by FARMAN, ANDY
Six of Dai’s crew members lay unmoving on the black tarmacadam, the neatly and precisely painted white lines defining the car parking spaces now marred by flecks of blood.
Crewmen stood on the casing helped their messmates down, dropping off the edge of the jetty where they were grabbed before they could topple into the water from the curving convex ballast tank.
Bao’s 23mm was still firing into the jungle but she had not slowed, the cannon’s fire becoming less effective with each turn of her screw.
Sergeant Yen and the trooper arrived last, Dai’s 23mm working over the darkened jungle as they threw smoke grenades into the undergrowth before running hell for leather down the sloping car park, shouting to cast off and that all who could were already aboard. They pounded along the jetty and arrived as the gulf between it and the submarines casing was widening, caught as it was now by the current. Not slowing as the seamen had but leaping long and high, risking broken bones but they made it and grimaced on sprained ankles as they were helped below.
Dai’s 23mm cannon fell silent, all ammunition expended.
Captain Li looked over at the fallen crew members as the Dai backed away from the jetty, illuminated in the flickering firelight from the burning gatehouse they were unmoving, the wind ruffling tattered and torn uniform clothing.
“All back slow…special sea duty men below!” he leant over the coaming to shout at two armed ratings and the air sentries standing upright on the after casing.
“Air sentries kneel behind the conning tower…you riflemen there, get down!”
The throb of Bao’s diesels reverberated as she too switched from her electric motors. She had reached the bend in the river, her 23mm silent too, either out of ammunition or out of effective range.
The next rounds arrived, fired from mortar barrels pointing up at a high angle, the baseplates now sunk almost two feet.
High angle equals greater flight time equals greater variation of error. One round struck the now empty jetty whilst the other landed well ‘off’ in the small tank farm to perforate several of the cylindrical containers.
“Standby tubes One and Two…helm, give me five degrees to port…’midships, steady, all stop!”
Dai’s stern pointed not safely mid-stream but angled toward the southern bank.
The Fliterland was now once more a darkened silhouette, sat silent and aloof from the mayhem.
Dai’s bow pointed directly at the dark shape.
Li raised the microphone.
“Fire one!”
The gunner dropped without a sound and a lookout screamed. Perhaps a dozen points on the north bank lit up with the muzzle flashes of the Legionnaire reservists determined to exact revenge.
Rounds struck the coaming, the mast cluster and the sides of the conning tower to produce a sound like pebbles flung on to a tin roof.
The 21” torpedo, set shallow, broached the surface on leaving the tube, porpoising but unswerving it struck the Fliterland amidships, exploding and flinging fiery debris every which way.
The tank farm blew in spectacular fashion, a great fireball climbing high into the sky.
The scene was now lit, the darkened field of battle not such an unknown now. The submarine in mid river bathed in the light of fire, picked out by the shadow her bulk cast on the jungle behind.
Li’s jaw dropped momentarily as he witnessed the spectacle, and then on seeing the reservists on the north bank likewise frozen in shock, weapons still trained on his vessel but heads turned, witnessing the destruction of freighter and fuel tanks.
Li’s jaw closed with a determined snap and his right hand dropped, fumbling under his oilskin coat and unbuttoning the flap on his webbing holster. Drawing the weapon, he dropped the microphone in order to pull back the slide, aim, pull the trigger and frown when nothing happened. The slide was still glaringly to the rear, and an empty magazine housing in the pistols butt the obvious cause.
He swore, hurriedly located the magazine in his trousers pocket, inserted it sharply and the slide sprang forward with a satisfying snap. Li pointed it shore wards once more only to find his targets had gone, slipped away back into the shadows.
A corpsman took the wounded gunner and lookout below and their replacements, heaving up a metal box of 23mm ammunition took post.
By now there was no sign at all of the Bao.
The Fliterland’s sterncastle was on fire, her hold a furnace. The freighter was listing to port and settling by the bow, the tops of her copper plated propeller blades reflecting the firelight from the tank farm.
With a shriek of tortured steel her aftermost derrick sagged forwards and toppled into the red maw of the hold sending a cloud of burning cinders aloft like emigrating fireflies.
No second torpedo would be required. She was now a major obstruction to any future use to this dock or to this jetty.
“Five degrees starboard…slow, back together.”
They edged away, back from the flickering firelight on the water, back into the dark of a river crowded in on two sides by the jungle at night.
Around the bend in the river a small area of the north bank still burned, the Chinooks grave marked by the upright rotor blade protruding from the water.
“Look sir!” announced a lookout, pointing into the trees on the south side.
Captain did not need his night glasses, the flames provided enough light.
“You don’t see that very often do you sir? A one legged pilot, sitting up a tree.”
The company’s silver wings caught the firelight and stood out in stark relief on the breast of the wet one-piece flight suit.
At the foot of the tree a caiman, possible eighteen feet in length was gnawing at a pilot’s helmet.
Li straightened and raised his hand in a formal salute.
