After shooting down two Iranian Cobras, Qusay's Special Forces suffered their first serious casualties—nearly ten men dead or wounded, leaving just over twenty.
The worst deaths were inside that Chieftain Tank: caught off-guard, the entire crew was blown apart and cremated on the spot. The two off-road trucks used as decoys were also blasted sky-high; the drivers inside were presumably killed.
The most grievously injured was a fighter hit by the Cobra's Chain-Gun—his leg blown off. Qusay gave him emergency first aid, but without rapid evacuation to the rear the man might still die.
The lightly wounded were mostly scrapes and bruises—nothing serious.
Heavy as the losses were, the Special Forces had accomplished their mission: locate the Iranians, destroy their supply base, and cripple their staying power.
War means death; even the high-tech U.S. Army in the later Iraq War faced daily fatalities. That's war—brutal. The movie hero who survives a hundred battles doesn't exist.
Suddenly a figure sprinted out of the distant shadows.
"Captain, Captain—it's Hades!" Hades shouted while running.
The kid's off-road truck had been blown to bits and he was still in one piece? A miracle.
As Qusay was thinking this, two big hands hoisted him up.
"Let go—I'm not Brokeback Mountain!" Qusay yelled.
Hades didn't release him; several other soldiers rushed up and tossed Qusay into the air.
"allah is great!" they cheered.
Qusay knew this was their respect and affection for leading them to victory.
Amid the bouncing he could only hope they wouldn't drop him. It would be a lousy joke to survive the Iranians only to be finished off by his own roughnecks.
For an instant he felt as if he were back in the unit of his previous life.
Yes—different uniforms, different languages, different weapons, yet they shared the same soldierly courage, selfless devotion, hot blood, and hunger for victory.
Qusay vowed silently to lead them out of here, to one victory after another.
But how? The huge blast had incinerated every drop of fuel and every round in the base. His two trucks and one Chieftain Tank had barely escaped—only to be picked off by helicopters.
Now he was infantry again.
After wandering for so long without a map, who knew how many days it would take to cross this swamp?
Suddenly Qusay heard the distant thrum of rotor blades slicing the air.
Helicopter? He looked up.
Moon and stars overhead, yet the night was pitch-black. He strained his eyes at the sky.
With Night Vision Goggles he'd see everything clearly. Recalling his old gear, he realized how crude this unit was—probably the entire Iraqi Army lacked single-tube NVGs.
He had to rely on his sharpest eyes, praying it was a Hind.
But the darkness was total; even 20/20 vision was useless.
Can't see—then listen.
Different helos sound different. The big Hind uses a five-blade rotor; the smaller Cobra, a dedicated gunship, needs only four. Listen carefully and you can tell the asymmetry of the Hind's slap.
Old vets on the anti-Japanese front could judge a shell's caliber, distance, impact point, and whether to take cover just from its incoming whistle—experience.
Qusay closed his eyes; darkness enveloped him.
Special Forces train for night combat—hearing is critical. A rustle and the bullet follows, dead on.
Amid crickets and soft wind he focused on the approaching rotor beat.
The sound was perfectly symmetrical—four blades. Cobra? Wait, two identical sources in one aircraft? The tail rotor should be quieter.
A model flashed in his mind: Chinook.
Fore-and-aft rotors, both on top—on today's battlefield only the Iranian CH-47 Chinook fit.
He opened his eyes; the silhouette in the dark matched—definitely a Chinook.
The first passed, then a second, a third... Chinooks are the main transport. What were so many doing airborne at midnight?
In a flash Qusay understood.
He had torched their fuel and ammo; the Iranians wouldn't sit idle. Rear resupply couldn't arrive in time, so they'd found another way: airdrop supplies overnight.
His respect for the Iranian commander soared.
They say the Iran-Iraq War was high-tech weapons fought low-tech, but this swamp offensive showed a modern face.
Mass heli-borne resupply—until now only the deep-pocketed U.S. did it. The Iranians were sparing no cost tonight.
Night flight meant they had NVGs, but sets of this era were crude; at a thousand meters their Image-Intensifiers wouldn't spot his small team.
If he could hitch a free ride back, great—otherwise the badly wounded man wouldn't survive the trek out of the swamp.
Staring at the distant Cobra wreckage, Qusay got an idea.
Time to catch a free express flight home!