(One)
Albertville, Democratic Republic of the Congo 14 December 1963
Air Simba Flight Number 104, Captain Jacques Emile Portet at the controls, made its approach to the Albertville airfield over Lake Tanganyika. The descent was shallow, as was the bank when Air Simba 104 turned on final. Low and slow, in pilot's cant.
Air Simba Flight Number 104 was a Curtiss Commando, a twin-engine, propeller-driven transport aircraft that was at least as old as its captain, who was four months shy of twenty-two years.
Indeed, the pilot's father, Captain Jean-Philippe Portet, who owned Air Simba, harbored a strong suspicion that he had flown the very same aircraft over the Himalayas-"Over the Hump" in 1943, when he had been a captain in the U. S. Army Air Corps.
There was a suspicious crease in the aluminum of the Commando's wing root, a groove about an inch deep and five feet long. Jean-Philippe Portet remembered a similar crease from long ago. After he'd landed a C-46 Commando loaded with fifty-five gallon drums of aviation gasoline in the rain at Chunking, the plane had been backed into by a truck driven by an enthusiastic but not too skillful Chinese ally. The wing root had been creased, but it had been determined that the damage was superficial, so the skin had not been replaced.
It was certainly possible that the creased wing root had been examined by others in the ensuing twenty years and that they had all reached the same conclusion: that the crease posed no hazard to flight. So, following the hoary adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," they all let the crease stay the way it was. Captain Jean Philippe Portet had seen a number of interesting coincidences in his life, and he believed that was another one of them.
In the current Air Simba incarnation of the Curtiss, a stylized lion, leaping, was painted on the fuselage. Above that was the legend AIR SIMBA. This logotype was repeated on the vertical stabilizer. The aluminum skin of the airplane gleamed where the insignia and the identification numbers had been painted, but elsewhere the skin was dull, and there were remnants of previous paint jobs and other identification numbers.
Air Simba itself was a new airline. And it had only recently come into possession of the airplane, so there had not yet been time to do much more to it than to see that the. aircraft was safe for flight and to add the logotype and Democratic Republic of the Congo identification number. Whenever the Commando landed at Leopoldville for an overnight stop-and there was time left after all the necessary maintenance-service stands were rolled against the fuselage, and barefooted Congolese attacked the grime and old paint with Brillo pads. Eventually the whole aircraft would gleam. Now it was more important to put the- plane to work.
The pilot of Air Simba Flight 104, Captain Jacques Emile Portet, had made a low and slow approach to Albertville both because, like his father Jean-Philippe Portet, he was by nature a cautious pilot, and also because he had a 1963 MOB and a couple of heavy crates (as well as lighter cargo) lashed to the floor of the cabin. He did not place a good deal of faith in the structural integrity of the fuselage floor. And there had not been time since Air Simba acquired the aircraft to really have the cabin floor properly inspected and if necessary replaced. There were no facilities in the ex-Congo Belge to magnaflux large pieces of aluminum. Or for that matter, small pieces of aluminum.
Captain Jacques Emile Portet was blond headed, fair skinned, and large boned. He was wearing a light-blue sleeveless sweater over a white, button-down-collar shirt. His tie was pulled down and his feet on the rudder pedals were clad in scuffed loafers.
First Officer Enrico de la Santiago was black haired, swarthy skinned, and slight of build. He was wearing a khaki shirt and trousers. The shirt had once borne the insignia of a captain in the pre-Castro Cuban Air Force.
Captain Portet and First Officer de la Santiago comprised the entire flight crew of Air Simba flight 104. There was supposed to be a third man, a flight engineer, but that would have meant another paycheck for Air Simba, and in the opinion of Captain Jean-Philippe Portet, who had often done so himself, the aircraft could be safely flown without one.
Captain Portet fils set the Curtiss smoothly on the ground, and then engaged the brakes very judiciously, using up almost all of the runway before he came to a stop, turned, and then started back to the Albertville Terminal. He didn't want the forces of deceleration to rip the heavy crates, or the shiny new 1963 MOB, loose from the cabin floor.
When, with an effort, Portet and de la Santiago had shoved the large cargo door on the left rear of the fuselage open and dropped the aluminum stairs out, a tall, tanned, heavyset man in a Stetson (of the kind favored by Lyndon B. Johnson) walked from a Jeep station wagon to the' airplane and waited for them to climb down. The man's name was K. N. Swayer.
There was a representation of an oil well drilling rig on the Jeep's door, and the legend UNIT RIG TULSA. K.N. Swayer was Unit Rig's boss in Albertville.
"How they hanging, Jack?" K. N. Swayer said, enthusiastically shaking Captain Portet's hand.
"One lower than the other," Captain Portet replied. "Say hello to Enrico de la Santiago."
"Pleased to meet you," K. N. Swayer said, pumping the Cuban's hand. And then nodding toward the airplane, he asked, "Jack, you bring it?"
