Captain Van Staden (based on a true story)

Captain Van Staden had his own tool of war. With a little bit of help from the South African government and a few I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mines, he had created his own weapons system. It was a system that nothing in the military could match, filling the tactical gap between the infantry and the Air Force’s strike fighters. It was his 1966 Piper Cherokee. His own plane. Drilled into the leading edges of both wings were holes from which the muzzles of two Vektor R4 fully automatic rifles protruded. Their triggers were connected to a mechanism that allowed them to be fired from the cockpit by pulling a ring underneath the pilot’s seat. Each rifle was equipped with  SADF special-issue 50 round magazines. Captain Van Staden’s plane wasn’t limited to just strafing the enemy. Between the two front seats was a tube; really just a piece of PVC pipe, leading to an opening in the belly of the aircraft. Just above the floor, the pipe had a hole with a pin running through it. Resting on this pin were four hand grenades, one on top of the other. They all had their lynchpins removed, and their safeties were held closed by the narrow diameter of the pipe. The Cherokee was effectively a bomber: One that could get in low and slow, covering itself with its own machine guns, and strike the enemy with devastating precision. 

His target for the day was an encampment on the Caprivi Strip that reconnaissance missions had identified as belonging to PLAN, the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia. PLAN was the armed wing of SWAPO, the South West African People’s Organisation. South Africa had been at war with them ever since 1966, the year his Cherokee had rolled off the production line at Vero Beach, Florida. On this desperately hot day in December 1984, both plane and war had been around for a considerable timespan. SADF 701 Battalion armoured personnel carriers were due to roll through the area to deal with the PLAN unit that had been protecting the supply line from their allies in Zambia. Captain Van Staden had taken it upon himself to soften them up first. 

The Cherokee’s wheels left the runway at Rundu at ten-thirty in the morning. It was already approaching forty degrees. With a full tank, two full magazines, four grenades in the tube and eight more in an ordinance box on the right seat, the rate of climb was sedate. The heat had made the air so thin that it had effectively doubled Rundu’s elevation. On a normal day the air density at three thousand feet up was now at ground level. At the altitude Van Staden had to fly to avoid small arms fire and the small but real threat of being hit by a rocket propelled grenade, the air was thinner still. This meant dialling the fuel mixture right back during climbout to get as much air into the engine as possible. He was risking the health of the engine running it so lean, but he kept a close eye on the exhaust gas temperature and cylinder head temperature gauges. Their needles hovered millimeters away from the red. But this was war. Risks had to be taken, and this was an important mission. 

He could hear that the engine wasn’t happy. It was running rough, but making the mixture too rich would waste fuel, and might foul the plugs. After about an hour in the air, checking his map against the patterns of the marshes, he started his long approach to the camp. He wanted to make three attack runs, four grenades each. But the first one had to be a surprise. He put himself between the sun and the makeshift buildings that were just coming into view from between the trees. He pushed the nose down. In a minute he was at the correct speed and altitude for the attack. He reached between the seats and pulled the ring. The R4s barked into life and he saw the first burst in the shiver of trees and the puffs of dust between them. He hadn’t hit anything of significance but he certainly would’ve scared anyone there shitless. He saw a few soldiers run out of one of the buildings as he levelled off for the bombing run. With one hand on the yoke, he moved the other to pull the pin in the tube between the seats. There was a hollow sucking noise as the fourth grenade left the tube. He was so low that the first two bounced before they detonated. He put the Cherokee into a steep bank and strained over his shoulder to see what he had managed to blow up. Nobody was shooting back. Not yet, anyway. He pushed the throttle to get more airspeed and steepen the bank, getting a glimpse of some smoke and spinning bits of wood, but he could only afford a second’s glance. He had work to do. He slotted the pin back into the bottom of the tube. Keeping the bank tight, he got a grenade out of the box on the right seat, pulled the lynchpin with his teeth, and carefully placed it in the top. Realising that he wouldn’t be ready by the time he’d orbited the camp, he levelled off and pushed the throttle in further to gain more height. By now the engine was running really rough. With the mixture set so lean, the fuel to air ratio was way off in the thicker atmosphere at treetop level, but he had no time to be messing around with fuel mixture now. He was mid-attack. As quickly and carefully as he could, he loaded the other three grenades. The lynchpin of the last one got stuck in his ginger moustache, but he left it there; time was of the essence. He had set the next attack run up perfectly. With both hands on the yoke, he scanned the smoking target area. In his peripheral vision, he noted that the needle of the EGT gauge had crept into the red. 

