The Aviators

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Well, we have that. They told me that they have Charley Stevens and Jose on stretchers."

  "I don't know why the hell I'm speeding," Bellmon said.

  "The damage is done, there's really no reason to rush out there." But he did not slow down.

  [THREE]

  The Chinook had gone down on the grass between runway one six and the concrete parking ramp which ran next to Hangars 102, 103, and 104. Two of the brand-new crash trucks were in place beside it, their foam cannon pointing at the helicopter. But there were no signs that there had been a fire.

  When they came closer, they could see that the Chinook had come down on top of a Cessna 0-1, collapsing its gear and flattening the two-seater's fuselage. The 0-1 's wings were crushed.

  It looks, Oliver thought, like a big bug eating a little bug.

  He saw ambulances, one GI and olive drab, the other a civilian-type ambulance on a Cadillac chassis. And there were people in medic's whites standing around, but no sign at first of either Charley Stevens or Jose Newell.

  Then he saw them, on their feet, standing with Colonel Mac McNair, the Aviation Board president, a very young looking sergeant in a flight suit, obviously the crew chief, and a gray-haired medic who was visibly upset.

  General Bellmon apparently saw what Oliver saw.

  "Thank God they're not badly hurt," he said. He drove to where they were standing and got out of the car.

  Colonel McNair saluted, a reflex action.. Charley Stevens and Jose Newell, a fraction of a second later, followed suit.

  And then the medic, who wore captain's bars, finally became aware of his obligations under the Code of Military Courtesy.

  "You fellows all right?" General Bellmon asked.

  "General, I'm sorry," Charley Stevens said.

  "That wasn't the question, Lieutenant."

  "Yes, Sir, we're all right."

  "Sergeant?" Bellmon asked. "Are you hurt?"

  "No, Sir," the crew chief said.

  "Newell?" Bellmon challenged.

  "I'm all right, Sir."

  "You don't know that," the doctor said.

  "Piss off," Stevens snapped.

  "That will be enough of that, Lieutenant," Bellmon said.

  "What happened?"

  "Sir, I just don't know," Stevens said.

  "General, I'd like to get these men to the hospital," the doctor said.

  "In a moment, Doctor," Bellmon said. He looked at Stevens. "You were saying what happened, Charley?"

  "Sir, I don't know," Stevens said, torn between anger and humiliation. "I was coming in to park the sonofabitch, and all of a sudden it just stopped flying." "I don't think I understand," Bellmon said.

  "Yes, Sir, that's it, neither do I," Stevens said. "It just . . . stopped flying." There was the sound of another Chinook, and they turned over their shoulders in the direction of it, toward the Board Building. The Chinook came in quickly and stopped over the parking ramp at the south end of Hangar 102. When the helicopter turned, Oliver saw Colonel Charles Augustus sat the pilot's seat. Augustus put it on the ground and was out of the machine and running toward them before his copilot could apply the rotor brakes and shut it down.

  "You guys all right?" he asked, putting his hands on the crew chief's arm and looking intently into his face. He had not, Oliver noticed, saluted Bellmon. When he was satisfied the sergeant was not injured, or at least in need of immediate attention, he went to both Stevens. and Newell and took a close look at them.

  "OK, so what happened?" he demanded. "Who was flyin?"

  "I was, Sir," Stevens said. "Colonel, I don't know what happened. I guess I was thirty, forty feet in the air, coming in to touch down here for fuel, and it just stopped flying. We came down tail first on top of the 0-1."

  "Helicopters just don't stop flying," Augustus said.

  "This one did, Colonel," Stevens said. "I'm sorry to say."

  "Augustus," Bellmon said, "which one is it?" Augustus looked at him a moment, not understanding the question, and then comprehension came.

  "The one Stevens dumped is the one that just finished the thousand hours," he said. "SCATSA took it over to run radiation patterns."

  "Thank God for small blessings," Bellmon said.

  "Is that going to do us any good?" McNair asked.

  "Probably not," Bellmon said. "I know goddamned well the moment the Chief of Staff hears about this, he'll ground them. "

  "Don't tell him, then," Colonel Augustus said.

  "I have been ordered to tell him," Bellmon said flatly.

  "We only need eighty-six hours on the other one," McNair said, pointing toward the Chinook Augustus had just landed.

  "You're not suggesting I put off reporting this to the Chief of Staff until we can put the rest of the hours on the other one, are you, Mac?" McNair didn't reply.

