by Deon Meyer
And my glide ratio I estimated at, say, twelve or thirteen kilometres for every two thousand in altitude. So I was still positive, but hell, that petrol gauge was low, I never saw it so low.
You know how it is, how you remember some things perfectly? For me it’s a lot to do with smells, I smell something, and the memory is so clear. But for that day I don’t remember a smell, I remember a scene, because it was so incredibly beautiful, and because I thought I’d better store it in my mind, in case it was the last thing I was going to see.
Because twenty kilometres from the Petrusville landing strip, the fuel ran out. Completely.
Chapter 35
Thielert’s gearbox: II
Hennie Fly
When the engine died, maybe it was adrenalin, but I felt I could see more clearly: I was just over two thousand metres up. Down below was Amanzi’s dam, stretching fifty kilometres from north to south, I was flying east to west, and that day the water was so very blue. The sun shone through the thunderclouds, like a beam of divine light, I’m telling you, such sunbeams, such rays, as if God were saying: I’m still here, Hennie, you just fly that machine. And the sun and the sunbeams shone on the surface of the dam. And the clouds were like, you couldn’t describe it. And there I was, just beneath them, and they were ranked in rows, like an army approaching, like towers, dark grey at the bottom, so dark they were nearly black, but up at the top they were the whitest of white, and they rolled and whirled up there, and you knew that if the Cessna ended up in one of those, if that convection current grabbed hold of you . . . and you could also see the lightning strike past you on one side, from the cloud to the earth, you saw it hit the highest mountain just south of Amanzi, and you knew your Melinda and the little children and all the people must have seen or heard it, you are so close to home. And you looked out on the beautiful world, the hills down there and the plains of the Karoo stretching out to Petrusville and beyond, to where the world ended. It spread so wide. And you pictured yourself and that little Cessna against the clouds and the waters and the earth, you were just a speck, so small, so insignificant, and suddenly the sun shone on you and the light went golden. I’m telling you, man, it was so beautiful I wanted to cry.
But you couldn’t cry then, because the engine was dead, the petrol was gone, and you had at least to try to land, even though you knew the chances were zero. Okay, not zero, but if you had to take a bet, the big money would have been on the side of a crash, because, as I said, the glide ratio said it’s just too far.
If you’re up there above the dam, on that specific spot, all your landing chances are equally far off. Because of the dam, and the hills, there isn’t a piece of ground flat enough to put her down. And I was gliding and I thought, try for the runway, Hennie, you know the approach, you know it best. Just try.
I was floating. It was a weird sensation, to fly like that after the engine’s long roar. It was suddenly so silent and calm and peaceful, and I could listen to the thunder. I flew into the rain, it clattered and spat, and then I was out of the storm again and it was quiet, and I looked at the beauty and looked at the instruments, and I thought, well, at least the wheat is here, if I crash this side of the runway, and the fuel tanks are empty, the Cessna won’t burn, they will surely find the wreckage and the wheat.
The winds of the thunderstorms pulled me this way and that, nothing was constant, everything was crazy; the main thing was to stay calm, not to overreact or overcompensate. So I kept my head, I had to get the wheat on the ground, that was the thing, but I was down to a thousand metres and saw clearly I would be way too short, four, five kilometres too short, it was an eternity, it was coming-down-in-the-water too short. I looked out and saw: due east of the airstrip the dam makes this funny bay, like an arrowhead, and I knew there was a Jeep track running down to that bay, and I thought, if I can just get over the water, I can try for that; it was bad and full of stones and gullies, but at least I would keep the wheat out of the water. So I headed for that and I prayed, though I knew I couldn’t make it, everything said that, the rate of descent and the distance and my own eyes and brain. No chance, I simply would not make it, I was going down in the dam, in the water. And then the convection current hit me, the turbulence lifted up the Cessna, like the Hand of God. Now, I know that does happen. I have flown on the Highveld in the old days, and a convection current would grab you and lift you up like an elevator one hundred, two hundred metres, it’s not impossible. But there over the dam that day, with that load of seed, and the engine dead and no fuel, it wasn’t coincidence; it was the Hand of God. It was no coincidence that it lifted me up, I’m telling you, five, six hundred metres. It was a miracle, nothing less than a miracle.
