The P.H.O.T.O. (VOL 2) The Saga Continues

by Larry Hunt

  The ‘Captain’ pulled open his window, stuck his head out and said to Little ‘S’, “Give her several turns on the prop so we can verify that there is no hydraulic lock.” Junior followed the instructions to the letter, turning the huge propeller at least three or four complete revolutions.

  The ‘Captain’ yelled, “cast off." Little ‘S’ cut the mooring lines and jumped into the DeHavilland and closed the door.

  The ‘Captain’ gave the big Pratt and Whitney radial engine five stokes of primer and engaged the starter. He counted three, four then five turns of the giant prop; he energized the boost coil and switched the magnetos on. Finally he flipped the ‘START’ switch, five of the syrup bucket sized cylinders fired first and then the other four.

  The engine moaned, coughed and sputtered then a huge blue/black cloud of smoke belched from the engine exhausts and she coughed once more then started to roar. Oh, that sound, it would make Harley lovers swoon. Nine Harley’s all lined up in one big circular engine, what music!

  The four ‘Fuel Oil’ barrels having been empted were now on their way floating deep into the recesses of the recently visited swamp. Their absence allowed space on the DeHavilland to install two passenger benches. Spook and Little “S” wasted no time getting them positioned and all passengers on board were availing themselves of their soft-seated comfort.

  The ‘Captain’ turned partially around in his seat and asked if anyone had any flight experience. Of course Tinker did – he asked if she wanted to sit in the right co-pilot’s seat. Sure, what a dumb question, she most assuredly did.

  “Buckle up tight! We’re getting’ ready to have some fun,” the Captain said speaking loudly to be heard over the roar of the big Pratt and Whitney. He turned to Tinker, “Don’t touch this yellow capped thing here between us – it’s an in flight oil additive inlet pipe. These DeHavillands are great planes, but they use oil something fierce. Sometimes, if the oil pressure drops low enough you have to remove that yellow cap and pour 50-weight motor oil into it. The oils right there beside you in that storage compartment, more in the back, if needed. But on this leg of the flight I don’t think we’ll need to add any. I checked before firing her up this morning, the oil reservoir’s full.”

  * * * * *

  Back at his controls the ‘Captain’ announced, “Everyone ready? Here we go!”

  He turned and looked out his window to double check that the mooring lines were free - they were. He could see the ol’ PBR silently floating down the river behind them a good 100 meters below its previous home. He turned to Sarge and signaled him to look out the side window. Sarge leaned over and saw what the ‘Captain’ wanted him to see – the ‘Minnow’. He pointed her out to the others – you could see their sadness – it was as if they were leaving an old friend behind.

  Quickly reality returned – the ‘Captain’ pushed the throttle wide open – all 450 hp of that R-985 nine cylinder radial engine came to life with a deafening roar.

  The Dehavilland started to move, slowly at first, and then as the ear splitting roar grew louder (if that was possible) it began to gain speed. Tinker and the others were looking upriver through the windshield, staring with dread - the bend in the river and those sky-high trees!

  Faster and faster the plane slid across the water, bouncing and bobbing toward its fatal demise or toward its triumphant achievement of flight.

  They roared ever closer. Would they make it or were they spending their last few moments alive terrified beyond belief.

  The ‘Captain’ realized he was playing a delicate balancing act – he had to have sufficient speed but yet he also needed enough time to gain altitude to clear those tall majestic trees. He wanted manifold pressure (mp) at 30 ½” and that beautiful radial engine had to obtain a minimum 2300 rpms. He had to be perfect, no margin for error – wait to long and the plane would hit the trees – pull up too soon and he would not have sufficient rpms to gain enough altitude – again the same result - the plane would hit the trees.

  “Come on big boy, come on you can do it! Don’t you quit on me! You’re a Knight show me that courage - come on! Come on! Just a little more! Charge!! Charge!!”

  * * * * *

  At exactly 30 ½” mp and 2300 rpm it was the right moment, the ‘Captain’ reasoned, using both hands he pulled back hard on the yoke – the ‘Knight’ lifted slightly from the river then settled back, again it tried to gain lift, again back to the water, time was running out, they had time for one last attempt.

