The Sixteen (21 page)

Ken already had it started up and just as we threw in our gear and scrambled on board, the thing began to leave the ground, and once again the noise was deafening. It was very cramped with our bags and I clambered into the front and sat down. The next thing I knew was a tap on my shoulder and turning around I saw Dynamo, clinging on to the outside of the helicopter, indicating that I should move into the back. I was immediately pulled over the back of the seat by Chalky and Spot and forced in between them. Dynamo swung inside, climbed into the front and sat next to Ken, as if hanging on to the outside of a helicopter almost a hundred feet from the ground was an everyday occurrence for him!

Seconds later, we shot away across the top of the old hangar and began hurtling towards the sea at rooftop height, twisting and turning to avoid detection.

The first part of the flight took us approximately two hundred-and-fifty miles to find the refuelling dump near to the Israeli
border. Even though we were wearing headsets, conversation was impossible due to the high noise level, and we mainly communicated by using hand signals and lip-reading.

In order to avoid detection by radar, Ken flew low over the sea, practically skimming the waves, and unlike my first helicopter flight, this time I was able to see all around us. It was great fun!

After a couple of hours, we ate some of the food we’d prepared earlier and shortly after Ken held up his hand and indicated ten minutes to the fuel dump. We could see the Israeli coastline ahead of us and passed over several small fishing boats below.

The fuel was located in an area of small hills only about a hundred yards off the beach, where we landed near to a marshy, reeded area. Ken took some bearings off local landmarks to locate exactly where the fuel was buried and after we removed some sand and soil, we found it, about a foot below the surface, several fifty-gallon drums stored inside a large wooden box. Also inside the box was a hand-pump for extracting the fuel.

Just as we were lifting the planks of wood covering the drums, a jet fighter approached from the north to roughly within a mile of us. My heart was in my mouth: in this part of the country, a Meteor could only be an Israeli plane and I was sure that the pilot must have seen us.

‘Look out lads, a plane!’ I shouted to the others and immediately began to run away from the helicopter and the fuel towards some nearby bushes, which I dived into for cover. My mouth was dry as I crouched waiting for the inevitable, but there was no loud burst of gunfire, nothing happened, everything was quiet.

When I looked up again I saw the others staring at the now disappearing plane, which for no apparent reason had suddenly veered off to the west. They all seemed totally unconcerned and strolled back to the fuel dump.

‘Well, you certainly flew into action pretty damn quickly then, Geordie,’ Spot said, laughing. ‘You can come out now, he’s gone!’

Sheepishly I emerged from behind the bushes feeling a complete prat. But, after prolonging my embarrassment for several minutes, they eventually admitted that they’d all run for cover too and had followed me for a short distance before realising that the fighter had changed course. I got the definite impression that they weren’t a bit surprised when it had; it was almost as if they had expected it to happen!

We quickly set-to, refuelling the hack; and personally, I couldn’t get the damned thing filled up quickly enough. Once we’d finished refuelling, we re-covered the remaining drums, making sure that the surrounding area showed no trace that we had been there. The downdraught from the helicopter would blow enough sand and soil around to take care of any signs that it had landed.

And we now flew very low over the sea, almost touching the waves. Sea spray covered the windscreen at times and Ken had to use the wipers to clear his view. At one point, the spray hit the carburettor air intake beneath the hack and it began to splutter. It was bouncing around all over the place and rattled so much that I expected it to ditch into the sea at any moment, but as usual, the others were totally unconcerned. We kept out about five miles from the mainland for most of the remainder of the journey and, every so often, we would catch glimpses of the shoreline in the distance.

All of a sudden, we heard a loud flapping noise coming from the outside of the helicopter. Oh, God, this is it! I thought, sure that we were about to go down. Then, to my complete amazement Dynamo decided to investigate. He climbed out on to the side of the helicopter and vanished out of sight for a few seconds. I had no idea what he found to hold on to or how he managed to hold
on to it, as we were travelling at about eighty-five to ninety miles an hour and the hack was constantly bumping and swaying about. None of the others turned a hair; they just sat where they were as if this was an everyday occurrence, and appeared to ignore it. They didn’t seem concerned about him at all it.

