Tag: Fiction

Betwixt metaphorical houses

It’s like working in two offices, one uptown, and one downtown.

I have two blogs, this one, and another which is purely for writing, and generally, a lot of starts and not a lot of finishes. I get ideas, and it’s a place to store them, and give a few people some amusement at my, sometimes, improbable situations and far-fetched stories.

Here I try to be more serious.

I have the ceiling, the cinema of my dreams. Here anything is possible, like jumping from a helicopter about to explode, and survive, and get out of a sinking ship, like Houdini. Of course, there is always one time when it doesn’t work, and Houdini knows that all too well.

Over there, I have a series which I started here, long ago, where I take a photograph and write a story inspired by it. The interesting thing about that is I could probably use the same photograph over and over, and it would inspire a different tale.

I know, if I was running a writing class, everyone would see that photograph differently.

But what amazes me sometimes is the fact the story is not directly related to the theme. It got me thinking about how we view our experiences, and what triggers memories. I’ve discovered that it doesn’t necessarily happen by correlation, say, for instance, a memory of being in New York might be triggered by a visit to a cafe in Cloncurry.

I try to do one of these every day, but sometimes it’s hard work. Writing itself can be some days, particularly when the words are lurking there, behind that invisible, impenetrable, rock wall.

OK, so I’m stuck in the middle of writing a piece over there, and I’ve come over here to whinge.

But, enough. I’ll let you know what the cinema of my dreams is showing, later.

Writing about writing a book – Day 29

It is hard sometimes to keep the lid on what might be called justification of your position in a company where there are many naysayers, and little support from those who are supposed to be working together towards a single conclusion.

Not work against you, or to have their own agenda, not only in furthering their career on the back of your mistakes but take the credit for all your hard work.

Every company has them.

I’ve worked in a few where this has happened, but the deciding factor of whether they’re successful or not is when they have to stand on their own two feet when the source of their reputed good work suddenly is unavailable, and the shit hits the proverbial fan.

What is it called?  Art imitates life.

Benton is the proverbial leader who takes credit, but when it comes to the crunch, can’t pull the rabbit out of the hat.

I guess in writing this little piece, I was subconsciously getting back at someone from a real, but now distant, past.

Perhaps there might be a little more about one of the places I worked cropping up from time to time.

It’s not so much writing about what you know, but writing about what happened, and what you might have wanted to happen.  Invariably it never did, because these credit takers are a cunning lot, and sometimes lay the foundations for getting out from under when there is a disaster.

Unfortunately, I’ve been there too.

It’s called cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Be that as it may, I let this little vent run and see where it goes.

It was my responsibility since I’d recommended it and then won the support of management over his objections, and following that it had become a point of continual contention, a petty war neither of us was going to win.

I tried to keep the joy out of my voice.  He’d also vetoed my recommendation for a full-time network engineer as my alternative, making my job become single point sensitive.  There was no one to replace me if anything went wrong.

“Sounds like you’re having fun.”  I had to work hard to keep the amusement out of my tone.

“Fun nothing.”  His tone was reaching that exasperation point.  “There is no one else.”

“Why did you approve my holiday if I can’t have one?” I’d stretch his patience just a little more.

“You promised me the network was stable.”

“It is, and has been for the last six months.  I’ve said so in my last six-monthly reports.  You have been reading them, haven’t you?”

Silence.  It said all I needed to know.

I had a choice sentence to deliver, but an ignominious thought popped into my head.  He could probably use this against me, and would if I gave him the opportunity.  Perhaps I should shelve my differences with him for this morning.

Aside from that, there was a shooting, and we didn’t get one of those every day.  Not that it would probably amount to very much.  During the previous week, the office grapevine had been working overtime on the rumor Richardson was having a relationship with one of the ladies in the Accounts department.  It was just the sort of scandal the data entry staff thrived on.

A shooting and a network failure.  I didn’t know which was worse.  Perhaps if it was Benton they’d shot, there might be some justice…

I decided not to argue with him.  “Give me an hour.”

