The Seven Trials of Cameron-Strange

by James Calum Campbell

  ‘Yes.’ I could hear the cautionary note in her voice, as she was exploring new territory.

  ‘If you need to make any adjustments on the control column, make them very very subtle. No big movements.’

  Now we were about 500 feet above the eternal flat expanse of grey. We had another minute of practice run, before we had to do it for real.

  ‘Just put a little bit of pressure on your right rudder. See the turn and slip indicator? Keep the ball in the middle. That’s good.’

  Two hundred and fifty feet to go.

  ‘When we enter the cloud there will be some turbulence. Don’t worry about it. Just keep your eyes glued to that model aeroplane and keep the wings level and keep the nose just under the horizon. No big movements on the controls. Light-touch regulation.’

  I’d thought of positioning myself behind and trying to stay visual with her nav lights but that would be incredibly dangerous. No. She was going to have to pass round the dark side of the moon.

  One hundred and fifty feet to go. Would it be best to keep talking? I decided not. ‘Nikki, I’m going to shut up and let you get on with it. Just make that little aeroplane your whole world. Keep the wings level, hold the attitude. Call me if you need me. See you on the other side.’

  She tapped the transmission button in a gesture of acknowledgement. It was almost blasé.

  Then we entered the grey universe where up might be down, where nothing is but what is not. I fell out of formation and turned ten degrees to the right. I clicked on the stopwatch on the centre of the Arrow’s control yoke and fixed my own eyes on the little model aeroplane. Now the aeroplane began to pitch and judder but on the whole the turbulence was gentle. I wondered how alarming Nikki would find it. But there was radio silence. Wings level on the artificial horizon, 500 feet a minute on the climb and descent indicator, air speed steady, turn and slip level, ball in the middle. A minute crept by. Then Nikki called.

  ‘Doesn’t feel right. I’m turning.’

  She had the leans.

  ‘Just watch the wee aeroplane Nikki. Keep the wings level. Keep the nose down. You’re doing just fine.’

  The last half minute of the descent was excruciating. The second hand of the stopwatch ticked on indifferently and edged its way up towards twelve o’clock. Nothing happened. We were still in the grey zone. Quite suddenly an image formed itself out of the greyness. It was a seascape and, ahead, the broad curve of the Hauraki Plains Coast Line. I set the QNH pressure reading on the altimeter. One thousand eight-hundred feet. I swept the horizon from right to left. Nothing. My heart began to thump.

  There she was, about one nautical mile to my north.

  ‘Nikki, you made it.’ I tried to sound nonchalant, to keep too much of a sense of relief out of my voice. She answered with an inarticulate sob, and it crossed my mind that she probably knew she had performed some sort of miracle, and that she may have used up a large percentage of her dwindling supply of resilience. We needed to get on to the ground.

  ‘Nose up a little, back to straight and level.’

  I could see the 172 respond.

  ‘Reset the throttle for straight and level, like it was before. Just an inch or two forward. Carb air back to cold. Trim back if you like. You’re a natural!’

  There was no reply. I had an idea her eyes were still glued to the artificial horizon. In a minute she might freeze on the controls. I turned north and slipped in behind her and took up my formation position on her left.

  ‘Hiya!’ I waggled my wings at her. ‘You okay?’

  There was a silence, and then she said, ‘Yes. Yes. I’m all right.’ She was back in command.

  ‘Okay Nikki. The hardest part is over. Let’s go to Auckland.’

  ‘I’ve never landed a plane.’

  ‘Piece of cake. The secret of landing a plane, is to try not to land it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s kinda like what you’ve just done, only this time you’re not flying the wee aeroplane, you’re flying the big one. We’re going to fly down to the start of a very long runway. Then you pull the throttle back and the plane has got to land. But just keep flying the plane until she decides she’s had enough. This time the nose’ll be up. Your job is to keep the wings level. I’ll tell you when to bring the nose up. Okay?’

