Poulet poured two mugs of champagne and settled back onto one of the chairs Ross had carried across from the stables. The Frenchman was over six feet tall and his legs seemed to sprawl in all directions. He was constantly fidgeting.
I looked across the crowds to the pagoda, feeling lightheaded and proud, and suddenly a bit sentimental about being right there in the middle of it all.
‘So, Captain Ross Smith,’ Poulet began, ‘You were a pilot in the war, yes? What aircraft did you fly?’
Ross sipped his champagne. ‘Bristol fighters, mainly, toward the end. And a Handley Page 0/400 bomber.’ He nodded to the Vimy. ‘A third bigger again than this old bus. How about you?’
Poulet shook his head. ‘I was a merely a test pilot for Caudron.’
Benoist trotted past carrying two more fuel cans. ‘He test 1,000 aircraft in war!’ He was wheezing as he spoke, still suffering from the malaria he’d caught in Karachi. ‘One thousand!’
Poulet shook his head modestly and held up a hand to silence his mechanic. ‘Thank you, thank you, my friend. Captain Smith, did you fly before the war?’
‘No,’ said Ross. ‘I didn’t get my licence until 1917. You?’
Poulet smiled. ‘1912.’
Ross let out a low whistle. ‘You must have been a small boy!’
‘I was 22.’
I did a quick calculation. He was born in 1890, same year as Keith, two years before Ross.
Poulet poured more champagne into their mugs, and held out a hand to the aircraft and people beyond. ‘What will you do when this is over?’
Benny called out. ‘Spend the winnings!’
Ross smiled over at Benny and shrugged. ‘That’s a very good question.’
‘You will be heroes, no?’ asked Poulet.
Ross frowned. ‘I’m not interested in any of that.’ He sipped his drink. ‘Might go back to London, get a job in the RAF. You?’
Poulet thought for a moment, tapping the side of his mug with his fingers while he studied the golden stupa. ‘I fly east and I am happy.’ He took a long sip of his drink. ‘I am in no hurry to return to France.’
‘It’s very generous, what you’re doing for Védrines’s widow and her children. I read you’ve raised tens of thousands of francs?’
‘It’s true,’ said Poulet. ‘Thank you. I do not need the money as she does. I just want to fly, so I do not have to …’ he waved a hand in the air ‘ … work.’
‘Ha!’ said Ross. ‘That’s you and me both.’ I noticed he was starting to slur his words. ‘I aim to show the potential of aviation in peacetime, so I can continue to be an aviator now the war’s over. Doesn’t get much more self-serving than that.’
‘But Ross,’ I said, from up on my wing. ‘And pardon me for interrupting, Lieutenant Poulet. Ross—wouldn’t it be heroic to be the first man to fly from London to Australia?’
‘It would certainly be a splendid achievement, Wal, but we’re trained for this. It’s not heroic.’ Ross stared up at me. ‘Are you doing this to be a hero, Wal?’
‘No,’ I said, looking at the grease on my hands. ‘I’m doing it to get back … to get back home.’
‘And I’m doing it to get back to my mum.’ Ross laughed, finished his mug and held it out for a refill. ‘A hero I am not.’ He rubbed the scar on his forehead.
Poulet pointed at Ross’s face. ‘Battle scars, no?’
‘Yes.’ Ross tapped his cheek. ‘Bullet went through here and knocked out some teeth.’ He tapped the part in his hair. ‘Another bullet smashed my goggles and grazed my head here. Drawing-room scars, really.’
Poulet rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt. ‘Accident in Lyons. 1917.’ A white scar ran like a train line from his elbow to his wrist.
‘Jesus,’ said Benny. ‘I can see that one from here!’
Poulet crossed himself. ‘The aircraft not so good.’
Ross rose from his chair and took off his jacket. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off his shoulder to reveal a dozen quarter-inch scars near his shoulder blade. ‘Hun shrapnel, I think. Not even sure how I got some of them.’
‘But what is this?’ Poulet pointed at the small butterfly tattoo near the top of Ross’s arm. ‘In French we say papillon.’
‘Oui,’ said Ross, smiling at Keith. ‘It’s a butterfly tattoo.’
I craned over the wing’s edge to get a better look. I’d forgotten all about it.
‘Got it when I was a lad,’ said Ross, ‘travelling to Britain and America with the mounted cadets. Dad went berserk.’
‘This papillon. This … butterfly,’ said Poulet, waving a hand at Ross’s shoulder. ‘Do all Australian men have this tattoo?’
‘Ha!’ Ross shook his head, pulling his shirt back over this shoulder and sitting heavily in his chair. ‘No. Just a few of us idiots.’ He downed the last of his champagne and held out his mug for a refill. ‘There was a tiny tattoo parlour on the pier in San Francisco and I asked the old guy to choose me a symbol.’ He rubbed his shoulder as he spoke. ‘He said the butterfly’s existence is short but extraordinary.’
Ross sat silent for a few moments, then turned in his seat and pointed his mug at the Shwedagon Pagoda. ‘It’s certainly extraordinary today.’
Poulet sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees and cradling his mug in his hands. ‘My hero Jules Védrines was a papillon.’ He nodded to himself, staring into his mug. ‘A short, extraordinary life. You remind me of Védrines, Captain Smith.’
I looked over toward Benny, feeling uneasy about where this talk was going.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said Keith, ‘there’s an uncharted mountain range between here and Siam, so let’s not talk about butterflies and short lives, shall we?’
‘Keith!’ said Ross, screwing up his face. ‘It’s a tiny bit of ink!’
For the first time, he sounded like a kid talking to his older brother.
Poulet stood and raised his mug to the pagoda. ‘To Védrines. And to you, Captain.’
Ross stood too, and Poulet threw a lanky arm around his shoulders. ‘To Védrines,’ Ross said. ‘And to loyal friends.’
‘Live long, le petit papillon Ross Smith,’ said Poulet.
Those two men, those giants of men, stood arm in arm, swaying slightly, with the four of us watching silently and 40,000 others just over there, drawn to their light like moths to flame. Forty thousand people momentarily more captivated by two aviators than a 300-ft shrine plastered in gold. I screwed the engine cowling back into place and started carefully checking my aileron wires, suddenly anxious to get Ross far away from Poulet.
Ross held up a hand, silencing his brother. ‘I’ll say this just one more time. We are not leaving without Poulet.’
He’d made a pact with the Frenchman the night before, to fly in tandem over the high ranges and dense jungle between here and Bangkok. It wouldn’t be easy, given we had more than four times the horsepower, but Ross was convinced that by throttling down and manoeuvring it would be possible to keep together.
I didn’t really like the sound of it, containing the natural rhythm of our own engines to suit a far smaller, slower plane. But Ross was the boss—and in no mood for mutiny.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Keith muttered under his breath, and stormed off to fume by the Vimy.
The two aircraft were still surrounded by tens of thousands of people at the base of the Shwedagon Pagoda.
It was half-past six in the morning and already steaming hot. Every minute we waited would make it harder to rise quickly and clear the trees when we took off.
And Poulet and Benoist were having engine trouble. Benny and I had tried to help, but neither of us could see what the problem was without taking the machine apart.
Finally, Ross caved in, offering his farewells to the dignitaries and telling Poulet we’d see him in Bangkok that afternoon. We started the engines and waited at the end of the track to see if Poulet looked any closer to starting. When the Frenchman waved us on, Ross increased the throttle an
d we were off—clearing a fence by less than a foot and once again brushing treetops with the undercarriage of the bomber’s fuselage.
Ross circled the racecourse for 20 minutes, waiting for signs of movement below. Then we saw Poulet step away from the Caudron, look up to the Vimy with his arms spread wide and wave us on. Ross dipped the Vimy’s wings, once, twice, and Poulet saluted. One hero to another.
Chapter 20
SINGORA, DECEMBER 2ND 1919
Just for a second, I closed my eyes. Folded my arms and leaned back against the workbench. My head sagged forward and my chin rested on my chest. Sleep washed over me. Just for a second I felt blissfully happy, on a soft Sydney mattress beside Helena, drifting off. Drifting.