We crowded together in front of the old police station, around the bags of seed wheat. Pastor Nkosi spurred Hennie Fly to tell his story to the new arrivals as well. Hennie didn’t need much encouragement. When he had finished everyone cheered, and clapped him on the shoulder. He didn’t care about the admiration. Every time he just looked for approval in Melinda Swanevelder’s eyes. And he found it.
Within a short space of time he had to tell the whole story all over again from the beginning, to a new group. And with each retelling the Hand of God lifted Hennie and the Cessna a little bit higher.
Birdy Canary said, ‘That’s the last flight, Hennie. The petrol is going to get more and more contaminated from now on.’
‘What if I put it through a filter?’
‘It won’t help.’
Hennie looked crushed. Without a plane he just wouldn’t be Hennie Fly.
‘We need the plane badly,’ said Pa, looking worried.
Ravi Pillay said, ‘Indeed. It’s one of our few strategic advantages.’ He meant over the KTM and all the other evils.
‘We’ll just have to manage without it,’ said Birdy.
‘Look at the seed wheat. Look at the sheep,’ said Pa. He meant the more than four hundred sheep that Hennie had spotted over the past months in remote areas of the Karoo using the plane, and led expeditions to them. ‘Look at how much time and fuel we saved.’
‘And lives,’ said Beryl Fortuin.
Pa looked at Birdy. ‘We have to do everything in our power to keep the plane in the air.’ He would regret that a great deal later on.
Birdy shook her head. ‘Planes don’t fly on diesel.’
‘That’s not entirely true,’ said Hennie Fly.
Birdy Canary was involved everywhere. She taught a science class to the oldest children, trained teachers, since December she had been a permanent member of the Committee, on the insistence of the whole community. Birdy was Amanzi’s sharpest scientific brain, and her knowledge did not only include physics and chemistry but, thanks to her undergraduate studies, included a little botany, as with the genetically modified seed, and zoology.
Much to Domingo’s frustration, she and Pa developed a close working relationship, because they shared a passionate determination to let this community survive and thrive. After the tragic loss of human lives, Pa once said, the greatest damage of the Fever was that it deprived us of so many scientific and technological opportunities – it could have been a much better world already. And Birdy said, ‘Exactly! That’s exactly how I feel.’ And Nero Dlamini remarked drily a few days later that it seemed as though the two of them were trying to reclaim all the technological and scientific possibilities single-handed.
Among other things, Pa and Birdy were Amanzi’s long-term planners. Pa supported her enthusiastically when she did a fuel presentation at the first Committee meeting in January. She explained why the petrol in filling stations and tanker trucks would become less and less usable over the next few months. She told them they would have to produce biodiesel. She described the difference between ethanol and diesel, and explained why the former was not suitable for Amanzi under our post-Fever circumstances (basically she said we couldn’t easily or economically grow the necessary amount of sugar). Our future was in diesel. And that it was a hidden blessing,
because all the agricultural equipment ran on diesel.
She said we must start collecting sunflower seed to plant, starting next summer. To produce diesel from the sunflower oil. It wasn’t too difficult. And because diesel kept longer than petrol, we would be able to manage for at least another twelve months on old stored diesel. Perhaps even longer.
That was the reason Birdy told Hennie Fly there in front of the old police station that we would have to manage without our aeroplane.
She didn’t know about diesel-powered planes.
‘There are a few types of diesel planes,’ Hennie Fly told the Committee a week later during an official sitting. ‘But there were only two kinds imported into South Africa: the Cessna 172D – which is the same plane as ours, but with a diesel engine – and the Piper Archer DX. I don’t know where the Piper is that they brought in. But just before the Fever, I was chatting to a guy at the Heidelberg airfield. He said he really felt like buying a TD-Cessna, and he knew there was one at the Western Transvaal Flying School at Klerksdorp, and at the Hoedspruit Flying Club in the Lowveld. Now, Klerksdorp’s airfield is close by, just over three hundred and thirty kilometres from here . . .’
