The press in the States called it the Christmas Offensive. Massive B-52 formations thundered over North Vietnam, aiming to bomb the negotiators back to the Paris peace talks. At home in America there were widespread protests and, on some college campuses, riots. In the waning days of ’72, Jake Grafton read about the bombing and the protests in newsmagazines and the Chicago Tribune, which, as a serviceman in the war zone, he received free. When the bundled papers arrived each week Jake would open them, arrange them in order, and read each one closely.
To Jake it seemed that America would tear itself apart before the North became reasonable at the bargaining table. While he had no doubt that the communist regime could not endure an all-out, extended aerial assault, he did wonder how long the U.S. government would assert its will in the face of mounting protests. The question of whose will would break first was unanswerable. To escape futile speculation, Jake turned to the advertisements celebrating the bounty of an American Christmas. The Tribune’s editorials might denounce the commercialism of the holiday, but the pilot on the other side of the world reveled in the images of happy people fulfilling their hearts’ desires by buying clothes, cars, perfume, and expensive liquor. Somewhere in the world, as the photographs of beautiful women and men of distinction in front of holiday fireplaces seemed to say, there was warmth and stability.
The night missions of the squadron had changed. Rockeyes that cost over five thousand dollars each were loaded sixteen to a plane and dropped on SAM sites minutes before the B-52s came within range. For Jake the change in American policy was a stroke of luck. It had meant that he could continue to fly. Most of the time he flew bombers, but occasionally he and Tiger flew the A-6B to protect the B-52s from enemy missiles. Despite the efforts to foil the enemy missile defenses, Jake and Tiger witnessed the deaths of some of the great planes in the night skies over North Vietnam. The bombers, trailing fire, would veer out of the formation, yellow specks against the black night. The B-52 pilots would calmly report their disaster on the radio, and then the six-man crew, or those men still alive after the missile strike, would jump and fall the miles through the intense cold of inner space while their plane made its fiery plunge.
Jake had received several letters from Callie since their time together in Cubi, but he was impatient for a reply to his letter telling her of the hearing and its outcome. The evening after Christmas he found a pale yellow envelope in his mailbox. He smiled as he waved the letter under his nose and caught the scent of lilacs. To savor the pleasure of reading her letter, he decided to open it back in his stateroom. He turned to leave the ready room when New Guy called to him.
“Expecting good news, Jake? You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.”
Grafton let his grin widen. “How’s your life going, New?”
“Oh, pretty good. How about relieving me for a half hour or so while I get a hamburger?”
“Well, okay.” Jake took the chair at the duty officer’s desk that New vacated. “What’s happening?” he asked, wondering if he’d have time to catch some glimpses at Callie’s letter.
“We just launched two bombers on the last cycle of the day, which went at 2230. The go tanker went down on the cat and they shot the spare.”
Jake examined the flight schedule. Rabbit Wilson and Fred Mogollon had downed the tanker on the catapult.
“Maintenance Control will call you in just a minute with the side-number of the roundup tanker for the last recovery,” New continued. “The brief should start in ten minutes or so. Skipper’s in his stateroom.” The roundup tanker would sit on deck manned and ready during the last recovery in case extra fuel was needed aloft.
“Okay. Go eat. I gotcha covered.”
Ferdinand Magellan entered the ready room, picked up the maintenance forms, and came over to the duty officer’s desk. Pulling up a chair, he reached into a box of Christmas candy New’s wife had sent him and pushed the box toward Jake.
“What happened to your plane?” Jake asked, his mouth full. He checked the flight schedule. “Five twenty-two?”
“X.O. downed it right on the cat. Said something was wrong with the port engine. He ran it up to full power about four times while the cat officer went bananas, then he refused to go. So they taxied us off and shot Snake Jones and Dick Clark instead.”
“Where did they have it spotted when you manned up?”
“On cat two. We sat there and stared at the black hole.”
“Dark out there?”
“Blacker than a black cat in a coal bin at midnight on a moonless night. Blacker than Hitler’s heart. Blacker than—”
“So how do you like the fleet, Ferd?” Grafton interrupted as Wilson walked in.
