by FARMAN, ANDY
Jie reached across and unfolded the map fully.
“I find that looking at the big picture helps me put the little picture into focus, and the only truly accurate way to do that is for you to put yourself in the enemy commander’s shoes.” A big green mass with few roads once you got ten miles from the coast was what the map represented.
“As the French commander I have nearly one thousand two hundred kilometers of border to guard, including four hundred and fifty kilometers of beaches that are nearly all suitable for amphibious operations of one form or another, and I have two regiments, who don’t play well together, with which to do it... aussi facile que la peinture sur l'eau…‘easy as painting on water’, as the French say.” Jie explained. “The beach will be the easier part of my mission. I won’t have to deal with mines, wire and a whole regiment shooting at me…,” he grinned broadly and added, “…unless I’m really, really unlucky!”
He would of course proceed with caution as it would be a great shame to have come all this way just to be rumbled at the last by an OP, a sentry or a roving foot patrol.
There was of course the element of the bizarre which had a way of throwing spanners in the works too.
He knew all about the Israeli arrest operation of an Arab militant that had been compromised by five hundred novices and nuns at a convent’s beach barbecue.
Some things just aren’t catered for in the ‘Actions on:-’ section of an ‘O’ Group.
There was another knock on the door of the captain’s cabin and this time it was a signaler handing over a slip of message pad.
It was the response to his query to fleet headquarters.
Li read it twice and then with a regretful shake of the head he dismissed the signaler and handed the slip to Captain Huaiqing.
Al Jazeera News report: Argentina claims to have attacked two surfaced submarines south of Falkland Islands. Both vessels allegedly sunk. Salvaged items of wreckage displayed to media appear to be of Russian manufacture along with items of Chinese and Russian uniforms.
Proceed on assumption Tuan and Admiral Potemkin lost.
On conclusion, scuttle vessels and evade.
“Bao needs to be informed of the changes immediately.” Jie Huaiqing said
Li nodded in agreement.
“High tide shortly after dusk tonight if memory serves, and I trust that coming ashore high up the beach isn’t going to put you in a minefield buried in the sand is it?”
“We will not be bothered by mines on the beach.” Huaiqing replied with certainty.
Li looked at him quizzically. Triggering a land mine on the beach would strip away the vital element of surprise that the operation relied upon.
“Another part of the briefing I slept through?”
“A little reptilian told me we will only have bored and sleepy sentries to contend with.”
Captain Li shook his head slowly. This soldier was an odd one, always with his nose in a book when not working out in the limited space of the torpedo room, absorbing the most random information like a sponge. Nevertheless, he was intelligent, resourceful, and well respected by his troops.
As this new plan was their only viable option at completing the mission with the remaining resources, he had to trust Jie’s abilities.
“Well I hope your reptile informant is correct or we are all screwed.” He gathered up the maps and documents and returned them to the safe.
“Tonight would seem to be the night then, Major.”
Chapter 2
Lambeth, London
It was curiously quiet in the forest, although Colin could hear the drone of outgoing shells passing far overhead and impacting in the distance.
Looking up through a gap in the foliage he could see the base of the clouds toward the horizon briefly illuminated by the flashes of the shells exploding but it was several seconds before the crump of their detonation reached his ears.
The flashes of light also served to illuminate the shapes of Russian paratroopers silently emerging from the trees across the fire break, the light flashing off the long bayonets attached to their assault rifles. AKs have their own folding bayonet but these were at least two feet in length with serrated edges.
None of his men were opening fire though!
“Enemy to the front…fifty metres…rapid… FIRE!”
No one fired a single round despite the Russians being all out of the trees now and clearly visible in the firebreak, and then he saw all his men were Corporal Bethers and their lower jaws were missing.
Their shoulders shook with mirth as they turned to stare at him, the only one of the fighting patrol not dead, the only one not disfigured.
He rose to meet the Russian’s bayonet charge and gripped his own rifle firmly, but he felt it crack and then crumble to dust in his grasp.
His men were still shaking in silent laughter and not attempting to help.
“Give me a rifle someone!”
If anything they found his predicament even more hilarious and some were rolling on the ground.
“Here sir, come and get mine!” the voice sounded from behind him.
Robertson stood there holding out his own rifle, his face missing.
“But you are dead, you died yesterday!”
Colin turned back and froze at the sight of a Russian paratrooper charging directly at him, an impossibly long bayonet pointing unwaveringly at his midsection.
Colin tried to move, to dodge out of the way but his legs moved in slow motion.
He screamed aloud as the sharp steel transfixed him, driving through to pin him against the tree behind.
“Nikoli…help me mate!” he called out to his friend who had appeared in front of him.
But Fanny M glared with hatred at the British soldier.
“You killed me Colin, and I was just doing my duty. I saved you and you killed me…”
A nurse leaned over the mumbling, sweating patient, feeling for a pulse on the wrist handcuffed to the metal bedframe in the ICU at King’s College Hospital in Lambeth.
Outside the sterile unit, two prison officers sat staring through a large glass window at the nurses’ ministrations to their charge.
