I’d read about Gandhi. If I had to put up with the likes of Peter Fairweather on a daily basis, I’d probably be protesting too.
She cleared her throat and clasped her hands in front of her skirt. ‘Sorry about my brother,’ she said. ‘He can be thoughtless sometimes.’
I pressed my hand onto the black cover of my book, shocked at how leathery my skin looked. ‘Didn’t notice.’
A horn honked in the street. Someone yelled in Hindi.
‘What was that you were writing?’ asked Viola. ‘Poetry?’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘Don’t be so modest, Sergeant Shiers,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to see a man writing poetry.’ She recited what I’d written:
I broke a vow,
I broke your heart,
Look what I’ve done to you …
It sounded even worse out loud. And that’s all I’d managed to come up with since Crete. It really was hopeless.
‘So who’s the heartbroken damsel?’ Viola’s voice was all fun and light as she poked me in the shoulder.
I stared at my lap, my cheeks flashing crimson.
‘Oh!’ She’d seen the look on my face. ‘She’s real.’ Then all her words ran together. ‘I’m so sorry, it’s really none of my business.’
‘Viola, what are you up to with Sergeant Shiers?’ Jesus, it was the other one.
Viola snapped. ‘We’re just talking, Dora.’
‘I can see that. What are you talking about?’
I rose from my seat with my diary held behind me.
‘Oh,’ said Viola. ‘I was just asking Captain Shiers if he knew the Australian airmen who died in the crash in London.’
‘Wasn’t that simply awful?’ said Dora. ‘Those poor men. Did you know them well, Sergeant Shiers? Roger Douglas and James Ross?’
Poor buggers. I’d thought about them often since Cairo. Every take-off, I imagined what it must have been like to be hurtling back to earth. You can dredge up a lot of memories, good and bad and downright sad, in a few moments.
‘I didn’t know them well,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Douglas won the Military Cross for bravery at Polygon Wood.’ I paused, not knowing what else to say. ‘He didn’t deserve to die like that.’
Ross finally reappeared, looking clean and refreshed in his uniform and hat. ‘Keith won’t be a jiff,’ he said. ‘How’d you like the Vimy, ladies? Isn’t she a marvel?’
‘Marvellous,’ said Viola.
Dora beamed. ‘Peter thought we should wait for the hero’s tour.’
I twisted my mouth. ‘Well, Captain, I’ll leave you …’
Ross turned his gaze on Dora, frowning. ‘You’re far too kind, Dora,’ he said. ‘Though I tend to think heroes are the invention of idle men and mourning women.’
Peter sauntered over, cigarillo in hand. Ross waited, hands on hips, until he was in earshot. ‘Pity Sergeant Shiers didn’t get to tell you how he fixed one of the engines with chewing gum. You three could have dined out on that for months.’
He turned to clasp Peter’s shoulder. ‘So good to see you again, old sport.’ He nodded at the cigarillo. ‘Don’t suppose you can spare one of those beauties?’
Peter reached into the inside pocket of his linen jacket and threw Ross the pack. ‘Take the lot,’ he said. ‘Anything for the man of the hour.’
That tiny pack was worth more than I earned in a week.
‘Thanks, champ,’ said Ross. ‘Man of the hour is Sergeant Shiers.’ He tossed me the pack. ‘He’s the only reason we’re still in the air.’ Peter gaped like a carp on a river bank. ‘Enjoy, Shiers,’ said Ross. ‘Save me one for the night we catch Poulet.’
CALCUTTA, NOVEMBER 29TH 1919
I was 11 years old when the Commonwealth of Australia was born. There was a big Federation parade through the streets of Adelaide and a monster picnic in the dusty parklands for us kids, with running events and sack races and patriotic songs. There was special Federation chocolate, too, with wrapping that said ‘January 1st 1901. One People. One Destiny.’ I gobbled mine down a bit fast in the hot sun and threw it straight back up, on my sister Mabel’s new blue dress. Mum hissed, ‘You wait till I get you home, Walter Shiers!’ and I spent the rest of the day petrified and being extra nice to Mabel, and by the time we got home all tired and sunburned, it was forgotten. Mum could never hold on to her anger.
