Flight of the Intruder jg-1

by Stephen Coonts

  That done, he turned his attention to Cole. “Wake up, Tiger, wake up! Come on, Virgil.” He sprinkled water on Cole’s face. Cole opened his eyes.

  “Jake, what the hell? Are you baptizing me or is this the last sacrament?”

  “You stay awake. It’s gonna take both of us to get our asses out of this one. Stay awake now. You’re not gonna die on me, you sonuvabitch.”

  “No way. Hey, you have something on your neck. Looks like a leech.”

  Something cold and slimy met his touch. Trying not to tear the creature in half, Jake pulled and felt a stab of pain as a piece of skin came with it.

  He trembled with revulsion. If there was one, there were others. He quickly unzipped his survival vest and torso harness and felt himself frantically. He found another on his back, just above the shoulder blade, and ripped at it, tearing it apart. Two more were on his left arm. Three were attached to his legs just above his boot tops. They were fat, swollen with blood. When he had plucked them all off, he wiped his bloody hand on his thigh.

  He inspected Cole and ran his hand down inside Cole’s clothing. He could find nothing. He began to unzip Cole’s gear.

  “Don’t. I got enough blood to spare a little. Just let me lie here.”

  Jake put on his torso harness and survival vest and made certain the pockets were zipped closed. He sat down near Cole’s head and put the revolver in his lap “I heard voices last night,” Cole whispered. “The gomers are around.”

  Frank Allen had a problem. He had not yet seen a sign of the North VietNamese, yet they must use the road frequently. If there were guns positioned on the steep karst ridges that ran east and west and towered several thousand feet up to the base of the cloud nothing that flew would be safe in this valley. No doubt the N V A were waiting for the helicopters to arrive before they showed themselves.

  Allen banked the plane and thundered down the road again, hoping to draw fire or to spot a camoflaged flak site. No luck.

  In a few minutes the sun would be high enough to shine down this east-west valley and muzzle flashes and tracers would not be so easy to see. Acutely aware how dangerous this was, he trolled across the rising ground for a mile on either side of the downed crew position. His wingman flew above and off to one side behind him, in position to attack enemy fire. But there was nothing.

  It’s too quiet,” he told his wingman, Captain Bob “Pear” Bartlett, an excellent pilot on his first tour. “Let’s strafe the south side of the road and see what happens.”

  “Okay.”

  Frank flew toward the east. The sky was bright there, and the two Skyraiders, framed low against the bright sky, would make a tempting target.

  Allen repeated to Grafton, who could hear their radio transmissions, their intentions, then lifted a wing and turned to go back down the road.

  The red dot in his gunsight walked across the trees. When he reached an altitude of 1000 feet, he squeezed the trigger on the stick.

  The Skyraider shuddered from the recoil of its twenty-millimeters as tracers floated down toward the jungle. He waggled the rudder as he kept the trigger down. After a one-second burst, he released the trigger and Pear fired a burst. On they went up the valley, firing alternately.

  A squirt of tracer reached for them from the north side of the road. Both pilots saw it at the same time and jinked violently.

  “Looks like a twenty-three nuke-mike under some kind of camouflage netting,” Pear Bartlett opined.

  They made a turn just under the broken clouds at 400 feet above the jungle and started back down, Allen in the lead and Bartlett behind him and off to one side. Allen concentrated on the spot where the invisible gunner should be. Again the red dot in his gunsight paced across the jungle.

  Now! He squeezed the trigger and his shots ripped into the forest.

  From both sides of the road gunfire erupted, reaching for the lead plane.

  “Pull up, Frank,” Bartlett shouted.

  The instrument panel in front of Frank Allen exploded and a tremendous force smashed his left leg. But he kept his grip on the stick and tried to lift the nose of the plane. The canopy glass was disintegrating and pieces of the engine cowling were going by the cockpit as the machine shuddered under the impact of heavy shells. Oil poured back onto the windscreen, and he could no longer see forward.

  Then he was out of the flak and floating across the top of the forest.

