by Nevil Shute
It got bitterly cold. We had to go up to about five thousand to get over the hills, and it must have been well below freezing there. I had my leather coat and helmet and a muffler and even so I was cold; my feet chilled and my hands blue. In his normal overcoat he must have been much colder. However, over Macquarie Harbour I started to let down and it got warmer. We came to the coast and flew on southwards at a thousand feet; it was still sunny but the sea was grey and rough, and we were crabbing along with a big drift.
I identified Mount Osmond, and began looking for the Lewis River. Several small rivers run down from the mountains to the sea in that part of the country, and we were uncertain for a few minutes which it was; they all looked equally impossible for a boat to enter. Then Turnbull saw the house, and pointed it out to me. There was no other house upon the coast for thirty miles, so this one had to be it.
It lay in the middle of a sort of undulating moor. Part of this moor round about the house had been cut like a peat bog over a fairly wide area; here there were one or two pools of water, and tumbledown wooden structures, and a few concrete tanks, and pipes running about the landscape. That would be the tin working, where they washed the metal out of the surface soil. The house was a white wooden building, single storey, standing in a fold of the land for shelter, with a little stream beside it and a kitchen garden. As we circled round, a woman came out on the step and waved to us.
Then I saw the wreckage of the Auster Pascoe had flown in, and that led me to the airstrip. Used as I was to proper runways, I could hardly believe my eyes at first. It was difficult to see because the button grass was thin upon the ground around it, and so this thing looked more like a little fortuitous line of soil where no vegetation grew. I brought the machine round and dropped off height to fly along it and have a good look. It was no better than a little bit of cart track that led nowhere. That was what the data sheet had told me, of course, but I suppose I hadn’t really believed that it could be so bad.
I went up again and circled round. The woman had come out of the house with what looked like a bundle of washing in her arms and she was doing something a bit to one side of the south end of the strip. I circled closer to see what she was up to, and saw that she was putting up a windsock on a little flagstaff; Rhys-Davids must have given her that. It was a help, definitely, for there was nothing else to tell you the wind direction except the run of the seas. When she got it up it stood out stiff and horizontal from the mast, making an angle of about seventy degrees to the strip.
She was now laying a sheet out upon the ground, pinning it down with stones. I turned to the doctor. ‘I’m going to do a dummy run over that sheet,’ I said. ‘Don’t put the suitcase out this time. Next time.’
I brought her round and headed into wind over the sheet, flying at fifty or sixty on the clock and throttling to lose height. It was turbulent, of course, but not too bad; we passed fairly slowly over the sheet ten feet up and I knew that I could get her slower than that. I put on power and went round again, thinking that I should have to watch for the increased drag on the machine as he opened the door, and not let that fox me. ‘We’ll put it out this time,’ I said. ‘Wait till I tell you and then open the door a bit and hold it balanced on the edge, ready to shove it out. Don’t drop it till I say.’
I took a longer run-up this time, to give him plenty of time. He got the door open a bit and seemed to have some trouble with it; it was hinged at the front side, of course, and for the first time a doubt flitted through my mind. It seemed to require a good deal of pushing to get it open, and when the trailing edge was standing a few inches proud the effect on the machine was very noticeable. However, he got the suitcase down on to the sill and partly out, and then glanced up at me and nodded.
I brought her in more slowly this time, and lower, flying at fifty minus. She still had plenty of control and we were going quite slowly over the ground; I could have run pretty well as fast. I reckoned he would take a little time, so when we were fifty yards from the sheet and about four feet up I shouted, ‘Shove it out now!’
He had a great struggle to do so. The case was only a foot deep, but he had the greatest difficulty in opening the door so far as that, and the machine yawed a bit, and I tried to open up the throttle a little. I had to keep my eyes on what I was doing, and I could only sense what was going on beside me. He was working in an awkward attitude, of course, sitting down and strapped in. We sailed over the sheet while he was still struggling and I went on as slowly as I could, four or five feet up, intent upon the flying. Finally I think he levered the door open with the suitcase and managed to get it out; it fell on the low scrub a hundred yards beyond the sheet. I shoved the throttle forwards and went up again.
I turned to him. ‘I’m sorry about that door. I didn’t think that it would be so difficult, at this slow speed. I ought to have lashed the case on outside somehow. Then we could have cut the lashing.’
He looked down at it as we circled round. ‘I think it fell pretty soft,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it didn’t come open.’
I was very worried about the door now. ‘I’m going to make another dummy run,’ I said. ‘I’m going to put her on the ground if I can, and hold her there for a few seconds. While I’m doing that – when I tell you – just see if you can open that door wide enough to get out. But don’t get out this time. Just try the door, and see.’
I brought her round again; the woman had gone to the suitcase and was examining it. The ground on each side of the strip fell away most smoothly at the south end. Here the air turbulence would be least, and I made my run-up on that. As I approached the strip that lay crossways before me I brought her in more and more slowly, flying by the feel of the drop of the tail behind me. Five feet, three feet, one foot up; we crossed the near edge of the strip and I put her on the ground, throttled a bit more and put the stick forward a little. We were motionless on the ground now, with the tail well up and a good bit of engine power. I shouted. ‘All right, try that door!’