“I’m eating this shit with a spoon,” the BN said and completed his paperwork in silence while Jake pored over the flight schedule.
The commander sat in his chair just behind the duty officer’s. “We gotta do better keeping these tankers up,” Wilson remarked. “What other gripes you writing up, Mogollon?” Ferd mentioned two minor problems and Rabbit told him, “Well, take them over to Maintenance Control and give them to the Chief. I just motivated him in detail about that engine. So there’s no excuse if they can’t fix it.”
“Yessir.” The bombardier left, taking the forms with him.
The telephone rang. The chief in Maintenance Control told Jake, “We’re still working on the roundup tanker. Call you back in a bit.”
“Okay, Chief.” Jake annotated the flight schedule as the video tape of the last recovery began playing on the television.
“So how’s every little thing with you, Grafton, after the miracle of the hearing?” Wilson asked Jake’s back.
“Fine, sir,” Jake said over his shoulder.
“You must have an uncle who’s a senator. It’s a damn good thing for you that the decision wasn’t up to me. I know a hot dog when I see one.”
Jake swiveled the chair and looked the commander in the face. “That’s the second time you’ve called me that. I don’t like it.”
“Oh, you don’t, eh? You’re all balls, Grafton, but you don’t have enough brains to load a fly up to max gross weight. That’s a hot dog in my book. What would you call it?”
“At least I’ve got some balls.”
“Just what do you mean by that?” Wilson’s eyes narrowed and he flushed slightly.
Jake pursed his lips as he considered just how far he could go. “I’ve heard that some of the men call you Rabbit. Behind your back, of course. I don’t think they’re referring to your breeding habits, Rabbit.”
“You sonuvabitch! I’m a commander! No weenie in railroad tracks makes a crack like that to me.” Wilson’s face was very red as he sprang to his feet. “No goddamn body talks to me like that.” He jutted out his chin. “You think you’re so shit hot. I’m sick to death of all-balls assholes like you.”
The telephone rang. Jake reached for it without taking his eyes off the man standing over him with his fists clenched. “Lieutenant Grafton.” He was having trouble with his voice.
“This is Joe Wagner. Where’s the Skipper?”
“In his stateroom.”
“I just completed a full power turn-up of Five Two Two. There’s nothing wrong with that airplane’s engines. Put it on the schedule as the roundup tanker.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Jake hung up and looked at the commander. “By the way, twenty-two is up again.”
“What?” Wilson said in disbelief. “Shit! I just downed that plane. Who was that on the phone?”
“Joe Wagner,” said Jake calmly. “He says it’s okay.”
“We’ll see about that. I’ll take care of you later.” As Wilson strode quickly out of the room, he mumbled, “Goddamned hot dog.”
Jake sat at the desk and breathed deeply. Overhead, on the television monitor, landing after landing flickered silently across the screen. The recently landed air crews began filtering into the ready room. New returned from the wardroom just as the phone rang again. “Ready four, Lieutenant Grafton, sir.”
“Is the X.O. there?” It was Camparelli.
“No, sir. I think he may be over in Maintenance Control looking for Joe Wagner.”
“Joe’s down here in my room. Send someone to find Commander Wilson and ask him to come down. I want to see him.” The skipper hung up.
“New, go find the X.O. He’s probably over in Maintenance Control raising hell.” Jake tried in vain to keep the satisfaction out of his voice. “Tell him the Skipper wants to see him in his stateroom.”
When New Guy returned, Jake left for his room. Now, at last, he could read Callie’s letter. He no sooner had settled down at his desk with her letter in his hand than the phone rang.
“Wanna hear a hot one?” Sammy chortled. “Rabbit Wilson’s not flying anymore. He’s off flight status.”
“How off is ‘off’?”
“Off like in no more. Like in cut off, chopped off, whacked off. We’re talking amputation.”
“You don’t say?”
“The word is he got cold feet once too often.”
