Flyaway

by Desmond Bagley

  I looked down the cliffside and there was no movement to be seen. 'So we're in trouble.'

  'Not too much,' said Byrne unperturbedly. They won't climb up here in the dark, and the sun will set in an hour. I guess they'll wait until tomorrow. That gives us a chance to get lost.' He looked back at Paul. 'We'll give him time to rest up then push on.'

  'Where to?'

  'Over the rise there — to Tamrit and Assakao.'

  Never could I have imagined a landscape such as that of the Tassili n' Ajjer. We walked in the beds of long-gone rivers which, when in flood, had carved deeply into the soft sandstone, making what were now canyons, the walls of which were scalloped into whole series of shallow caves on all sides. When desiccation set in and the water had gone the wind had continued to work on the Tassili, abrading the sandstone for thousands of years and sculpturing the rock into pillars and pinnacles of fantastic shape, some towering two hundred or more feet, others undercut at the base and felled as a woodsman would fell a tree.

  The land had a baked appearance like an ill-made pie left too long in the oven and, indeed, the Tassili had been under the furnace of the sun for too long without the amelioration of vegetative cover. The sandstone was blackened and covered with a patina of what Byrne called desert varnish. 'You get dew on the stone some nights,' he said. 'And it draws iron and manganese to the surface. Next day the dew evaporates and the iron and manganese oxidize. Have that happening for a few hundred or thousand years and you get a good coating of varnish.'

  As he had said, it was a maze, the canyons that had been water-courses joining, linking and separating. I had the feeling that this had been some sort of delta, the end of a journey for a mighty river, once fast but now slow and heavy with silt like the delta of the Nile. But then it had come to Tamrit and the edge of the Tassili to plunge two thousand feet to the land below, taking the silt to what were now the huge dunes of the Erg d'Admer. And now there was no water. The land was dry as a camel bone found in the Tenere, but not bleached — rather sun-scorched and hardened like a mummified corpse.

  That I saw during the first hour before the sun set and then, at Byrne's insistence, we continued, aided by the lamp of a full moon, until nine that night when he relented and we made camp. By this time. Paul was near collapse and I was wearier than I'd been since our stroll through the Tenere. Too tired to eat, I crawled into one of the shallow caves in the rock and fell asleep huddled in my djellaba, I awoke in daylight to find a man looking down at me. He was dark-skinned and wore nothing but a loincloth and, in his right hand, he carried a spear. Behind him was a herd of cattle, healthy-looking beasts with piebald hides and wide-spreading horns. And beyond them was a group of hunters carrying bows, some with arrows nocked to the string.

  I blinked in surprise and sat up and stared. The man was nothing but paint on the wall of the cave, and so were the cattle and the hunters. I jerked my head around and saw Byrne squatting outside the cave, feeding the water-boiling contraption he called a volcano. Behind him Hami was loading djerbas on to a donkey.

  'Luke,' I said, 'have you seen this?'

  He looked up. 'Time you were awake. Sure, I've seen it — one of the Tassili frescoes.'

  I turned back to stare at it. The colours seemed as fresh as though it had been painted the week before and there was a fluency and elegance of line in the drawing of the cattle which any modern painter would envy. 'How old is this?'

  Byrne came into the cave. 'The cattle? Three thousand years, could be four.' He moved along the wall of the cave until he came to the end. 'This is older — this mouflon.' I scrambled to my feet and joined him. The wild sheep was more crudely executed. 'Eight thousand years,' said Byrne. 'Maybe more, I wouldn't know.'

  I began to examine the wall more carefully, looking for more treasures, but he said brusquely, 'No time for that We've a long way to go. Wake Billson.'

  Reluctantly I turned away, woke Paul, and then helped to make our breakfast. Not more than half an hour after I had woken we were on our way again, threading the canyons of the Tassili. An hour later I saw the green of trees, big ones lofting more than fifty feet. The branches were wide spread but twisted and gnarled. I said, 'There must be water here,' and pointed. 'Cypress,' said Byrne. 'Those can have a tap root a hundred feet long and going straight down. And they're older than Methuselah; maybe they were here at the time the guy was painting those cattle back there in the cave.'