“Half.  Aitchison wants to see you.”

Werner Aitchison was head of Internal Security and a man who took his job seriously.  Enough, that is, to annoy my staff, and me.  He was ex-military intelligence, so ‘they’ said, but he appeared to me like a man out of his depth in this new age of communications.  Computers had proliferated in our company over the last few years, and the technology to go with them spiraling out of control.

We dealt in billions via financial transactions processed on computers, computers which, we were told often enough, was insecure, and easily taken control of outside their environment.  Aitchison was paranoid, and rightly so, but he had a strange way of going about his business.  He and I had butted heads on many occasions, and we may have had our disagreements, but we were good friends and colleagues outside work.

Just in case Benton was accusing me, I said, as sincerely as I could, “I didn’t do it.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.  He has requested a meeting with you at 10 am.  You will be there.”

“I said I would come in to look at the problem.  I didn’t say I was staying.”

“Let me know when you get in.”  That was it.  No ifs.  No buts.  Just a simple, ‘Let me know…’

I seriously considered ignoring him, but somewhere within me, there was that odd sense of loyalty.  Not to Benton, not to the Company, but to someone else, the man who had given me the job in the first place, who had given me every opportunity.

I was doing it for him and would tell him.

When I found out who it was!

© Charles Heath 2016-2021

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 3

This is a rocky piece of coastline, adjacent to the city by the sea.

It’s highly urbanized, and just behind where I was standing to take this photo, there’s a large carpark, a restaurant, and several shops, as well as a long pier to walk on.

On this side, about 100 yards put is a reef, popular with divers, and the day I took this there we several divers out.

But, if you discounted all of that knowledge and just let your imagination run free, there are so many other possibilities

Like, scoping out a landing spot to bring ashore contraband on what might be a very desolate spot, access gained only by walking along and hazardous path.

Like there might be an imminent landing of foreign soldiers about to set up the start of a clandestine incursion, before a more formal invasion.  Or just one person, a foreign spy.

Or a couple of friends having a picnic away from the madding crowd.

It needs a little more thought.

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 47

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

…

At least the helicopter pilot hadn’t hit the fuel tanks or any of the control wires.

Because of the holes in the fuselage, we couldn’t fly any higher than between two and five thousand feet or go as fast as Davies would like, but the plane settled into a routine and got us where we wanted to go.

Just a few miles from the base, fuel almost exhausted, we got a fighter escort.

At first, I thought the base commander thought we were an unidentified flying object, mainly because something else had been hit, our communications. We couldn’t tell the base we were coming, and they only had the Colonel’s transmission of an approximate arrival time, much earlier than the actual time we were supposed to arrive.

On the ground, we were met with fire trucks, and a military escort, with weapons that could take out a mouse at one thousand yards. Just in case we were terrorists, I suppose.

We were parked in a bay away from the main terminal area and had to wait for a half-hour before we were met by Lallo. Monroe’s comment, that he was probably finishing his lunch which would be more important than meeting us, had kept us waiting.

The two abductees were the first to leave the aircraft, then Shurl’s body was removed after the doctor certified he was dead.

Then the rest of us were allowed to leave the aircraft. A bus was waiting, and everyone bar Monroe and I had boarded and been taken away. Under guard. Perhaps their service had not mitigated their prison sentences. I didn’t ask Lallo why; I’d probably not get the truth anyway.

“Good job,” he said, after watching the bus depart. “Pity, it wasn’t done right the first time.”

A compliment followed by disparagement.

“Next time you can do the job yourself,” Monroe said. “And until you’ve been in the field and actually got shot at, you’d do well to keep that trap of yours shut.”

“May I …”

“…remind me you’re my superior officer? No. I’m sure that status won’t last much longer. I’m applying for a transfer.”

He looked at me. “What about you?”

“Nothing to say, except I don’t blame her. Now, since all you’ve done is prove to me you’re an idiot, I’ll take my leave.”

