The explanation for all this came a few days later, apparently only after Task Force Command had had a few stern words with representatives of the US Air Force.
    “You’re gonna love this,” Nigel said as he gathered us in his hoochie, they way he did for the briefing for any operation.
    At the bottom of it lay the simple fact that a military aircraft fully laden with its supply of bombs, rockets, napalm and suchlike, is very dangerous to land. Not only is the extra weight a difficulty for the pilots, there is the added problem of the consequences of an accident. If an empty bomber crashes on a village, two or three houses will be destroyed—if it’s carrying its full payload of armaments, the entire community will be flattened. For that reason, in the event of a mission being aborted for any reason—bad weather, bad intelligence, too much eneny opposition—it has always been their habit for the returning aircraft to dump their paydowns before landing.
    It is believed that the great orchestra leader Glenn Miller was a victim of this. He and his band had chartered a civilian plane to fly from England to France for an entertain-the-troops gig, and just as they were crossing the channel at low altitude, a squadron of Flying Fortresses were returning from an abortive mission at high altitude, and Miller’s plane was right underneath them when they dropped their payloads.
    Now usually these payloads got dumped in the sea, but dotted throughout Vietnam were certain uninhabited places that were allocated automatic targets. And the Long Hai hills were just such a target. Most pilots were informed of the Australian operation before they took off, but not all of them, apparently.
    “Remember that Yankee skyhook that sat over us all day,” Nigel grinned. “On board was a USAF major with a pair of binoculars, calling off raiders that didn’t get the message, as they were on their way in. But the two F111’s were too fast for him, and slipped under his guard.”
    “So,” Sniffer groaned, “The whole Charlie stronghold story was bullshit to stop anyone from going there.”
 “Obviously,” Greyman said with mock pride, “they completely underestimated how brave us Aussies are.”
    “And how stupid,” I added.

    “Tell me!” he cried. “Who am I?”
    The others came nearer to hear his words. “Who am I?” His eyes searched their faces.
    “They have told him nothing!” cried the girl.
    “Tell me, tell me!” cried Graham.
    “You are the Master of the Earth. You are the owner of the world.”
    A man falls asleep in 1897 and wakes up in 2100 in HG Wells The Sleeper Wakes. He has been preserved in his cataleptic state and all the while his investments have taken interest until he is now the richest man in the world. Moreover, since it was expected that he would never wake, world government is by those who look after his financial interests. His wealth is used to preserve the status quo and keep the masses enslaved but this new, Victorian messiah decides to do something about that. And since he owns everything and everyone in the world, the only way they can stop him from ruining their cosy little game is to put him back to sleep, permanently. The book ends with a dogfight in aeroplanes, imagined six years before the Wright Brothers and twenty years before WWI. Really, the aircraft involved here are rather more like modern motorised hang-gliders, and the combatants pot-shoot at each other with pistols.