  Only a few of the eighteen cylinders were still firing. Airspeed was bleeding off rapidly, and he was settling toward the trees. He slapped the emergency jettison button and his ordnance fell away. Automatically he glanced at the airspeed indicator, but where the instrument had been there was now a gaping hole where pieces of naked wire dangled.

  He had no feeling at all in his left leg. When he tri to push on the rudder the plane did not respond.

  It was time to go. He jerked the handle on the extraction system.

  Nothing happened.

  Sweet Jesus! He was too low to jump. No more than 300 feet over the trees now.

  The road! Maybe he could put the old gal down on the road. She seemed to be mushing, running out of airspeed. He scanned the terrain on the left, trying to find the ribbon of bare earth.

  There, parallel but too far. Oh, too far, too far.

  He slapped the flap handle down and milked every ounce of lift as the flaps came creeping out.

  He wasn’t going to make it. As the tops of the trees reached for the shattered plane, Frank Allen cut the switch and the engine died completely.

  The trees caressed the ship; she bounced once, then settled in, Frank Allen was slammed violently forward in his seat, and his world went black.

  When Jake Grafton first heard the word “strafe” over his radio, he lay down beside the bombardier relying on the boulder and nearby trees for protection. His knee hurt like hell.

  Now, in the better light of day, he checked his revolver to see that it had ball cartridges-not flares in each of the cylinder chambers. Then he examined Tiger’s weapon, a Colt .45 automatic. He jacked the slide back all the way and chambered a round. He left the hammer back and thumbed the safety on.

  When the rolling thunder of the Skyraider guns reached him, Jake buried his head in his arms. The big bullets could tear through trees and brush and ricochet off earth and rocks. The thumb-size slugs could split a man in half.

  He heard the rippling cracks of the gomer’s twenty-three millimeter, and over his radio, the Sandy drivers talking about the gun. He lifted his head and tried to figure out where the gun was located, but the sounds bounced off the walls of the valley. He heard the throb of the piston engines, and a burst of fire that swelled in i intensity as more guns joined. Abruptly the fury subsided, and Jake’s ears picked up the muffled, irregular beat of a ruined engine.

  Jake could feel his heart hammering, feel every throb of blood coursing through his temples and injured nose.

  He heard the crash: a sickening smack, then the tortured, drawn-out agony of metal twisting and bending and tearing. The final silence, when it came, Was eerie.

  The pilot looked around wildly. Where was the crash? Who had it been? Did the pilot get out?

  The radio told him it had been Frank Allen, and Frank Allen rode it in.

  Jake thought he should go and help him. Allen might be alive, trapped in the wreckage. But he was afraid to leave Cole. What if the North VietNamese came while he was gone?

  Goddamnit! He pounded his fists on the ground and swore at his impotence.

  They were trapped here, the N V A using them as bait for the Sandys and choppers. And it was all his fault. He should never have made that second bombing attempt. He should have run for the sea instead, He cursed himself and damned his o stupidity. He pulled his good leg up and hugged it, moaning softly.

  Somewhere in Frank Allen’s world there was light-a bright familiar light.

  He searched through his memory, but his mind seemed like an empty room.

  He could hear a sound like a faucet
dripping.

  Oh, the light must be the sun. Yes, the sun. That must be a break in the clouds and the sun must be With great effort he made his eyes move. He was sitting in the cockpit but the instruments were not in their proper places. The gaping holes in the panel troubled him vaguely and he tried to sort things out.

  Little by little, he arranged the jumbled images in his mind. His eyes moved again. The plane was sitting in red mud, an ugly slash through the jungle He tried move his hands, No good. He could not feel them.

  He could not feel anything. So he had made it through the trees to the road.

  Maybe that was why he was still alive. Why couldn’t he move?

  He managed to tilt his head forward and look down. The bottom of the instrument panel almost touched the front of the seat. The control stick was jammed against the panel and badly twisted. His legs were trapped under the panel and blood oozed from his flight suit The panel was where his legs should have been.