In the distance I could see a large American car, the sort that proliferated in the 1950s and 1960s before petrol prices were a problem, cutting across the runway at speed. Was it the owner of the DC3 coming to see the damage?

No. When it got closer I could see Bamfield, cigar in mouth, beaming. I suppose no one felt they had the authority to tell him not to.

The car stopped behind Lallo’s jeep and Bamfield got out, then leaned against the driver’s side door and looked at us over the roof.

“James, Monroe. Still alive I see. Pity about the plane; I know the chap who owns it. He’s going to be pissed when he sees the cannon holes. What happened?”

“Bad guys,” Monroe said.

“Of course. Get in, I’ll give you a ride back to the terminal. We can talk on the way.”

Neither of us moved. If Monroe wasn’t going to suffer fools gladly, neither was I.

“Well…”

“I’d rather walk,” I said.

“We’d rather walk, sir.” With a heavy emphasis on the ‘sir’.

“Look, you did a great job, minimal losses, and we got two assets back. Everyone is happy. But, we have a small problem down in South America…”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

If only something made sense…

It seems rather fortuitous that we have a holiday at the end of the year.

I mean, who sat around a table however many years ago and decided that holidays like Christmas should be at the end of the year.  And who decided one half of the world could freeze to death on their holidays, and the other half burn?

At the end of a long year at that, you know, 52 weeks, 12 months, 365 days, where even when some of us get a weekend off once in a blue moon, it still seems like we’re working 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

So, who decided a week would have seven days, a year would have 12 months, and while we’re at it, who decided to give each month a different name?  And who named names?

Was it Father Time.  As children, we all learn about father time, or has political correctness stepped in and we now call ‘father time’, ‘person time’.

Anyway…

Who do we blame for this mess, we have to blame someone.  It’s not our fault.  If it were up to me I’d have Christmas in September when there’s more temperate weather in both halves of the world.

And who decided that Christmas should be attached to Winter and not Summer?

It’s like the whole mess was designed by a group of academics majoring in philosophy sitting in a back room and fed Coca Cola and Pizzas until they came up with an answer, which was probably to send it all to a parliamentary committee made up from candidates from Bellevue Asylum.

The same people, by the way, who are responsible for coordinating traffic lights.

And then there’s that other mystery I’ve never quite understood.

If you work for the FBI your first name suddenly becomes ‘Agent’.  Everyone gets that name change whether you like it or not.

Which is much the same as all Russians once upon a time calling each other ‘comrade’.  Beats the hell, I suppose, out of remembering peoples first names, especially in Russia where, to us, they’re unpronounceable.

Sorry.

You can tell it’s getting close to Chrismas.

I’ve become a gibbering idiot.

Writing about writing a book – Day 28

So after that rather undramatic ‘off with the fairies’ moment, it’s time to come back to earth.  Holiday or not, there’s always something that can go wrong.

Even when you’ve been told to take some vacation days, and reluctantly stayed home.  The notion that vacation meant going away somewhere doesn’t enter Bill’s mind.

Perhaps he’s like a lot of workaholics, using their job as an excuse to forget about life outside work.

Maybe he was hoping something would go wrong.  Maybe he had considered manufacturing a problem so that he would have to go back.

Maybe not, but that was the sort of employee he was, not one that could willingly take a day away, just in case.

Like now.

 

I’d almost managed to doze off again when the phone rang.

I jumped to its equally shrill sound cutting through the silence.  It had to be a wrong number because no one at work would call me, and I didn’t have many friends, so I let it ring out.  As far as I could remember, it was only the third time it had rung since I’d moved in, four years ago.

Blissful silence.  I looked at the bedside clock.  7 am.  Who called anyone at that hour?

It rang again.

Ignore it, I thought.  If it was anyone, it would be someone from the office.  I’d told them all not to call me, not unless the building was burning down and they were all trapped in it.

And even then, I’d have to think about it.

Burying my head under the pillow didn’t shut out the insistent ringing, compelling me to answer.  Almost reluctantly I rolled back, pulled the telephone out from under the bed, and lifted the receiver to my ear.

