Lifeboat!

by Margaret Dickinson

  The general weather forecast broadcast on the radio earlier had said ‘… all areas dry, very warm and mainly sunny, although the sunshine may he rather hazy at times. Maximum temperatures twenty-six centigrade (seventy-nine Fahrenheit). Winds light, southwesterly …’

  But Mike needed a more detailed forecast and one specifically for flying conditions. So he phoned the regional meteorological office, who reported that there was likely to be very little or no cloud that day and consequently the freezing level would be very high, approximately ten thousand feet. The southwesterly winds would be light and variable.

  It was a disappointing forecast for Mike for without the lift provided by the thermals to cloud base, it was unlikely he would be able to achieve the kind of height he needed. Still, perhaps if he could be one of the first off the ground he would have the whole day in front of him.

  When Mike propped up his bike at the side of the airfield, he could see that one or two members of the gliding club were already there bringing out the gliders from the hanger. The landrover towed the office, a blue-painted caravan affectionately known as ‘the box’, to the northeast corner of the field from where they would be launching today into the wind.

  In one end of the caravan, positioned today to face to the southwest, were two huge lights, like searchlights, which were flashed to give signals to the winchman. Across the field, almost three quarters of a mile away, were the two buses, a double-decker and a single-decker. These had been converted to run a winch each. On each winch were two drums with a cable on each one, making four cables in all. A tractor with a frontal bar and hooks took the four cables at once across the field to the launching area and dropped them in a square marked with bollards and then returned to the buses to repeat the operation when all four winch cables had been used.

  Mike joined in bringing the ready-rigged gliders out and across the grass to the east side of the field to wait in line for each launch. Several more members began to arrive, some with their own gilders packed in thirty-foot trailers behind their cars. These would need to be rigged by at least three people. Each member of the club took his turn in helping with the ground jobs connected with launching, recording, signalling and so on, and helped rig and de-rig the various sailplanes.

  Mike approached the duty pilot of the day, Dave Armstrong. ‘Any chance of me being first away today, Dave? I’d like a shot at my diamond height.’

  ‘Ah, Mike. Sorry, but I’ve had to put you down for winch duty today. Chris was down to do it, but his wife rang me this morning. He’s got one of these summer flu virus things. In a hell of a state, he is.’

  Mike pulled a face. ‘I was hoping to get away early. There’ll not be much lift today anyway and …’

  ‘Look, just do it for the first hour, will you? I’ll get someone to take over from you at eleven and I’ll put you down for launch at eleven-thirty. Okay?’

  There was no arguing with Dave Armstrong, so Mike nodded reluctantly and went to the office to book his flight time. Every flight had to be recorded and each award attempt declared before takeoff, and logs completed.

  ‘Can I book the Blanik for an eleven-thirty launch, Toby? And can I borrow your barograph, mate? I want to have a shot at diamond height today.’

  ‘You can borrow the barograph, Mike, but I’m afraid the Blanik’s booked. Harry’s instructing in it today.’

  ‘Oh damn!’ Mike muttered. ‘What is available then?’

  Toby Wingate consulted his list. ‘ The ASK 13 is the only twin-seater available. There are two single-seaters—the K6 and the Pirat.’

  Mike gave a click of annoyance. ‘I don’t like any of them. They don’t handle like the Blanik. Oh well, book me down for the ASK 13.’

  ‘Right.’ Toby wrote the details on his list. He looked up at Mike again and asked tentatively, ‘ I don’t suppose you’d take a visitor up first, would you?’ He nodded towards the window of the caravan. ‘That girl out there wants two flights. She’s paid her day membership fee and flight fee.’

  ‘Well, I can’t do both,’ Mike snapped. ‘ Have a go at the diamond and take someone up who’s likely to throw up all over me and want to come down after ten minutes, can I? Besides, Dave’s put me on winch duty till eleven.’

  ‘Aw, come on, Mike, don’t be like that.’ Toby Wingate was one of those placid people who didn’t seem to mind however much he was put upon by the others. It seemed, Mike thought, as if Toby spent most of his time doing the ground jobs. To Mike’s idea, Toby Wingate was a fool to himself.

