The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller

by Carol Baxter

  The engine purred, the sun shone, the clouds and wind and sand and other weather annoyances kept their distance. Chubbie’s optimism grew.

  At Jodhpur’s aerodrome they were met by a representative of the Maharajah, the state’s ruling prince. Taken to his home for the night, they were awed by the opulence: his palace, surrounded by a lake; his glittering state jewels; his 110 cars, including thirteen Rolls-Royces. Like a greedy boy, he told them that he now wanted an aeroplane.

  Agra, their next destination, could be seen long before they reached the city—dominated by the Taj Mahal’s gleaming magnificence. Bill dropped down until they were flying directly above and around the mausoleum. Chubbie thought it the loveliest sight she had ever seen, both then in the sun’s glow and later when they wandered through the building in the silvery moonlight.

  After a dawn departure they headed towards Allahabad some 265 miles away. Conditions were perfect, with a crisp morning breeze tempering the sun’s gentle warmth. Bill flew east-south-east until they reached the mighty Ganges River, a mile wide in some parts, then followed it towards Allahabad, which was situated on the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

  At the sight of hundreds of crocodiles sunning themselves on the river’s mudflats, Bill dropped to ten feet so they had a close-up view of the river monsters. Some slid into the river as soon as the plane appeared while others lay there lethargically, ignoring the gnat buzzing over them. They could see why the crocodiles flourished there. Their feeding ground included hundreds of dead bodies that floated along the holy river’s surface.

  Hawks and vultures flying above the river headed towards them. Bill steered away from them as if he were avoiding anti-aircraft flak. After everything they had survived, it would be humiliating to be brought down by an inquisitive bird.

  They remained in Allahabad—the ‘city of God’—for two nights so they could attend a dance then flew to Patna where they stopped for the night. The following day, Monday, 19 December, was the beginning of Christmas week. They had planned to celebrate the festive season in Australia; however, even the most optimistic of new itineraries wouldn’t get them there until early in the new year.

  As Bill hurtled down Patna’s strip to commence their 300-mile journey to Calcutta, he realised he couldn’t move his joystick far enough to take off.

  The Red Rose could be controlled from either cockpit by the simple expedient of inserting a joystick into the appropriate slot. When both joysticks were in place, they moved in unison so control could easily be handed from one pilot to the other. Since Basra, though, Chubbie’s joystick had had limited functionality. They had been forced to install extra fuel tanks in the front cockpit to assist with the long Far East hauls, and this restricted the front joystick’s manoeuvrability. Chubbie was supposed to remove her stick before they took off, but on this particular morning, she had clearly forgotten to do so.

  As Bill jiggled his joystick, he saw a huge pile of road-metal looming towards them. This ugly sculpture of leftover stone, cinders and tar warned him that the end of the runway was fast approaching. He tried pulling his joystick back, but it barely moved. The front stick must have jammed when he had pushed his own stick forward. It was now too late to slow down. It was too late to change direction. It was too late to do anything but close his eyes and hope they cleared the deadly obstacle.

  If sheer willpower alone ever lifted a plane off the ground, this was the moment. The Red Rose cleared the heap by only two feet.

  Safely aloft, Chubbie received a note from Bill asking that she remove her joystick. She replied, ‘You’ll have to climb while I get it out.’ To climb, he had to pull his own joystick towards him which would help release hers.

  After climbing for a while, he obviously thought she’d had enough time to remove it because he levelled out. But she wasn’t finished. And now his change in direction jammed her stick between the fuel tank and the instrument panel.

  The plane suddenly dived towards the ground. Her jammed stick was preventing Bill from manoeuvring his own stick and he had lost control. Unless she could release her joystick, they would continue to dive until they slammed into the ground.

  As she tugged and tugged, Bill pummelled her on the head screaming, ‘Get that stick out! Get that stick out! I’m rigid. I can’t move my stick.’

  She screamed back that her joystick was stuck. The plane continued its dive. They both went silent as the ground rushed towards them.