“Bill?”

It was Carl Benton, my immediate superior; an insipid, loathsome, irritating little man, the last person I would want to speak to.  He’d insisted I take this leave, that the office could survive without me, adding in his most condescending manner that I needed the break.

I slammed the receiver down in anger.  It was a forlorn gesture.  Seconds later, it rang again.

“I seem to remember you were the one to tell me to go on holiday, that I needed a holiday.  I’m off the roster.  It can’t be that important.  Call someone else.”  I wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to speak.  Not this morning.  I was not in the mood to listen to that squeaky, falsetto voice of his, one that always turned into a whine when he didn’t get his way.

And hung up again.

Not that it would do any good.  I knew that even if I was in Tibet, he would still call.  Then I realized it was too early for him to be in the office, and if he was, he would have been dragged out of bed and put in a position where if he didn’t produce results, they might realize just how incompetent he was.

At last, my holiday had some meaning and smiled to myself.  I’d make the bastard sweat.

He left it a few minutes before he rang again.  And I let it ring out.  I could see the expression on his face, bewilderment, changing slowly into suffused anger.  How dare I ignore him!

Another five minutes, then the phone began its shrill insistence again.  Before it rang again, I’d moved it from the floor to the bed.  I counted the rings, to ten, and then picked up the receiver.

“Bill?  Don’t hang up.”  Almost pleading.

“Why?  You said I should go, away from work, away from the phones, away to recharge my batteries, I believe you said.”

“That was Friday.  This is Monday. You’re needed.  Richardson has been found shot dead by his desk.  All hell has broken loose!”  Benton rarely used adjectives, so I assumed when he said all hell had broken loose, it meant something had happened he couldn’t fix.  His flowery language and telegram style had momentarily distracted my attention from Richardson’s fate.

Harold Richardson was an accountant, rather stuffy, but good at his job.  I’d spoken to him probably twice in as many years, and he didn’t strike me as the sort who would kill himself.  So why did I think that?  Benton had only said he was shot.

Benton’s voice went up an octave, a sure sign he was going into meltdown.  “It’s a circus down here.  Jennifer is missing, Giles is not in yet, the network is down, and that bunch of nincompoops you call support staff are running around the office like headless chooks.”

It all came out in a nonstop sentence, followed by a gasp for air.  It gave me time to sift the facts.  Jennifer, my sometime assistant, and responsible for data entry and accounts maintenance, was not there, which in itself was unusual, because she kept longer hours than me, Peter Giles, my youthful assistant, just out of university and still being beaten into shape was not in, and that was usual, so it could only mean one thing.

The network was down.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2020

 

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 45

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

 

We flew north at low altitude, crossing the border into the Sudan, then ran along the border, heading back to the landing field we’d arrived on in Uganda.

It was basically a two-hour flight that in the end was eventless.  After everything that had happened over the past 24 hours, it wasn’t hard to doze off, leaving Davies to get us back.

I was woken suddenly by a thump on my arm.

“Need your help landing this crate,” a squeaky voice in my ear said.

I could feel the plane losing altitude, and the engines not making the same noise as they had just before I’d dropped off to sleep.  It seemed like it was only a few minutes ago we were taking off.

She leveled the plane at 1000 feet, and flew over the airfield, the landing lights on, and I could see the strip from start to end.  It looked a lot longer than the one we’d taken off from.

Turning sharply, I could hear the landing gear being activated and saw green lights come on one the dashboard.  Down and locked I assumed.

She then went through a series of landing checks and told me what she wanted me to do to assists, and then everything seemingly OK, we came in to land.

This landing was a lot bumpier than that in the C130 earlier, but she got us there, throttled back, and slowed the speed before heading for the terminal buildings.

Once there, she let the engines run for about a minute or so before switching them off.

Once the propellers stopped turning, the silence in the cockpit was strange.  At the rear, the door was opened, and everyone was getting off, the Colonel first to make sure none of his men shot anyone by mistake, and then the rest of the team.