  "I can't do that," Bellmon said.

  "Pilot error," Augustus said significantly.

  "I don't think so," McNair said. "Not from what Stevens says."

  "Think again, Mac," Augustus said. "What else have we to go on" .

  Oliver suddenly felt chilled as he understood what Augustus was proposing.

  "A tired pilot," Augustus went on. "And an inexperiecced copilot. How many hours have you got in Chinooks, Newell?"

  "About sixty, Sir," Jose said.

  Whatever caused this accident is not pilot error. Charley Stevens is not only a natural pilot, but he s got a lot of hours in helicopters a lot harder to fly than the Chinook, Oliver thought. He saw in his mind's eye an H-37. The Sikorsky H-37, the second-largest helicopter in the world, was so large that a jeep and trailer could be driven into the fuselage through a clamshell door in the nose. Charley was flying, setting a 105mm howitzer in a sling load down on a tiny pad on a mountainside in the Au Shau valley in 'Nam. He was way over maximum gross weight, the density altitude conditions were horrendous, and the winds had been gusting to thirty knots.

  It had been a spectacular demonstration of skill.

  "There you have it," Augustus said:

  If it s pilot error, ergo it s not the fault of the Chinook.

  That would provide a chance, a slight one, but a chance, that the Chief of Staff could be talked into not grounding the remaining thousand-hour Chinook until it had completed the thousand hours. But a charge of pilot error of this magnitude on Stevens s and Newell s record would probably see the both of them lose their wings. Charley can forget making captain and Jose can kiss any dreams of a regular commission goodbye.

  "It could have been my fault," Charley Stevens said. "Pilot error, I mean. I don't have any other explanation." You fucking fool! You know what's being proposed as well as I do!

  Oliver looked at Newell. He had just understood what was happening. He looked sick.

  "No," Bellmon said flatly. "There will be the usual investigation of this incident. The Accident Investigation Board will determine the probable cause of the accident. It may turn out that Stevens is at fault. I doubt it. But in any case, I have no intention of trying to offer him or Newell up as a human sacrifice."

  "General-" Augustus started to argue.

  "No, Augustus, I said no and I mean no. Let it drop right there."

  Oliver had a disturbing thought: I expected that response from Bellmon. But I expected it much more quickly than it came. He was thinking about it. Did he decide against it on moral, ethical grounds, or because he didn't think they could get away with it?

  "What now, General?" McNair asked.

  "Well, these three will be taken to a telephone so they can call their families and tell them they're all right, and then they will go to the hospital and have themselves checked over. And I will call the Chief of Staff and tell him we have had a little accident here. "

  "And that politician in a soldier's uniform will ground the Chinooks, and there goes the fucking ball game," Augustus said bitterly.

  "I don't like your vocabulary, Colonel," Bellmon said sharply. "And you're wrong. It ain't over until the fat lady sings
. Come on, Oliver, let's get out of here." He started back toward his car, and then turned to look at the sergeant, Stevens and Newell.

  "I want the three of you to know that you have my highest admiration for your behavior here, today."

  [FOUR]

  As they passed under the sign at the main gate, Bellmon said, "I have suddenly developed an awesome thirst, which is the real reason I'm going to see if George Rand is in the Magnolia House. The official reason is that I will brief him on this incident and ask him to relay the information to General Wendall at the 11th."

  "Yes, Sir," Oliver said.

  "Augustus is a ruthless bastard, isn't he?" Bellmon said.

  "He probably would have made a fine Armor officer."

  "Sir?" Oliver asked, wholly confused.

  "I didn't expect you to understand, Johnny," Bellmon said. "I'm just running off at the mouth."

  Susan Rand answered their knock at the Magnolia House.

  "Hello, Susan," Bellmon said. "A pleasant surprise! I didn't know you were here."

  "I didn't intend that you should," she said. "You and Barbara would have put yourselves out."

  "Don't be silly," Bellmon said.

  "Hello, Captain Oliver," she said. "How are you?"

  "Ma'am," Oliver said.

  "He's in the kitchen," she said. "We were studying. Is there anything either of you would like to know about the formation of stratocumulus clouds?" General Rand heard the voices and came out from the kitchen, wearing a battered sweater and corduroy pants.

  "Welcome to the Honeymoon Motel," he said. "Can I offer you a drink?"