He lifted the catch and shoved it open. The blast of the slipstream was strong upon it, and to make things worse I had to open up the throttle to counter the increasing drag. I shot a glance at him as he struggled. With one hand he could only open it a few inches; with both hands only an inch or two more. With a sick feeling in my throat I realised that we were up against something here that I had not reckoned on. With all my skill in putting down upon that strip, the doctor might not be able to get out of the cabin of the aeroplane.
I shouted to him to shut the door, and took off again. When we were well up and circling, I turned to him. ‘This is my fault,’ I said. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to push it far enough open to get out?’
‘I could get out all right if it wasn’t for the door,’ he said. ‘We weren’t moving at all. It’s the wind holding it or something.’
‘It’s the slipstream from the prop,’ I said. ‘I have to keep the motor going pretty hard.’
‘If you could stop it for a moment,’ he said, ‘I’m sure I could get out.’
I shook my head. ‘I can’t do that.’ I sat there weighing up the position. There was a red lever at the door hinge; it was there for the purpose of jettisoning the door as an emergency exit. If I pulled that down the hinge pins would be withdrawn and the door would fall out and fly away, leaving a great empty space where it had been. If I did that while we were flying it would probably hit the tail, and we might both be killed. If I told him to do it while I held her on the ground it might fall away safely or we might tie something on to it to keep it from the tail – my scarf, perhaps. Then he could get out. But after that I should have to take off with just a great big hole where the door had been, and fly her home like that.
Would that Auster fly safely without the door in place? I had never flown one like that, nor had I heard of anyone else doing so. It might be quite all right. Probably it would. I studied the fuselage. It was a little narrower at the front end of the door by the instrument panel than it was at the rear e
nd, in way of our seats; the fuselage tapered forward to the engine. That meant, with the door removed, a great blast of air would come into the cabin as I flew, building up a pressure. I turned and scrutinised the structure behind me. The main frame and the wings would probably be all right, but the big sheet of perspex that roofed the rear end of the cabin might well go, and take with it the fabric covering of the rear fuselage. The cover of the fin might go. I did not think that the machine would be unflyable, but it might be very much damaged. Anything that was going to happen would probably happen at a very low altitude, just as I was taking off. That wouldn’t be so good, for there would be no time to think, no time for a recovery of any control lost.
On the other hand, I could put the doctor on the ground, and Johnnie Pascoe had a fractured skull. And it might all be perfectly all right, no damage to the aeroplane at all.
I bit my lip and went on circling round. This was my fault, fairly and squarely, I was the one who was supposed to know about aeroplanes, and I had boobed, fallen down on the job, with all my years of experience behind me. In all those years of flying I had had things happen to me in the air from time to time, sufficient to warn me; I had always had height, and luck, and perhaps skill, and I had always got away with it. This time I might not do so, for there would be no height. It would come at fifty feet or less, a great cracking noise behind me, followed by a jammed elevator or a jammed rudder, no landing possible ahead, no control, no time to try anything, no time even to think before we hit the ground, the engine came back into my lap, the fire broke out. Too bad on Sheila and my children, and I thought what she had said, ‘Don’t go and buy it yourself, Ronnie …’
All this passed very quickly through my mind. The doctor said after a moment, ‘It’s sitting like this makes it difficult to shove it open. I think if I was getting out and put my backside against it, I could squeeze through.’
‘Do you think you could?’
‘I could try.’
I glanced around, and now there was a new development. It was bright and sunny where we flew, but over to the west I saw fresh cloud low down upon the sea at the horizon. I glanced at my watch; it was five minutes to eleven; before long we must be on our way home or we should be out of fuel. The Met had been quite right. More bad weather was coming up; it would be overcast here in an hour and probably low cloud and rain after that. There would be little prospect of a second trip today.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let’s try it. Undo your belt and take off your coat. But look, Alec. Be ready to hang on and get back into the machine if I tell you. I shan’t be able to stay down on the ground for very long.’
It was the first time I had called him by his Christian name.
I thought for a moment as I turned downwind if I dare throttle back upon the ground for a few seconds while he got out. The windsock stood straight and stiff and horizontal from the mast, and the air was very bumpy. The wind was still at least thirty miles an hour, perhaps more; it was around the stalling speed of the machine. I could not depend upon the woman to help me; for one thing, there was no means of communicating with her. If I throttled back, if once I let the tail go down, the machine would lift in the wind and blow over backwards. I put the thought out of my mind, and turned on final.
He was out of his coat now, and ready to try it. I thought as I brought her in that I had two things now to think about at the same time, the aircraft and the doctor. Hitherto the safety of the aircraft had been my main concern, but now I had to think about the safety of the doctor and watch what he was doing. Still, in the previous run the aircraft had been pretty stable on the ground … I was uneasily aware, as I brought her in towards the strip, that this was getting near the limit. The chance that I had taken in putting this little aircraft on the ground across the strip and holding her there had proved to be a reasonable one. Now, however, things were getting dangerous. I was asking a lot of this young doctor, though perhaps he didn’t know it. I could quite easily kill him.