Davies and I were the last to leave.  I got the impression she would have stayed, just a little longer, and it was telling that she patted the dashboard in what I would call a loving manner, thanking the aircraft for its service.

“I can see you like flying these old planes,” I said, still seated and taking in the moment.

“There’s something about them.  You have to fly them, they don’t fly you, not like the F15’s or any of those other jets that have autopilots.  No, this comes from the days of real flying.”

“You said your Dad has one?”

“Yep.”

“Then the art of flying is not lost on you.  Perhaps one day when I get lost, somewhere where this plane lives, you can take me up.”

“Any time.”

She dragged herself out of the left seat and headed towards the rear of the plane.  I took a moment longer, then followed her.

Maybe she could teach me how to fly.

Or maybe not.

I keep forgetting I hate flying in planes.

As I stepped off the plane onto terra firma again, I could see just inside the range of my peripheral vision, some activity by the terminal building.

Suddenly, a man was running towards us.  He was also yelling out, words to the effect, ‘they’re coming’.

Who?

The Colonel looked up just as the man, almost hunched over out of breath, reached him.

“They’re coming.  A helicopter, heading towards us.”  Several more huge breaths, then, “An hour at best.”  He looked at me.  “You have to go.”

Then he handed the Colonel a sheet of paper, and he quickly scanned it.

Then he said, “Your friendly militia decided the ransom wasn’t enough and they’re coming to take them back.”

“How is that possible?  Can they just cross borders like that?”

“This is Africa.  Anything can happen.  By the time their mission is done, it’ll be too late for us to scramble anything to attack them.  You need to go.”

Davies had come back, assuming it had something to do with the plane, and after taking in what the Colonel had to say, said, “We need more fuel.  Not much, but it’ll take time.”

The fuel truck had already come out and begun the refueling.

“Go tell the driver how much you need.  You’ve probably got a half-hour, a little more before you take off and go before, they get here.”

She headed towards the fuel truck, muttering under her breath.

I yelled out to Monroe, “Round up everyone and get them back on the plane.  Wheels up in half an hour.”

I could see her mouth the word why.

“Seems we’re about to get a visit from some very unfriendly people.”

Enough said.

 

© Charles Heath 2020

If only something made sense…

It seems rather fortuitous that we have a holiday at the end of the year.

I mean, who sat around a table however many years ago and decided that holidays like Christmas should be at the end of the year.  And who decided one half of the world could freeze to death on their holidays, and the other half burn?

At the end of a long year at that, you know, 52 weeks, 12 months, 365 days, where even when some of us get a weekend off once in a blue moon, it still seems like we’re working 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

So, who decided a week would have seven days, a year would have 12 months, and while we’re at it, who decided to give each month a different name?  And who named names?

Was it Father Time.  As children, we all learn about father time, or has political correctness stepped in and we now call ‘father time’, ‘person time’.

Anyway…

Who do we blame for this mess, we have to blame someone.  It’s not our fault.  If it were up to me I’d have Christmas in September when there’s more temperate weather in both halves of the world.

And who decided that Christmas should be attached to Winter and not Summer?

It’s like the whole mess was designed by a group of academics majoring in philosophy sitting in a back room and fed Coca Cola and Pizzas until they came up with an answer, which was probably to send it all to a parliamentary committee made up from candidates from Bellevue Asylum.

The same people, by the way, who are responsible for coordinating traffic lights.

And then there’s that other mystery I’ve never quite understood.

If you work for the FBI your first name suddenly becomes ‘Agent’.  Everyone gets that name change whether you like it or not.

Which is much the same as all Russians once upon a time calling each other ‘comrade’.  Beats the hell, I suppose, out of remembering peoples first names, especially in Russia where, to us, they’re unpronounceable.

Sorry.

You can tell it’s getting close to Chrismas.

I’ve become a gibbering idiot.

Writing about writing a book – Day 28

So after that rather undramatic ‘off with the fairies’ moment, it’s time to come back to earth.  Holiday or not, there’s always something that can go wrong.