  I decided to keep it simple. Flapless landing. The flap control in the 172 is electric and not manual and is operated by a rather pernickety flange. And the Cessna 172 is a very ‘aeroplaney’ aeroplane. If you can fly a 172 well, you can fly anything. It has been designed to have an impressive take-off and landing performance on short strips, and so it has wide control surfaces. The downside to this is that to fly it well, to control the beast, you need to take control of these surfaces. Especially the rudders. You need to use your feet. I decided not to use flap because Nicki might be overawed by the marked change in nose attitude and the need for extensive use of the trim. Keep it simple. I called Auckland, this time on 119.1. Johnnie answered immediately. True to his word, he had been listening out.

  ‘Juliet Alpha Zulu, Echo Bravo Echo, two nautical miles east of Clevedon, 1800 feet, inbound.’

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo Auckland Tower, clear to land in your own time. No other traffic. Runway 23, QFE 1002. Call at McLaughlins Mountain.’

  They’d cleared the skies for us. I read it back.

  ‘Okay Nikki, home soon. We’ll keep it simple. Just fly the plane, like you’ve been doing. We’ll just use the control column and the rudder pedals, and the throttle. Maybe a bit of trim. Nothing much else. I’ll tell you what to do. Got it?’

  ‘Got it.’ There was a new resolve in her voice. She had a sense she might just make it.

  ‘Okay. Hold this height. Round to the right, in your own time. Very good. And … straight and level again. Incidentally, you fly beautifully.’

  Now we were headed west. The Hauraki Gulf fell behind us. Some elevated ground to the north of the Clevedon Valley. A bit of turbulence – not too bad. There, just five minutes ahead of us, lay the sprawling suburbs of South Auckland. We had a bit of time on our hands.

  ‘Where you from?’

  ‘England.’

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘Place called Bishop’s Waltham.’

  ‘I know it! Way down south. What do you do when you’re not flying an aeroplane?’

  ‘I’m in the army.’

  That explained a lot. A cool head, an ability to take instructions. A professionalism.

  ‘What, are you a general or something?’

  ‘A captain.’

  ‘They should promote you.’

  ‘Tell that to my superior.’

  I had a sudden intuition.

  ‘Not Major Forster?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Well, my goodness, it’s a small world! I was only talking to him yesterday …’ I was wittering on. When you are learning to fly an aeroplane you give it your maximum concentration because you are under the impression that if you don’t, the aircraft will fall out of the sky. You don’t know that the plane can fly herself much better than you can. I could sense that the girl called Nikki wished like hell I would shut up.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo Auckland Tower.’ I could hear a note of caution in Johnnie Dempster’s voice.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo.’

  ‘Switch one one eight seven.’

  ‘Roger.’ Then, to Nikki, ‘Nikki, I’m switching frequency again. Back in a minute.’ I dialled up 118.7 and made the call.

  It wasn’t Johnnie. It was some disembodied, self-important, pompous voice.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo vacate to Ardmore. We will talk Juliet Alpha Zulu down from the tower.’

  Always, the fly in the ointment.

  ‘Negative Auckland Tower. Estimate McLaughlins Mountain five minutes.’

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo you are in controlled airspace. There are procedures to follow. We have rehearsed routines. Echo Bravo Echo you are skiing off-piste.’

  He was ticking
boxes. I wasn’t going to waste time arguing with him. I flicked back to 119.1. ‘Johnnie, you there?’

  ‘Hi Al.’

  ‘Any other traffic?’

  ‘Negative. Sky’s yours.’

  ‘Don’t let that guy on to this frequency. I don’t want him upsetting the apple cart. If he comes on again I swear to God I’ll come up to the tower and punch his lights out.’

  ‘Roger copy that.’ God bless him. The best air traffic controllers are serene. The last sin is to upset somebody in a cockpit. And that guy, whoever he was, had upset me. He had introduced an element of doubt. What if he was right? What if I had bitten off more than I could chew? Was I being quixotic? It occurred to me that if this didn’t come off, if this turned into a disaster, I’d be finished. Finished with aviation for sure. The CAA would wipe the floor with me. Probably finished with medicine. It would be cast as a dereliction of a duty of care. Finished with New Zealand. I’d always be ‘the guy who thought he knew better than the pros …’ And, even on a personal level, finished. The press would have a field day. ‘The inquest concluded that Cameron-Strange was leading a deluded, Walter Mitty existence …’

  I was breaking out in a cold sweat. Maybe I am on the spectrum. Wasn’t this just the sort of obsessive compulsive behaviour that people with Asperger’s had? Once they’d embarked on a mission, there was no diverting them.

