I flicked on the radio. ‘Mayday…Mayday…Mayday…’
As I fought to cut back our speed the screeching intensified then was punctuated by a series of high-pitched pings as the tension in the wire increased. I prayed we wouldn’t lose control of the main rotor.
I was barely keeping us airborne. First we’d been netted; now we were being reeled in. It was only a matter of time before the wires would tighten on the exposed tail rotor drive shaft as it spun at over 5,000 rpm; we were about to be garrotted.
I snatched a glance to our right. The hilltop was too far away; I pointed the nose towards the slope, using a rock as a marker, and shoved the cyclic forward.
Prairie grass ten feet in front of us filled the bubble cockpit. We were going in, head on.
Andy went into Pantomime Dame Mode: ‘I’m too young to die…’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ I screamed back.
With an almighty yank back on the cyclic the nose came up forty-five degrees to match the rake of the slope. I kicked us left a little and dumped the collective lever halfway down. The skids hit the hillside hard and for a moment it looked like we’d stuck solid.
Then we began to slide backwards.
‘Nooo…’ Andy yodelled, but before he could draw breath we shuddered to a halt again.
The rock I’d been aiming to use as a chock was stuck behind the left skid and holding us fast.
My right hand shot up to the fuel cut off lever. The engine whine stopped instantly and the screeching began to fade. I pulled the collective up to slow the blades before pulling on the rotor brake.
Silence.
Andy gave me the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
‘Do you have any fucking idea how hard I was working?’ I said. ‘And how close we just came to dying?’
He just kept smiling like a halfwit.
‘Have you got anything to say?’
‘As a matter of fact I have.’ His expression became instantly serious. ‘Can I have a fag in here? Cos my door’s wired closed and I’m gasping…’
He wasn’t wrong. We were trussed like a turkey.
Twenty minutes later our flight commander and the CO came sliding down the hill towards us. After the CO had taken pictures, a technician cut us free so we could assess the damage. The wires had all but severed the tail rotor drive shaft. Steve McQueen would have been proud of us. He’d used the same trick in The Great Escape to snag himself a motorbike.
‘Should have been collected in after firing,’ the CO said. ‘For you two, the war is over.’
I pulled a copy of Low Level Hell from my jacket and waved it at him.
‘The Bible says we need to pick up another bird and get right back out here, sir. The war’s not over yet.’
‘You’d pick a fight with your own shadow, Macy, given half a chance. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.’
A week later our two Gazelles were sitting on a hill, awaiting the battle due to kick off in the small hours of the next morning. This was the big one, as real as it got at BATUS, and I wanted to show what our Gazelles were made of.
We were due to mix it with artillery fire, tank rounds, armed recce cars, mounted machine guns, mortars, Milan anti-tank missiles, jets dropping bombs and our own Lynx helicopters. It was what we had all trained for-as close to a real battle as it was possible to be-and I knew we were more than capable of acquitting ourselves well.
Lieutenant Colonel Iain Thomson was here to validate our regiment during the final BATUS exercise. Tommo was the revered CO of 9 Regiment Army Air Corps. He was a legendary leader and knew how to get the best out of his men, but he was a scary bastard too.
He held the power of life or death-he was there to assess whether we were ready for war fighting. I was determined not to let our side down.
We had a BATS box fitted into the rear of the Gazelle, in place of one of the seats. It would transmit our position at all times to Exercise Control. Excon was the hub of the mock battle, where the invigilators watched the conflict play out on a giant screen.
We had been on the prairie for six weeks and after a disastrous beginning had kicked tanky arse in every battle since. I wanted Tommo and the brass to know how good we were, how fast and low we could go, how quickly we could pick up the enemy and how we could shape the battle for the commanding officer. We were the CO’s scouts and wielded more power than our little helicopter looked capable of.
The bloody ‘Red Tops’ were our only problem-Gazelles painted a horrific shade of anti-collision Day-Glo red, flown by range officers whose job was to ensure that we flew within safety limits. They could hand us a yellow card if we flew into the wrong area or in front of somebody else’s weapon system. Worse still, they’d give away our position by hovering over us at a couple of thousand feet. Because we went fast and low, the ‘enemy’ tanks relied on the Red Tops to track our stealthy battle positions.
Following my first protest the Red Tops were told to fly low and behind us, but the bastards still managed to give us away because they never flew low enough. They needed to see the big picture, to ensure safety procedures were being observed. As a result, the tankies brought more artillery down to shoot us out of the sky. I’d been told quite firmly by Excon to wind my neck in; there is no way I was going into this battle without the Red Top escort. End of story.
If there was one man this side of the pond that could get in their way it was Tommo. I couldn’t ask him because he didn’t know me and would probably tell me to wind my neck in as well, so I told Excon that Tommo didn’t want us given away by Red Tops. I reckoned they wouldn’t dare speak to him, so we’d get to fly alone.
Job done. Or so I thought.
Tommo strode over to the four of us like he was going to convert me between the posts.
I was alongside Andy Wawn. As an ex-tanky he’d taught me a whole lot of Standard Operating Procedures-how to find his old mates, interpret their intentions and lull them into inescapable ambushes. Andy was a cheeky fucker who loved a confrontation. He cupped his hand around my right ear. ‘You know when I said “we” should bluff Excon?’ he whispered. ‘Well that was like a Royal “we”. I’m just the chauffeur here. Better get your boxing gloves on, Macy.’
‘You lot,’ Tommo announced, hands on hips, ‘will be followed by Red Tops in the morning.’
I heard my flight commander stifle a groan. Dom didn’t know I’d bluffed Excon; he thought we’d been given permission.
Man or mouse time, Macy. I took a step forward.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dom wince as I fronted up to the CO. ‘Sir, every battle we’ve ever been in those Red Tops have given our position away.’
Tommo bristled. ‘And you are?’
‘Staff Sergeant Macy, sir.’
‘Well, Staff, I’ll just get them to fly low level behind you. How about that?’
‘Sir, we’ve tried that and they still give our position away. At dawn we’ll be looking into the sun and won’t be able to see very well, so we’ll be constantly on the move. Having them there is like having the hand of God pointed at us.’ I paused. ‘The tankies spot them every time…’
Tommo looked at me much as he might an insect moments before he crushed it. ‘I don’t see where this conversation is going, Staff Macy, do you? This exercise is fucking dangerous enough.’
My mind was fizzing.
‘I couldn’t agree more, sir. The Red Tops will be