His nephew, Khalid, often used such language and often ended up arguing with his father (Youssef’s older brother) as a result. As he stared into the frightened eyes of his wife while she cradled their sleeping child, jammed in with everyone else in that dark, claustrophobic cargo hold, he whispered a silent prayer for the boy and for the rest of his extended family, hoping they would all somehow come through it all right.
Youssef had evacuated with most of the other civilians at Fayid in the early hours of that morning, although having ‘friends’ at the officer’s mess meant that he and his family had managed to find a ride in the back of an RAF supply truck rather than make the journey south on foot as had most of the other Egyptians working on base. Prior to the cessation of flight operations due to the sandstorm, they’d suffered through numerous aerial attacks from both the Luftwaffe and the RAI and had also come under long-range artillery fire from advancing Wehrmacht ground units during the initial phase of their departure, while moving south through the southern outskirts of Ismailia.
Most of those present inside that huge, devilish aircraft had no idea of the massacre that had just occurred at the main gates, but they’d certainly been horrified at the sight of many wounded being unloaded from that last truck and manhandled up onto the upper flight deck, many still screaming in agony from their injuries. The tension within the cargo hold was palpable, and the situation quickly escalated into something close to hysteria as the side door was finally closed and the Galaxy began to move, accompanied by a marked increase in the volume of its howling engines.
The muffled blast of the a missile strike moments later, accompanied as it was by a delayed shaking of the aircraft and rumbling through the ground itself, was the final straw for many of the terrified passengers. Pushing, shoving and scuffles began to break out here and there in small groups as some began to lose control, several men of one of the larger groups closer to their position in the nose yelling loudly for them to be released, and that everyone was going to die inside that dark place. Youssef was no fool, and it was clear to him that if the current unrest within the confined space of an aircraft’s cargo hold escalated any further it was very likely to result in the death of everyone on board.
Glancing quickly around, he spotted one of the aircraft’s crewmembers: a tallish man of solid build who wore what appeared to be a sergeant’s rank on his uniform sleeve but also, rather surprisingly to Youssef, carried the olive skin tones and hawkish features common to someone of Arabic descent.
“Excuse, please…” he began in English, nervousness making the words less fluent than he’d normally have managed as his wife clutched desperately at his sleeve, silently pleading him not to become involved. “You are sergeant, yes? You help calm down… calm them down…?”
Former USAF Senior Airman Agrin Sajjadi was a first-generation American whose Iraqi parents had been fortunate enough to escape the persecution of the Hussein Regime during the late 1980s and find resettlement in the United States. Proud to have served in the US Air Force, Sajjadi was also a devout Sunni Muslim whose first words had been in Kurdish rather than English. He also spoke excellent Arabic, although he’d found little practice since the untimely death of both his parents in a car crash five years before, and it was no great stretch for him to switch to that language in response, providing Youssef with an even greater surprise.
“Keeping everyone calm is a fine idea, my friend,” he replied with a thin smile, seeing no point in correcting the man’s incorrect assumption of his rank based on the three stripes on his shoulder. “Accomplishing this may be a more difficult task.” As he spoke, several troopers armed with assault rifles moved into position by the access ladder to the upper deck while Lloyd began barking requests for calm loudly over the general cry and chatter of the crowd, the calls largely ignored being, as they were, in Australian-accented English.
“I always seek the guidance of God in these matters,” Youssef replied with a depth of feeling that some might’ve felt was somewhat beyond his relatively young years. “Perhaps he will show us the way, Insha’Allah. Will you join me in a recitation of the Dala'il al-Khayrat…?
“A fine idea indeed, friend,” Sajjadi smiled broadly, recognising a fellow man of the Sunni faith. “Perhaps Allah in his kindness will forgive us that we have no room to lay down our prayer mats.”
With a smile and without further ado, Youssef closed his eyes and raised his hands in supplication as he began the recitation of one of the most well-known collections of prayers in Islamic culture.
“Praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the World. Allah is enough for me and the best Protector…”
Sajjadi joined in then, also raising his voice to the prayer as they continued together.
“There is no power nor strength except by Allah, the High, the Immense. O Allah, I am free myself of my power and strength in favour of Your power and Your strength...”
For a few moments there was little reaction, with just a few people around them taking note, but with a majority of those crowded within the cargo hold being of the Islamic faith, it was only a relatively short matter of time before the prayer began to spread.
“I draw near to you by the prayer on our master Muhammad, your slave, Prophet and Messenger, the Master of the Messengers, may Allah Almighty bless him and grant him and all of them peace, in obedience to Your command, affirming him, loving him…”
Although there’d been no conscious intention to specifically settle the maddening crowd, a calming influence nevertheless fell across the entire group as more men and women joined the recitation in increasing numbers. The shuddering and engine noise within the hold continued to grow as the aircraft continued to accelerate, yet those within were able to make themselves heard as their numbers grew.
“Bloody hell, Lieutenant,” one of the armed soldiers remarked with disdain in his voice as the (to him) unintelligible chanting grew in volume. “These heathen buggers’ll be bursting into song next…”
“Private, I don’t give a shit if they sing Lili-bloody-Marlene if it calms them down…” Lloyd shot back, mostly hiding the annoyance in his voice over the man’s intolerance as he shouldered his rifle, feeling inwardly very relieved. He momentarily caught Sajjadi’s eye through a sea of chanting refugees as the airman carried on praying and gave an imperceptible nod of approval before turning and disappearing once more up the ladder to the upper deck.
The Galaxy continued to accelerate, the roiling pall of smoke at the far end of the runway drawing ever nearer as the general levels of vibration increased through the airframe. Forward of the wings the sound of the engines wasn’t quite as pronounced as it was aft, yet it was nevertheless still substantial now the four huge turbofans were at full throttle.
“Ground speed niner-zero…” Cathcart, Weems’ co-pilot advised through tight lips as he watched the groundspeed indicator, hands tightly gripping the control yoke between his legs. “Niner-five… one hundred…”
“‘Vee-Two’ approaching,” Weems observed with similar tension, his eyes never leaving the scene ahead through the windshield while his hand remained jammed against the throttle levers as if fearing they might back off of their own accord without his positive reinforcement, “just a few more seconds…”
“We’ll be bloody lucky to get a few more seconds if those bastards back there don’t bloody settle down!” Thorne growled softly under his breath, leaning across in his seat with an ear turned toward the open door at the rear of the flight deck, now able to hear the chatter and general unrest building down below over the howl of the engines. He was as painfully aware as were any of the crew that there was no way they would be able to control the outbreak of a mass panic in such a confined space.
Even as he grimaced at the unpleasant thought however, the cries of fear and anger were suddenly supplanted by a softer but much more organised chanting that was almost too soft to pick up.
“…may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is worthy of that. Accept it from us by
Your grace and make me one of Your righteous slaves…”
Spoken in Arabic that was unintelligible to him, the words were nevertheless quite obviously some kind of prayer. That realisation drew from him an unvoiced mouthing of ‘what the fuck…?’ to no one in particular.
“Some smart bugger’s got ‘em all praying down there,” Lloyd advised with a thin smile as he appeared in the doorway a second or two later, sliding into an empty seat opposite Thorne and slinging a seat belt across his lap. “One of the crew down there’s a Muslim, I think, and he’s joined in too. I’m pretty sure it helped.”
“Couldn’t bloody hurt,” Thorne conceded, now unable to take his own eyes from the runway ahead as smoke clouds filled the windscreen completely. “Need all the help we can get at the moment…”
“We’ll all be shaking hands with Allah shortly if you guys don’t shut the hell up and let us concentrate on flying, Goddammit!” Weems snarled angrily, having trouble concentrating.
