Chapter Thirty-Nine
The three POWs joined their unconscious 'comrade', inside the Russian chopper.
Captain Murdock and Lieutenant Peck occupied the pilot's, co-pilot's seats, respectively.
Sergeant Baracus and Colonel Smith were crammed in back, on the floor of the little cargo space behind the front seats.
The Lieutenant lit up their torch, and their torch lit up the cockpit.
The young pilot's trained eyes carefully scanned the conglomeration of confusing and unfamiliar controls. "Holy Boris and Natasha!" he exclaimed, as he took in the carnage. "Would you get a load a' this!" He whistled softly and kept running his expert eyes and his one good hand over the switches and levers. "It's all put together backwards! Everything in here is backwards—even the writing!"
"Jes' so's it don' fly backwards!" B.A. grumbled.
"Jes' so's it flies—period!" Face quickly contributed.
"Oh, she looks like she'll fly all right. Although, there's an awful lot of slack in her control cables…and her transmission feels real sloppy…and these foot pedals seem a little stiff. She's got a lot a' play in her left aileron rudder, too. Bu-ut, give me ten or fifteen minutes to get her cold, Russian heart warmed up and she'll lift right off the ground and fly, like the big ugly Russian buzzard that she is."
"Ten or fifteen minutes?" his conscious comrades chimed together, sounding horrified to the max.
"Better make that five!" Peck advised.
"Better make that three!" Baracus corrected. "Man! That torch is gonna start drawin' VC jes' like a porch light draws moths!"
"Hey, a helicopter is a real complicated piece a' machinery. You can't just crank 'em up and take off—just like that! You gotta give the engine time to get warmed up and build your compression up there, before you go engaging your rotors, or you'll stall 'er right out, for sure! An' then, you got big prob—"
"—Enuff talk! If it take so long ta warm this thing up, then why don' you git started?"
"Because I can't find the starter, that's why! What do you think I've been looking for all this time? C'mon, baby! How do I turn you on? You little Russian vixen, you! Wait! Lower the light here a second…Ah-hah! нажмите к старту—PUSH TO START." He pressed нажмите к старту.
There was a grating sound…followed by a high-pitched whine, and then…silence, as the engine turned over but failed to catch.
Murdock tried again—with the same 'no result' result. "C'mon, liebschien, quit playing so hard to catch!"
There was another grating sound…and another high-pitched whine…followed by a loud knocking noise. Then, the whine began steadily increasing in pitch and volume. The entire cockpit started vibrating. Actually, 'rattling something awful' would probably be a more accurate description.
Which caused Sergeant Baracus to doubt the airworthiness of their aircraft even more than he already did. "That does it, man! I'm takin' the General's car!" The big guy was just about to abandon ship, when several other even more unsettling sounds suddenly caused him to settle quickly back down inside the chopper.
The 'brrrrrrrddddt! brrrrrdddt! brrrddt!' of Charlie's BARs was followed by the 'pzing! ping! pzing! ping!'ing of bullets bouncing off the fuselage, just above their ducking heads.
"Douse the light!" Captain Murdock shouted, above the whining of his engine, "And pray their bullets don't cut the control cables!"
Face gladly whipped their torch out the door.
It landed on the pile of brush that had been keeping the chopper hidden. Despite the damp conditions, the brush pile burst into flames.
"Lieutenant, give me your hand!" the Captain requested.
Peck hesitated.
"Now, Lieutenant!"
Face reluctantly handed over his left hand.
The Captain placed it over one of the copter's control levers. "Just hold this thing steady while I try to get us off the ground!"
"I can't fly this thing!" Peck protested.
"Oh really? Well, I got news for you, Lieutenant! I can't fly it, either—with just one hand!" The crippled pilot used his good right hand to throttle up and engage the rotors.
His unwilling co-pilot obediently kept his unsteady left hand on the control lever.
The whining engine sputtered for several sickening seconds but then continued its high-pitched 'hum-hum-hum'ing along with the steady 'thrum-thrum-thrum'ing of the rotating blades above their heads—and the 'pzing-ping'ing of ricocheting bullets.
"Okay, FLY, BUZZARD! FLY!" 'Howlin' Mad' pleadingly prompted, and waged a desperate struggle with the bird's stiff—and strange—controls.
The blades began rotating more rapidly and the cockpit started vibrating more violently. There was a sudden lurch as the shaky craft picked itself right up off the ground.
The young pilot kept the copter hovering there for a few hectic moments as he tried to recall the location of several of its unseen and unfamiliar—yet crucial—controls. "Backwards!" he reminded himself. "I'm so tired, I can't even think straight—let alone backwards!"
Suddenly, they began to rise, and rise rapidly.
The glow of the bonfire below diminished as their distance from it increased.
Since fate forced him to fly by 'feel' alone, Murdock circled the airfield several times, just to get the 'feel' of things.
The Captain then piloted their stolen aircraft down the rails, in the same direction they'd been traveling them by car…south!