Even when you’ve been told to take some vacation days, and reluctantly stayed home.  The notion that vacation meant going away somewhere doesn’t enter Bill’s mind.

Perhaps he’s like a lot of workaholics, using their job as an excuse to forget about life outside work.

Maybe he was hoping something would go wrong.  Maybe he had considered manufacturing a problem so that he would have to go back.

Maybe not, but that was the sort of employee he was, not one that could willingly take a day away, just in case.

Like now.

 

I’d almost managed to doze off again when the phone rang.

I jumped to its equally shrill sound cutting through the silence.  It had to be a wrong number because no one at work would call me, and I didn’t have many friends, so I let it ring out.  As far as I could remember, it was only the third time it had rung since I’d moved in, four years ago.

Blissful silence.  I looked at the bedside clock.  7 am.  Who called anyone at that hour?

It rang again.

Ignore it, I thought.  If it was anyone, it would be someone from the office.  I’d told them all not to call me, not unless the building was burning down and they were all trapped in it.

And even then, I’d have to think about it.

Burying my head under the pillow didn’t shut out the insistent ringing, compelling me to answer.  Almost reluctantly I rolled back, pulled the telephone out from under the bed, and lifted the receiver to my ear.

“Bill?”

It was Carl Benton, my immediate superior; an insipid, loathsome, irritating little man, the last person I would want to speak to.  He’d insisted I take this leave, that the office could survive without me, adding in his most condescending manner that I needed the break.

I slammed the receiver down in anger.  It was a forlorn gesture.  Seconds later, it rang again.

“I seem to remember you were the one to tell me to go on holiday, that I needed a holiday.  I’m off the roster.  It can’t be that important.  Call someone else.”  I wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to speak.  Not this morning.  I was not in the mood to listen to that squeaky, falsetto voice of his, one that always turned into a whine when he didn’t get his way.

And hung up again.

Not that it would do any good.  I knew that even if I was in Tibet, he would still call.  Then I realized it was too early for him to be in the office, and if he was, he would have been dragged out of bed and put in a position where if he didn’t produce results, they might realize just how incompetent he was.

At last, my holiday had some meaning and smiled to myself.  I’d make the bastard sweat.

He left it a few minutes before he rang again.  And I let it ring out.  I could see the expression on his face, bewilderment, changing slowly into suffused anger.  How dare I ignore him!

Another five minutes, then the phone began its shrill insistence again.  Before it rang again, I’d moved it from the floor to the bed.  I counted the rings, to ten, and then picked up the receiver.

“Bill?  Don’t hang up.”  Almost pleading.

“Why?  You said I should go, away from work, away from the phones, away to recharge my batteries, I believe you said.”

“That was Friday.  This is Monday. You’re needed.  Richardson has been found shot dead by his desk.  All hell has broken loose!”  Benton rarely used adjectives, so I assumed when he said all hell had broken loose, it meant something had happened he couldn’t fix.  His flowery language and telegram style had momentarily distracted my attention from Richardson’s fate.

Harold Richardson was an accountant, rather stuffy, but good at his job.  I’d spoken to him probably twice in as many years, and he didn’t strike me as the sort who would kill himself.  So why did I think that?  Benton had only said he was shot.

Benton’s voice went up an octave, a sure sign he was going into meltdown.  “It’s a circus down here.  Jennifer is missing, Giles is not in yet, the network is down, and that bunch of nincompoops you call support staff are running around the office like headless chooks.”

It all came out in a nonstop sentence, followed by a gasp for air.  It gave me time to sift the facts.  Jennifer, my sometime assistant, and responsible for data entry and accounts maintenance, was not there, which in itself was unusual, because she kept longer hours than me, Peter Giles, my youthful assistant, just out of university and still being beaten into shape was not in, and that was usual, so it could only mean one thing.

The network was down.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2020

 

What happens after the action-packed start – Part 46

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

…

It took longer, as everything does when you’re in a hurry.
 