Jake cleared his throat. “Pretty tough for him,” he managed.
“Breaks my fucking heart,” Sammy snorted and hung up.
The pilot put the telephone back on its cradle and laughed aloud. He laughed until tears came to his eyes.
Finally, he unfolded the pages of Callie’s letter. She had enclosed a photograph, which he held under the light. She stood on Victoria Peak, with the mountains of the New Territories forming a blurry backdrop. It was just a photo of an attractive woman in a simple summer dress the color of wheat—an unremarkable picture really—but to Jake every detail of it held deep interest. He looked at her lips, which were curved up in a smile, and remembered how she looked just before he had last kissed her.
He shook his head. He slipped the photo behind the pages and began reading. “Dear Jake,” she wrote, “I’m very happy to hear that everything has turned out so well. That sand dollar I gave you in Cubi for luck must be pretty potent magic!” She congratulated him on his return to flight status, and he was pleased she understood. A few sentences later, he read, “I know how important flying is to you and I was afraid that if you were unable to fly again, you would feel as though a large part of you, perhaps the vital part, had died.”
He thought about that there in the sanctuary of his stateroom, about flying being vital to him. As a boy, he had found in flying a freedom and heady excitement that life had otherwise lacked. But how did he feel about it now, when flying meant waiting to outmaneuver SAMs or turning on knife-edge to slice through a curtain of tracers? He realized that only when the SAMs and tracers were reaching for him, only when he was naked and running flat out, did he feel fully alive. He had become addicted to the adrenaline high of taunting death.
He examined Callie’s picture again, then read on. “I have looked all my life for a man who doesn’t wear a mask, for a man who truly is what he appears to be, for someone who knows what he is about and engages in no pretenses. I think I’ve found him.”
He finished the letter and folded it into the envelope. He propped up the photo on his desk. He remembered the sand dollar in the left sleeve pocket of his flight suit and found it still intact, which was fortunate as it was so delicate. After wrapping it in toilet paper, he placed it in the envelope with the letter. Then he put the envelope in his desk safe.
Removing the ring from its blue box, he held the diamond under the lamp. Points of colored light played against the wall. Maybe it’s not so crazy after all, he thought. He put the engagement ring in the flight suit pocket where the sand dollar had been and zipped it closed.
On December 28 Jake and Tiger learned they were scheduled for their fifth SAM-suppression mission; this time the target was on the northern edge of Hanoi.
“Maybe our best route is to go all the way around the city,” Tiger suggested.
Jake examined the wall chart. Concentrations of flak and SAMs were shown by color-coded pinheads. Hanoi was a pin cushion. Well, he and Cole had been there before. He came back to the table where Tiger had laid out his charts. “Uh-huh,” he said. Then he asked, “When will the big mothers be along?”
“The B-52s roll in about ten minutes after our drop time of 1933.”
Jake inspected the aerial photos of the SAM site, which Steiger had collected. They revealed the classic tactical deployment of the SA-2 surface-to-air missile system: six missiles on their trailer launchers were arranged in a circle around a semitrailer with a radar antenna. The launchers sat in indentations gouged in the earth, so that if a missile was destroyed or blew up on the launcher, the blast would be deflected away from the other missiles and the semitrailer with the electronic control equipment. Off to one side Jake could make out two parked tractors. He had seen photos of hundreds of sites that looked just like this. He checked the date; the photos were more than eighteen months old.
There was a blur in the upper-right corner. He knew it was a gun shooting at the Vigilante that had taken the picture.
He tossed the photos back on the table and examined the route Tiger had marked out. The bombardier planned to coast-in just south of the lighthouse at the entrance of Haiphong harbor, proceed straight to an island in the river on the northern edge of Hanoi, and turn to the attack heading. After bombing, they would move left in a sweeping turn that would let them circumnavigate the city and would spit them out on the southeast side, headed for the ocean and safety. The pilot studied a sectional chart that showed in detail the terrain around the island, tonight’s Initial Point, and around the target. Maybe there would be enough light to see the rivers. Like hell!
