Long Flight Home

by Lainie Anderson

  I placed the twigs on the embers and rubbed my palms on my shorts, watching the smoke rise into the night. ‘Bugger all. Not that it matters. She’ll either want me or she won’t.’

  ‘I actually like the idea of a poem, Wal,’ Benny said quietly. ‘It’s something that a man of the world would do.’

  It suddenly struck me how much I’d miss him when this was all over.

  ‘Women love poetry,’ said Ross. ‘Don’t they, Buck?’

  Keith grunted. Stared blankly at the fire.

  Ross took another swig, emptying the bottle. ‘Wal, get us some paper and a pencil.’

  I looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘That’s an order, Sergeant Shiers.’

  I rummaged through my kit bag, handed him my diary and chewed pencil.

  ‘Okay,’ said Ross, smoothing down a blank page. ‘I’ll be Colonel Borton. Let’s think of some pertinent words.’

  Benny rubbed his hands together. ‘Wally. Helena. Race. Promise. War. Narrandera.’

  Ross shook his head. ‘Let’s forget Narrandera, shall we? How about …’ Ross drew a line down the side of the page. ‘ … love?’ He looked uncertainly at Benny.

  ‘No, that’s a good one,’ said Benny, pointing at the page. ‘Wal wants to marry this woman—a bit of romance is just the ticket.’

  Keith was smoking a cigarette, staring at the fire. I stared at my hands in my lap.

  ‘C’mon, Wal,’ said Benny. ‘What else?’ He picked up a twig and threw it at me.

  I shrugged and shook my head. ‘I’ve been trying to write this bloody poem since Lyons.’

  I stared at him.

  He stared back, waiting.

  Ross drew another line, parallel with the first one.

  Keith was still watching the fire.

  I took a deep breath and said, ‘During the war, we used to write “Love you I do”.’

  Ross looked up. ‘What was that?’

  Benny pointed at the page. ‘‘‘Love you I do”. Write that down, Ross.’

  Ross smiled as he wrote it. ‘Right, let’s start with that …’

  The frog croaked again.

  ‘Love you I do …’ said Ross, tapping the page with the pencil. ‘Love you I do …’ He chewed his lip. ‘What goes with that?’

  Croak. Croak.

  Keith flicked his cigarette end into the fire.

  ‘Love you I do,’ said Ross again. He blew out through his cheeks. ‘The Colonel and Biffy always made it look so easy.’

  ‘Are you sure she wouldn’t like a limerick?’ asked Benny.

  Keith held up a hand. ‘Shhh!’

  I felt the hairs rise up on my arms.

  Benny opened his mouth, but Keith raised a hand again to silence him.

  He stared at the fire, then started to speak:

  I’ve raced through skies o’er half the globe

  And now I know it’s true,

  The long flight home means nothing

  If there’s no love you I do.

  I woke at first light with a bad feeling in my guts and a stiff, sunburned neck.

  We were stuck. We wouldn’t fly today. I glanced across at the Vimy, sad and helpless in the mud.

  Lying flat on my back, I watched a thin line of campfire smoke drifting up into the sky and recited Keith’s poem to the sound of Benny’s Rolls-Royce snores. When he drew breath I heard voices. Lots of them. I flipped onto my side and nudged him with my boot, nodding toward the villagers streaming in from every direction bearing sheets of bamboo matting.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Benny, shaking his head in wonder. ‘Keith’s done it again.’

  Sometime around midnight, Keith had come up with a plan. We’d ask for more matting from the villagers and lay an entire runway. Ross liked the idea so much they’d driven straight off to wake the engineer. We needed to get away before the day got too hot. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

  As the sun rose they arrived in their hundreds. Smiling, shy, gracious. Generously offering sheets of bamboo matting they’d stripped from the walls of their own homes. While Benny and I worked with a team of Dutch soldiers to dig out the Vimy and replace the tyres, Keith and Ross worked with the villagers to lay two 300-yard bamboo runways—a barrier between our two sets of wheels and the mud. Matting Road, we called it.