  Mike remained silent.

  Toby sighed. ‘All right then, I’ll ask one of the others.’

  Mike stomped away across the field towards the buses.

  For an hour Mike winched other flyers into the air, watching with envious eyes as they soared off into the sky. Anxiously he scanned the cloud formations trying to plan his flight. But the sky remained annoyingly blue without any building cumulus to be seen. Every ten minutes he glanced at his watch whilst the hands crawled towards eleven o’clock.

  Agitatedly he kept a look out for someone coming to relieve him on the winch and at ten minutes past eleven he saw one of the club members sauntering across the field towards the buses.

  ‘Come on, Dan,’ Mike shouted, ‘ I’ve a flight booked at eleven-thirty.’

  Dan grinned, but did not quicken his pace, ‘Awf’ly sorry, old chap. What’s all the hurry?’

  ‘I was hoping to get a shot at the height for my first diamond.’

  ‘Haw, haw, medal-hunting again, are we? All right, old boy, off you scoot.’

  Scowling, Mike ran across the grass towards the ASK 13 waiting next in line. He couldn’t take the ribbing some of the members liked to hand out. They could not understand why Mike constantly chased all the awards available, whilst he, in turn, could not understand their being content to drift aimlessly around the sky without achieving some goal.

  Quickly he carried out the routine daily check and climbed in. One of the club members held the sailplane level and after completing the cockpit checks and attaching the cable, the necessary signals were given and Mike was away across the grass, bumping slightly for a few yards until, with the aid of the flaps, the glider lifted from the ground and soared upwards. For the first hundred feet Mike kept the angle of the climb gradual but then he gently steepened the climb to the optimum angle of about forty-five degrees.

  At eight hundred feet there was a sudden snapping noise and the glider jerked dramatically. The airspeed indicator began to fall anti-clockwise, though the nose of the glider still pointed upwards.

  ‘Blast!’ Mike said aloud. ‘A cable break! The last bloody thing I want now.’

  Immediately he eased the stick forward so that the nose of the plane dropped to prevent the sailplane going into a stall. The airspeed indicator began to rise again and Mike eased the glider into a normal gliding position and began to calculate whether he had enough height to make a complete circuit and bring the plane down on the launching area again.

  He operated the cable mechanism to release the portion of cable which would no doubt still be attached to the plane, though from his position in the cockpit he could not see how much remained. Deciding that he had insufficient height to be able to make the complete circuit to bring him back to the launch point, he turned towards that part of the field frequently used by the glider pilots when they failed to complete a normal circuit.

  Here, the field was by no means as smooth as the launching area and the glider bumped and clattered on landing, jolting Mike and almost making his teeth rattle. He brought the glider to a standstill only five feet from the hedge and for a moment he sat back in the cockpit and sighed with relief. Then the anger at being thwarted yet again in getting away early made him thump the control panel in a moment of sheer frustration.

  Toby Wingate drove over in his car, jumping out and galloping towards him as Mike climbed out of the cockpit.

  ‘Bloody cable break,’ Mike greeted him shortly.

  ‘You a
ll right?’ Toby panted.

  ‘ ’Course I’m all right, just bloody mad, that’s all!’

  ‘Let’s tow her back then, shall we?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Mike replied moodily, ‘ but I shan’t get another launch in time today though, shall I?’

  ‘Cheer up, mate,’ Toby said cheerfully. ‘There’s tomorrow—and Monday. That’s the best thing about a Bank Holiday weekend, at least we’ve got an extra day’s flying.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ Mike agreed grudgingly. ‘And damned if I’ll be fobbed off tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m first away!’

  ‘It’s all your bloody fault,’ Blanche Milner screeched, her fists pummelling her husband’s shoulder. ‘You should ’ ave let the dinghy down.’

  ‘It was you! Couldn’t wait to get to your blasted bingo, could you?’ Joe retorted.

  Blanche’s voice rose higher. ‘ You don’t care about ’em—just ’ cos they’re not yourn!’

