MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

A young pilot struggles with his modern fighter / bomber following enemy ground fire.

 

‘MAYDAY! MAYDAY!’

 

 

NO TIME FOR WEAKNESS

 

 

            ‘Mayday ! Mayday !’ Jamie screamed into his headset. His right hand gripping the joystick tightly and pulling back hard. The modern fighter bomber was still losing altitude. 

He pressed his left hand against his wounded thigh and continued talking to the radio,

‘We’ve been hit...we’ve been hit...’ The 28 year old pilot was in extreme pain and finding it hard to concentrate. 

           

            The bombing run had been successful, up until the last five seconds. Then a gunner had opened up from the hillside, and fired a belt of rounds at the aircraft. Ten of the rounds hit the cockpit. One of them was now in Jamie’s left thigh. To him it felt as if somebody had forced a hot poker into his leg.

            Eyes streaming with tears, Jamie called out to his navigator, ‘Hold on Pete...we’ll make it.’ He tried the radio again, ‘Mayday !  Mayday !’ Nobody was answering. Not his navigator, who was also his closest friend, or the air controllers. He squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to deal with the pain. Jamie was feeling very alone. His thoughts were now of survival.

 

            They were losing height, but not speed. As they got closer to the ground it became a terrifying ordeal. Jamie used both hands to pull back on the joystick. ‘Please...’ he pleaded with the ‘plane, ‘come up, come up...’ The ground was racing past and the stricken plane felt like it was about to touch down at very high speed into the vastness of the desert. 

‘Mayday !  Mayday !’ he screamed out again.

            Even in his state of shock he knew he was losing consciousness. At the last possible second he called out, ‘Bail out Pete...eject! eject!’ then he used both hands to grip and pull on his own lever. 

 

            As he floated down under the large white canopy of his parachute Jamie looked around at the wreckage, still in flames and still falling to earth after the explosion of the crash. He looked all around for Pete.   

Jamie didn’t know Pete had taken two bullets in the chest when the aircraft was hit. 

 

As his feet touched the ground Jamie’s bodied buckled under him. His injured thigh felt like it was on fire. It was only as he tried to stand that he noticed the sound of an aircraft. Not just any aircraft. A helicopter. In any of the armed services, a part of training is vehicle and aircraft recognition, so for the average fighter pilot a glance in the direction of the noise, and the noise itself should have done the trick. Even before Jamie tried to focus his tear filled eyes on the approaching silhouette he pressed his left hand onto the wound in his thigh and used his other hand to wipe his eyes. The pain from his injured leg was made worse by the poor parachute landing. Once detached from his ‘chute and the ancilliary equipment attached to him, Jamie tore the field dressing from it’s pocket, opened it quickly and pressed it painfully over the wound and bound it. 

He screamed aloud as he applied the large field dressing, but he didn’t care about noise.

 

A quick glance around was enough to confirm for the young pilot that the closest thing he had for defensive cover was the discarded parachute now billowing in the breeze. He resigned himself to going out with some style and drew his pistol from it’s holster. 

Aloud Jamie said, ‘You were right after all Sergeant Collins, …if a pilot ever draws his pistol, it’s because he’s in the s**t…’ The rhetorical statement was aimed at the man who had taught Jamie’s course in survival techniques. Sergeant Collins wasn’t a big man, but he was the sort of person you would want with you in these circumstances Jamie thought. 

 Jamie cocked his pistol and laid himself flat on the ground, then waited quite literally for the dust to settle. The helicopter he could see clearly was a Puma, but so many countries used them now it was difficult to tell if he was going to be taken prisoner or rescued.

He would make a decision on the prisoner issue in the next few seconds. He’d heard the stories and he didn’t think he could take it. If he wasn’t being taken though, he would be going down fighting. Jamie made a silent apology to his wife and took aim at the helicopter.

 

From fifty metres away a uniformed man jumped out of the large aircraft and ducked down as he left the area of the still spinning rotors. He stopped short after a few paces, looked at the stricken pilot, the aimed pistol, then back at the helicopter and crew and shook his head. He looked back to Jamie once more, then ran back to the helicopter. Once he was near the large side hatch he rubbed the sand away from the fuselage and when he was sure Jamie was looking, the crewman pointed at the British Union flag symbol, freshly cleaned.

 

Jamie’s tears of pain quickly turned to tears of relief as he rolled over onto his back. He made his pistol safe, as he knew Sergeant Collins would suggest, then he put it away again. 

 

Whilst fighting his aeroplane to keep it in the air Jamie was responding to his problems with the instinct of the superbly trained pilot that he was.   It was only once he was on the ground, in unknown territory that the young pilot came to truly realize the downside to the ‘flying ace’ lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. His respect for foot soldiers was increased. 

 

Before the Puma reached 100 feet in the air Jamie was lapsing into unconsciousness. The last thing he heard was the loadmaster say, ‘Sorry about your navigator …’

 

 

The end

Author's Note

First of a three part series. Would appreciate any comments. Also age if under 18.
Trying to see where to target this type of work.

Reviews

[SR Urie]

Hi Tom,

I enjoyed your story sir. Having done a little time in the military I can appreciate what a pilot goes through when being wounded, shot down, and losing his buddy the navigator even though I was just an enlisted man and luckily never wounded in battle per se'. Good plot, and a thorough description of the pilot's character and inherant thoughts. The danger the pilot sensed and described was entertaining, adding to the plot's conclusion when he was rescued.

A couple of things though, if I may. First when you bring out details of getting shot in the thigh for example, it doesn't need to be repeated over and over again. Okay, he got shot in the thigh and it was painful. That was established in your introduction, in the first paragraph. Referring back to his leg, reitterating the fact that it was shot doesn't need to be repeated but rather should be added on to. The text would've flown more smoothly to say 'hitting the ground made his leg rebel from the force' vice 'the pain from his injurred leg was made worse by the landing.' We already know his leg is injurred and that it already hurts, right?
Another 'gripe' that I tend to hand a lot of people is the use of commas. Sentences are broken by commas whenever necessary to seperate ideas and to avoid partial sentences. But by using a comma to break up every single phrase while maintaining the subject/verb relationship the text can become choppy and difficult to digest for the reader. Keep in mind while your proof reading and editing, not innitially writing, that the most important entity in your writing is the person who'll read it and that it's very important to make it as enjoyable for that individual as possible. Excessive punctuation does not necessarily make the reading better, even though puntuation is essential for getting your point across as your speaking to the reader.
One more thing, when you take a pronoun and make that pronoun possessive like 'it,' the apostrophe isn't used. I forget the specific reason, but by putting the apostrophe with "it's" becomes 'it is' instead of 'its' thing belonging to it.
Lastly your expressive language is very good and you need to practice like a guitar or a piano to express yourself even better. Keep it up, sir! Get your ideas down while they're fresh in your mind until the idea is complete. Then go back and fix the structure to keep knuckleheads like me happy.

Very good story Tom. I look forward to seeing more. BZ

[Fallen Angel]

That was really good. Amazing.

[Seantesunflower]

Had me on the edge of my seat!
Will you be making a part two?

[Fran Marie]

A well crafted and interesting story, so glad Jamie was rescued~ too bad about Pete though

You must continue on with part 2 and tell us more about this young pilot who had this intense

experience with near death~

Great Write!~Fran

[Dawn Davis]

Wonderful short story! More more that can't be the end! NO NO NO LOL secquill?? Or however you spell it. I think this was really good but I think you need a part 2 for sure! great job mmy friend!