Away Boarders

by Daniel V Gallery

  He went back to his stool, picked up his mike, and called the leader of the combat air patrol, which consisted of four armed fighters circling at thirty thousand feet over the ship.

  "Tom Cat One. Tom Cat One," he said. "We have bogey approaching from zero nine zero. Estimated altitude forty thousand. Ground speed about three hundred knots. Intercept and identify. Over."

  "America, this is Tom Cat One. Roger," came the answer. "Understand bogey bearing zero nine zero at forty thousand, ground speed 300. Intercept and identify. I am on my way."

  On the big board a blip identified as four fighters started out from the center of the board to meet the incoming bogy.

  Five minutes later, Tom Cat One called in and reported, "We have bogey on our intercept radars." A minute later he called, "Tallyho - bogey is in sight - altitude forty-two thousand feet. Closing to identify."

  Two minutes later, Tom Cat One came in again: "America, this is Tom Cat One. Bogey is a Russian Pushkovik. We have him surrounded and are flying formation on him. I am directly astern at fifty yards. He is not carrying any bombs on his wings. Over."

  "Okay, Tom Cat - good work," said the CIC officer. Then, throwing a couple of switches to the bridge and flag plot, he said, "Report to the Captain and Admiral that a Russian Pushkovik is coming in at forty-two thousand feet. We have intercepted him with four fighters. He has no external bombs. He will be over ship in fifteen minutes."

  Soon the Captain was down on the flag bridge, consulting with the Admiral. "Do you want me to launch any more fighters?" he asked.

  "No," said the Admiral. "I see you've got four on the catapults ready to launch. That's enough for the time being."

  "Any special instructions for Tom Cat One?" asked the Captain.

  "No-o-o," said the Admiral. "I think our regular rules of engagement cover the case adequately. So long as he doesn't molest us, we simply give him close escort and keep our guns ready. If he opens his bomb bay near the fleet - we shoot him down."

  "Yes sir," said the Captain. "My boys understand that."

  A few minutes later, Tom Cat called in. "We have fleet in sight, on the horizon. Russian has throttled down and is descending."

  Soon a formation of five planes appeared dead ahead, heading right at the fleet at an altitude of three thousand feet. They circled the America several times, one fighter just a wing span behind each wing tip of the Russian and two drawing a bead on him from directly astern. Then the Russian descended to mast-head height and made several passes around the America at close range. Finally he flew past the starboard wing of the bridge close aboard, gave a friendly salute, waggled his wings as he passed the bridge, and flew off to the east.

  "Well," observed the Admiral to the Captain as he disappeared over the horizon, "he ought to bring home some pretty good pictures from this trip. Send that flight leader of yours up to flag plot when he lands. I want to have a word with him."

  "Aye aye, sir," said the Captain.

  Later the Admiral was talking to Tom Cat One on the flag bridge. "What did that chap do when you intercepted him?" he asked.

  "He just waved - and shook hands with himself," said the pilot.

  "Was there anything unusual about his behavior?"

  "No sir. He just went on about his business as if he had just as much right up there as we had. He didn't seem at all concerned when we closed in on him."

  "Did he man his guns?"

  "No sir. He didn't have any guns. He had photographers in both his turrets, and they got a lot of close-up pictures of us."

  "Yes - and they got some good ones of this ship - and we got some of him, too."

  "Incidentally, there's a Russian task group out there about 150 miles east of us," said Tom Cat. "Two heavy cruisers and six destroyers."

  "Hmmmm," observed the Admiral.

  That evening after sunset, pilots were being briefed for the next flight scheduled to take off in half an hour. The pilots, wearing their G suits, sat in the ready room, sipping coffee and facing the briefing officer with the moving visual tape from CIC behind him.

  'The weather is CAVU," said the briefer, "and predicted to remain so. Moonrise is at 2100, three-quarters full. There will be a four-plane combat patrol stationed at forty thousand feet over the ship. All planes will carry a full load of ammunition, plus two sidewinder missiles. If you make any intercepts, the rules of engagement are close escort with two directly astern. If plane is definitely identified as Russian or Egyptian and if he opens his bomb bay in vicinity of our ships, shoot him down. Any questions?"

