Текст книги "Eagle in the Sky"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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than half their speed.  The sun was beyond the target, just short of its

zenith, and David calculated his approach path to bring him into an

attack vector from above and into the target's starboard quarter.

Turning to starboard now, he warned Joe, and they came around together,

crossing the target's rear to put themselves in the sun.  Joe was

calling the range and bearing, it showed a leisurely patrol pattern.

There was no indication as yet that the target was aware of the hunters

behind and far below.

Two, this is leader.  Arm your circuits.  Without taking his eyes from

the radar screen, David pressed the master switch on his weapon console.

He activated the two air-to-air sidewinder missiles that hung under each

wing-tip, and immediately heard the soft electronic tone cycling in his

earphones.  That tone indicated that the missiles were dormant, they had

not yet detected an infra-red source to excite them.  When they did they

would increase the volume and rate of cycle, growling with anticipation,

claniouring like hunting dogs on the leash.  He turned them down so he

could no longer hear them.

Now he selected his cannon switch, readying the twin 30-men.  weapons in

their pods just below his seat.  The trigger flicked forward out of its

recess in the head of the joystick and he curled his forefinger about it

to familiarize himself with the feel of it.

Two, this is leader.  I am commencing visual.  It was  a warning to

Joe to concentrate all his attention on the screen and feed David with

directional data.

Target is now ten o'clock high, range figures two seven nautical miles.

David searched carefully, raking the billowing walls of blinding white,

breaking off the search to look away at a ground point or a pinnacle of

cloud to prevent his eyes focusing short, and to sweep the blind spot

behind them, lest the hunters become the hunted.

Then he saw them.  There were five of them, and they appeared suddenly

out of cloud high above and were immediately outlined against it like

tiny black fleas on a newly ironed bedsheet.  just then Joe called the

range again.

Figures one three nautical miles, but the targets were outlined so

crisply against their background that David could make out the

delta-winged dart shape, and the high tail plane that identified them

beyond all doubt as IUG 2i J.

I have target visual, he told Joe.  Five MIG 2i's J.  His tone was flat

and neutral, but it was a lie, for now at last his anger had something

on which to fasten, and it changed its shape and colour, it was no

longer black and aching but cold and bright and keen as a rapier's

blade.

Target is still hostile, Joe confirmed that they were within Israeli

territory, but his tone was not as well guarded as David's.  David could

detect the huskiness in it, and knew that Joe was feeling that anger

also.

It would be another fifteen seconds before they had completed their turn

across the enemy's stern, and David assessed the relative positions and

saw that so far it had been a perfect approach.  The formation sailed on

serenely, unaware of the enemy beneath their tail, creeping up in the

blind spot where the forward scanning radar could not discover them and

rapidly moving into a position up sun.  Once there, David would go to

attack speed and climb steeply up into a position of superior height and

tactical advantage over the enemy formation.

Looking ahead now, he realized that chance had given him an added bonus;

one of the huge tower blocks of cloud was perfectly placed to screen his

climb into the sun.  He would use it to cover his stalk, the way the

Boer huntsman of Africa stalked wild buffalo from behind a herd of

domestic oxen.

Target is altering course to starboard, Joe warned him, the AUGs were

turning away, edging back towards the Syrian border.  They had completed

their taunting gesture, they had flaunted the colours of Islam in the

face of the infidel, and were making for safety.

David felt the blade of anger in his guts burn colder, sting sharper,

and with an effort of restraint he waited out the last few seconds

before making his climb.  The moment came and his voice was still flat

and without passion as he called to Joe, Two, this is leader, commencing

storm-climb.  'Two conforming.  David eased back on the controls and

they went up in a climb so vicious that it seemed to tear their bowels

from their bellies.

Almost immediately, Desert Flower picked up the radar images as they

emerged from the ground clutter.

Hullo both units Bright Lance.  We are now tracking you.  Show friend or

foe.  Both David and Joe were lying en their backs in the thrust of

storm-climb, but at the order they punched in their IFF systems.

Identification Friend or Foe would show a distinctive pattern, a bright

halo, around their radar images on command plot identifying them

positively even while they were locked with the enemy in the close

proximity of the dogfight.

Beseder, we are tracking you in IFF, said the Brig, and they went

plunging into the pillar of cloud and raked upwards through it.  David's

eyes darted between the boule that contained his blind-flying

instruments and the radar screen on which the enemy images shone bright

and with hard outline so close now that the individual aircraft in the

enemy formation stood out clearly.

Target is increasing speed and tightening starboard turn, Joe intoned

and David compensated for the enemy's manoeuvre.

David was certain that they had not detected his approach, the turn away

was coincidental.  Another glance at the screen showed that he had

achieved his height advantage.  He was now two miles off their quarter

above them, with the sun at his back.  it was the ideal approach.

Turning now into final leg of attack pattern, he alerted Joe to his

intention and they began to pitch in.

The last-second strike which would send their speed rocketing as they

closed.

The target centred dead ahead, and the gunsight lit up, glowing softly

on the screen ahead of him.  The sidewinder missiles caught the first

emanations of infrared rays from their victims, and they began to growl

softly in David's earphones.

Still blinded by thick grey cloud they raced in, and suddenly they burst

out into the clear.  Ahead and below them opened a deep through of

space, a valley between cloud ranges and close below them the five MIGs

sparkled silvery in the sunlight, pretty and toylike, their red, white

and green markings festive and gay, the clean geometrical sweeps of wing

and tail nicely balanced and the shark-like mouths of the jet intakes

gaping, as they sucked in air.

They were in loose V-formation, two stacked back on each flank of the

leader and in the fleeting seconds that David had to study them, he had

assessed them.  The four wingmen were Syrians, there was an indefinable

sloppiness in their flying, a looseness of control.  They flew with that

lack of polish and confidence of the pupil.

They were soft targets, easy pickings.

However, it did not need the three red rings about the leader's fuselage

to identify him as a Russian instructor.

Some leery old veteran with hawk's blood in his veins, tough and canny,

and dangerous as an angry black mamba.

Engage two port targets, David ordered Joe, reserving the MIG leader and

the starboard echelon for his attack.

In David's headphones the missiles were growling their anxiety, they had

sniffed out the massed jet blasts below them and already they were

tracking, howling their eagerness to kill.

David switched to command net.  Hello, Desert Flower, this is Bright

Lance on target and requesting strike.  Almost instantly the voice came

back, David, this is the Brig– he was speaking, rapidly, urgently,

discontinue attack pattern.  I repeat, disengage target.

They are no longer hostile.  Break off attack Shocked by the command,

David glanced down the deep valley of cloud and saw the long brown

valley of the Jordan falling away behind them.  They had crossed over a

line on the earth and immediately their roles had changed from defender

to aggressor.  But they were closing the target rapidly.  It was a fair

bounce, they were still unaware.

We are going to hit them, David made the decision through the cold

bright thing that burned within him and he closed command net and spoke

to Joe.  Two, this is leader attacking.  Negative!  I say again

negative!  Joe called urgently.  Target is no longer hostile? Remember,

Hannah!  David shouted into his mask.  Conform to me!  and he curled his

finger about the trigger and touched left rudder, yawing fractionally to

bring the nearest 1VUG into the field of his sights.  It seemed to

balloon in size as he shrieked towards it.

There was a heart-beat of silence from Joe, and then his voice strangled

and rough.  Two conforming.  Kill them, Joe, David yelled and pressed

against the spring-loaded tension of the trigger.  There was a soft

double hiss, hardly discernible above the jet din, and from under each

wing-tip the missiles unleashed, they skidded and twisted as they

aligned themselves on the targets, leaving darkly etched trails of

vapour across David's front, and at that moment the MIGs became aware.

At a shouted warning from their leader, the enULC formation burst into

its five separate parts, splintering silvery swift like a shoal of

sardines before the driving charge of the barracuda.

The rearmost Syrian was slow, he had only just begun to turn away when

one of the sidewinders flicked its tail, followed his turn and united

with him in an embrace of death.

The shock wave of the explosion jarred David's machine, but the sound of

it was muted as the MIG was enveloped in the greenish-tinted cloud of

the strike and it shattered into fragments.  A wing snapped off and went

whirling high and the brief blooming flower of smoke blew swiftly past

David's head.

The second missile had chosen the machine with the red ring, the

formation leader, but the Russian reacted so swiftly and pulled his turn

so tight that the missile slid past him in an overshoot, and it lost the

scent, unable to follow the MIG around.  As David hauled the Mirage

round after the Russian, he saw the missile destroy itself in a burst of

greenish smoke, far out across the valley of clouds.

