RIP Lady Crazy

Chapter 1 - First Impressions

'When it rains it pours'; whoever had coined that must have done so while in Vietnam. Vietnamese precipitation was not the same as the rain back home, where humidity would give way to fresh, cooling rain; in Vietnam the perpetually humid air simply turned to liquid around you.

Templeton Peck leaned back against the wall of a dilapidated hangar, the small, corrugated steel overhang above his head barely shielding him and his sheltering companion - the almost infamous Colonel John Smith - from the pelting rain. The heavy moisture in the air wasn't stopping the colonel from trying to light a cigar, but the soggy brown length was having none of it, and in its defiance remained dangling wetly from his teeth.

Peck yawned widely and scanned the skies for what felt like the eightieth time. He and the colonel were at the Tay Loc Airfield, in between missions, leisurely kicking their heels and awaiting pickup for their next assignment. Their new - as yet unidentified due to a kink in communications - pilot was due to arrive back from a bombing run of his own any minute now; once he landed there would be a quick change of vehicles from plane to helicopter and they would be on their way to meet the rest of the team at the rendezvous point.

Checking his watch again, Peck sighed; he disliked being idle for too long out here, it gave him too much free time dwell on the state of things. He'd heard about the unrest back home and if he allowed himself time to think about it, he found himself starting to resent the very people he was out here to protect. He sighed again, drawing a faintly curious glance from the colonel, then rolled his neck, banishing the threatening chill of distain towards his fellow countrymen. Blinking hard, he tried to stave off the drowsiness that threatened; lord he was bored.

He picked idly at the shoulder of his wet weather jacket and said to the colonel, "Who do you think our pilot will be? I hope it's not Hawkins, his landings always jar my teeth." He ran a tongue self-consciously along his new dental caps. The ceramic caps had been the colonel's idea; Peck had recently started to flex his acting muscles in aid of the platoon, with increasing success, and Smith had suggested he get them done in order to enhance his cons. So far they had worked a charm, especially when talking Nurse Dixon out of those six extra doses of Diazepam for the last sniper-heavy mission.

And then talking her into bed on his return.

The colonel grumbled around his cigar, "Hawkins is a hazard in the sky; the last med-evac I flew with him was about a pucker factor nine."

Peck grimaced in response, Tom Hawkins was a perfectly capable pilot, he just lacked finesse. He hoped the flyer for this next drop and pickup was a bit more careful with his cargo, i.e. them.

Suddenly, the loud bang of a wooden door being thrown open cracked through the rainy quiet, making Peck jump from his lazy slouch. A junior airman came streaking from the communications hut, past where the two men were seated in the rain near the runway, towards the landing crew - who were likewise sheltering on the other side of the runway - yelling, "Lady Crazy is comin' in hard and fast, she's outta control!"

Peck and Smith exchanged an alarmed glance of recognition as they heard the name, they'd heard the stories of the Lady Crazy bomber. She'd been in country for less than a month and had already made a name for herself as a VC-killing machine. The pilot of the F-4 was rumoured to be as much a maverick as the colonel; he went against orders, took aircraft that weren't assigned to his missions if he thought his crew could do a better job with them and whooped war cries every time his bird left the asphalt.

He had also eliminated exactly one hundred and thirty two enemy targets: three times the average total of neutralisations per pilot.

A spluttering roar sounded overhead and as the runway crew scrambled to their emergency positions, Peck and Smith stood and moved into a better viewing position.

The damning sound of an imminent crash landing preceded the plane herself and as the damaged Lady Crazy finally hurtled into view from over a hill, she plummeted, screaming blue murder toward the runway, smoke pouring from one of the engines as the whole plane listed dangerously to one side.

A warning klaxon sounded throughout the base and an emergency medical crew came pelting out of the main hanger as the first part of the plane - the tip of the left wing - hit the asphalt at just the right angle to snap the whole wing clean off. As the severed hunk of aerodynamic metal flew off in the wake of the rest of the plane, the bomber lurched from the damage and impacted with the runway hard enough to shake the ground, her landing gear having failed to deploy. She skidded sideways on her belly for a good five hundred feet before screeching to a smouldering, smoking rest at the base of the control tower, missing it by mere meters.

The yells of the emergency teams could be heard over the metallic, death-rattle groan of the ruined vehicle, as it tipped over again on its underside to finally rest, with a jolt, on the intact wing. Men ran around and clambered onto the wreck of the fast mover and after a flurry of activity over the plane the co-pilot was successfully extracted and lowered, unconscious, onto a gurney.

Peck and Smith both took an unconscious step toward the wreck when the voices of the rescue crew became louder and more frantic: they were having problems with the pilot's canopy, and the pilot - THE Captain H.M. Murdock if the rumours were to believed - was trapped inside.

The instinct to help kicked in and a surge of adrenaline shot through Peck as he leapt over the storage containers he and Smith had been shielded behind, to race towards the plane, his colonel hot on his heels.

Upon reaching the plane, the two soldiers vaulted up beside the three men already working on the jammed cockpit canopy and added their considerable combined strength to the heaving effort of un-sticking the plexi-glass. The pilot inside was conscious, barely, with a deep crack in his flight helmet and his oxygen mask still in place. His large brown eyes - the only part of his face visible through his helmet's shattered, reflective visor - were wide with panic as he watched the men wrench his canopy free.

Peck smiled reassuringly at the pilot as he met his gaze and the trapped man seemed to relax. The pilot managed to send him a grateful wink before finally passing out, his eyes rolling back and his head lolling heavily on his neck. One of the medics who was crowded around the cockpit cried out in panic as the pilot lost consciousness; the helmet and mask weighed so much that if they didn't get him out quickly he could end up seriously damaging his own spine.

