by R. B. Shaw
“I wish it was that simple.” I glanced back at the turgid brown waters, caught sight of Fang’s air bubbles downstream and returned to Bill’s conversation.
“First, water is as hard as rock to the relatively light belly structure of an aircraft. Second, a lot of expensive equipment would be unserviceable now, including instruments, radios and engines.”
“Why the engines? It ain’t salt water.”
“Well, the engines were running when it hit the water, weren’t they?”
“Yeah, props threw up a real spray.”
“That means the engines ingested masses of water while they were running. Unlike fuel-air mixture, water won’t compress, so …”
Bill interrupted. “Things start bending and breaking.”
“Yes, broken pistons, bent conrods and valves, overstressed crankshaft, cases and cylinders.”
Bill gave a cynical chuckle. “I can see where the expense comes in now. Reminds me of the villagers up in the foothills. Ran into a bit of money and decided to treat themselves to a new Landcruiser. No roads up there, mind you. It was flown up and assembled by a mechanic from Madang. None of them knew how to drive—real bushies—can’t even speak Pidgin. Don’t wear nothing ‘cept a bone through the nose, arse-grass and a few feathers. They were using the ‘cruiser around the local villages on goat tracks and tore the sump out. No one told them to check the oil, so they just kept driving it and burnt the arse out of the motor. Get this—after paying cash for the cruiser, they simply had a complete new motor fitted and again paid cash!”
Bill was starting to arouse my curiosity. “Where’s all the brass coming from?”
He looked me in the eyes, very seriously. “Not brass, mate—gold. They might be primitive, but they’re not stupid. They’ve made a small fortune so far. The assayer told me it’s the finest pure gold he’s seen. It might be only dust and small nuggets, but it’s the quantity that counts.”
Having panned for gold myself, whenever the opportunity arose, I now gave Bill my full attention. “Where are they getting it from?”
Bill laughed. “Do you think I’d be here if I knew. All I can say is, it’s somewhere in the Ramu foothills of the Bismarck Ranges, up behind their villages. They won’t tell a soul.” He lit a smoke and continued, mystified. “Every time I go on Patrol in the Ramu, I pan at likely creeks and I’ve never found anything worthwhile.”
Like myself, Bill had pale blue eyes, faded by a thousand suns, but I knew I had a steady eagle-like gaze that intimidated people and I used it to my advantage unashamedly. Bill withered but said little else before we were suddenly interrupted by Jacob, our stocky New Guinean assistant. We simply called him Jake.
“Masta Dave, Fang he come up.”
Jake was right. The taut quivering rope indicated Fang was hauling himself to shore against the river’s current. He surfaced in full scuba gear, panting heavily. To the naked, astonished natives, he must have looked like an alien space creature. The primitive warriors were incredulous, unable to comprehend how Fang stayed underwater so long.
“No luck?” I asked, knowing what the answer would be. He pulled his face mask off and brushed water out of his hair. “You’re joking! It’s so full of mud, shit and corruption, you can’t see a bloody thing. The current’s running ten knots. If it wasn’t for the safety rope, I’d be halfway to the Bismarck Sea by now.”
“Any impulses at all?”
“Nothing, the bottom’s like porridge—a river of mud below a river, moving slightly slower.”
“Okay, take a break and we’ll try again tomorrow. You’ll be glad to know the pilots flew the other chopper out a while ago. A plane arrived this morning with the spare blades.”
“Good, should be some room to spread out in the tent tonight.” As he removed his scuba gear, I introduced him. “Bill, this is Chris Mitchell my partner, better known as ‘Fang’.”
“I’m glad it’s you going down there and not me.” Bill said with a grin.
“You don’t have to be mad, but it helps. I wonder why I do it sometimes.”
“Two hundred bucks an hour is a pretty good reason,” I said.
Bill was stunned. “What! All the time you’re here?”
“No, that’s a special underwater hourly rate for Fang.”
We talked on as Fang lugged his gear over to our camp. The tent was set well back from the river bank, beneath a wall of dense jungle draped in vines and verdant top foliage.
“Muscular bloke,” said Bill, watching Fang towel off. “Looks like a bearded brick with eyes.”
