuel tanks exploded and
a fireball engulfed the jet Ranger.
As soon as Jannie reached safe manoeuvring altitude he brought Big Dolly
around on her northerly heading, and they could look back over the wing
at the Roseires airstrip falling away behind them. The column of black
/> smoke from the burning helicopter was tar-thick as it drifted away on
the light westerly wind.
"You did say they were the uglies?" Jannie asked. "So rather them than
us, then?"
nce Jannie had settled Big Dolly on her sailing low northerly heading,
and they were over the open deserted Sudanese plains, Nicholas went back
into the main hold.
"Let's get the wounded settled down comfortably , he an unbuckled their
safety belts suggested. Sapper and Roy and went back with him to attend
to the men lying where haste of the their litters had been dumped during
the getaway from Roseires.
After a while Nicholas left them to it and went forward flight deck. He
to the small, well-stocked galley behind the soup and sliced hunks of
fresh bread opened some canned from the loaves he found in the
refrigerator. While the tea water boiled, he found his small emergency
pack, and took from it.the nylon wallet which contained his medicines
and drugs. From one of the vials he shook five white tablets into the
palm of his hand.
In the galley he crushed the tablets to powder, and when he poured tea
into two of the mugs he stiffed the powder in with it. Royan had enough
English blood in her veins never to be able to refuse a mug of hot tea.
After they had served soup and buttered toast to the wounded men, Royan
accepted her mug from Nicholas gratefully. While she and Sapper sipped
their tea, Nicholas went back to the flight deck and leaned over the
back of Jannie's seat.
"What is our flying time to the Egyptian border?" he asked.
"Four hours twenty minutes,'Jannic told him.
"Is there any way that we can avoid flying into Egyptian air
space?"Nicholas wanted to know.
Jannie swivelled around in his seat and stared at him with astonishment.
"I suppose we could make a turn out to the west, through Gadaffi-land.
Of course, it would mean an extra seven hours' flying time, and we would
probably run out of fuel and end up making a forced landing somewhere
out there in the Sahara." He lifted an eyebrow at Nicholas. "Tell me, my
boy, what inspired that stupid question?"
"It was just a rare thought,'Nicholas said.
"Let it be not merely rare, but extinct," Jannie advised.
"I don't want to hear it asked again, ever."
Nicholas slapped his shoulder. "Put it out of your mind." When he went
back into the main hold, Sapper and Royan were sitting on two of the
fold-down bunks that were bolted to the main bulkhead. Royan's empty tea
mug stood on the deck at her feet. Nicholas sat down beside her, and she
reached up and touched the bloodstained dressing that covered his chin.
"You had better let me see to that." Her fingers were deft and cool on
his hot inflamed skin as she cleaned the T
stitches with an alcohol swab and then placed a fresh plaster over them.
Nicholas felt a strong twinge of guilt as he submitted to her
ministrations.
However, it was Sapper who was the first to show the effects of the
doped tea. He lay back gently and closed his eyes, then a soft snore
vibrated his lips. Minutes later Royan sagged drowsily against
Nicholas's shoulder. When she was fast asleep, he let her down gently
and lifted her feet up on to the bunk. He spread a rug over her. She did
not even stir, and he had a moment's doubt about the strength of the
tablets.
Then he kissed her forehead softly. "How could I ever hate you?" he
asked her softly. "Whatever you did."
He went into the lavatory and locked the door. He had plenty of time.
Sapper and Royan wouldn ot wake for hours yet, and Jannie and Fred were
happily ensconced on the flight'deck, listening to Dolly Parton tapes on
the audio system.
When at last he had finished, Nicholas glanced at his wrist-watch and
realized that it had taken him almost two hours, He closed the toilet
seat and washed his hands carefully. Then he took one last careful took
around the tiny cabin and unlocked the door.
Sapper and Royan were still fast asleep on the folddown bunks. He went
forward to the flight-deck, and Fred pulled his earphones down around
his neck and grinned at him.
"Nile water. It's poisonous. You have been locked in the loo for the
last couple of hours. Surprised that there is anything left of you."
Nicholas ignored the jibe and leaned over Jannie's seat back. "Where are
we?"
With a thick forefinger Jannie stabbed the chart that he was balancing
on his protruding belly. "Almost in the clear," he said complacently.
