Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

When Sam got the call he was on his feet in an instant, and on the run down to Nui Dat’s airbase. Even before he reported to the duty officer he knew there was a problem: there were only two helicopters on the field, and one — Harper’s — was being serviced. In the adjoining crewroom he heard Harper’s voice raised in argument with his fellow airmen. He walked to the door in time to see Seymour remonstrating with Harper.

‘Sir, let some other squadron do the rescue.’

‘We’re the closest. That’s why we got asked,’ Harper said.

One of the other men, Tom Pike, groaned. ‘We’re whacked, Sir.’

‘Come on, guys,’ Harper pleaded. He turned to Prick Preston. ‘You’ve got a full tank, Preston.’

‘Listen,’ said Preston, ‘we don’t owe nobody anything and neither do you. You’ve done your job. Forget it. Seymour’s right — there must be someone else to do the pick-up. Live to fly another day.’

Sam saw the look on Harper’s face. He watched as Harper picked up a chair and hurled it across the room. Before Preston could move, Harper had him by the collar of his flying jacket.

‘Give me your keys, Preston. Give me the goddam keys. And you —’ he pointed angrily at Frank Seymour, ‘you get saddled up. We’ve got a job to do.’

Harper was off at a fast walk. When he came through the door and saw Sam standing there he came to a standstill. His eyes narrowed.

‘You’re not going to tell me that you’re the spare?’

‘I’m here to do a job. That’s all you need to know.’

‘Well, don’t get under my feet, that’s all I’ve got to say to you, Kiwi.’

As they left, Sam heard someone swearing and shouting. He looked back and saw that two of the other men, led by Pike, were shambling after Harper.

‘Do you always have to show you’ve got big nuts?’ Pike said to Harper. ‘Do you always have to be a hero, you fuck !’

In the chopper Harper hit the trigger. A high-pitched whine began. He fuelled the igniters and the engine wound up to a start. Two minutes later, he put the chopper into fast idle, warming up. He did the usual radio check.

‘Tower, this is Woody Woodpecker. We’re lifting off.’

The engines roared. The chopper lifted off the ground. Above, two Skyraiders cruised in from their orbit to join the mission.

Seymour had his headset on.

‘Uh-oh,’ he said. ‘Sir, the odds have just gone up. One of the F-4s is standing by and can see the enemy advancing on the ground, but he’s only got air-to-air missiles on board. They know we’ve got a man down. The enemy must have fixed his position from the emergency transmission.’

Sam watched as Harper nodded.

‘Tell that F-4 to confirm to Gonzalez that a search and rescue is in progress. Get in touch with those Skyraiders and request fire support. What’s their call sign?’

Seymour laughed. ‘MacDuff. And they have confirmed they will suppress any enemy ground fire at the rescue site.’

‘ETA 30 minutes,’ Harper said.

Twenty minutes later the two Skyraiders arrived at the crash site. Moose Bailey, in the F-4 circling above, heaved a sigh of relief. He’d stayed behind to ensure that Gonzalez’s position was pinpointed. Now he vamoosed for a rendezvous with a tanker before his fuel ran out.

Ten minutes later, Seymour turned to Harper.

‘MacDuff has made contact with Gonzalez. He’s guiding them to him. He can hear their propellers west of his position, but he can’t see them.’ A pause. ‘Sir, they’re now initiating authentication procedure.’

Pike burst into laughter.

‘MacDuff has just copied Gonzalez’s question. Who was the girl of his dreams and did she come across? His answer is — Wanda Rodriguez and, no, she didn’t, so he fucked her big sister. He’s our man.’

Sam looked down at the jungle. The canopy was impenetrable. No way would you be able to see one downed man. A needle in a green haystack.

‘Sir,’ Seymour interrupted again. ‘MacDuff reports bad guys moving into the area, ten minutes from where they think Gonzalez is.’

Cliff Harper nodded. ‘Confirm ETA five minutes. Are we close enough now to be in direct contact with Gonzalez?’

Seymour tried for a frequency. Secured it.

‘Copy,’ he said. ‘Damn, Gonzalez only has visibility straight up. Can’t see the Skyraiders but he can hear them. They’re trying to get him to fix his location with his compass. Got him!’

Quickly, Seymour worked out the coordinates. They were three minutes out. Then Harper got the news:

‘Woody Woodpecker, bad guys closing in. MacDuff will decoy them to where Gonzalez’s F-4 went down. Maybe they’ll take the bait. No, bad guys have split up. Small party still heading for Gonzalez.’

The noose was closing.

‘Copy. Tell MacDuff to buy me time. Tell Gonzalez: sit tight, friend. Pop the flare at my command.’

One minute later, Harper made the command.

‘Where the hell is he?’ he yelled. ‘Can you see him?’

The chopper was skimming across the jungle. Sam was looking out one side of the chopper. Pike was looking out the other.

‘There!’

Coloured smoke, drifting straight up through the jungle canopy. One and a half minutes out.

Harper pointed to the sky. The Skyraiders were moving in perfect coordination to straddle the chopper as it made its final approach towards Gonzalez. Thirty seconds out, they crossed over a vertiginous river valley that had what looked like a derelict swingbridge connecting one side to the other. Harper pointed it out to Sam. On one side was a steep ridge. The coloured smoke was coming up from the valley behind it.

‘He can’t see us,’ Seymour said. ‘But we’re right on top of him.’

The chopper was hovering over the trees.

‘Let down the rescue cable,’ Harper answered.

‘Sir, Gonzalez says he needs help for the ride up. He’s injured.’

At that moment the chopper came under attack. From out of the jungle came a small puff and a rocket sizzled through the air and whooshed past the front windscreen.

‘Fuck,’ Harper swore. ‘They’ve got a rocket launcher —’

He held the chopper steady. He radioed to MacDuff to take the rocket launcher out. Sam looked at Pike and nodded:

‘I’m the spare,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll go.’

Harper didn’t even know what Sam was doing until after he had clipped himself onto the rescue cable and stepped out of the chopper. When Harper looked back and saw Sam motioning to begin letting him down it was too late to stop him. The hydraulic winch began to whirr and whine, and Sam was swinging like Tarzan. Thirty metres below, the jungle waited to claim him.

He was twenty metres down when he began hearing the crack and pop of rifle fire. He heard the clinking sound as bullets hit the chopper. His left trouser leg tore with the impact from a near-hit. Then he was down among the foliage, trying to steer the rescue cable through the branches to the ground.

Gonzalez lay in a sitting position, frantic with fear. ‘My leg’s broken —’

‘It’s okay, buddy,’ Sam said. ‘No time to talk.’ He buckled the safety strap around Gonzalez’s chest. Yelled instructions into the emergency radio: ‘Gonzalez secured. Take him up.’

Sam felt the upward force of the chopper’s hydraulic winch as it reeled in the cable. Gonzalez was spinning through the foliage, smashing through the branches, trying to protect his head. Then, all of a sudden, there was a whump, the chopper juddered in the air and Gonzalez was spinning back to the ground.

‘We’ve sustained a hit,’ Seymour yelled. ‘Hydraulic winch malfunction.’

Harper heard Seymour yelling in panic. His body flooded with adrenalin. ‘God, don’t let me go down like Fox.’ He was checking the gauges, his training automatically initiating the procedures to ensure damage control. To his right he heard the Skyraiders coming in again with high-speed strafing of the area from which the rocket had been launched. They walked their incendiary shells down the slope, and the forest flamed and smoked; and Seymour yelled: