I leaned back in the chair, wiping a hand down my face. ‘Jeez, Benny, I hope you’re right.’
I’d received only one letter from Helena in the past nine months. It was written on November 12th 1918, the day after the war ended in Europe. It had finally found me in Calcutta, a full seven months later. The envelope was an ugly mishmash of crossed-out addresses, but the letter inside was wonderful. Joyful. Hopeful. I carried it in my jacket pocket and could recite every word.
November 12th 1918
My darling Wally,
I still can’t believe it’s true. I can’t believe this war is finally over and you and Freddy Houdini are coming home. Thank God, Wal. Thank God.
I’ve been up all night having a high old time in East Street—the party is still going on over there. I can hear it from inside the house. It’s quite mad. And you’ll never guess how it all started. It was after midnight and the church and fire bells started ringing furiously and we could hear rifle shots and sky rockets blasting out all over town. The word is that Bill from the Argus newspaper had the post office lads intercepting and decoding any telegrams which might be carrying news of the Armistice. So suddenly they haul the Mayor out of bed to officially tell us the war is over! What a lark! Mother got the fright of her life, but when the church bells didn’t stop ringing we knew it could only mean one thing. Oh Wally, we stood there clinging to one another in the hallway, sobbing and laughing and listening to those wonderful bells ring out. It was glorious. Then I helped Mother to quickly get dressed and we went out to the front yard and followed everyone streaming into East Street. There were hundreds already there, hugging and dancing in the moonlight, clapping and singing and waving flags. I so wish you and Fred had been there. It was the most incredible moment of my life. The speeches went on all night and they’re still going! Mr McCaughey from North Yanco Station made the funniest speech. He said the plane he donated to your No. 1 Squadron was court-martialled for cowardice for continually breaking down when approaching the enemy! I’m sure you already know all that, but it was quite hilarious the way Mr McCaughey told the story.
It’s right on lunchtime now and I’ve been up since midnight. I’ve just popped home for a quick nap and I’ll take Mother back later. I’m feeling very weary, and you can barely hear a word in East Street, what with kids banging kerosene tins and the Narrandera marching band playing. The hotels are doing a roaring trade and making such a racket. Every now and then an entire bar empties of people and they all weave along East Street in procession and then weave back inside the bar again to their drinks. I’ve never felt such an overwhelming feeling of happiness. Of course a lot of the speeches are about sacrifice too. They’re saying as many as a hundred men from the district have been killed. Poor Mrs Dixon lost two sons and two brothers. Bless her. How could you ever get over that? I don’t know what I’ll do with myself now it’s over—until you get back of course and we can get busy making plans.
And now I’ve got something to tell you. On my way home just now I walked over to speak with Reverend Rawling at St Thomas’s. I wanted to get in before all the other girls. He’s had quite the rush of appointments already. So my darling Wally, we’re due to be married on the second weekend in April. That should give you plenty of time to get home and settled back in, don’t you think darling? And it will be almost four years to the day since you enlisted and we were parted, so I thought it was the perfect weekend to celebrate starting our married life together. Oh Wally, won’t it be wonderful! I can’t believe it’s true.
Love you I do, love you I DO!
Helena
There was just one small problem. The very same day she’d written that letter to me, I’d written to her saying I wasn’t coming straight home. After three years away at war, I was staying on with Captain Smith—maybe for another year.
And I hadn’t received a single word since.
No response to the embroidered Egyptian cotton napkins I sent from Cairo. No response to the pink pashmina shawl I sent from Delhi just after Christmas. No response to the pretty silk pincushion and little blue china bowl I sent from Singapore.
Nothing but silence. The Army Post Office blokes at the Calcutta barracks were sick of the sight of me. For weeks I’d appear at the door and they’d yell out, ‘Nope! Nothing!’
The Sikh returned, refilling our glasses before offering the magical cigar box and lighting our chosen cigarillos.
‘I could get used to this,’ Benny said, leaning back and drawing deeply on his cigarillo.
I took a mouthful of whisky. ‘I think I’ve really stuffed up, Benny,’ I said.