"Egyptian border in one hour twelve minutes."
Nicholas remained standing behind his seat until Jannie grunted and
lifted the microphone. "Time to go into my act."
"Hallo, Abu Simbel Approach!" he said in a Gulf States accent. "This is
Zulu Whiskey Uniform Five Zero Zero."
There was a long silence from the Egyptian controller.
Jannie grunted. "He probably has'a hint in the tower with him. Got to
give him time to get his pants back on."
Abu Simbel Control answered on his fifth call. Jannie launched into his
tried and tested routine, feigning ignorance in fluent colloquial
Arabic.
After five minutes, Abu Simbel cleared him to continue on northwards,
with an instruction to "call again abeam Aswan'.
They flew on serenely for another hour, but Nicholas nerves were
screwing up tighter every minute.
Suddenly, without the least warning, there was a silvery flash ahead of
them as a fighter interceptor, coming from below them, pulled up steeply
across their bows.
Jannie shouted with surprise and an eras another two 9 warplanes
rocketed up from under them, so close that they were buffeted by the
turbulence of their jet trails.
They all recognized the type. They were MiG21 "fishheads' sporting the
Egyptian air force livery, and with air-to-air missiles hanging in
menacing pods under their swept-back wings.
"Unidentified aircraft! Jannie yelled into his mouthpiece. "You are on
collision course. State your call sign!" They all craned their necks and
stared up through -he Perspex canopy over the flight-deck. High above
them they could see the three MiG fighters in formation circling against
the blue of the African sky.
"ZVVU 500. This is Red Leader of the Egyptian people's air force. You
will conform to my orders."
Jannie looked back at Nicholas, his expression forlorn.
low, A
something has gone wrong here. How the hell did they tumble to us?"
"You' better do what the man says, Dad," Fred advised miserably,
'otherwise he is going to blow us all over the sky."
Jarnie shrugged helplessly, and then spoke into his microphone
mournfully. "Red Leader, This is ZVVU 500.
We will cooperate. Please state your intentions."
"Your new heading is 053. Execute immediately!" Jannie brought Big Dolly
around into the east and then glanced at his chart.
"Aswan!" he said dolefully. "The Gyppos are taking us to Aswan. What the
hell, I might as well warn Aswan tower that we have wounded on board."
Nicholas went back to Royans bunk and shook her awake. She was groggy
and unsteady on her feet from the effects of the drug as she staggered
to the lavatory. However, when she emerged again ten minutes later her
hair was combed and she seemed alert and recovered from the mild draught
that she had drunk in her tea. - here was the Nile ahead of them once
more, 6.. and the town of Aswan on both banks, nestling below the first
cataract and the impounded waters of the High Dam. Kitchener's Island
swam like a green fish in the middle of the stream.
As the voice of the military controller at the Aswan irfield gave Jannie
his orders, Big Dolly settled with unruffled dignity and lined up for
the straight-in approach to the tarmac runway. The MiG fighters which
had shepherded them in from the desert were no longer visible, but their
presence high above was betrayed by their terse radio transmissions as
they handed over their captive to the ground control.
Big Dolly sailed in over the perimeter fence and touched down, and the
voice of the controller ordered them, "Turn first taxi-way right."
Jannie obeyed, and as he turned off the main runway there was a small
vehicle with a sign on its roof which read, in both English and Arabic,
"FOLLOW ME'.
The vehicle led them to a row of camouflaged concrete hangars in front
of which a ground crew in khaki overalls signalled them with paddles
into a parking stand. As soon as Jannie applied his brakes and brought
Big Dolly to a halt, a file of four armoured half-tracks raced out and
surrounded the huge aircraft, training their turret weapons upon her.
Obedient to the instructions radioed7by control, Jannie shut down his
engines and lowered the tail ramp of the aircraft. No one on the
flight-deck had spoken since they had landed. They stood crowded
together, looking unhappy, peering out of the cockpit windows.
Suddenly a white Cadillac with an escort of armed motorcyclists,
followed by a military ambulance and a three-ton transport truck, drove
through the gate of the perimeter fence and came directly to the foot of
the cargo ramp of the Hercules. The chauffeur jumped out and opened the
door, and his passenger stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine. He
was clearly a person of authority, dignified and composed. He wore a
light tropical suit and white shoes, a panama hat and dark glasses. As