by Gavin Lyall
I took a slow, deep breath. The Mitchell smelled. Of petrol and oil and hydraulic fluid and plastic and leather and sweat, but all adding up to some new, strange smell that would be the way all Mitchells smelled, because every type has its own smell. It was somehow interesting, but for some reason worrying, too.
I took a high step forward and, hunching myself up, eased into the left-hand pilot’s seat, being very careful not to touch any lever or switch that might drop the whole plane on its backside. No switch should, of course, but who repairs safety locks after twenty years?
Under the transparent roof, the cockpit was like a furnace. The leather seat singed my bottom and I felt sweat start to trickle down my ribs. But I got myself as comfortable as I could, and started a careful look around.
It was as bad as I’d expected, or worse. How I’d ever make any sense of it or find any control in it…that airspeed indicator reads up to 700 mph – must have come out of a crashed jet; no Mitchell ever did half that speed… and what instrument should be in that empty socket?…Then I knew why the smell had worried me.
She was a woman I’d been warned off by everybody and my own common sense. And now I’d come close enough to get the smell of her in my nostrils.
Slowly, gently, I reached out my hands to touch her.
I was lying on my hotel bed reading a loose page of the Mitchell handbook that illustrated seven different types of smoke and flame that might be met coming out of its engines, and wondering which of them I’d meet coming out of the room’s air-conditioner, when somebody knocked at the door.
I yelled’Animo!’ and J.B. walked in, wearing a skirt, a bra, and an expression as if her best-rehearsed witness hadn’t turned up in court.
‘A spider the size of a horse came up the plug hole in my washbasin,’ she announced coldly, ‘and the telephone doesn’t work.’
I smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s nice to know Barranquilla hasn’t changed. The trick is to hit them both with your shoe.’
‘Listen, chum: that spider wears the same size boots as I do, only eight of them.’
‘Use my washbasin, then.’
She looked at me, then it, suspiciously. But the first thing I’d done when I found there wasn’t a spider in it at that particular moment was shove the plug in. When I’d found a plug, of course.
She discovered which tap worked and started splashing tepid water around herself. I put down my Smoke and Flame Identification Chart and watched. She had a slim, firm body and small sharp breasts more or less inside the thin bra. She caught my eye, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She didn’t flaunt her body, but maybe she used it a little defiantly, so as to sneer at people who thought it was the true J.B. Penrose.
When she’d finished drying herself on my towel, she just stood there and said: ‘Well?’
‘Sit down and talk it over.’
‘I was just wondering,’ she said heavily, ‘if I had to spend the night with that damn tarantula or whatever. And what a brave fighter pilot might do about it.’
‘That’s what I’m prepared to talk about. Anyhow, what about the brave Hollywood lawyer? Why don’t you slap a court order on him?’
‘The hell with you, Carr.’ But she grinned suddenly, vividly, and sat down on the end of the bed. I reached for the half-bottle of Scotch in my bag. ‘Drink?’
She nodded, picked up the page of the Handbook, and started reading. ‘Puffs of black smoke… thin wisps of bluish-grey smoke… variable grey smoke and bright flame… heavy black smoke – Christ, it sounds like the penalty clauses I write in contracts. Do these thingshappen to that aeroplane?’
I winced; the flight handbooks have a certain realism you don’t get from the manufacturer’s brochures. ‘Not all at once, I hope.’ I passed her a fairly clean glass of neat Scotch.
‘Thanks.’ Then she turned suddenly serious. ‘Look, Carr -youdon’t have to take on flying this old ship.’
‘We’ll manage.’
She eyed me carefully. ‘You aren’t trying to… to prove anything to the Boss Man, are you?’
‘No. Flying aeroplanes is my trade.’
She nodded and we sipped silently for a while. Then I said: ‘So – tell me about your early Me and struggles.’
She smiled again. ‘Early life spent in San Francisco. First struggle with a kid named Benny Zimmerman.’
‘Who won?’
‘Me. He’s probably still walking around doubled up holding his… where I got him with my knee.’
‘Mistake. It could become a habit.’
She looked at me. ‘It has, chum. You don’t win law-suits on your back.’
I gave her what was intended to be an encouraging and friendly smile. ‘How did you get into the law-suit business?’