She took his temperature, noting and updating his progress chart before she moved on, and the prison officers attention returned to the paperback book and Angry Birds that were helping to pass the time.
RAAF Pearce, nr Perth: Western Australia.
The Australian continent was not yet under threat of immediate air attack but blackouts were in force across the country so as not to assist the enemy photo-reconnaissance satellites when they passed overhead.
The F-14 Tomcat entered the circuit with its crew spending a moment to peer down at an earth that was darker than the sky.
A vehicle with hooded headlamps on what had to be the Great Northern Highway on the right and a long and dimly lit train on the left satisfied the pilot that runway ‘36 Right’ of Royal Australian Air Force Base Pearce was down there between them and the controller was not lying.
They were on finals and thirty seconds from the outer marker before the landing lights came on, and then they dimmed perceptibly the moment their wheels had touched the tarmac.
At the end of the aircraft’s rollout the runway lights were extinguished, leaving the Tomcat with its engines idling. It sat there in the darkness at the end of the runway until a vehicle drove in front and a ‘Follow Me’ sign illuminated. The vehicle led the aircraft off the runway and along taxiways at a rate of knots greater than that demanded by the speed limits posted at intervals along the route. To the sides they could vaguely make out the dark outlines of war planes of various nations occupying No.2 Flying Training School’s flight lines and dispersals that were meant for the PC-9 trainers. Those trainers were now off on one of the many Australian Air Force airfields that were otherwise occupied just by caretakers, who maintained the runways and limited facilities for times such as these.
Eventually the marshalling truck led the US Navy aircra
ft toward a track of temporary roadway panels to the open rear of a camouflaged netting hangar that faced back towards the runway.
Nikki Pelham shut down the engines prior to reaching the threshold before the ‘hangars’ interior, coasting inside and braking to a halt between blast walls created by old shipping containers filled with earth.
Filtered torchlight was the only illumination to assist her down from the cockpit, and she stretched and groaned at almost eight thousand miles worth of stiffness in her back and joints.
“So where’s the welcoming committee of hunky Aussie surfers?”
Nikki turned to smile at her RIO.
Lt (jg) Candice LaRue hailed from Alabama and this was her first time outside the States, having only graduated as a Radar Intercept Officer four days earlier.
Nikki and Candice had been paired off at Nellis AFB where the Boneyard airframes were being delivered following refurbishment and upgrades to weapons, navigation and avionics systems. The parking ramps at Nellis had been crammed with early model F-14, 15 and 16s, rubbing wingtips with dozens of previously retired A-10 Thunderbolts, A-6 Intruders, AV-8B Harriers and venerable B-17s, the ‘Buffs’, known affectionately to the crews as the Big Ugly Fuckers.
Here at RAAF Pearce, some nine thousand five hundred miles from Nellis, a dark shape with an Australian accent bid them collect their gear and step aside as other dark shapes with American accents closed in on their aircraft and began the business of preparing it for flight once more. The external fuel tanks were removed, leaving the aircraft ‘clean’ until the armourers arrived but the internal fuel tanks were refilled.
All they had carried had been three hundred rounds of 20mm cannon ammunition for their rotary barrelled Vulcan.
Being curious, they had a little wander around and found a bunch of other USN F-14s, which had already been armed up. None of those aircraft were Ds; four were model Bs, including Nikki’s, whilst the remainder were even older ‘A’ models with Pratt & Whitney turbo fans that produced less thrust than their own General Electric power plants. Beyond the F-14s they found the first Australian airframes, in the form of an RAAF Hawk with war shots on its hardpoint’s, and a pair of venerable Aussie F111C bombers that were fully bombed up for anti-shipping strikes.
The F111Cs were forty or so years old but upgraded and certainly not looking their years. Australia had supposedly phased them out and replaced them with F/A-18s, but this pair certainly had somehow avoided being buried ignominiously in landfill sites with the rest of Australia’s F111 fleet.
“Wow, ‘Varks…I thought these were all scrapped?” said Nikki.
A voice from the shadows made them jump.
“A consortium wanted them for air displays; one to fly and one for spares…but the end user certificates were a problem so we kept them mothballed while they sort it out in the courts.”
Beneath the port wing they made out two shapes on camp beds. One was snoring softly whilst the other arose.
“Gerry Rich.” He said, and right on queue the runway flights came on, illuminating rugged and tanned features along with a broad, raffish smile.
“Flight Lieutenant Gerry Rich, and twenty five percent of the newly reformed 15 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force at your service…oh, and we call them ‘Pigs’, not Aardvarks’.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder at the snoring form. “That’s Macca, he’s me ‘Wizzo’, and he’s from over your way originally.”
“Oh really, where’s that then?” asked Nikki.
“Alberta.”
“That’s Canada, not the USA.” laughed Candice.
“Can you drive to the US from Alberta in a single day and without getting yer feet wet?” he queried.
“Sure, but…”
“Around here we’d class that as being next door neighbours.”
Candice laughed in a way that told Nikki she was batting her eyelids furiously.
“Does that Mick Dundee style ever get you anywhere?” Nikki asked.
He smiled at Candice but he positively beamed at her pilot.
