Flying to Pieces

by Dean Ing

  "Sure, no wonder you couldn't find it," said the grandfather, and spelled it for him. "Apatite; phosphate. Somebody left a Letoumeau here.

  Can't surface-mined a deposit and imagine why." His words echoed in the shed.

  The old one beneath the vast machine lent his own echoes with, "You sure can when you see the chassis weldments here, Wade. Cracked, rewelded, prob'ly not heat-treated, Cracked again. Never haul twenty tons of ore again, but hnun. Lousy repair job but I think-mm. Well, we don't have a big welder's rig anyway."

  Keikano was quick to argue the point. A Japanese trader's marine engineer had welded a broken cargo boom using equipment in the next shed, he said. The old one replied that the job would be too great. When he had limped back to them, the old fellows traded guarded looks but said nothing more.

  Chip, meanwhile, had located a gaggle of old scooters, all with the Cushman logo, all stripped to varying degrees. "Too bad these are so far gone," he said gaily, sitting on one dusty relic, gripping its handlebars.

  "Shit, I've seen worse than this in Petersburg, hauling drunks from the pier to Alaskafe," said the old man. The elders began to poke around, muttering about filing points and cleaning plugs, whatever that meant.

  Keikano wanted to know. He also wanted to avoid the appearance of knowing. The English terms were entirely new to him. soon, with Chip searching the area to round up tools left on the floor for years, they had further delved into the guts of one Cushman, hands grimy, doing their magics with the aid of a miraculous device from the pocket of the blond dfather. Under their direction, Keikano and Chip used gran wire brushes to abrade the rust from the vehicle's shell and steering.

  "Please, sirs, do not say I helped with this work," Keikano pleaded. "It would become another duty for me after you leave." The yellowhair chuckled and said it would be their secret.

  At length, the men stood back and nodded. "We need light oil and gas now," said the older of the two. After some explanation-Keikano thought they wanted to oil some lights and did not realize gas meant fuel-the islander led them to the next shed.

  Now the Americans laughed and groaned some more. The lathe, drill press, and electric hand tools had rusted as well, they said, but one day they might function again if anyone knew how to use them. Oh yes, they knew these arcane skills. "The driver of the half-tirack," said yellowhair.

  "Now he's the guy who could use this stuff. Hey, he has gas! Where does he get it?"

  Keikano remained silent for a long moment. But these men did not need to know where the fuel dump lay; they only needed a few liters. "I think he gets it from a barrel outside," he said, leading the way.

  Chip, rummaging about inside, discovered a half-case of motor oil while the men found that the hand-cranked PUMP, screwed to a battered fuel drum outside, actually delivered a hefty stream of gasoline. A clean container proved to be the hardest thing to find. "A little grit in a Cushman's fuel line can shut you down," the old man said. Keikano knew that, too, but did not say so. Eventually they filled a bunch of discarded San Miguel beer bottles-there were plenty of those tokens of Manila culture around-and carried them back to the Letoumeau shed. Five minutes later, with anointments of oil in selected spots, they let Chip operate the kick starter. And again. And again, this time with a listless chug on its last revolution.

  More adjustments; and now, for the first time since Keikano was a child, that old air-cooled engine began to cough and snort and chuff and clatter and make all sorts of threatening noises. And the Americans were slapping one another's raised hands in some strange ritual.

  "Let's get the shell and seat on this thing," said yellowhair, "and you can ride it back to the council house."

  "Oh no," said Keikano, backing away. "I am allowed only when Merizo tells me to. But if Chip rides it, I could ride behind without offense.

  The minister will be most pleased."

  "It's loud as hell," said the one called Coop, "but nothing I can do about it. That old muffler's useless as tits on a sea urchin."

  "The louder, the better," Keikano smiled; his own private agenda. And anyway, it was true that Merizo liked machines noisy.

  "Whyn't you say so," said the mechanic, and took up a screwdriver, punching viciously at a hollow canister on the machine. And that is how Keikano happened to return to the council house an hour later, deliriously happy, arms clasped tightly around the waist of the manly and unprotesting Chip, on a motor scooter that bellowed. like a machine gun on wheels.

  Lots of progress, all of it trivial," Lovett said, the moment the barefoot native woman backed out of Reventlo's room leaving a platter of oddments as lunch for the six crew members.