  Appalled they stared at each other before Joe lumbered out of the room, leaving Blanche to throw herself across the bed and beat the pillow with her fists, screaming with rage and fear.

  Downstairs the owner of the flats met Joe. Behind her, in their best coats and carrying heavy suitcases, stood a newly-arrived family of four—mother, father and two little girls.

  ‘Mr Milner—you’re supposed to be out of the flat by twelve noon. It is now …’

  Joe ignored her, squeezing himself past the family.

  ‘Mr Milner …’

  ‘Look, missus,’ he turned to face her, fear making him vent his anger on someone, anyone. ‘Us two lads is missin’. Us can’t leave yet.’

  ‘Well, really …’ began the woman, but Joe was gone, leaving them all staring after him, the landlady open-mouthed, the family weighed down by their luggage.

  Joe walked the short distance to the lifeboat station.

  He was angry and frustrated. Angry with the two boys, fed up with his wife’s nagging and reluctantly angry with himself for not having deflated the dinghy the previous night. Every other night of the holiday he had let the wretched thing down only to have to blow it up again the following morning. Then last night—their last complete day—the weather had been so warm that they had lingered on the beach until the last possible moment. Only Blanche with her bingo fever had at last nagged them into returning to the flats. Only her ill-temper that they would be late for the bingo session had caused him to leave the dinghy as it was.

  Hesitantly now he approached the lifeboat station and hovered uncertainly in the open doorway. He cleared his throat and the young fellow coiling a rope and stowing it neatly in the small trailer looked up.

  ‘Any—any news?’ Joe asked.

  Tim Matthews’s expression was blank for a moment, then he realised. ‘ Oh sorry, sir, you’re the boys’ father?’

  Joe nodded, relaxing a little. The lad seemed friendly, not blaming him as everyone else seemed to be doing. Even the policeman to whom Joe had first reported the fact that his two boys were missing, whilst being swiftly efficient, had seemed a little brusque with him as if it were his fault the lads had gone off like they had.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Tim was saying. ‘No word yet. The inshore boat will be on its way back soon. But the offshore boat—’ he indicated the huge empty carriage behind him—‘ has gone in search of your lads now, and the air/sea rescue helicopter will be called in. They’ll soon find them, sir, don’t you worry.’

  But at one o’clock there was still no word of the missing boys and the train to Worksop left Saltershaven without the Milner family.

  That was the worst thing about a Bank Holiday weekend, Macready thought as the lifeboat headed at full speed north-north-east on a bearing of 010 degrees towards the area where he believed the inflatable might be, assuming that the two little boys were out on the ocean. Bank Holidays brought not only a run of genuine calls, but the hoax calls and the doubtful ones as well.

  It said much for the patient character of the lifeboatman that even if he were unsure whether a search was really necessary or not, he still treated the service the same as any other. The only unanswerable question that such a doubtful report posed was—just how long should they go on searching?

  At 13.40 the lifeboat reached the area Macready had ringed on his chart. The coxswain estimated that if the inflatable had begun to drift out to sea soon after their own launch, it would have been carried out by the ebbing tide and the offshore breeze at a rate of between three and four knots in a north-easterly direction. He planned to cover an area between 035 and 045 degrees working towards the northeast and his decision was backed by the headquarters at Breymouth.

  The inshore boat, practically on the limit of its range, came alongside the larger boat. The inshore craft was this time crewed by reserves, because Phil Davis, Tony Douglas and Pete Donaldson, any two of whom normally crewed the ILB, were already aboard the Mary Martha Clamp.

  Macready spoke to Terry Lightfoot over the radio. ‘We’ll carry on the search from here, Terry.’

  ‘Right, Mac. We’ll put back now but continue to search on our way.’

  Across the stretch of water the two men waved acknowledgement to each other.

  The light offshore breeze had strengthened since morning to force three and the sun was bright in a cloudless blue sky, the sea a rippling, shimmering mirror.

  In the bows Phil Davis screwed up his eyes against the glare whilst Pete Donaldson turned from his radio and looked up at his coxswain. ‘Breymouth confirm the helicopter is on its way.’