“Shaving with a Bowie knife right about now would have been hazardous.”
Behind them a squeal of tyres and the roar of four Allison turboprops changing pitch to reverse signalled the flare path dimming to barely visible and then extinguishing as the Hercules finished its roll out.
“Lieutenant Commander Pelham, VFA 154, USS Nimitz.” Nikki said by way of introduction, very formally and not leaving an opening for him to be otherwise.
“Lieutenant Candice La Rue, but you can call me Candy if you want.” another voice wishfully added.
“Have you got a first name to go with that, Lieutenant Commander?”
“She’ll tell you that it’s Ma’am, but she’ll answer to Nikki.” said Candice.
The taxiing aircraft, a Royal New Zealand Air Force C130 drowned out what Nikki said to her RIO as it past and she firmly steered her away by the arm and back toward their Tomcat.
“You got to admit he’s cute?”
“Nah.” Said Nikki “Too much twisted steel and sex appeal.” But she looked back anyway.
When the ground crew were done they all crowded into the back of a truck for the journey to the base cookhouse, and this was open for business 24/7 according to the ground crews.
Australian steak and eggs tastes pretty much the same as American steak and eggs but the fries were called ‘chips’, not that it mattered as neither aviator had eaten since somewhere over the mid Pacific and then the sandwiches had been curling up at the edges in the hot sun that shone through the Perspex.
It wasn’t until the plates were empty that Nikki found her eyes drooping.
There were no comfortable barracks for the two tired aviators, and they were shown through a side door and along a short pathway to a small building, guided through the darkness by an armed RAAF corporal with a small torch. They were the only female crew there and as such shared a room which held nothing more than two canvas camp beds, plus pillows and blankets.
“Keep your flight gear handy, if you hear a siren it’s an air raid warning and also the order to scramble…reveille is at 0600 and breakfast is at 0630 at the building two down from here. The Dunny’s at the end of the hall…g’night.”
Once the door had been closed they had looked at one another and shrugged. Candice rolled into the blankets upon one of the camp beds and fell asleep almost immediately, but Nikki lay staring at the ceiling for a while.
When Nikki had arrived at Nellis she had been feeling pretty low, and not without cause. A weeks’ worth of tears and utter disbelief at losing her family in such a shocking manner was not nearly enough time to mourn and come to terms with it.
She had other commitments too and these kept her from wallowing in self-pity at the bottom of a bottle.
Arlington National Cemetery was too close to the Washington fall-out zone and had been closed until some future intensive clean up could be undertaken, so Chubby’s funeral had taken place at his hometown near Detroit.
Someone had tipped off the press that she would be present, so she had spared his family, and herself, the embarrassment by telling the cab driver to continue on past the cemetery and the assembled circus outside. She had telephoned her apologies to Chubby’s parents from the airport before catching a flight to her own hometown where she had avoided the media by laying a wreath on her father’s grave at night. There was not, as yet, any final resting place for her mother or younger brother whose bodies had yet to be recovered and identified.
The navy public relations department would dearly have loved to have paraded Nikki to the media as the female warrior who had downed four confirmed enemy aircraft and survived the destruction of the John F Kennedy battle group, but the circumstances surrounding the death of her father had made that impossible, even had she been willing.
Nikki had declined the navy’s offer of extended leave, choosing instead to return to active duty where she reasoned she would be too busy to dwell on her loss; however any ide
as she had harboured about an immediate re-assignment had proved overly optimistic.
For several days Nikki had found herself kicking her heels in the B.O.Q at Nellis. The trouble with Bachelor Officers Quarters when you were in transit through a base was that they were basically four walls and a ceiling, a motel room without the TV. She had been assigned an aircraft but lacked both a RIO and a carrier to fly it to.
For the most part she had kept to herself, and either the vibes her mood projected or the unjustified suspicion that others regarded her as a Jonah served to deter company. Either way, the USAF pilot’s, Marine and Navy aviators who also awaited assignments kept their distance from the newly promoted Lieutenant Commander who wore a face like a week’s worth of wet Mondays.
Two nights previously in the Officers Club, she had been sat on her own and trying to ignore the conversation going on nearby. A quartet of reservists were trying to out bemoan one another on the woes of being plucked from the cockpits of 747s and finding themselves back in uniform.
From the far side of the club had come derisive laughter and the chant of ‘bullshit’, which had pulled her away from her own brooding thoughts. With some annoyance she had at first turned to see what the commotion was about and then had been drawn toward the large knot of men and women who had gone quiet again as they listened to whomever was sat in their midst.
“I’m telling you straight, every time one of the bastards got on my tail they overshot when I put the anchors on, and I shot them in the arse.”
“Five bandits?” asked one of the onlookers.
“In the same fight?” another asked
“Och aye, one after the other. Bang, bang, wallop, wallop, wallop!”
Nikki had eased through the throng and seen Sandy sat at a table with a dozen brews in front of him and a vivacious Afro-American honey sat on his lap. Clad in skin-tight jeans, denim shirt and cowboy boots she was the only one in the room not in uniform and Nikki assumed the Fleet Air Arm pilot had smuggled her on to the base.