“Another good navy deal,” he said and patted his bombardier on the shoulder. He paused again at the flak chart, then went off to the wardroom for a cup of coffee before the brief.
The Augies had a tanker hop and were in the locker room when Jake and Tiger entered. Little Augie had not exchanged a word with Jake since he had returned from Cubi. Now he spoke. “Where’re you headed tonight?”
Grafton told him but didn’t bother to look at the diminutive pilot. Little Augie lingered, watching Jake inspect the cartridges for his .357 Magnum and then carefully load it. Jake had returned his issue .38 to supply long ago so he could carry this more powerful weapon.
“If you get bagged tonight, can I have your stereo?”
Jake grinned. Apparently whatever sins Little Augie thought him guilty of were forgiven. “If you can find it,” Jake told him. Unlike almost everyone else, he had not bought an expensive Japanese sound system at the Cubi Point Exchange. Little punched him on the shoulder and walked out of the locker room.
Jake put the contents of his pockets, including his wallet, onto the top shelf of the locker. He placed a folded cardcase, which contained a green navy ID card, a Geneva convention card, and a twenty-dollar bill, in one of the big chest pockets of his flight suit. Like most airmen, he carried several thousand dollars worth of small, navy-issue gold wafers in his survival vest in case he had to barter with or bribe local people, but he brought nothing else of monetary or personal value. Except the ring. This he had in the left sleeve pocket of the flight suit where he had kept the sand dollar.
Dressed, with helmet bag in hand, he paused before closing his locker. He examined its contents, as he had done on every mission before. Morbidly, he knew that if he were shot down or killed, Sammy Lundeen would have the job of clearing out these little pieces of his life. Well, he had logged the same number of landings as takeoffs, so far. He felt for the ring, assured himself the pocket was completely zipped, then slammed the locker door and spun the combination lock.
They launched at twilight. Jake took the Intruder to 20,000 feet and cruised leisurely up the Gulf. Spectacular reds and oranges and yellows, afterglow of the setting sun, filtered through the clouds that lay over the mountains in Laos. Deep blues and purples began to vanquish the lingering gold. He had witnessed many sunsets and sunrises from the sky, but the pageant never failed to move him. Someday he would share a sunset aloft with Callie.
“The system looks real good,” Tiger announced. Jake engaged the autopilot. The steady beep of a search radar was clearly audible now. “Commie sonsuvbitches have found us,” Tiger muttered.
A falling star caught Jake’s eye. What could he wish for? To survive? To get back to Callie safely? He also wished for more stars, and as the minutes passed his wish was granted.
“I’ve got an update on the lighthouse.” The lighthouse on the Do Son peninsula, which jutted out into the mouth of Haiphong harbor, had not been illuminated for years. “We have six minutes to kill. How about a six-minute turn to the right?”
Jake nudged the stick over, then released it. The autopilot held the warplane at the selected angle-of-bank. “You’re pretty talkative tonight,” he told the bombardier.
“Checklist,” Tiger prompted. Together they set the switches on the armament panel, double-checked the ECM panels, and watched the compass and clock hands rotate. As they completed their turn, Tiger checked their position again. The steering on the VDI in front of the pilot swung to the coast-in point. Jake caught Tiger’s eye for a second, then turned the autopilot off. When they had descended a thousand feet, Jake turned off the exterior lights, IFF, and TACAN. “Devil Five Oh Oh, strangling parrot.”
“Black Eagle copies, Five Double-nuts.”
The plane descended toward the sea. The beeps of the enemy radar sounded closer together now. The operator was in a sector search, painting them repeatedly, measuring their course and speed. Jake leveled off at 500 feet and allowed the speed to bleed off to 420 knots. “Three miles to coast-in,” Tiger informed him. The enemy radar was back on area sweep. Perhaps their plane had faded in radar return from the sea.
Jake blinked the perspiration from his eyes and looked ahead for the silver ribbon of sand that divided the land and sea. A mile out, he saw it and the thin, wavering lines of breakers washing ashore. He thought of Callie on the beach.
