by John Masters
Friday 13 June
This was a breeze after yesterday afternoon, Guy thought. As the forecast had promised, they’d had plain sailing as far as Bordeaux, where they refuelled. But soon after take-off, crossing the western Pyrenees, they had run into an Atlantic low-pressure system that had thrown the great machine all over the sky, set the long wings to creaking and waving, ripples of stress moving along them, while torrents of rain dashed them in the exposed cockpit and blurred their goggles, so that at times they could hardly read the instruments in front of them. They’d climbed to the Buffalo’s ceiling of 18,000 feet, even pushing her a little higher – to no avail: the cumulo-nimbus still towered thousands of feet above them. So, setting his teeth, and easing the throttle back a little to reduce the strains on the fuselage and wings as they bucked in and out of the turbulence, Guy kept his course, plunging, rising, falling. Through everything the four engines purred contentedly on between the wings, the four four-bladed propellers turning steadily, a shower of water spinning from the tips into the dark void beyond and on to the fuselage behind the cockpit.
But today, after a stop-over in Madrid, with the Spanish air force at Carabanchel, what a change! The edge of the Atlantic ran like a ruler below them into the hazy south-west – Gibraltar passed, then Ceuta, and a landing for fuel for the long leg to Ifni … and now, blue sky, cool at this height of 8000 feet, no turbulence, only a gentle rocking, a slow rise and fall as though the Buffalo was cradled by the ocean far below there, not by the unstable air. Guy leaned back, his hands light on the control column. Yesterday he’d flown from England, over all France, and half Spain. How much history had passed beneath his wings without affecting him, or his machine? Down below, if he had made the journey by land, as Billy Bidford was doing to Constantinople, he would have passed through ruined towns, pockmarked fields, forests ripped by shell fire, acres of crosses marking millions of dead, smashed factories, starving children, women prostituting themselves for a loaf of bread. But up here … only now and then the outline of an ancient city beneath the sand, the line of a Roman road across the land … cleanness, light, speed. Perhaps he should try to live in the air all his life. Was it possible? And take whom with him? And so avoid all fear, pain, worry, responsibility? Frank was surely flying away from his wife and the baby that was not his, the sense of being soiled, betrayed …
Some strange rhythm intruded on his thoughts and he sprang back to where he was. What was wrong, or different?
Frank said, ‘One of the starboard engines is misfiring, sir … It’s the pusher. See, now she’s throwing oil all over the place.’
Guy glanced to his right and back and saw oil spewing from the pusher engine. Frank said, ‘Better cut it out, sir.’
Guy nodded and pulled the engine’s throttle back. The propeller whirled more and more slowly but did not stop, until after a minute it was windmilling round and round, still throwing oil. The loss of the engine’s power, and the drag of the propeller, dropped the airspeed to 80. Guy shouted, ‘We won’t be into Ifni before dark now. I could land. The desert looks quite hard down there. What do you think’s wrong?’
Frank said, ‘Don’t know, sir … There’s an airfield at Agadir, and that’s close.’
‘All right. We’ll land there … unless another one goes.’ He pointed down to the earth, smiling – ‘Thank God for a full moon.’
But another engine didn’t go and the Buffalo ground on above the edge of the sea. The air began to stir and the skies to darken. Below, a circular sandstorm took possession of the western rim of the Sahara; and Guy thought, if we have to land in that, we’ll be in trouble. But the storm whirled and danced far below, its only effect being some jerky movements of the plane, as invisible arms of the cyclone reached up into the middle air and tried to drag it into its heart. Then as they left the storm behind, and the air grew calmer, Frank said, ‘Wind’s moved round, sir … on the ground at least.’
Guy glanced at the panel – air speed still 80. But if the wind was behind him at this altitude, as it seemed to be at ground level, then he might be making more than a hundred, ground speed.
They were passing over a spur of the Atlas that ran down in steep crags into the Atlantic. The air became turbulent again, calming as soon as the mountains had passed behind the wings. ‘That’s Agadir,’ Guy said, ‘straight ahead.’ He could almost glide in from here.
He leaned back. Billy Bidford would be somewhere in Germany now, depending on the state of the roads, civil wars, riots … and how the Sunbeam went, of course. It was great fun, these races … exciting, worthwhile for England, worthwhile in themselves. And when they were over, and they’d drunk the victory champagne, then what?