Don Caldew shifted his grip to hold the branch with his left, extending his right with knuckles downwards toward the Chinese submariner and raised a single upright digit.
Forty eight miles south east a pair of Breguet Atlantiques taxied. One behind the other, Poseidon Zero Four and Poseidon One Eight followed the glistering wet taxiway as their operators established communications with all elements involved, on land, sea and in the air.
Bombing-up had taken place on the taxiway itself, five hundred metres from the nearest airport building without the blessing of the airport manager who had been overruled by the governor. By prior agreement this potentially hazardous procedure was to have taken place outside the perimeters chain link fence via a pair of extra-width security gates, gates that opened on to a hard standing where the airport fire brigade practiced its art on a prefabricated concrete aircraft facsimile. But it was late and no one knew who had the keys.
Both aircraft carried four depth charges apiece, Zero Four also held two Mk 46 torpedoes whereas One Eight carried only one, but beside it in the bomb bay was an MM40 Exocet anti-shipping missile.
Ordnance expenditure in the Atlantic had been high, as the three quarters empty bomb bays testified.
In addition to the low loadout of offensive weaponry the defensive variety was also thin on the ground with the appearance of the Soviet’s Launch-At-Depth anti-aircraft system. It produced an uncalculated psychological effect on air crews, despite the small number of hulls that had carried the device. The bad news spread fast.
NATO’s maritime patrol aircraft crews had quite understandably made rather prodigious use of counter-measures, exhausting many NATO members stocks of flares and chaff.
Parachute flares for illumination they had aplenty, but both aircraft were reduced to prayer, a box of cartridges and a crew member with a Very pistol by way of surface to air counter measures for heat seeking missiles.
Zero Four turned onto the end of the runway, lining up on the centreline, her twin Rolls Royce Tyne turbo prop engines ran up with the captain holding it on its brakes.
Something caught the captain’s attention, turning his head to look out of the left side window he could see an area of the cloud bas
e above the horizon in the north that was glowing red.
The journey back to the ocean, stern first, seemed to Li to be taking an interminably long time, far longer than it had been to originally reach the ESA dock, and indeed it was, out of necessity.
A lookout was posted over the stern for deadfalls which would cause far more damage to the rudder and screws if they collided, than would a bow-on encounter.
Bao was visible ahead, engines stopped as crewmen hanging over the stern used brute force to manoeuvre one such hazard to the side.
“All stop.”
The chant of the diesels had a way of negating the fear of the unknown that this jungle held.
Rather than be reassured though, Li looked about him, peering at the banks, alert, aware that something was amiss.
“Go to electrical power.”
The throb of un-muffled diesels gave way to a drone, a murmur inhibited by a wind blowing in the wrong direction.
It came from up on high, above the lofty jungle canopy and above the cloud base.
“Bridge…ECM; we’ve been painted by radar Captain, airborne source bearing 120 degrees!”
“Stand to, air sentries!”
A green flare, not of the para-illumination variety, emerged from the clouds, falling rapidly, a red flare followed before harsh white magnesium produced light dropped swinging into view, the wind carrying it as it hung suspended on a small parachute.
Dai’s air sentries pivoted, the Strela launchers at their shoulders and eyes squinting down the open iron sights atop the launcher as they attempted to judge the position of the hidden aircraft. Fingers took up first pressure on the triggers to engage the missiles seeker head.
The ‘lock’ lights flickered and the tone was intermittent, confused by more coloured flares falling from the clouds, as they turned slowly from north to south.
Li too was peering upward at the sound of the Atlantique’s engines as a lookout called “Aircraft action, forward!”
The second aircraft also came in from the direction of the ocean, but a scant hundred feet above the trees, its wings tilting as it followed the lie of the river, the bomb bay doors gaping open.
The same parachute flare dropped by One Eight which had illuminated the submarines also revealed the pale grey shape of Poseidon Zero Four at the moment an object fell from out of the open belly, followed immediately by a second.
Bao’s air sentries were taken by as much surprise as were half of Dai’s.
The sound of the Rolls Royce engines passing above them and the roar of Bao’s and Dai’s 23mm automatic cannon’s made Li flinch but his eyes did not leave the two falling objects, blunt nosed depth charges, not tumbling but semi stabilised, oscillating at the finned tails as they fell at an angle towards their target.
Tracer chased the Atlantique, spent 23mm shell cases rattled and rang against the metal deck of the submarines bridge.
The first depth charge crashed into the trees near the south bank of the river some fifty metres beyond the stationary Bao but the second struck the Kilo’s forward casing.
It sounded a lot like two cars colliding, without the desperate last moment screech of brakes. Black acoustic tiles flew aloft like crows startled at the sound of a shotgun, and the depth charge bounced, spinning end over end now, the tail section stabilisers parting company in the impact, flying off into the darkness.
The dented casing grew larger in Li’s sight, like a dustbin flung by a petulant giant it arced up and towards the Juliett.
The air sentry on Dai’s bow fired, engulfing the conning tower in white exhaust gases as the slim missile left the launch tube. The smoke robbed Li of his view of the approached object.
