by Wilbur Smith
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! Go!’
There were only four crates still lying under the spreading branches of the acacia, and both Nicholas and Sapper ignored the order and ran back down the ramp. They snatched up a crate under each arm and raced back. The 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.
‘You 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 jump 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 Jannie and Fred between them pushed forward the bank of 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 battledress amongst the thorn scrub at the end of the runway. Some of them were firing at the huge aircraft as it raced towards them.
‘Those popguns aren’t going to hurt her much,’ Jannie grunted. ‘Big Dolly is a tough old lady.’ And he lifted her 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 clear the 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 Jet 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?’
Once Jannie had settled Big Dolly on her northerly heading, and they were sailing low over the open deserted Sudanese plains, Nicholas went back into the main hold.
‘Let’s get the wounded settled down comfortably,’ he suggested. Sapper and Royan unbuckled their safety belts and went back with him to attend to the men lying where their litters had been dumped during the haste of the getaway from Roseires.
After a while Nicholas left them to it and went forward to the small, well-stocked galley behind the flight deck. He opened some canned soup and sliced hunks of fresh bread 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 stirred 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,’ Jannie 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 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 would not 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 look around the tiny cabin and unlocked the door.
Sapper and Royan were still fast asleep on the fold-down 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 bint 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’s 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 anger as another two 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 ‘Fishbeds’ 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 the 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.
‘ZWU 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. ‘Something has gone wrong here. How the hell did they tumble to us?’
‘You’d better do what the man says, Dad,’ Fred advised miserably, ‘otherwise he is going to blow us all over the sky.’
Jannie shrugged helplessly, and then spoke into his microphone mournfully. ‘Red Leader. This is ZWU 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 Royan’s 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.
There was the Nile ahead of them once more, 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 airfield 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 radioed by 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 he came up the ramp to where the five of them waited, he was followed by two male secretaries.
He removed his dark glasses and tucked them into his breast pocket. As he recognized Royan he smiled and lifted his hat, ‘Dr Al Simma – Royan! You did it. Congratulations!’ He took her hand and shook it warmly, not relinquishing his grip as he looked directly at Nicholas.
‘You must be Sir Nicholas Quenton-Harper. I have been looking forward to meeting you immensely. Won’t you please introduce us, Royan?’
Royan could not meet Nicholas’s accusing scrutiny as she said, ‘May I present His Excellency, Atalan Abou Sin, Minister of Culture and Tourism in the Egyptian government.’
‘You may indeed,’ said Nicholas coldly. ‘What an unexpected pleasure, Minister.’
‘I would like to express the thanks of the President and the people of Egypt for returning to this country these precious relics of our ancient but glorious history.’ He made a gesture that encompassed the stack of ammunition crates.
‘Please, think nothing of it,’ said Nicholas, but he never took his eyes off Royan. She kept her face turned half-away from him.
‘On the contrary, we think the world of what you have done, Sir Nicholas.’ Abou Sin’s smile was charming and urbane. ‘We are fully aware of the expense to which you have been put, and we would not want you to be out of pocket in this extraordinarily generous gesture of yours. Dr Al Simma tells me that the expedition to recover these treasures for us has cost you a quarter of a million sterling.’ He took an envelope from his inside pocket, and proffered it to Nicholas.
‘This is a banker’s draft drawn on the Central Bank of Egypt. It is irrevocable, and payable anywhere in the world. It is for the su
m of £250,000.’
‘Very generous of you, Your Excellency.’ Nicholas’s voice was heavy with irony as he slipped the envelope into his top pocket. ‘I presume this was Dr Al Simma’s suggestion?’
‘Of course,’ beamed Abou Sin. ‘Royan holds you in the very highest regard.’
‘Does she, now?’ Nicholas murmured, still staring at her expressionlessly.
‘However, this other small token of our appreciation was the suggestion of the President himself.’ The minister snapped his fingers and one of his secretaries stepped forward with a leather-covered medal case, which he opened before he presented it to Abou Sin.
On a bed of red velvet nestled a magnificent decoration, a star encrusted with seed pearls and tiny pavé diamonds. In the centre of the star was a golden lion rampant.
Abou Sin lifted the star from its case and advanced on Nicholas. ‘The Order of the Great Lion of Egypt, First Class,’ he announced, placing the scarlet ribbon over his head. The star hung resplendent on Nicholas’s grubby shirt-front, heavily stained with sweat and dust and Nile mud.
Then the minister stood aside and made a gesture to the army colonel who was standing to attention at the foot of the ramp. Immediately there was an orderly rush of uniformed men up the ramp. The detachment of soldiers obviously had their orders. First they picked up the litters on which the wounded Ethiopians lay.
‘I am glad that your pilot had the good sense to radio ahead that you had wounded men on board. Rest assured that they will receive the best care available,’ Atalan Abou Sin promised as they were carried down to the waiting ambulance.
Then the soldiers returned and began carrying the ammunition cases down the ramp. They were loaded neatly into the three-tonner. Within ten minutes Big Dolly’s hold was bare and empty. A tarpaulin cover was roped down securely over the back of the loaded truck. An escort of heavily armed motorcyclists fell into formation around it, and then, with sirens wailing, the little convoy roared away.