by R. B. Shaw
“Lance!” I screamed. He didn’t hear me as he was wearing his earphones. I screamed again and hurled a handful of film canisters at him. He turned abruptly with an angry stare. No need to speak. He looked past me to the rear, wide-eyed. Anger melted into near panic as he shoved the control column forward.
There was a terrific commotion like a dozen heavy steel cables snapping—our aircraft had been raked by machine-gun fire. We floated, weightless under the influence of negative gravity; I was sitting in a snake-pit, tie down ropes and unused seat belts floating and weaving serpent-like before me. My shirt pockets emptied, notebooks and coins floated to the roof as my feet left the floor, the seat belt my only restraint.
We were diving almost vertically, the prop overspeeding, the slipstream whistling by louder than ever as the airspeed indicator moved through the orange caution arc toward red-line.
“Pull her out, Lance!” I screeched again and again. Slowly but deliberately, Lance pulled back on the stick. We levelled out, searching the skies for our adversary, but they were no longer in sight. Twin trails of filmy white vapour streamed back from punctures in the lower surface of the wing fuel cell. We selected right tank to utilise any remaining fuel before it drained away through the two bullet holes.
Lance applied full power and nosed the aircraft into a steep climb and then turned to me. “I’m going up high so the chopper can’t get us from above. Watch out for it, Dave!”
We were soon climbing through filmy clouds at 10 000 feet over sparse fracto-cumulus which barely hid the verdant green Ramu swamps and jungles. The 185 tilted side to side, as Lance swung the aircraft continually to check our blind spots above each wing.
I watched, surprised, as Lance disengaged some truck axles from under the cargo net and piled them near the cabin door beside him. He couldn’t hear my enquiries from the back, so I unlatched my seat belt and moved forward again to the co-pilot’s seat. “What are you doing?” I shouted.
Lance gave me a fiery look. “Those bastards are committed to get us now. They’ll try again, but this time I’ll get them first.”
“Don’t be so bloody stupid! Let’s get out of here while we can. What can you do with a few truck axles?”
He pointed to two heavy eight-leaf suspension springs. “Drag those out from under the cargo net, sit them next to your door sill and I’ll show you!”
We argued heatedly, but Lance was stubborn and insistent, so I angrily moved the springs to my door.
“What the hell are you planning, for Christ’s sake?” I queried.
Lance gave a half-smile. “Let’s just say I’m going to jam a stick through his spokes.”
He intended to drop the heavy metal parts into the rotating blades of the helicopter’s delicately balanced rotor disc. Should any contact occur, the fragile blades would disintegrate. As he’d predicted, the helicopter made another attempt to approach us, but we made use of our superior speed to elude the attack. We lost sight of the chopper again and Lance converted our forward speed to climb rate. We were levelling off at 13 000 feet, when Lance suddenly turned back in the direction of our assailant.
I caught a brief glimpse of the rugged skyline of the Bismarck Ranges, a pale azure silhouette to the south, and then turned my concentration onto the task of finding the chopper. I saw something almost at once—the giveaway flash of the spinning rotor blades reflecting sunlight a mile away on our lower right. Our right tank was now empty, the vapour ribbon no longer visible. The engine sputtered momentarily, then Lance turned on the fuel boost pump and re-selected the left tank.
He swung the 185 towards the Bell and followed it from astern and well above. We unlatched both doors. With a loud hissing sound, the cabin turned cold and windy as the slipstream evacuated the warm air. Lance jammed the door part-open with the axles and I followed his example using the springs.
I was now trembling with anxiety as much as from the cold. Lance was fiercely determined and ignored my efforts to calm him. Vengeance was the only release for his rage, and blazing eyes expressed his desire for complete revenge.
“I’m going to put her into a shallow descent over the chopper,” he yelled. “Drop our load, then dive in front and away! When I shout, push your springs out one after the other!”
His mood was infectious and I felt my fear turn to anger. Even so, I winced as the aircraft tilted forward and dived to the attack.