The Australian flag wasn’t ready for Federation. There was a national competition and five winners were announced later that same year—they’d basically all come up with the same design.
So there I was in Calcutta, 18 years later on a different continent, holding that flag for the very first time. A pretty young woman had reached out and pressed it into my hands as we were doing a final check of the plane. Benny and I were standing behind the starboard wing, waiting to crank the engines and studying the flag while Ross finished showing Lord Ronaldshay the controls in the front cockpit. The flag was hand-sewn in silk, maybe three feet by one and a half feet, and as I ran my fingers across the stars of the Southern Cross I felt a pang of homesickness so strong it was almost like being walloped.
I leaned against the wing and looked out across the Maidan. Must have been 100,000 people there, easy. Their voices surged across the huge park like whitecaps on the ocean. There was a smell of cooking oil and burning incense, and damp grass on the racetrack, which had been cordoned off for take-off. My mind drifted to everything that had happened since that night in the Bengal Club. Hard to believe that was only four months ago.
Benny nudged my shoulder and nodded toward the front. ‘The great aviator and the Governor of Bengal,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know how Ross does it.’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘You mean finding the right things to say to important people? Ross is pretty impressive like that.’
‘Nah,’ Benny said. ‘I mean being patient and not telling the bloke to fuck off out of the cockpit. We might finally catch Poulet today—if we ever take off.’
It was two days since we’d left Delhi on our final quest to track down the Frenchman. From Delhi to Agra to Allahabad and Calcutta, over the marble dome of the Taj Mahal, dazzling in the sunlight, to the peaceful Jumna River and over patchwork farmland in a thousand shades of brown and green. On we flew at 3,000 ft, searching, hunting for Poulet.
He wasn’t in Allahabad. And his Caudron wasn’t on the racetrack when we came in to land at Calcutta.
Ross had circled the sprawling city a couple of times to herald our arrival, but we were still astounded by the tens of thousands of people already assembled at the Maidan in anticipation of our landing. Turned out they’d been there since morning, when Poulet had taken off, and they were in such a state of excitement by the time we arrived that they broke through the barriers and were threatening to tear strips off the Vimy as souvenirs. It took hundreds of police and army guards to drive them back.
‘The Governor is still bloody talking,’ whispered Benny. ‘Poulet will be doing a victory lap of Australia before we get across the Ganges.’ Just then Benny noticed something. He jumped up on the wing and pointed down the race track. ‘Here, Wal!’ He shielded his eyes with his hand. ‘You seen that flock of birds down there?’
I jumped up to take a look. ‘Where?’ I asked.
He pointed again down the far end of the track. Must have been a few dozen of them, some on the ground, others circling overhead.
‘Jesus,’ I said, eyeing the length of the runway. ‘This track’s always worried me, too.’
‘Yeah,’ said Benny. ‘Betcha Ross’ll give her everything she’s got, or else we’ll run out of grass.’
Just then Lord Ronaldshay shook hands with Ross and presented him with two official-looking envelopes before being assisted off the wing by Keith. The crowd applauded as he stepped back down to earth.
‘More mail,’ groaned Benny. ‘Bloody piles of the stuff. How many envelopes we got now, y’reckon?’
‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘Couple of hund
red?’
Complete strangers had been shoving mail into our hands since Weybridge. They wanted their envelopes to be among the first post to arrive in Australia by air. Made you realise how many people scattered across the Empire had ties to Australia. Made me feel guilty for not being a better correspondent.
‘Ready men?’ yelled Ross, as Keith climbed into the cockpit.
‘Captain!’ Benny pointed down the far end of the track. ‘Birds!’
Ross and Keith turned to look, then Ross gestured for one of the RAF chiefs to come over and leaned down to chat. Next thing a motorbike was dispatched down the racecourse into the flock’s midst, trying to scare them off.
‘Nice one, Benny,’ I said as he ducked under the fuselage to start the port engine.
The engines roared to life, we climbed into our cockpit and Ross taxied to the end of the track. I waved my new flag and played to the crowd, enjoying the novelty. The Brits cheered, waved their hats. A few Indian men and boys waved, too, but the women stood perfectly still in their colourful saris, wide-eyed, silent, not at all sure about this monstrous green bird.