  I was beside the Vimy, waiting for Benny to hand me down a spare wheel, when Ross called me over to meet the British Consul and ask if I knew the telegram code for Narrandera. I stood there feeling witless while Ross went into far too much detail about how we’d flown straight to India after the war, and how I’d broken Helena’s heart, and how Keith’s poem was going to make everything right again.

  ‘Could you possibly organise a telegram, my good man?’ Ross finished ‘It’s a diplomatic emergency.’

  The chap was about Ross’s height, maybe 50, with a black handlebar moustache and a huge stomach trying to burst through the buttons of his cream jacket. He stood studying me with a serious expression, jingling coins or something in his left pocket, and for a moment I felt like saying the telegram wasn’t my idea. Then he straightened his pith helmet and nodded toward a motor car parked under the trees nearby. A portly woman sat in the front passenger seat, surveying the scene as she fluttered a fan in the same pale-green silk as her dress.

  ‘Twenty-five years, Sergeant,’ the Consul said, ‘and never a cross word.’ He patted his belly. ‘Finest puddings this side of the Indian Ocean.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘Helena’s jam sponge is very nice, too, sir.’

  He twirled his moustache, nodding thoughtfully. ‘Gentlemen,’ the Consul said, ‘this will be the most important thing I do today.’ He took the piece of paper from Ross and folded it delicately in half like he was handling some ancient parchment, and then folded it into quarters before tucking it away in his top pocket.

  The first attempt at take-off was a disaster. The swirling propellers sucked up the bamboo matting, chewed the sheets to bits and spewed them out in all directions. I would have felt bad for all those people, watching their homes being torn to shreds, except the Vimy veered off course and got bogged again.

  Without a word the villagers picked up the biggest pieces and started over. A lorry arrived with more sheets and this time we pegged it all down and interlaced the mats so they couldn’t blow up in the slipstream.

  And it worked.

  We trundled along Matting Road and had one of our easiest take-offs of the race, circling back to fly low and wave our thanks. The British Consul stood in the shade beside his wife, waving his helmet and patting his stomach. I thought about Keith’s poem, and how incredible it was that it would beat me back to Narrandera.

  Out in the hot sun, hundreds of villagers were already bent over the job of removing the wooden pegs to take their walls away. I’d never forget the people of Surabaya laying down their homes for us.

  Chapter 21

  APPROACHING AUSTRALIA, DECEMBER 10TH 1919

  I knelt in the bottom of the plane with my arms folded on the rim of the cockpit.

  Australia. Please God, let us see it soon. Don’t let anything happen now.

  I wanted to climb down from this cockpit one more time and be there.

  I wanted to close my eyes and hear Australian voices. Mate and missus and cobber and cooee.

  The smell of dry summer heat. The bush. The dirt. Jam sponge, freshly made with sugar dusted on top.

  I wanted chops. Gravy. Mash. Served on Mum’s yellow china plates with the scalloped edges. I wondered where that crockery set was now.

  Jesus. What was I doing thinking about crockery?

  I flexed my fingers, glad I’d decided not to wear my mitts, then shifted my weight to get comfortable on my knees. Accidentally shoved Benny in the arm, and shot him a ‘sorry, mate’ look. Again. Christ, I wouldn’t miss this coffin. He nodded, grinned, gave me a thumbs up and went back to concentrating on his Kodak.

  Bloody hell, he was a patient bastard.

  Big smile. Bi
g day.

  I took some deep breaths to stop the churning in my guts. Checked my starboard instrument gauges. Engines running like clockwork.

  You had to hand it to Rolls-Royce. Twenty-eight days, 11,000-odd miles. And still those engines boomed away like it was day one out of Hounslow.

  Was that really only 28 days ago? Felt like a year. No wonder I was knackered.

  Shaking my head, I gave the old girl a pat in the spot I’d rubbed a bit bare. Wondered what would happen to her when the dust settled.

  I peered ahead to the horizon, remembering how much I’d hated Keith last time we were flying over the sea like this, from Crete to Cairo.

  Australia. What then?

  Family. Jack’s kids. They’d be so grown up now, couldn’t wait to see them. My heart ached at the thought of Bill left behind in France. Couldn’t wait to see Alf and Arthur and Dick. Hug ’em tight. Beers all round. They’d be proud of me.

