Josh is right over the wreckage; he has to get out of the path of the fireball that will inevitably rise up when the fuel ignites.
“Josh, look at me,” I say calmly, “Josh?”
He does eventually look at me. “Take my hand, let’s get you off there.”
Josh’s right hand relaxes slightly and then he quickly releases the steel and grabs my outreached hand. “Good lad,” I tell him and start to pull him up and over to me, from his precarious position. His left hand pulls himself to help me and his legs and feet soon start to help too as they get higher, reaching the steel.
We both climb across the mangled part of the pad.
“What happened?” Josh manages to say, bent over and shaken as we reach the undamaged part of the helipad.
“A lightning bolt strike,” I tell him, catching my breath.
“Did the Wing Commander get out?” Josh asks, clearly disoriented.
“He didn’t have a chance, I’m afraid.”
“Bloody hell,” he says sombrely and starts to cough heavily, still bent over as if he is going to be sick.
“Captain Richards, receiving, over?” Flight Lieutenant Alders’ voice comes over my headset.
“Receiving.”
“Sir, I can’t land on the helipad, it’s too damaged, so I will get into position off the East side of the building to pick you up, over.”
“Hold position, and stand by, over,” I order.
My wits start to return after the latest catastrophe and I start to weigh up our options, the priority is getting the holdall back to base. I struggle as I try to add up how many of us there are left to get back to base, my cluttered mind hindering me. Eventually, with a little help from my fingers, I count twelve people including the pilot Alders, who need transporting. That’s too many for the Lynx to carry; it is rated to carry a maximum of nine people, so even with favourable conditions, which we are very far from, it would be a no go. Surely Alders knows that?
“Alders, receiving, over.”
“Receiving, Captain.”
“The Lynx is rated to carry nine people isn’t it, over?” I ask.
“Yes, but if we dump equipment, it will handle twelve, Sir,” he replies, forcing me to think again.
We have just lost one helicopter and a good man that was trying to land, and now I am considering letting Alders hover off the side of the building, in a thunderstorm for the remaining men to jump onboard and overload his helicopter while we will inevitably be under attack by Rabids, which they will as soon as the Browning stops shooting. His offer is very tempting nevertheless; the last thing I want is for us to be stranded here—my son, stranded—but in the end, I have to make a decision and the mission takes priority.
“Alders, return to base immediately, over.”
“Captain, I can’t leave you here,” he protests.
“Picking us up is too risky; the holdall has to get back. Return to base now, that is an order, understood, over?”
The radio goes silent for a moment and the Lynx above doesn’t break from its position.
“Returning to base, Captain, I will come back for you if I need to, you can count on it, over.”
“Thank you, Flight Lieutenant, but I trust Lieutenant Winters is already making arrangements, over,” I say in hope.
“Received, good luck, over and out.” Alders signs off as the Lynx breaks position, swoops around and then powers forward with urgency in the direction of RAF Heathrow.
Silence ensues as me and my team watch the Lynx fade away into the rain, all of us, I am sure, with a feeling of foreboding and dread as to what will happen now.
Yet more gunfire erupts, which in a weird way I welcome because it snaps me out the feeling of helplessness growing inside me and back to action. Lieutenant Winters hasn’t responded to my reference to him. I know he has been monitoring our communication for the entire mission, that is why I haven’t updated him, but I would have expected to hear of him now.
“Lieutenant Winters, receiving, over?”
Still nothing; have comms failed at base? Was my assumption wrong and he hasn’t heard a thing that has happened, or is it because of the weather?
“Lieutenant Winters, receiving, over?” I ask again, now worried that we really are stranded.
“Receiving, Captain,” he finally says.
“Bloody hell, Winters, I thought comms had failed, over!”
“Sorry Captain, I was onto flight command, trying to arrange an emergency Evac for your team. The good news is that I’ve managed to get transport arranged, but the bad news is it’s a forty-five-minute ETA, over.”
“Negative, Lieutenant, we haven’t got the ammo to hold out for forty-five minutes, we are running low as it is, so get it here quicker, over,” I tell him, as I look over at the empty ammo cans on the floor by the Browning.
“Sorry Captain, I was trying to do just that, that’s why I was off air. They can’t get it to you any quicker. I had to screw them down to forty-five minutes. They are overstretched, it’s chaos there, Sir, over.”
“Keep on to them, we need evac A-SAP, Lieutenant, over.”
“I will do my best, Captain, over and out.”
Fuck, things are going from bad to worse, I think to myself and they are sure to get worse still; the fuel tanks on Buck’s Lynx haven’t ruptured yet and the Browning still has ammo, neither of which will last.
The rain comes down, lightning flashes, thunder rumbles, the Browning erupts and my brain strains to figure out how we are going to