“I’ll do my best,” Thorne shot back with a sardonic grin, “but with all this ‘brown-trouser’ business going on, I can’t rule out nervous farting…”
“You asshole…!” Weems growled, desperately trying not to grin as everyone else in the cockpit burst into snorts of laughter, the tension well and truly broken.
“Ground speed one-one-eight…” Cathcart observed, chuckling softly.
“Good enough for me, Goddammit!” Weems replied, instantly serious once more. “Help me out here, Jerry: we’re gonna go for it…!”
Both men hauled back on their control yokes at the same time, appearing to exert much physical effort as the nose of the huge transport shuddered momentarily and then began to rise. A few more desperate, terrifying seconds passed as the Galaxy continued to accelerate, shaking and rattling worse than anything Thorne had previously experienced as its gigantic wings fought to deliver enough lift to get the rest of the aircraft off the ground. And then, suddenly, it was as if the vibration merely disappeared as the twenty-right wheels of its main undercarriage finally broke contact with the ground while they were still perhaps a thousand metres from the end of the runway.
The missile’s point of impact was visible now; a wide, ragged-edged crater at least ten metres across, three or four deep and almost dead-centre in the middle of the landing strip, but that no longer worried Weems now that they were airborne. Of more concern to him was the thick bank of black smoke that dominated the way ahead, boiling and billowing directly across their path.
“Sir, I’m gonna need you to stand in as flight engineer until we get clear… Jimmy was laid up sick back at Tocumwal and we might need a third pair of hands shortly, seein’ as you’re already in the seat ‘n’ all…”
“Flying straight through that’s probably going to be bad…” Thorne observed, reluctantly turning to face the instrument panel at his station. He knew that he wasn’t telling the pilots anything they didn’t know already, but felt the need to voice his concerns anyway.
“Yes, sir… yes it will,” Weems agreed tightly, still concentrating heavily on the difficult take off, “but I don’t have enough airspeed yet to manoeuvre safely at low level. This ain’t a fighter, sir… if I’d wanted this bitch to turn on a dime I’d have needed to submit a request in triplicate, three days in advance…!”
Thorne shut up at that point, deciding that further conversation had no chance of making him feel better as he surreptitiously tightened his seat belt just a little hoping it might calm his nerves. It didn’t help.
Already climbing steeply, the huge Lockheed began to bank to starboard as Weems tried desperately to keep the turn as light as possible in deference to the hundreds of unsecured civilians in the hold below. The cloud of smoke rising from the missile impact ahead was gradually drifting westward with the clearing breeze but its expansion as altitude increased meant that there was still a very real danger of flying through the worst of it as the climbing Galaxy turned slowly away to the east. They hit the cloud at two hundred knots, ash and dust smearing across the windshield in a greasy stain as the transport burst through the other side. Spiralling trails of smoke followed behind it, drawn along by the vortices formed at its wingtips and the overall ‘vacuum’ left in its wake.
Alarms sounded and warning message pop-ups instantly flared across the three large monitor displays that were the Galaxy’s main instrument interfaces. Engines already at less than optimum performance due to the generally unpleasant nature of that hot, sandy environment were ill-prepared to cope with the unexpected ingestion of huge clouds of thick, black smoke that was largely devoid of useable oxygen.
Both turbofans beneath the starboard wing faltered and shuddered, struggling to maintain thrust, while the pair of port turbines stalled completely. The uneven thrust now provided solely by the engines on one side forced Weems to back off the starboard throttles slightly and engage full right rudder to counteract the aircraft’s sudden desire to yaw savagely to port.
“Flame-out on engines one and two…!” Cathcart warned quickly, hands flickering across the controls with practiced professionalism that concealed the fear beneath. “Auto-relight commencing…”
The C-5M’s engines were fitted with an automatic relight function that immediately switched on its combustor ignitors upon detection of a flame-out. There were a succession of soft ‘thuds’ more felt through the airframe than heard as the Galaxy’s automated systems calmly went about the process of attempting a restart, black-grey puffs of partially-burned jet fuel and exhaust ejecting from the rear of engine number one, mounted beneath the outboard nacelle on the port side.
