Island in the Sky

by R. B. Shaw

  The message calmly went on as Hans nervously fumbled for his map of New Guinea. He trembled at the thought of combat as he traced the coast of the Huon Gulf.

  “What do you want to do?” said Bert.

  “We’ve no choice but to divert to Port Moresby. We’ll turn onto the new heading in two minutes.”

  The cosy heat of the sun shone fully into the glasshouse canopy, the sky a clear cobalt blue, as they took up the new heading toward the Bismarck Ranges. A dense layer of stratus cloud lay across their entire frontal horizon. Hans estimated the tops at 13 000 feet and radioed Bert to start a gradual climb to clear the obstacle. At 10 000 feet, Hans ordered two orbits. Still there was insufficient height in the sluggish aircraft, so a third orbit was completed. They set course over a vast flat ocean of cloud, so brilliant in the midday sun that his eyes watered and rebelled.

  The tail gunner broke the monotony in the cockpit, his voice metallic through the overhead speaker. “Hans, two fighters climbing behind us.” There was a hesitation. An ominous frantic tone crept into the gunner’s voice. “Jap Zeroes! … I’ll fire as soon as they’re in range.”

  A cold chill seized Hans’ spine as he radioed Bert, and made him aware of their adversaries. The plane vibrated as the tail-gunner began firing his .5 machine gun.

  The voice of the mid-upper gunner was an urgent scream. “Break left skipper! For Christ’s sake, break left!”

  All other noise was drowned by the repetitious sound of a thousand sledge hammers. It increased to a crescendo as the Zero’s cannon shells raked the lower hull. The number three engine oil tank was ruptured, the temperature right off the scale. The engine’s very life-blood was smeared back over the wing. Hans feathered and corrected on rudder. Wind howled through scores of bullet holes, as if the mortally stricken aircraft was screaming at the brutality of her rape. A swift Zero flashed by under the right wing and accelerated ahead of them.

  There was no reply from the tail gunner. Hans levelled the aircraft just above the vast cloud mass, so preventing any further attacks from underneath. The Jap Zero was some distance ahead, high and banking for a frontal attack. The .5 nose gun was clattering loudly, vibrating the instrument panel and filling the cabin with the noxious stench of burnt cordite.

  Hans witnessed the flickering of the Zero’s muzzle flash a split second before cannon shells slammed into the aircraft’s port side. Fuel gushed from the port sponson tank as the Zero flicked past overhead. The deafening thud of the 20mm cannon in the mid turret drowned all other sound: the gunner taking this last chance to fire a long salvo at the departing Zero.

  Hans glanced up and to his right, drawn by movement there. Horrified, he noticed that their sister ship was on fire. Flames spewed back from the burning wing and trailed along the length of the fuselage. Below it, he also saw a crumpled Zero plunging inescapably to earth in a tight flat spin.

  Bert’s voice burst anxiously over the radio. “Hans, we got one, but we’ve got a fire! I’m going to try to put her down on the island ahead.”

  Bert sounded delirious and Hans wondered if he had been wounded.

  “What island, Bert?”

  “In front of us, an island in the sky.” Bert’s speech was slurred.

  Hans glanced ahead and saw nothing, then realised the nose turret was partially obstructing a towering land mass. He could understand Bert’s words now; the mountain top was like the rocky pinnacle of an island in an ocean of incandescent cloud. They were at 12 000 feet, yet the citadel of rock loomed even higher.

  As they approached the spinal ridge, a residue of snow became visible in the shadows and a frosting of ice discoloured the topmost 1000 feet. The wind was picking a vaporous veil of mist from the extreme summit, which was bare of vegetation. Hans repeatedly tried to contact the crew of the burning plane, but there was no reply as it descended straight toward the expansive mountainside.

  Bert made a futile attempt to crash-land the disintegrating aircraft in a short valley. He began a sharp bank on approach, but the overstressed burning wing structure slowly folded and separated in a spreading sheet of erupting flame.

  Bert’s plane never completed the turn, but plummeted violently into the sheer face of an escarpment. It was enveloped in a sudden burst of orange flame and a rolling pall of smoke. Wreckage tumbled down the precipitous slopes; the engines bounced endlessly toward the ocean of cloud. No sound of impact reached Hans’ ears. It was slow and surrealistic.