Saturday 14 June
Guy gave the starboard engines more throttle to turn the big plane more sharply on the tall, lush grass. Aside he said to Frank Stratton, ‘We must get the grass cut before morning. This’ll add five or ten per cent to our take-off run, and we don’t have the room.’
Frank said, ‘You’ll have to get it done, sir. I’ve got to find out what makes that starboard pusher misfire.’
Guy nodded. The starboard pusher had started misfiring again, but only half an hour before the end of the day, so it had hardly marred an otherwise perfect day. And now they were in Bathurst, taxiing through the grass over the rich, light red soil below, a row of tall palm trees shielding the field from the ocean, a small hut at one end, the tropical sun sinking fast into the ocean behind the palms.
Guy swung the Buffalo round and cut the engines. The wind was warm, soft, and damp, blowing down the coast in the North East Trades. He’d have it more or less behind him for the first three hundred miles tomorrow, and then, after crossing the equator, nothing as he reached the Doldrums … but no one really knew much about the air patterns in the upper air, only on the surface, where the information was vital to sailing-ship captains.
Frank was already down, reaching up to give him a hand. He jumped to the ground and went forward, pulling off his helmet and goggles. A thin man in a white suit and white solar topee was waiting at the hut, several big Negroes behind him. He came forward now – ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Guy Rowland, I presume.’ The remark was meant to be a joke, but it didn’t come out that way because the man’s personality was obviously as cold as a fish’s. He said, ‘I’m Dragee, Deputy Commissioner … in charge of making all arrangements here for your little venture … at the orders of the Governor.’
‘Glad to meet you, sir,’ Guy said. He didn’t really have to call a deputy commissioner ‘sir’, but this man would probably relish it. ‘It’s getting rather dark, and there are a couple of things that need doing urgently … Could you have the grass cut? It’s so heavy that it will affect our take-off.’
‘I don’t see any difficulty,’ Dragee said, ‘but there’s no hurry. The petrol for your machine has not arrived.’
Guy said tensely, ‘It was supposed to come in on SS Kalahari two weeks ago.’
‘Quite,’ Dragee said, ‘but the Kalahari was delayed ten days in Dakar with engine trouble.’
‘That’s only just up the coast. We could have landed there,’ Guy exclaimed. Damn the man! Why hadn’t he cabled London days ago, so they could make other arrangements?
Dragee said, ‘Quite. But the Kalahari was then in collision – only a small one – when leaving harbour – and she had to return to Dakar, and is not here yet.’
‘When do you expect her?’
‘She has no radio,’ Dragee purred. ‘I really couldn’t say. But it could be tomorrow.’
For a moment Guy glared at the man as he had glared at German pilots in the air over the Western Front. Dragee blinked. Guy controlled himself and found a smile. Dragee looked alarmed. Guy remembered that his smile looked worse than his frown, because of the severed branch of the mandibular muscle on the right side of his face, which held that side of his mouth down, even when he was smiling. He said, ‘I hope you have someone at the docks to unload the petrol and bring it up here as
soon as it does come in.’
‘Of course,’ Dragee said. ‘One other thing … This came for you two hours ago.’ He held out a slip of paper. Guy read aloud: ‘To Rowland … From Sykes, Civil Aviation. Alcock and Brown took off early this morning from Newfoundland.’
Guy scrumpled the paper furiously in his hands, crying fiercely, ‘Christ, I hope they don’t make it!’
Stratton said, ‘Sir, you can’t mean that!’
Once again Guy controlled himself, and said – ‘Of course not. Can we send a cable from here, sir?’
‘Certainly. I have a car here to take you to my bungalow. These men are from the Royal West African Frontier Force, our Gambia Battalion. The native sergeant there will see that your machine is safe.’
‘I’ll get them to help me tie it down, sir,’ Frank said. ‘And then I’ll stay and work on that engine … I can sleep here, I suppose.’
Guy said to Dragee, ‘I’d welcome a bath and a bite, then I’d like to come back here and stay with my mechanic, if you don’t mind.’
‘That can easily be arranged,’ Dragee said. ‘And perhaps you’d like to see the paper … The road racers are in Hungary, and running into a revolution. Bideford and a Frenchman are in front by several hours, apparently.’
Guy grunted non-committally. He really must rid his mind of the idea that any race would decide Florinda’s love.
Sunday 15 June
Guy and Frank dozed under the wing of the Buffalo all night in the still, dense dark, hearing the distant rumble of the sea on the beach beyond the palms. Soon after dawn the sergeant brought them cakes of unleavened bread, and fruit, and they ate. Guy said to Frank, ‘The ruddy Kalahari may dock at any moment … wish we could see the harbour from here … not that it would help.’
The hours passed, the heat increased, the sun rose. Guy strode up and down, the sergeant returned, running, to announce ‘Sah, ship at dock now!’ An hour later two battered lorries ground up, loaded with tins of aviation fuel; then Guy, Frank, and the soldiers worked for another hour and a half filling the Buffalo’s tanks.
Finally G-BGR stood ready, fully loaded. It was a few minutes before four in the afternoon, and a slow, wet, hot wind was blowing straight down the field from the sea.
‘Estimated flight time to Natal is nineteen hours, ten minutes,’ Frank said. ‘If we take off now we should be landing about eleven in the morning Gambia time … ten, Natal time.’
Guy followed Frank up the portable stepladder on to the wing, through the port, into the cockpit. Two soldiers followed, each carrying a starting handle. One by one the four engines coughed and sputtered to life, one by one the four propellers started to rotate. The soldiers pushed their starting handles back into the plane through the entry ports, and then clambered back to earth. Frank recovered and stowed the stepladder and closed and fastened the entry ports.
Guy said, ‘All ready?’
Frank tugged at his sleeve and pointed. A small old Rowland Ruby was puttering towards them across the field. It stopped beside the Buffalo and Dragee jumped out. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted something; but they could not hear against the thunder of the engines. Dragee dived back into his car and came out with a big notebook. He wrote in it, and held it up to them, close under the cockpit. Guy read aloud – ‘Alcock and Brown landed Ireland this a.m.’
Guy raised a hand in acknowledgement, his lips tight. To hell with Alcock and Whitten Brown! He pushed the four throttle levers slowly, firmly forward. Buffalo G-BGR lumbered down the field, as ponderous as its namesake in the hot afternoon light. She’s never going to get off, Guy thought grimly, his right hand pressed forward against the throttles, his left firm on the half-wheel of the control column … there must be something in heat and damp that made engines work less efficiently … it needed working out, scientifically, not this by-guess-and-by-God method … ‘56, sir,’ Frank shouted. That was take-off speed at this weight … the end of the field was coming fast, marked by the sergeant at one side and a soldier at the other. ‘60,’ Frank said, ‘… 62 …’ Guy eased the stick back and the Buffalo slowly, unwillingly, lifted off the ground on its 1850-mile flight to Natal, Brazil … climbing heavy-laden now towards the brighter air of the sky, through a yellow band, through scattered playful little clouds, the sea below ironing out to a blue sheet, the palms and houses falling back … now only the sea.
‘Phew!’ Frank said, grinning at Guy. ‘Glad we had the grass cut.’
Guy nodded. ‘Let’s have some coffee, Frank. I was too busy on the checklist before we took off.’ They passed the Thermos back and forth; then settled down. The sun sank deliberately towards the sea. It was pleasant and cool at 8000 feet, the engines thrumming, the big blades turning lazily, the air rushing past.
After an hour of silence, Guy said, ‘Frank, I love one woman, but feel it is my duty to marry another … who is also a very attractive, and good, lady. What should I do? Or should I not marry at all? I’m the Butcher, remember.’
Frank’s face showed his startled astonishment. The colonel was years younger than himself, but he was the colonel. He himself had told the colonel of Anne’s unfaithfulness, but … this was different. He said at last, cautiously, ‘I suppose one is Lady Jarrow, sir.’
Guy nodded, ‘Just as the Daily Mail trumpets. I’ve known her since we were children. I’ve always loved her, too, I realise now, though there has always been so much affection, as well, that I didn’t know it until recently. But am I the right man for her, even if she’d have me? She likes the theatre … society, Ascot, the London season … all the things she didn’t have as a child, but thought she was entitled to for being beautiful.’
Frank said, ‘Why, sir, you could give her all those, with what you’ve done.’
‘I know,’ Guy said, his mouth grim, ‘but I don’t like any of it … The other lady is Maria von Rackow, Werner’s widow, … and her baby. She had a boy on the 20th of May – and is calling it Guy.’
‘But you don’t – er – love her?’ Frank asked. ‘You can’t have seen very much of her, can you?’
Guy said, ‘No, but isn’t it my duty? I am Werner’s reincarnation, as well as his executioner.’
‘I don’t think any man should marry for a sense of duty, sir,’ Frank said energetically. ‘Except p’raps those blokes that get girls in the family way. But even then, it’s not the right way to start off, is it?’
