point alongside the tanker just behind the superstructure and inches from the wall of steel, they dropped the power off quickly then hit reverse thrust for a few seconds to hold their position and match the ship’s speed. Without a word of command the hook-men fired their air guns and four grapnels flew high into the air, trailing lines to land on the deck. Operatives quickly pulled the lines back until the grapnels caught hold. This was where a little luck was required since the hooks were out of sight.They had to grab something solid. If the hook did not it could spring loose and once the line had the climber’s weight on it, drop him. Often the hook did come loose, flew back until it snagged something else such as the rails, and dropped the climber into the water so he had to carry on climbing from there. A much worse scenario was if the hook flew over the rails and out to sea. The climber would fall into the water and there was a danger of him going under and being sucked through the props. Four grapnels meant the odds were almost certain a hold would be taken somewhere, and one, although not ideal, was all they needed at a push.
‘Go!’ the operatives pulling the lines shouted as they felt the hooks bite hold.
The climbers attached their climbing devices, activated them and shot out of the boat. The secret to this manoeuvre was to keep facing the ship and run up the side. Each climber carried three lightweight caving ladders rolled up and clipped to his hips.They stopped just short of the lip of the deck, keeping out of view in case they came under attack, unclipped the first ladder, hooked it to the lip, and let it unravel down to the boat. They repeated the procedure with the other two ladders then remained where they were with their weapons aimed up at the rails while operatives started to climb from below. When the first three reached the deck they in turn hooked two more ladders on to the lip and let them unroll, and then this first wave of four men climbed over the rail on to the deck to secure a bridgehead. In less then two minutes from first hook-on, both teams were aboard. They divided up and headed towards their designated targets.
‘They’re on!’ shouted Scouse.
‘Go!’ Stratton said to the pilot who took a breath, dropped the pitch of the blades, removing all the lift, and nosed the craft forward.The Lynx quickly picked up speed and plummeted like a bird of prey going for a kill. Everyone experienced the drop in the pit of their stomach as the blood rushed to their head causing momentary dizziness. It began like the scariest fairground ride in the world, but the real fun part was to come.
After two thousand feet the Lynx was near vertical and Stratton could see the bows of the tanker through the windshield. The craft started to shudder as it reached terminal velocity. Stratton, Scouse and Tip beside him were held facing forward in their seats by their seatbelts while the other three could only sit back and look at them. The pilot increased his grip on the controls as they began to shake more violently, his eyes glued to the altimeter. Fourteen thousand feet. It was not the ideal time to ask himself the question, but when dropping from twelve thousand feet he knew he needed to start pulling out of the dive at two and a half. The question was, when dropping from eighteen thousand, did he have to pull out sooner? Surely not, he thought. Terminal velocity was terminal velocity no matter what height you started from. Then the Lynx gave a violent jolt with a force the pilot had never experienced before. Eight thousand feet. There was another equally violent shake as if a bus had rammed into their rear. He wondered if the rotors were buckling. Perhaps his nose was too far down. He had to maintain a steep angle, but not completely vertical. He had to keep air under the rotors to force them away from the helicopter’s body. If he went too steep and air got on top of the blades, it could force them down where they would chop a piece off the helicopter as they turned. Another bang. If any part of the blade broke away it wouldn’t function properly and they’d never pull out of