Long Flight Home

by Lainie Anderson

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Benny, throwing it back.

  Keith took a sip and glanced down at the book in his lap. ‘After exactly …’ he paused to add the final day’s tally to his list, ‘ … 135 hours in the air. Twenty-seven days and 20 hours after leaving Hounslow.’

  ‘Gee,’ said Benny, looking down the long, empty verandah. ‘We beat the deadline easy in the end, didn’t we?’

  ‘I still can’t believe we’ve done it,’ I said. I was feeling a bit numb, here in the quiet with nothing to do on the Vimy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Keith, rubbing his eyes. ‘It will take a while to sink in, I think. It’s almost an anticlimax.’

  ‘Wonder if the Prime Minister knows we’re here,’ I said.

  Keith nodded. ‘The Sydney would have sent word when we flew over.’

  I walked over to the shutters and looked at the orange sky, arching my back and digging my fingers into my shoulders.

  I wondered how long before the news of our arrival reached Narrandera. Hours? Days? I wondered if she’d be proud of me. If she’d care. If she’d seen the telegram from Surabaya or refused to read it.

  ‘I’m desperate for a wash,’ said Benny, downing the last of his beer and loosening his collar.

  Just then Ross walked in, waving a dozen pieces of paper. ‘Lads,’ he said. ‘Telegrams. Here’s one from the Prime Minister.’

  ‘You beauty,’ said Benny, as we crowded around to read over Ross’s shoulder. ‘Does it mention the •10,000 he owes us?’

  Ross read aloud: ‘“In the name of the Commonwealth I greet you and your gallant companions” …’

  ‘Gallant,’ I said. ‘The Prime Minister called us gallant!’

  ‘Shh,’ said Keith.

  ‘ … “on your safe arrival and most heartily congratulate you on your magnificent achievement. You have covered the name of Australia with fresh laurels. You have broken all the world’s records and have shown the world once more what manner of man the Australian is” …’

  ‘Jesus, this telegram must’ve cost a fortune,’ muttered Benny.

  ‘He can afford it,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘Fellas!’ said Ross. ‘Can we please let the bloody Prime Minister finish? “You have given your country a world-wide advertisement and have proved that with relays of machines and men, Europe can be brought within 12 or 15 days of Australia”.’

  Benny whistled. ‘Twelve days to reach Australia!’

  ‘You reckon that’s really possible?’ I asked.

  ‘It will happen,’ said Keith. ‘Just a matter of time.’

  ‘And when it does,’ said Ross, looking at Keith, ‘we’ll be right in the pilot’s seat.’

  The door opened and Mr Carey strode in. ‘Telegrams, Captain Smith.’

  ‘There’s more?’ said Ross.

  There were many more. They started arriving by the score every 15 minutes, from politicians and people we didn’t know from across Australia. From around the world.

  Ross scanned the messages. ‘Here’s one from Gilberton, Keith. Dear old Mum and Dad.’ He paused to re-read before handing it over.

  ‘Oh, and King George V says, “Delighted at your safe arrival. Your success will bring Australia nearer to the Mother Country, and I warmly congratulate you and your crew.”’

  ‘Strewth,’ said Benny. ‘The King knows we’re home!’

  Mr Carey looked over his glasses. ‘You four are all anyone’s talked about for weeks.’

  ‘Really?’ I said.

  ‘It’s the biggest news story since the war, Sergeant,’ said Mr Carey, taken aback. ‘The newspapers have written about little else.’

  He called for a houseboy to bring out back copies of the newspapers, and began rifling through them on the table to show us the articles. ‘Our news is a bit old up here in Darwin, of course,’ he said, ‘but this gives you an idea.’

  ‘The world’s gone mad,’ said Keith, picking up one of the newspapers. ‘How do they get all these details without even talking to us?’

  ‘I think we might be famous,’ I said, picking up another paper.

  ‘I think I’d better write a half-decent speech,’ said Ross, frowning, still holding a stack of unread messages.

  When the telegrams began coming in from more remote cities and towns across Australia, my palms started sweating. She must know by now.

  I put my beer to one side. Tried to breathe slowly, tried to act normal.

