Island in the Sky

by R. B. Shaw

  Five seconds later, the 402 responded to the tormenting power of the engines and floated above the ground. As the aircraft crabbed sideways, the right undercarriage leg smashed into the Browning mounted on the jeep.

  The aircraft lurched sickeningly, threatening to force us back to earth again. We sank briefly and the right propeller tore mercilessly at the upper framework of the jeep and its occupants. The noise of tearing metal was hideous as the interior was shredded by the prop. Heavy slashes suddenly appeared across the bonnet as we tore free.

  The jeep, obviously now driverless, lost direction and rolled over, bouncing into a battered wreck of steaming metal behind us.

  “Get her up!” Fang shouted.

  The 402, still crabbing, threatened to drop the starboard wing tip onto the ground. The right engine regained full power after impact with the jeep; it was vibrating violently, a section of a prop blade having torn away. The aircraft stabilised just above the ground, so I kept her there and retracted the undercarriage. But after a few seconds the drive motor laboured and stopped, followed by a loud percussion from the right-hand wing.

  We could smell burnt wiring and the circuit breaker wouldn’t reset. I had difficulty controlling the aircraft with the wheels only partially retracted.

  “Fang, see if you can move the gear with the emergency crank. I think we’ve damaged the right leg on the jeep’s gun. That bang we heard was probably the retract rod snapping.”

  “I’ll try winding it up and closing the doors. We need the airspeed.”

  “Right, just take it easy. We’ll have to use the emergency system when we want the gear down.”

  I banked carefully to the right, to avoid tall trees at the end of the strip. It was possible to climb, but I elected to stay low and follow the course of the river below tree level.

  A few minutes upstream, we began to relax. Hopefully we were well out of range. Streaks of blood were still drying on the port side of the aircraft. I shuddered, remembering the sickening sound as Lance was shredded by the whirling propeller. Hans, Tharis, and Lance were gone—the sleek 402 had reaped a grim harvest in those few short minutes.

  Fang had managed to crank the gear higher and the smoother lines of the airframe allowed an increase in airspeed. We climbed and turned into the rising sun, hanging vividly orange in a limpid burgundy sky.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Our battered 402 still crabbed slightly, a reminder that the right leg had not fully retracted. We set course for the border and searched the cloudless sky ahead for the floatplane. After numerous radio calls, Jan finally answered; judging by her description of the terrain, we were in the same basic area. We orbited a large river, hoping that Jan would soon reach the obvious landmark. It appeared that we had passed the slow floatplane without sighting it.

  The flash of sunlight on metal to the south identified the presence of the 185. We changed course to rendezvous and swung back to a mutual eastward heading.

  “Jan, glad to see you made it. Can you fly below us and check the right undercarriage? It was damaged on take-off.”

  The floatplane converged, then suddenly dropped out of sight. Within seconds, Jan reported: “The leg is hanging down and tangled with the inboard undercarriage door. The outboard door is torn off, the axle seems broken and the wheel is angled across the airflow.”

  Fang was listening intently. “Sounds lovely, don’t it? What are you like at doing ‘gutsers’ with 402s, Blossom?”

  His mock reference to a wheels-up landing brought the facts home bluntly. I’d hoped the broken rod had left the leg locked down over centre, with a reasonable chance of a normal landing.

  “We must have crossed the border,” Fang suggested. “That’s the Alice River. We can’t land with the aircraft in this condition, so let’s belly-land near the river, bury the gold and all fly out in the floatplane to the lake.”

  “Look for a remote area of the river,” I replied. “A straight long stretch near a swamp or mud flat to put her down. Little chance of a fire that way.”

  “Once we’re down, Jan and Jake can land on the river. We bury the gold and recover it later.”

  “Sure, but if Jan stuffs up the landing, we lose the floatplane. Then we’d all be stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I see your point.”

  “But if we get both planes down safely we might even be able to strip enough weight off the floatplane to get the gold out on minimum fuel load,” I suggested.

  As I turned south, following the flow of the Alice River, I radioed Jan, explaining our intentions. Twice we inspected and discarded possible landing sites. The first was ideal for the 402, but the nearby river meandered so much there was insufficient length for a safe take-off in the floatplane. The second area was a long straight run of the river, but the adjacent inundated swamp was crowded with tree stumps.