The Russian was in a hard right-hand turn, and David followed him.

Staring across the imaginary circle that separated them, he could see

every detail of the enemy machine; the scarlet helmet of the pilot, the

gaudy colours of its rounders, the squiggle of Arabic script that was

its identification markings, even the individual rivets that stitched

the polished metal skin of the MIG.

David pulled back with all his strength against his joystick, for

gravity was tightening the loading of his controls, opposing his efforts

to place additional stress on the Mirage lest he tear its wings off the

fuselage Gravity had hold of David also, its insidious force sucked the

blood away from his brain so that his vision dimmed, the colour of the

enemy pilot's helmet faded to dull brown, and David felt himself crushed

down into his seat.

About his waist and legs his G-suit tightened its coils, squeezing

brutally like a hungry python, attempting to prevent the drainage of

blood from his upper torso.

David tensed every muscle in his body, straining to resist the loss of

blood, and he took the Mirage up in a slidin& soaring yo-yo, up the side

of an imaginary barrel.

Like a motor-cyclist on a wall of death he whirled aloft, trying once

more for the advantage of height.

His vision narrowed, greyed out, until his field was reduced to the

limits of his cockpit, and he was pinned heavily to his seat, his mouth

sagging open, his eyelids dragging downwards; the effort of holding his

right hand on the control column was Herculean.

In the corner of his vision the stall indicator blinked its little eye

at him, changing from amber to red, warning him that he was on the verge

of catastrophe, courting the disaster of supersonic stall.

David filled his lungs and screamed with all his strength, his own voice

echoing through the grey mist.

The effort forced a little blood back to his brain and his vision

cleared briefly, enough to let him see that the MIG had anticipated his

yo-yo and had come up under him, sliding up the wall of death towards

his unprotected flank and belly.

David had no alternative but to break out of the turn before the MIG's

cannons could bear.  He rolled the Mirage out, and went instantly into a

tight climbing lefthander, his afterburners still thundering at full

power, consuming fuel at a prodigious rate, and placing a limit upon

these desperate manoeuvres.

Neatly and gracefully as a ballet dancer, the Russian followed him out

of the turn and locked into his next manoeuvre.  David saw him coming up

into an attack position in his rear-view mirror and he rolled out again

and went up and right, blacking out with the rate of turn.

Roll and turn, turn for life, David had judged the Russian fairly.  He

was a deadly opponent, quick and hard, anticipating each of David's

turns and twists, riding always within an ace of strike.  Turn, and turn

again, in great winging parabolas, climbing always, turning always,

vapour trails spinning out from their wing-tips in silky arabesque

patterns against the hard blue of the sky.

David's arms and shoulders ached as he fought the control dampers and

the weight of gravity, sickened by the drainage of blood and the

adrenalin in his system.

His cold battle rage turned gradually to icy despair as each of his

efforts to dislodge the Russian were met and countered, and always the

gaping shark's maw of the MIG hung and twisted a point off his shoulder

or belly.

All David's expertise, all the brilliance of his natural flying gifts

were slowly being discounted by the store of combat experience upon

which his enemy could draw.

At one stage, when for an instant they flew wing-tip to wing-tip, David

glanced across the gap and saw the man's face.  just the eyes and

forehead above the oxygen mask; the skin Was pale as bone and the eyes

were deeply socketed like those of a skull, and then David was turning

again, turning and screaming and straining against gravity, screaming

also against the first enfolding coils of fear.

He rolled half out of the turn and then without conscious thought,

reversed the roll.  The Mirage shuddered with protest-and his speed

bled off.  The Russian saw it and came down on him from high on his

starboard quarter .  As David pushed the stick fully forward and left he

kicked on full left rudder, ducking under the blast of cannon fire, and

the Mirage went down in a spiralling dive.  The blood which gravity had

sucked from his head was now flung upwards through his body, filling his

head and his vision with bright redness, the red-out of inverted

gravitational force.  A vein in his nose popped under the pressure and

suddenly his oxygen mask was filled with a flood of warm choking blood.

The Russian was after him, following him into the dive, lining him up

for his second burst.

