Not to mention the Slans!
Anyway, I meant to post this yesterday, but Yuku seems to have been having an off-day...
There are two stories about how Tom Rutley got invalided out of the RAF. The one he tells everyone, and the one that actually happened. This is the latter.
2005. Somewhere near the Afghan-Pakistani border...
"Ten kilometres," his copilot said quietly.
"Right." Tom keyed the intercom. "Mark, drop the ramp and get on the gimpy."
"Okay skipper!" the loadmaster replied cheerfully.
"Wish he wouldn't sound so happy about it," the copilot muttered. "He's been grinning like a madman ever since we got issued that thing."
"Can't blame him for wanting a chance to shoot back for a change," Tom replied. "I think this is what the hell-?" There was a bright flash somewhere off to their left, and then the Chinook bucked violently as a deafening explosion tried to drive his eardrums through his skull. Practically every alarm in the cockpit went off at once as they began to lose height. Tom shoved the throttles all the way open and hauled on the collective in a desperate bid for altitude, to no avail. A large and imposing hill loomed in the cockpit canopy.
Tom experienced a brief, sudden moment of perfect calm and clarity. These might be his last words on Earth, he reflected, so he'd better make them some good ones.
"Oh, bugger," he said, with feeling.
The Chinook hit the hillside stern-first, with enough force to noticeably bend the fuselage. It skidded a few hundred yards before coming to rest on its side.
There was a moment's eerie silence, broken only by the hiss of escaping coolant running over still-hot engine parts. Dazed but apparently unhurt, Tom blinked a couple of times and looked over to his copilot. "Greg? Greg, you alright? Greg!" He was out cold, missing his helmet and bleeding badly from his scalp; the man had a bad habit of leaving the chin-strap undone. "Shit!" Tom snarled, although a small treacherous part of him was glad he had an excuse to put off seeing what had happened to everyone in the cabin. He unstrapped from his seat and tried the cockpit door, but despite repeated applications of a heavy boot it refused to budge. "Okay, Plan B," he muttered, grabbing a large canvas holdall stowed behind his seat.
Aircrew were supposed to be issued a carbine version of the SA80 that was basically a sawn-off version of its infamously unsuccessful light machine-gun variant. Aircrew were also supposed to wear ordinary DPM camouflage gear so that they'd blend in with regular infantry and not stand out as someone who'd have intelligence and/or ransom value. Reasoning that the Taliban could buy a copy of Jane's Guide to Modern Firearms on Amazon as easily as anyone else, not to mention having fired the carbine a few times and found it incapable of hitting anything much beyond a hundred yards, Tom had convinced an armourer to exchange his for a full-length 80 with a proper optic sight as well as some proper infantry beltkit. It'd cost him all his mum's homemade onion bhajis from the last care-package from home, but right now it was looking like it'd paid off.
The glass was supposed to be bulletproof, but three strategically-placed shots from a range of about eighteen inches weakened the copilot's-side window enough that a single good whack from the butt of the rifle did the rest. The next problem, of course, was getting Greg out of the damn thing without doing any more damage than the crash already had. "This'd be a great time for you to wake up," Tom grumbled, wondering if there was a neck-brace in the medical kit... Alright, no good putting it off any longer.
Very carefully, he moved around the outside of the wrecked aircraft and stuck his head through a convenient hole in the fuselage... then rapidly pulled it back out, fell to his knees and vomited up what felt like everything he'd ever eaten. The only good thing you could say about the aftermath of what was later determined to be an RPG-7 rocket with a fragmentation warhead and a delayed-action fuse going off inside the cabin was that the occupants must surely have died instantaneously. They weren't in enough pieces to linger in agony.
He forced himself back to his feet and pulled a small bottle of water from the thigh-pocket of his flight suit to wash the awful taste out of his mouth. You can have your nervous breakdown later, he told himself. Right now you need to get Greg out of the cockpit and get the hell out of here!