“Black Eagle, Devil Five Oh Oh is feet dry.”
“Roger Five Oh Oh. Feet dry at 1919.” Fourteen minutes to the target.
The starlight reflected off the paddies and wide creeks flowing to meet the sea. No flak came up at them yet. The search radar still beeped, about once every twelve seconds, but at 400 feet over the table-flat delta they were invisible in ground return.
From the left the first flak of the night shot out in their direction. Jake concentrated on maintaining altitude and heading.
Tiger called the IP; Jake flipped on the master arm switch and advanced the throttles to the stops as he laid the plane into the turn. Halfway through the heading change a row of guns erupted ahead. The pilot saw the streams of tracer rise and reacted instinctively, rolling the plane almost ninety degrees to squeeze it through an empty space between the tracers. They were almost on the outskirts of Hanoi.
As he entered the gap another gun opened up.
Horrified, Jake momentarily froze as the molten finger of death reached for him. The Intruder shuddered from the blows; then, suddenly, it was through the flak into the dark void beyond. It was all over in less than a heartbeat.
As Jake rolled the wings level, the brilliant red of the left engine fire-warning light filled the cockpit. A look in the rear-view mirror showed no visible fire yet. But the exhaust gas temperature on the sick engine had risen to more than 700 degrees centigrade, and the RPM had dropped by more than ten percent. Jake felt the warplane shimmy through his seat, the floor, the throttles, and the stick. The bird was badly hurt. Quickly he shut off the flow of fuel to the left engine.
The bombardier leaned away from the scope hood and peered at the engine instruments in front of Jake’s left knee. “How bad is it?” The fire-warning light reflected off his helmet visor.
“Left engine’s gone. Do you have the target?”
Tiger put his face back to the scope hood. “Come left ten degrees.”
Jake centered the steering. He glanced at the mileage readout between his knees. Eight more miles to go. The attack light lit up on the VDI, and Jake squeezed the commit trigger. As the plane slowed to only 350 knots the left generator dropped off the line. With only one generator they would have the radar and computer but not the ECM. Jake’s earphones were silent, and it wasn’t because the gomers had shut down for the night. All the console lights on the bombardier’s panels were now dark.
Those lucky fuckers! Smacked us with a cheap shot!
The hydraulic gauges captured Jake’s eyes. One of the two hydraulic systems showed zero pressure. And only one of the pumps in the other system was still working. Damn. From four pumps to one, just like that.
He looked at the computer steering symbol. Almost centered. The fire-warning light was so brilliant that he reached to cover it with his hand, but then it went out. The cockpit was dark again.
“Three more miles,” Tiger called.
More flak ripped the night. Jake tried to ignore it, to concentrate on flying a perfect run. Something ahead caught his eye.
A blazing streak of pure white fire hurtled toward them. Quicker than thought Jake pulled back the stick, and the enemy missile tore by. God, too close! Jake tweaked the nose of the Intruder, pointing it straight at the offending missile launcher.
“I’ve got the radar van,” Cole advised.
Jake watched the release marker descend the VDI. He savagely mashed the pickle to back up the computer-derived release signal.
The bombs did not release.
Jake pressed the pickle button again and again. No release.
He cycled the master armament switch, selected a manual release, and punched the pickle button. Nothing.
Heavy flak ahead. “Can you find it again?” he demanded of Cole.
“Yeah.”
Jake lowered the left wing and turned south. This time he planned on jettisoning the bomb racks with the emergency release. The Rockeyes would not spread out but would remain in their cases, attached to the racks. There’d be hell to pay when they exploded all together. “We’re not whipped yet,” he said to Cole. “Better tell ’em we’re in trouble.”
The bombardier got on the radio as they turned.
More fire from heavy weapons rippled through the air, but not too close. Jake nursed the plane through the turn, frequently checking the pressure gauge for the lone hydraulic pump. Because the plane’s controls were actuated by hydraulic pressure, a violent jerk on the stick could overload the pump and leave the pilot dependent on the electrically driven backup pump, which had a very limited output. The backup pump was working—the BACKUP HYD light was lit on the annunciator panel—but it would only give him enough pressure to operate the stabilator and rudder at reduced effectiveness. The tightrope was fraying.
