He switched back to the radio. “SAU Commander, this is Gunslinger Four-One. My SENSO is hit. I can’t tell how bad, but it looks like a chest wound. I’m going to need a medical crew standing by as soon as I hit the deck, over.”
“Roger, Gunslinger.”
Another burst of gunfire came from the oil platform, but this one fell short, the tracers dropping harmlessly into the ocean at the ends of their trajectories.
“I think we’re out of it,” Lieutenant Brolan said. “I think we’re …”
The tension in his voice was easing. He looked up. “What’s our damage like?”
“I can’t tell,” Lieutenant (jg) Chavez said. “My dials are all over the place. But I think I’m smelling oil.”
Lieutenant Brolan nodded. “Yeah, I smell it too. Think we can make it back to the barn?”
The radio kicked in. “Gunslinger Four-One, this is SAU Commander. We are approaching at all speed. Return to home plate, over.”
Brolan stared at the radio as if it were from another planet. “No shit.”
Chavez thumped his instrument panel, where a red tattletale was flashing. “Oh shit! I’m showing a ‘chip-light’ on engine one.”
“Is it for real? Or are your instruments taking a dump?”
“You want to chance it?”
Lieutenant Brolan shook his head. “No way.”
According to the flashing tattletale, a sensor in the oil sump had detected metal filings in the starboard engine. If the sensor was reporting an actual condition (instead of an erroneous reading caused by instrument damage), the engine could seize up, tearing the aircraft apart, or even exploding like a bomb.
“Shut down engine one,” Lieutenant Brolan said. “I’ll mow the lawn,” he said under his breath. “I’ll help the kids with their homework. I will never look at another woman again …”
The aircraft took on a shudder so violent that it jarred Brolan’s teeth.
Only four hundred feet up, they were starting to lose altitude. The cyclic and collective were becoming less responsive with every second, and now he’d been forced to shut down one of his two engines. He hoped the increasingly powerful stink of burnt oil was coming from the now-dead starboard engine. If it was coming from the transmission casing or the port engine, they were going to have to ditch in the ocean. And no matter what the Navy’s air-sea survival courses taught, he knew that the odds for surviving a helo ditch were not good at all.
The copilot keyed up the radio. “SAU Commander, this is Gunslinger Four-One. My starboard engine is out, and I am losing altitude.” He glanced at his Tactical Air Navigation screen before continuing. “My ETA to Benfold is three mikes. Request emergency green deck, over.”
The reply came over the radio a few seconds later. “Gunslinger Four-One, this is SAU Commander. Towers is designated as your home plate.
You have emergency green deck on Towers. Do not attempt to rendezvous with Benfold, over.”
Pilot and copilot both stared at the radio. “What the hell are they thinking?” Chavez asked. He immediately keyed the radio. “SAU Commander, this is Gunslinger Four-One. I have an emergency. My SENSO is injured, I am down one engine, and my aircraft is about to fall out of the goddamned sky, over!”
On the TACAN, Benfold was approaching at thirty-five knots. Towers was limping after her at eighteen and a half knots. Benfold would be within range a hell of a lot sooner.
“Gunslinger Four-One, this is SAU Commander. I acknowledge your emergency. Your ETA to Towers is six mikes. You are not, I repeat not authorized to rendezvous with Benfold. Their deck is red to you, over.”
“This is Gunslinger Four-One. Roger, out.”
Lieutenant (jg) Chavez looked out his side window at the ocean, only about three hundred feet below and coming up way too fast. “I sure hope those guys brought some body bags.”
CHAPTER 45
The executive officer looked at Captain Bowie. “You sure about this, Jim? If those guys have to ditch, all we’ll be able to do is steam around in circles and try to fish the body parts out of the water. It will take an act of God to get one of them out of that thing alive.”
Captain Bowie nodded slowly. “I know.”
“Benfold can recover that aircraft in …”
The captain cut him off. “By the time Benfold recovers the helo, that submarine will be gone. Right now, if they pull out all the stops, they might get lucky and catch it on the surface. With a busted screw, we can’t get there in time.”
“What if we can’t get to the helo in time?”
“We will,” the captain said quietly.
“But, what if we don’t? That air crew is going to die …”
Captain Bowie wheeled around. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you really think for a second that I don’t know that?”
The XO didn’t say anything.
“How many people are dead already?” the captain snapped.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“We lost three to that goddamned torpedo, not counting the wounded.
Benfold’s whole bridge crew was wiped out; that’s six more. Plus our three, that makes nine. One on the Ingraham makes it ten. Call it an even hundred and fifty on the Antietam. And let’s not forget the Kitty Hawk; they lost fifteen, plus two entire air crews — that would be six more. And how many have the Brits lost? Nearly all hands on the York. Their crew would be, what? Two hundred? Two seventy-five?” He covered his eyes with his left hand and rubbed his temples with thumb and fingertips.
When he dropped his hand, his voice was much softer. “We will do everything we can to save the crew of that aircraft. But those subs have racked up an unbelievable body count. We sink that bastard, priority one.
Everything else is a secondary consideration. If it costs us three more lives, then we pay the price.” He turned away and half-whispered, “We pay the price.”
They stood in silence for several moments, until the TAO interrupted.
“Captain, Gunslinger is on final approach.”
“Is the crash-and-smash crew standing by?”
“Yes, sir, and Sick Bay is prepped to receive casualties.”
The captain punched keys on his console, and views from each of the three flight deck cameras popped up on the Aegis display screen. The video was black-and-white but very high resolution. Even so, the helo appeared as a blur at first, a gray and white smudge against black waves.
The pilot had bought himself some time by jettisoning his torpedo and ejecting his load of sonobuoys. Somehow the helicopter was still managing to claw its way through the air, darting and fluttering like a sparrow with an injured wing.
The crippled aircraft came in from the aft starboard corner of the flight deck, and it was immediately apparent that its angle of approach was all wrong. The LSE (short for Landing Signal Enlisted) tried to wave the helo off, but it was obvious that it didn’t have the power to gain altitude for another approach.