Rogue Hercules

by Denis Pitts

  Marceau held up his hand and Martin shook it.

  The Frenchman said, ‘Take care, Captain. I don’t think your troubles are over yet.’

  Ten minutes later Juliet Mike Oscar was cleared for take-off by Djibouti control. As she hurtled down the runway, Martin saw a crowd of robed figures standing at the end of the runway, waving banners and hurling rocks at the aircraft’s landing lights.

  The soft, fat, low-pressure tyres missed the nearest of them by inches.

  As they flew safely out to sea, Martin looked back through the side panel. Several buildings in Djibouti were well ablaze. He saw further bomb flashes.

  He wondered more and more about the sequence of events which had overtaken them, wondered about the Russian jet which had tailed them on the first leg, and wondered finally just exactly what Marceau had meant about “more trouble”.

  *

  At the age of thirty-six, Yefgeni Uglov was, in almost every sense, an outstanding product of the Soviet revolution. He was an entirely dedicated member of the Communist Party who could recite lengthy excerpts from the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin. He was immensely proud of his diplomas in each of these subjects from the Red Air Force Academy. His record as a pilot was impeccable; he flew his aircraft exactly as the Mikoyan handbook dictated he should fly them and flew also in the unerring belief that no Soviet-built aircraft could ever flame-out or suffer an hydraulic failure or any of the myriad misfortunes which overtook the aircraft of other nations.

  Uglov was a man of culture whose vacations in Moscow and Leningrad were spent slavishly following art collections, symphony concerts, poetry readings and the ballet.

  His morals were completely irreproachable. He remained faithful to his beloved Natasha throughout his lengthy absences abroad and scarcely looked at another woman at any time.

  He applied an equal fanaticism to his health. From the moment that, as a fresh-faced schoolboy, he had sworn his oath of allegiance to the Party and to Mother Russia, Yefgeni Uglov had never touched alcohol in any form and the very smell of tobacco made him decidedly queasy. He spent an hour of each morning performing rigorous gymnastics and the embassy doctor, perhaps with an overtone of cynicism in his voice, had recently declared him ‘a perfect specimen of Soviet manhood’.

  Only one factor in his make-up had precluded him from selection as a cosmonaut. The truth was that he had absolutely no sense of humour.

  When all these component parts of Yefgeni Uglov’s make-up were put together it became doubly surprising that an African dawn should find him staring at the rush matting roof of a mud hut in Mocímboa with a fierce and agonising pain which throbbed remorselessly and continuously behind his eyes. It was a pain which he had never known before. A pain so intense that he dared not move his head and lay still for fifteen minutes as he tried desperately to organise his mind and to establish who he was, where he was and why he was there.

  His first vague opinion was that he must have been in an accident. Slowly, his nervous system began to co-ordinate with his brain, and he realised that it was the whole of his body which hurt.

  Each limb shot a different kind of electricity which made him want to convulse. His mouth was arid and dry and the few functioning taste buds on his tongue recorded a foulness which he had never before experienced. He whimpered a little and said ‘oh no’ several times.

  It was only then that the terrible realisation came over him of just why he was there. The mortifying pain was enjoined with wave after wave of shame and self-disgust. There was a rasping sound close to him. He mustered courage and closed his eyes and turned his head slowly to the right and heard the straw in the mattress crackle like cannon fire in his mind. He opened his eyes, dreading what he was going to see.

  There was a woman on the mattress next to him. She was young and her chubby face was relaxed in a smiling sleep. Her mouth was slightly open and she snored quietly and rhythmically. A fly had settled on the end of her nose. There was a trickle of greenish-coloured saliva running from her mouth to a point just below a cheap plastic ear-ring. Uglov moaned a little and then he suppressed the moan for fear of waking her up.

  He felt a movement on the other side of his body. He closed his eyes again and braced himself to turn. There was another woman lying there. His face was no more than an inch from a pair of large balloon-like breasts which trembled slightly as she breathed. The big nipple nearest him had been rouged and he stared at it hypnotised, his eyes fixed with terror upon its grossness.