  To hell with it! Put it all out of your head! This is not about you.

  ‘Nikki, I’m back.’

  No rehearsals. No dry runs. If they went badly it could only make things worse. Get it right the first time.

  ‘Let’s go back into a gentle descent just as you did for the cloud. Use the trimmer wheel again if you like. D’you see that conical volcano on the nose? That’s McLaughlins Mountain. That’s just to the left side of the extended centre line for runway 23. If we come abeam that at about a thousand feet we’ll be about right.’

  At McLaughlins I called Johnnie. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had an ally on the ground.

  ‘Juliet Alpha Zulu, clear to land, runway 23, wind, two three zero, ten knots.’

  I acknowledged.

  ‘No further calls required. Good luck.’

  Then we were heading up Puhinui Road. I positioned myself about 100 metres to her left, and slightly behind, to give myself the best possible view.

  ‘Carb air back to warm. Bring the throttle back to 1500 rpm … that’s good. You might want to trim back just to get the tension off the control column.’

  ‘Looking good.’

  Eight hundred feet.

  ‘See the runway?’

  No reply.

  ‘Aim for the piano keys.’

  ‘Power back to 1200 or so.’ She had about 75 knots. In the final approach of a flapless landing the nose attitude is a little high and forward visibility not that good.

  ‘Come a little round to your right. And hold it there.’ She was back on the extended centre line.

  Six hundred feet. I could make out the emergency services, the crash wagons, gathered discreetly clear of the holding point on the right, behind them the domestic terminal, and beyond that the international terminal. At the far end of three kilometres of runway, the dark waters of the Manukau harbour and, on the horizon, the sharp silhouette of Manukau Heads.

  Four hundred feet.

  ‘Trickle a tad more power off.’ If we crossed the threshold at 100 feet and 70 knots, we’d be all set up. Automatically I called the tower.

  ‘Juliet Alpha Zulu finals full stop.’

  Then she lost her nerve. It was a cry of anguish. I could barely distinguish it.

  ‘I can’t do this!’

  ‘Nikki. Be my hands and feet for one more minute and I promise I’ll get you down.’ I had to be careful about my own flying. I had full flap, pitch full fine, gear down. It was absolutely essential that I not get in front of her, that I not lose my ringside seat.

  ‘Pull the throttle right back now as far as it will go.’

  Two hundred feet and two hundred metres short of the piano keys. She could glide in from here. Wind, ten knots straight down the runway, thank God. A crosswind would have made it impossible.

  One hundred feet over the threshold as planned. Power off. Seventy knots. I wanted Nikki to be an automaton. Like some sort of psychic medium, I wanted to occupy her consciousness and land that plane.

  ‘Bring the nose up, very gently, hold it there … keep the wings level …’

  Fifty feet. All the runway length in the world.

  ‘Nose up … hold that.’

  Forty feet. Thirty feet, twenty … Speed coming back nicely.

  ‘When I tell you, but not yet, pull the control column right back and hold it in your tummy. Do it when I say “now”.’

  Ten feet, nearly at the stall. From here the aircraft might still bounce and pitch and yaw and go out of control.

  Then I saw Juliet Alpha Zulu lose flying speed and sink.

  ‘NOW!’

  It was a heavy landing but she didn’t bounce. The aircraft veered off to the left. No matter.

  ‘Pull the mixture right back!’ If only she could perform that last task, the engine would stop and the aircraft would come to rest.