  "That's more than I can say," said the Brit, unsmiling, selecting a piece of something broiled on a bamboo skewer. "Though it was a bloody great trainp for one morning."

  Vic Myles, hiking boots shed, rubbed his feet and groaned. "All that to find a bunch of rotted hulks," he said. "Shit, I don't even see much of a story in this."

  Gunther paused, his cheek full of something chewy. "Don't tell me you found the air chines already."

  "Myles thinks so," said the Brit. "We found aircraft, right enough, or what used to be -aircraft, most of it smothered in undergrowth. They were Nip, and they've been there forever. If the schoolteacher hadn't said there was an overgrown strip, we might have missed it."

  Mel Benteen, noshing a hunk of fresh pineapple, made a derisive sound.

  "You might've."

  "Give our devil her due," Reventlo murmured with a mocking obeisance.

  "I'd say the strip hasn't been used or kept up since this resort shut down; small trees growing on it. But Mel noticed the shell underfoot, tamped hard once upon a time, and it's decently flat for half a mile, from a sheer cliff all the way to the beach. Let me tell you, lads, it took lar e brass bollocks to take off and land on such an unforgiving strip as that. I doff my hat to the Nips of yore." This, from a man who had spent years of his youth as a Japanese prisoner, was rare applause.

  "The planes," Lovett persisted. "They aren't protected?" A sad headshake from Benteen. "Junk. They've been vandalized too."

  "One of 'em by a Browning fifty, judging from the holes," Myles added.

  "Maybe a strafing run, maybe in flight. They were sure 'enough Zeroes at one time, though. Honest to God Mitsubishi Zekes." A sigh. "I mean, there's no way any of lem are gonna fly again, Wade. An engine here, a wing propped up against a tree there. Stuff like flex hoses had been catmibalized, or completely rotted away. We might sell some of it as curiosities."

  Lovett said, "Bet I know where some of the stuff went. That old half-track has hoses that never came from the Western Hemisphere."

  "How many planes were there?" Coop Gunther was no longer chewing. "What does it matter," Myles asked, choosing a tidbit to eat.

  "You saw a lot of subassemblies," said Lovett, realizing what Gunther was getting at. "How many aircraft would they make?4'

  "Two or three," said Myles.

  "Possibly four," said Reventlo. "I admit we didn't tally it all up very carefully. We weren't exactly enthused tramping around in the bush, viewing all those pathetic remnants. But I see your drift, Wade.

  According to, Elmo, he found more than we did."

  "You know some Hong Kong trader got here first, you just fuckin' know it," Myles muttered.

  "No we don't," Benteen insisted. "My dad wouldn't have held such hopes for a few boneyard wrecks. His were protected."

  "Not anymore," from Myles.

  "I think," said Reventlo, with great patience, "she's arguing that the ones we found weren't what we're after. We've not been at it long enough to draw conclusions. But what's your news, Wade? You've got the look of a cockeyed optirnist."

  Lovett described the Quonset huts and their contents, not missing the interest in Benteen's face when he mentioned the earthmover. He finished by saying they might get most of those motor scooters running, a process sure to please the islanders.

  "The big rig was a vintage Leto
umeau?" Benteen was already smiling. "I suppose no one noticed how many axles or engines it had."

  "Suppose again," said Coop. "No duals, only two axles and one engine."

  "Sounds like an old L Ten Belly Scraper. For Letoumeau, that was dinky.

  Vee-twelve Detroit diesel, electric motors on each wheel, ten-yard capacity. I can chauffeur that," she said.

  Gunther: "Yeah? Can you patch a tire big as a wading pool?"

  Benteen: "The question is, can you? I was a heavy equipment operator, not a grease monkey."

  "Lots more wrong with it," Gunther said. "But what I didn't wanta say in front of the schoolteacher is, maybe it's salvageable.

  "Whatever in God's name for," the Brit asked him.

  "Beats me. It was just an idea."

  "We need better ones than that, and soon," the Brit reniinded them. "I can't putter about forever on this island with an aircraft that's already overdue in Alice Springs."

  Tropical noontime, with a full belly, is not a situation that promotes heavy thought. When Myles announced that he needed a nap, Gunther seconded the notion, following the Texan to the next room. From aloft, they had all seen a village to the north and Benteen wondered aloud whether young Keikano might give a guided tour later that afternoon.