  The ‘Captain’ with one last hard pull on the yoke finally got the pontoons to separate from the water and they were finally AIRBORNE!!

  Not a second to soon the huge propeller clipped a small branch from the tallest tree but they were, at last, in the air. Tinker looked down at her white knuckled hands that had been gripping the armrests so tightly she was afraid she had left fingernail imprints in them. “We made it, we made it! She hollered, both laughing and crying at the same time.

  * * * * *

  Just as they all began to exhale, breathe and hoping to get their hearts restarted a series of spatting reverberations were heard throughout the cabin. Tinker thought, ‘What was those plinking noises?’ Sarge instantly recognized that metal tearing din and watched as small circular spots of daylight rapidly began appearing in the skin of the DeHavilland!

  The ‘Captain’ too had heard that snapping, popping sound before - he had experienced it many times in the past also. “Down everyone, down! We’re being fired upon!”

  The ‘Captain’ pointed with his finger toward the ground on the port side of the plane. As he signaled the origin of the gunfire his whole body suddenly recoiled, jerked violently forward, tried to stand but was restrained by the seat belt. Exhaling loudly he fell forward across the control column, seemingly dead; however, he maintained a death grip on the yoke and had pushed his foot down hard on the right rudder causing the ‘plane to drop into an steep uncontrollable downward spiral roll toward the Cambodian earth thousands of feet below.

  * * * * *

  Tinker emitted a scream. “The ‘Captains’ been hit! The ‘Captains’ been hit!”

  Sarge unbuckled and looked out the port window – down below was the second PBR! The one that got away during the fight on the river with the bastard Russian Colonel; he could see it was moored about a mile or so upriver past the rocky bend – they were firing their .50 cals at the DeHavilland – "It's the Blue Bereted son-of-a-bitch," he yelled as he examined the PBR closely. "Today I’m makin’ you a promise: One day it’s goin to be my turn and I’ll checkmate you and you won’t have the advantage you Russian bastard. Mark my word... checkmake... one day...checkmate...!”

  For a fleeting moment Sarge wondered about the Russkis - ‘why were they so close before and no follow-up attack’? Had ‘Thumper’ been relying on the kid in the LA-9 to finish us off? What had he waitin' on… reinforcements? Big ‘S’ could not dwell on the answer his medic skills were immediately required to get the ‘Captain’ revived and back in charge of the now out-of-control ‘plane - he must attend to the ‘Captain’.

  Making his way toward the cockpit in the rapidly descending DeHavilland, now behaving as a flying brick, was a tremendously arduous task. Fighting his way to the pilot’s seat Sarge, always the professional soldier, unfazed, yelled at Tinker. “Can you fly this aircraft Tinker?” Covered in blood, bits of bone and pieces of tissue from the ‘Captain’ Tinker whimpered something inaudible.

  “Tinker’, listen to me! Calm down! There is nothing you can do about the ‘Captain’ – CAN YOU FLY THIS ‘PLANE? Give me a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ right now!”

  “Yeah,” she said crying. “I… I can fly it.”

  “Good,” responded Sarge. “Get us out of this dive immediately and climb back up to at least 10,000 feet, that should be high enough to clear the Dangrek Mountains between Thailand and Cambodia.”

  Tinker struggled with the controls. It was almost humanly impossible to pull the controls back – t
hese planes have a mechanical system whereby the yoke connects directly to the control surfaces with cables and rods – human muscle power alone is not enough - hydraulic systems are used where yoke movements control hydraulic valves and actuators. Most likely one of the Blue Beret bullets cut or nicked this hydraulic control system, causing damage, which made the 'plane almost impossible to fly.

  “Sarge… Sarge!” Tinker frantically yelled, “get in that other seat and help me pull this yoke back! Now Sarge! Now!!” The only thing Sarge could do was unbuckle the ‘Captain’ and let gravity throw him out of the pilot’s seat. Sarge didn’t want to treat the ‘Captain’ in this manner but the ground was rushing towards them too rapidly.