  The four of us were seated around the table now. As the telegrams piled up, Ross began scanning them.

  ‘No,’ he said, passing each one to Keith on his right. ‘No. No. No. Oh—Winston Churchill!’ He looked up and waved it at us. ‘He says, “Well done. Your great flight shows conclusively that the new element has been conquered for the use of man.” Jolly nice.’ He continued scanning. ‘No. No. No. No. Hey, it’s from Biffy!’

  We all cheered. ‘What’s he say?’ I asked.

  ‘He says: “Never a doubt!”’ And we cheered again.

  Ross handed it on to Keith and picked up more telegrams. ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Keith, frowning.

  ‘Looking for a message from our girl,’ said Ross, looking at his watch. ‘She must have heard by now.’

  My face burned. I picked up my glass. Benny reached over and squeezed my shoulder.

  ‘No,’ said Ross, passing another sheet to Keith and adding a new batch to his pile. He sipped his beer and looked up. ‘Let’s not lose any of these, by the way. I’ve seen the names of some dear friends, and I’ll want to read them again properly.’

  ‘Well, this one’s from the British Prime Minister …’ said Keith.

  Ross shrugged and passed more telegrams. ‘No, no, no …’

  The pile was nearly cleared. I was sitting directly opposite him, sipping my beer slowly and watching the expression on his face as he scanned each telegram.

  ‘No, no, no …’

  He was about to pass another sheet to Keith when he stopped. ‘Wait—it’s Alford, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. A shiver ran up my spine. ‘Is it from Narrandera?’

  Benny leaned forward. ‘What does it say?’

  Maybe it was Fred, not Helena—she didn’t want to know. I was too late.

  ‘It says …’ Ross cleared his throat.

  ‘Come on you old blow bag!’ said Keith, leaning in.

  Christ.

  Ross looked across the table at me. ‘It’s a message from Mr F. Alford of Narrandera. Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, my heart sinking. ‘Helena’s brother, Fred.’

  He kept staring straight at me. ‘It says …’ He cleared his throat again, holding the message to his chest.

  ‘So help me, I’ll clock you …’ said Keith.

  Ross smiled. ‘It says, “Yes” and “Yes”.’ He reached across and handed me the sheet.

  I looked at the page …

  YES. YES.

  I looked back at Ross.

  Benny snatched the paper from my hands. ‘What does that mean? “Yes. Yes.”?’

  ‘Well,’ said Ross, ‘I may have made a small addition to the end of the poem.’

  ‘What?’ said Keith, his black eyes widening. ‘You didn’t …’

  Ross raised his palm. ‘I did nothing to ruin your exquisite wordsmithing, sir.’ He sipped his beer. ‘I told her it was my fault, and I said Wal adored her. Then I asked her to forgive me. And I asked her to marry him.’

  SYDNEY, FEBRUARY 17TH 1920

  I turned my back on the garden party and watched three little sailing boats crisscrossing the harbour below. The red boat went over, arms waved and shouts carried across the water. I pointed, as if that would make a difference, and then the boat popped upright like a cork and the two blokes were back on board and in the race.

  By God, Sydney Harbour was beautiful. As Benny said, man’s quest for powered flight was worth it just to see this one city from the air. We’d flown in through the Heads, with sun-dren
ched bays and growing suburbs sprawling out before us. We’d stood up in the back cockpit to get a better view as tiny figures raced to rocky shorelines and sandy inlets and out onto the decks of passenger ferries and military vessels to get a glimpse of the Vimy and her crew. To welcome us. To wave us home. We’d been a long time coming.

  I smoothed down my hair and felt in my pocket for another cigarette.

  Someone whacked my back and I stumbled forward into a yellow hibiscus. Looked like it had been planted just before the party.

  ‘Congratulations, mate!’ the bloke said.

  I turned to say thanks but he’d walked away, another uniform blending into a garden party of military khaki.

  One of the bands was set up on the tennis court, playing some new tune I didn’t know. I was sure I could smell orange blossom. Made me think of the Sydney copper who’d changed my mind about orange trees and sent me to war instead. He’d tapped thousands of blokes on the shoulder. That’s what he’d said. I wondered how many would thank him now.