We turned and Ross steadied the Vimy for a minute. I pulled the flag inside the cockpit and stared down the track.
The motorbike was tearing around in circles, still trying to clear the flock. Damn those birds.
We sat there a moment longer, engines booming, crowd waving.
The birds were cleared.
I relaxed my shoulders a bit.
Ross throttled forward hard and we were off: bouncing, then racing, then hurtling past the screaming sea of people, building speed, getting ever closer to the end of the straight.
Benny was right. We were running out of grass. Those trees were beginning to look huge.
The wheels lifted off the ground and I could feel Ross trying to pull up her nose as hard as he could.
My hands clutched the silk folds of the flag. There was no way we were going to clear those trees.
Suddenly a white bird flashed past my starboard wing. Another—and another. They were everywhere, flying in panic.
Then a bird flew straight into the port propeller.
There was a mighty thud, and I clutched at Benny’s arm as the plane shuddered violently.
The trees were looming, less than 20 yards away. We were headed for the middle of the canopy.
The port wing dipped. My heart stopped. We were goners.
But suddenly Ross was wrenching her up, up. The propeller was holding firm. The dead hawk was wedged in the wiring of the port wing, its feathers shedding into the slipstream.
Ross eased to starboard to avoid more birds and we scraped over the trees, the rubber wheels just inches from the leaves.
We circled back, flying low over the Victoria Memorial building with its heavy scaffolding and the Maidan with its waving masses.
Benny and I were laughing and rapping the top of the fuselage with our knuckles, and then I held the Australian flag aloft and wondered how many thousands of people were seeing my country’s flag for the first time—because of us, because of this race, because of Ross Smith and his incredible capacity to save the day, every day.
That was 8.30 in the morning. Four and a half hours later, we’d flown over the Ganges Delta. We’d passed over Chittagong, where Ross and Biffy had nearly blown themselves up on the Sphinx. We’d passed over hundreds of miles of Burmese coastline, too, with nothing but blue sea out to one side of the Vimy and thick green jungle out the other.
Then, finally, the seaside port of Akyab came into view, and in the middle of a makeshift aerodrome surrounded by hundreds of people, I saw it.
A tiny Caudron twin-engine biplane.
We’d caught him.
In the forward cockpit Keith started punching the air. He turned around to me and Benny, pointing like a madman at the ground and at us. I thought he was going to fall out of the plane, he was so excited. Then he gave Marmaduke II a little pat on the head and sat back down and I saw his shoulders sag with relief.
I felt it, too. Relief. Exhilaration. Hope. We’d caught Poulet—anything was possible now.
As we came in to land, I scanned the faces for my first real look at him. A man who’d become almost mythical in my mind for his daring and his cunning. How would he be feeling, seeing this huge aircraft circling and swooping down? He must know it was over.
The Vimy’s wheels had barely rolled to a stop when a lanky bloke with a wide forehead and an easy smile came striding out to meet us. It’s exactly how Ross would have done it. Gallant, sporting, big-hearted.
It was an honour to be there when they met.
RANGOON, NOVEMBER 30TH 1919
‘Bonne chance!’ Poulet raised his arm in the air and champagne sloshed out of his tin mug. ‘Bonne chance and good luck!’
I downed my mug of fizz in a single gulp, topping up on the plonk I’d just drunk at the reception, and felt a rush of affection for the tall, crazy Frenchman.
The six of us stood in a tiny circle in the centre of the Rangoon racetrack. Ross, Keith, Benny, me, Etienne Poulet and his mechanic, Jean Benoist.
Beside us was the Vimy, a giant eagle next to Poulet’s tiny sparrow of a Caudron G4. I liked the way the names ‘Poulet’ and ‘Benoist’ were painted on its two propeller cowlings.
About 50 yards away on three sides, Burmese troops manned barricades holding back mums cradling babies, dads scolding children, old men with no teeth and young women with golden circles painted on their cheeks and sleek black hair that looked too shiny to be real. From the air we’d seen tens of thousands of people, perhaps as many as 40,000, who’d travelled hundreds of miles over jungle tracks to see the first plane to ever land in Rangoon.
Down here on the racecourse I could still hear the excited babble, but all I could see was the front of the crowd pressing in against the barriers, standing and staring like they were watching a performance, or a ritual maybe.