  His left arm was not in sight. It seemed to come down out of his shoulder all right, but then it made an abrupt turn behind the seat. The seat itself had been torn from its mountings. Well, at least his right hand and arm appeared to be in one piece. That was something.

  The effort to move his right arm required more will and energy than he had.

  His head sank back.

  Something was dripping. What was it? Fuel leaking from a torn tank? Then he saw the red smear again. the glare shield on the top of the instrument panel. The metal was dented. By his head? His face did feel wet. The dripping continued. Curious, he rocked his head forward again. Now he saw it, a stain of blood on the front of his vest and drops coming from his chin. Yes, his helmet visor was gone, shattered probably.

  His curiosity satisfied, his head sagged back and his mind wandered, thinking of this and that and nothing in particular. His eyes found the trees along the road and saw the yellow shafts where the sun illuminated the faint mist. The sunlight came across the top of the instrument panel through the hole where the windscreen had been and was warm on his face. Hadn’t he been flying with the sun at his back when he was hit? In the violence of the crash the machine must have spun around. He noted the fact and dismissed it, sleep seeming much more important.

  No, he could not sleep. The gooks would be along here soon. But what could he do? He couldn’t think of any practical course, and his mind strayed off the problem. He watched an insect walk along the top of the instrument panel.

  The gooks would be coming along this road. The problem was back and he worked on it. They would never try to get him out of this crumpled wreck, and under no circumstances could he do it himself. Perhaps the helicopter rescue crewmen could cut him out. Even as he contemplated it, he knew such an attempt would be fatal for anyone who tried it.

  He made a supreme effort, using all the strength he could muster, and forced his right hand to move from its resting place on his lap down to the holster strapped to his thigh. He felt the butt of the pistol, hard and cold.

  The work was very taxing so he rested again, eyes half closed against the glare of the sun. Too bad it had come to this. What would she say when she heard?

  It had been so good. Why had she left him?

  The pain started,now. It felt as if he had a knife between his shoulder blades. The pain would probably get worse.

  Gritting his teeth, he forced his right hand to pull the pistol from its holster and rested it in his lap. He could do no more. Moving his shoulder increased the agony in his back and left arm. Perspiration trickled into his eyes and mouth. He tasted the salt.

  Oh, he could really feel it now searing jolts of pain knifing their way through his consciousness.

  With each passing minute he hurt a little more.

  He blinked the perspiration from his eyes and tried to call up memories, tried to think of the things that he had loved. But it was difficult to keep the images in view. Something was moving on the edge of the road, deep in the shadows where the rising sun had not penetrated. His eyes perceived the motion but could not focus on the hidden figure. Slowly and stealthily, a slight figure in dark clothing stepped into the sun. The figure carried a rifle, pointed at Frank Allen.

  The Pilot followed the man with his eyes. Oriental seemed tall, far too tall. The perspective was wrong. Oh yes, the aircraft fuselage was lying on the ground instead of sitting on its landing gear.

  Engine noise broke the silence. The soldier checked the sky, ready to run, then apparently changed his mind and resumed his slow pace toward the cockpit. Now Frank could see his eyes. Finally he stepped on the stump of the left wing and gazed through the shattered canopy at the trapped man. A grin exposed yellow, broken teeth.

  The pistol in Frank’s lap exploded and the man fell backward with a look of wide-eyed astonishment.

  The pistol was gone. The weapon’s recoil had been too much for his weak grasp. He waited for the soldier to rise. Every breath hurt now.

  Maybe the soldier was dead.

  Frank tilted his head forward and looked for the pistol. It must have gone down through the narrow gap between the seat and the right-side panel.

  There was less than a half-inch clearance between the front of the seat and the forward panel.

  You silly shit, Frank. You should have shot yourself!

  He heard several Skyraiders sweep over with their engines at full throttle and the distant roar of twenty-three millimeters. In a moment he heard the muffled whoosh of napalm lighting off.

  The radio! His emergency radio was in his vest. He got his good hand up to his vest and tugged at the zipper. He was so weak he could not move it.

