The main salvo of rockets passed harmlessly beneath the bomber, too far away for the proximity fuses to fire them. Three, flying higher than the rest, detonated as they passed underneath. They did not cause any damage. A fourth, possibly through some defect in its stabilisers, came in higher and slower than the others. It exploded ten yards off the starboard side of the rear end of the pressure cabin, the twenty kilo charge erupting its steel case into a hundred lethal pieces.
The blast gouged out whole sections of the fuselage and starboard wing. Between twenty and thirty jagged lumps of steel tore through the cabin. Mellows, Goldsmith, and Minter died at once, their bodies ripped open by the furious metal. Andersen was untouched, but Garcia was hit in the leg. Federov received only a slight flesh wound. Engelbach and Owens were not hit, but a fragment wrecked Owens’ main radar.
Brown felt a slamming impact in his back, which knocked him forward to slump unconscious against the controls. And Alabama Angel, responsive to the forward movement of the stick, pushed her nose down again, and began the long, sickening slide into the hostile darkness beneath.
It was Federov who recovered first from the shock of the explosion. He stumbled forward to the pilot’s seat, heaved Brown out, and lowered him gently to the floor. Freed of Brown’s weight on the controls, the nose of the bomber began slowly to lift towards the horizontal, in obedience to the urge of the trimmers. Federov, panting with the effort of moving Brown, climbed into the seat. He was vaguely conscious of Andersen bending over the unconscious pilot.
Federov knew he had to act fast. The fighter might be circling for another strike. Or other fighters might be heading in on the target. Federov was no pilot, but like all SAC engineers he had been given a hundred or so hours dual. He could look after the plane in the air if he was not called on to land it, or to perform really tight combat flying. And he knew the safest place was near the ground. O.K., that’s where he’d head for. He eased the stick forward, trimming the aircraft into a nose down position at the same time. Again Alabama Angel tilted down into the darkness.
Next, Federov assessed the damage. Amazingly, all six engines were still functioning normally. He felt the onset of compressibility vibration, and hastily cut back the revs of the engines. The juddering stopped. He made a quick and thorough inspection of the instruments. All the flying instruments were all right. Fuel feeds seemed to be normal.
Temperatures and pressures were about right. Federov sighed with relief. The plane was still flying and still flyable. He settled to the task of holding her steadily on course as she lost height. It did not occur to him even to consider turning back.
Andersen, bending over Brown, saw his eyes suddenly blink open. Brown moved his head slowly to one side, looking up past Andersen’s face to where Federov sat in the pilot’s seat. His lips moved soundlessly, the words lost without trace in the roaring noise of the cabin. Then he began to ease himself up. Andersen moved a hand in protest, urging him to stay down. Brown brushed it impatiently away, and motioned Andersen to help him. Andersen hauled him him slowly upright, and Brown tapped Federov to indicate he wanted to resume the seat. It was only as he climbed into the seat that Andersen saw the dark, spreading stains on his torn clothing half way up the right side of his back.
Brown sank into his seat. He was not yet feeling any pain beyond a dull ache. But he knew he was hit hard. He felt as though someone had broken off a spear point in his back. It did not hurt, but he was conscious of a bulk which had intruded itself into his body where it had no place to be. He fumbled for the intercom set which had torn away when Federov removed him a few moments before, and checked it was properly connected. Then he said, "Stan, where are we?"
"We’ve crossed in," Andersen said quickly. "Hold this course a while, unless…" he let the sentence tail off.
Brown made no reply. He glanced at the altimeter, then flicked on his radio altimeter. It was working. He remembered that the aerials were out on the port wing tip. Mercifully, they’d not been damaged by the explosion. It made all the difference. Now he could hold an accurate height above ground. Three thousand feet now, and he found he could see quite well. Andersen had been wrong about the cloud. There were a few patches up above, but the stars shone through with the clean, hard brightness of the northern latitudes. The snow on the ground helped too, though it was likely to be deceptive when judging distances.
He said, "Unless nothing, Stan. For the moment we go on. I don’t have to tell you how important it is we get through. Right now, we might be the only people standing between Russia and the destruction of the States. We have to go on, and we have to take that base out. It’s our duty, and by God we’re going to do it."
"Sure," Andersen said. "Sure, Clint. Is there enough light to fly low. Real low, I mean?"
"There’s enough," Brown said shortly. His face twisted in pain as a sudden hot shaft of agony stabbed into his back. Here we go, he thought grimly. It was not the first time he had been wounded. When he was only sixteen his brother had accidentally punched a twenty-two slug through his leg while they were out hunting. The first few minutes had been fine. Just a kind of numbness. He had even laughed and joked. The next six hours, before they finally got back to medical aid, had been unadulterated hell.
He said quickly, before the next shaft of pain should hit, "Let’s round up on the damage and the casualties. See what’s working. I’m going to run in to the target at deck level. Ten miles away, I’ll climb up to bomb, let her go, then turn and come back out on the deck. Flight plan on that, will you Stan?"
"Right away." Andersen’s hand reached out for his computer.
"All right then," Brown said. He paused, gasping as the pain hit him again, then went on, "We’ll make it, men. Believe me, we’ll make it and take that base out. Back home right now, they’re relying on us to get through, because we know just how important they consider that particular base. And they can rely on us. Because we will."
Chapter 15
When the President had taken the decision to send the Rangers into Sonora, General Keppler had said his men would brush the defence aside without too much trouble. General Franklin had insisted there would be heavy casualties. Both generals had been partly right.
The Rangers had moved fast across terrain unfamiliar to them. Wherever they could, they had bypassed troublesome machine-gun, emplacements and flak towers. Where they could not, they had brushed them aside. They had taken casualties in the process.
The men of Dog Company, in particular, advancing southeast towards the administration building, had run into trouble when they were caught on the smooth, naked concrete of the 839th Wing’s servicing area by the cross fire of two flak towers, each of which mounted two Skysweepers. There was no cover for them on the huge, flat expanse of concrete. They could not dig in, they could not even rely on the earth absorbing some of the hail of shells which ripped into them. The shells exploded instantly on contact with the concrete, and the air became a singing inferno of metal. Dog Company lost sixty per cent of its effective strength in the first minute, and the survivors hastily withdrew under cover of smoke.