  I looked around for an orange tree, and sure enough there it stood, heavily clipped into a perfect lollipop beside one of the tables set up as a bar. I felt a rush of sympathy. It looked as out of place as me.

  Drawing back on my smoke, I scraped dirt from my boot on the grass and scanned the garden for Benny or Ross and Keith. ‘Sir’ Ross and ‘Sir’ Keith, it was now. Had to keep reminding myself of that. No knighthoods for me and Benny. We got bars to our Air Force Medals instead. People kept asking me how I felt about that, given I’d kept the engines running. How was I meant to feel? It didn’t matter to me and Benny that we didn’t get a knighthood. What mattered to us was that the Smith boys got one. Countless times I’d stared at the backs of their heads, Ross at the wheel and Keith with his maps, and thanked God for them.

  Benny was nowhere to be seen.

  Ross and Keith were surrounded. They were always surrounded now. By their parents. By the Premier. By our host, Mr McIntosh. And by Brigadier-General Cox, who I knew from my Light Horse days. Ross leaned over to whisper something in his mum’s ear and she touched his arm and laughed behind a black-gloved hand. There was something very decent and solid about her, with her mousy face and little round glasses. You could tell she doted on Ross by the way she’d clung to him when we landed at Mascot. Eventually Ross’s father had to gently prise her off him. Ross wasn’t just hers anymore. He was the most famous Australian in all the world. He’d made a speech with thousands of people hanging on his every word.

  A seagull flew overhead, squawking rudely at the banquet table near the tennis court. A large group of officers stood near the service line, women in pretty frocks fussing around them, offering finger sandwiches and dainty cakes and pastries. One of the blokes, a swag of ribbon on his chest, smiled and nodded. Funny how things changed. I nodded back, took a drag and turned to face the harbour.

  Sixty-eight days. That’s how long it took for us to get from Darwin down to Sydney. We landed up there on December 10th 1919. We landed down here yesterday, on February 16th 1920. Silly, really, given it had only taken 28 days to fly all the way from London.

  Benny blamed the bastard who’d stolen Marmaduke II’s head. Our lucky mascot’s neck got bent somehow when we landed in Darwin, and Benny had unscrewed him to fix it the following day. He was working surrounded by sightseers and one of them pinched it. I thought Benny was going to blow a gasket. The police made an announcement, demanding it be given back immediately, but no one stepped forward. Tarnished the moment a bit.

  But the port propeller was the real problem. We all knew it was damaged—a split in the wood had been growing since the incident with the hawk in Calcutta. But the wet season was coming and the Darwin aerodrome was on low-lying ground, so Ross decided to take our chances of reaching Sydney instead of getting stuck up north for three months. On the 13th of December, Ross’s unlucky day, we headed south. And two days later, in mid-air, in the middle of nowhere, that port propeller split from the tip to the centre. Took us three days to fix it, in heat so intense the rubber on our goggles melted. Keith reckoned the temperature under the shade of the wings was 125°F.

  Luckily, even way out there, some blokes had seen the Vimy overhead and came out to lend a hand. Benny was a bloody marvel, too, using wooden shavings from an old packing crate to plug the crack before smothering it with glue. We wrapped both blades in thin strips of galvanised iron fastened with old screws from the Vimy’s floorboards.

  The temporary fix got us all the way to Charleville, over west of Brisbane, when the Vimy and her Rolls-Royce engines finally said enough and carked it. We had a holed cylinder, two broken piston rods and a propeller in need of replacement. This time we were held up for seven weeks. Things looked so crook that Ross phoned Billy Hughes to talk about dismantling the aircraft and sending her by train to Melbourne. Glad we changed his mind on that. Australia deserved to see the Vimy in the air—and she deserved to be seen in all her glory.

  Lads at the Ipswich Railway Workshops came good for us, slaving away for weeks on 460 quid’s worth of repairs and a new propeller. Never charged Ross, either.

  Everyone, everywhere we’d flown across Australia, had been so kind, elated to see us. It didn’t sit naturally with me yet. You’d think fame would make you feel powerful, but it had the opposite effect on me. You couldn’t turn it on or off. It was out of your control.