  He whispered ‘oh no’ again and stared back up at the matting in horror. The sun was dappling through the roof, its brightness causing a new sensation of physical pain to him, but the pain was nothing to the feeling which engulfed him.

  It was only then that the truth flooded in to his brain, the true and terrible realisation poured out from his memory lobes in an ugly, fearful torrent.

  It had been that pilot Umboto, curse him.

  ‘Come, good Major, come and meet the real people of my country,’ he had said. ‘You don’t want to spend the night in a lonely hotel, not by yourself. No, no, just for thirty minutes. You come, eh?’

  More from fear of being reported to the Embassy for his anti-social ways, he had accepted the invitation with a repugnant reluctance.

  There had been an underground discotheque, he remembered that; and he remembered the curious taste of the iced orange juice which he had demanded, and the sudden sense of well-being which it had induced in him. He remembered dark bodies whirling around him in the electronic flicker. He remembered beginning to relax, beginning to laugh at Umboto’s wild antics. And he remembered being crushed against a massive black girl whose body appeared to envelope him.

  He remembered a bar where he drank more orange juice, and the women who had trooped in and surrounded him while Umboto encouraged them to grasp and paw at his body.

  And then this place.

  He raised his head slowly and with difficulty. The women were both naked. He shuddered as he remembered how he had coated them both with palm oil, how he had actually laughed as they drenched his body in the same foul, musty smelling fluid. And all three had slithered over and under each other, his teeth snapping for their jiggling breasts, his head disappearing into every kind of recess.

  ‘Oh no,’ he murmured.

  The room still reeked of that oil and their bodies. No, it could not have happened to him. He put his hands slowly down on his own body and found that that too was naked. He touched his groin and felt a painful tenderness that he had never felt before. Oh no, it could not have been him who had mounted them both, who had charged at the fat one like a prize bull, singing all the time the anthem of the Red Air Force at the top of his drunken voice.

  The Red Air Force. Was he not a Major in the Red Air Force? Umboto was sure to tell. He would be disgraced. He would be called before the Ambassador and then flown home to Moscow to face a court martial. Perhaps not. His pilot colleagues had behaved equally disgracefully in many parts of the world and many of them had been promoted. But how could he, Yefgeni Uglov, moralist and socialist, gain the respect of his trainee African pilots after this?

  And oh, no, he was flying a mission on this very morning. With consummate effort and more, much more discomfort, he raised his head again, averting his eyes from the dusky bodies which lay parallel with his. He saw his shirt and trousers hanging from one wall of the hut. He climbed out from between the two women, taking enormous care not to disturb them. Each movement was such that he wanted to collapse back on to the mattress and go back to sleep or to close his tortured eyes at least.

  He was on his feet now. He staggered slightly but just managed to stay upright. He turned and faced the women and the sight of their rounded fleshy bodies made him want to retch. He stifled the vomit and began to dress.

  The shirt was relatively easy, and he was able to get into his trousers and sighed with relief that he was no longer naked in this obscene presence. He stumbled several times as he tried to put on his socks and
finally gave up and slid his naked feet into the shoes on the floor. He checked his wallet, which was untouched. Then he took ten Mozambique escudos from it and jammed them over a nail in the mud wall.

  He had to bend low to get through the doorway and as he did he heard a movement from the bed. The fatter of the two women was sitting up. She was scratching her breasts vigorously and all her glistening teeth showed in a huge grin.

  ‘Okay, baby,’ she said. ‘You no want more fucky-fucky? You good man, eh, give plenty fucky.’

  Uglov fell out of the entrance of the hut and pulled himself up from the earth outside to see Umboto, fully dressed, crawling from another hut. He was zipping up the fly of his trousers.

  ‘Good morning, good Major,’ said the trainee pilot. ‘I hope you enjoyed my cousins.’

  *

  From the moment she had rounded Cape Guardafini on the far north-eastern tip of the hostile Somali Republic, her crew taking scrupulous care to avoid transgressing any territorial limits, Juliet Mike Oscar began to climb slowly to her ceiling as the auto pilot drove her southwards. As they flew an almost parallel course with the distant, khaki-coloured coast, the four Allisons, even though the propellers were set at the most economical pitch, began to make a definite impression on the fuel gauges, and the lighter the fuel load the more she climbed, until the altimeter needle slipped past the thirty thousand feet mark.