The khaki Bell commenced a turn to the right, Lance corrected accordingly and I lost sight of the helicopter beneath the bulk of our nose section. Lance was peering forward out of the side window, the engine raced and the wind buffeted our eardrums. Lance dropped his hand onto the first axle.
“Now!” He screamed and began tipping out axles. I shoved the springs out and slammed the door.
Suddenly there was a heavy jolt and a loud noise from the front of our aircraft and we lurched violently. There was an immediate loss of power, the sound of our engine’s steady roar died away. It didn’t stop completely due to the impetus of our dive, the high speed wind blast acting on the propeller. I watched a professional at work—in a quick practiced action, Lance’s hand moved deftly from one control to another. In less than five seconds, he had checked all selectors, controls and switches, then turned the emergency fuel pump on, all to no avail.
We levelled out, the engine vibrating wildly and making an unearthly din, developing power only slightly better than idle. Unable to maintain altitude, Lance let down flap to extend our flight time.
“Start looking for a place to put her down, Dave. We’ve only got a few minutes.”
If I’d been trembling before, now I was almost demented. A few minutes to live, I thought, as my face twitched in reaction.
Urgently I scanned the green featureless carpet 6000 feet below, but what I saw was the falling helicopter. Its rotor blades had disintegrated and detached, the bulbous remnants of the cabin and tail plummeting earthward, spiralling slowly as it went.
“At least those bastards won’t bother anyone again,” Lance swore angrily.
At this point, revenge was useless; what we really needed was a stretch of clear ground and suddenly I saw it. “There, Lance!” I yelled, as I saw the dappled tawny pattern of distant kunai grass. “Two o’clock, about three kilometres.” Without hesitation, we turned for the grass flats, the prop wind milling as we dropped below 3000 feet altitude.
“Will we reach it?” I almost pleaded.
Lance was a mass of perspiration, face flushed and blonde hair wet and sticking to his forehead. “Yeah, I think so, but there’s no second chance. We don’t know what the surface is like, but at least it’s a big clearing.”
We wouldn’t go into the trees anyway—a half kilometre to go and we were still clinging to 800 feet altitude. In fact, we appeared to be barely moving, until Lance lowered the 185 over the ocean of grass, and our ground speed became apparent. Lance let down full flap and jockeyed the aircraft into a landing attitude. The main wheel on my side disappeared into tall grass and gradually the rest of the aircraft dropped into the living shroud.
The sinking sensation was arrested by the grass’s heavy drag, even though we hadn’t yet touched down—a sudden roaring deceleration, like diving into water. All we could see was tall grass falling before us, as the wheels thumped solidly onto the uneven ground hidden below. Lance corrected a wild bounce and pinned the rolling aircraft to the surface, but the 185 was slowly tipping over on its nose, as the tall grass tangled with the undercarriage legs. He pulled the elevator control back to hold the tail down, but air effect on the controls had been lost and the nose leaned further over. She tipped, the prop hit the ground, the engine stopped, and the plane toppled forward onto the spinner. Movement ceased abruptly—we were held in place by seatbelts, but an avalanche of loose items in the cabin cascaded forward over us.
A light cloud of dust drifted through the cabin, displaced by the impact, and suddenly there was absolute silence.
“Get out quick!” said Lance as he sw
itched off the power and fuel. We scrambled from the aircraft and ran to a safe distance along the path of kunai crushed by our landing. When there was no fire or smoke, we made our way back to the tail high Cessna to assess the damage and our situation. We were lucky to be wearing long pants, but our arms were stinging and bleeding from numerous slashes of the razor sharp grass. It needed plenty of control to prevent scratching the cuts, which became impregnated with thousands of microscopic hairs from the coarse kunai.
“Well, it’s not too badly bent,” said Lance after a short walk around. “The propeller blades are torn at the tips and bent back. There’s a crushed lower cowling.”
My thoughts were elsewhere. “How long before someone comes looking for us?”
