The Seven Trials of Cameron-Strange

by James Calum Campbell

  ‘The fact is that the Major and I have gone out on a limb about this. Now I’m going out of my way to tell you something I’m not supposed to divulge. We sit on a committee. It’s called the committee sine nomine. I think we may have mentioned something about it when we met you late last year. We’ve seen you at close quarters. We happen to have noticed that you have certain skills. Medical skills of course. That’s a given. I won’t show you Prof Pearson’s reference. It’d make you blush. Incidentally he’s very keen to have you back in Edinburgh. Consultant post of course, linked to a senior lectureship in the medical school. Government funded so that we can borrow you from time to time. You’d be essentially supernumerary.’

  ‘I didn’t ask Forbes for a reference. He has no right.’

  Parkinson brushed that to one side. ‘As I say, your medical skills are a given. But I’m talking about other skills. They are a little hard to define. They are certainly not easily acquired. Perhaps they are innate. I doubt they can be taught.’

  ‘What would they be?’

  ‘Three of them. First, a receptivity. The power to listen, if you like. Secondly, inquisitiveness. You have the innate curiosity to delve into something, combined with a remorseless attention to detail. Once you bite, you don’t let go. And you never give up. Thirdly, and most important of all, you have a creativity that gives you an edge. You have an ability to think laterally, to spot something that everybody else has missed.’

  ‘There’s nothing very impressive about any of that. All you are describing there is the skill to undertake a medical consultation. History and examination, investigation, and diagnosis. Of course it can be taught and it can be learned. That’s what medical schools do. Or should do.’

  ‘Well, the Major and I think you are being too modest. I’ll probably never say this to you again, but you possess an armamentarium that is quite exceptional. The British establishment may be arcane and archaic and fuddy-duddy and all the things you say they are, but they’re not fools. They’d be fools to walk past the opportunity to harness your skills.’

  ‘Fools or not, they’re not going to get the chance. I thank you for your kind words. If they are even half-true, then I won’t make too bad a fist of emergency medicine.’

  ‘You’ll be wasted in emergency medicine.’

  ‘Now that really is rubbish. Look. I’ve just got over something really bad. I’m recovering. I can be happy here. I can make a life here. I can do some good work. I can even make a difference. Don’t begrudge me that.’

  ‘If you want to make a difference, I suggest you take up this offer of a taster. Believe me, it’s important. This is a very big thing.’

  ‘Just because there’s lots of money involved doesn’t make a thing big or important. If Mr Fox’s programme has fallen short in the Health and Safety Department then the authorities can take him off air and shut down his project, and he can depart and do something even more exotic somewhere else.’

  ‘That’s just what we’re afraid of – his next project.’

  ‘Ah yes. God, the flag, mom, and apple pie. Why am I not surprised? Is he joining the Tea Party?’

  Major Forster fixed me with his cool stare. ‘Listen. We can’t overemphasise the importance of all this. We are visitors to a friendly country discussing the affairs of another friendly country. But we never had this conversation. This is not just about Shaun, or a rich man’s toys, or a reality TV show. Mr Fox is poised to enter an altogether bigger league. And he needs to be stopped.’

  ‘That clinches it. What is it they say on Dragon’s Den? I’m out.’

  Forster opened his mouth to say something else but Parkinson laid the restraining hand back on his sleeve.

  ‘If you want to build a life in Auckland, it’s your call. We don’t begrudge you that. God knows you deserve it. You’ve given us a very clear and straightforward answer. Thanks for that. Thanks for everything you’ve done. And once again, our sincere apologies. And good luck with everything.’

  They got up to leave. We shook hands. Out of curiosity, I said, ‘Major Forster, what are you actually doing here?’

  ‘Special ops.’ He gave me a grotesque wink.

  ‘And you, Dr Parkinson?’

  ‘I can’t begin to think. One afternoon in Rotorua was enough for me.’ He sniffed. ‘Think I’ll head back across the Tasman.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘What a psychiatrist does best. Research the past.’