  Stubbles sat in the co-pilot’s seat, occasionally leaning dramatically back to check his own engineer’s instruments. Apart from a few minor adjustments of the trim tabs and the noting of a few odd pieces of data in the logbook there was little for him to do except monitor the local frequencies and to check the aircraft’s course.

  Harry lay in the bunk, still fully clothed, his right hand heavily bandaged. Martin had ordered him to rest. There was an unhealthy grey sheen to the co-pilot’s face. He took occasional gulps from an emergency oxygen mask and Sorrel, who had been left in charge of him, was gratified to see his colour begin to improve and some sparkle in his eyes.

  Thirty minutes earlier Martin had disappeared from the flight-deck into the depths of the cargo hold. He had given no reason. He had said to her, ‘Make sure Harry stays resting. He’s lost a hell of a lot of blood. The thing is I can’t possibly land this plane without that left hand of his.’

  The flight droned on. Harry finally slept. It was a short sleep lasting no more than fifteen minutes but he was smiling when he woke. Automatically he tried to heave himself off the bunk but Sorrel held him down.

  ‘Captain says you’re to rest,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Where is he?’ said Harry. His voice which had been weak was much stronger now.

  ‘Search me,’ said Sorrel. ‘He can’t have gone far, that’s for sure. You just lie there, still.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ he said.

  ‘Well, they say that’s a good sign. There’s some soup in one of the flasks. Stay there and I’ll get you some.’

  She spoon-fed the co-pilot, cradling his head in her left hand.

  Between mouthfuls he said, ‘Tell me, Miss Francis…’

  ‘You know my first name, Harry,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, so we’re all buddy buddies now,’ Harry chuckled.

  ‘You could say we’d reached an understanding,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Honey, it’s good of you to look after me but I’ve got to tell you I still don’t trust you.’

  ‘You don’t have to. The captain does, that’s all that matters.’

  ‘He’s a trusting sort of guy.’

  Sorrel spooned more soup into Harry’s mouth.

  ‘You’re real fond of him, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘He saved my life.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It’s a long story, baby, and a lot of it ain’t for tellin’ to young ladies. You see, our illustrious employer Idi Amin Dada decided that me and Martin were working for the Israelis. He had us both thrown into his prize prison. Now the British Government did some powerful ass licking and Martin was sprung. The State Department weren’t going to play ball, even for an Air Force Cross holding American citizen, and I was held. Do you know, that guy came back for me, helped me break out and got me out of Uganda. He’s a brave man. That’s why I don’t want him hurt.’

  ‘Why should he be hurt?’ she asked.

  ‘Because, honey child, I’ve got a powerful sort of gut feeling that you would happily slice three throats in this aeroplane if you could see a buck in it. You’re a hard lady.’

  For a moment he expected her to throw the rest of the soup in his face.

  ‘Of course I’m hard,’ she snapped. ‘I’m a one hundred per cent tempered nickel-steel bitch. And if you want to know something else, Major Black, I don’t like niggers.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Harry, smiling broadly. ‘You, too?’

  ‘They teach you not to like black men in Barberton, Ohio. It’s a hard-working town where jobs are hard to find and a girl learns that she’s got to survive somehow.’

  The tension between them was eased by the slam of the cargo hold hatch closing. Martin emerged and came up on to the flight-deck. His shirt and hands were covered in grease and he was cleaning himself on a piece of cotton waste. He looked at the two of them.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Lazarus has risen. I was reckoning that we would have to bury you at sea.’

  The captain leaned forward athletically over Stubbles’ shoulder and read the fuel gauges. He sat in the engineer’s seat and changed the fuel flow from the outer to inner wing tanks and glanced through the side panels at the four engines. He patted Stubbles playfully on the back and turned back to Sorrel.

  ‘We’ll be crossing the Equator in ten minutes,’ he shouted. ‘Maybe we should have some sort of party.’