“Do you spell that with ‘B’, or ‘P’?” I gibed.
Bill laughed. “Why do you call him ‘Fang’?”
“Should see the way he eats—anything, anytime. Appetite of a starved shark.”
While our evening meal simmered, we relaxed around the campfire and listened to the sunset. As the sky darkened, the surrounding forest came alive: a chorus of howls, bird calls and the pulsing drone of a myriad of insects, chirping in anticipation of their own nightly feast.
“Goroka, Goroka … Prinzberg.” I released the microphone call button on the two-way radio. After a few seconds I keyed the microphone and tried to contact our head office again. Fang stood up impatiently and tugged at the aerial wire. “Probably a poor connection again.” He walked outside but returned a moment later, bashing his head on the Tilley lamp as he ducked back into the tent. “Useless bastard of a thing,” he growled, and backhanded it as he sat down on his sleeping bag.
“What did you expect, a suite in the Prinzberg Hilton?” I said. The nearest resemblance to a hotel was over a hundred kilometres away, in Mount Hagen.
“Yeah, if it means room service and a cold beer, Blossom.”
‘Blossom’ was a sarcastic reference to my battered features and almost permanent tan, due in part to Polynesian blood three generations back. Never handsome, I was once described as rugged by a Cairns waitress. She had liked my dimpled chin; Fang told her it was actually my navel after a dozen facelifts.
The Tilley lamp was still oscillating wildly; weird gyrating shadows danced across the walls of the tent and the rain forest nearby. I called our Goroka base repeatedly over the next hour, still without success. Finally I decided to try again next morning. Fang stuffed another enormous spoonful of mashed potato and bully beef into his mouth and attempted to talk through it. “I think I know where it is.”
“What?” My mind was on another subject.
“Tarangau Airlines’ missing plane—the Cessna 402. I discovered today that the river-bed slopes deeper downstream. A ten-knot current would carry it further than we first thought, to about here.”
“Shit no, not in the undercutting?” I studied the map. A small ridge diverted the course of the Ramu sharply west. On the outside bank of the curve, the racing waters had undercut the jungled bank, forming a deep turbulent backwater.
Fang punched a neat hole in the end of a raw egg with a matchstick. He sucked out the contents, savouring every mouthful, then washed it down with a warm beer. “Well, Blossom, tomorrow we’re gonna find out.”
*
The downriver side of the backwater was tightly packed with floating logs and jungle debris. It was compressed to the sheer wall by the fury of the river’s current. Tangled vines trailed in the water from the towering wall of vegetation above. We hadn’t seen any crocodiles on this venture, but even so, I checked the safety catch of my .22 Colt Woodsman automatic. The light, well-balanced Colt was a ten-shot repeater. Though I doubted its ability to penetrate a croc’s skull, it could ward off attacks.
There was a large audience of inquisitive villagers around our campsite, some naked, others daubed with bright ochres, wearing feathers and furs. A simple length of string stretched between stakes served as a ‘banis’, or fence. As tribal people, all respected this symbol, and not one ventured beyond.
Fang had searched for two hours. Now he was returning after only eight minutes below the surface. Thinking the worst, I
organised our labour gang to haul on his safety line. The current drove him to the bank. He was jubilant, and stood up in the shallows with his thumb pointing skyward. A second marker line snaked back into the torrent.
“She’s there, Dave, right-side up across the current!”
“Badly damaged?”
“Can’t tell, but basically everything seems to be in the right place. Props are bent and I can feel the top of the wings through the slime. But they’re really stuck in the mud. Lucky she’s low wing; it’s kept the fuselage out of the muck. I shouldn’t have any trouble getting airbags inside, even with a layer of silt.”
“Okay, let’s get back to camp. I’ll radio Tarangau Airlines to airfreight the equipment we’ll need to surface it.”
Tarangau Airlines Manager, Alf Campbell, was optimistic and full of plans. All salvage gear would be flown in tomorrow, accompanied by one of Alf’s engineers.
By mid afternoon, Fang had tethered the aircraft to a tree on the nearby bank. A prefabricated cable with a pulley block was clipped around the prop hubs. The aircraft, when floated, would centre on a running leash, as the water current acted on the tail fin.