Guy said, ‘But perhaps it’s duty that we’re missing now. We had duty for four years, and now … it’s gone. Everyone for himself. Fuck you Jack, I’m all right. I might be happier knowing that I had done my duty rather than doing what I wanted to do. I know plenty of people who are looking for happiness, at the expense of duty or responsibility … and do they find it? Never!’
‘Wait a mo’!’ Frank exclaimed, half-rising against his seat belt, and staring at the port pair of engines. ‘Revs irregular, pusher,’ he said. Guy could hear it now, and looking at the rpm counter fixed to the inboard side of the strut by the engine, saw the needle wavering. Then Frank exclaimed. ‘She’s leaking petrol, sir … quite a stream.’ Quickly Guy switched off that engine. A spray of petrol was still flying back over the cylinders and propeller boss, but the engine, thank God, had not caught fire, though it still might. They waited tensely, staring. The cylinders cooled fast in the rush of the cold air. At last Guy said, ‘Pheew! … It still might catch fire, but not very likely now.’ Seventeen hundred miles to go, speed down to eighty, and petrol being lost steadily … Alcock had already beaten him. Better turn back to Bathurst.
Frank had undone his seat belt and was taking off his flying boots and getting into a pair of thin rubber-soled gym shoes. Then he began to fasten himself into a sturdy webbing harness. The straps were four inches wide, with strong brass hook-and-eye fastenings. From the side of it dangled more webbing straps and hooks. Frank shouted, ‘I’ve always thought I might have to go out on the wing if we had engine trouble in flight. So I made this harness, and tested it out in sec
ret, because I knew you’d say no … But it holds me safe. And I can take all the tools I need, and a spare timing arm, and a file in my pockets … Now sir, if you’ll throttle back as slow as you can.’
Guy stared at him. He was going to walk out on the wing, held against the slipstream by that harness attached to the struts. He could step on the walkway, as the fitters who started the engines on the ground had to; and the belt looked strong enough, but … 8000 feet up! It would be wiser to turn back … Frank pleaded, ‘Don’t turn back, sir! I want to make it just as much as you do … There’s no danger. The gym shoes stick like glue.’
Guy made up his mind and put his hand to the throttles. Stalling air speed would be 45 with that dead propeller … he watched the needle circle round … 70 … 60 …. 55 … that would do. She was like a lead balloon on the controls, but she wasn’t heaving; the air was still and she’d make a good steady platform. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Be careful.’
Frank crawled back into the tunnel of the fuselage; for in the cockpit they were twelve feet out in front of the leading edge of the wings; and Guy did not see him until, leaning out, at last he saw Frank’s arm and head appear out of the fuselage’s port hatch. Reaching out from there, Frank hooked one of the loose straps of his harness round the nearest strut on that side. Once it was secure, Frank followed, standing upright, pulling himself forward by the harness until he reached the strut. Then he took the second loose strap, and working round the first strut, and reaching as far out as he could, fastened it round the second strut. There, held now by both extra straps to the second strut, he began to work with a screwdriver and spanner on the nacelle casing of the port pusher engine. The slipstream from the tractor engine ahead roared past him, tugging at his clothes … but his feet were secure, Guy thought, and that was the big danger. If they slipped out from under him he’d have the hell of a job getting back upright … He had the aluminium casing open; it suddenly blew away on the wind and vanished astern … no great harm done … the propeller of the dead engine was windmilling gently, the cylinders spitting oil. Frank was feeling in his pocket, pulling out something – a roll of adhesive tape. He was leaning into the engine, working with both hands, braced against the cylinders. Guy couldn’t see what he was doing, but could guess – sealing a break in a fuel line with the adhesive tape; the jarring of an aeroplane in flight was always cracking or breaking the rigid metal tubing, usually where it connected with another part of the machine … Frank was turning, one thumb raised. Done! He made a motion of starting the propeller and Guy thought, is that safe? If he slips he’s so damned close to that pusher … but Frank was right; there was less danger than in him coming back, and then going out again if the trouble hadn’t been cured. He switched on. The windmilling propeller dragged in fuel, the spark fired it, and the exhausts puffed out dense blue smoke. The engine whirled into life, and Guy at once throttled back. Frank waved, and, as carefully as before, made his slow way back to the cockpit. Guy waited until Frank crawled out of the fuselage and took his place in the other seat. There he sat silent for a long time, until Guy said, ‘That was a good job, Frank … You all right?’