The loud noise abruptly stopped and Dynamo appeared again, smiling. In his hand, he carried a large broken leather strap, which he held up in front of us then threw into the sea before casually sitting down again as though nothing had happened.

We’d been travelling for quite some time when Ken indicated that we should get ready as we had less than forty miles to go. A few minutes later, I spotted a small lighthouse in the distance and nudged Spot and Chalky.

The plan was for us to land at a point about fifteen to twenty miles NNW of Port Said and roughly eighty-five miles north of Cairo – the lighthouse I’d just seen was a few miles west of Port Said. The mainland was getting closer and closer and we were now only minutes away from the drop-off point, roughly near to one of the main rivers of the Nile delta.

Ken hovered for a short while, as he searched around for a safe place to set us down, dropping to only feet above the marshy ground, and we jumped out into a couple of inches of water. The instant our feet hit the ground the helicopter veered away and disappeared into the distance.

As soon as he’d gone, we took our bearings and began to walk in a south-easterly direction but hadn’t travelled far when Dynamo suddenly shouted:

‘Take cover!’

We hit the deck as a MiG 15 suddenly appeared out of nowhere and flew past us before disappearing in the same direction as the helicopter.

‘You don’t think Ken’s been picked up by their radar do you?’ I asked, concerned that he might be shot down.

I didn’t think that the plane had seen us, as it was travelling far too fast and we were passing through an area of tall reeds, which reached to our shoulders.

‘Don’t worry about Ken, Geordie, he’s a helluva pilot,’ Dynamo assured me, sensing my anxiety. ‘He knows this area like the back of his hand, he’ll be in Israeli airspace before they get anywhere near him.’

‘Besides, we’ll be picked up no matter what,’ he continued. ‘Ken is covered!’

I didn’t ask what he meant by this. I was learning not to ask questions.

Soon the marshy ground began to harden beneath our feet and the reeds thinned out. It was mid-morning and the air was scorching, hot and sticky, there was a strong smell of sewage in the area and millions of flies buzzed everywhere.

We made our way southeast from the drop-off point towards some small hills in the distance; the whole area appeared to be uninhabited, as so far we had seen no signs of life.

Never in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined anything like this would happen to me. I was just nineteen, this was my third mission and already I could feel the adrenalin starting to flow. I was really looking forward to this.

I
checked my watch; it was 12.10 a.m., and we’d been walking for about two hours and were drenched in perspiration. I calculated that we must have travelled about nine miles from the drop-off point and ahead of us was more of the same dry, hilly landscape covered in rough scrub.

‘Where’s that damn river, Chalky?’ I said, brushing the sweat from my eyes.

‘It’s got to be just over that hill ahead of us, Geordie. We should meet it just below a place called Dumyat and if my calculations are right it’s just ahead of us.’

‘I hope you’re right, I’m melting away here,’ Spot said, wiping his sleeve across his face.

It was midday and by now the oppressive heat was unbearable, and I hoped that once we got near to the river it might be a bit cooler. Swarms of flies and insects constantly buzzed around us, they were driving me nuts!

We walked on towards the hill and began to climb but as we neared the top Chalky signed to us to stop and listen. So far, we hadn’t seen anyone, but now we could clearly hear voices in the distance and the sound of vehicles, so we crept to the top and cautiously looked over.

Spread out below us was the biggest, widest river I’d ever seen; it was so unexpected that it took me totally by surprise. As it stretched away from us into the distance, the golden sun beating down on its surface made it look like a long, twisting, silvery
snake. Its banks were covered with green trees and reeds for as far as we could see and a wide strip of lush, fertile land spread out from either side until it ran into the desert beyond. Dozens of small boats were sailing along it in both directions. It was the most beautiful and peaceful sight.

For a stretch of about a quarter of a mile, it formed a series of small coves before reaching a large level area adjacent to a nearby road, where the bank straightened out. The road ran very close to the river at this point and about quarter of a mile away we could see a large group of men working on it.

