The Trash Haulers Read Online Free PDF Page A

honour of Major Charles Kelly, a pilot killed early in the war while extracting wounded.
    The crew chief and medic assigned to the helicopter were already there and untying the rotor blades. The crew chief looked at them in relief. “Mr. Tanner!” Tanner had a reputation for being a bit weird, but he was acknowledged as the best aircraft commander in the 571st.
    “Let’s go!” Tanner shouted.
    Now routine kicked in as the four men who had never flown together melded into a crew. Tanner climbed into the left seat, the aircraft commander’s position on a Dust Off, while Perkins jumped into the right seat. Tanner grabbed his shoulder harness and quickly strapped in, tightening his seat belt. Then he reached for the helmet hanging from a hook above his head. He hoped it would fit. It did. While he was strapping in, Perkins hit the start trigger on the right collective, bringing the single turboshaft engine to life. The crew chief slid the ‘chicken plate’, the armoured plating that protected Tanner’s left side from enemy fire, forward and into place. Once Tanner was strapped in and the intercom hot, he calmly said, “I’ve got the controls.” He could have been on a routine training mission and Perkins visibly calmed.
    Perkins fell into the routine, now all business. He looked over, confirming that Tanner’s hands were on the controls. “You’ve got the controls.” He quickly strapped in as Tanner rolled up the throttle, carefully bringing the engine’s 1100 shaft horsepower on line. He had to be careful, making sure the long blades did not build RPM too fast and overpower the tail rotor’s effectiveness that kept the airframe from spinning with the blades like a top.
    “Incoming mortars from the south,” the crew chief called from behind Tanner.
    “RPM 324,” Tanner replied as the swirling blades reached one hundred percent. “Let’s go.”
    “Clear right,” the medic who was strapped in behind Perkins called.
    “Clear left,” the crew chief said.
    For the first time, it was breaking their way. The long wall of the revetment was between them and the incoming mortars, shielding them from the attack coming from the south. The helicopter was pointed to the west, and Tanner backed out of the revetment to the east. Once clear, he eased in right pedal as he increased the collective, lifting the Huey a few feet higher as he turned to the north. Tanner was hunched slightly forward, his concentration absolute as he flew the machine. Although he had never flown with the three men he had to rely on them to do their job. For now, it was a question of Tanner’s situational awareness – did his perception of what was going on match reality? If it didn’t, they would just be another statistic, casualties of the Vietnam War. “Small arms fired coming from the right,” the medic sitting behind Perkins called. Tanner played the controls and jinked left, then up, before jinking left again and then back to the deck, darting between burning revetments, their airspeed touching ninety-five knots.
    Clear of the field and the attack, the crew visibly relaxed. Perkins studied Tanner for a moment, taking in his running shorts and combat boots. “Nice fatigues you got there, Mr. Tanner.”
    Tanner never missed a beat. “Hell of a way to go to war.”

 
    0700 HOURS
     
    I Corps, South Vietnam
    “What now, Mr. Tanner?” Tony Perkins, the co-pilot, asked as Tanner circled to the north of the burning base, now well clear of the attack.
    “We do our job,” Tanner replied. “Contact Company on the VHF.” He hoped the Ops Shack was back in business.
    Perkins dialled in the frequency. His voice was calm. “Dust Off Ops, Dust Off Two-Seven, holding two miles north of you. Any trade?”
    The Company’s CO answered. “Roger, Dust Off Two-Seven. We’ve got a pickup for you.” He rattled off an eight-digit code. Without writing it down, Perkins spun the decode wheel and read off the coordinates for the pickup