  The jungle covering gave way to a large expanse of open grass plains, some flooded like rice paddies. Here the river formed a gigantic shallow arc, three kilometres long. At some stage, the river had changed course and inside the arc was a huge mud claypan that looked ideal. Because it had once been a river bed, the swampy ground was clear of vegetation, except for isolated clumps of tall grass.

  “I’ll put her down here,” I said. “The ground looks soft and wide open. I’ll radio Jan to put down first on the river and get Jake to anchor the floatplane to the bank.”

  Jan flared the floatplane skilfully into the wind. Two metres above the water she allowed the aircraft to gently settle. I was having trouble keeping with her slow speed, even with flaps down and reduced power. A gust of wind caught the floatplane and it lifted momentarily; Jan overcorrected and the floats slammed heavily onto the muddy surface of the river. A cloud of spray erupted, briefly obscuring the aircraft. For a few horrible seconds, I thought it had nosed over and plunged under the surface. As the aircraft ballooned, Jan caught the bounce neatly, with judicial application of engine power.

  Once again she levelled above the surface and I began calling the separation height to her over the radio. “Okay, gradually let the power off. She should settle nicely.”

  The floats and their shadows met in twin creamy wakes and, as the floats sank deeper into the brown waters, the floatplane was left astern of us.

  I thrust the throttles forward on the 402 and retracted flap, beginning a shallow climb to the north.

  “Not a bad sort of a landing, eh, Blossom?” Fang said.

  I had to agree. I hoped I could handle a landing in an unfamiliar aircraft as well as Jan had. After two minutes, we turned on a reciprocal heading, both nervous and unsettled. Peering at the gold laden boxes only increased my anxiety. The floatplane was beached and secured near our proposed landing zone and two figures stood atop the cabin. Fang moved back to the co-pilot’s seat after checking the security of the cargo net covering the gold.

  We banked onto final approach, the last turn the 402 would ever have to make, and dropped to 200 feet at a hundred knots. With the flaps lowered and power reduced, the noise of the powerful turbo-supercharged Continentals subsided to a muffled purr. I adjusted the elevator trim slightly, to correct the mild nose-down pitch. The airspeed indicator needle dropped through ninety knots, the cabin quiet and disconcerting. Fang was watching me, as still as a statue and for a change, speechless.

  As we levelled out above the mud flats, our true velocity was horribly evident as the ground below surged past, even though the stall warning horn was screaming its mournful dirge. I killed the power switches, magnetos and fuel, but rather than feather the props, I allowed them to windmill, hoping to cushion the impact. The noise of the engines died away, the rush of the wind the only remaining sound.

  The props hit first and decelerated rapidly before stopping. The aircraft lost speed and settled on the soft surface. The damaged part-extended right leg dragged momentarily, but the weight of the aircraft forced it up into its housing and the sleek belly of the 402 dropped squarely onto the mud pan. The surface felt li
ke concrete; there was a din like stampeding cattle as we bounced, slewed and jolted across the slimy mud patch. The continuous wail of tortured metal screeched through the cabin floor as we careered on. A muddy spray of water draped the aircraft in a brown opaque curtain. The 402 decelerated, lurched violently, then slid to an abrupt halt.

  The sudden silence was a relief after the din of the belly landing and for a moment we sat stunned.

  “Out quick!” I shouted.

  Rather than climb over the gold to the rear cabin door, we kicked out the emergency exit hatch and scrambled out over the wing. As we sank to the shins in mud, a disturbed horde of voracious insects pounced upon us.

  “No fire?” said Fang hopefully.

  “Looks okay.”

  The quiet of the mud flats was rent only by the crackling of shrinking red-hot exhaust pipes.

  “Let’s get the gold out while we can,” I said.

  Jan and Jake were nowhere in sight as we unlatched the quick release hooks and struggled repeatedly to the door, throwing the heavy boxes down onto the mud. Our efforts inside were hindered by scores of spent 9mm cartridges that formed an unstable carpet, a reminder of Fang’s valiant efforts at the Indonesian airstrip.