In the distance I could still hear Ross’s voice, encouraging, cajoling, like a parent persuading a child. It wasn’t working. The four Malays who’d been turning the heavy pulley-wheel, transmitting power by belt to the lathe, were on strike. They didn’t want more money. It was after dark, they’d been working since dawn, and they wanted to go home to their families. I wanted to go home, too. Drifting. On the mattress I rolled over and touched Helena’s bare arm.
Something moved. I woke with a start. My eye was throbbing again. I rubbed it gently and felt a crust in the corner. Could barely see out of it now.
In the eerie gloom, the foreman stepped forward and delivered a vicious blow with a long, thin piece of bamboo, striking a worker’s bare arm with a nasty crack.
‘Whoa. Hang on, old boy!’ Benny’s voice rang out through the rice mill.
The four Malays stood with heads bowed beside the pulley wheel. Sulky, stubborn.
The foreman raised his stick to strike another.
‘Wait!’ Ross held out a hand. ‘I’ve got more money. If you could just explain …’
The foreman shook his head, delivering another sharp blow to the man’s lower thigh below his shorts. The welt turned white before blood beaded along it.
‘No, Captain Smith.’ The foreman spoke in a thick Yorkshire accent. ‘Can’t have you wasting good money on coolies.’
‘Jesus,’ I muttered. I looked away and noticed a small, faded photograph nailed to the wall, of a young white woman with a full belly and a fat toddler standing in a perambulator. The woman had a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder and another on her stomach, and she was staring past the camera with a worried look on her face. She looked hot, overdressed and out of place. I wondered if she was out here, too, trapped in the middle of a jungle. Trapped with a man like this.
‘Is this necessary?’ asked Keith, frowning.
‘Depends,’ said the foreman, scratching his neck and waving his cane toward the lump of steel in the lathe. ‘On whether you want to fly your aircraft to Australia, or walk home?’
We’d left Poulet a day and a half ago. I’d vomited most of the way from Rangoon to Bangkok. Keith had warned us there was a mountain range to cross, and when mist descended Ross had climbed higher and higher in case the peaks were hidden in the clouds. I got as crook as a dog again, throwing up stale champagne and rice and egg and milky tea. Benny took a leak in his piss bottle and the plane jerked suddenly and it spilled down the front of my flying suit. It stank. I didn’t have the energy to shove my head out of the cockpit, so I retched bile into my mitt and used it to wipe away Benny’s piss. And right then I knew, with absolute certainty, I would never, ever do anything like this again. Not for ten thousand quid. Not for a hundred thousand. Not even if Ross said I was the only man for the job.
Then the engine noise dimmed and I really did think we were dead. Wind whipped past the struts and squealed through the wires, like a siren’s song calling us into the mountain. I pressed my mitts over my ears and buried my head in my knees to block it all out. Benny thumped my leg and gestured with his hand like a glider. We weren’t falling, we were drifting down. Ross had throttled back the engines to pull our speed right back, which probably meant we’d used a lot of petrol and he was being forced to descend blindly through cloud, without knowing if we’d passed the mountains. He was slowing us down to lessen the impact if we hit anything.
It was like playing blind-man’s bluff as a kid, only you’re about to crash into the side of a mountain and you might get splattered into a thousand pieces, or you might end up half-dead in agony waiting for birds to peck your eyeballs out of their sockets. I could feel my own sweat. Even if we survived, I knew I’d stink of death.
When the engines finally roared back to life, I poked my head out of the cockpit and saw we’d come through the clouds, and below us a glorious green carpet of jungle stretched to the horizon in all directions. We were at 1,500 ft, low enough to see a flock of white birds lift from trees, cruise in a circle above a dense outcrop of bright-green vine and settle back down again. It was magical, and the mountains were behind us. I slumped back on my seat and fell asleep until we bounced to earth at Don Muang aerodrome.