  Then Juliet Alpha Zulu swerved underneath me and was lost to my view.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo going round.’ I suppose I could have landed straight off halfway down the immense runway but I elected to overshoot and come back round. I made a low-level left-hand circuit and got a good view of JAZ, now stationary on the grass, surrounded by emergency vehicles.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo finals complete.’ Automatically I went through the ‘CUP’ checks. Cowl flaps checked, undercart down and locked (check three greens), pitch full fine.

  ‘Echo Bravo Echo clear to land. Bloody good, mate.’

  II

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I took her out for a drink, and dinner. Where’s the harm in that?’

  Prof Girdwood glared at me across the desk. Then he picked up the morning edition of the New Zealand Herald and tossed it across so that it landed with the front-page headline confronting me, like an accusation.

  ‘Trust me: I’m a doctor.’

  Below was a picture of Nikki and me. We were sitting on high stools, at a bar in downtown Auckland. The background was an extensive mirrored drinks gantry with a very large collection of single malt Scotch whisky. Nikki wore her great mane of curly light brown hair down. She was wearing a summery orange V-neck, hollow-back sleeveless mini-dress that blended beautifully with her hair colour and her light tan. In the picture she had formed her full luscious mouth into a pout, had put an arm round my neck, and was leaning forward as if taking aim.

  ‘Bloody young fool!’

  Morley Girdwood was the Medical Director at Middlemore. He was an orthopaedic surgeon, a heavy grey man, the most intimidating man in the hospital. Orthopaedic surgeons are not renowned for their tact or diplomacy. They make no attempt to cultivate any form of sympathetic bedside manner. Sometimes I think they must have taken, as part of their training, a postgraduate course in abrasiveness. Girdwood was the past master. But I knew how to deal with it. The last thing you needed to do with the Medical Director was to kowtow. If you didn’t stand up to him, you didn’t have a hope.

  ‘Morley, this is ridiculous. The Herald is just being mischievous. None of this has got anything to do with medicine. Haven’t I got a right to a private life? What I do of an evening is not in the least in the public interest. The Herald should mind its own bloody business.’

  ‘Alastair, you’re being naïve. You must have known yesterday’s madcap jaunt would attract some publicity.’

  ‘Madcap jaunt? You call saving a life a madcap jaunt?’ I could feel myself getting hot under the collar.

  ‘That’s just the point. You were in a position of trust. The young lady was looking to you for care. She was vulnerable. You had a responsibility.’

  ‘Yes I did. And I fulfilled my respo
nsibility. I think Nikki did rather well by me. She is, after all, unharmed. More or less.’

  ‘It’s all about perception. The public are not going to distinguish between a doctor who stops at a road crash to help a patient, and one who uses his skill to avert a plane crash.’

  ‘Bollocks! And bollocks again! I wasn’t using my medical skill. This is aviation. It’s an entirely different universe.’

  ‘Once a doctor, always a doctor.’

  ‘That is just utter crap. By that reckoning, the entire medical profession would be permanently celibate. I didn’t come into medicine to join a monastic order.’

  ‘Did you sleep with her?’

  ‘None of your bloody business.’

  Girdwood fixed me with his caustic stare.

  ‘You did, didn’t you?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Oh my God.’

  We glared at one another across his desk.

  ‘Well, I expect the GMC will be on your case quite soon. Expect a few phone calls. You’ll be in real trouble if the young lady puts in a complaint.’

  ‘That isn’t going to happen.’

  Girdwood raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘What will the next headline be? “Middlemore emergency doctor abuses position of trust …”’

  That was it. That was what really bothered him, the possibility that his beloved institution might be dragged through the mire.

  ‘This has got nothing to do with Middlemore.’

  ‘Naïve, again. It really doesn’t matter what you, or I, think about this. It’s the public perception. If the public see you as a doctor helping a damsel in distress, you’re stuffed.’

  ‘Morley, I did not form a doctor–patient relationship with Nikki. Well, apart from putting a crepe bandage on her ankle.’

  That did it. I could actually see Prof Girdwood’s blood pressure going up. His heavy grey face was turning purple. For the first time, it crossed my mind that maybe I had – if only for a minute – been Nikki’s doctor. Girdwood’s sham rage was about to become real.