Hunter Squadron

by Robert Jackson

  Their meal over, they set off on the return journey to base, taking the same route. As they passed the various defensive positions, Yeoman noticed that the men seemed far more alert and businesslike, although whether this was merely for show he had no way of telling.

  The jungle closed around them again. Weary now, hot and sticky, they spoke little, and Yeoman felt almost relieved when it started to rain, the big drops hissing down between the trees and pounding on the metal bonnet of the lurching vehicle, raising little puffs of steam as they evaporated. The occupants were soaked within seconds, but Yeoman knew that they would dry out just as quickly when the rain stopped. In the meantime, the sudden coolness was bliss.

  The rain’s attendant frustration, for Yeoman, was that it made it difficult to light his pipe, for the tobacco in the bowl was damp. He grinned at Bright, who was seated opposite him in the rear of the vehicle.

  ‘Do me a favour, Norman,’ he said. ‘Lean forward a bit, will you, and help me shield my matches until I get this thing going?’

  The two men bent forward to form an arch, their heads touching. The Land-Rover, negotiating a marshy patch, was almost at a standstill.

  The burst of automatic fire crackled inches above the bent backs of the two RAF officers and sent sodden chips flying from the tree trunks beside the track. In a movement that felt like slow motion, but which was in fact an instinctive lightning reaction, Yeoman seized Bright and dragged him to the floor of the Land-Rover. They lay there breathing heavily, waiting for the next burst of gunfire, but there was no sound apart from the hissing rain and the cries of startled forest creatures.

  ‘Got to get out of here,’ Yeoman said. ‘I’ll unfasten the tailboard. When it drops, get out as fast as you can. Dive behind the biggest tree you can find. Check your revolver and make sure it’s okay.’

  Bright nodded, then said, ‘What about the other two?’

  Yeoman glanced towards the front of the Land-Rover, where Hoskins had been sitting beside the driver. There was no sign of either man.

  ‘Looks as though they’ve gone already,’ Yeoman said, cautiously reaching out to unfasten the metal toggles that held the tailboard in position. The board dropped with a metallic clang and Bright threw himself out into the mud, closely followed by his commanding officer.

  Yeoman rolled clear of the track, scratching himself on some thorns, and took refuge among some tree roots, dragging out the Colt .45 pistol which he carried in preference to the standard issue Smith and Wesson .38. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bright, jungle fatigues spattered with sticky mud, head well down behind a tree trunk. Apart from the cacophony of the jungle creatures, there was no sound other than the mutter of the Land-Rover’s engine, which was still running.

  Carefully, pistol in hand, Yeoman kitten-crawled towards Bright until he was in whispering distance.

  ‘See anything, Norman?’

  Bright shook his head. ‘Not a thing. The shots must have come from over there.’ He indicated a tangle of brush, some twenty or thirty yards off the track on the other side of the stationary Land-Rover. There was no movement from that direction.

  Yeoman looked around, searching for some kind of support from Hoskins and the driver, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Well,’ he murmured, ‘we can’t stay here for ever. Look, do you think you can work your way along the track a bit? I’ll do the same in the opposite direction. We’ll be able to keep each other in sight. When I raise my hand, run like hell across the track into the cover of those big trees over there and I’ll make for that clump of undergrowth to the left of the spot where you think the fire came from. If there is still anyone there, we might be able to force him out into the open. But mind how you go — and if you spot a target, make sure it isn’t me. I’ll be approaching from the opposite direction. And mind you don’t trip over Hoskins. I’ve no idea where the silly bugger is.’

  ‘Okay. I’m on my way.’

  The two men began to crawl in opposite directions until they were separated by fifty yards or so. Yeoman halted and looked back; Bright’s face was a pale blur among a screen of grasses. Taking a deep breath, Yeoman gathered his legs under him and, grasping his Colt firmly in his right hand, signalled to the other man with his left.

  As though on springs, they both burst through the grassy screen that fringed the track and flung themselves across the few yards to the other side, their feet squelching in the clinging mud, bent double in fearful expectation of another burst of gunfire. It never came. Panting, his heart pounding with reaction as much as with the effort of his sprint across the road, Yeoman leaned against the wet bark of a tree trunk and gathered himself together.