  I watched them head back over the road to their parked vehicle, where the man named Pertwee, in the chauffeur’s uniform, was still sitting motionless at the wheel. Forster stopped in the middle of the road, banged the side of his head with the heel of his hand and came back towards me.

  ‘Sorry! Forgetting. Meant to give you this.’

  It was his elaborate business card. He took out a pen and quickly scribbled a New Zealand contact number on it. He just couldn’t quite sever the links. He couldn’t quite let go.

  TOP OF DESCENT

  I

  Phineas Fox. Or is it Fineas? Maybe even Ffineas?

  Funny name, Phineas. Do you know anybody called Phineas? I do. Well, not personally. But by repute. Phineas Gage.

  Phineas Gage is kind of famous in medical folklore. He was a US railwayman. Foreman of a gang. Not much formal education, but respected. One day he was supervising the laying of an explosive and securing it with a tamping rod. There was an explosion and the tamping rod got driven through Phineas Gage’s jaw, behind his left eye, up into his frontal lobes, and out through his skull. Miraculously he survived this horrendous injury. He even got back to work. But he wasn’t the same man. Phineas had always been a kind, gentle soul. Now he was something other. He became sour, bad-tempered, aggressive, and then violent. They say he suffered a complete personality change. He turned into something so different from what he had previously been that it was said of him he was ‘No longer Gage’.

  I had no reason for doing so, but I found myself wondering if, somewhere along the line, Mr Phineas Fox had suffered a similar metamorphosis.

  * * *

  Saturday, April 16th, 5pm. Still banged up. Forty-one hours till my next court appearance. I was supposed to have been out in the exercise yard but apparently there were staff shortages and I just had to stay put. Next they’d be having me slopping out. What would it be like to be sent down for twenty years? I couldn’t cope. Meanwhile, best get as much exercise as I can under the circumstances. I got up and began to pace deliberately back and forth like a tiger behind my cell bars. I slipped back into my well of resource, my private memories. I went back all the way to Saturday January 9th, got back into the Cherokee Arrow up in Northland, and headed south for Auckland.

  * * *

  Somewhere over Kaipara Harbour under a low cloud base I picked up the Mayday call. It was so clumsily passed that I immediately knew somebody had died and somebody else, somebody very junior, had been promoted to captain.

  ‘This is … Jack … Apple … Zed for Zoo. Can anybody hear me?’

  Young female voice with a tremor in it. It was still very early in the morning and she was calling on the unattended frequency. One one niner decimal one. She was lucky there was anybody awake at all. I might be her only hope.

  ‘Juliet Alpha Zulu, Echo Bravo Echo, pass your message.’

  ‘My instructor’s … I think he’s unconscious.’

  ‘Juliet Alpha Zulu state your position.’ But she had left her thumb on the transmit button. I just had to wait until she released it. I tried again.

  ‘Juliet Alpha Zulu this is Echo Bravo Echo. State your position.’

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  Time to drop the formal r/t procedures. Just have a chat. Nobody else is listening.

  ‘Where did you take off from?’

  ‘Dairy Flat.’ She’d got the hang of the transmit button.

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Twenty minutes?’

  ‘Are you in the training area?’

  ‘
What?’

  ‘The local flying area. Did you take off on runway 21 and turn north?’

  ‘Yes.’

  JAZ was a Cessna 172. I’d often flown her. She couldn’t be too far away.

  ‘What’s your altitude?’

  ‘Hang on a sec.’ If she’d picked up a bit more of the r/t lingo she would have said, ‘Stand by one.’ She was searching the instrument panel.

  ‘Five thousand feet.’

  That was bad news. She was above cloud. Now the crunch question.

  ‘How many hours have you got?’

  ‘Six.’

  That was very bad news.

  ‘You flying straight and level?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. What’s your name?’

  ‘Nikki.’

  ‘I’m Alastair. Pleased to meet you.’

  She laughed, a little hysterically. The fact that she pressed the transmit button and laughed made me think that maybe, just maybe, she had an outside chance.