The depth charge on the river bank blew with a blinding flash, its 200kg warhead felling two trees and sending wickedly barbed wooden splinters outwards in all directions, the detonation echoing for miles around.
The Strela’s success went almost unheard in comparison. It flew straight and true for the greatest heat source, striking the starboard engine exhaust. The effect of the small 1.7kg warhead and a secondary charge detonating the missiles remaining fuel was visual, rather than audible. A small flash followed by much smoke.
Poseidon Zero Four instantly lost altitude, the starboard wing dropped, the wingtip clipping a tree top and it seemed to be all over bar the shouting for the aircraft and crew.
The port engine roared as its throttle was pushed through the gate in an effort by the captain and co-pilot to compensate, to ward off a threatening departure from controlled flight.
They clawed for height, the tree tops so close, waiting snares to drag them from the air to a fiery end in the jungle but the prey won the battle as its remaining ordnance load was jettisoned. Zero Four bounded up and clear of the tree tops, disappearing into the night towards the west.
Li coughed and waved a hand ineffectually as if warding off unwanted cigarette smoke. He stood upright to peer through the missiles exhaust fumes, to see where the charge would land, and so the deluge of filthy brown river water, heavily laden with mud struck him from behind. Bouncing clear over the Dai the depth charge had plunged into the river beyond to lodge in the silted bottom where it went off.
Declaring an emergency Poseidon Zero Four shuddered in flight, a vibration increasing by the moment.
It was missing three feet off its starboard wingtip, and the propeller was continuing to spin despite the engine now being shut down and denied fuel. Refusing to be feathered, the rogue propeller spun on, and at a higher rate than that of the still functional port engine. The reduction gearbox had been damaged and the blades could not be turned into wind to reduce drag.
Fire retardant compound was pumped onto the engine but as the propellers RPM spun ever higher, the propeller nosecone glowed red, and the vibration worsened.
A flicker of flame necessitated the fire handle being pulled again and all the while the aircraft was in a gentle sweeping turn so as not to overstress the damaged wing.
The captain aimed to bring them back to Cayenne, it was after all the closest airport with a runway long enough to accommodate them.
Ten minutes on and the propeller was rotating at 120% of the maximum recommended RPM, and again the fire handle had to be pulled to extinguish flames.
They were dumping fuel from the port wing and transferring fuel from the starboard. The risk of the flames reaching the fuel tanks in the damaged wing was very real indeed.
Over the ocean now and continuing their left turn, lining up for an approach to runway 26. The captain gave due consideration to the options available, to attempt a landing or to ditch?
By day the Cayenne fishing fleet could be seen at its moorings due to the scarcity of fish. There were no civilian boats abroad that could come to their assistance and the nearest navy vessel was laid up, the rest were rushing north to do battle.
A ditching rarely had a happy ending anyway, so he announced to the crew that he was committed to a landing at Cayenne. They buckled up and a few peered out and down at the dark ocean. However, it was too dark to see anything unaided. Obligingly the starboard engine provided some, and the flicker became a tail that could not be extinguished now, the fire retardant compound having been completely expended.
The second Atlantique, One Eight, could be heard stooging around up above the clouds, and the Legion’s two helicopters could be heard also, as they raced low towards the town of Kourou, dropping the two mortar teams at Pont Les Roches, the mouth of the estuary that the Chinese raiders must pass on their way back to the ocean.
The Bao and the Dai were underway again, backing down the river to the estuary where they could at last find room to turn and face their tormentors.
“Radar, one sweep only.”
Above them the Atlantiques threat warnings sounded as the Dai’s radar swept across them in return.
“Capitaine… I would advise chaff right about now…but.”
“But…we have no chaff…”
Unwrapping a stick of sp
earmint gum, popped it in his mouth the pilot unlatched the side window, ejecting the gums silver wrapper.
“That will have to do.” He muttered to himself, resigned to fate.
Severe vibration was shaking Zero Four, severe enough to throw off her captain’s voice, giving him an induced stammering which at another time would sound a little comical.
“Fifteen degrees flap…gear down.”
Had the circumstances been different he would have overflown the runway in order that the control tower confirm the right gear was fully down, but the nose and left gear had green lights.
The starboard engine was aflame, consuming itself, the flames streaming behind.
Ahead of them the tarmac was lit up, and emergency vehicles were sat off to one side, well clear of the runway but awaiting their arrival.
Zero Four crossed the outer marker, the approach lights whipped below them and suddenly there was the threshold.
He missed the touchdown zone, holding off as he allowed the left gear to touch first, sweeping along with the nosewheel and right gear just clear of the tarmac. There was no chance of going around again, no chance of reaching the ocean for a ditching now either, too late to change his mind. The right gear touched and the nose settled, he chopped the throttle and held the aircraft to the centre line. All there was to do now was stop the damn thing before they ran out of runway.
The wind was blowing the flames along the wing toward the fuselage but captain and co-pilot were busy standing on the brakes. One life threatening crisis at a time, s'il vous plaît.