‘Usual way: four years college – at Los Angeles. Couple of years law school.’
‘Perhaps I meant “Why?” ‘
She considered, then said thoughtfully: ‘I guess… I justlike the law. I don’t mean I’m a great crusader for justice, anything like that. I just like it as sort of machinery: a way of doing things exactly, of getting them just right.’ She looked up and grinned. ‘Maybe I just mean I like writing watertight contracts. Doesn’t sound very noble, does it?’
‘You’re talking to a man whose first job was shooting down other pilots. Go on.’
‘I don’t mean squeezing anybody on the fine print, either -1 just mean getting itright; so it’s what everybody wanted and nobody wastes time breaking it or dodging it or fighting it. Maybe like a good aeroplane engine: so all the wheels really fit. Hollywood’s built on contracts – well, so’s any business, but pictures more than most. Nobody in pictures can remember what he promised five minutes back, even if he wants to. So -somebody’s got to make the wheels fit. I try.’
I nodded slowly. ‘Sounds worth doing… And I can vouch you’re good at it.’
‘Funny. I was expecting you to say something else.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘I like to think I’m a professional, too.’
‘I don’t mean that. I guess I was braced for you to ask “Wouldn’t I be better off with a Man and a House and chasing a flock of kids around the backyard”.’ She frowned. ‘Or maybe why wasn’t I lying on my back shouting “Come and get it”? A girl doesn’t get much room for manoeuvre between those two ideas.’
‘Or, “If she won’t hop intomy bed, shemust be Lesbian.” Right?’
‘Yes, I’ve heard the bastards say that, too.’
I spun the Scotch bottle along the bed to her. ‘Well, it was you who chose to live in that stronghold of Victorian morality called Hollywood.’
‘I did that,’ she said grimly. ‘Thank God for smog and Communism. They broaden the conversation there, anyway.’
I eyed her nearly bare upper half thoughtfully. ‘Actually, I wasn’t trying to broaden the conversation.’
She looked up quickly. ‘You don’t have to make a pass at me just because we’re stuck in the same hotel.’
‘That wasn’t why. I’ve just got a feeling about you… And me. It scares me, a bit.’
For a long time, we looked at each other down the length of the bed. And the room was very still – except for the air-conditioner wheezing like an old lecher peering through the key-hole.
Then she said, in a small, shivery voice: ‘I know, Keith.’ Then shook her head. ‘I told you I wasn’t settling for just a brand on the backside. Nor a one-night stand in some flyblown hotel-‘
‘Spider-blown, please.’
She grinned exasperatedly. ‘Okay. But I still mean it: get tangled up with me and you’ll have one hell of a job getting clear again. I’m not one of your North-Coast tourists looking for a quick tumble under the mango trees with the hired help, no strings attached, bacatomummy in two weeks.’
‘You’re pretty clear about what you think I think, aren’t you?’
After a moment she said quietly: ‘I’m sorry. I guess being a lawyerand Hollywood – it makes you too suspicious. I like you, Keith. You�
��re an independent sort of character…’
‘Come up this end.’
She hesitated, stood up, walked three paces, and sat down beside me. A deliberate, but perhaps wary, movement.
I reached and put my hands on her bare shoulders. ‘You’re a pretty independent character yourself. I’m not trying to spoil that, nor take advantage of it. And I’m not kidding myself I could own it – or want to. I just like it.’
She ran a finger down my forehead, my nose, across my chin, splitting my face neatly in two. ‘You know,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘if you cut your hair more often and shaved a bit closer, you’d be quite a handsome guy.’
I pulled her down – or she leant – and kissed her.
Then she pulled back and there was a flicker of worry in her eyes. ‘It scares me, too, Keith. And you’ve got a plane to fly tomorrow.’
‘I always have.’ But she held back against my pull.
‘You don’thave to fly this one. I’ll back you right up if youwant to go back and say it just won’t do.’
‘If she won’t fly with me shemust be a Lesbian.’
She grinned quickly. ‘And you don’t even know my name -what the J.B. stands for. I thought Englishmen never seducedgirls without being properly introduced.’
‘You’re thinking of two Englishmen in a railway carriage.’