  Finally at the last moment, with Sarge’s one-armed help, she was able to regain control of the downward spiraling Silver Knight and gain full flying control. She pulled on the controls and began to maintain level flight just a few hundreds of feet before they crashed into a forested hillside of a forlorn Cambodian mountain. "Whoa!!” Tinker finally exhaled.

  Looking at the ‘Captain’ Sarge instinctively knew his medical efforts were going to be useless – he knew from previous experience with bullet wounds this was serious - the ‘Captain’ was dying.

  Again this wasn’t Sarge’s first rodeo.

  He had been present too many times when Death’s Angel came for another soul – but he went through the motions nevertheless checking to see if the ‘Captain’ had a pulse; first at his wrist and then at his carotid artery, there was a slight pulse at both. In addition there was a half-inch bullet hole emitting a high pitched whistling sound just below the pilot’s window; ‘this is the one that got him’, thought Sarge.

  The Ma Deuce FMJ (full metal jacket) projectile, hurled from the deck of the PBR far below, entered his left side just above his belt-line and exited just to the rear of his right armpit leaving a hole about the size of his fist.

  'He never knew what hit him and cannot survive a wound this bad!!' thought Sarge to himself.

  Luckily the FMJ .50 caliber bullet missed Tinker and punched out a jagged bloody hole in the starboard side of the plane just above Tinkers head.

  Glancing at the radio he said, “It doesn’t look like the radio was damaged.” Turning to Spook and Little ‘S’ who had been praying and holding on for dear life in the back he yelled, “Spook how about coming up here and getting on the horn and see if you can make contact with your brother.”

  Spooks robust crème colored Asian skin was now a sickly gray color, all his blood seemed to have accumulated in his feet. His hands were shaking so badly Little ‘S’ had to undo his seat belt for him. Sarge, grinning said, “What’s wrong Spook wasn’t scared was you?”

  “Scared…? Scared?” Said Spook. “Heck no!!” Thinking to himself, ‘I wonder if I have some clean underwear in my ruck’?’

  Sarge wanted Little ‘S’ and Spook to come forward and together they managed to pull and drag the ‘Captain’ from the cockpit back into the rear of the cargo compartment. Once they got him stretched out on the floor Sarge, always respectful, partially covered him with a blanket.

  Sarge was not a deeply religious man but he thought a few prayerful words at times like these would be appropriate. He silently spoke to his God on behave of the ‘Captain’, the same as he had done for others numerous times before. He thought the dying or dead at least deserved this much.

  Finishing his private prayer with God Sarge checked the ‘Captain’ again, no change, he was non-responsive and unconscious. Grabbing his aid bag Sarge did the best he could to bandage the two gapping holes in the ‘Captain’s’ body, knowing full well it was just cosmetic and was of no benefit - he was dying.

  * * * * *

  As Sarge returned forward he glanced out the port window and noticed blue smoke trailing alongside the DeHavillian. “Tinker where the hell is that smoke coming from?”

  “Sarge, the engine isn’t running smoothly – one of those Russian bullets must have damaged a cylinder.”

  “Can you make out anything from the instruments?”

  Tinker responded, “Yeah, for the ones I understand. They seem okay – but this one the ‘Captain’ pointed out to me – it’s the oil pressure gauge – it’s falling! The manifold and rpm gauges seem low too.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “We’ve got to remove this yellow screw-on lid and pour motor oil into the engine.”

  “We can do that?” said Sarge amazed.

  “Yeah,” Tinker continued, “the ‘Captain’ said we could.”

  With that bit of information Tinker, Sarge and Spook got to work pouring oil into the engine. Meantime Tinker was trying to nurse the now 8 or 7 remaining Dehavilland cylinders up to the 10,000-foot altitude.

  The fuel gages were dropping faster than normal, but Tinker did not think they were in danger of running out of fuel anytime soon. The fuel tank must have been hit by only one bullet, and these CIA planes have been equipped with what are called ‘self sealing’ tanks. They will seal small holes if they are not too big.

  Tinker had been told by the ‘Captain’ to maintain, at least, 28 inches of manifold pressure and the engine had to be putting out a minimum of 1800 rpm. Neither of these two gauges indicated those numbers - both showed they were low.