“What type weapon do you want selected?” Dropping the racks was Jake’s only choice. Of the more than fifty preprogrammed options available to tell the computer about the ballistic trajectory of the weapons, none of the options fit the dropping of the entire bomb rack. So Cole had asked the crucial question.
“What do you think?” asked Jake.
“The racks will go down about like a retarded Snake, maybe a little flatter,” said Cole. “We’ll use that, and I’ll type in a correction.”
The pilot checked the airspeed indicator. Steady at 325 knots. Very slow, but they would pick up thirty knots or so when they dropped the weapons.
Fireballs tore around them. Something smashed into a wing and the stick wiggled hard in Jake’s fist. He shot a glance at the left wing. All okay. But on the right wing fuel was erupting through two holes and being blasted back into the slipstream.
Oh, Jesus! Sweet Jesus, help us get out of this alive.
“I’ve got the target and we’re in attack,” Tiger said. The last spurts of the right-wing fuel siphoned away. There was still a ton in the left wing but both wings drained through a common pump, which needed fuel from both wings to be effective. Jake had no choice. He opened the wing dumps and let the unusable fuel pour into the slipstream. They still had nine thousand pounds internal, and if they could make it to the tanker in the Gulf they’d have a chance.
“Two miles.” The pilot readied his finger over the emergency jettison button. The release marker was marching down.
“Gimme one second’s warning,” he reminded Tiger. The circuit had a safety feature that required the button be held at least a second to prevent inadvertent jettisoning.
“Now!”
Jake depressed the button and held it. Whump! He slammed the stick over and turned left hard. The hydraulic pressure and the airspeed sagged, but he had to escape the impact area or they would be caught in the blast. The bombs exploded. A blinding light flashed in the mirrors, and the concussion buffeted, but did not harm, the plane. The Intruder was headed south over the city.
Tiger keyed his radio mike and spoke to the Black Eagle controller, safe and snug in his E-2 over the Gulf. “Five Double-nuts is off target and coming out.”
“Roger that. Are you declaring an emergency?”
“Affirmative. We’re going to need a tanker as soon as we’re feet wet.”
Jake selected the main internal tank on the fuel gauge and dodged flak while he waited for the needle to register the correct amount.
My God! Only five thousand pounds left. The tank must be spewing the stuff out. There won’t be enough fuel to make it even to the tanker. We’re going to have to eject! But where? Just to make it out of North Vietnam would be tricky.
Tracers rose ahead in shimmering curtains of fire. Now they were over Hanoi, and the flak was in front and on all sides. The black shapes of rooftops and trees stood out clearly in the starlight and the eerie glow of the tracers. Jake descended until he was skimming the rooftops. Hell, just to make it out of Hanoi would be a trick and a half.
At this height, in this light, they were visible to every man, woman, and child with a weapon. He felt the thumps of small-arms bullets penetrating the side of the aircraft. The hounds had the fox nearly at bay.
As he pointed out the fuel indicator to Cole a stream of fire came from the right and headed straight for the windshield. Jake porpoised up and over the stream and both men flinched, a useless reflex. They were lucky. Thumps in the tail only.
“What’s your position?” someone asked on the radio.
“Right over Hanoi,” Grafton shouted. Illuminated by tracers, the city looked like an open door into hell. Every building seemed to have a coven of antiaircraft guns mounted on it.
“The radio is dead,” Tiger said.
More thumps from something hitting the plane. The annunciator panel, normally dark, glowed with yellow lights. Left generator gone, left speed drive out, hydraulic pumps, fuel filter…. Why the fuel filter? Jake didn’t have time to think about it. Yellow fireballs wound out at them and something smashed against the wings.
The bird was dying. Jake glanced at Tiger. “You can jump ship now if you want—”
“Keep rolling the dice,” Tiger said.