  "I can ask him," said Chip, who yawned as he closed the cover of his computer. He ambled toward the doorway. "He'll be downstairs somewhere."

  "Take a transceiver," Reventio told him. "For now, when any of us is without the others, it's just good practice, chaps." With that, he tossed his own unit to Chip, who pocketed it and strolled out. "Wipe that worry off your face, Wade," he said a moment later. "He'll be safe with Keikano."

  "Uh, huh," Lovett replied glumly. "I'm just not so sure he'll be safe from Keikano."

  Mel Benteen had already stretched out on the big bed. Now, without opening her eyes, she intoned, "Lovett, are you wondering about your own grandson?"

  "My Chip? Then, angrily: "Are you completely nuts?"

  "Not so crazy I don't notice you didn't answer my question," she said sweetly.

  "Hell, no, I'm not concerned. Not in the slightest. Never. Not in a thousand-"

  "One answer is plenty," she said. "I understand 'no,' unlike some genders I could name. So what's to fear from a friendly little sprite like Keikano?"

  Put that way, Lovett's worry seemed an extravagance. He shrugged and changed the subject. "Fresh-squeezed juice is great, but I'd love a cold glass of water right now. If we're going to be here awhile, maybe I should hang around this afternoon and check the local utilities while you're doing the grand tour."

  "The toilets work, that's a plus," said Reventio.

  "Yeah, and lacking a filter system, what comes into 'em may be full of more crap than what goes out," Lovett retorted. "I'll take a look before we drink the water, okay?"

  So it was agreed. Lovett sought his room to wait for Chip and to see how the bed felt, and closed his eyes while waiting. From somewhere below the stairs, he could hear a piano rendition of "Clair de Lune."

  "We should be, damned ashamed of ourselves," Reventlo grumped, with a glance at his watch. "Half the ruddy afternoon is gone." Their little party stood in the lobby as Minister Merizo gave orders to the half-track driver, Keikano standing by.

  "Bitch all you want to," Myles retorted, "I feel like a new man.'

  "Anyone want to use that straight line," Benteen asked.

  "Too easy; I don't accept charity," Lovett replied, grinmng. "Besides, a little siesta was just what I needed. Coop, are you up to a long walk?"

  "Won't have to, Chip's driving me on the Cushman," said the old man.

  "You gonna teach that mechanic, what'shisname, how to use a wrench?"

  "Pilau," Lovett supplied, and saw the wiry fellow's head jerk at the sound of his name, although he was getting orders from Merizo at the moment. "I'll try. Showing him how a hose clamp works just about doubled his fund of knowledge.', Privately, Lovett thought Pilau might be smarter than that. As the rest of his party moved off, Coop Gunther riding with Chip on the scooter, Lovett began by visiting what had once been a modern, sprawling kitchen. The water taps worked and the outflow was clear. Lovett pantomimed drinking, then said, "Okay to drink?"

  "Pilau no sabby, alltime use stream. Masta Merizo ee say watta good.

  Lubbet go topside lookoutim dirt belong sweet watta," Pilau said, pointing upward.

  Lovett understood most of that and let the native lead to a ramp behind the building that led to its flat roof. He saw why the ramp was without steps: two wheelbarrows and a scatter of shovels lay atop the roof near big metal tanks. A brief inspection showed that water was pumped from some distant source to a flat covered tank filled with sand, no doubt Pilau's dirt belonging to sweet water." What filtered through the sand was then pumped into a tall holding tank. The whole business looked like an afterthought, but sand made a passable filter-if replaced now and then.

  Lovett made his next question clear only after pointing to the heaps of sand that had long ago been shoveled off the roof to mound in the ivy.

  Pilau said it had been "maybe this many" wet seasons, showing four fingers on each hand.

  "Too damned long," Lovett said, adding a "longtime, no good" for bad measure. The barrow wheels were simple spoked iron circles that squealed on their axles like tortured parrots when Lovett tried to spin them.

  Pilau, with a bright grin, recalled his lesson atop the half track.

  "Shckwatta ee fix machine, no cry alla time," he said brightly, and trotted off down the ramp.

