Thud Ridge by Jack Broughton Page B

realized that they were gaining nothing on us while we worked them back toward the outbound course we were looking for, or they had frustrated themselves on fuel, or most probably, they assumed that I was trying to move to a spot where I could close in on Magnum. Perhaps they felt they could double up on Magnum since he was in the worst shape and, by strength of numbers, do him in. They slowly slid further right and when I figured I had them beat, I moved toward Magnum. That pair would never recover a position to bother me now. They started off strong, but they just couldn't hack the course and for the first and only time that day, things started going right for a few minutes, except you suddenly couldn't hear yourself think. The flights had separated so far that they had become a series of units operating separately and everybody had something important to say, so important that they all cut each other out and nobody could say anything.
    "Flamingo—" Was Flamingo still down on the deck dodging Sams?
    "Clean 'em up—" Who in hell clean what up?
    "OK, you're clear, Nick—" I wondered if Nick was in the same flight as Bass four.
    I had turned Kingpin, and Geeno had turned Magnum so that I was now directly behind him. I could see the entire show as his wingman called, "OK, Magnum, we've got a Mig Twenty-one at five o'clock now." The Mig slid back, out of Magnum's field of view, and the wingman wrongly assumed that the Mig had faded off to the right as had the two that were on me.
    "Roger, you're clear—"
    I couldn't wait for him to finish, as the Mig had only momentarily moved back to the side. He must have been getting low on fuel and decided to give it one more college try and go home, or he moved back to change some switch setting, because he pulled directly astern of Magnum and sprinted to a perfect spot high and to the rear between Magnum lead and Magnum two. They couldn't see him and he was in an ideal spot for a double kill.
    "Negative, Magnum, negative. He's still on you, Magnum —six o'clock. Six o'clock, Magnum, a little high. He's sliding around on you."
    Magnum two slid to the side a bit and dipped his wing enough to catch the awesome sight of a Soviet interceptor boresighting himself and his leader for a heat-seeking missile launch. "OK, Magnum two's bombs coming off now, watch it."
    "Flamingo's got a Sam on the southeast edge of the Ridge." Man, I was glad that good old Flamingo was soaking up all those Sams.
    While Magnum lead and two unloaded their bombs and pulled for their lives, one of my original pursuers got in on the act.
    "OK, Magnum, Mig at three o'clock." As I watched, yet another unwanted visitor slid in on Magnum's right side. I decided the bombs had to go. We had already used so much fuel that we would have little time, if any, to look for a good target once we managed to haul our fannies out of there. We had covered a fair amount of sky at 600 knots and, lo and behold, there was a slight break in the clouds and, wonder of wonders, one of the forbidden sanctuaries sprawled beneath us. This one came off the protected Hst some time later, but I claim the first load of bombs into the middle of that baby doll.
    "Kingpin, let's get rid of these bombs and go help them. Kingpins, bomb now."
    You could almost feel the Thuds leap with joy as the cumbersome iron blivets left. We stroked the burners and waded into the tail cone of the leeches clinging to Magnum and the frame of reference changed. Now we were lighter and faster than we had been and we were closing from their six o'clock. It was probably none too soon, as you could hear the strain within Magnum flight.
    "Where's he at, three—er—four—er—three, Magnum."
    It's a tough way to make a living.
    "Rog, one behind and another at three o'clock." But now we were closing from the rear and Geeno had his flight lined up on the heading he wanted back to the north.
    "Hot Dog two, hit the burner."
    "OK, Magnum, let's take it back out the Ridge." I hoped