He looked at me. ‘Now, mate,’ he said, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m going to say something blunt about Helena, because nothing seems to be sticking in your thick skull. She’s heading toward 30, right?’
I nodded. ‘She’s 27.’
‘Well then,’ he said. ‘With all respect to Helena, it’s not like a whole lot of blokes are going to be beating her door down. Not when so many lads have been lost at war and there’s so many women to choose from. Think about it—she’s all yours!’
I sat for a minute, processing what he’d said, staring at the black stripes of the dead tiger. I was nearly 30 too. Who the hell would want me if she didn’t?
I leaned forward, slapping my thighs to snap myself out of it. ‘Thanks for that, my brutally blunt friend!’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’m bloody sick of thinking about it.’
I took a deep drag of my cigarillo, exhaling toward the ceiling fan, and asked, ‘What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get to Melbourne?’
‘I’m hoping the football season hasn’t finished by then,’ he said. ‘Because I plan to drink a dangerous amount of Victoria Bitter while watching the Saints win a flag.’
Made me think of my old driver mate Westy from the Light Horse, and the way he used to stutter when we’d been out on the road all day. I wondered if he’d made it home.
There was a small cheer near the bar and we watched as Captain Smith and General Borton walked in. Men crowded around the pair, shaking their hands and clapping them on the back and vying to order their drinks. Calcutta had never seen a plane before we’d arrived in our great green Handley Page, with its 100-ft wingspan and thundering engines. It’s hard to describe the impact that formidable bomber—and its pilots—had on people.
‘Have you noticed how men seem to like Captain Smith almost as much as women?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ Benny said. ‘Women want to bed him and men want to be him. Lucky bastard.’
‘Can you imagine him settling down with a woman, though?’ I asked.
Benny shot me a puzzled look. ‘One day maybe,’ he said, drawing on his cigarillo. ‘Apparently at one stage during the war there was a girl in Adelaide keen on settling him down.’ He exhaled and continued, ‘I think the idea of going back to normality scares him shitless. I mean, the bloke was a junior storeman in some city department store before he enlisted. Now look at him!’
‘Harris Scarfe,’ I said. ‘That’s where he worked back home.’
‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ said Benny. ‘I heard a motor firm’s just offered him a couple of thousand quid to stay on here in Calcutta, too, but he knocked ’em back. Can you imagine him being stuck behind a desk?’
A dozen people were crowded around the Captain. We couldn’t hear what he was saying, but whenever his lips stopped moving a roar of laughter erupted.
‘Before the war, I used to read about men trying to set flight records in flimsy old crates,’ I said. ‘People were fascinated. A couple of my brothers went to see the first exhibition flight in Adelaide. The crowd rushed in to get close to the plane and the propeller took a kid’s hand off.’
‘Jesus,’ said Benny, screwing up his face.
‘It’s the same with the Captain—they’re fascinated by him. Not so long back, these old blokes would have sat in here arguing whether powered flight was even possible.’
Arriving out of the sky was a
hell of a way to make an entrance. But that wasn’t the only reason people were drawn to Ross Smith. There was his war record. Eleven kills. A chest full of decorations. Bullet scars on his cheek and forehead. And there was something about him being Australian, too. Very Australian, very athletic and very young—he was still only 26. He spoke beautifully and was educated enough to fit right into the richest crowd, yet he was still always Ross Smith. Boy from the bush in South Australia.
Just then, the Captain caught my eye and waved a folded newspaper in the air. The next second, he and General Borton were pressing through the crowd toward us.
‘Benny,’ I said quickly, ‘Biffy advancing.’
We stood smartly, hands behind our back.
‘Oh for pity’s sake, gentlemen, at ease,’ said General Borton. ‘The Captain has some rather thrilling news. Let’s see if there’s a table on the terrace.’
We all followed him outside, Benny and I exchanging a look on the way. ‘Thrilling news’ could mean anything coming from Biffy Borton. He’d said the same thing before dispatching us to the desert on the North West Frontier.
