"Nierhe, hold on," Qusay said to the wounded man whose leg had been blown off.
Although morphine had been administered, the effects would only last for a short while. Looking at his poor companion, Zhang Yang gripped his hand tightly and spoke.
Nierhe's face was deathly pale. He struggled to say, "Captain, give me a quick end. I don't want to be a burden to everyone."
"Hold on," Qusay said. "As long as there is any chance for rescue, we will not leave a single comrade behind."
These words were also intended for the others.
The battlefield is heartless. If they were still in combat or being pursued, Qusay would have abandoned him without hesitation for the sake of the entire squad's fate. However, the situation was different now; there was no immediate danger. Abandoning a brother-in-arms at such a time was a despicable act.
Qusay's words shook many of them to the core.
As long as there is a chance for rescue, we will not leave a single comrade behind—never give up easily!
"Yes, Nierhe, we are all brothers who have faced life and death together. We will never leave you behind," Virat said. They had been selected from the same company, so they were naturally closer.
Marwan, however, pulled at Qusay's sleeve. Once Qusay stood up and moved away, he whispered, "Your Excellency Qusay, we have no vehicles now. It might take days to walk out of this swamp. If we take Nierhe, he probably won't survive the journey. I think he can only hold on for a day at most."
"Don't worry." Qusay patted Marwan's shoulder. "If we're lucky, we'll be able to go back tonight."
Go back tonight? Marwan was somewhat skeptical, but he knew the man before him was someone capable of working miracles.
"How are we going back? Unless we fly back," Marwan said.
"Exactly, we are going to fly back," Qusay said. "Come, follow me to check on that Cobra."
Marwan still didn't understand. That Cobra had already been smashed to pieces; how could it still fly? This Excellency Qusay truly possessed extraordinary abilities.
The first Cobra had been hit by a SAM-7 and turned into a fireball, reduced to fragments. However, the second helicopter's tail rotor had been hit by a sniper rifle, causing it to fail and drop straight to the ground. Since the helicopter had a certain degree of crashworthiness, part of the forward cockpit remained intact.
Qusay led Marwan as the two of them approached the helicopter.
By the dim starlight, the front half of the Cobra roughly maintained its original shape. All the glass was shattered. The landing gear had absorbed most of the impact during the crash, which also mitigated much of the force; thus, the bodies of the two pilots remained intact upon impact.
The pilot in the rear cockpit had been killed directly by the sniper rifle, while the weapon operator in the front had been vibrated to death. Though he looked intact on the outside, his internal organs had all been shattered.
Even with crashworthiness, one couldn't escape completely unscathed. The spine is the most fragile part of the body; while the landing gear and seats cushioned some of the force, the remaining impact still took his life.
Qusay felt lucky that both bodies were intact and their clothes were undamaged, except for the man in the rear cockpit who was covered in blood.
However, this was exactly what he needed.
"Come, strip the clothes off these two bodies. We're putting them on," Qusay said.
Marwan began to understand. When they attacked the enemy base, they had feigned being their army; now, they were going to impersonate pilots.
Qusay set to work, unbuckling the front weapon operator from the seat and beginning to strip off his clothes.
Except for morgue workers, anyone else doing this kind of work—especially in the dead of night—would likely get goosebumps.
Qusay, however, was unfazed and even hummed an obscure tune: "Beat the drums fast, strike the gongs slow, stop the gongs and drums to hear the song, all kinds of idle talk are also songs, listen to me sing the Eighteen Touches..."
It wasn't as if he hadn't done this sort of thing before. During training, the instructor had placed special items in a graveyard for him to find in the middle of the night, even playing ghost, which almost earned the man a thrown knife.
In a crisis, one could even eat human flesh, let alone strip a dead man's clothes.
Since the landing gear had broken, Qusay only needed to stand on his tiptoes to reach the weapon operator in the front cockpit.
Seeing Qusay start, Marwan had no choice but to follow suit. However, the rear pilot's position was higher, so he had to climb onto the cockpit to reach him. Moreover, the pilot's flight suit was already covered in large patches of blood.
Qusay stripped off the clothes and began feeling around the body, but after a while, he still hadn't found what he wanted.
The Iranians are really stingy. Flying is a high-risk profession, so why didn't they equip them with an emergency locator transmitter? This should be standard equipment, right?
On second thought, it made sense. It was only the early eighties, and there were no advanced positioning systems like GPS. Ordinary radio positioning had poor accuracy, and not equipping attack helicopters with it was probably a forced choice.
Qusay had originally planned to use the enemy's crash locator to contact their headquarters. They would surely send the helicopters that had just flown overhead to the rescue since they were on the way. Then, he could lure a helicopter down and escape quickly.
Now, he was a bit dumbfounded; they didn't have any of those advanced gadgets at all!
What to do then?
Qusay thought for a moment. There was no other way; he'd have to use the most primitive method!
He took off his own clothes and started putting on the flight suit. It just so happened that the weapon operator was short, so the clothes fit perfectly.
He looked at Marwan, who had just stripped off the other flight suit and was at a loss.
"Put it on. In a moment, just lie on the ground and pretend to be wounded," Qusay said.
By then, the other team members had gathered around. Qusay immediately ordered them to find things to burn and prepare to start a fire nearby.
"Captain, if we start a fire, aren't we afraid of being spotted by the helicopters in the sky?" Hades asked.
"Exactly, I want them to find us. If they don't find us, how will they come down?" Qusay said slyly.
Hades shook his head; he didn't understand!
"It's okay if you don't understand. Just do as I say in a bit," Qusay said.
Soon, a roaring bonfire blazed about a dozen meters away from the crashed helicopter.
Beside the fire, a figure was silhouetted, appearing to be rescuing someone lying on the ground. While performing the rescue, he "anxiously" looked up at the sky.
"Your Excellency Qusay, will this method of yours work?" a small voice whispered.
"Whether it works or not, we'll know in a moment. By the way, how do you say 'Save my brother' in Persian?" another voice replied.