David screamed with the metallic salty taste of blood in his mouth and

hauled back on the stick with all his strength, the nose came up and

over, climbing out of the dive, and again the blood drained from his

head going from red-out to black-out in the fraction of a second and be

saw the Russian following him up, drawn up by the ploy.  At the top

David kicked it out in a breakaway roll.  It caught the Russian, he was

one-hundredth of a second slow in countering and he swung giddily

through David's gunsight, an almost impossible deflection shot that

sluiced cannon fire wildly across the sky, spraying it like water from a

garden hose.  The MIG was in David's sights for perhaps one-tenth of a

second, but in that time David saw a flash of light, a bright wink of it

below the pilot's canopy, and then David rolled and turned out, coming

around hard and finding the Russian still hanging in the circuit, but

losing air space, swaying out with a feather of white vapour streaming

back from below his cockpit canopy.

I've hit him, David exulted, and his fear was gone, become anger again,

a fierce triumphant anger.  He took the Mirage up in another soaring

yo-yo and this time the MIG could not hold station on him and David

flickrolled off the top and came out with the Russian centred in his

gunsight.

He fired a one-second burst and saw the incendiary shells lace in and

burst in quick little stabbing stars in the silver fuselage of the MIG.

The Russian came out of his turn, in a gentle dive, flying straight, no

longer taking evasive action, probably dead at his controls, and David

sat on his tail, and settled the pipper of his gunsight.

He fired another one-second burst and the MIG began to break up.  Small

unidentifiable pieces of wreckage flew back at David, but the Russian

stayed with his machine.

Again David hit him with a two-second burst, and now the MIG's nose sank

until she was in a vertical dive still under full power and she went

down like a silver javelin.  David could not follow her without tearing

off his own wings.  He pulled out and watched the Russian fly into the

earth at a speed that must have exceeded mach 2_ He burst like a bomb in

a tall tower of dust and smoke that stood for long seconds on the brown

plains of Syria.

David shut down his afterburners and looked to his fuel gauges.  They

were all showing only a narrow strip above the empty notch, and David

realized that the last screaming dive after the MIG had taken him

down'to an altitude of five thousand, he was over enemy territory and

too low, much too low.

Expending precious fuel he came around on a westerly heading and went to

interception speed, climbing swiftly out of range of flak and searching

the heavens about him for sign of either Joe or the other MIGs, although

he guessed that the Syrians were either with Allah in the garden of the

Houris, or back home with mother by this time.  Bright Lance Two, this

is leader.  Do you read me? 'Leader, this is Two, Joe's voice answered

him immediately.  have you visual.  In the name of God, get out of

there!  What is my position?  We are fifty miles within Syrian

territory, our course for base is 2 5 O How did you go?  I took out one

of mine.  The other one ran for it, after that I was too busy keeping an

eye on you David blinked his eyes and was surprised to find that sweat

was pouring down his forehead from under his helmet and his mask was

stick and sticky with blood from his nose-bleed.  His arms and shoulders

still ached, and he felt drLmken and light-headed from the effects of

gravity and combat and his hands on the control column were shaky and

weak.

I got two he said, two of the swines, one for Debra, and one for Hannah.

Shut up, Davey, Joe's voice was stiff with tension.  Concentrate on

getting out of here.  You are within range of both flak and ground

missiles.  Light your tail – and let's go.

Negative, David answered him.  I'm low on fuel.

Where are you?

Six o'clock high at 25, 000.  'As he answered, Joe sat up in his seat,

leaning forward against his shoulder straps to watch the tiny wedge

shape of David's machine far below.  it was climbing slowly up to meet

him, slowly too slowly, and low, too low.  David was vulnerable and Joe

was afraid for him, frowning heavily into his face mask and searching

restlessly, sweeping heaven and earth for the first hint of danger.  Two

minutes would see them clear, but they would be two long, slow minutes.

He almost missed the first missile.  The ground crew must have allowed

David to overfly their launch pad before they put it up in pursuit, for

Joe picked up its vapour trail as it streaked in from behind David,

closing rapidly with him.

Missile, break left, Joe yelled into his mask.  Go!  Go!

Go!  and he saw David begin his turn instantly, steeply, side-stepping

the sizzling attack of the missile.

It's lost you!  Joe called, as the missile continued its crazy career

through space, beginning to yaw from side to side as it hunted for a

target and at last bursting in self -destruction.