  With terror-induced strength, she fisted her hands together and whacked the joystick sideways, a dangerous move in any situation. But her drastic action was enough to release the jam.

  Bill pulled his stick back. With only forty feet to spare, the Avian flattened out and started climbing.

  Calcutta was easy to spot because of the city’s pall of smoke, pumped from the jute-producing factories that were one of the city’s major industries. They landed at Dum Dum aerodrome around 2 pm on 19 December, where Bernard Leete met them. Aviators Leete and Neville Stack—the man who had taken Chubbie for her first flight—had jointly flown the first light plane to India.

  Knowing how thirsty they would be, Leete had brought bottles of iced beer and glasses. After two joystick-induced near disasters, Chubbie thought that beer had never tasted so delicious.

  The beers weren’t just a much-needed refreshment; they were a celebration. The Red Rose now held the world record for the longest distance travelled by a passenger-carrying light aeroplane. And Chubbie had gained the world record for the longest flight ever undertaken by a woman. Bill said to the press, ‘It is fitting that the world’s record for women should be held by an Australian. It is a wonderful achievement considering the light plane used.’

  Tasmania’s Examiner responded, ‘Australia will crown her bravery with an immense welcome.’

  A third record was also at their fingertips. ‘If we reach Rangoon,’ Bill told the press, ‘we will hold the world record for the longest flight in a light aeroplane.’ The previous record had been set only two weeks before their departure by an 8000-mile flight from London to Cape Town.

  And if they made it to Australia, anyone attempting to beat their record would pretty much have to circle the globe, an unlikely flight in a light plane because of the long stretches of ocean. Chubbie and Bill would have their names in the history books forever.

  If they made it to Australia.

  Chapter Nine

  They were broke. And it was Bill’s fault.

  They had stayed two nights in Calcutta, fascinated by this huge, noisy, industrial city. Human voices provided a constant background hum, punctuated by rickshaw honks and tram bell trills and the mournful bellows of the water buffalo lumbering along its main streets. The only quiet was in the mosques and temples that seemed strangely out of place among the city bustle.

  On the morning of their departure, Leete was among the large crowd that farewelled them. He told Chubbie that while she had attended to her own preparations and packing, Bill had had a whole tribe of people endeavouring to put on his shoes and meet his every need. She would later grumble: ‘No doubt that was why he didn’t do any thinking for himself and left behind our most needed possessions.’

  Leaving India, they inched their way across the Bay of Bengal towards Burma, seeing nothing but water for hours. Once they reached Burma’s coastline, they followed it south over a mix of hilly and irrigated country to the town of Akyab (Sittwe). Fuel was easy to obtain because Akyab sat at the mouth of an estuary where three navigable rivers converged. After the Red Rose’s tanks had been filled, Bill reached into his pocket for their money. Pulling out an empty hand, he turned to Chubbie and asked, ‘Have you got the money?’

  ‘No, you insisted on keeping it yourself.’

  Then he remembered. He had placed all their money—£58—and his mother’s precious St Christopher medallion under his Calcutta pillow and had forgotten to collect them. Not only were they broke, they had lost their good luck charm.

  Chubbie be
rated him for a while then decided it was no good moaning. If they were stranded, so be it. They’d been in worse trouble before. She had the grand total of ten rupees in her purse, but it wasn’t enough to reimburse the now frantic old man who was pestering them for payment. Bill tried to explain what had happened and signed a chit for the fuel, assuring him that payment would soon come. He then used five of the precious rupees to send telegrams to the hotel manager, to Bernard Leete and to the Calcutta Police Commissioner to advise them of the loss.

  He made the mistake of listing his room number. When the authorities reached his room, the money was gone.

  The weather the next day was clear and bright, perfect for flying. They cheered up as they crossed some of the loveliest landscape they had seen during their journey. Sea as blue as the Côte D’Azur. Emerald islands. Pristine white beaches.