A column of dust in the distance caught Chalky’s attention and he took out his binoculars to scan the area. ‘I wonder what’s going on over there,’ he muttered.

‘Let’s have a look,’ Dynamo said, taking the binoculars from him. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. I count three truckloads of soldiers and workmen I think. I can’t quite make out what’s going on but it looks as if they’re repairing that road and the soldiers seem to be stopping and searching cars.’

‘That’s all we bloody need.’ Spot took the binoculars Dynamo passed to him. ‘Look at that as well, beyond those trees the road is only about two hundred yards from the river and there aren’t any trees or reeds just there.’

There were dozens of armed soldiers in the area and several military vehicles manoeuvring and turning very close to the riverbank on the level ground. We could clearly see that they were stopping vehicles and searching them. Obviously, we had to avoid them at all costs, we couldn’t afford to be stopped or held up at this point. Although we tried to look as much like the locals as possible, in order to blend in, our disguises wouldn’t pass any type of close inspection.

Dynamo glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve got ten hours to find the
target. We’ll have to make a move before someone spots us. Come on, let’s get down to that riverbank as quickly as possible.’

It seemed that the only way to bypass them was by following the riverbank, about five hundred yards away. The embankment leading down to the river was covered with reeds and scrub, which eventually petered out just before the level area near to the roadworks. There was no cover at all at this point and it was so open there would be no way to pass without being seen by the soldiers or workmen. We just didn’t have time to wait until nightfall; we had to do something now and quick. It looked impossible.

In one of the coves we could just make out the remains of a small jetty and, using the reeds and scrub on the embankment as cover, we cautiously made our way down to it. The reeds were tall and thick and we sat in among them to examine an old map we’d brought with us, to try to work out how we could get past this area.

‘While we’re looking at the map, one of us should go and watch the troop movements and see how close they come to the embankment,’ Spot said. ‘There might be a way we can get past them without being seen.’

Dynamo nodded in agreement. ‘It looks as though we’re just going to have to take a chance and walk past the place and hope that no one tries to stop us.’

We couldn’t see any activity on the river so Chalky crept up through the reeds to the top of the embankment. Suddenly he came dashing back.

‘Take cover lads,’ he hissed. ‘There’s no way we are going to get past that lot, the soldiers are sitting just yards from the river, but I’ve just seen the top of a sail. I think there’s a boat coming around that bend any minute now!’

We couldn’t see the boat from where we were hiding in the
reeds, but moments later it rounded the bend in the river and seemed to head straight for us. I could see four people on board, one was standing on the deck holding a pushbike while a couple of them lowered the large single sail. Another guy was using the oar at the stern. He turned the boat around and sculled it into the cove backwards, bringing it in close to the shore, heading towards the small jetty just yards away from us to drop off the man with the pushbike.

The guy holding the bike handed it to one of the others on board as he climbed over the side on to the jetty, then it was handed back to him and he began to make his way with some difficulty up the embankment through the rushes, pushing his bike before him.

‘Why don’t we “borrow” that boat?’ I whispered to Dynamo.

‘That’s exactly what we’re going to do,’ he replied, quietly. ‘We don’t have any other option. No will see us from here, it’s too sheltered.’

It seemed that the boat was the only way we were going to get past this particular point in the river in order to avoid the troops.

‘We’d better hurry, look they’re leaving,’ Chalky said.

Dynamo turned to him and spoke quietly out of the corner of his mouth: ‘I don’t think they’re going to offer us a lift, do you. I’ll follow the guy with the bike and make sure he doesn’t come back. You lot go and get that boat.’

As the man with the bike moved out of sight, Dynamo followed him up the embankment and we pushed through the reeds on to the jetty, then casually started walking out towards the boat, not wanting to panic the crew, who’d just started paddling away from the shore.

Chalky called out something in Arabic to get their attention; otherwise, they would have been out of reach by the time we got
to the end of the jetty. I don’t know what he said, but it seemed to work. They looked rather surprised to see us there but they stopped paddling to let him approach. Chalky kept talking to them as he got nearer to the edge of the jetty.