Muzzle flashes erupted from the windows of the buildings. He reached between his legs and tugged the ring. The airframe rattled and fragrant cordite filled the cabin as he let out a long burst at the camp. He saw one of the soldiers fall over and the others scatter in panic. 

“Haa! Bloody bastards!” Captain Van Staden yelled as he nudged the rudder to get a bit of sideslip. He figured at this height he could bounce the grenades so at least two of them would detonate right over their heads. 

He pulled the pin out of the tube, added power and pulled back on the yoke as soon as his hand was free. He couldn’t risk the airframe getting hit by his own shrapnel so he had to get height as soon as possible. A tracer bullet flew past him, travelling ten times faster than the plane. They hadn’t anticipated he’d pull up so soon. They might have hit him otherwise. Near miss notwithstanding, he craned his neck and shouted “Learn to shoot fuckers! Haaa!” 

Realising that he was now presenting the aircraft’s entire wing area to fire from the ground, he pushed the throttle to the stops and banked hard. Allowing himself a glance at the instruments, he saw that the CHT and EGT needles were well into the red. “Come on Baby! One more run! You can do it!” he cajoled the Cherokee. The banking climb was sluggish, but that was to be expected with everything so hot. 

He reached for the mixture toggle but decided against it. Every second was of the essence now. The PLAN unit, what was left of them anyway, would be entirely focussed on shooting him down on his next run. But he would be entirely focussed on blowing them up. Knowing they'd be expecting him, Van Staden decided to make his last run a dive bombing. If he timed it right, he could get the grenades to explode just before they hit the ground, raining fire and shrapnel onto the camp. He’d also be much harder to hit. But to do that he needed height. He pulled back on the stick and brushed the lynchpin out of his moustache. Calculating how wide and steep to make his climbing turn to set himself up for a steep bombing run out of the sun, he set about loading the last of the grenades. Several tracers arced lazily in front of him. 

“Nice try fuckers!” he snarled. “There’s no way you’ll get me at this distance!”

But the sound of his voice worried him. There was fear in there. And it wasn’t just his voice. It was the engine. All kinds of horrible noises blended into a coughing, clattering, whining wheeze as the aircraft reluctantly ploughed upwards. He glanced at the gauges. It was a horror show of white needles on red backgrounds. 

“Come on baby, come on! Come on!” he spoke to the plane, half cooing, half growling. Another tracer flashed past his windscreen, very close. He had just dropped the last grenade into the tube when, in an awful, screeching reverse crescendo, the engine stopped. 

“Bloody mixture! Fuck!” he barked. A drop of sweat dribbled into his eye. He knew this was his fault. But it was an attack. It was war. There had just been no time for engine management. He took a deep breath and tried to still his mind. First thing, abandon the attack. Second, trade airspeed for altitude. He glanced at the indicator. The needle was in the middle of the white line. There was barely any airspeed to work with. Next, the altimeter. He had about a thousand feet left. He could see the road to Katima Mulilo in the distance. It was unlikely he could stretch the glide that far but he had to get himself as close as he could if he wanted any chance of being rescued. He lowered the flaps and shut off the fuel and the master. The ground was approaching faster than he had hoped. He trimmed for best glide speed for range, maximising the Cherokee’s lift-to-drag ratio, and scanned the ground for a suitable place to put it down. He called his mayday to 701 Battalion who were by now about fifty kilometers away and told them to look out for him on the road. 

He only had a few hundred feet left when he spotted a ploughed field off to his left. He was about a kilometre from the road, so he reckoned he’d have a good chance of making it there without being bothered by the natives. He had weapons after all. He brought the Cherokee as low over the treetops as he dared. If he set it down early enough there would be enough space. Timing it just right, he brought the mains into contact with the soil. It was soft, and slowed him down quickly. He pulled back hard on the stick to keep the nose up but it wasn’t enough. The wheel sank in right up to the frozen prop, and Van Staden felt the back of the plane lift up. The box that had held the grenades clattered against the instrument panel. Slowly, almost gracefully, the plane flipped onto its back in the soft sand. 

“Hahaaa!” He yelled, hanging in the harness, realising that he had survived uninjured. But then he drew a deep, horrified gasp as four pinless hand grenades tumbled out of the tube and onto the roof, next to his head.