‘Fact? I didn’t realise your railways were so exciting.’ After a while, I said: ‘You could always tell me yourname.’
She smiled again – but then stood up. ‘Keith – if it’s what Iwant, it’ll wait. A bit, anyway.’ And again, the flicker of worrythat I couldn’t quite understand.
But gradually the mood dwindled and died like smoke on alight wind. I said: ‘There’ll come a day.’
‘I hope so, Keith.’ She stooped quickly, kissed me, and wasgone.
A couple of seconds later she was back.‘What about thatspider?’
I sighed and handed over the remains of the Scotch.
‘Sprinkle that on him. He’ll curl up like Benny Zimmerman.’ She grinned, touched my nose with one finger, and was goneagain.
One of these days I’ll remember to bring a cheaper spider-killer than Scotch to South America.
FIFTEEN
At seven-thirty the next morning we – the Mitchell and I – lined up on the runway. It was the still clear time between the land breeze and the sea breeze, between the morning mist and the heat haze. As good as I’d ever get.
The cockpit windows were open and the engines were giving off a terrific dry clatter a few feet from either ear, sounding as if they were trying to eat their own insides. But it was the same noise they’d made at the run-up the night before, soperhaps it was the sound Wright Cyclones always made.
I looked carefully around the cluttered cockpit. The flight instruments were still dead; I wouldn’t know about them until we were in the air. But the engine instruments all seemed to be registering.Supercharger to low gear; booster pumps to ‘emergency’; mixture… I had the page of the flight manual which gave the landing and takeoff checklists, but nothing to show at what speed she left the ground – or ought to. Well, I could guess: it was going to be over 100 mph, probably nearer – No. Stop guessing, Carr. You’re going to get the fastest flying lesson of your life on this runway. Don’t cloud your tiny mind with preconceptions.
A Spanish accent in my headphones said: ‘Mitchell on runway, you’re clear to take off.’
I pressed the transmit button on the wheel. ‘Thank you, tower.’
A last slow look around. Engine and oil temperatures going up… throttle and pitch locksoff… flaps full up – I’ll use them when I’ve learnt to trust them… harness and hatches all secure… No parachute. But nobody jumps from a first flight; nobody writes a divorce clause into a marriage; nobody has a taxi waiting at the door when he gets into bed with the girl for the first time.
Nobody jumps from a first flight. Not in time, anyway.
The tower said languidly: ‘Mitchell, you are still clear to take off.’
D’you think I’m sitting here waiting for a sun-tan, you stupid fat slob?‘Thank you, tower.’
But the engines were collecting a tan: the temperatures were on the edge of the red line. Still, one last, slow look around… ah, the hell with it. She’s an aeroplane and I’m a pilot. And neither of us virgins. Something’ll happen. I pushed the throttles to thirty inches of boost and flipped off the brakes.
Suddenly we were running.
No control, none at all. The wheel limp and loose, the rudder pedals flopping meaninglessly… and beginning to swing left. Left? Why the hellleft? Wake up, Carr: these are American engines, turning the opposite way to British ones, sowe swing left, not right… Dab of brakes… more. Jerk. Straight again… But a bad start.
Still no control…50 mph… andstill no – yes, now. The pedals hardening, the wheel growing stiff in my hands… now, control… touch of right rudder, nicely done, you’re no beginner, Carr – did she notice that?…60… more rudder…70…75… nosewheel should come unstuck now, back on the wheel, back more -God, but she’s heavy. Wake up, you overfed bitch… The nose suddenly pivoting at the sky.Hold it down, careful, don’t try and rush things.
Eighty…85… How much runway have we used? And what happened to that extra 4,000 feet they’ve talked about building all these years?…90… coming up to 95… getting time to fly. Slight back pressure on the wheel – and nothing. Nothing.
One hundred… Ifelt back on the wheel, gentle fingertip movements searching ever-so-delicately for a response, a waking, a willingness… ahead the end of the runway, the scrubland beyond, and then the roofs of the town…
One hundred and five… I gotfirmeron the wheel…
One hundred and ten… Damn it, I’m the boss around here. Nowfly, you bitch!
And suddenly but smoothly, to show thatnow was exactly her moment, she flew.