  "Yeah," said the flight leader. "How can you tell if he opens his bomb bay at night?"

  "You'll have almost a full moon tonight. You shouldn't have any trouble seeing his bomb-bay doors."

  "Hmph," said the leader.

  "In addition to the combat air patrol," continued the briefer, "we are sending out one reconnaissance flight. That's you, Wigglesworth. You are to fly at forty-five thousand feet and cover a sector fifty miles on each side out to two hundred miles to the east. The Russian task group was out there this morning, and you may run across them this evening. Flying at forty-five thousand you'll be on our radar screen at all times. Your plane is equipped with an infrared camera which is all programmed for this flight. All you gotta do is fly out on course 080 to two hundred miles, fly south for fifty miles, and come back in on course 280. Any questions?"

  "Yeah," said Wigglesworth. "What ships have the Russians got in that group?"

  "Two heavy cruisers and six destroyers. They will stick out like a sore thumb on your radar scope."

  Presently word came over the squawk box, "Pilots, man your planes." The pilots slipped into their Mae Wests, gathered up their hard helmets, and trotted up to the flight deck.

  It was a dark night and the moon hadn't come up yet. But the flight deck was lit up like the playing field at Yankee Stadium by large batteries of floodlights shining down from the island.

  The four planes of the combat air patrol were already parked on the catapults and went off first. As the fourth one roared down the deck, the taxi director pointed his lighted wands at Wigglesworth and crossed them, meaning, "Hold your brakes." Then he swept his wands down from side to side, telling the plane captain to pull his chocks. The plane captain crouched underneath the plane, yanked out the chocks, and scrambled into the gallery walkway with them.

  Then the taxi director, walking backward, made beckoning motions with his wands. Willy released his brakes and taxied slowly up the deck. Pointing at one wheel with his wand and then another for Willy to hold his brakes, the taxi director maneuvered him up to the catapult. The crew swarmed around him, lined him up, hooked up the breaking link, and adjusted the tow bridle. Meanwhile, Willy ran down the final items in the checkoff list and shifted his gaze to the cat officer.

  As the various members of the cat crew finished their jobs, they gave a thumbs-up signal to the cat officer and scrambled clear. As the last one dropped into the gallery walkway, the cat officer faced Willy, held one lighted wand overhead, and made vigorous stirring motions with it. Willy shoved his throttle against the stop, his jet roared up to full power, and he stuck his fist out, thumb up

  The cat officer raised his other wand and Willy hit the afterburner. It lit off with a great roar, and his plane strained against the breaking link and trembled. Willy braced himself, saluted, and went hurtling down the catapult and off into the darkness. As he felt his wheels leave the deck, he hauled back on the stick, flipped the wheel-retract lever, and concentrated on his gauges in the cockpit, holding his wings level and his nose up.

  The first five hundred feet are the hardest on a night launch. The penalty for making small mistakes close to the water is severe. After you pass five hundred feet, it's just a milk run. As his altimeter wound past 500, Willy throttled back a little, relaxed, and got ready to deliver the milk.

  He climbed to forty-five thousand feet, circling the task group, throttled back to cruising speed, squared away on course 080 and chec
ked out with CIC. 'Tom Cat 5 at forty-five thousand starting outbound on course 080," he said.

  A matter of fact "Roger" came back from CIC.

  It was a clear, dark night as aerology had promised, with a brilliant array of stars overhead and the glow from the impending moonrise lighting up the eastern horizon. With his plane on auto pilot and his gauges all reading normal, there wasn't much for Willy to do but sit there and admire the sky. "It's an easy way to make a living," he observed to himself, as he cruised along.

  Two hundred miles out he turned south and called in, "America, this is Tom Cat 5 at forty-five thousand feet - turning to south leg."

  "Tom Cat 5, Roger," replied America.

  Shortly after turning south, Willy was singing softly to himself when he noted a group of small blips just coming onto the edge of his radar scope dead ahead.