  ‘Stay on this frequency. I’ll find you. I’m just going to change frequency for a sec. I’ll be right back.’

  ‘’kay.’

  It was time to alert somebody on the ground that a critical incident was unfolding. Most private pilots in transit in New Zealand listen out on Christchurch Information. I gave them a call.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo Christchurch Information, pass your message.’

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo overhead Kaipara Harbour, fifteen hundred feet this time. You got a fix on Juliet Alpha Zulu? I think they’re lost.’

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo stand by one.’

  I didn’t want to tell them any more until I’d found out more myself.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo we have an unidentified aircraft overhead Kawau Island tracking north at flight level five zero.’

  ‘That’ll be it. Any other traffic?’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘I’ll go find them. Keep you posted. Switching one one niner one g’day.’

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo g’day.’

  Time now to enter the murky world of IFR – instrument flying rules. I switched on the ADF, the VOR, and the DME, applied full power, and headed up towards the cloud base. I made a precautionary call on the unattended frequency, giving my situation. Then, ‘Any traffic?’

  Silence.

  ‘Nikki you still there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How far above the cloud are you?’

  ‘Dunno. Maybe 2,000 feet?’

  That was the first bit of good news. I wasn’t going to smack into her underbelly on the way up, and the cloud couldn’t be too thick.

  ‘Good. Hang in there. Shan’t be long.’

  Then I lost visibility and entered the monochrome grey world of the instrument pilot. I switched my gaze from the outside world and concentrated on the instrument panel, my eyes darting back and forth between the artificial horizon, the direction indicator, the climb and descent indicator, and the airspeed indicator. Fly the little aeroplane on the dash! Keep up the scan!

  I broke cloud in two minutes. I’d been climbing at a rate of 500 feet a minute. The cloud layer was 1000 feet thick. I lodged that piece of information in my memory. And I kept climbing and scanning the horizon.

  There she was. About 1,500 feet above me and south-east, but heading in my direction. I kept climbing.

  ‘Hi Nikki. Got you. I’m in your ten o’clock, low. Be with you in a minute.’

  I gained the altitude and then came round behind her and lodged into formation on her left. When you watch an aeroplane from the ground it’s just an object on the move, but when you come up close and personal and ‘formate’ like this you see the way the machine is alive to the elements, is at one with the atmosphere.

  ‘There you go. I’m in your nine o’clock.’

  I could see her scanning round the horizon. Left-hand seat. Long light brown hair under the headphones.

  ‘I’m on your left.’

  She looked round. I gave her a wave. She waved back. I throttled right back to adjust my speed to hers, rose above her and came down again in formation on her right. There was a bulky figure slumped in the right hand seat. That guy’s dead. I was going too fast. I throttled back further and dropped a stage of flap.

  ‘How much fuel you got?’

  I could see her scanning the instrument panel. ‘Both tanks half full I think.’

  ‘Have you got the fuel cock on both?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a disc on the cockpit floor on your right with a lever. You can select left tank, right tank, or both simultaneously. The lever should be in the straight ahead position.’ I realised that the most difficult thing for me would be visualising the 172 cockpit layout while I was sitting in the Arrow.

  ‘Yes, it’s on both.’

  ‘Good. We have all the time in the world.’

  ‘What about my instructor?’

  ‘Don’t worry about him. The best thing you can do for him is to land the plane. And you will.’ I was still going too fast. I dropped the gear.

  ‘You done any circuits yet?’

  ‘A couple.’

  ‘Any landings?’

  ‘No.’

  And all the time I was thinking, it’s not landing the plane that’s the problem, it’s getting under the cloud. Was there a gap somewhere? Could we fly somewhere where we’d be visual with the ground?

  ‘Nikki, I’m going to change frequency again for a minute. Stay on this frequency and whatever you do don’t twiddle the radio knobs. Got it?’ If we lost contact … the prospect of watching her lose control and being unable to intervene didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘Yup.’

  I took a deep breath and switched to 118.7. I’d already decided that Auckland International was her best chance. Longest, widest runway; best emergency facilities. It might cause major disruption to the heavy morning traffic coming in across the Pacific and down from southeast Asia, but it couldn’t be helped. I was going to call them up and present them with a fait accompli.

  I was later to ask myself, why did I want to retain ownership of this problem? Was it vain cocksureness? I don’t think it was. I just happened to be in the best position to give Nikki help.

  ‘Auckland Tower, Echo Bravo Echo.’

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo Auckland Tower pass your message.’

  I kept it brief. ‘Echo Bravo Echo above Dairy Flat this time, flight level 50, in formation with Juliet Alpha Zulu. Zulu’s instructor incapacitated. I will assist tyro to land. Request emergency landing Auckland.’

  That’ll put the cat among the pigeons! Then we had a tremendous stroke of luck.

  ‘Ally?’

  Only in New Zealand. John Dempster. I knew the controller. It just shows you: it pays to pay social visits to the control tower.

  ‘Morning Johnnie.’

  ‘What you up to now, Ally?’

  ‘Don’t blame me if an instructor dies mid-flight.’

  ‘How many hours does the student have?’ Dempster went immediately to the heart of the matter.

  ‘By the time we reach you, seven.’

  The silence spoke volumes. I didn’t break it. When Johnnie came back on, he had dropped the informality and resumed formal r/t procedure. No doubt he was mindful that everything was being recorded, that there would be a debrief, a post mortem, figuratively or literally. Best make it a textbook procedure.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo Auckland Tower, Squawk ident 7320.’

  I dialled the code up on the transponder. ‘Squawk ident 7320. Any local Victor Mike Charlie?’ I needed a cloud break. I needed a break.

  ‘Negative, Echo Bravo Echo.’

  ‘Roger, copy that. Request heading for descent below cloud.’

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo, Juliet Alpha Zulu, we have a fix on you. Turn on to heading one five zero and descend when ready.’

  ‘Heading one five zero descend when ready. Johnnie, can you listen out on one one niner one? I need to stay in touch with Juliet Alpha Zulu.’

 
; ‘Understood. Listening on one one niner one. Good luck.’

  I changed frequency. ‘Nikki?’

  I could hear the relief in her voice. ‘Thought you’d gone.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ve just been waking up the cavalry. Now, can you turn right? Nice and gently. I’ll tell you when to stop.’ I watched the Cessna perform a graceful rate one turn. ‘That’s very nice. And … straight and level now. Perfect!’ We were being directed south-east, so that we could descend out over the Hauraki Gulf with the Hauraki Plains ahead of us. Flat country. Sensible choice.

  At least we were blessed with a still morning. Turbulence would have made the exercise so much more difficult. ‘Now Nikki, just take your hands off the control column. I want to see how well trimmed out the aircraft is.’

  She did so. The aircraft remained straight and level.

  ‘Good. You know the trimmer wheel?’ In the Arrow it sits down by your right hip, but in the Cessna it’s by your right knee.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just roll it forward a little, maybe about two inches. You’ll see the nose go down. That’s good. Hold it there.’ Now we were in a gentle descent, about 500 feet a minute. ‘Now bring the throttle back, same sort of distance, very gently.’ I’d thought to leave the throttle alone, to keep it all as simple as possible, but in the descent the revs would begin to increase and she would accelerate. Besides, it would be as well that she handle the controls she would need to use for the landing.

  ‘Is your mixture rich?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The control next to the throttle with a red handle. Should be fully forward.’

  ‘Yes. Yes it is.’

  ‘Good. Now, do you know the carb air intake? Little black lever to the right of the mixture?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Set it warm. Pull it right out.’

  ‘Okay, that’s done.’

  ‘Now, d’you see the artificial horizon on the instrument panel? It’s the instrument with the model aeroplane on it.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Is the aeroplane sitting just under the horizon?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Okay, now what I need you to do is stop looking out of the window. Just fix your eyes on the artificial horizon. I want you to fly that little aeroplane. Just keep the wings level, and keep the aircraft that little bit under the horizon. Got it?’