  Strong winds buffeted them as they crossed the Arakan Mountains, but their sturdy plane again came through unscathed. They followed the Irrawaddy River south above tiger-filled jungle to Bassein Creek, where they turned east. Shortly after 1 pm, they spotted Rangoon a few miles away.

  Chubbie was just thinking that she knew little about the city, except that they were to land at the racecourse and had been told to visit a stunning pagoda, when she heard some loud bangs from the engine. It began to screech. Then the plane started shaking violently. Clinging to her cockpit, she screamed to Bill, ‘What’s happening?’

  As Bill listened to the engine and felt the vibrations increase, he suspected that a piston or cylinder had broken. Whatever the cause, if the vibrations continued, the engine would be shaken loose. He must shut it down.

  The Red Rose had been flying over the sea at 2000 feet when the trouble began. He delayed shutting down the engine until he had turned towards land. They were now at the mercy of the air currents as he attempted a ‘dead stick’, or powerless, landing. At least he had enough altitude to allow him some control over where they set down. At 1000 feet he would have been forced to ditch into the sea.

  He looked over the side, searching for a suitable landing place. He needed to avoid the city’s busy streets, full of people, vehicles and animals. He also needed to avoid the fields where adults and children laboured. The only flat unpopulated stretch within gliding range was an absinthe-green field, a rice paddy seemingly, to the east of Rangoon on land separated from the city by a river.

  He steered towards it. In the almost surreal silence, he controlled the plane’s descent and lined up for the final glide. Then he remembered the fuel tank sitting on the cockpit floor in front of Chubbie. If the plane nosed into the ground or slammed into hidden rocks under the green surface, the tank could be pushed back onto her legs and crush them. He screamed at her, ‘Hold your legs up! I think we are going to crash!’

  Without the engine’s loud drone, Chubbie could easily hear him screaming at her to lift up her legs. She could even understand what he was saying. Yet her legs remained glued to the cockpit floor as if she had lost all connection between thought and action. Instead, her brain buzzed with horrible possibilities. Would the Red Rose remain upright or plough nose first into the ground and somersault? Would the undercarriage stay intact or collapse and slam the fuselage into whatever lay underneath the surface? Would she die?

  As the ground came closer and closer, she braced for the inevitable impact.

  The plane glided onto the paddy field. As it touched down, it settled in an upright position and continued to roll forward, its speed decreasing as the crops and muddy ground snagged at its wheels. Soon it came to a smooth, undramatic, trouble-free halt.

  For a moment she sat there unable to believe their luck. Then she stood and twisted around to face Bill. As they shook their heads in wonder and pumped hands furiously, Bill said, ‘We have the luck of a fat priest.’

  While luck played a considerable part, Chubbie knew that his presence of mind and calm control of the plane had saved their lives. They would later learn that Bill had chosen the perfect spot to land, a section of the paddy field where the reaped rice lay in heaps. It had cushioned their landing, protecting the Red Rose from the serious damage it would otherwise have suffered.

  One moment they were alone. The next, people swarmed towards them from every direction. Some were Burmese. Some Indian. All were fascinated by the sight of the downed plane. And they looked astonished when they saw Chubbie clamber from one of the cockpits.

  A local English-speaking man appeared and told them they had landed in an area that was surprisingly difficult to access despite its seeming proximity to Rangoon. The only transport to the city was by launch and the only telephone was at the railway station, a two-mile walk away.

  It was around 1.15 pm when they landed and the afternoon heat was already unbearable. They decided that Bill would accompany the man to find the telephone, leaving Chubbie to guard the plane. She soon regretted the decision. The Burmese were so intrigued by the plane they kept climbing over it and boring their fingers through its fabric, trying to work out what it was made of and how it worked. She—a tiny unknown white woman who didn’t speak their language—clearly had no authority in their eyes. They ignored her beseeching gestures and looks, her angry frowns and threatening fists.

  For two and a half hours, in heat so scorching that steam rose off the paddy fields, she raced around the plane pushing them away. While she was on one side, a flank attack would be made from the other, as if they were conducting a well-planned military assault. They all seemed to think it a great joke to watch her running a marathon around the plane, which motivated them to keep clambering over it and poking it, just to see her reaction. As they continued to do so, she feared that the plane would be damaged beyond repair by the time Bill returned.