  Jake appeared and joined us in our labours, Jan followed and gave a hand, all of us silent, concentrating on the crucial task at hand.

  The 402 sat forlornly, hatches open and props curled, at the head of a six-hundred-metre furrow through the clay pan. We tore the headlining out and used it to drag the heavy boxes across the slick surface to the floatplane. It was a laborious task, but we had soon established a fairly firm pathway.

  The transfer of the gold completed, we returned to the wrecked 402 to ensure we’d removed everything of value. It was a good thing we’d decided to put the 402 down in uninhabited country. A muddied smear of blood; numerous bullet holes; the cabin interior littered with weapons, magazines and spent cartridges—we would have had difficulty explaining the condition of the 402, its cargo and our own battered and bloodstained appearance.

  “How much fuel left in the floatplane?” I asked Jan.

  “Plenty, enough to get back to the lake anyway.” I threw the matches from the 402 survival kit to Fang. “You can do the dirty work. I haven’t got the heart.”

  I opened the engine oil valves and the hot viscous fluid flooded the nacelles. Fang removed the fuel caps and opened the fuel drains; the area reeked of Avgas as the fuel cascaded around the aircraft and mingled with the mud and oil. We moved upwind, Fang leaving a trail of fuel-soaked headliner strips. Jan and I took cover and turned to watch.

  Without hesitation, Fang tossed a match onto the saturated material. It erupted in flames and flashed to the aircraft. There was no cataclysmic explosion, just a sudden roar of wind rushing to replace the superheated crimson fireball which hurtled skyward. The oil caught fire and dense black smoke curled upwards from the blazing funeral pyre of the trusty 402. The fuel tanks exploded with a thunderous roar, smoking wreckage littering the area.

  Fang was anxious. “How much gold can we take and how much do we bury?”

  I thought a moment. “There’s just a chance the floatplane might take us and all the gold out of here on minimum fuel.”

  Relief flooded his face. “Good. The river could change course again and there’s no permanent landmarks. We might never find it if we leave it here.”

  The flames of the distant 402 twinkled with the brilliant incandescent sparkle of burning magnesium. Jan retrieved our map from the floatplane’s glovebox, checked the contents of the three fuel tanks and clambered down. Our course to the alpine lake was exactly due east. Jan and I made some simple calculations and arrived at a basic fuel figure that made allowance for a minimal reserve.

  “Drain the long range tank,” I said to Jake, “That’ll be about 110 kilos less weight.”

  Fang drained the main wing tanks too, leaving only enough fuel for our flight to the lake. Our overall weight was reduced by another seventy-five kilos.

  “What weight can we lift off at sea level?” Fang asked.

  “About 820 kilos, unofficially.”

  “Shit! We’ve got 600 kilos of gold here!”

  “Plus crates,” I added. “We can start by breaking them open and discarding the heavy boxes anyway. What do you weigh, Fang?”

  “Eighty-eight kilos.”

  “Jan?”

  “Sixty kilos.”

  “Jake’s about sixty-eight and I’m eighty. Add fuel, 145 kilos!”

  Jan was the quickest at mental arithmetic. “Still about 220 kilos overload!”

  I cringed at the thought of a take-off with so much surplus weight. “We’ll have to strip out all unnecessary weight and just go for it.”

  “We could leave some of the gold behind,” Jan suggested.

  “Pig’s arse!” Fang interjected, “It’s all or nothing!”

  Our small tool kit was put to good use; within minutes, we were manoeuvring the bulky long-range tank and its fittings out of the door. I cursed at not having a JATO unit left; without doubt, it would have had us airborne. Expensive but heavy radios and tuning boxes soon splashed into the river. None were worth their weight in gold. JATO fittings followed and then seats, instruments, first aid and survival kits, and finally the tool kit itself. A rough estimate of the discarded equipment totalled a meagre thirty kilos.

  “We’ll try it at that,” I said. “Break open the boxes and load the gold directly onto the cabin floor, then lash it down. Fang and Jake will have to sit on the gold.”

  Fang smiled. “If I’ve got a golden throne, you better refer to me as ‘your majesty’ in future!”