  "That will be the Russian task group," he observed to himself. "I'll be passing right over them. I'll wait till I get a little closer before I report 'em."

  A few minutes later, he was singing:

  "Now flying's a dangerous game, so they tell;

  A few flipper turns and you're headed for hell;

  The saddest of sights is a young aeronaut;

  Attempting to pilot a plane when he's taut;

  So we'll hoist a few cases, we'll . . ."

  At this point there was a blinding flash, the plane shuddered as if it had hit a brick wall, and Willy was knocked cold.

  Half a minute later, Willy came to. His plastic cockpit hood was shattered and he was obviously spinning violently. The cockpit was dark and the only sound was the wind whistling through his shattered windshield. There was no vibration and no engine noise. His engine was dead. He moved his stick and kicked the rudder, but there was no response. The controls were slack.

  S.O.P. in the jet jockey trade when you find yourself in a situation like this is to consider that your contract with the government to fly that airplane has expired, and to bail out. He reached up to pull the face curtain down in front of his face before bailing out, but it wasn't there. He hit the eject button and the explosive charge propelled him out into the night, seat and all.

  After a couple of end-over-end somersaults, the seat flew apart and left Willy still tumbling with no visible means of support. Willy thought fast. He had no idea how long he had been knocked out or how much altitude he had lost during the blackout. He fumbled for the ring of his chute and was about to pull it when he got a glimpse of the moon just beginning to peek over the horizon and realized he was still pretty high. If you pull your chute at too high an altitude, you arc apt to freeze in the subzero weather as you float down. And if your emergency oxygen bottle doesn't work, you can die from lack of oxygen in the thin air. Willy's chute had a barometric element in it that was supposed to trip it at fifteen thousand feet. So Willy decided to wait a little while.

  Soon he stopped tumbling and was falling at teiminal velocity in spread-eagle fashion, face down. Below him he saw a ball of fire descending, leaving a trail of sparks behind it - evidently the wreckage of his plane.

  He was beginning to think that maybe his automatic chute opener was stuck when it suddenly pulled the pins on his seat pack. Out came the pilot chute, dragging his main chute behind it, which opened with a crack like a five-inch gun. Willy was suddenly jerked upright, decelerated, and left swinging there at fifteen thousand feet.

  It takes almost fifteen minutes to come down in a chute from fifteen thousand feet. During this descent, Willy had time to reflect on his state. He had checked in with the ship when he turned south only about ten minutes before his plane came apart. At forty-five thousand feet he should have been clearly visible on their big search scope, so they should have a reasonably good idea of where he went down. He had a one-man life raft with a lot of special equipment attached to the seat pack of his chute. As soon as he hit the water he would have to get that out, inflate it, and scramble aboard. They would probably find him by 10 A.M. next morning. "Things could be a lot worse," he thought, as he floated down.

  By the time he hit the water the moon was well up over the horizon. He unbuckled his harness as he neared the water and squirmed out of it as he hit, hanging on to it with one hand so his rubber boat couldn't get away. Soon he had it inflated and scrambled aboard. In the process of doing so he lost overboard the little radio transmitter with which it was equipped. "Well," he thought, "what the hell. I don't have to tell them I'm down. They probably know it by now, anyway. They can find me tomorrow without the transmitter."

  Meanwhile, back on the America, the operator was watching Tom Cat 5 on his scope shortly after the report that he had turned south when suddenly the blip disappeared from his scope. He steadied his beam on the last spot where he had seen the blip, turned up the gain, and still got no return.

  "Tom Cat 5 has gone off my scope," he reported to the CIC officer.

  "At what range," asked the officer.

  "At two hundred miles," said the operator.

  "Hmmm," said the officer. "He was flying at forty-five thousand. We should get a good solid blip on him at that range. Keep searching that bearing."

  Then, picking up his mike, he said, "Tom Cat 5, Tom Cat 5, America calling. Over."

  No answer. He called again several times. No answer and still no blip on the radar scope. He called the bridge and reported, "Tom Cat 5 has disappeared from our scopes and does not answer calls."