The scrubland flicked beneath, then the town itself. At 175 mph I let her lift into a shallow climb – and we were running gay and young up the morning sky, twisting, solid but fast on the controls, into a wide climbing turn.
Finally I levelled off, throttled back, and stared, rather surprised, round the cockpit. It was still a junkshop window of non-matching instruments, sweat-corroded levers wrapped in sticky black tape, cheerful little notices sayinglimiting speed 349mph with the 349 scratched out and 275 scratched in. She was an old over-painted hag, but she’d once been young and powerful, and she hadn’t forgotten the great days.
There had tobé areason why she’d lasted twenty years, longer than I’d been flying myself.
So perhaps, after all, there was more than money in it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said softly, ‘that I called you a bitch.’
I had her refuelled while J.B. settled our account and we flew out, all three of us this time, for Kingston at nine-thirty. I was anxious to get airborne before the midday heat.
A full set of,airline radio equipment would have cost three times as much as we were paying for the entire aeroplane, so we weren’t over-equipped in that direction. The Mitchell had a ten-channel VHP set without crystals in half the channels, an elderly radio-compass, and that was all. So a 500-mile ride over the sea left an awkward gap in the middle where I couldn’t raise a single station. Not that I was worried about navigation – Jamaica’s too big to miss entirely – but I’d have liked to have someone to say goodbye to if the occasion arose.
But it didn’t. We landed at Palisadoes soon after noon.
I planned to keep the Mitchell there a few days, learning about her while I had a long runway for errors, and getting her hydraulics patched up. We parked off behind the pier of cargo sheds and went to phone Whitmore.
He wasn’t available, but J.B. got Luiz at Oranariz. After a bit of chat she put me on for a technical report.
‘Tell Whitmore,’ I reported, ‘that she’s a tired old lady, but still a lady. There’s a bit of a bombsight mounting left in the nose, so you can probably fix a camera on that. And you cou
ld work another sideways out of the old gun windows down behind the bomb-bay, if you want to. We’ve got about three hundred dollars-worth of work to do on the hydraulics and rewiring the intercom system. But that should cover it.’
‘Fine. Get J.B. to sign you an okay, and you can get somebody started on it.’
‘And tell him I’ll fly her up to Ochoríosas soon as it’s done. Two or three days.’
‘I will tell him. Have you seen Diego Ingles yet?’
‘No. Was he supposed to be here?’
‘I expected him to be. He and I drove down last night to meet you when we thought you were coming then. I had to be back at work today, but he was most anxious to see the new aeroplane so he stayed.’
‘Well, it’s a bit early for him to be up and about yet. You want to speak to J.B. again?’
‘No – only tell her to hurry back. One of the extras has broken his ankle and talks of suing us for a million bucks. We want her to break his spirit also.’
I rang off and passed on the message. J.B.‘s eyes guttered ferociously. ‘Goddamned extras who try and make a name by doing something crazy in camera and break their necks andthen sueus. I’ll see that bastard never works in pictures again.’
Suddenly she wanted to be off and into the fight. I watched her go. She was quite a lawyer. Perhaps even quite a woman -if her lawyer let her be.
I went upstairs and had my usual lunch of beer and hot dogs before starting work on the Mitchell. Word of her had got around already – an airport’s a small village when it comes to gossip – and die refuelling supervisor was almost polite to me. I knew why, too: the Mitchell’s fuel Consumption seemed to work out around 145 gallons an hour – five times as much as the Dove’s.
After that I waved Whitmore’s name and income around die hangars until I had a couple of mechanics tracing down the hydraulic lines. I could see from their faces that diey didn’t believe what they were finding and couldn’t find anything they might have believed.
But she was like that all the way through. As a plane built towards the end of the war, she had started life full of hasty modifications: extra gun hatches chopped out all over, chunks of armour plate slapped on here and there, auxiliary fuel tanks stuffed into every corner. And since then, most of the gun hatches had been roughly sealed up, yet anodier tank had been built into the bomb bay, somebody had added diree swivelling armchairs and piece of carpet in die narrow cabin behind die bomb-bay, carved out four pordioles and installed a hot-air system diat looked like two metal pydions in position 69.