  We left the trees behind and marched in silence and again all was silence except for the clatter of stones and the snorting of the donkeys and an occasional word passing between Atitel and Hami. There wasn't much to say about what we were looking for — everything had been said to exhaustion. And there wasn't much to say about Lash, either. If he was coming up behind he'd either catch us or he wouldn't.

  We stopped briefly at midday to eat, and again at sunset, and then pressed on into the moonlit night I thought it unsafe and said so, but Byrne was confident that Atitel knew what he was doing, more confident than I. Again we stopped at about nine and I found another cave. To my surprise I was not as tired as I had expected to be, and Paul was better, too. I looked at him as he unslung a jerrican from a donkey and thought of what Isaacson, back in Luton, had called him. A nebbish! The total nonentity.

  It was true! Hours had gone by at a time when, even in Paul's presence, I had not given him a thought. When we drove in the Toyota he always sat in the back and wasn't under my eye. On this, and other, desert marches he always brought up the rear. He said little, never commenting on what he saw, however wondrous, but just stubbornly put one foot in front of the other. And he never complained, no matter how he felt. It was something to say for Paul but, all the same, he might just as well not have been there. The nebbish!

  As for Luton — that was a million miles away, on another planet.

  We fed on dates and dried mutton and I asked Byrne what progress we were making. He chewed vigorously, then swallowed. 'Not too bad. Atitel reckons on less than a day and a half. He says he'll see a landmark he knows before dark tomorrow.'

  'What about Lash?' I said. 'And Kissack?'

  'What about them? At Tamrit we left them at least eight hours behind, and you can add another three hours tonight because they won't be moving at night. I guess we're a full day ahead. And they don't know where we're going.'

  'We've been leaving tracks. I've noticed. Prints in the sand and donkey droppings.'

  He nodded. 'Sure. But we've also been moving a lot on rock and leaving no trail. They can follow us if they know how but it'll take up a lot of time, casting around and all. That puts us another day ahead, maybe two.' He took another bite of mutton and said casually, 'We might run into them on the way back.'

  That's nice.'

  He grinned. 'I'll ask Atitel to take us back another way.'

  When I awoke the next morning I eagerly scanned the wall of the cave but, to my disappointment, it was bare rock. Kami had baked bread in the hot sand under a fire, and it was crunchy in the crust and very tasty if you ignored the gritty sand. After breakfast we set off again, Atitel leading the way through the shattered wastes of the Tassili n' Ajjer.

  The worst thing that could possibly have happened occurred at mid-afternoon, We were picking our way through a particularly bad patch where, for some reason or other, the wind action on the sandstone columns had been accentuated. The grinding action of sand-laden wind against the bases of the columns had felled a lot of them and, in their fall they had smashed and broken, leaving a chaos of debris through which it was difficult to negotiate our way.

  Suddenly the donkey which Atitel was leading brayed vigorously and plunged, butting him in the back so that he fell. He gave a cry and Byrne ran up and stamped at something on the ground. When I got to him I saw it was a snake.

  'Horned viper,' said Byrne, and ground its head to pulp under his heel. 'It scared the donkey.'

  It had done more than that because Atitel was sitting up holding his leg and groaning. Byrne examined it and look
ed up at me. 'It's broken,' he said flatly. 'Christ!' I said. 'What do we do now?'

  'Make a splint for a start'

  That wasn't as easy as it sounded because we had nothing suitable for a splint other than the barrel of the rifle. Unexpectedly, it was Paul who came up with a good idea. He tapped a jerrican which was hanging on the flank of a donkey and it rang hollowly. 'This empty?'

  'Yeah.'

  'We can bash it with rocks,' said Paul. 'Flatten it. We ought to be able to make some sort of rigid splint.'

  'We can do better than rocks,' said Byrne, and went to a donkey and unpacked the cloth-covered bundle he had brought. From it he produced a hammer and a cold chisel. 'Get that can on the ground.'

  It took time and the desert rang with the sound as it echoed from column to column but eventually we splinted Atitel's leg, padding it first and then binding the metal with strips ripped from a gandoura. He had stopped groaning and looked on interestedly as we did it.