And I suppose they were.
Beyond the masses, beyond the tall trees, soaring 300 ft into the brilliant blue sky was the shimmering golden Shwedagon Pagoda—a Buddhist stupa so massive we’d spotted it rising above the jungle from 40 miles away on the flight east from Akyab. I hoped there was time to take photos, or no one would ever believe it. It struck me: if I couldn’t tell Helena, who would I want to tell?
‘Merci, Lieutenant,’ said Ross, returning his empty mug to Poulet and looking at me and Benny. ‘Right, lads. Let’s get this done.’
We had 12 days left to get to Australia, across 4,000 miles with only one known airfield and two racetracks large enough to land on. We would be crossing mountains and jungles and oceans that no man had ever flown across before. It was the riskiest stage of the route and the hardest stage to plan for—the stage where British assistance ended and ever more danger lurked.
We’d arrived in Rangoon early that afternoon, an hour in advance of Poulet despite his head start from Akyab. British and French expats had been out in force, with excitement heightened by the fact two planes racing from the other side of the planet were appearing out of the sky on the very same day.
The expats had all cleared off after the welcome toast, to prepare themselves for the Governor’s dinner. We honoured guests were to follow them into town after the engines had been checked and tanks refuelled.
‘Wait,’ said Poulet, grabbing Ross’s arm. ‘Captain Smith. You and me.’ He pointed to Ross and back to himself. ‘We drink. We talk.’
Poulet liked to talk. And when he talked, in his thick French accent, he was either throwing his arms around like a conductor, or hugging himself tightly, holding his chin like a professor deep in thought.
Ross shook his head. ‘Sorry, old son, that’ll have to wait for the Governor’s dinner.’ He pointed to the fuel lorry, parked over near the stables. ‘We need to be in the air tomorrow before it gets too hot, so the plane’s got to be refuelled now.’
Poulet grabbed his mechanic by the shoulders and steered him toward Ross. ‘Benoist will do it
,’ he said, before gabbling something in French.
‘Oui, d’accord.’ Benoist shrugged his shoulders. I reckon he’d have walked on hot coals for his boss. No different to me and Benny, really.
Ross looked at the tiny Caudron and raised his eyebrows. ‘What about your own aircraft?’ he said. ‘Surely you check it and refuel?’
‘Look at her!’ said Poulet, nearly collecting me in the face as he waved toward his plane. ‘Le petit Caudron. Very quick to refuel. We check in the morning.’ He clasped Ross’s shoulder and looked down at the second bottle of champagne he’d borrowed from the reception. ‘Now we drink. Talk!’
Ross looked at Keith.
Keith shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m sure Benoist knows how to pass a fuel can.’
Benny raised his hand. ‘I’m happy to drink and talk if you’d prefer to work, boss.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said Ross dryly. He placed a hand on Poulet’s shoulder. ‘Okay, maybe one more.’
Benny and I collected our tools from the aft cockpit and got ourselves assembled on our respective wings.
Benoist already had a dozen fuel cans stacked at the front of the Vimy. He was trotting between the fuel lorry and the plane, a man possessed, passing up tins to Keith between laps. The man knew how to work. He’d served as a mechanic to the famous French airman Roland Garros during the war, but before and since he’d only worked for Poulet.
Their 160-horsepower Caudron biplane was designed back in 1916 and had been flown for two years over the Western Front before Poulet bought it for a song at the end of the war. It was the weirdest-looking machine, normal from the front but with no fuselage out the back—just four rather flimsy-looking uncovered steel bars running out to the tail wing. Poulet had test-flown hundreds of Caudrons during the war. When he’d decided to fly across the world in honour of his fallen friend Védrines, it was the only plane he trusted to make the distance. You could still see the Hun bullet holes in the fuselage.
With his broken English, Benoist had told us how the Indian newspapers were convinced Poulet had a small boy hidden on the plane as a mascot, because some French magazine had run a photograph of them with a child before they left Paris. He told us how they’d been forced to land in a fierce storm in a remote part of India, and the villagers thought they were devils coming out of the tempest to eat them. Benoist had pleaded with Poulet to fire his pistol, but he’d walked toward the villagers instead, to show he meant no harm.
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