  Wiping rain and sweat out of his eyes, he peered round the tree at his objective, the patch of brush designated by Bright. In the background, the Land-Rover’s engine still hummed.

  Yeoman took a deep breath and dashed forward to the cover of another tree, from where he could get a better view of the target. Everything seemed peaceful. Through the rain he caught a glimpse of Bright, ducking behind a tree on the far side. The squadron leader was much closer to the brush than himself.

  Suddenly, he saw Bright emerge from behind his tree and stand in full view, his revolver lowered, and for a moment he thought that his companion had taken leave of his senses. Then Bright looked up and waved at him, and his voice, deadened by the rain and the surrounding trees, reached him faintly.

  ‘Come on. It’s all right. Take a look at this.’

  Still fearful of a trap, Yeoman went forward cautiously, his eyes striving to penetrate the gloom of the jungle. Nothing stirred, and he reached Bright unharmed. The squadron leader pointed at something that lay among the tangle of undergrowth.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ he asked.

  The man was dead: there was no doubt about that. He lay on his back, in perfectly regimental attitude, legs together and arms by his sides. Across his chest rested the barrel of a British-made Sterling sub-machine-gun. He was dressed in drab, olive-green fatigues, the front of which was drenched with blood that still oozed sickeningly from a mouth-like gash just below the man’s chin. He was an African, although his skin seemed lighter in hue than that of the local people.

  Yeoman felt his spine tingle, and could not resist an urge to look over his shoulder. The rain-swept jungle stared back at him.

  ‘Do you think it was Hoskins who did this, sir?’ Bright said quietly, his gaze riveted on the dead man. Yeoman shook his head.

  ‘I doubt it. I’ve a feeling he’s on the other side of the road, somewhere.’

  As though in response to Yeoman’s comment, the portly figure of Colonel Hoskins suddenly materialized through the rain some distance away along the road, closely followed by the driver. The two of them made for Bright and Yeoman, in response to the latter’s shout. Hoskins, Yeoman noted, did not seem unduly surprised to see the dead man but he bent down over the body and examined it thoroughly.

  ‘Do you recognize him?’ Yeoman wanted to know. Hoskins shook his head emphatically.

  ‘No, old boy. Absolutely not. No idea who he is. Not one of our chaps, though. A deserter from across the river, perhaps. Good thing his marksmanship wasn’t up to scratch, what?’

  ‘Where did you get to?’ Yeoman enquired mildly. Hoskins looked extremely embarrassed. ‘Oh, well ... just decided to scout ahead along the road a bit, in case there were any more of the beggars about. Sound tactics, y’know.’ He frowned. ‘Can’t think how the fellow came to have his throat cut, though. Bit of a puzzle, don’t you think?’

  Yeoman was forced to agree with him. ‘Whoever did it must have moved very quickly,’ he said. Bending down, he gingerly searched the corpse’s sodden pockets, but they were empty.

  ‘Nothing to say who he might have been. Do you think we ought to take him back with us?’ Yeoman asked.

  Hoskins looked more than a little horrified. ‘Good God, no, old chap. Leave him here. The ants will make short work of him. There won’t be a
bone in sight by the morning. We’ll take his gun, though. That’s valuable.’

  Hoskins retrieved the weapon and, without another word, squelched back towards the Land-Rover, followed by the others. For the second time in a few hours, the army officer’s face wore a strange expression; the same expression that had fleeted across it immediately after the night-time attack on Yeoman the night before. Once again, Hoskins’ features betrayed annoyance and anger, but this time there was a third ingredient. Fear.

  Chapter Five

  THE TWIN-JET ENGLISH ELECTRIC CANBERRA CAME slanting down from the north-east, its wings, caught in a shaft of watery sunlight, flashing silver against the dark green backdrop of Warambe’s forested mountains as it curved in to make its approach to the airstrip.