Keep going, Davey, Joe encouraged him, but keep awake, there will be

more.  They both saw the next one leave the ground from its camouflaged

vehicle.  There was a nest of them on a rocky ridge above a sun-blasted

plain.  The Serpent slid off the rock and lifted into the sky, climbing

rapidly towards David's little machine.

Light your tail, Joe told him, and wait for it!  He watched the missile

boring in, converging with dazzling speed on David's Mirage.

Break right!  Go!  Go!  Go!  Joe yelled and David twisted violently

aside.  Again the Serpent slid past him, over-shooting, but this time

not losing contact and coming around to attack again, its seekers locked

to David's machine.

He's still on you, Joe was screaming now.  Go for the sun, Davey.  Try

for the sun, and the Mirage pointed its nose at the great blazing orb

that burned above the mountain ranges of dark cloud.  The Serpent

followed him upwards, hunting him with the dreadful singlemindedness of

the automaton.  He's on to you, Davey.  Flip out now!  Go!  Go!  Go!

David flicked the Mirage out of her vertical climb, and fell like a

stone, while the Serpent fastened its attention upon the vast infra-red

output from the sun and streaked on towards it, losing the Mirage.

You've lost it.  Get out, Davey, get out!  Joe pleaded with him, but for

the moment the Mirage was helpless.

In her desperate climb for the sun she had lost manoeuvring speed and

was wallowing clumsily now.  It would be many seconds before she became

agile and lithe once more, and by then it would be too late, for Joe saw

the third missile become airborne and dart upwards on its feather of

flame and smoke aiming at David's Mirage.

Joe did not consciously realise what he was going to do until he had

winged over and commenced his dive under full power.  He came down with

his mach meter indicating twice the speed of sound, and he levelled

across David's tail, cutting obliquely across his track under the nose

of the oncoming Serpent.

The Serpent saw him with its little cyclops radar eye, and it sensed the

heat of his exhausts, fresher, more tantalizing than David's, and it

accepted him as an alternative target and swung away after him, leaving

David to fly on unscathed.

David saw Joe's aircraft flash past his wing-tip at searing speed, and

but an instant behind him followed the Serpent.  It took him only a

second to realize that Joe had deliberately pulled the missile off him,

had accepted the attack that must surely have destroyed David.

He watched with fascinated horror as Joe pulled out Of his dive, and

used his speed to climb into the sun.

The missile followed him smoothly, angling upwards, overhauling Joe's

Mirage with effortless ease.  Joe was watching the missile in his

mirror, and at the last instant he flipped out of the climb, but this

time the Serpent was not deceived; as Joe dropped so it swivelled also,

and as earlier David had wallowed helplessly now Joe was in the same

predicament.  He had taken his chance and it had not worked for him. The

missile found him, and in a brusque burst of flame, Joe and his Mirage

died together.

David flew on alone, his Mirage once more at manoeuvring speed and his

throat dry with horror and fear and grief.  He found himself talking

aloud.

Joe, no, Joe.  Oh God no!  You shouldn't have done it.  Ahead of him

through the gaps in the massive cloud bases he saw the Jordan.

It should be you that's going home, Joe, he said.  It should be you,

Joe, and felt the hard ball of sorrow in his throat.

But the instinct of survival was still strong and David yawned and

glanced back to clear his blind spot, and he saw the last missile coming

in on him.  It was just a small black speck far behind, with a little

frill of dark smoke around it, but it was watching him hungrily with its

wicked little eye.

As he saw it, he knew beyond doubt that this one was his, the one that

the fates had reserved for him.  The attacks he had evaded so far had

worn his nerves and strained his judgement, he felt a sense of

fatalistic dismay as he watched the attacking missile gaining on him,

nevertheless he gathered his scattered reserves for one more supreme

effort.

His eyes narrowed to slits, the sweat sliding down his face and

drenching his mask, his left hand holding the throttle fully open and

his right gripping the control column with the strength of despair, he

judged his moment.

The missile was almost upon him and he screamed with all his might and

hurled the Mirage into the turn, but he had misjudged it by the smallest

part of a second.

As he turned away the missile slid past him and it was close enough to

pick up the shadow of the Mirage in the photo-electric eye of its fusing

device.  The eye winked at him and the missile exploded.

The Mirage was in the critical attitude of its turn, and the cockpit

canopy was exposed entirely to the centre of the blast.  It hit the

plane with a blow that sent it tumbling; like a running man tripping it

went over, and it lost life and flying capability.