Fang had made an odd discovery after securing the cable to the Cessna. As he emerged from the swirling brown depths, another light harness line trailed from his hand; his amazement was obvious.
“There’s another bloody plane down there!” he shouted, looking somewhat bewildered.
I frowned. “Two planes? Sure you didn’t bump into the 402 again?”
Fang looked at me with contempt, hawked and spat on the ground. “Listen, Blossom, on my way back my securing line snagged. I untangled it and found a bent prop blade. Below that I could feel cowls and cylinders of a radial aero engine. I didn’t have enough air to check it out, but it’s small. I’d say it’s an old wartime wreck, part buried in the mud.”
That seemed likely. PNG was littered with wartime wrecks. “This backwater’s a natural junkyard. As the river changes course, everything gets dumped near the outside bank by the undercurrents and whirlpool action.”
“What about I float it? Might be something valuable on board for us. AVMAR or Tarangau don’t own it, and there’s nothing left to do on the Cessna until our gear arrives tomorrow anyway?”
“Okay, Fang, you’re the one risking your neck in there. Have we enough drums to lift it?”
“There’s a stack of old fuel drums over at the strip and we have the air compressor and hose ready.”
While Fang prepared for another dive, we repositioned the air compressor close to the water and fitted a long hose over the outlet. Within an hour, Fang had secured a heavy rope to the prop hub of the mysterious plane. Soon Jake had returned in the dugout lakatoi canoe towing numerous empty Avgas drums from the airstrip. He lashed a rope cargo net around each and removed the plugs.
The muddy water was cool and pleasant as Jake and I submerged the drums, forcing out all the air. Fang looped each net over the aircraft securing line and towed out the submerged drums, one at a time. Finally there were three tugs on the signal line. I started the compressor, returned the signal and started feeding out the air hose. It snaked across the surface, spurting a brown trail of bubbles. It was now up to Fang to fill the drums with air. My thoughts were disturbed by the shrill roar of a plane across the river. A wrinkled phantom gyrated in the dense heat waves rising from the dirt airstrip. The graceful streamlined shape of another Cessna 402 took form and banked slightly toward us. The tropical toreador red and golden yellow colours of Tarangau Airlines flashing brightly in the slanting glare of a late afternoon sun. The purring whistle degenerated into a throaty snarl from the exhaust, as it passed low overhead and began a shallow climb out toward Madang.
The roar of the plane was again replaced by the staccato putter of the compressor. I looked back at the river to find Fang staggering from the water. No drums had broken the surface. “No luck?” I said with disappointment.
“No worries,” said Fang confidently. “Still pretty turbulent down there. With the river working on it all night, the drums will gradually pull her up.”
At sunset, the river turned a burnished liquid bronze, the surface reflecting fragmented golden clouds to the west. The vast jungle backdrop was reduced to a featureless dark silhouette, topped only by myriads of huge black fruit bats, darting about in search of prey. We packed up and moved back to camp for the night, content with the day’s progress.
A torrential downpour flooded our camp that night. We had dug water trenches around our tents, but such a deluge was unexpected. We hung our bedding to dry in the pleasant early morning cool—that time in the lowland tropics before the sun reached full strength and the dense humidity sapped the energy from your very soul. The Ramu had risen substantially, owing to the heavy rain, and I thought that our securing lines to both aircraft might have parted. Not only were they still secure, one was taut, the air-filled drums bobbing on the surface. Judging by the depth of submergence, it appeared the mystery plane was suspended beneath.
On the morning radio call to Goroka, we were advised that because of heavy rain and cloud in the Asaro valley, the salvage gear would not arrive till noon. Fang and Jake took advantage of the delay and were back at the river site before I had completed my call. By the time I joined them, they had looped a second drag line over the first and, with the help of our labour gang, had hauled the drums ashore, simply by walking downstream around the backwater.