‘That’s a dangerous route, Hennie,’ said Ravi Pillay.
‘I don’t want to drive, I want to fly,’ said Hennie.
‘After your petrol troubles of last week?’ said Beryl Fortuin.
‘I looked at our supply. We have enough clean petrol, the dirty fuel was in the tank at the Petrusville airfield. But we’ll have to hurry, Birdy says the petrol is going to degrade faster and faster.’
‘That’s right,’ said Birdy.
‘So you want to fly to Klerksdorp first?’ Beryl asked.
‘Yes. And if that plane is okay, we’ll bring it back. Otherwise we’ll fly to Hoedspruit.’
‘And if both planes are unusable?’ Pa asked.
‘Then that’s the way it is. But if we want a plane, we’ll have to go and take a look.’
‘How far is Hoedspruit?’ asked Pastor Nkosi.
‘About eight hundred and eighty kilometres,’ said Hennie.
‘Can you fly that far?’
‘Easily. The 172 has a range of about one thousand six hundred kilometres.’
‘But you have to go there and back, Hennie, that is more than one thousand six hundred,’ said Birdy.
‘I know. But if I take a hundred and fifty litres of petrol, I’ll make it easily.’
‘What are the risks?’ Pastor Nkosi asked.
‘Oh, the usual . . .’ Hennie tried to make light of it.
‘And what would that be?’ Ravi Pillay asked.
‘Weather. Mechanical failure. Getting attacked when we land . . .’
‘We?’ asked Beryl. ‘How many people do you need?’
‘Only one other. You know how badly I shoot and fight. I’m looking for someone to cover me when we’re on the ground. I’ll have to take a battery along for the TD and install it. I have to check the tank drains, do a general pre-flight and I have to get the aerie going. It’s going to take some time.’
‘Can we afford to send two?’ Nkosi asked.
‘It’s not really that dangerous,’ said Hennie.
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Birdy.
‘You’ve no problem with me flying with someone nearly every day, if the weather is good, two, three hundred kilometres to look for the KTM or sheep or cattle. This may be just to Klerksdorp. About two hours’ flying. Even if we have to go to Hoedspruit, it’s just a few hours further. All the other risks remain the same.’
‘That’s true,’ said Pa. ‘We send four to six people out every day on the roads. We mustn’t overreact because this is by air.’
‘That’s right,’ said Hennie hopefully.
‘And if they do bring back a diesel plane . . .’ said Pa. ‘It’s a big prize. A very big prize.’
The entire Committee nodded.
‘Shall we vote? Anyone opposed?’ Pa asked.
Not a hand in sight.
‘Fantastic!’ said Hennie Fly. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’
‘It’s we who must thank you, Hennie. It’s a brave thing. Who did you have in mind to go along?’ Pa asked.
I sat in the corner of the room. I saw how Hennie Fly took a deep breath and then looked at me and said, ‘Nico.’
Chapter 36
Thielert’s gearbox: III
Sometimes I would fall asleep during the Committee meetings. Sometimes it would be so thoroughly boring to a fourteen-year-old that I would tiptoe out and help Domingo clean rifles in the sitting room. Tonight I had followed every word of the discussion because it gripped my imagination, especially after Hennie’s wheat seed saga. When he said my name, I was mute with astonishment.
But then I imagined the adventure, and all the fame that would go with it, and I said, ‘Yes!’
‘Be quiet,’ Pa said to me. And then to Hennie: ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘It’s the only way we can do it,’ said Hennie.
‘The only way. Why?’
‘I’ll have to fill all the tanks to the top before I leave. I told you I would have to take about a hundred and fifty litres of petrol, in case I have to come back with the same plane from Hoedspruit, if nothing goes right, if both the diesel Cessnas are out of action.’
‘Yes,’ said Birdy. ‘Makes sense.’
‘A hundred and fifty litres of petrol is about a hundred and twenty kilograms. And then I have to take at least a hundred and fifty litres of diesel along, because we don’t know if the TD has any diesel in its tanks, or how clean any diesel is that it may have. And we have to fly home.’
‘Okay,’ said Birdy.
‘That’s another hundred and twenty kilograms. And I have to take a spare charged battery along, because the TD’s battery is bound to be flat. I weigh ninety-four kilograms as I stand here. Then there are the tools, and a firearm or two, and ammunition, and food and water and a few other things . . . The thing is, there won’t be capacity for anyone heavier than forty-five, fifty kilos. Maximum. And the only guy in that weight category who can shoot straight is Nico Storm.’
Deathly silence. Then Pa shook his head. ‘No,’ he said emphatically.
I was fourteen that January in the Year of the Crow. Fourteen and a half, as I pointed out to Domingo.
A year or two later I would surely have thrown an adolescent tantrum – perhaps even in front of the whole Committee? – and told Pa precisely what I thought of such flagrant injustice. I would have screamed at him that at thirteen I’d been good enough to shoot two men dead to save his life, I was good enough to hunt buck and butcher them, get blood on my hands. At fourteen I was good enough for him to neglect me, so he could devote all his time to the people of Amanzi. At fourteen I was old enough to spend every second week up in the reserve with a gun and another fourteen-year-old; there was always the chance that the KTM or someone would get there and try to steal our livestock. But I couldn’t go with Hennie Fly?
At sixteen I would have, in a seething temper tantrum, venomously told Pa that a few fourteen-year-olds, and many fifteen-year-olds in our community had already been out on expeditions last year, during and after that dreadful winter, when we were desperate. But those were other people’s children, or orphans; did their lives matter less?
And then there was the fact that Pa, up to that day, had never told me he was proud of the way I had wiped out the pack of wild dogs so skilfully, and single-handedly, to save our flocks. It was a thing that I had been brooding over – why did Pa make little of it, why did he avoid the subject and not share the praise that was due to me?
I wanted praise and I wanted fame, like any fourteen-year-old. I wanted to be part of the legend of Amanzi, the legend of the First, the Pioneers, the History Makers, the Heroes. I wanted to impress Lizette Schoeman. At night I lay in bed before sleeping, and I dreamed about myself and Lizette, of how I would save her from the clutches of the KTM, and then she would say, ‘Nico, you are the man for
me,’ and she would throw her arms around me and kiss me. If only I could fly with Hennie, Lizette would realise I was old and big and brave enough for her. I so badly wanted to be noticed, talked about, as they talked about Domingo’s scornful stare when the KTM wanted to shoot him, like Birdy and the hydro-electric power, like Hennie Fly and the seed wheat. I knew I was destined for that kind of recognition. I knew it.
And now Pa was going to deprive me of that.
The crushing disappointment and frustration didn’t evoke a teenage outburst, but a fourteen-year-old’s tears. Which I had to choke back and hide. I got up and walked over to the door and out of it and kept on walking, through the sitting room of the Orphanage, past Domingo who watched me go, out of the front door and into the street, into the darkness.
Pa knew where I was. I watched him climbing up the hill in the darkness by torchlight, and eventually he reached me and sat down on the rock beside me. We stared out over the town on the right and the dam wall ahead, the streetlights looking like beads threaded in the night.
I could feel the tension in my father, I could feel the mass of words and emotions dammed up behind his silence. I waited for it to erupt.
He put a hand on my back, held my shirt as though he could hold me back. I heard him sigh. Pa, who always had the right words – and even knew where they came from – had nothing he could say to me now.
Later he shifted his hand, put it on my shoulder. We sat like that, for maybe a quarter of an hour, maybe half an hour, until Pa said, ‘I understand why you’re so disappointed.’
I said nothing.
‘Come, we must go to bed. Tomorrow is a long day.’
They chose Little-Joe Moroka to fly with Hennie. Little-Joe because he was intrepid and brave, only weighed sixty-one kilograms and was a reasonable shot. Little-Joe was twenty-two years old. When Pa said fourteen was too young, the others asked him, how old is old enough? And that put Pa on the spot where he had to voice an opinion, and he said if it wasn’t an emergency, older than eighteen, for sure.