Brigadier-General Amyas Borton was the very picture of a charming British gentleman. Monocle. Moustache. Lots of back slapping and ‘Jolly good!’. He wore a fixed expression of quiet amusement, like he knew something we all didn’t. And maybe he did. His grandfather had been the governor-general of Malta and a knight, and his father was a retired lieutenant-colonel and country squire on some rolling estate with its own village south of London. Biffy had risen quickly through the ranks of the Royal Flying Corps, surviving a shocking bullet wound through the jaw in a dogfight over France to eventually be given command of the Palestine Brigade—including our No. 1 Squadron.
No one really knew how he’d earnt his nickname. I heard once that during his time with the Black Watch militia in Scotland, he’d taken to giving disobedient blokes a bit of biffo. Apparently it was less fuss than writing a report. And he certainly didn’t stand on ceremony in Palestine. Parading was banned on his aerodromes. ‘We are at war,’ he’d say. ‘When we are through with that, then we can “fall in” and look nice.’ There was time for tennis though, and golf, and flying back to Cairo for grand dinner parties at Shepheard’s Hotel. He referred to us No. 1 Squadron lads as ‘my Australians’, like he was just so damned proud of us. He knew we all called him Biffy behind his back, too; ‘Jolly good,’ he’d said when he heard. You couldn’t help but like the man.
We found four rattan armchairs around a low teak table and sat down, the General on my left and the Captain on my right. Biffy ordered four whiskys and four Black Tiger cigars with his usual exuberance, before leaning back in his chair, smoothing down his thick black moustache with thumb and forefinger, and nodding for the Captain to begin.
Captain Smith leaned in, grinning, and threw the folded copy of the Sydney Morning Herald on the table. ‘Lads, you won’t believe this, but our government has announced an air race from England to Australia.’
‘What?’ said Benny, picking up the paper and quickly scanning down the page for the headline.
‘Read it out, Sergeant,’ said General Borton.
Benny read: ‘By air. Australia from Great Britain. With a view of stimulating aerial activity, the Commonwealth government has decided to offer a prize of ten thousand pounds for the first successful flight to Australia from Great Britain on a machine manned by Australians.’ He kept scanning: ‘Competitors should be required to supply their own machines and to make all other necessary arrangements in connection with the flight.’
He looked up. ‘Ten thousand quid!’
‘Benny, can I take a look?’ I said, and when he handed me the paper I checked the top of the page for the date. ‘This race was announced back in March. We’re in August.’ For a fraction of a second I hoped we were too late.
‘Quite right, Wal,’ the Captain said. ‘I’ve cabled London and Sydney to clear a few things up. But I think it’s a fair bet the race hasn’t begun yet, or we’d have heard about it.’
‘But wait a minute,’ said Benny, ‘why would the Australian government hold a race? And offer ten thousand pounds?’
‘Same reason the British government asked us to survey landing strips between India and Australia,’ said Biffy, biting on his cigar. ‘We’ve seen what these machines can do in war. Think what they can do in peace. Trade. Defence. Passenger travel. Think about it, old boy—it’s all about strengthening Empire.’
He sat back and stroked his moustache. ‘I’ll bet you all a guinea that your odd little Prime Minister, William Hughes, was flying between London and Paris for the Versailles talks and got a taste of the world from the skies. Probably quite like to fly home himself.’
I sat forward. ‘Alcock and Brown received ten thousand pounds in prize money for their first flight across the Atlantic in June. Must be the going rate.’
Benny slapped a hand on the table. ‘All this time we’ve been aiming to fly home to Australia, and now the government wants to give us ten thousand bloody quid to do it!’
We laughed, and Biffy caught the waiter’s eye. ‘Four more whiskies, man,’ he said as the Sikh approached. ‘No—bring the whole damn bottle.’
The Captain had been sitting back quietly, and now he lightly tapped his fingers on the table. ‘There wouldn’t be too many Australian pilots with the confidence to fly eleven thousand miles.’ He paused. ‘And make it home in one piece.’