If the auto-relight was unsuccessful, a windmill restart was the next logical option, utilising the kinetic energy of passing air rushing through the engine to rotate the compressor turbines to a fast enough speed to allow restart, much like ‘roll-starting a car’ on a very grand scale. An airspeed of barely 200 knots however placed them at the lower end of the accepted speed range for such a procedure, something both pilots knew all too well, and with just a few hundred feet or so between the aircraft and the ground, there was little margin for error or delay.
“Deploying the ram-air-turbine and the APU,” Weems advised as he fought the controls, considering the odds and working on a ‘Plan-C’ of using compressed air bled off the jet’s auxiliary power unit to force a restart. He doubted they’d have enough time to bring the APU sufficiently up to speed but went through the motions anyway, deciding activity of any kind was better than sitting around waiting to nosedive into the Suez Canal.
Over and over, the engine management system attempted re-ignition, each as unsuccessful as the last as airspeed continued to drop and Weems was forced to lower the nose further to reduce the danger of stalling.
“Come on, you contrary bitch, come on…!” He hissed under his breath, willing the turbines to restart and voicing sentiments felt by all on that flight deck. Two more attempts and … finally… the outboard, portside engine caught and stayed alight, desperately-needed thrust again roaring away behind the huge aircraft as Weems and Cathcart managed to level it out just a hundred feet above the waters of the canal.
“Engine one up and running!” Cathcart almost crowed with elation as a red warning box on his CRT screen suddenly changed back to green.
“We’re okay now, sir,” Weems assured, relief clear in his own voice as the Galaxy settled back into a far more comfortable ride once more. “With three online we’ve got enough thrust to climb at this altitude so long as we don’t need to do anything fancy. As Thorne and Lloyd both released held breaths, he turned back to the co-pilot. “APU’s running now, Jerry... let’s get number two back up too…”
“Contact front… target: Panther… five hundred yards…! Load sabot…!” Knowles called out as calmly as he could muster as no less than five enemy tanks appeared out of the haze and smoke before them, two of them large and deadly P-4A Panthers. The whine of hydraulics accompanied the movement of the turret as it turned slightly to the left and the b
arrel adjusted its elevation.
“On target…!” Ingalls called a moment later, no need for the ranging rifle above the barrel at such short ranges.
“Sabot loaded…!” Toms shouted immediately after, his words accompanied by the metallic rattle of the breech block being slammed home.
“Fire…!”
WHAM! The 105mm main gun recoiled backward in its cradle as the shell left the muzzle ahead of a huge cloud of flame. One of only fifteen carried within the Sentinel’s huge turret bustle, the precious APDS round was the most potent tank-killing round available.
The Armour-Piercing Discarding Sabot round comprised a long, dense 40mm dart of solid tungsten wrapped in a full-calibre ‘shoe’ of plastic petals that imparted spin when travelling down the barrel but was discarded through drag and centrifugal force the moment the round left the muzzle. This enabled the remaining sub-calibre dart to attain incredibly high velocity – usually better than 1,300 metres per second or more – and could effectively double the penetrating power of any given tank gun.
The Panther tank that was the target of their attention never knew what hit it. The tungsten penetrator streaked across the intervening space between the two vehicles in less than half a second and punched straight through the thick, sloped glacis plate of the P-4, slivers of dense metal shearing from it as it burst through the other side and filling the hull and turret with a spray of deadly shrapnel. Turret and hull hatches popped immediately under the force of the impact, streams of black-grey smoke rising from each opening as the tank came to an abrupt halt. No crew bailed out.
The entire tank shuddered and vibrated a moment later as return fire from a P-3E medium struck the Sentinel squarely on the turret face, nowhere near powerful enough to do any real damage but leaving them shaken by the experience all the same.
Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2) Page 92