  When we had finished Byrne squatted next to him an d uttered the first words of what proved to be a long conversation. I said to Paul, 'God knows what we'll do now. From what Byrne told me last night we're ten or twelve kilometres from where the old man said he saw the plane.'

  'We'll go on.' Paul's face was set in stubbornness. 'Be reasonable.' I waved my hand at the chaos all about us. 'How the hell can we find it without a guide? This, Paul — this bloody Godforsaken land — is the reason it wasn't found in the first place. You could walk within ten yards and never see it.'

  'We'll go on,' he said. 'And we'll find it.' I shook my head and looked to where Atitel was drawing with his finger in the sand. Byrne was asking questions. I shrugged and went to help Hami adjust the harness on one of the donkeys where the edge of a jerrican had chafed and worn a sore spot in its hide.

  Half an hour later Byrne stood up. 'Okay; Atitel and Hami are going back. The old man can ride a donkey and Hami will lead another with enough food and water for the two of them. He'll take Atitel to Tamrit and then go down into Djanet for help.'

  I said. 'They might run into Lash.'

  'I've told them about Lash. They know enough to keep clear of him. Hami will go back a different way.' He laughed shortly. 'I said it's a blood feud; they understand that.'

  'And us?'

  'We go on.' I looked at Paul, who was grinning. 'Atitel's landmark is unmistakable, according to him. It's a big rock column about two hundred feet high and split from the top to half-way down as though someone has driven a wedge into it — you know, like splitting timber. He says all we have to do is to keep going the way we are now and we should see it in a couple of hours.'

  'And the plane?' Paul's voice was shrill.

  'Is about three kilometres north-west of the split column.'

  It was chancy. Atitel's idea of north-west might not coincide with Byrne's compass, and I didn't like the sound of that 'about three kilometres' — it could be anything from two to four, more or less. I figured we might have to search five or six square kilometres. Still, it was better than the situation I had envisaged when talking to Paul.

  I said, 'Can you guide us back to Tamrit? I don't know that I could.'

  'Yeah. I've been taking compass bearings.' Byrne looked from me to Paul. 'Well, what about it?'

  Paul nodded vigorously, so I shrugged. If it was a question of taking a vote I was out-voted. I said, 'It's all right with me as long as Atitel will be okay. It's a long way back to Tamrit and then he'll have to wait alone while Hami goes down that bloody ravine and on into Djanet. Do you think it's fair on him?'

  'It's his idea,' said Byrne. 'He don't mind the broken leg just as long as he can get it set properly. He says he's broken that leg before. What he's really worried about is his ten goddamned camels. He wants them.'

  'Then tell him to pray to Allah that this is the aeroplane we're looking for.'

  We redistributed loads on the donkeys and then the two Tuareg went back, with Atitel riding a donkey led by Hami, his splinted leg sticking out grotesquely at right-angles. Then there were just the three of us left with five donkeys. I led two and so did Paul, while Byrne coped with one so that he could have a hand free for his compass.

  I was mildly surprised when we saw Atitel's landmark after a two-hour march. It didn't seem possible that things could go right for us -1 had half expected that we'd have to search for the damn thing — but there it stood unmistakably as Byrne had described it, a tall tower which looked as though a giant had taken a swipe at it with an axe and had cleft it from the top.

  We camped at its base. Paul was all for going on the further three kilometres to the north-west but Byrne wouldn't have it. 'It's late,' he said 'I didn't mind night marches with Atitel; I trusted him. But any one of us could bust a leg in the dark. We'll leave it until morning.'

  So we left it until morning and breakfasted before dawn, then set out as soon as it was light enough to see clearly. In all my years, even in the army, there was never a period during which I made as many dawn starts as in the desert. We marched three kilometres, Byrne setting the direction and pacing us. That took an hour. Then we stopped in the middle of nowhere and unloaded the donkeys and hobbled them so they wouldn't stray.

  The landscape was anarchic; a disorder of rock columns, a hugger-mugger of hiding places. Peter Billson's plane could be within a hundred yards but there was no way of knowing. I said into silence, 'It could have burnt out.'

  'No,' said Byrne. 'Atitel said it was intact. He's seen planes before at the airstrip at In Debiren and he said that this plane still had its wings on. He said it was exactly like the plane in the picture.'