‘That’s our Ross!’ said Biffy. ‘Already sizing up the competition!’
‘Eleven thousand miles?!’ said Benny.
‘Roughly,’ the Captain said. ‘I’d need to work out our landing spots and measure it all up. The longer the better, though, for us. There were some damn fine Australian pilots flying over the Western Front by the end of the war—but hopefully the distance will deter a few of them.’ You could tell his mind was already racing. ‘I reckon we’ll be up against maybe a dozen teams at most. They’ll all have flown over Britain and France in the war, but no further. None of them know the route from Cairo right down to Australia like we do. If we can get back to England in time, no one will beat us.’
‘And don’t forget, Ross old chap,’ said Biffy, drawing on his cigar. ‘I’ve already shaped the air route from Britain through Italy and Greece and down to Cairo. We’ve got the jump on that section too.’
The Captain leaned over to chink Biffy’s whisky tumbler. ‘Here’s hoping the rules allow you to come along, General. You’re almost an honorary Australian these days.’
When Biffy laughed, his whole body shook. Not for the first time, it struck me that he was only a few years older than me.
‘Too right,’ said Benny. ‘Us four—we’d be unbeatable! That ten thousand pound cheque’s already got our name on it.’
Ten thousand quid was more money than I could fathom. Back then I earned nine shillings, or less than half a quid, a day. It would have taken me 60 years to earn a sum like that.
‘Never mind the money,’ the Captain said. ‘How about being the first men to cross the planet in a plane?’
He raised his glass, leaned forward in his chair and said, ‘Chaps, we’re going to win this race—and then I’m flying to Adelaide to see my mum.’
We all raised a glass to that, and then Biffy and Benny and the Captain threw themselves into planning. How we’d get back to England. Where we’d land along the route. Who we’d approach about a plane.
John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown had crossed the Atlantic in a Vickers Vimy twin-engined bomber. If he couldn’t get a plane out of Handley Page, the Captain would talk to Vickers. Biffy already knew a chap at the company—a bloke he’d flown with during the war.
I listened and tried to take it all in. Ten thousand quid. The chance to make history and be a hero. But it meant going to Britain. And London was just about as far away from Helena as it was possible to get.
Captain Smith leaned toward me. ‘Wal, grab your whisky. Come for a stroll.’
I stood an
d followed the Captain away from the cigar smoke and onto the lawn. There was a rich smell of frangipani, and kerosene burning in the bamboo torches.
The Captain nudged at a fallen white flower with his boot. ‘The Viceroy’s wife told me frangipani is a symbol of immortality in India,’ he said. ‘Even when they’ve been removed from the soil, they can still flower and grow leaves.’
‘Gee,’ I said. But he didn’t get me out here to talk about flowers. ‘Captain, I understand if you’d rather take another mechanic on the race. I know you had many other fine blokes working for you in Palestine—Joe Bull for one. You’ve got to do what’s best for you.’
He held up a hand. ‘Wal, an aircraft is only as good as its mechanics, and there’s no matching you and Benny on these big twin-engine buses.’ He paused to take a mouthful of whisky. ‘I want to talk to you about Helena.’
‘Pardon?’ I said.
‘Wal, I know I’ve asked a lot of you these past nine months since the war, but Benny told me you missed your own wedding.’
I frowned, embarrassed. ‘Don’t worry about that, Captain.’
He took another drink. ‘All things being equal, it should take about a month to fly from Britain to Australia. If we can ship out for London quickly from here and secure ourselves an aircraft, I reckon I can have you home in four months at the most—in time for Christmas.’
I looked at him in the dim light, wishing I had even just a fraction of his conviction.
‘But let’s not be naive about this,’ he said. ‘We’ve both seen the jungle between here and Australia. No landing spots for thousands of miles. No rescue party. It’s a risk I’m willing to take—but then, the only woman waiting back home for me is my mother. It sounds to me your Helena is worth living for.’
‘She is,’ I said, nearly choking on the words.
‘Well then, I want you to think very carefully. The decision has to be yours, because if we do this I’ll demand your absolute commitment.’
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