  Hans was assured by the Oerlikon gunner that he had scored hits on the other departing Japanese fighter. He wiped tears from his face and assessed his predicament. Right engine feathered and unserviceable. The centre engine vibrating at half power and ready to tear out of its mount. The port sponson tank gushing fuel overboard, in a white feathery ribbon. The port fuel gauge indicating near empty. The starboard tank was half full, but supplying one dead and one dying engine.

  The fuel cross-feed system wouldn’t work. Each time Hans repositioned the selector, raw fuel poured into the cabin from a fractured fuel line. Sickened and frustrated, Hans realised he had about fifteen minutes to get the crippled flying boat down safely. The port tank would then be drained by the thirsty port engine and the bullet holes in the sponson.

  Hans began a circuit of the monolith at the cloud line, scrutinising the rocky surface for flat ground to belly land. He had nearly circumnavigated the lofty spine, only just maintaining altitude, when he saw a reflection. He turned in closer and a cirque lake appeared at the head of a glacial valley. This was more than he had hoped for, better than blindly penetrating the mist and dying on terrain shrouded by cloud.

  A straight-in approach was out of the question with such a strong tail wind. No time for hesitation, he turned steeply within the hollow cirque. There was no room for a precise line-up on the lake. He would stall the aircraft low over the water, as he straightened out of the tight turn.

  Hans pulled back on the throttle and killed all switches. The sudden quiet was intensified by the wind howling through numerous punctures in the skin. The stricken aircraft floated nose up, momentarily defying the law of gravity as it stalled. Suddenly, with a nauseating shudder, the flight controls went slack and the plane plunged onto the lake.

  The thin crust of ice burst with a bone-jarring shock; the forward windows imploded, spraying the crew with shattered perspex, glass and freezing water. Only the sound of the wind disturbed the silence as they bounced high into the air in a deadly nose-down attitude. The flying boat skipped beyond the confines of the frozen lake and descended onto a steep boulder-strewn scree below. Uncannily, the angle of the gigantic conical slope matched that of the careering fuselage. Even so, the impact was shattering: a screeching, rending slide. The port wing hit the ground with a sickening lurch and the high strut-mounted wing tore away loudly. Like a monstrous scythe, the wing spun back and dropped, amputating the large tail section.

  Only the fuselage careered onward, now the apex of an avalanche of rock and loose gravel. The large side sponsons stabilised the fuselage, preventing it from rolling over. Hans was terrified, riding an uncontrolled toboggan of death. A crazed dying beast on its last rampaging run to hell. The noise was deafening as the tubular metal fuselage amplified the screeching rumble. The plane was enveloped by the insidious cloud layer, then jolted heavily to an abrupt halt.

  Hans’ last recollection was of blood on his face and hearing the cascade of thundering boulders burying the shredded carcass of aluminium—then total silence.

  Some time later, Hans’ recollections were disturbed as a strangely agitated Tharis returned, pistol in hand. Even in his traumatic condition, Hans detected the sudden change in him.

  Hans took careful aim and the pistol shot echoed through the canyons. The pressure on his foot eased, but his body was cramped and knotted. His legs crumpled as he attempted to stand. Painful surges of sensation pounded back into his limbs as he tried to lift himself clear. Hans passed the Luger up to Tharis. “We might need this.” He then floundere
d around his cramped cage, seeking a way out.

  Hans staggered unsteadily into the cavernous hull to further assess the situation. Horror swept over him. Protruding from the compacted tangle of aluminium and flesh were human limbs, a claw-like hand still dripping blood. He turned, dazed, and moved back through the cockpit. He knew exactly who had been in each compartment. His stomach rebelled, sending spasmodic shivers up his gullet causing him to gag. His condition deteriorated further as he climbed through the shattered windscreen and saw the bloody remains of the nose gunner. The stone-blasted body, no longer even recognisable as human, lay fully exposed in the cage-like remains of the turret. The gunner must have borne the full fury of the terrifying slide.

  Tharis no longer noticed the near-zero temperature. His devious mind was plotting a future return to this metal coffin and how he might recognise the mist-shrouded surroundings. His thinking was shattered by a screaming cry, an animal-like howl starting low and guttural, and building to a high-pitched wail. Hans was on his knees gibbering to himself, bile dripping from his chin, uncaring as a dark stain spread across the crotch of his pants and down his thighs.

