Recoil

7

I yelled into the phone, ‘The diesel’s burning. A big fuck-off column of smoke. Where are you?’

Nothing.

I scanned the skyline, hoping to see wings, fuselage, a pair of reverberating 23mms – but the sun was still too low.

‘Where are you?’

‘Shut up, man. I’m concentrating . . .’

Lex would be searching the western horizon, looking for the marker before he adjusted his bearing.

‘OK, got it, I see it. You still want me to hit the lip – or that fucking LRA tsunami coming up the valley? I don’t have an ammo store in the back. It’ll be one or the other.’

‘The lip – take out the fire group.’

‘Coming in. Stand by.’

I heard him talk to the gunner on his intercom as I sprang back up. I hoped the fucker had steered clear of the wacky-baccy this time round.

‘Cease fire!’ I yelled over to Crucial. ‘No more RPGs! Lex is coming in!’

Bodies kept pouring into the valley to bolster the assault wave and we kept hosing down the front of it.

Bodies fell. Some ran in panic, but most kept on coming.

A new sound filled the air. Lex was ahead of us at about 400, the glass bubble on the nose moving from right to left. The wings dipped as he turned and lined up on the lip, then there was a rattle and a roar as the pair of 23mm cannon kicked off like Gatling guns.

Red tracer poured down from Donald Duck’s bill like molten steel spilling from a blast furnace.