With a surge of muddy froth, the load bottomed near a pebbled slope, free of vegetation. A bare metal wing tip broke the surface and exposed a Hinomaru, a large faded and abraded red disc. Nicknamed ‘The Meatball’, this was the wartime Japanese identification sign. With sheer brute force, we hauled the Jap plane ashore until the drums no longer supported the weight. As the bent upper prop blade appeared, we looped a rope over it and began dragging it out of the water.
Gradually, the single-engined fighter emerged onto the beach, first exposing the engine, then fuselage, then the wings. The tail was still submerged, except for the top of the fin and rudder. Coffee-coloured water poured from numerous shrapnel and bullet holes. The cockpit canopy was missing and water impact damage was evident at the front of the abraded airframe.
Fang jumped onto the wing and climbed inside. “Dave, it’s full of mud. Get Jake to fit the water pump to the compressor and I’ll hose her out.”
The dreaded Mitsubishi Zero, scourge of the Pacific air war. Even now, it had a disturbing and deadly animal-like grace. The lower buried skin had suffered only light abrasion. Patches of paint were clearly visible.
“Zeroes are as rare as rockin’ horse shit now,” Fang muttered, “Probably bring over twenty grand from an aviation museum.”
“You’re right, but it’s after eleven. Check it over and get the mud out. I’ll have to meet the flight from Goroka.”
Jake and I stepped into an outboard-powered lakatoi and pointed the elaborately carved crocodile-headed prow into the Ramu current. Ten minutes later, we arrived at the end of Prinzberg airstrip. Briefly, we were free of intimidation from the endless insects that inhabited the wet and stinking jungle thickets surrounding our riverside camp.
CHAPTER TWO
The aircraft circled and inspected the strip before landing. I studied the practical but ungainly Islander with mute interest. A door opened and out stepped a tall sinewy man in t-shirt, shorts, a faded ex-army ‘giggle’ hat and shining new Centurion bush boots, the uppers not yet wrinkled.
He held out his hand. “I’m Pete Simpson from Tarangau Airlines. Are you Dave Stark?”
“Yes. Glad to meet you, Pete. Did you manage to bring everything we need?”
“I think we’ve got it covered.” He indicated the load of ropes, winches, patrol boxes and a pile of large polythene bags.
“What took you so long? Just the bad weather?”
“A few scattered storms, but we had ‘Seagull’ for our pilot. You’ve practically got to throw stones at him before he’ll fly.”
I laughed and looked at the Islander plane again. “What are these like?”
“We call it 50 000 rivets in loose formation. Seriously though, they turn a good profit.”
To save time the pilot moved the Islander up to the riverbank; it was then a simple matter to load the motorised lakatoi straight from the aircraft.
“Did you hear we lost a Cessna 206 around Omkalai somewhere?”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know yet. Better wait and see your boss in Goroka. He’s been co-operating with Tarangau’s Manager. I heard the word ‘sabotage’ mentioned.”
I didn’t ask any more of Pete, but as we surged across river toward the towering rain forest, I mentioned the salvaged Jap fighter plane. He was genuinely surprised and, as it turned out, an authority on wartime aviation history. After a brief inspection and making notes from identification plates, he assured us he could supply a complete history of the Zero within a week. Fang was pleased and relished the thought of selling the ancient machine to the highest bidder.
The task ahead of us this afternoon was to float the submerged 402. It would be a difficult task, as the much larger twin-engined plane was at least twice the weight of the nimble Japanese fighter. Fang had shuttled the polythene bags to the sunken aircraft and had begun the laborious task of opening each and filling them with air in the cramped confines of the fuselage. Tell-tale compressed air bubbles reached the surface downstream of the wreck site.
Pete and I were bored as we waited silently, contemplating Fang’s labours beneath the murky surface, I wondered about the sabotage he had mentioned earlier. “Pete, what do you know about this sabotage business?”
“Have you heard the rumours?”
“Yes, but no details.”
“During the last month someone has been tampering with Tarangau’s aircraft and equipment. There were three major incidents—the first at Goroka, a fire in an aircraft parked overnight in a hangar. Luckily a police patrolman put out the fire before it took hold. Afterwards we found a peculiar ash which was later identified at a laboratory as Condy’s Crystals and glycerine residue. A very efficient fire bomb that gives up to ten minutes’ getaway time.”