  On their trek down the lonely mountainside, Hans moved like a zombie, letting Tharis lead him towards the warmer altitudes to find food and shelter. Just before it was lost from sight behind them, Tharis turned for a last look at the wreck. In the cloud-shrouded afternoon light, the flying boat’s flared hull resembled the sloping prow of a ship, ready for launching. Monument-like wing struts protruded above the talus, forming a rough letter ‘N’.

  One day he would return to reap the harvest of this grim misadventure. As he watched, the wreck was covered by cloud; it would be difficult to re-identify the location. A mournful dirge emanated from the wrecksite. Tharis turned his back on the mysterious and sinister howl and moved briskly down the slope. Below, hazy jungled ridges extended rank upon rank to the horizon. Night was fast approaching on the eighth day of March, 1942.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Prinzberg was a remote primitive outpost. A regal teutonic name, but a strange misnomer for a pathetic violation that defied vast expanses of New Guinea jungle. It was two sweltering hours since our helicopter collided with the vine-strangled rain-trees near the helipad. A Tarangau Airlines plane had crashed here and we were delivering a sonar unit to speed my partner’s underwater search. As an aircraft engineer and part-time pilot, I took the time to inspect the damaged rotor-blades.

  An astonished audience of inquisitive naked warriors watched us suspiciously, but warily stood their distance. Kevin the pilot scanned the sky and caught sight of our rescuers. He grabbed the hand-mike from the bubble cockpit of the Bell 47. “Yeah, Dave Stark from Avmar Salvage is here with me. He said it doesn’t look good.”

  As we shielded our eyes from the blinding tropical sun, the rescue helicopter approached and hovered above our stricken machine. “Dave, Jim’s too lazy to land upstream,” Kevin shouted. “The stupid bastard’s gonna try and squeeze it in here! I’ll hold our blades out of the way—it’s bad enough trying to land one chopper here!”

  Jim seemed agitated as he carefully jockeyed his pulsating Bell 47 over the bank of the Ramu river and down onto the narrow pad alongside our sister-ship. Kevin held our damaged blades firmly to prevent downwash spinning them into Jim’s manoeuvring space. The intruding jungle growth whipped and surged in the rotor blast; my nostrils accosted by the rank smell of exhaust efflux and rotting vegetation. I turned my back to a stinging lash of dust and debris, as Jim’s blades slashed the air a mere metre away.

  After touchdown, Jim foolishly left the engine idling. He jumped angrily from the bubble cockpit, crouched under the slashing blades and stomped over to Kevin. “You dopey prick!” he yelled above the din of the engine and rotors. “What a shit of a place to have a rotor strike! I warned you not to get too close to those bloody trees.”

  I ignored him, while Kevin tried to shout back an explanation.

  Jim hurried over to the front of our damaged chopper and checked the mangled blade tip. “Well, that’s one new blade we’ll have to fly in—how’s the other one?” Without thinking, he pushed the forward rotor away, to inspect the rear blade. By the time Kevin shouted, it was too late; he made a futile attempt to stop the motivated blade, but it swung out and clashed with the whirling rotors of Jim’s idling chopper. Instinctively we both ducked to the ground.

  The noise was incredible; a series of sharp percussions as the fragmented blades peppered the jungle around us like shrapnel. Jim’s chopper began to tremble. With the blades severed and out of balance, it bounced onto its side, the engine still roaring. The remaining blade segments flayed the ground, detached chunks thrown high into the air. The stumps of the rotor acted like broken spokes on a cartwheel and jerked the crumbling machine awkwardly around itself. Suddenly, it toppled over the river bank and fell ten metres to the water’s edge.

  As the noise ceased, we stood and surveyed the now peaceful clearing. There was little to show of the sudden violence, except for a swirl of churned grass, littered with metal and perspex fragments. Not a word was said—the only movement a swaying rotor on Derek’s helicopter, one blade bent and raggedly severed to half its original length.

