— What are you doing, idiot!? — the commander shouted. — You blinded me! I now have red bunnies in my eyes!
— How do you think I can check the map? — the navigator-operator got furious. — Am I a cat or something?
And in this stressful time the commander…farted.
A wave of stinky smells was coming from the chair of the commander and reached the board technician. The offended navigator-operator demonstratively waved the air with the folded map.
Suddenly the voice of the leading helicopter thrilled in the headphones:
— Hey, 532, did you sense a smell?
— What smell? — the commander asked, petrified.
Both, the board technician and navigator-operator, started laughing.
They laughed as hard as they ever did. They choked and coughed.
— What? What? Someone fired! — the leader said. — Watch! they are shooting at us from the slope. And we even didn’t have unguided missiles. Stay away from the mountains.
— Got it, — the commander of the second chopper said and then unashamedly re-addressed his farting incident to his crew via the intercom. — Why are you farting like horses?
— It was not us! — the board technician and navigator-operator rejected his claim forcing themselves to stop laughing.
— And who it was, was it me? — the commander demanded the answer.
— Maybe it was someone from the leading choppy! — the board technician suggested and now all three farted together.
Thus, laughing, they went through the battle. They released the remaining two bombs, turned around and returned home.
One day, the pilots requested that the squadron commander arranges for a polygon, for them to do exercises for firing from a front-side machine gun. In the condition of real battle, a board technician is in charge of the machine gun, while the pilots are in-charge of pressing the UAM’s button (unguided aircraft missile — Editor). Of course, all board technicians became a bit worried, but there was nothing they could do — just comply with the order. However, there was one particular reason to be alarmed and it was related to the process of loading cartridge belts. This job was a prerogative and primary responsibility of board technicians, and it was not an easy task: put the bullets into the “mouth”, turn the handle, make sure the cartridge is not twisted — if you do not notice and push the handle, you may be knocked down. After a few re-loadings, the calluses on your hands were secured — especially after loading the cartridge belt after each flight. At least, four boxes with cartridge belts for 250 rounds were kept on board.
The flight engineer F. liked having eight zinc boxes on board — he placed them in a row under the bench. They warmed his soul.
The prospect of the pilots’ activities on the polygon, in the beginning, upset him. He even boldly objected to it and said to the captain Trudov:
— Do not even dream! My barrel is hot, overused, and already began to spit, showing a lack of accuracy. You will be the first who will be killed in a battle due to this overused weapon. And my hands are not made from metal — to load the cartridge belts each time whilst you are having fun on the polygon.
But Trudov promised him to do a loading by himself as much as required. The flight engineer F. agreed to it with one condition — the re-loading will be doubled — for an amortization of the machine-gun, as he explained. They shook their hands on that.
— Maybe I need to wash your board? — the captain sarcastically asked, offended by this deal.
On the polygon the flight engineer F. placed his machine-gun at close range, switched to the electric trigger on the control stick. The captain Trudov with the right pilot, indeed, had fun shooting 500 rounds. They would like to have more, but the flight engineer F. already tired of this stupid machine. He explained to the commander that his machine-gun overheated, and, in generally, there is no need to harass and annoy the weapon with this senseless shooting. Therefore, the commander was disconnected from the firing.
In the parking lot the captain Trudov ordered to the right pilot, called Cute:
— Now you will re-load 1000 rounds. I gave my word of the officer and promised to do a double loading.
— What is my business in such shooting? — Cute got upset. — He promised, and I should to do re-loading now!
The flight engineer F. opened three zinc cartridges — simple, armor-piercing, tracer. Then he got an empty cartridge belt for 1000 rounds, which he collected from four standard ones. These standard cartridge belts always ended unexpectedly in the most inopportune moment, this is why the board technician decided to do double re-loading and create a super-cartridge belt.
Turning the handle, Cute concentrated. The flight engineer F. was controlling misalignment of cartridges and straightened a twisted black snake. The process of re-loading went smoothly. Cute, whose navigating hands were good for keeping only a pencil and making a line, groaned, looking at his fresh calluses:
— Shooting from my gun is a sweet deal that I prefer to do.
Admiring the miracle cartridge belt, the board technician, first, had a smoke, and then started to place it in the normal box, but it was not possible. Only a zinc box was big enough to swallow this newly-created snake.
It was too risky for his health to lift this zinc box, so in order not to overstrain himself, he dragged it to his cabin. After much effort, using his knee as a jack, he tried to put it under the seat frame. But the enormous zinc box was too big for this place. Frustrated, the sweating flight engineer, dragged the zinc box again to the stern machine-gun. There was a relatively big space, so he somehow fitted the zinc box, in a way that the cartridge belt was free to go in the locking part of the machine-gun.
“Somehow, I could shoot from here”, — he thought, very pleased with the fact that now his tail is more secure.
In the morning they flew to Turgundi. On the platform 101 they took on board a drunken captain.
— Take me, guys! — the captain humbly asked. — It should be the end of my war — I’m replaced! — but because there was not any transport to Turgunda, I am in my third day of binge-drinking — and stuck like a shit in a hole — even thought to return to fight again! And take this bottle to smooth my replacement… — and he handed to the commander a bottle of vodka.
Of course, it was taken.
We arrived and sat down on the ground near the road, which is behind the hill from the right, and could see the border towers of the Soviet Union. We turned off the engine, and the silence was relaxing.
— Smells like gunpowder, — the captain sniffed.
The flight engineer F. opened a door to the cargo compartment and gasped. The grey layers of smoke completely filled the cabin. The smoke was corroding his eyes, cutting his throat, there was no air to breathe. Looking closer, the flight engineer saw a passenger who was laying on the floor among the black rings of gun-cartridges. He made an unsuccessful attempt to stand up, but felt down again on the carpet of the thousands of empty shells and cartridges.
— What have you done, asshole?! — the flight engineer F. terrifyingly asked, not yet aware of the scale of what just happened.
The drunken captain — he was even more drunk than before — turned to one side, raised his head, and said:
— Hey, guys! Well, thank you, such a cool machine-gun! All the way out of this war, I was shooting! Don’t look at me — I was saying good-bye, do you not get it?! Good-by to this fucking country, to this war! I am sure the way how I said goodbye — these bitches will remember!
The flight engineer F. grabbed him by the collar and kicked out from the board. Then the drunken captain’s suitcase was followed. The captain grabbed his stuff and ran, not looking back.