sharp end, including attached ranks such as he was.
‘Good to meet you, Robert. I’m Stratton. Is that right you’ve only done one eagle feast before now?’
‘Yes, a week ago,’ he said, doing his best to sound confident, but Stratton was not so sure.
‘You happy with the procedure?’
The pilot paused a moment and Stratton thought he caught a slight change in his expression.
‘Well . . . to be honest, not really,’ he said. ‘Wish I’d had the chance to practise a couple more before my first live one.’
Stratton glanced at Scouse who was listening through another headset and wearing a concerned expression, which was more put on than genuine - cavalier humour was the norm in the SBS, especially when tension was mounting. But there was something to be worried about since there was not any room for error on the manoeuvre.
‘Too late to worry about that now,’ Stratton said to the pilot.
‘Rubbish,’ Scouse chimed in. ‘There’s plenty of time to shit yourself.’
‘They’re waiting on us,’ Stratton continued. ‘Let’s get to the drop height.’ Then aside to Scouse: ‘He can only get it wrong once.’
‘True enough,’ Scouse said.
The pilot eased up the blade pitch control and the Lynx started to climb.
‘How long to eighteen thousand feet?’ Stratton asked him.
The pilot glanced quickly over at Stratton, looking more worried. ‘You mean twelve thousand feet.’
‘I like to come in from eighteen. Hardly any chance of being seen or heard at that height. How long?’ Stratton asked again.
The pilot glanced at his co-pilot who shrugged helplessly. ‘Em . . . three minutes,’ the pilot said awkwardly, his mind starting to race.
‘What’s six thousand feet between friends,’ Stratton said to Scouse. ‘Where are the boats?’
‘A mile in rear of the tanker,’ Scouse said.
‘Tell them to start their run now.’
Scouse relayed the order as the Lynx shuddered, straining to climb as fast as it could.
A mile behind the tanker the pair of 22-metre-long grey-and-black VSVs cruised gracefully through the water at quarter speed. They were unusual boats, shaped like a cross between a slim wedge of cheese and the nose of a Concorde supersonic jet, and virtually undetectable by radar due to their stealth construction. The boats were designed to cut through the waves not ride over them like every other high-performance speedboat, and in rough conditions they could pierce a swell and disappear beneath the surface for a short period of time. The boats were fully enclosed with a cabin capacity of twenty-six operatives packed tightly together and an optional pair of twin 50 -cal. machine guns in the bows. Their maximum speed was confidential and far in excess of the maker’s advertised 60 knots.
The coxswains pushed their throttles forward and the massive twin 2,000hp diesel engines roared deeply as the boats accelerated powerfully through the water. The forty operatives, twenty in each boat, were dressed identically to Stratton’s team but with added specialised equipment for getting on board a large ship.The VSVs cruised a few metres apart and within half a minute were at near maximum speed and closing on the tanker like surface torpedoes.
The Lynx shuddered and levelled out. ‘Eighteen thousand feet,’ the pilot said, and sounding none too confident about it.
‘We right behind the tanker’s stern?’ Stratton asked.
‘It’s directly below us,’ the co-pilot said, making some checks on his instrument panel.
‘Hold until I give the word.’
‘Roger that,’ came the co-pilot’s reply, glancing at his nervous partner as inexperienced as he was.
The pilot released the controls one hand at a time to clench and unclench his hands and get the blood flowing through them. His anxiety was growing. Under normal circumstances, the training for this procedure was taken in gradual steps to allow the pilot to get the feel for it, a few hundred feet first before working up to a couple of thousand, the speed building each time. He had put troops down on ships many times in the past but never from an eagle feast. When they called him in the mess during breakfast that morning, told him about the operation and asked if he could do it, he said he could without hesitation. His response had been partly macho but mostly because he didn’t want to pass on the opportunity of a lifetime to do a live operational ship attack with the SBS. There were more pilots than there were opportunities to take part in a job like this one and it would be a big chalk up on his record. But now, hovering at eighteen thousand feet, the tanker looking quite small far below, he was having doubts and questioning his gung-ho eagerness. It was not just his life at stake, there were seven more in his hands. Here he was getting ready to do what until a few years ago only a handful of highly experienced pilots had attempted. Only the best were allowed to even try. He was one of the best, but if he screwed this up, well, he would not be around to get chastised for it, that was for sure. It was too late to change his mind now. He would rather crash the helicopter than live with the life-long disgrace of backing out of it.