  Yeoman had just completed a stint of cockpit readiness when it arrived, and he paused, helmet in hand, to watch its landing. The touchdown was perfect, the pilot leaving himself plenty of space on the relatively short runway. The aircraft turned on to the narrow taxi strip, the note of its engines rising again to a shrill whistle as the pilot opened the throttles to obtain just enough power to keep the aircraft moving. It taxied in and was marshalled into position close to the line of Hunters.

  The Canberra was the PR7 model of the famous jet bomber, designed for high-level photographic reconnaissance. It was uncamouflaged, the natural metal finish of its wings and fuselage being broken only by white squares, with the letters ‘UN’ painted on them in blue, where the national markings ought to have been.

  Any curiosity about which air force actually owned the Canberra, however, was soon dispelled. The hatch in the fuselage side swung open and a man, presumably the navigator, stepped out. He wore a ‘bone-dome’ flying helmet, but the pilot, who followed him, sported a turban above a hawk-like face featuring a dark beard and a bristling moustache. As Yeoman approached, he noted that the epaulettes of the pilot’s flying overall bore the rank insignia of a wing commander.

  The fierce eyes took in Yeoman’s own rank badges, and the pilot’s hand came up to the turban in salute. Yeoman extended his own hand, smiling, and introduced himself. The other smiled back.

  ‘My name is Ronald Engineer,’ he said. ‘An unlikely combination, but my great-grandmother was English and the male Engineers have had at least one English forename ever since. Tradition, and all that.’

  The Indian Air Force officer’s accent was fruitily English, with nothing more than a faint undertone of his native land. Yeoman guessed — and later had it confirmed — that Wing Commander Engineer was a product of the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell.

  Engineer introduced his navigator, a flying officer named Sharma, and the three men walked together towards the flight hut while ground crew of the Hunter detachment busied themselves in checking over the Canberra.

  ‘I had word that you were coming,’ Yeoman said, ‘although I must say I hadn’t expected you so soon. I’m delighted you’re here, though; we’re desperately short of photo-reconnaissance, and indeed of all types of intelligence. I hope you can fill some gaps for us.’

  The fact that the photo-recce Canberra belonged to the Indian Air Force came as a surprise to Yeoman; he had expected that an RAF aircraft would have been sent in response to his signal for help. Engineer clarified the position, telling Yeoman that his country would shortly be providing an air component to support the United Nations forces in the Congo; this would consist, initially, of four Canberra bombers, which would operate in conjunction with the Swedish J-29 fighter squadron. It would, he explained, be quite legal for his own Canberra to overfly areas of the Congo, for it would be doing so with United Nations sanction.

  It was two days now since the episode in the jungle, and in the intervening period the Warambe defence forces had been substantially bolstered by the arrival of 500 men of the Cumbrian Regiment, flown down from Kenya. A further 1,500 were scheduled to follow. The first contingent was now deployed at strategic points inland, although a few had been assigned to the river line to keep an eye on the Warambe Rifles.

  Yeoman felt much reassured now that the British troops had begun to arrive, but there was further reassurance, accompanied by another surprise, in the offing.

  A couple of hours after the arrival of the Indian Canberra, two twin-engined Vickers Valetta transports landed on the airfield unannounced, except for a brief radio call requesting Group Captain Yeoman personally — and alone — to meet the leading aircraft. Mystified, Yeoman jumped into a Land-Rover and drove across the field to where the Valettas were parked, as far away as possible from the building and close to where the airfield perimeter was bounded by a strip of forest. As he drew up, he was just in time to see thirty or forty men, dressed in dark green jungle kit, disappearing quickly into the screen of trees.

  Two men were standing by the nose of the first Valetta, awaiting his arrival, and he felt a sudden surge of pleasure as he recognized the shorter of the two. A lieutenant-colonel now, Christopher Swalwell looked no older than when Yeoman had last seen him; that had been four years ago, when Swalwell had commanded an SAS detachment in Muramshir.

  Swalwell saluted and shook hands warmly with Yeoman, then turned to introduce the man at his side, a tall, sallow-faced individual who wore the red beret of the Parachute Regiment.

  ‘This is Major Trevor Jones,’ he said, ‘who is to be my adjutant for the duration of this operation. He’s known as Danglin ’Jones to one and all.’