Lance checked his watch. “When we don’t arrive in Aiome and cancel SAR, they’ll try to contact us on radio, then they’ll action an air search.” He looked at me gravely. “But they won’t find us.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“We’re about 80 kilometres north of our planned flight path. They’ll start searching in the foothills of the Bismarcks. Our best chance is to let them home in on us.”
The radio was okay, but to our disappointment the wing-tip aerial had been torn out by the long grass. We rigged a temporary aerial with the remaining wire and hoped our Mayday calls were being picked up, even though we had no reception.
Lance stood back, hands on hips and studied the aircraft. “Supposing we burn off a patch of grass big enough for a take-off run? Could you fix the engine?”
“You’re getting more stupid as the day goes by,” I sneered.
“Well, pal, it’s either that or walk back through sixty kilometres of that bloody jungle we flew over.” Anger reddened his face.
“Surely there’s a village around here somewhere?”
“Oh yeah, there’s probably a village within thirty kilometres and no doubt the villagers haven’t seen white men before. You realise we’re in the middle of a restricted area. You’ve heard the official term, ‘not subject to administrative control, entry by permit only?’”
I had entered restricted areas before when salvaging other crashed aircraft, usually escorted by two armed policemen. Lance was right. Under the circumstances, it would be stupid to leave the aircraft. I hadn’t been aware how far over the stagnant Ramu swamps we’d flown while preoccupied with our aerial conflict, and realised suddenly how isolated we were. I dreaded the unforgiving nature of the thousands of square kilometres of uninhabited wasteland.
I found another bullet-hole through the rear fuselage. “We’ll have a few questions to answer, if we ever get the plane back. I’ve counted five slug holes so far.”
“I’ve thought of that. If we can put down on level ground near our intended flight path, I’ll burn the aircraft. We could say we hit a bird and had to put down, stuffed up the landing and she caught fire!”
“Cagey bastard, aren’t you?” I said.
“Like you, I want that gold no matter what. I’ve noticed you telling a few white lies yourself lately.” We both laughed for the first time since our bouncy landing.
“Let’s have a look at our transport out of here,” I said.
The Cessna was balanced evenly on its nose and forward mounted undercarriage legs. Only the drag of the grass had thrown it forward on its prop spinner. I couldn’t reach the tailwheel so Lance carried me higher on his shoulders. I grabbed the spring and Lance left me suspended, while he climbed aft in the cabin to alter the balance. The nose freed a little and my feet nearly touched the ground.
“I’ll move higher and bounce a bit,” Lance shouted.
It worked; each successive bounce pulled the tail lower and it suddenly began to swing over. I jumped clear as Lance scrambled forward to avoid the jarring impact and the tailwheel spring cushioned the bounce. The right brake unit and hose had been torn off, probably on a boulder during our bumpy landing.
“Nothing I can do about that,” I said.
“Just get that engine purring, and I’ll see if I can find some tools.”
The cargo pack was crushed badly and the engine cowling was buckled flat from contact with the ground, the paint stained green by grass juice.
I was amazed when I found the cause of our forced landing. Not gunfire damage, but a detached section of helicopter rotor blade. It had crashed into the Cessna’s exhaust pipe, folding it double and effectively blocking it. Little wonder we lost power so drastically. Luck was with us, however; once cleared the engine should function normally. Lance returned with some tools, screwdrivers and a packet of hacksaw blades. He saw the minor damage and grinned knowingly.
After leaving him to unload and detach the crushed cargo pack, I managed to dislodge the chopper blade fragment and then attacked the hardened steel exhaust pipe with a hacksaw blade. After breaking three blades, the damaged section finally came away. I levered the aperture of the remaining pipe open with a truck axle and then used it to hammer the cowl clear of the muffler and fuel lines. The damaged tip on one propeller blade was easily removed, the soft aluminium alloy having little resistance to the hacksaw blade. I removed an equivalent piece from the other blade to balance the assembly.
We spent nearly an hour straightening the bent blades using axles as hammers and levers. Eventually the blade was less than a centimetre out of track, unacceptable by normal limits, but good enough to get us out of this place. Lance burned off the kunai downwind, clearing a possible take-off run.