Jake swung into a hard right turn and spoke into the dead radio. “Devil Five Oh Oh’s turning west. We’re going to Laos.”
He concentrated on keeping the nose up and flying just above the buildings. The gunners could see the plane in this light, so he needed to be as low as possible to make their aiming more difficult. On the chance that the transmissions might be heard, the bombardier continued to report their intentions over the radio.
Ahead, to the left, a gunner opened up with a long continuous burst. The tracers came in a flat arc. Jake pulled up slightly and the shells streaked underneath. But the gunner corrected. The pilot retarded the single throttle momentarily and the plane decelerated, causing the stream of tracers to pass ahead of them. Jake shoved the throttle back to the stops and dived as low as he dared. The tracers seemed to correct in slow motion. “You’ll burn the fucking barrel up,” he screamed at the enemy gunner. Ahead loomed a building taller than its neighbors. The plane banked around the right side and the shells slammed into the building.
Flashes. White flashes off to the right. Jake narrowed his eyes in that direction. Trip-hammer flashes, a dozen a second, marched across the city.
“B-52 raid,” Tiger whispered in awe.
The city lay naked in the pulsating light of the bombs. The Intruder, rocked by concussion waves, hung suspended in the popping-light universe of flashing bombs and white-hot fireballs. For almost a minute the unseen B-52s scourged the city. The A-6 shot into the darkness over the rice paddies. In the rear-view mirror, Jake saw fires burning and the streaks of flak still rising.
“Sweet Jesus,” Tiger Cole said.
“We’re gonna make it, man,” Jake said, his voice cracking.
The fuel gauge showed four thousand pounds. Occasional flashes of burp guns lit the night—pinpricks after what they’d been through. Grafton floated the plane up to almost 500 feet on the radar altimeter. The barometric altimeter was frozen.
“Come right five degrees,” Tiger said. “The computer quit a while back but the radar still works. We’re coming into the mouth of a valley, and I’ll steer us up it.”
The land was rising. Jake nudged the plane up to hold at 500 feet above the ground. The darkness outside the plane was complete. They flew on, Tiger ordering minor heading changes.
The left fire-warning light came on again. It was distractingly bright, so Jake smashed it with his flashlight. He watched the fuel indicator. Thirty-two hundred pounds. They topped the crest of the valley and continued to climb. In a moment they went beyond the maximum altitude of the radar altimeter, and it stopped working, as it was designed to do.
“Swing left ten and hold that course.”
Tiger turned the radio transmitter to Guard, an emergency frequency that was always monitored. These calls went out over a separate transmitter, so maybe they were being heard by someone even though the crew’s earphones remained silent. Jake’s eyes were itching. He loosened his oxygen mask and sniffed the cockpit air. Something burning. He turned off the air-conditioning switch. The smell hung in the cockpit. He replaced his mask and cinched it tight.
Jake could actually see the needle on the fuel indicator dropping. Where was that fuel going? It had to be spraying into the left engine bay through the holes smashed by the flak shells. If it ignites, we’ll be strumming harps with Corey Ford and the Boxman. Those engine burner cans and the tailpipe have to be still hot enough to ignite that fuel. He rechecked the engine/fuel master switch to ensure that no electrical power was reaching the burner-can igniters. The switch was off, but he didn’t remember toggling it, although if he hadn’t they probably would be dead by now.
Twenty-three hundred pounds on the dial. Almost three hundred pounds a minute was disappearing, partly into the right engine and partly into the air. Jake calculated that was eighteen thousand pounds an hour. They had eight more minutes, maybe another fifty miles.
Every mile they traveled increased their chances of being rescued instead of captured. The Air Force SAR teams could pick them up in Laos, but North Vietnam was too heavily defended for a helicopter to survive.
Come on, baby! Don’t fail us now.
Eighteen hundred pounds left. His gut was tied in a knot and he had trouble thinking about their dilemma. “Have you ever jumped before?” he asked Tiger Cole.
“Yep, and I broke my leg.”