‘Two hundred metres,’ Scouse relayed from the VSVs. ‘One hundred . . . Slowing . . . Alongside.’
The two VSVs approached directly behind the stern of the tanker and then broke swiftly to come along either side. Meanwhile in the back of the boats, the hook-men, two in each, were already on their feet and in harnesses designed so they could stand and hold the skyward-pointing launchers on their shoulders without falling over, even in rough conditions. When the coxswains reached a point alongside the tanker just behind the superstructure and inches from the wall of steel, they dropped the power off quickly then hit reverse thrust for a few seconds to hold their position and match the ship’s speed. Without a word of command the hook-men fired their air guns and four grapnels flew high into the air, trailing lines to land on the deck. Operatives quickly pulled the lines back until the grapnels caught hold. This was where a little luck was required since the hooks were out of sight.They had to grab something solid. If the hook did not it could spring loose and once the line had the climber’s weight on it, drop him. Often the hook did come loose, flew back until it snagged something else such as the rails, and dropped the climber into the water so he had to carry on climbing from there. A much worse scenario was if the hook flew over the rails and out to sea. The climber would fall into the water and there was a danger of him going under and being sucked through the props. Four grapnels meant the odds were almost certain a hold would be taken somewhere, and one, although not ideal, was all they needed at a push.
‘Go!’ the operatives pulling the lines shouted as they felt the hooks bite hold.
The climbers attached their climbing devices, activated them and shot out of the boat. The secret to this manoeuvre was to keep facing the ship and run up the side. Each climber carried three lightweight caving ladders rolled up and clipped to his hips.They stopped just short of the lip of the deck, keeping out of view in case they came under attack, unclipped the first ladder, hooked it to the lip, and let it unravel down to the boat. They repeated the procedure with the other two ladders then remained where they were with their weapons aimed up at the rails while operatives started to climb from below. When the first three reached the deck they in turn hooked two more ladders on to the lip and let them unroll, and then this first wave of four men climbed over the rail on to the deck to secure a bridgehead. In less then two minutes from first hook-on, both teams were aboard. They divided up and headed towards their designated targets.
‘They’re on!’ shouted Scouse.
‘Go!’ Stratton said to the pilot who took a breath, dropped the pitch of the blades, removing all the lift, and nosed the craft forward.The Lynx quickly picked up speed and plummeted like a bird of prey going for a kill. Everyone experienced the drop in the pit of their stomach as the blood rushed to their head causing momentary dizziness. It began like the scariest fairground ride in the world, but the real fun part was to come.
After two thousand feet the Lynx was near vertical and Stratton could see the bows of the tanker through the windshield. The craft started to shudder as it reached terminal velocity. Stratton, Scouse and Tip beside him were held facing forward in their seats by their seatbelts while the other three could only sit back and look at them. The pilot increased his grip on the controls as they began to shake more violently, his eyes glued to the altimeter. Fourteen thousand feet. It was not the ideal time to ask himself the question, but when dropping from twelve thousand feet he knew he needed to start pulling out of the dive at two and a half. The question was, when dropping from eighteen thousand, did he have to pull out sooner? Surely not, he thought. Terminal velocity was terminal velocity no matter what height you started from. Then the Lynx gave a violent jolt with a force the pilot had never experienced before. Eight thousand feet. There was another equally violent shake as if a bus had rammed