  I was proud of them, getting through all that was thrown at them in France.

  I wondered if it had changed them at all? Couldn’t not, really.

  I wondered if I’d ever lose my small knot of guilt for not serving on the Western Front, in the trenches. Did anyone back home even know there’d been a war in Egypt and Palestine?

  Couldn’t imagine not having served. How would you look another man in the eye?

  Dad.

  I took a deep breath. He’d be proud of us all, too. I hoped he was.

  I took a few more deep breaths, lifted my goggles to wipe my eyes, clear the mist.

  Couldn’t think of Dad without welling up. It had been like that for days now. Funny. I hadn’t ever missed him before. Hardly thought about him for years and years. Something about my having been away—or maybe it was just growing up a bit, or the thought of going home and Mum not being there. Anyway, it would be good to see him. Shout him a beer. Maybe get a couple of words out of him.

  I turned to check if I could still see HMAS Sydney.

  The smoke stacks, the cheering lads were gone. The horizon swallowed everything eventually.

  I hoped they rescued Keith’s pickle jar before it sank into the waves. The little parachute had worked a treat.

  Australia. Jesus. I rapped the top of the plane with my knuckles. Benny smiled and rapped his knuckles too. It was our little joke. Hurry up! We’ve had enough now!

  I wondered where Westy was. Wondered if he and the other blokes knew I was on the Vimy. Be great to see him if we flew to Melbourne. When we flew to Melbourne. That’s where the cheque was.

  I wanted to track down Bernie’s parents in New South Wales, too. I’d been thinking about that for a long time now. I wanted to tell them that I knew so much about their farm I could practically draw them a map. The paddock where Bernie’s dad had taught him to ride. The tree where he’d buried Blacky when he was bitten by a king brown. The couch on the porch with the red and yellow cushions, where Bernie and his sister took turns reading aloud to Mrs Ranford. I wanted to tell them he was a good lad. Brave and funny and thoughtful. That he’d made a mark despite dying so early. That it wasn’t all for nothing. Bernie deserved better than that.

  Australia. I stared out across the sky. It was so pale, almost yellow-blue. Almost like a completely different sky.

  Had to keep reminding myself that no man had ever flown into Australia before. No man had ever seen Australia on the horizon like we were about to see it.

  Ross was always saying it was us mechanics who kept the plane in the air. But he was the bloke at the wheel. He was the man who decided to fly across the world and then made it happen. He was Christopher Columbus. He was Captain Cook. We were deckhands following orders.

  I stared down at the rolling whitecaps, thinking it might make the time go quicker if I concentrated on the sea.

  Made me think of that first voyage out of Australia on the way to war, when I was as crook as a dog and Copping kept barking orders anyway. I was so homesick for Helena back then. Could barely speak for missing her.

  Would she agree to see me?

  Christ, what if she was married? Why had I never thought of that? She might be Mrs Someone Else. Of somewhere else. She could even have a kid!

  Australia. I had to get back. I had to know.

  I rested my cheek on my arm and closed my eyes for a second.

  Benny poked me in the ribs, hard. Clumsy lug.

  I frowned at him, rubbing my side, but he was concentrating on the Kodak.

  I peered ahead and noticed Keith almost standing in the front cockpit, twisting, pointing.

  And there she was.

  A thin brown haze where the dark sea met the bleached sky.

  The hairs rose on my neck.

  Australia.

  Home. Dear God, let it be a home with Helena.

  I put my arm across Benny’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze. He raised a fist. ‘Yes.’

  We’d done it. Flown from England to bloody Australia.

  We’d done it.

  We’d done it.

  And I never had to do it again.

  I took a deep breath. My eyes ached. I lifted my goggles to clear the mist again, then rubbed underneath my flying cap to scratch my temple.

  As the blue sea became a muddy continental halo of swirling browns and greens and yellows, I crawled into the fuselage and retrieved the small flask of scotch Joan had given Benny as a present for the moment we saw Australia. We’d secretly wired the bottle to the frame deep inside the tail on our final day in Weybridge. I wriggled back into position, and opened the flask before Benny’s huge grin. Every sip, one of us made a toast with words that flew up and away, unheard on the wind. Didn’t matter. I knew what Benny was saying because it was exactly what I was saying, too. Thank you to everyone who helped us home, kept us alive and in the air. I liked the idea of their names flying on the wind, forever.