The terror of every combat pilot had finally become real for them. They would have to eject into enemy territory and survive on their wits and what little equipment they carried in their survival vests. Failure to be rescued meant death or imprisonment in a tiny cell. Capture itself was a living death.
Twelve hundred pounds. The low-fuel warning light was lit.
A faint glow in the clouds caught his attention. He adjusted the mirror. A yellow tongue of flame flickered under the left wing.
“We’re on fire,” he shouted. They would have to eject now.
“Not yet,” Cole said and put his left arm across the pilot’s chest. “Maybe a few more miles.”
“Burning jets have a nasty habit of exploding, you know,” said Jake. In his mind he could see the line in the operating manual for the A-6 Intruder: “At the first sign of visible fire, eject.”
The nose of the airplane dipped. He tugged the stick aft, but the nose continued down. There was no pressure at all on the hydraulic gauges. The fire had melted the hydraulic lines.
Tiger stopped talking on the radio and looked at Jake.
Slowly, slowly, the nose started back up, but the plane rolled left. Jake waggled the stick and rudder. No response. Devil 500 was finished.
The two men looked into each other’s eyes.
Tiger Cole reached up with both hands, grasped the primary ejection handle, and pulled it down over his head in a swift, clean motion. Instantly he was gone in a thunderclap of noise, wind, and plexiglas.
One last time, out of habit, Jake’s eyes swept the instrument panel, then he pulled the alternate firing handle between his legs. In the fraction of a second before the ejection seat smashed its way upward through the plexiglas, the image of the panel and the yellow fire reflected in the mirror indelibly seared his memory.
Something was hammering at his body, pounding every inch of his chest, arms, legs, and neck. Even as he realized it had to be drops of rain, a tremendous jolt tore at his crotch as his parachute opened.
After the deafening rush of wind on ejection there was silence. He could not see a thing. In a near panic, he groped above him for the parachute risers. The straps rising from his shoulders were firm as steel cables. Reassured, he tried to think.
Why was he blind? He wasn’t; there simply wasn’t enough light to see by. Firmly grasping the nylon straps on each side of his neck, he let the seconds tick by. His ears momentarily picked up the faint whine of a jet engine.
The oxygen mask! If he were knocked out on landing and still had it on, he would suffocate when the oxygen in the seat pan ran out. He had to get rid of it. With his right hand he fumbled for the catches that held the mask to his helmet. He had no dexterity, and terror threatened to overwhelm him. He fought down the killing panic and fingered the place where the catches had to be. He found them and disconnected the mask and threw it out into the darkness. Through it all, he kept a death grip on the left riser.
Again using his right hand, he felt for the quick-release fittings on the lap belt. He would have no need for the seat pan, which was for landing in water. He unlatched the right-hand fitting and was aware of the weight shifting on the back of his thighs. Carefully changing hands on the risers, he struggled with the left fitting. Finally the weight on his legs vanished as the seat pan fell away. His right hand automatically seized the right riser again.
He heard the dull boom of a distant explosion. His airplane, probably. The end of Devil 500.
A faint breeze fanned his face. Somewhere below, the jungle waited. When will it come up? The darkness was total. He thought of his flashlight in the survival vest, but he didn’t want to risk losing it on landing.
The pounding of his heart and the gentle kiss of the wind and rain and the reassuring tautness of the riser straps were the only sensory stimuli in the dark silence.
He began to think. Would he land in trees or a paddy or a rock-strewn creek? Would he be dashed against a cliff? He hooked his legs together to protect his crotch and placed his left hand on his right shoulder and his right hand on his left, then lowered his face into the crook of his elbows. Now to wait.
His body was tense, awaiting the impact. Relax, he told himself. No, stay tense. Keep those legs together and protect the family jewels.
Something tore at his legs, then smashed into his body. He was pummeled by a series of rapid, rock-hard blows, and he felt his legs become separated and a fire of agony ripped up his left side. He was tumbling and his arms were flailing, searching for the risers that were no longer there. He took bullwhip lashes across the lower part of his face. Then he lost consciousness.