  She gave Harry the last spoonful of soup. She took the plastic container and spoon and put them back in the supply cupboard.

  She turned to Harry and said, ‘Now get some more sleep.’

  *

  ‘This is All Kenya Radio broadcasting on short wave. Here is the news. The possibility that the rebel government of Rhodesia will surrender to the weight of African opinion increased today during talks between an envoy of Britain and the Prime Minister of South Africa, Dr Vorster. Mr Ian Smith, the leader of the illegal right-wing racist government of Rhodesia, is expected to meet with the British envoy at some time today or tomorrow.’

  The broadcast was being relayed through the intercom system of Juliet Mike Oscar. They all heard it.

  Martin said, ‘That’s all we need. Trust that bastard. He’s been a traitor for the last eight years and now he’s stabbing us in the back.’ He smiled wryly.

  The announcer continued. ‘During serious rioting in the French occupied territory of Djibouti last night more than forty people, mostly Arabs, were killed by French forces. The cause of the rioting is not known but a spokesman for the Progressive Front in Djibouti said that a spontaneous demonstration of anti-Colonial feeling had been put down in the most brutal way.’

  Martin switched the radio off.

  ‘Well at least there’s not an all stations alert for us,’ he said.

  *

  They were now two hours south of the Equator and heading south by south west, the Kenyan and Tanzanian coastline well to the west, their course taking them directly into the Mozambique Channel. Harry slept and Stubbles dozed. Sorrel sat in the co-pilot’s seat, her eyes shut. Martin stayed awake, keeping a careful watch on all of them; although he knew that what he was doing was deliberate he, too, was tired and had set up in his mind a routine to stop himself from falling into a heavy slumber. It was only too easy at that height.

  He woke Stubbles and gave him the watch. He woke Sorrel and they sat on the floor and talked as they had done soon after the emergency. He was fighting hard to stay totally awake.

  They were sitting on the floor of the flight-deck when they heard a shrill whistle above the engine noise. Stubbles was sitting with two fingers in his mouth. His
left hand was pointing to the orange-coloured radar screen. Martin moved quickly to the captain’s seat.

  ‘I was looking at the weather,’ said Stubbles. ‘Guess what?’

  There was a small dot on the top right hand corner of the rectangular radarscope. Martin adjusted the nose-scanner until the dot appeared in the very centre of the screen. It moved quickly to the left and out of view. Then, mysteriously, it came in view and crossed the scanner lengthwise. It left the screen again.

  ‘At that speed,’ said Martin, ‘it must be a fighter. At our height, about thirty miles. We are closing on it.’

  ‘Well, it could be a routine training exercise,’ said Stubbles in a voice which was giving away nothing. ‘We’re a long way away from any enemies.’

  ‘Come on now, there’s a squadron of MIGs in Mozambique,’ said Martin. ‘We’re just about in range.’

  The dot, bigger now, re-emerged on the screen.

  ‘My guess is that he’s searching for something,’ said Martin. ‘Us, I reckon.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can think of several million bucks’ worth just fifteen feet behind your arse.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  It’s the final pattern in the jig-saw. Now, do we turn and try and hide in that bank of thunderheads over to port? Or do we brazen it out by just going straight ahead and taking no notice?’

  ‘He’s still in the search pattern,’ said Stubbles. ‘He should have us on his radar by now. Jesus, we should be bursting right out of it at this size.’

  The engineer was getting excited. His voice was staccato and even more shrill than normal.

  ‘I could do with a fix,’ said Martin.

  ‘By dead reckoning we are one hundred miles north west of the Comoro Islands, two hundred miles from the Mozambique coast.’

  ‘Nicely, friend Stubbles. First you fly the plane and now you’re navigating. What next?’

  ‘Try me on the horses.’

  ‘I wish I had,’ said Martin in an even tone. ‘Now just hold it, my old son, there she is again.’

  Now the dot on the radar had transferred itself to the tinted windscreen, glinting in the sun, ten miles away. It was flying across their path and turned steeply towards them. The two aircraft closed at a combined air speed of more than a thousand miles an hour.