The canopy was penetrated by flying steel.  A piece struck David's

armoured seat with a clang and then it glanced off and struck his arm

above the elbow, snapping the bone cleanly so that the arm dropped

uselessly and hung into his lap.

An icy wind raged through the torn canopy as the Mirage hurled itself

through space with suicidal force, whipping its nose through the vicious

motions and flat plane of high-speed spin.  David was thrown against his

straps, his ribs bruised and his skin smeared from his shoulders and the

broken arm flailing agonizingly.

He tried to hold himself upright in his seat as he reached up over his

head, caught hold of the handle of the ejector mechanism and hauled the

blind down over his face.  He expected to have the charge explode

beneath his seat and hurl him free of the doomed Mirage, but nothing

happened.

Desperately he released the handle and strained forward to reach the

secondary firing mechanism under his seat between his feet.  He wrenched

it and felt despair as there was no response.  The seat was not working,

the blast had damaged some vital part of it.  He had to fly the Mirage

out of it, with one arm and very little altitude left to him.  He

fastened his right fist on to the moulded grip of the stick, and in the

crazy fall and flutter and whirl, David began to fight for control,

flying now by instinct alone, for he was badly hurt, and sky and

horizon, earth and cloud spun giddily across his vision.

He was aware that he was losing height rapidly, for every time the earth

swayed through his line of vision it was c ser an more menacing, t

doggedly he continued his attempts to roll against the direction of

spin.

The earth was very close before he felt the first hint of response, and

the ferocity of her gyrations abated slightly.  Stick and rudder

together, he tried again and the Mirage showed herself willing at last.

Gently, with the touch of a lover, he wooed her and suddenly she came

out and he was flying straight and level, but she was hard hit.  The

blast of the missile had done mortal damage, and she was heavy and sick

in his hands.  He could feel the rough vibration of the engine shaking

her, and he guessed that the compressor had thrown a blade and was now

out of balance.  Within minutes or seconds she would begin to tear

herself to pieces.  He could not try for climbing power on her.

David looked quickly about him and realized with a shock how far he had

fallen in that terrible tumble down the sky.  He was only two or three

hundred feet above the earth.  He was not sure of his direction, but

when he glanced at his doppler compass, he found with mild surprise that

he was still heading in the general direction of home.

The engine vibration increased, and he could hear the shrill screech of

rending metal.  He wasn't going to make it home, that was certain, and

there was insufficient height to jettison the canopy, release his straps

and attempt to scramble out of the cockpit.  There was only one course

still remaining, he must fly the Mirage in.

Even as he made the decision his one good hand was busy implementing it.

Holding the stick between his knees, he let down his landing gear; the

nose wheel might hold him up long enough to take some of the speed off

her and prevent her cartwheeling.

He looked ahead, and saw a low ridge of rocky ground and sparse green

vegetation.  Disaster lurked for him there, but beyond it were open

fields, ploughed land, orderly blocks of orchards, neatly laid-out

buildings.

That in itself was cheering.  Such order and industry could only mean

that he had returned across the border to Israel.

David skimmed over the ridge of broken rocks, sucking in his own belly

as though to lift the Mirage bodily over the hungry teeth of granite,

and ahead of him lay the fields.  He could see women working in one of

the orchards, stopping and turning to look at him.  So close that he

could clearly see the expressions of surprise and apprehension on their

faces.

There was a man on a blue tractor and he jumped out from his seat and

fell to the earth as David passed only feet above his head.

All fuel cocks closed, all switches off, master switch off, David went

into the final ritual for crash-landing.

Ahead of him lay the smooth brown field, open and clear.  He might just

be lucky enough, it might just come Off.

The Mirage was losing flying speed, her nose coming up, the airspeed

needle sinking back, 200 miles per hour, 190, 180, dropping back to her

stalling speed of 150.

Then suddenly David realized that the field ahead of him was latticed

with deep concrete irrigation channels.

They were twenty feet wide, and ten deep, a deadly hazard, enough to

destroy a Centurion tank.

There was nothing David could do now to avoid their gaping jaws.  He

flew the mirage in, touching down smoothly.

Smooth as a tomcat pissing on a sheet of velvet, he thought bitterly,

aware that all his skill was unavailing now.  Even Barney would have

been proud of me.  The field was rough, but the Mirage settled to it,