  We passed over mangroves and low red cliffs and finally the Australian mainland was beneath our wings. Port Darwin’s dirt roads were wide and dusty, cutting between rows of stone buildings with elegant verandahs, and shanties made of corrugated iron, all wonky and rusted. On its little peninsula ringed by mangroves and turquoise sea, the town looked more like Surabaya than Sydney. A simple place, an outpost through and through. There was no fancy Leaning Tower. No pyramids. No golden Shwedagon Pagoda. And no town had ever looked more beautiful from the air.

  I was home.

  Ross circled low in triumphant celebration and Benny and I waved like kings as people came running into the streets to shout and cheer and cry—they were actually crying. Kids and businessmen and women clambered aboard vehicles, horses and buggies racing north to the aerodrome, and Ross circled out wide over the water one more time to give them a headstart before we raced them north, flying low and letting the people guide us home.

  A white flare marked the landing spot and indicated a pretty strong breeze.

  Ross circled around to bring her into the wind.

  As he came into land I held my breath, staring straight ahead at the scratched brown earth.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  Just one more landing, please God.

  One more time.

  The wheels touched the earth with a bump and everywhere people were jumping about and running in, cheering and waving and throwing hats in the air.

  I raised my fists in triumph, leaning against the back of the cockpit as the Vimy bounced along the runway.

  As we came to a halt I told myself to stop searching the faces for Helena. Would I even recognise her now?

  Before the propellers stopped turning, Ross sat up on the fuselage in his flying suit and stretched back to shake my hand and Benny’s, before we were even out of the cockpit. His goggles were pushed up untidily on his head and he was laughing with relief. There were tears in his eyes. They were in mine, too.

  The crowd had rushed forward over the runway, but were keeping their distance. Apparently they’d been told they might catch some terrible disease being
carried aboard the plane. The Vimy’s seals were checked and Health and Customs blokes poked around in the cockpits and asked dozens of questions while 2,000 people started chanting demands that we be freed to speak.

  Then all four of us were carried on the shoulders of men to the nearby Fannie Bay Gaol, where we stood on a raised verandah to give everyone a view, and Ross and Keith and Darwin dignitaries spoke between thundering applause and cries of three cheers.

  Ross introduced me and Benny as ‘the finest air mechanics in the world’ and people started yelling ‘Speech! Speech!’. I looked at Benny and he pointed back at me. I couldn’t think of anything to say that hadn’t already been said, so I cleared my throat and said I thought we might have to fall into Darwin because there was hardly any fuel left in the tanks. The whole crowd laughed. I laughed too. I felt lighter than I had in years.

  A trail of dignitaries made their way onto the verandah to speak. One of them was Hudson Fysh, an old mate of Ross’s from No. 1 Squadron who’d had the job of scratching aerodromes out of scrub and desert from Darwin to Brisbane in time to receive the air race crews.

  The speeches all started blurring together until Ross made a joke that he’d be in trouble with his mum if he didn’t tell her we were home. Suddenly we were being shoved into a vehicle and people were waving arms and yelling, ‘Get out the way. Let ’em through!’ and we were on our way to Government House. As we drove away, I turned to see people streaming back to admire the Vimy.

  The dear old Vimy. She looked tired, triumphant, magnificent. It suddenly felt a bit wrong to leave her. Wished I could have shouted her a beer.

  ‘Whacko,’ said Benny, peering through the white verandah shutters to the tropical gardens and the sun setting over the sea beyond. ‘Now that’s a welcome-home view.’

  Government House was home to the director of the Northern Territory, Mr Carey, and his family. The stone building was surrounded by pretty verandahs enclosed with white shutters. Benny, Keith and I had been deposited in the western verandah, with its potted palms and cane chairs, while Ross dispatched some telegrams.

  I poured three frothy beers into tall glasses on the table, and handed them to Keith and Benny. ‘Here’s to being the first men to fly across the globe,’ I said.