  Soon the Admiral and Captain had their heads together. "I suggest we run east all night at thirty knots, sir," said the Captain. "That will put us right in the area where he went down by sunrise. We can give the area a thorough combing, starting at daylight."

  "Okay," said the Admiral. "That's what we'll do. Have you any idea what may have happened to him?"

  "No sir, we don't. He checked in with us by radio about eight minutes before and everything was normal. Then suddenly he just disappeared off the screen. No mayday - and no answer to our calls."

  "Obviously whatever it was happened suddenly," said the Admiral. "The place where he disappeared is where the Russian task group was this morning."

  "Yes sir," said the Captain. "It's quite possible the Russians shot him down with one of the SAM's they got on those new cruisers."

  "In which case the odds are that he didn't survive, so we'll never know what happened," observed the Admiral.

  Next morning the task group combed the area with the whole air group. You might think that with fifteen ships and one hundred planes over the area all day they couldn't help finding Willy. But a one-man life raft is a very small object and the sea is big. Three or four planes passed nearly over Willy, and several times during the day he had the upper works of ships visible on the horizon. But they didn't see him.

  The searchers did find an oil slick. But that could have been caused by many things. They found no wreckage. By the end of the day they were convinced that Willy had disappeared without trace, and abandoned the search.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Leave Malta

  Back on LCU 1124 they were getting ready to get underway from Malta. Fatso and Scuttlebutt were standing on the starboard wing of the bridge and Adams was at the wheel. Presently the Professor yelled up from the well deck, "All ready for getting underway, Cap'n."

  Fatso said casually to Adams, "You think you can take her out?"

  "Sure," said Adams.

  "Okay. You've got her," said Fatso.

  Adams walked over to the port wing and yelled down at the well deck, "Cast off aft. Hold the bowline."

  Then he went back to the wheel, put his rudder hard over to the left and kicked his starboard engine ahead. The ship took a strain on the bowline and the stern began to swing out. As it cleared the cruiser astern, Adams kicked both engines astern and yelled down on deck, "Cast off in the bow."

  The bowline came in and the ship backed out into the harbor. As he started to swing toward the entrance, a tug with a barge in tow came out of a ship ahead of them. Adams reached up for the whi
stle cord, gave it two yanks, cut under the stern of the barge, and headed for the entrance.

  "By gawd," observed Fatso to Scuttlebutt, "the guy does know how to handle a boat. Even knows the rules of the road. Maybe we can make something of this guy."

  "Humph," observed Scuttlebutt.

  As they cleared the entrance they came to course 090 and squared away heading for Iraklion in Crete.

  At lunch that day they were listening to the radio news from home. ''Washington: The President announced that efforts to control inflation are succeeding. The cost of living only rose one percent last month. There are signs that the economy is cooling off but the administration does not foresee a depression. The stock market took another plunge yesterday and hit the lowest point in the past six years."

  "New York: The New York post office is swamped by the flood of mail piling up on account of the postal strike. The garbage men, railroads, and air controllers are also on strike, all demanding higher wages on account of the increase in the cost of living. The President announced plans to call out the National Guard to move the mails."

  "How the hell are you going to stop inflation when everybody strikes for higher pay?" demanded Scuttlebutt.

  "When the cost of living goes up, you gotta have more pay, don't you?" observed the Judge.-

  "Does the cost of living go up because they get more pay or do they want more pay because the cost of living went up? Which comes first, the hen or the egg?" demanded Scuttlebutt.

  "Well, they're going to hafta do something to stop these strikes," said the Professor. "They go on strike and get a raise in pay, so the cost of living goes up and nobody is any better off than they were in the first place."

  "The only way you can stop them is with wage and price controls," said the Judge. "And that goes against our whole free-enterprise system."

  "Well, all the big corporations keep on making more money, so the workers are entitled to more pay too, aren't they?" demanded Webfoot.

  Adams, who had just come off wheel watch, was just finishing his lunch. "I heard a storv once that explains this strike business," he said. "It seems that back in the days before the AF of L and the CIO got together, there were these two Italian boys. One of them belonged to the AFL and one to the CIO, and they were arguing about the respective merits of their two unions.