He could hear raised voices coming from downhill, what might have been shouted orders. Aggravating a spinal injury his copilot might or might not have picked up in the crash would be the least of either of their problems if they were still here when the locals arrived, Tom mused grimly, grabbing the unconscious man under both arms and unceremoniously dragging him out through the window. He lifted Greg in a fireman's carry, staggered to his feet muttering vivid sentiments about the man's considerable beer gut and made best speed for the cover of an irrigation ditch.
There was only a couple of inches of water in it right now, thankfully. Tom dropped Greg as gently as possible and pulled him into a semi-sitting position, then unslung his rifle and placed it within easy reach while he belatedly pulled the activation tab on his radio distress beacon. Experimentally, he lowered the night-vision goggles attached to his helmet and turned them on. Nothing; apparently they hadn't fared well in the crash. Tom unstrapped his helmet and pulled it off, then was struck by an idea. He crawled along the ditch for a few yards until he found a large enough lump of rock, then rested it on the edge of the ditch and put the helmet on top of it. With any luck some trigger-happy idiot would give their position away and then he could take a quick potshot from an unexpected angle and spook them-
There was a burst of gunshots, and the helmet splashed into the water. Tom grabbed the rifle, popped out of cover and fired a single shot at the figure standing up to run towards the presumed body. They fell without a sound and lay unmoving. There was a rather gratifying chorus of alarmed yells as the other Taliban fighters threw themselves behind cover. Tom put another round into the backside of someone who'd been unwise enough to dive behind a rock that was only large enough to protect his upper body, and learned several fascinating new swearwords. A prolonged, angry and poorly-aimed barrage of fire zipped harmlessly over the edge of the ditch, and he waited until they'd all run their magazines dry before popping up and taking another potshot that dropped one of the brighter ones who was trying to flank him. The answering burst of gunfire was even longer and angrier this time; if they kept that up they'd run themselves out of-
There was a splash as someone landed in the ditch. Tom swung the rifle around and fired at almost the same moment as the other man, who was raising a battered old revolver. He was slightly more accurate, hitting his adversary neatly in the centre of mass, but not before a bullet went straight into his leg just below the kneecap, shattering the bone and tearing through the muscle. Tom roared in pain and collapsed, rifle slipping from his nerveless fingers. "Fuuuccckkk!" he ground out between clenched teeth, fumbling for the first-aid kit he knew was on the beltkit somewhere...
There was a deafening roar of heavy-calibre gunfire, and the distant droning Tom had been half-hearing for the past couple of minutes resolved itself into a powerful diesel engine at full throttle. A huge silhouette he vaguely recognised as one of those new mine-proof armoured vehicles... Cougar? Mastiff? Something like that... loomed over the ditch, and a couple of squaddies jumped down into it and nearly landed on him. "Fuck me!" one of them exclaimed. "Corp, we need a stretcher! Hang in there mate, we'll sort you out," he promised, reaching for Tom's collar and groping for something that wasn't there. "Shit! Where's your morphine!"
"Not... on me," Tom ground out. "Pilot..."
"Bloody wonderful. Alright, we'll come back to that. Try and hold your leg up."
Tom did his best, and furthermore tried not to scream as the other man stuffed gauze into the gaping holes in his leg and tied them down with bandages. He felt a sting as something was jabbed against his neck, followed by blessed relief as the pain ebbed away. "Thanks..." he mumbled. "Is my mate alright?"
"We-we're sorting him out now."
He didn't pick up on the hesitation in the squaddie's voice until much later. "Good... Can I pass out now?"
If the soldier had any reply to that, Tom never heard it.
* * *
It wasn't until Tom Rutley woke up in a military hospital almost two days later, after the first of what would be many surgeries to regain even partial use of his leg, that he learned that Greg had died of an acute subdural haematoma before he could be casevac'd. The Military Cross he received for his actions that day was relegated to the back of a drawer as soon as he returned home from the award ceremony, and he never spoke of it again.