After one more collective heave the cockpit canopy finally came free, with a tortured groan. Peck and Smith moved out of the way as the emergency crew scrambled to reach the casualty.

Unclipping his restraints and oxygen mask, the crew eased the unconscious man out of the ravaged aircraft and lowered him down towards the waiting medical crew.

Before he could be laid out on the stretcher however, he abruptly regained consciousness and struggled free of the hands that supported him with a strength that belied his injured state. Lurching off the trolley and away from the medical crew, he staggered on rubbery legs towards a nearby Huey that had been marked up for med evac.

The medic who had spurred on the cockpit release immediately gave chase. "Captain Murdock! We need to get you inside, you're injured!"

Two of the rescue crew ran past the hysterical medic to restrain the escaping casualty, but said casualty threw them off, stumbling hard onto one knee in the process with a frantic yell of, "No tahm! How thuh heyell do yuh think I gawt shaht dayown?" His southern drawl was thick in his anxiety, rendering him almost incomprehensible, "Those dayumn Commies attacked the Truong Son base cayamp!", Clambering back to his feet he wiped away the beginnings of a nosebleed with his sleeve, "I gawtta get back there, we got wounded men!" He resumed his stubborn, weaving - inevitably slowing - course towards the helicopter.

The medics were by his side to catch him as he ultimately collapsed and remained unconscious long enough for them to load him onto the stretcher and whip him into the medical bay.

The commotion over, Peck and Smith gingerly picked their way back down to the ground from their vantage point on the wet, slippery body of the now deathly quiet Lady Crazy. Once they were back on the runway and had returned to their discarded duffels, Peck hefted his, paused for thought, then caught the colonel's eye.

Smith met his gaze, reading the respect in peck's eyes at what he had just witnessed in the behaviour of the injured pilot and, knowing exactly what his younger companion was thinking, gestured towards the air traffic control tower with his head.

"Shall we?"

Peck grinned and set off toward the tower in search of a conscious med evac pilot, the logistics of the rescue mission already running through his mind. Colonel Smith pulled a fresh cigar from his breast pocket and followed his lieutenant, the beginnings of a grin spreading itself across his expressive face.

-A-

The Favour

The reports from Truong Son - once Tay Loc had finally managed to make contact with the ravaged base camp - were dire, and the rescue effort took several Hueys two trips to move all the casualties to safety.

After helping to load the last of the casualties from the devastated camp, Colonel Smith hopped up into the final departing Huey to find his lieutenant tightly strapped in and clinging to his seat for dear life.

He smirked at his officer's grim expression, "Peck, relax. We haven't even taken off yet."

Peck grimaced back at his CO, "Can't. You-know-who is flying the return trip."

The smirk promptly fell from the Colonel's face and he quickly strapped himself into the nearest seat then glanced around when he realised that he couldn't see his sergeant, "Where's B.A.?"

Peck quirked a tight smile, "Dangling from the tail, fixing a sheet of plating that came loose on the landing. I swear, that man is afraid of nothing."

Smith gripped the bench below him and ran a quick visual check that he had secured all of his safety straps as the engines of the chopper gunned to life; B.A. had yet to sample Captain Hawkins' unique style of flying, maybe this pilot would be the one to finally give the big man a taste of real fear.

The rotors spun into a blur and B.A. hopped into the cabin at the last possible second, strolling to a spare bench across from Peck. Taking his sweet time clipping his safeties into place he missed the frantic glance Peck and Smith exchanged. By the time B.A. was secured the Huey had lurched into the air, amid groans from the injured men, and he looked up to find his other two team mates staring at him like he was insane.

"What?"

They looked aghast at each other then chimed together, "Nothing."

Smith turned back to face Peck, "When we get back to the base we'll drop in to the M.A.S.H. and see how Captain Murdock is doing. When we left, the doctor said he'd had to sedate him." Smith grinned, "Apparently he kept trying to get back to his bomber."

B.A.'s ears pricked up and he raised an eyebrow, "Cap'n Murdock? Ain't he the crazy dude that tried to bomb Võ Nguyên Giáp's place?"

Smith smirked, "The very same."

B.A. grimaced at the excited glimmer in his C.O.'s eye, he knew that particular expression meant that something was coming that he wouldn't like. He was fast becoming all too well acquainted with the colonel's sense of 'Jazz'.

One of the nearby casualties stirred, B.A. unclipped himself and went over to see if he could help make the man more comfortable.

Peck checked his safeties again, "Did you get an update from the general on this mission we were supposed to be starting before this impromptu rescue? Last I heard it was rather... unorthodox."

Smith smirked around the cigar he had fished from his pocket, "Unorthodox is the word. We'll be taking a little recon trip into the wilderness around Da Nang while the air crew bait the fire of an anti-aircraft stronghold that the boys in Intel. have found. The slippery little V.C. bastards have hidden it deep in the jungle and the General wants it taken out. I'm told it's the biggest one they've found yet."

Peck hissed through his teeth, he pitied whichever poor S.O.B. they'd chosen for pilot duty on this one, if Intelligence were right and the base was that big, then the anti-aircraft guns themselves would be enormous. "Which air crew are we using? Must be a good one to be wild weaseling over DaNang; is it LaFrois' team?"

Smith shook his head, "Nope, the pilot used to be a Thunderbird so he'll be better in the sky than even LaFrois. The General was giving me the details on the way back from Laos when the field phone cut out, and by Murphy's Law of course the phone lines at Tay Loc were down when we arrived so I don't know the pilot's name yet."

Speaking of pilots, Hawkins' voice sounded over the radio that they were arriving at Tay Loc.

Peck nodded to the colonel - hoping yet again that it wasn't Hawkins that would be with them for this next assignment - and braced himself as he felt the plane begin its descent, this was going to be a rough landing.