I was concerned about the chances of the propeller detaching, as the sudden impact with the ground could have internally fractured the crankshaft. Normally it would be mandatory for the engine to be stripped and the crankshaft magnetically inspected for cracks.
“Okay, Dave, I’ll do a full power check anyway, but there’s no turning back. If the engine’s okay we go, agreed?”
“Agreed, but with no brakes, we’ll have to chock the wheels with stones.”
The engine ran up perfectly and red lined with a throaty roar. All readings and outputs were good and we only experienced a mild prop vibration. We moved off across the charred kunai flats and soon found a long stretch into the wind. The selected run would start from the jungle perimeter, slightly downhill over burnt kunai stubs. A soft muddy patch was the only problem and then a rugged corrugated surface which ended in a towering matted wall of trees and vines. After clearing the proposed take-off strip of stones and debris, we moved back to the aircraft. We ruthlessly stripped the Cessna’s seating and upholstery and then manufactured a security rope out of the cargo lashings. I tied the rope from a cargo ring out through the rear cargo hatch and onto a heavy acacia behind the aircraft, ensuring every inch of clear ground was utilised.
Suddenly our task was complete; we had reached the point of no return. We seemed to be in a contemplative coma; we didn’t speak, busying ourselves with trivialities, building up nerve for the dangerous take-off in a suspect aircraft.
“One more important thing,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“I’ll let the tyres down a bit for a bigger footprint area over the soft patch.” Lance flicked a cigarette butt into the strengthening wind. “Yeah, and we better toss the first aid and survival kits back on board. Might need them.”
As we fastened our seat belts, Lance handed me his knife and started the engine again, thoroughly checking the instruments and control operations. The engine peaked and Lance held the tail to the ground with elevator back stick. His thumb came up and I slashed at the rope; it parted with one heavy stroke. We rushed forward. Lance had the tail off the ground to flight attitude in the first five seconds, steering only with limited rudder control. Our speed began registering on the airspeed indicator. At forty knots, we moved over the soft surface and our airspeed retarded. Catherine-wheels of mud sprayed off the wheels and splashed heavily onto the wings and flaps.
The mud patch altered our run to the left and we accelerated along a section uncleared of boulders. Lance expertly weaved the aircraf
t between the obstacles, while I watched incredulous as the spindly steel undercarriage legs bounced and jolted to a blur on the rough terrain. Lance yanked the control column back and we were launched steeply into the air in a travesty of a take-off.
The stall warning screamed an urgent message; we were dangerously close to falling out of the sky and Lance quickly nosed down to gain airspeed. As the dense jungle neared, he pulled back gently and we zoomed ever higher with room to spare. Dumping some flap and power, Lance increased the propeller pitch—we’d made it. With a jubilant yell, he slapped me on the back and I began to relax.
A sudden snap reverberated through the cabin and the engine roared unrestrained in a wild crescendo. Fear and panic gripped me; we were no longer accelerating. With a deafening explosion, the screaming engine disintegrated, and I gaped as flames seared my side of the aircraft and smoke began to fill the cabin. The crankshaft had fractured and the prop had flown off. Without the restriction of the prop, the unbalanced engine had simply oversped to destruction point.
With the engine destroyed, the abrupt silence was uncanny. At first only the slipstream outside could be heard, though the insidious crackling of flames grew louder. Lance wrestled with the powerless aircraft in an effort to control our descent. Luckily, the rear baggage hatch was still open, serving as a vent to rid the cabin of the acrid grey smoke. I had often scoffed at the slang term, ‘terror fat’, but I felt it coldly oozing from every pore in my body, every nerve-end tingling in dread anticipation.
“Turn back to the strip!” I shouted.
“No, we’d stall in the turn,” Lance responded.
The stall warning screamed again and Lance nosed down over the treetops, letting out all the flap we had.
“Put your head down and pull your belt tight. I’m going to pancake her into the trees,” He shouted.