Anyway, I meant to post this yesterday, but Yuku seems to have been having an off-day...
There are two stories about how Tom Rutley got invalided out of the RAF. The one he tells everyone, and the one that actually happened. This is the latter.
2005. Somewhere near the Afghan-Pakistani border...
"Ten kilometres," his copilot said quietly.
"Right." Tom keyed the intercom. "Mark, drop the ramp and get on the gimpy."
"Okay skipper!" the loadmaster replied cheerfully.
"Wish he wouldn't sound so happy about it," the copilot muttered. "He's been grinning like a madman ever since we got issued that thing."
"Can't blame him for wanting a chance to shoot back for a change," Tom replied. "I think this is what the hell-?" There was a bright flash somewhere off to their left, and then the Chinook bucked violently as a deafening explosion tried to drive his eardrums through his skull. Practically every alarm in the cockpit went off at once as they began to lose height. Tom shoved the throttles all the way open and hauled on the collective in a desperate bid for altitude, to no avail. A large and imposing hill loomed in the cockpit canopy.
Tom experienced a brief, sudden moment of perfect calm and clarity. These might be his last words on Earth, he reflected, so he'd better make them some good ones.
"Oh, bugger," he said, with feeling.
The Chinook hit the hillside stern-first, with enough force to noticeably bend the fuselage. It skidded a few hundred yards before coming to rest on its side.
There was a moment's eerie silence, broken only by the hiss of escaping coolant running over still-hot engine parts. Dazed but apparently unhurt, Tom blinked a couple of times and looked over to his copilot. "Greg? Greg, you alright? Greg!" He was out cold, missing his helmet and bleeding badly from his scalp; the man had a bad habit of leaving the chin-strap undone. "Shit!" Tom snarled, although a small treacherous part of him was glad he had an excuse to put off seeing what had happened to everyone in the cabin. He unstrapped from his seat and tried the cockpit door, but despite repeated applications of a heavy boot it refused to budge. "Okay, Plan B," he muttered, grabbing a large canvas holdall stowed behind his seat.
Aircrew were supposed to be issued a carbine version of the SA80 that was basically a sawn-off version of its infamously unsuccessful light machine-gun variant. Aircrew were also supposed to wear ordinary DPM camouflage gear so that they'd blend in with regular infantry and not stand out as someone who'd have intelligence and/or ransom value. Reasoning that the Taliban could buy a copy of Jane's Guide to Modern Firearms on Amazon as easily as anyone else, not to mention having fired the carbine a few times and found it incapable of hitting anything much beyond a hundred yards, Tom had convinced an armourer to exchange his for a full-length 80 with a proper optic sight as well as some proper infantry beltkit. It'd cost him all his mum's homemade onion bhajis from the last care-package from home, but right now it was looking like it'd paid off.
The glass was supposed to be bulletproof, but three strategically-placed shots from a range of about eighteen inches weakened the copilot's-side window enough that a single good whack from the butt of the rifle did the rest. The next problem, of course, was getting Greg out of the damn thing without doing any more damage than the crash already had. "This'd be a great time for you to wake up," Tom grumbled, wondering if there was a neck-brace in the medical kit... Alright, no good putting it off any longer.
Very carefully, he moved around the outside of the wrecked aircraft and stuck his head through a convenient hole in the fuselage... then rapidly pulled it back out, fell to his knees and vomited up what felt like everything he'd ever eaten. The only good thing you could say about the aftermath of what was later determined to be an RPG-7 rocket with a fragmentation warhead and a delayed-action fuse going off inside the cabin was that the occupants must surely have died instantaneously. They weren't in enough pieces to linger in agony.
He forced himself back to his feet and pulled a small bottle of water from the thigh-pocket of his flight suit to wash the awful taste out of his mouth. You can have your nervous breakdown later, he told himself. Right now you need to get Greg out of the cockpit and get the hell out of here!