  The English-speaking man had left two of his overseers to help Chubbie but they were as inquisitive as the rest of the locals. She tried to tell herself to be grateful that the Burmese hadn’t acquired the souveniring habit or they would have, bit by bit, walked away with the entire plane. She was at her wit’s end when an English couple named Tait appeared with iced soda water. They were as welcome as Bernard Leete had been with his beer.

  When Bill returned, the Taits placed a guard on the plane and guided them to their home. They had to walk through two miles of rice fields, cross a small stream, and climb through fences to reach the house. There Chubbie remained, while Bill was accommodated with members of the Burma Aerial Survey Company across the river at Monkey Point.

  Apprehensively, they returned the next morning to assess the damage. After a full day working in the sweltering heat, they concluded that everything except a piston was intact. But that offending piston was so badly damaged it needed replacing. So they sent another frantic cable to Bernard Leete in Calcutta, who had previously offered to provide his own spare parts if the Red Rose needed them. He replied that he would send his reserve cylinder and piston to Rangoon and they would soon be on their way again.

  By now they had only a few rupees remaining and it was time for desperate measures. Chubbie prepared a carefully worded cable to Keith in Australia: ‘Miller, Herald, Melbourne. Cashless.’ They didn’t want anyone in Rangoon knowing the miserable state of their finances.

  In the day since the forced landing, Chubbie had had time to ponder their misfortunes. On almost every travelling day they had suffered weather problems or other difficulties. Why such bad luck? Her first thought was the loss of the St Christopher medallion, until she remembered that their problems had begun long before they reached Calcutta. Perhaps a woman on a plane brought the same ill luck as a parson on a ship. Whatever the reason, she noticed with surprise that she still felt optimistic about their journey. Indeed, despite everything, she was still having the time of her life. She sent another cable to Australia saying, ‘Our tail is still up.’

  At least their cables were now free because they had befriended the sympathetic postmaster. They had also met an automobile-owner who allowed them to use his vehicle whenever they wanted. Thi
s saved them taxi fares, which was fortunate because they hadn’t heard back from Keith—no cable, no money, nothing.

  The Christmas holiday period was a difficult time to be broke. Everything was closed, including the telegraph office, so they couldn’t send Keith a second cable. For two days they went without lunch. On other occasions, they dashed down to Monkey Point and fed themselves bananas from the mess. British expatriates kept asking them out, but they preferred not to accept such offers when they couldn’t reciprocate, unaware that no reciprocation was required. For their would-be hosts, that vicarious link with excitement and adventure—with fame—was well worth the price of a meal.

  Meanwhile, at least sightseeing was free. Burma was still loosely under the control of the British Raj. When they stood in some parts of Rangoon looking at its neat colonial buildings and churches and ornamental gardens, it was easy to imagine they were standing in Britain—until they glimpsed the longyi-dressed locals and the Shwedagon Pagoda, with its gigantic golden stupa rising towards the heavens.

  After the holidays, Chubbie asked Mr Tait to phone the bank and enquire about their money. It turned out that their £30 had been sitting in the bank for the entire holiday period. They weren’t destitute after all.

  On New Year’s Eve, the Government Advocate, Professor Egger, hosted a fancy dress dinner for them. Somebody lent Chubbie a gorgeous black and gold outfit but, as always, it was too big. She decided that ‘tramp’ would have to do. She bought some white trousers and cut off the legs and picked at the lower edges to produce a ragged fringe. She tugged on a torn tennis shirt, cinching it at the waist with a length of rope. Stuffing a well-worn Panama hat on her head, she circled her neck with a red handkerchief and pushed her feet into dirty old tennis shoes. To complete the ensemble, she attached a full bottle of whisky to her waist-rope. She proved extremely popular at the party, due, she was sure, to the soon-empty whisky bottle.