  Unable to keep his hand elevated he sat back and listened to the thudding of his heart. Finally he tried again. This time he managed to open the zipper and reach the radio.

  Tears were flowing into his eyes from the pain. He ground his teeth together and tried to blink away the tears.

  God! It hurt so much!

  His breathing was shallow and rapid and every heave of his chest seemed to grind something down inside him.

  Unable to lift the radio to his lips, he squeezed the mike and tried to speak. “Sandy One.” It came out a hoarse whisper, and the effort sent another flaming spear through him.

  “Sandy One, are you okay? Are you out of the cockpit?”

  Steeling himself, he squeezed the transmit button and lifted the radio a few inches toward his lips. “No.”

  He breathed again. “I’m trapped, and I’m finished.”

  “Hang tough, Frank. The Jolly Greens will be here in about half an hour. We’re going to hose the area, then we’ll get you out.

  Keep the faith.” Tears coursed down Frank Allen’s cheeks. Bartlett was a terrible liar. He can’t call in the Jollys until this valley is worked over good. It could take hours.

  “I can’t make it, Bob…. Help me now.”

  “You’ve got to hang in there, Frank. We’ll keep them off you until the Jollys arrive.”

  “I’d do it myself, Bob … but I can’t. Christ Bob … I’d do the same for you …. The exertion cost him too much. His hand fell back into his lap.

  He was biting his lip now and blood from that wound mixed with the blood still trickling down from his forehead.

  A low moan tore itself loose from deep inside him and escaped his lips.

  Oh God! Jesus I have sinned. Ha Mary Mother of God Oh Jesus I am torn apart and you’ll died for me and I confess my sins and beg your forgiveness and Hail Mary Mother of God stop the pain …

  He heard the roar of a big radial engine over his screams, and he saw the Skyraider just above the sun. He saw the sun shimmer on the prop arc, and he saw the twinkles of the muzzle flashes on the front of the wings. Then the darkness came.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Jake Grafton lay on the ground, curled up around the radio.

  He had heard it all: the pleading and the moaning, the long rolling thunder of the twenties, an the stark, terminal silence. A man had died for him.

&nbs
p; The distant whine of jet engines penetrated his consciousness. On they came, louder and louder. The jets flayed the jungle with a steel whip. Cannon she lashed and tore, and bombs exploded and rockets swooshed, and the crack of twenty-three-millimeter antiaircraft guns pulsated through the trees.

  Occasionally the crackling of napalm reached him. Jake lost track of time as the concussions pounded around him In his soul he continued to hear the last words of the Skyraider pilot. The pitiful pleading branded him in way that nothing else had yet in his life.

  He waited there in the dirt with the stench of the jungle humus seeping through his shattered nose. The antiaircraft guns fell silent as, Jake imagined, their crews died under the storm of fire and steel. Eventually even the ripsaw roar of the twenties faded as the airborne marksmen discovered they had run out of targets.

  Jake turned his head and looked at Tiger Cole, who lay exactly in the same position in which Jake had found him, but that big chest still rose and fell. There was a fighting heart.

  “Jake?” Tiger’s voice was a croak. The pilot got up on his good knee so the bombardier could see him. “There was nothing you could have done for that guy, Jake, except what his friend did for him.”

  “You heard?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was scared,” Jake confessed and buried his face in his hands. He looked at Cole again. “I wish I could’ve gone. No man should have to die alone.” Jake clutched Tiger’s arm.

  Tiger spoke softly. “I know what scared is.” He paused and breathed awhile. “I could never be a pilot because I’m scared of the boat. I wouldn’t be able to pull the power back or drop the nose.” He blinked rapidly. “I’m scared now.”

  “We’ll get out,” Grafton said with no conviction.

  “Damn you, Grafton. God damn you! He died trying to help us.” Exhausted, he closed his eyes. When he opened them he said, “Look at that blue sky up there. You can see little pieces of it through the leaves.”

  Cole’s eyes came back to Jake. “You ought to get out. I’ve come far enough. I don’t want to live in a wheelchair for forty years. I want to die here. I want you to”