He could hear raised voices coming from downhill, what might have been shouted orders. Aggravating a spinal injury his copilot might or might not have picked up in the crash would be the least of either of their problems if they were still here when the locals arrived, Tom mused grimly, grabbing the unconscious man under both arms and unceremoniously dragging him out through the window. He lifted Greg in a fireman's carry, staggered to his feet muttering vivid sentiments about the man's considerable beer gut and made best speed for the cover of an irrigation ditch.
There was only a couple of inches of water in it right now, thankfully. Tom dropped Greg as gently as possible and pulled him into a semi-sitting position, then unslung his rifle and placed it within easy reach while he belatedly pulled the activation tab on his radio distress beacon. Experimentally, he lowered the night-vision goggles attached to his helmet and turned them on. Nothing; apparently they hadn't fared well in the crash. Tom unstrapped his helmet and pulled it off, then was struck by an idea. He crawled along the ditch for a few yards until he found a large enough lump of rock, then rested it on the edge of the ditch and put the helmet on top of it. With any luck some trigger-happy idiot would give their position away and then he could take a quick potshot from an unexpected angle and spook them-
There was a burst of gunshots, and the helmet splashed into the water. Tom grabbed the rifle, popped out of cover and fired a single shot at the figure standing up to run towards the presumed body. They fell without a sound and lay unmoving. There was a rather gratifying chorus of alarmed yells as the other Taliban fighters threw themselves behind cover. Tom put another round into the backside of someone who'd been unwise enough to dive behind a rock that was only large enough to protect his upper body, and learned several fascinating new swearwords. A prolonged, angry and poorly-aimed barrage of fire zipped harmlessly over the edge of the ditch, and he waited until they'd all run their magazines dry before popping up and taking another potshot that dropped one of the brighter ones who was trying to flank him. The answering burst of gunfire was even longer and angrier this time; if they kept that up they'd run themselves out of-
There was a splash as someone landed in the ditch. Tom swung the rifle around and fired at almost the same moment as the other man, who was raising a battered old revolver. He was slightly more accurate, hitting his adversary neatly in the centre of mass, but not before a bullet went straight into his leg just below the kneecap, shattering the bone and tearing through the muscle. Tom roared in pain and collapsed, rifle slipping from his nerveless fingers. "Fuuuccckkk!" he ground out between clenched teeth, fumbling for the first-aid kit he knew was on the beltkit somewhere...
There was a deafening roar of heavy-calibre gunfire, and the distant droning Tom had been half-hearing for the past couple of minutes resolved itself into a powerful diesel engine at full throttle. A huge silhouette he vaguely recognised as one of those new mine-proof armoured vehicles... Cougar? Mastiff? Something like that... loomed over the ditch, and a couple of squaddies jumped down into it and nearly landed on him. "Fuck me!" one of them exclaimed. "Corp, we need a stretcher! Hang in there mate, we'll sort you out," he promised, reaching for Tom's collar and groping for something that wasn't there. "Shit! Where's your morphine!"
"Not... on me," Tom ground out. "Pilot..."
"Bloody wonderful. Alright, we'll come back to that. Try and hold your leg up."
Tom did his best, and furthermore tried not to scream as the other man stuffed gauze into the gaping holes in his leg and tied them down with bandages. He felt a sting as something was jabbed against his neck, followed by blessed relief as the pain ebbed away. "Thanks..." he mumbled. "Is my mate alright?"
"We-we're sorting him out now."
He didn't pick up on the hesitation in the squaddie's voice until much later. "Good... Can I pass out now?"
If the soldier had any reply to that, Tom never heard it.
* * *
It wasn't until Tom Rutley woke up in a military hospital almost two days later, after the first of what would be many surgeries to regain even partial use of his leg, that he learned that Greg had died of an acute subdural haematoma before he could be casevac'd. The Military Cross he received for his actions that day was relegated to the back of a drawer as soon as he returned home from the award ceremony, and he never spoke of it again.