Five feet – slower now – three feet – it was bumpier than ever. A little slower – one foot – and she was on the ground and motionless with the tail up. It was more turbulent than it had been before; I could not hold her so for very long. I shouted, ‘Try it now!’
He lifted his legs underneath him and screwed his body round. The seating side by side was very close in that small aeroplane; to get out backwards he had to put his head pretty well in my lap; my hand upon the throttle was in his way, and I dare not let that go. I raised my elbow high and he put his head under my arm, and at the same time I think he pressed the door back with his body and put one leg out. I dared not look what he was doing because as the door opened things were happening to the machine; I had to keep my eyes ahead, my left hand delicately on the stick, my right hand delicately making tiny movements with the throttle in spite of his head under my arm jerking my elbow. This was getting very dangerous indeed.
He forced his body backwards and opened the door further, and put his left leg down and found the step. The door was now more than a foot open and the effect on the machine was very bad. Elevator control seemed much reduced, she needed quite a bit of rudder, and I had to open up the throttle making things still more difficult for him. All this I did without thinking, instinctively, only conscious that this aeroplane was in a bad way. He forced the door still further open with his backside, searching for the ground with his right foot.
Then the gust came. I knew that it was coming; I suppose I saw it blowing the rough herbage. I opened up the throttle a trifle, I think, but I didn’t dare to put her nose down further for fear of hitting the propeller on the ground. I shot a glance at him, half out of the machine and searching for the ground with his foot, and in that instant while my eyes were averted the gust came down on us more strongly, lifting the machine. By the time I got my eyes back to the windscreen we were five feet up.
There was only one thing to do then, and that was to go off again. I gave her a little more throttle and put the nose down a little more. The doctor was half out of the machine, his stomach on the doorsill, but he still had his left foot on the outside step. I said as quietly as I could, ‘Get back in again, Alec.’
I flew on straight towards the sea, heading in to wind, at a low altitude, flying as slowly as I dared to make less pressure on the door. The machine handled like a pig, the door held wedged well open by his body. I hooked my right hand under his shoulder to help him struggle into the machine again, but the pressure of the air upon the door was pinching his legs. I shot a glance forward, and then leaned across him and forced the door open with my right hand, freeing his legs. With that help he managed to struggle back into the cabin and close the door; the control became normal again, and I put her into a slow climbing turn.
‘You all right?’ I asked, metaphorically wiping the sweat from my brow.
‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I could have got out easily but for this damn door.’
A shadow passed across the machine and it grew suddenly cold. I looked up, and a cloud was passing across the sun. It was only a small, isolated cloud and the sun would be shining again in a minute, but others were coming up from the horizon, now dark and menacing. The weather would not last more than an hour longer at the most; in any case we should not have fuel to stay so long. I glanced at my watch and was surprised to see how late it was. In five minutes we must be on our way back to Buxton, or we wouldn’t get there.
I circled for a minute or so, torn with indecision. I could land him if I jettisoned the door. When I took off again, without the door … I turned round again and looked at the perspex sheet, the fabric covering of the rear fuselage. It looked terribly frail, accustomed as I was now to a large, all metal airliner. It would be dicy. With a heavy heart I came to my decision, wondering if this was cowardice or good sense. It certainly wouldn’t help to have another crash, perhaps another badly battered pilot. There comes a point, I thought, when cowardice merges with good sense. I turned to the doctor beside me. ‘T
his isn’t any good,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to go back to Buxton and try something else.’
‘I’m quite ready to have another go,’ he replied. ‘Let’s try it again.’
He didn’t realise the risks that I was running, of course. He didn’t realise that our lives had been balanced on a knife-edge of danger. When I was a younger man I wouldn’t have cared two hoots for that, of course, but now I was forty-six years old. For many years as a prudent airline captain I had avoided dangers, and to do so was now second nature to me. The sort of flying that I had been doing in the last twenty minutes cut clean across everything that I knew to be right. Now it was time to pull up and stop behaving like a crazy teenager.
I shook my head. ‘It’s just not good enough. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to go back.’
He resigned himself. ‘I suppose there isn’t any way of picking up that suitcase?’ he enquired. ‘It’s got all my instruments in it.’
I said, ‘I’m afraid there’s not,’ and set a course for Buxton, angry and mortified, feeling that I had failed. We flew in silence after that. Cloud was forming again over the mountain tops so that I had to deviate and go towards the coast, flying over the shoulders close beneath the cloud to make the distance as short as possible, the coastal plain on my left hand. Finally we came off the mountains and the flat land to the north lay before us. The petrol gauge was jumping on the zero stop, which meant we had about two gallons left, but there were flat paddocks now in front of us. I started to let down, found Buxton, and came in to land. The Proctor did not seem to have arrived from Hobart yet. I put down just by the hangar and taxied straight forward into wind; the boys came out to catch the struts and I taxied her right inside.