"It and the Christmas trees," Captain Portet said. "I feel like Santa Claus." Captain Jacques Emile Portet's English was American accented: He was a Belgian-American. He had passports from both countries, both of which said that he had been born in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on June 6, 1942, which meant that he was some five months shy of his twenty-second birthday. His Belgian passport further identified him as an aviator, a pilot. The Belgian passport was nearly new, and when he'd had it renewed, he'd shown the clerks his pilot's license (Commercial; Instrument;
Multiengine Land; and Helicopter, Commercial) and had them put aviateur in the "Profession" block. Previously it had said "erudiant." His American passport, not yet due for renewal, still read "student," but that was no longer true. The faculty of the Free University of Brussels had the previous June bestowed upon him a degree in history.
"The Christmas trees?" K. N. Swayer asked incredulously. "Already? What the fuck am I supposed to do with them?"
"How big is your freezer?" Captain Portet asked dryly. Unit Rig Corporation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, had sold Union Miniere, the Belgian conglomerate which operated most of the tin and copper mining operations in the ex-Congo Beige, well over a hundred million dollars' worth of outsized earth-moving trucks. Final payment was to be, made only when the trucks were delivered and running in various locations in the Congo, including Albertville.
Moving the trucks by road from the port of Matadi, on the Atlantic Coast, to where they would be used was impossible for a number of reasons, and the assembled trucks were too large to be carried on what rail lines were available. [t had thus been decided to build and test the trucks in Tulsa, then to break them down into manageable pieces and fly them to the Congo for reassembly.
K. N. Swayer was the Supervising Engineer.
Despite the high pay and generous company benefits it offered its employees on the Congo Job, Unit Rig was having a morale problem. Some of this problem was based on the brutal Congolese climate and some of it on the isolation. Air-freighting a ton of Christmas trees from the State of Washington to various sites in the Congo was one of many gestures of company concern and goodwill toward its employees, and so was the air-freighting in of the 1963 MOB for Supervising Engineer K. N. Swayer.
With Jack Portet on his heels, Swayer climbed the aluminum ladder into the cabin of the Curtiss and walked to the glistening red sports car.
"Jesus, isn't that the cutest little fucker you ever saw?" Swayer said to Jack Portet.
"Adorable," Jack said. "All the Maniema maidens will be competing for a ride." The maidens of the Maniema tribe, the predominant tribe in the area, were not noted for their beauty.
"Fuck you, Jack," Swayer said amiably. "How are we going to get it off of here?"
"[ put it on with a forklift," Jack Portet
said.
"You didn't scratch it?" Swayer asked with concern, and bent over to look.
"I wrapped the whatchamacallits with rope," Jack replied, miming the forks with his index fingers.
"The forks," Swayer said tolerantly. "That's why they call them forklifts."
"Forklifts," Jack said. "Forklifts. I thought it was spelled ED." Swayer laughed. "Who's the Mexican?" he said.
"Cuban," Jack said. "He used to be in the Cuban Air Force.
My father hired him in Brussels. His family couldn't get out."
"Jesus!" Swayer said. "What we should have done was drop the 82nd Airborne in on Havana and then we should have shoved a Garand bayonet up that bearded spic's ass. Goddamn Kennedy anyhow. "
"Which Kennedy?"
"All of them," Swayer said. And he looked around the cabin and walked to a bundle of wire and canvas wrapped Christmas trees.
"There's ten in a bundle," Jack Portet said. "I figured that one bundle would be enough for here."
"Where's the others?"
"In the meat reefer in Leopoldville."
"You think they'll keep in a reefer?"
"I don't think it will do them any harm." Swayer walked to the door of the airplane and made a gesture to the -station wagon. A tall, slim Congolese walked to the airplane and climbed aboard. He was wearing a white shirt and a necktie, which were symbols that he had gone to school and had non-physical-labor employment.
He exchanged a few words in French with Jack Portet, and they shook hands.
Swayer pointed to the bundled Christmas trees.
"You think they'll fit in the station wagon?"
"Yes, Sir," he said.
"Well, get a couple of boys and load them up and take them to the hotel and tell Whatsisname . . ."
"M'sieu Gorrain?"
"Right," Swayer said. "Gorrain. Tell him I would consider it a personal favor if he could keep the trees in his reefer until it's time to pass them out."
"Yes, Sir." A half dozen Congolese climbed into the plane. They were barefoot and bare-chested, and there were far more of them than was necessary. Chattering animatedly, they manhandled the bundled Christmas trees off and into the hands of half a dozen more Congolese.
Jack Portet laughed delightedly and said, "Noel, Noel."
"What's so funny?" Swayer asked as he dropped to his knees to inspect the webbing holding the MGB in place.
"Your interpreter told them what they were going to do with the 'scrawny little trees.' They at first wouldn't believe him.
Even granting that the Americans are crazier than the Belgians, the head boy said no one would really store firewood in a refrigerator. " Swayer was more interested in his MGB.
"What did you do with the rope?"
"Just wrapped it around the forks," Jack said.
"That it over there?" Swayer asked, pointing to a coil of rope.
"Air Simba strives to please." Jack picked up the coil of rope and stepped to the door. He ordered, with gestures and in fluent Swahili, that it be wrapped around the prongs of a forklift.