  ‘Danglin’?’ Yeoman queried, and Swalwell grinned.

  ‘His parachute got caught in a two-hundred-foot tree in Malaya once, and he was there for two days before somebody found him and got him down. His language, as they say, was choice. Isn’t that so, Danglin’?’

  ‘I was not amused,’ Jones replied in a hollow voice. ‘My balls still ache at the mere mention of it.’

  Yeoman laughed and pumped Jones’ hand. ‘Well, welcome to Warambe, Danglin’. And it’s good to see you again, Chris.’ He pointed a thumb at the forest, into which the occupants of the two Valettas had melted like shadows.

  ‘What are your hooligans up to?’

  ‘Let’s just call it “covert operations” for the time being,’ Swalwell said. ‘I’ll explain in a bit more detail later.’

  Yeoman nodded. ‘Right. Just one thing, though. You’ll shortly be meeting a chap called Colonel Hoskins. He’s the officer commanding the Warambe Rifles, and he’s a bit of a queer fish. If I were you, I shouldn’t give anything away. I can’t explain it, but I’ve an uneasy feeling about him.’

  Swalwell looked mysterious for a moment, then said, ‘Don’t worry. I know all about Hoskins.’ Abruptly, he changed the subject. Indicating the Valettas, he said, ‘These chaps will be taking off again more or less right away. The crews are staying inside. All they want is to be topped up with fuel. Can you arrange that?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll have to fix it with the civilian establishment, because all we’ve got is AVTUR.’ He named the kerosene-based fuel used for the jets. ‘We’ll call in at Air Traffic on the way over.’

  During the drive back across the airfield, Yeoman told Swalwell and Jones about the two attempts on his life, and the mystery surrounding the demise of the second would-be assassin. Swalwell did not seem in the least surprised.

  ‘There are obviously things afoot of which we know nothing,’ was the only comment he made.

  After making the necessary arrangements for refuelling the Valettas, Yeoman drove the new arrivals to the hotel in the neighbouring township where, after lunch, he briefed them on the current situation. Afterwards, he went into close conference with Wing Commander Engineer, and the two of them worked out the details of the forthcoming reconnaissance mission over Kerewata and its environs.

  Engineer knew his business very well, as Yeoman soon discovered when the two of them pored over the available maps of the target area. The sortie would take place an hour after dawn, when the sun would be in a favourable position to cast shadows of any camouflaged objects on the ground; for max
imum effect, the Indian pilot planned to make two runs over the target airfield, the first at twenty-five thousand feet. If there was no sign of opposition, he would make a rapid descent to fifteen thousand and overfly the airfield from west to east, diving to build up speed for the run home. To cover his retreat, Yeoman would put a section of four Hunters over the river at twenty thousand feet, but he emphasized that he would not be able to cross the river to intervene if the Canberra ran into trouble. Engineer was unperturbed, claiming that the Canberra could outmanoeuvre just about anything if it was properly handled.

  Engineer and Sharma had few qualms about the sortie when they took off on schedule the following morning, climbing away to the east to reach the Canberra’s operating height before turning on a reciprocal heading towards their target. Four and a half miles below, the river that separated Warambe from the Congo wound snake-like through folds of green and ochre.

  Engineer headed straight for the target, which was not difficult to locate. A couple of miles from the airfield, the town of Kerewata lay shrouded in a mist of smoke from morning cooking-fires. The Canberra was rock-steady, only a hiss of air and the Machmeter reading of .7 betraying its progress.

  The pilot completed his run at twenty-five thousand feet, continued on a westerly heading for some distance and then turned, extending the Canberra’s dive brakes to lose height rapidly. There was a slight buffeting as the Mach number increased, then Engineer levelled out at fifteen thousand feet to overfly the target in the opposite direction, cameras in action once more. This was the dangerous part of the operation, because the aircraft was flying directly into the sun; the light was blinding, making it hard to keep an adequate lookout. In addition, cloud was starting to build up around the target area, with billowing white cumulus tops already rising to the Canberra’s height over to the left, beyond the town.

  With the naked eye, Engineer could see no sign of movement on the airfield below, or on the roads that led to it; the cameras might tell a different story.