  ‘Wal!’ It was Benny. ‘Wal! You look like you’re away with the fairies there, mate.’

  I frowned. ‘Wotcha been doing?’

  ‘Just getting some blokes organised,’ he said, handing me a fancy glass of champagne. ‘Someone’s got to take charge.’

  I looked around for somewhere to put down the champagne, clutching my stomach.

  ‘Jesus, you’re hopeless,’ he said, throwing back his own drink and holding out his hand for mine. ‘Best not waste it.’

  The collar of my new uniform was scratchy. I rubbed my neck gently, careful not to leave a mark.

  Benny nodded toward Ross and the others. ‘You talked to Mr McIntosh yet?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, glancing at my watch. ‘He and Mrs McIntosh have been very generous, haven’t they?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ said Benny. ‘But I’m sure they’ll do alright out of it all. He’s not called Huge Deal for nothing.’

  Hugh D. ‘Huge Deal’ McIntosh was a big sports promoter who owned Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper and the Tivoli theatre chain around Australia. He was as short as I was, with slicked-back hair and a closely trimmed moustache like Biffy’s. He was already talking to Ross about a lecture tour, and down the other end of the garden I could see a dozen pressmen and photographers capturing the day’s news. The sight of them made my stomach knot.

  Benny lit himself a smoke, squinting at me through the blue haze. ‘You look like you’re about to shit yourself.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, mate.’ I took a deep breath. Down on the harbour the little red sailboat had shot ahead of the others and was headed for the final orange buoy. Go, little red boat.

  Just then the music stopped and Mrs McIntosh appeared under the pergola at the rear of the house. ‘Almost ready, Sir Ross,’ she called, before disappearing back inside.

  ‘Ah shit,’ said Benny, flicking away his cigarette. He raced off, tapping blokes on the shoulder as he went.

  Ross glanced around the garden, finished his drink and handed it to a waiter. He found me and smiled. Waved me over. I looked back toward the water, just in time to see my little red mate streak past the finish line with its nose in front.

  You can do this, Wal. You flew from England to bloody Australia. You can do this.

  A tall, elegant woman in a fancy blue dress reached out to touch my arm as I walked past.

  You survived a war. You can do this.

  Keith stepped forward as I approached, put his hand on my shoulder and guided me into position. ‘He’s in a flat spin,’ he said loudly, to ripples of laughter.

  I shot him a dark look. So
now he’d developed a sense of humour?!

  A press photographer yelled out. ‘Oi, Sergeant Shiers! Mind turning this way a bit?’

  I pressed my lips into a smile and turned slightly toward him. Then I looked at my feet; looked anywhere but all those cameras.

  Deep breaths.

  The music started and I looked up toward the pergola.

  Captain Chaplain Wilson cleared his throat. ‘Ready gentlemen?’ Only he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at all the photographers.

  I looked around for a familiar face. Benny had disappeared.

  Christ. What was I thinking, doing it like this? This wasn’t me.

  A flurry of women with expensive frocks and immaculate faces emerged from inside, pouring out like champagne.

  Then nothing. The music stopped. Oh God.

  I went to step forward. Ross held my arm. ‘Wait, Wal,’ he whispered.

  Benny appeared from the side of the house, leading 20 blokes in uniform. I counted five VC ribbons as they lined up in an honour guard between me and the back door. Five VCs lining up to honour me. Wally Shiers. Made me wish Dad was here. I hoped Mum was looking down. She’d think this garden was heavenly.

  I put my hands in my pockets. Then took them out. Smoothed down my hair and heard a camera click. I clasped my hands behind my back and parted my feet a bit, rolling my shoulders and trying to remember what Ross had said in Weybridge about looking interesting for the cameras.

  Suddenly I felt overwhelmed with gratitude. I turned to Ross, to thank him for everything he’d done for me, but the music started so I stopped and turned back to face the front. Plenty of time for all that.

  Would we stay mates? I wondered.

  The honour guard was blocking my view of the back door now, but I could tell she was there by the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’.

  The music started. Breathe, Wal, breathe.

  Ross leaned over. ‘This is it, old boy,’ he whispered. ‘The big show.’

  I could feel my heart beating against my rib cage.

  Boom.