  “Everybody on board. Jake, swing the prop and drop the mooring rope after the engine starts.”

  Jan sat in the co-pilot’s seat while Fang perched uncomfortably on his golden throne. The engine coughed and caught with a lusty roar and we taxied away from the bank, while Jake clambered up the float struts. As we turned into wind, not a word was spoken. I lowered flap and opened the throttle. The engine noise increased to a screaming crescendo, the airframe vibrating mercilessly.

  Acceleration was sluggish, like a winged launch with an ungainly superstructure and four-seat crow’s nest. After a kilometre, we were only a little higher out of the water, the stall warning wailing an annoying shrill monotone. Eventually, the floatplane aquaplaned nicely but refused to fly. Experimentally, I nursed the elevators gently but the aircraft porpoised. Manipulation of flaps helped to balloon us and it began to skip along the top of the water.

  “She’s lifting!” I shouted.

  Another kilometre later, I shouted the same thing, when momentarily the amphibian lifted off for ten metres.

  “Fly, you cantankerous bastard!” I screamed.

  She skipped again, in longer stretches, the rudder taking more effect. I pulled carefully back on the elevator control, the stall warning again screeching its demented alarm. Just above the surface, I levelled out till the airspeed built up to a reliable control level.

  “She’s up now, if only I can keep her there.”

  The airspeed increased, so I prompted the floatplane higher and at last I knew we could make it. Not taking any chances, I let out a jubilant yell, and banked ever so slowly to the east.

  “We made it. Next stop the lake.”

  We were climbing slowly, with the engine still running at full rpm. Fortunately the terrain was flat, timbered plains, with some areas of dense vegetation, but eventually we would have to negotiate the tall peaks of the highlands.

  It took a full hour of shallow climb before we levelled out at ten thousand feet. There was a quiet happy mood in the cabin as we approached the forbidding central mountains. Along our flight path, we noticed the occasional ragged peak jutting above the cloud layer. As yet, none were recognisable. We were beginning to doubt our distance calculations and the accuracy of the compass, when directly ahead we recognised a vast spinal massif, lightly tinted by the late afternoon sun. Towering over th
e cloud, Mt Wilhelm looked like an island in the sky.

  EPILOGUE

  I held the mould steady as Fang tilted the ladle of molten gold. A fiery stream of glowing liquid poured out. Some spilled over and spattered into the drip tray in a cloud of super-heated fumes. As Jan rushed in, I removed my safety goggles and left the continuing task in the hands of Fang and Jake. She was holding a newspaper.

  “They’ve found the floatplane at last. Read this!”

  The report had only made page two, a small heading above a single column:

  MISSING AIRCRAFT FOUND

  Lost floatplane washed up on river bank after a two-month disappearance. The battered remains of a Cessna 185 amphibian floatplane, belonging to the highlands-based flying group Scriptair, has been discovered near the Andalarum Rapids of the Ramu River, in the Madang District. There is still no trace of the pilot, Lance Jonathon Rudd, 27, of Canberra, Australia. Mr Rudd was reported missing two months ago, on a flight to Sepu village on the Ramu River. It is thought that a submerged tree-trunk may have capsized the floatplane on landing and the pilot drowned when the damaged aircraft sank.

  Scriptair was granted a charter licence just before the accident occurred, and now operates two twin-engined aircraft, supplementing its mission work with twice-weekly charters from Cairns in Australia. Air and ground searches for the lost aircraft were halted after a week, when items identified as part of the aircraft and load were found floating downstream from Sepu.

  Jake was busy pouring another mould, so I handed the paper to Fang. “The plan seems to have worked. Should keep the heat off.”

  Fang read the news item and smiled. “Lance, you double-crossing bastard, rest in pieces!” The authorities now seemed to be satisfied as to the manner of his death. Our carefully planned ‘accident’ in the river had been simple enough to contrive and far from the eyes of any witnesses. We avoided any suspicions when we deliberately sacrificed our trusty floatplane to the murky depths of the Ramu River, upstream from the shallow rapids. Our two Cessna 402s were indeed operating successfully. With Jan and I both licensed on the type, we were even operating at a profit.