  Alone on that rooftop, Lovett let the ambience of the island flood into him. The C-47 was a welcome presence, sun glinting from its aluminum hide in the near distance. The breeze was warm, pleasant. Somewhere below, a man laughed. Faintly, from much farther away, the breeze brought What could have been the chatter of a small engine, now waxing, now waning; probably Chip on that ancient Cushman. The air was blossom-scented, incredibly clear but no longer CAVU, with great cloud masses of cumulus lurking blue-gray on the horizon, tops rounded, bases flat as garbage scows.

  "Flat as my bank account, if this doesn't pan out," he mused aloud, and then turned to see Pilau trotting up the ramp, carrying a tin can full of some insipid-smelfing stuff. According to Pilau it was bum water, but also sfickwatersome kind of cloudy oil that, Pilau explained, came from

  "pinch kaikai belong coconut." It had to be coconut oil squeezed from edible copra, and before they left that roof Pilau had oiled everything on it that spun, or slid, or twisted, or looked to him as though it might someday want to. Once you got an idea into Pilau's mind, thought Lovett, the thing grew roots like a weeping willow.

  Evidently Pilau had asked for help while-getting the coconut oil, since a half-dozen sturdy natives came trudging up the ramp, propelled by the bass rumblings of Merizo from below. The men had short pithy phrases for Pilau and glances that said they weren't voting him citizen of the year.

  They did, however, know what to do. Two of them trundled the wheelbarrows away for fresh sand while the others removed the cover to the sand bed filter, then set about shoveling wet sand into the ivy twenty feet below. Pilau smiled and said if Lubbet was awright with the job, the two of them could go down and looksee machines belong iron string bring lightning-the electrical gadgetry and wiring, no doubt.

  Lovett began to appreciate that you could indeed say just about anything with a few hundred words of pidgin, though your exact meaning might be known only to God and the speaker.

  The power console was in the kitchen, a place that had seen its share of open fires. Judging from the smudges and debris, charroal fires had been built directly atop a big griddle. A pair of toothless women who could not have been much over forty were engaged in preparing food and watched without comment as Lovett peered at the outdated fuses. Several fuses were obviously blown, though a carton of replacements sat in plain sight. Lovett showed Pilau how to recognize a no good fuse, and how to change it, and as he screwed in'the first one he was r
ewarded by a sizzle, a hum from over that griddle hood, and a shower of sparks that sent the cooks wailing from the room.

  Pilau muttered something like pekpek, and strode fearlessly to the stove hood with its big inoperative exhaust fan. Ten minutes later Lovett found the bare wire that had shorted out after its insulation had burnt away in some forgotten culinary disaster. In a utility room off the kitchen, a sturdy old electrical plant shared floor space with deep-cycle batteries, and here at least Pilau seemed to know his way around. A man belonging to bigbig canoe, said Pilau, had fixed the thing two wet seasons back. He had been paid with a few rocks belong oyster for his trouble.

  By the time he heard Chip's little scooter again, Lovett had repaired several circuits shorted out by sheer invincible ignorance. Then he traced an extension cord-which was plugged into another, and so on, all the way down the hall to the presidential suite. Jean-Claude Pelele met him with a bright bogus smile that looked more genuine after Pilau described the old whitefella's agenda, but the big man goon tired of watching and padded into his harem to a chorus of birdlike welcomes.

  Lovett sighed, glimpsing a presidential hoard of bare young tits, as the door closed. Then he continued tracing that circuit.

  This single circuit, one of only two with good fuses, had powered Christmas tree lights strung along the wall near a uniquely weird four-poster bed big enough for a family of six, or for one vast President with a flock of underaged wives. The multiple 'outlet also powered a floor fan, a large-screen TV, and a VCR set against the wall facing the bed. Add one more lousy five-watt night-light, Lovett guessed, and the whole damned length of wiring-the iron string that brought lightning-would have gone up in smoke. With several live circuits now, he could spread the load; maybe check out the book-sized panel and speaker next to that four-poster bed. Good ol' Jean-Claude would love that, he thought, stepping near it, holding his Rexall reading glasses still as he read labels under the switches.

  At his back, Pilau's breathing was as loud as the beating of his -own heart. In the next room, a throaty presidential chuckle suggested too much; and in the distance, familiar voices echoed through the lobby as footsteps scuffed up the stairs. Lovett reached out one finger, toggled a switch.