"Christ, I wish I could speak it," Swayer said. "I don't understand two goddamned words of it. I been all over the world, and this is the first time I haven't been able to learn any of it.'"
"You got to be raised here," Jack Portet said. "I got mine from my nurse and houseboys."
"I suppose."
"Before you loosen the tie-downs," Jack Portet ordered, "make sure the parking brake is on." Five minutes later the MGB was gently lowered to ground by the forklift, with K. N. Swayer at its controls.
And five minutes after that the three heavy wooden crates that had made up the difference between what the MGB and the Christmas trees weighed and the maximum lift capacity for Curtiss Commando aircraft had been off-loaded.
"Stick around, Jack," Swayer said. "Not only will I buy you dinner, but I'll take you for a ride in my new car."
"No," Jack replied, "thanks, but I want to see if I can't at least make Bukavu before the rain starts."
"Fuck it-stay over and leave early in the morning."
"Somebody I want to see in Bukavu if I can."
"Give her my regards."
"I will."
"You horny little bastard you," Swayer said admiringly.
"I have the strength of ten, because in my heart, I'm pure," Jack Portet said piously. He looked at First Officer de la -Santiago. "You want to fly the next leg, Enrico? You think you can get this bucket of bolts off the ground?"
"I'll check the weather," de la Santiago said quickly and started for the terminal building. Swayer started to say something, but saw the look on Jack Portet's face and stopped.
When de la Santiago was out of sight, Jack Portet said, "One of several things is going to happen. Either the chef d' aerodrome is not going to be there. Or he will be there and be drunk. Or he will be there and be sober and not have the foggiest idea of the weather, the telephones being 'temporarily' out of service again.
I think he should learn that himself." Ten minutes later Air Simba Flight 104, with First Officer de la Santiago at the controls, took off from Albertville, bound for Bukavu.
"Not really for Bukavu, Enrico," Jack Portet explained.
"There's no airport in Bukavu. The airport's called Kamembe, and it's in Rwanda, which is on the east side of the Ruzizi River." De la Santiago smiled at the strange names.
"But it does have an ADF?" he asked, referring to an automatic direction finder, a radio transmitter constantly broadcasting a three-letter Morse code identification on which aircraft home in.
"It does," Portet replied. "KAM. But it's usually temporarily out of service." De la Santiago examined the aerial navigation chart in his lap.
"In other words just fly up the lake?"
"Keeping well to the left of the center," Portet said. "The border runs right down the center of the lake."
"Between what countries?"
"Between the Congo and Tanganyika, then between the Congo and Rwanda, and finally between the Congo and Burundi. " , "But if we're going to land in"-de la Santiago hesitated and then managed to come up with a Spanish-flavored approximation of Burundi-"what's the difference?"
"The difference is that this is Africa," Jack Portet explained.
"And we would not want to give the Burundi Minister of Air the idea that we are the vanguard of an aerial invasion force." De la Santiago looked at him and saw he was serious.
"Not that I would bet that all the parts are in the fighter aircraft of the Burundi Air Force, and that they could actually get one in the air, but this is Africa, and strange things happen here." De la Santiago smiled and shook his head. { "There's something else I have to discuss with you," Portet said. "Something of a delicate nature."
"What's that?"
"Presuming we can find Kamembe, and that there's somebody there to meet us, and that we can get across the border back into the Congo, you will be spending the night at the Hotel du Lac-"
"I will?" de la Santiago asked.
"If I'm lucky," Jack said, "which is to say if her husband is out of town, I will spend the night with a friend." De la Santiago smiled and shook his head.
"There will be women in the bar and restaurant of the Hotel du Lac," Jack went on, "which is the subject of this little man-to-man conversation. Congolese and European. One does not diddle with the natives unless one is suicidal, in a venereal disease sense. That leaves the Europeans, mostly Belge, but some French, German, and even the odd American. Most of them are married. The problem is with the Belgian women. If they are married to a Belgian, no problem. But some of them have found marital bliss with the Congolese officialdom. Their husbands are jealous. Phrased simply, don't fuck around with-don't even give any hints that you would like to fuck around with some Belgian woman married to a Congolese."
"How do you know which is which?"
"That's the problem," Jack said. "It's a matter of experience.
If the guy who owns the hotel's wife-Madame Fameir-is around, I'll in
troduce you, and you can ask her. But don't guess wrong. There's no second chance. You could easily wind up dead. " De la Santiago looked at him and saw that he was absolutely serious. "Then the thing to do is behave."
"This is the Congo," Jack said. "With the exception of my father, nobody behaves, at least for long, in the Congo."
(Two)
Stanleyville, Democratic Republic of the Congo 14 December 1963
Air Simba Flight 104 landed without incident at Kamembe, Rwanda, just over an hour after taking off from Albertville.
The skies were already full of furious-looking stratocumulus clouds, their tops boiling. This happened every afternoon this time of year in this part of the Congo; Captain Jacques Portet told First Officer de la Santiago that no weather report was necessary.
The New Breed Page 5