  'That's incredible! You mean Billson landed in the middle of all this in the dark without bending anything. I don't believe it.'

  'He was a good pilot,' protested Paul.

  'I don't care if he could fly as well as the Archangel Gabriel — it still seems bloody impossible.'

  'Maybe the angeloussen helped him,' said Byrne. 'Now, we've got to do this real careful. No one goes off alone. We keep in sight or sound of each other. If you're out of sight keep hollering.' He stared at Paul. 'In this mess a guy can get lost awful easy so mind what I say.'

  Paul mumbled assent. He was quivering like an eager dog who wanted to go and chase rabbits. I said, 'I didn't look at those photocopies too closely. How big is this Northrop?'

  'Forty-eight feet wingspan,' said Paul. 'Length, thirty-two feet. Maximum height, nine feet'

  It was bigger than I had assumed. We were looking for something in an area of, say, fifteen hundred square feet I felt a bit better, but not much.

  'We spread out in a line, Paul in the middle,' said Byrne. 'And you take your direction from me.'

  And so began the search. We quartered the area in overlapping sweeps so as not to miss anything, and it was damned hard work. This was not a mere matter of making a march; we had to cover and inspect an area, which meant scrambling over rocks and looking behind every column in that broken wilderness.

  We searched all day without finding anything but rocks.

  That night Paul was dispirited. He huddled in his djellaba and aimlessly tossed a stone from one hand to the other while staring blankly with unmoving eyes. I didn't feel too good myself and said to Byrne, 'What do you think?'

  He shrugged. 'Maybe Atitel was out in his distance and direction. We'll look again tomorrow. Get some sleep.'

  'God!' I said. Talk about needles in haystacks. And there's that proverb about leaving no bloody stone unturned.'

  Byrne grunted. 'If it was easy to see it would have been found years ago. Atitel says he came on it only by chance four years ago. He'd come up here trying to trap wild camel foals and got himself lost.'

  'Why didn't he report it when he got back to Djanet?'

  'It didn't mean that much to him. If there had been a body he might have, but he said there was no body near.'

  'Do you think Billson tried to walk out?'

  'He was a damned fool if he did.'

  Paul came
alive. 'He wouldn't try that,' he said positively. 'He knew the rules about that. All the pilots in the race were told to stay by the plane if they came down.'

  'Yeah,' said Byrne. 'It's the sensible thing to do and, from what I've heard of him, Peter Billson was a sensible guy.' He paused. 'Sorry to bring this up, Paul; but when Atitel told me there was no body I had my doubts about this being the right airplane. What in hell would a good flier like your old man be doing way over here anyway? He'd be off course by nearly two hundred miles.'

  'Atitel identified the plane,' said Paul obstinately.

  'Yeah, but when I first suggested the Tassili you said yourself your father was too good a pilot to be fifteen degrees out.'

  It was all very depressing.

  We found it next morning only ten minutes after restarting the search. I found it, and it was infuriating to think that if Byrne hadn't called off the search the previous night another ten minutes would have done it.

  I scaled the side of a pillar of rock that had fallen intact and walked across it to see what was on the other side. There, in a sixty-foot-wide gully was an aeroplane looking as pristine as though it had just been delivered from the manufacturer. It stood in that incongruous place as it might have stood on the tarmac outside a hangar.

  'Luke!' I yelled. 'Paul! It's here!'

  I scrambled down to it, and they both arrived breathless. 'That's it!' shouted Paul. That's my father's plane.' I looked at Byrne. 'Is it?'

  'It's a Northrop "Gamma",' he said, and passed his hand almost reverentially over the fuselage. 'Yeah, this is Peter Billson's plane. Look!'

  Over forty years of wind-driven sand had worn away the painted registration marks but on the fuselage one could still detect the outline of the letters which made up a word — Flyaway.

  'Oh, God!' said Paul, and leaned on the trailing edge of the wing. Suddenly he burst into tears. All the pent-up emotion of a lifetime came out of him in one rush and he just stood there and wept, racked with sobs. To those brought up in our stiff-upper-lip society the sight of a man in tears is apt to be unnerving, so Byrne and I tactfully walked away until Paul could get a grip on himself.