That was the last time I slept. Benny and I had worked all night under lights, regrinding the valves on two of the cylinders of my starboard engine and carrying out the usual machine checks beside the Don Muang workshops. The Siamese Flying Corps had one of the most advanced aerodromes in the world. Before the war, Siam had invested in French aircraft and sent three of their finest army officers to train as pilots in Paris. They’d even sent a Flying Corps to aid the allies on the Western Front in 1918.
What they also had was bugs. Every insect and flying ant in Siam was flickering under our spotlights. About 2 am something flew into my left eye and bit me under the lid, right in the corner. Stung like a bastard.
‘I am never doing this again,’ I said to Benny, as I tried to lift my swelling eyelid with a clean bit of my wrist.
Benny replied flatly, without looking up. ‘I know.’
I stared at him, anger rising in my chest. ‘What does that mean?’
‘What does what mean, Wal?’ He was busy with the valve—grinding, checking, grinding again.
‘You said “I know”.’ My eye was screaming at me. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I know. You’ve had enough. I get it.’
I poked around at the nuts and bolts from the cowling, soaking in an oil bath. ‘Thanks for the sympathetic ear.’ My words sounded more sarcastic than I’d intended.
‘Mate,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I’m so fucking knackered, I don’t give a shit if you don’t want to do this again. No one’s asking you to, as far as I can tell.’
‘Right.’ I stared at the oil bath.
‘Now, how about we fix this fucking engine before Ross arrives in the morning?’
We didn’t speak again that night. Just grunted a lot, cursing at insects. I decided he probably thought less of me for saying I’d had enough.
A Siamese prince and three other fighter pilots escorted us out of Bangkok. I caught the prince’s eye and exchanged a wave just as he banked and headed for home. I thought maybe it was a sign. Today was going to be better.
It wasn’t.
It was one of the worst days of the flight. From an hour in, torrential rain nailed us. Ross sat at 1,000 ft just off the coast, and I could not for the life of me understand how he could see where we were going. Goggles were useless, and the rain pained my one good eye. Within minutes of hitting the storm, Benny and I were soaked to the bone, and using our piss bottles to bail water. We shoved a tarp over our heads and sat in miserable darkness, with the plane buffeted from angry headland winds. Ross suddenly pulled the machine around sharply into a climbing turn. I crashed the top of my head into the rim of the cockpit and was drenched in the water that had pooled on the tarp. I poked my head out into the rain and saw a jagged cliff face disappearing into the gloom off the port wing behind us. We must have just missed it.
We’d planned to fly straight to Singapore from Bangkok, but some genius told us Singora had a freshly cleared aerodrome with a good supply of aircraft fuel. They failed to mention it was 500 litres of aircraft fuel, not 500 gallons, so we needed t
o wait a day while more fuel was transported by rail from Penang. And they failed to mention the cleared aerodrome had not been cleared of tree stumps. Ross circled the machine above the clearing. Then he circled again. Then he must have said a prayer and we went in to land.
Miraculously, we only hit one stump. That’s what wrenched off the back tail-skid. That’s why we’d spent hours crawling over a local Chinaman’s scrap heap in search of a bit of steel. That’s why we were waiting around in a rice mill well after dark, trying to use the biggest lathe in Singora to grind the steel into a workable new tail-skid. But the lathe was powered by four Malays, and the Malays had already worked a full day for a man they didn’t like.
‘What’s the Malay word for “please”?’ asked Ross, stepping between the foreman and his workers.
‘Words don’t cure indolence,’ the foreman said, scratching his ankle with the tip of his bamboo cane before pointing it at Ross. ‘The only language they understand is this.’
He was like Copping. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but the only man with the bamboo cane. I should have said something. I should have stood up for those poor little fellas who’d already been turning that huge pulley-wheel in stinking heat for hours before going on strike. I should have offered to turn the pulley-wheel myself, like Benny did. But I was so tired. I just wanted to get the plane fixed and fly away.
The foreman scratched at his neck again and I noticed insect bites thick like welts.
‘Yes, old son,’ said Ross, nodding. ‘You’ve certainly shown them who’s boss.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Humour me.’
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