  Jim sat down on the river bank, shaking his head and mumbling self-abuse. Fortunately, no one had been hurt, but white smoke carried up the pungent odour of an electrical fire. Before anyone had the sense to grab an extinguisher, there was a muffled thud as the ruptured fuel tank exploded. The smashed remains erupted in a billowing knot of orange flame and smoke.

  We extinguished what was left of the charred wreckage and noticed that most of the inquisitive native bystanders had run off when the two choppers collided. Brave warriors they might be, but faced with such strange and unpredictable technology, fools they were not. Many of them had seen a white man and flying machine for the first time this day.

  There was little else we could do, so Kevin helped unload the Sonar unit from his helicopter and we shuttled the rest of my gear upriver to my partner’s base camp. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke,” said Kevin. “At least now we might get rid of these antique 47’s and buy some turbine-engined Jetrangers.”

  Kevin was short and stocky; he laboured through a thatch of tall springy ferns. I was slim and broad-shouldered, no fat, no bulging muscles, just a sinewy six-footer; a result of my strenuous outdoor lifestyle. I took the lead, cutting a swathe through the new growth.

  My partner, Fang, was out of camp, so I did what I could to make the two helicopter pilots comfortable in the oppressive noon-day heat and humidity. Jim was despondent as I radioed his main base for a third rescue aircraft and delivery of two new rotor blades for Kevin’s Bell 47. Fang was underwater at the time of our dramatic arrival and unaware of our lucky escape. Jake, our native assistant, said he heard the distant noise and saw smoke, but his attention had been on the serious task of monitoring Fang’s search for a missing twin-engined plane in the muddy depths of the Ramu river.

  While waiting for Fang, I checked myself in the camp mirror for injuries after the chopper collision. My sun-weathered face already carried the legacy of a plane crash; a ragged scar and rough stitching spanned my forehead. Another pale scar under my right eye never tanned—a result of a brawl in Saigon. My untidy brown hair was lank and sun-streaked, badly needing a barber’s attention.

  When Fang finally returned and heard our story, he laughed. Then his bearded sunburnt face lit up as he spied the Sonar kit. “You got it! We’ll find our sunken plane wreck now, Dave. I’ll dive again after lunch. But first, I’ve gotta see these wrecked helicopters.” He smiled.

  I had never seen a coin like it before—shiny gold, elaborately decorated, and embossed with foreign words. As I picked it up, it flashed in the tropical sun. I was far too busy to study it further. “Where did you get it?” I asked Bill.

  Bill was the ‘Kiap’, or Patrol Officer, for Prinzberg and surrounding tribal villages.

  “I traded with Ramu w
arriors down south,” he replied evasively, crushing his cigarette with a clay-encrusted jungle boot, and changed the subject. “I thought salvage companies were only interested in ships and war disposals? Didn’t realise you went after plane wrecks too.”

  Before responding, I returned the coin he’d dropped, and turned back to the brown Ramu waters to see if Fang had surfaced, then checked the compressor.

  “Yeah, we even get location write-offs. A plane might crash-land, undamaged, hundreds of kilometres from the roughest and most remote access roads. Insurance companies quite often consider them uneconomical to retrieve. Quite common in Papua New Guinea. Did you see this one ditch in the river?”

  “Yeah. It never left the ground, the wheels ran right to the edge of the riverbank. What a splash! I thought it’d float, but lucky they got out fast, ‘cause it sank in less than a minute.” Bill mopped the sweat off his face and continued. “What’s the gadget your mate took underwater with him?”

  I hesitated and turned off the compressor. Fang’s spare scuba bottle was now refilled. “A side scan sonar unit, like a small magnetometer,” I replied. “He can’t see in that silted water, so he listens on earphones. He can then tell when he’s close to the sunken aircraft. Sort of like a geiger counter.”

  “Hardly seems worth the trouble.”

  “It’s not a lot of trouble when you consider it’s insured by Boyds of Bristol for 200,000 bucks. We work for AVMAR, Aviation and Marine Salvage Company, the agent for Boyds, and also act on their behalf as insurance investigators. If we find it within the next few days, I think we could have it flying again for less than fifty grand.”

  “Shit! Why that much? It only pancaked on water, not hard ground. I thought once you got it back on the airstrip, all you’d do is knock out some dents, hose her down, change the battery and fuel her up?”