  "That's exactly what I had in mind," Bellmon said. "To give me a little liquid courage before I call the Chief of Staff."

  "Come on in the kitchen," Rand said. "Johnny Oliver laid in more booze for me than there is in the club."

  "I know how to pick aides, George," Bellmon said, and then thought of something. "Johnny, get on the horn to Colonel McNair. Tell him I would be grateful if he would check with the hospital about those three, and call me and let me know what he finds out, good or bad."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Something happen, Bob?" Susan Rand asked.

  "Yeah," Bellmon said. "We just dumped another thousand hour Chinook. "

  "Jesus! Anybody hurt?"

  "I don't think so," Bellmon said. "But they fell straight down from forty, fifty feet. Right on top of an 0-1. They look all right, but they're going to the hospital, of course, to make sure. That's why I had Johnny call McNair."

  "What's this going to do to us, Bob?" Rand asked. "Won't they ground all the Chinooks again? "

  "I think the Chinooks will be grounded in a couple of minutes," Bellmon said. "Just as soon as I interrupt the Chief of Staff's Saturday afternoon with this pleasant new information. "

  "Damn," Rand said resignedly.

  "General," Oliver called.

  "What?"

  "Sir, Colonel McNair wants to speak with you."

  "Now what?" Bellmon said as he went to a wall-mounted telephone and picked it up. "What is it, Mac?" His face was creased with thought when he hung the telephone up, and he shook his head no as if he didn't believe what he had just heard.

  "That was very interesting," he said, "topping off what else has happened today." He looked at Oliver. "According to Colonel McNair, as soon as we left, Colonel Augustus loaded Stevens and Newell and the crew chief in the other Chinook and took off."

  "You mean he flew them to the hospital?" George Rand said. "Well, it may not be authorized, but what the hell, Bob."

  "Before he took off, the assigned copilot and crew chief left the aircraft," Bellmon said. "The copilot told Colonel McNair that Colonel Augustus had said, and I quote, 'Get your ass off and don't ask any questions.' End quote.

  "When it dropped off the Cairns radar, the Chinook was approximately thirty miles west of New Brockton, Alabama," Bellmon said dryly. "The last communication with the aircraft was a message for me from Colonel Augustus: Would I please call the wives and tell them they would be away for a few days? When the tower tried to respond to that, Colonel Augustus reported that they were coming in garbled and he couldn't understand them; he probably had a radio problem of some sort. "

  "Jesus!" Rand said.

  "Charley Augustus is going to see that that Chinook completes the thousand-hour test come hell or high water," Bellmon said. "Hell being the very good chance that the Chief of Staff will rack his ass when he hears about this. A courtmartial is possible, even likely. And he certainly shouldn't have involved Stevens and Newell, and the sergeant, in this."

  "What are you going to do?" Rand asked.

  "Officially, I am outraged," Bellmon said. "But, not for dissemination beyond the walls of this kitchen, I confess a certain admiration for that ruthless little sonofabitch."

  "What are you going to tell the Chief?"

  "That I can immediately ground all Chinooks but one, and that as soon as I am able to get that one on the radio, I will order him to land at the nearest airfield."

  "But you said he was having trouble with his radios," Susan Rand objected.

  "I forgot you were here, Susan," Bellmon said. "Please forgive my language."

  "I didn't mean to butt in," she said.

  "Don't be silly," he said. "About the malfunctioning radios: Strange, isn't it? You'd think that the CO of SCATSA could keep the radios working in at least the aircraft he flies, wouldn't you?"

  Bellmon took a sip of his drink.

  "Johnny, would you see if you can get through to the Chief of Staff for me?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "I just hope Stevens, Newell, and that sergeant are as healthy as they think they are," Bellmon said as Oliver looked in his notebook for the telephone number of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army.

  ,

  [FIVE]

  Captain John S. Oliver looked in his cooler and saw that he was right; he had forgotten to replenish the ice. What he saw was four cans of beer floating around in dirty water which, beyond any doubt, had the ambient temperature of the room.

  "Shit!" he muttered, and started to button his blouse again.

  He didn't want to go to the annex because the word of the Chinook crash and probably of the "missing" Chinook was out by now and he would be asked questions he didn't want to answer. Could not answer.

  There was a knock at the bathroom door.

  Well, that fucking well ties it in a bow. I should have known that sooner or later they would put somebody in there to replace Jose Newell.

  "Come," he called.