  Macready nodded as Pete added, ‘I’m not likely to pick up a plastic dinghy on the radar, am I, Mac? Do you want me on deck?’

  ‘Aye, another pair of eyes will help up here.’

  As the ILB sped away back towards Saltershaven beach, Macready set a northerly course on a bearing of 350 degrees and eased the control forward to cruising speed. He kept on this course for two nautical miles and then turned eastwards for one mile and then abruptly south-south-easterly for four miles on a reciprocal bearing of 155 degrees to take him directly back across the estimated path of the drifting dinghy.

  If—indeed—there was a drifting dinghy out here.

  As he made this second turn, Pete Donaldson caught his eye and pointed towards the south. Macready looked and saw a tiny speck in the sky approaching rapidly. The Sea King helicopter. Pete then left the deck for a few minutes to call up the pilot of the Sea King.

  ‘Rescue helicopter Five-five. Rescue hell-copter Five-five, this is Saltershaven lifeboat, Saltershaven lifeboat. Do you read? Over.’

  ‘Saltershaven lifeboat, Saltershaven lifeboat, this is Rescue Five-five. Rescue Five-five. Loud and clear. Go ahead. Over.’

  Pete then gave the helicopter pilot details of the lifeboat’s planned course and the pilot replied, ‘Saltershaven lifeboat, this is Rescue Five-five. Message received and understood. We will fly further out and work back towards you. Out.’

  Both Breymouth Coastal Rescue Headquarters and Jack Hansard came on the air to confirm that they had heard the exchange of conversation between the lifeboat and the helicopter and now knew exactly what was happening out at sea.

  The time was 14.10. For the next hour the Mary Martha Clamp continued on her box-like zigzag pattern of search whilst a few miles to the northeast the Sea King adopted a similar method, skimming only feet above the waves.

  At 15.12 the helicopter pilot’s voice came over the radio/ telephone again and Pete hurried to respond.

  ‘… We have sighted an object in the water fifty-three degrees seventeen minutes north, zero degrees thirty-six minutes east. Over.’

  The lifeboat was three and a half nautical miles away and Macready immediately set a course for the position on the chart given by the pilot. Pete relayed his coxswain’s message. ‘… Lifeboat heading on bearing zero-three-zero at full speed. Will be with you in about thirty minutes. Over.’

  Now the crew shifted their positions towards the bows of the lifeboat, each
man eager to be the first to spot the dinghy. Pete Donaldson now remained near his radio/telephone.

  Twenty-three minutes after they had received the message from the air/sea rescue helicopter, Tony Douglas pointed and shouted excitedly, ‘Mac—there’s something over there.’ All eyes now turned to look in the direction Tony pointed. The helicopter was circling above the area.

  ‘There’s summat there,’ Fred muttered to himself and signalled his agreement. Macready swung the wheel and the boat turned a few degrees to starboard, heading for the bobbing black object that Tony’s sharp eyes had spotted.

  ‘I reckon it’s them,’ Tony shouted. ‘Here, let’s have those glasses, Dad.’

  He trained the binoculars, squinting against the mercurial water. ‘Yup, it’s a dinghy right enough—an’ I can see them in it—at least …’

  He paused as the lifeboat sped closer.

  Then slowly he lowered the glasses. Tony Douglas, father of two young children himself, turned towards his father, his face sombre.

  ‘I can only see one bairn!’

  Chapter Six

  Julie Macready heard Howard’s car as she was taking the casserole from the oven. She ran out to meet him.

  ‘Hello there,’ he called as he swung his legs from his car and bounded towards her, enveloping her in an enthusiastic bear-hug.

  ‘Hello, Howard,’ Julie said, a little shy of him, a little nervous of how he and her father would get along together.

  The only other time the two men had met had been on Open Day at Julie’s College, when her father had visited. Howard had joined them for the afternoon from the neighbouring University. There, Howard had been surrounded by his own kind, and it had been Macready who had felt out of place.

  But this was Saltershaven.

  Admittedly Howard was smartly dressed in a grey check suit and matching waistcoat, a yellow rose-bud in his lapel, but Julie hoped he had brought some less formal clothes for the weekend.