  Tinker moved over to the pilot’s seat and Spook filled her now vacant co-pilot’s place. He started changing frequencies on the radio to match the one that his brother would be monitoring.

  Tinker kept watching the instruments, especially the manifold pressure and the rpms.

  Both were still low, and getting lower – that was not good. Without enough of either clearing the mountains would be impossible.

  She turned in her seat and motioned to Sarge. “Yeah Tinker what is it?” he said as he approached.

  “Sarge I’m not a very good pilot but I know the ‘Captain’ told me this plane has to have at least 28 inches of manifold pressure and a minimum of 1800 rpms to keep flying.

  “What does that mean, in real talk, Tinker?

  “It means we will not have enough power to climb to 10,000 feet. At present our rpms are dropping, not fast, but enough to cause worry and I cannot get the manifold pressure above 24 inches!

  Sarge we are going to crash before we get to those mountains far off there in our front.” Tinker pointed, spoke sadly and quietly so it would not upset the others but with the roar of those remaining radial cylinders no one could have heard her anyway.

  "Tinker we must get to the other side of those mountains," he said pointing toward them with his finger. “Is there nothing we can do?” he asked hoping she had an answer.

  * * * * *

  “No nothing – and to make our situation worst look out this port window,” she said. What Sarge witnessed was awesome! It was a tremendous brewing monsoonal thunderstorm! “I HAVE to miss THAT and to do so I must correct our heading to change from due north and fly north-northeast about 30 degrees. That is going to put us even farther away from southern Thailand.”

  Sarge paced back and forth from the cockpit to ‘Little ‘S’ several times, before Little ‘S’ asked, “What’s going on Pop? Something's wrong! What's happening?”

  Sarge was never one to embellish the truth or one to hide dire circumstances. He spoke to Little “S” candidly, “We’re not going to make it across the mountains ahead! Looks like one of the Spetsnaz Colonel’s bullets damaged our engine.

  Tinker tells me that we don’t have enough power to gain enough altitude to clear ’em. Beside that good piece of news, we have to fly north-northeast to avoid a huge thunderstorm developing off to our left. This is just goin’ to put us farther from Spook's brother in Thailand and our possibly rescue. We are really in a pickle,” he said to Little ‘S."

  * * * * *

  Spook returned to the rear of the aircraft and took a seat beside Little ‘S’ and Sarge. “Good news! I reached my brother - he will meet us at a place named Surin, Thailand. It is a few klicks north o
f the Thai/Cambodian border. He said to meet him at the Northern Bus Station at 1200 local next Wednesday.

  One of us is to wear a red bandana so he can identify us.

  From the bus station we will take a 6-hour bus ride into Bangkok and there he will arrange for our further transportation. But he had a caveat – we must meet him at noon on Wednesday, DO NOT BE LATE. That time and place are set in stone! It is just too dangerous, enemy spies are everywhere.”

  “What did you tell him about us?” asked Sarge anxiously.

  “Nothing, I told him we were on a top secret mission. And not to mention our conversation to anyone not even his supervisor. I stressed he must protect our clandestine operation.”

  “Good. Good work Spook.”

  “Oh, yeah, something else. He said next week the Thais would be having their Annual Elephant Round-up. Evidently it is a big annual Thai elephant celebration affair in the country. The center of activity is in the city of Turin. They do things such as - an elephant capture, elephant tugs-of-war, elephant football games and elephant races. According to my brother it is a big event and many tourists will be in the city. So no one should pay any particular attention to us.”

  Cussing Sarge said, “they are not going to pay any attention to us anyway because we won’t be there by next Wednesday – what is the day today anyway, does anyone know. “

  Spook spoke up, “Yeah, my watch has date, day and time – it’s Sunday.”

  Sarge cutting loose with a string of expletives, “that gives us two and a half days to get there. And we will have to walk through those Dangrek Mountains - no way!”

  * * * * *

  Sarge was up pacing again – stopping occasionally to peer out the port window to see how the storm was developing. It was intensifying and looking more menacing. What to do...? What to do...? Suddenly he had an idea. He almost ran to the cockpit, “Tinker what heading are you on?”

  “I’ve changed from a due north heading to north-northeast that we talked about earlier. Why?” she said.