The plane was loaded, the fuel truck had just disconnected the final hose, and was leaving the field, and Davies was firing up the engines.
 
Everyone was on board and strapped in.  I gave my thanks to the Colonel and shut the door before joining Davies in the cockpit.
 
Looking at her cool, calm demeanor gave me confidence.  If anyone could get us out of here in one piece, she could.
 
I put the headphones on and put on the seat belt, just as she revved the engines, saw the wave from the ground crewman who removed the wheel chocks, and we started moving.
 
15 minutes to spare.  Would it be enough?
 
The Colonel had said that it was possible the helicopter might be one of those belonging to the air force and might have missiles that could shoot us down.  Not a good thought.  At the very least it would have a cannon, and if the bullets hit us, it could make an awful mess of the fuselage.
 
He didn’t have any good news though.
 
I was hoping it would just be a commercial helicopter with a couple of thugs with handguns shooting at us.
 
At the top of the runway, she didn’t waste time going to full throttle, and we started rumbling down the runway.  Unfortunately, the wind had changed and to take off we had to initially fly towards Congo airspace before turning towards our destination.
 
Then we lifted off and started gaining altitude.
 
Then I heard Davies mutter, “Fuck.”
 
Trouble.  I saw what elicited the curse.  The helicopter, heading towards us.
 
“Military,” she added.
 
Not that I had any idea what I was looking for, but it didn’t seem to have rockets, but it did have a cannon barrel under the fuselage.
 
“Brace yourself,” she said.  “We’re about to get on the roller coaster.”
 
Still climbing we were getting closer, and I could just see the cannon move.  If it was shooting rounds, they didn’t hit us, not from such a distance, but they were getting closer because we were still flying towards them.
 
Then, suddenly, she turned the planes to the right and down, a plunge so quick that my stomach was in my mouth.  I hate to think what it would be like for those in the back.
 
Aside from the fact my hearing was blocked by the headphones, I could still hear several mini-explosions coming from behind me.
 
Another curse, rather longer this time, from Davies and she twisted the plane back in the opposite direction, and heading around towards the airfield again, much lower down this time, with the helicopter in hot pursuit.
 
Now we couldn’t see it, but it would have a good view of our engines and tail.
 
If any of the bullets hit, we’d be in big trouble.
 
I was bracing myself for disaster.
 
Davies was coaxing the plane upwards, but it seemed sluggish.
 
Nothing happened.
 
“Gun’s jammed.” She said.  “If you don’t maintain your equipment…”
 
That statement was cut off by a huge explosion and turning as far as I could in my seat I just saw the remnants of a firewall, what was once a helicopter.
 
“Ground to air rocket.  The Colonel must have some interesting toys at his disposal.”  Davies sounded very relieved.
 
I started breathing again.
 
“Are we damaged?”  It was a valid question.  The plane seemed like it was flying awkwardly.
 
“I’d say so., Those explosions.  Cannon fire hitting the fuselage.  Probably took out some controls, or failing that, since there’s still maneuverability, probably just a few holes creating drag.”
 
She was a matter of fact like, but that was more because she was fighting the controls to keep us moving in the right direction.
 
Away from trouble.
 
“Go check it out,” she said.
 
At the head of the cabin, I saw the problem, a row of neat holes carved from one window through to halfway along the fuselage, going down.  We’d be lucky if one of the bullets hadn’t struck one of the wires that drove the flaps/
 
There was a hell of a noise from the air coming in through the holes.  
 
By the second window, slumped forward, was Shurl.  There was blood and blood spatter on the floor.  Monroe came up to me and yelled in my ear.
 
“Damned good flying, and only one casualty.  We were incredibly lucky.  Shurl wasn’t quick enough to get on the floor.  Other than that, we’re still in the air, and I’m guessing someone shot the helo down?”
 
“Ground to air missile.  Any sooner, that would have been us.  Try and sit back, rest, and enjoy the in-flight service.  Oh, and a prayer or two might help.”

© Charles Heath 2020-2021