The Lost Flying Boat (31 page)

I trod soundlessly to the flight deck, passing boxes covered in tarpaulin and well lashed down so that none would move when airborne. Rose at the controls was so still that I thought he too was asleep, until a finger by the throttle-levers twitched. I sat on the arm of the other seat. ‘What were you thinking about, before I came up?'

Such a question couldn't bring a serious reply, but he answered with a weariness that lack of sleep alone hadn't given. ‘I was meditating on the benefits of a new face.'

The unexpected response had nothing to do with our plight. ‘What the hell for?'

‘I'd like to get rid of the personality that gave it to me.'

Anger was pushed out by curiosity. ‘We'd all like to do that.'

‘You'll be telling me I have to live with it next.'

‘That's right.'

‘But I'm not sure I want to.'

‘You don't have much choice.'

‘I think you're wrong. Can man make something as perfect and beautiful as a flying boat, and not have choice?' His emotion surprised me. He pushed the throttle lever of the port inner slightly forward, then drew it back again. ‘I've known since I was born that I could end it whenever I liked. But there's nothing more calculated to make one live forever! I suppose it helped me to survive all those ops over Germany.'

‘What about the rest of the crew?'

‘They were lucky, perhaps. Skilful, to a certain extent. That we were brave goes without saying. So were those who didn't come back.'

It was hard to talk sense in the gloom. ‘Fate decides everything, I suppose.'

‘If you let it.'

‘There's no option.'

After a silence he said: ‘Oh yes, there is.'

It was useless to deny it. ‘You'll feel different once we're airborne.'

He shifted in his seat. ‘When I'm in England, wherever I am, I feel that if I stretch my arms I'll touch walls. It's comforting. But here, even inside the flying boat, there are neither walls nor limits. I don't like it.'

‘That's just what makes me glad to be here.'

He wasn't interested. ‘It's a long night. Low cloud, not much visibility, no stars to guide us. Like life itself.'

‘You'll see plenty of stars on the way to Colombo. Good fixes all the way.'

Was it a mistake? It depends on what you believe. Fate may be cruel, but he who blames it must be guilty of something, a thought which justified what I had said. In the dim light I watched his various grimaces registering the fact that I had blurted out the truth when I mentioned Colombo.

Or some such place, I was about to add. But I had too much respect. To make good with false words was unworthy, by which I meant to imply that it would have been less worthy of myself. That second more distant pucker of his face wanted me to admit that I had made a mistake, but any half-hearted statement would not be acceptable. My paralysis lasted until speaking would do no good, and it was too late in any case. When he had waited too long to feel any benefit, and his features had settled into the permanent expression of a disappointed child, I said: ‘At least it looked like Colombo.'

His flicker of gratitude was broken by a bitter smile, which seemed unconnected to my error of saying we were going to Colombo when he had assumed that we would set course for Perth. I should have kept my mouth shut, but it wasn't me who had spoken – or so I could not but assume. There was something pathetic in his anguish. Nothing could justify it, and anger with myself turned to annoyance at Rose being upset because he thought that such common knowledge among the lesser grades of the crew had not been passed to him first. I could not say that my information was only a faint line seen before Bennett had time to get the chart out of my sight. The glimpse was enough to show, however, that between Kerguelen and Perth no track was drawn at all.

‘How do you know it's Colombo?' The fight to ask this took time, and by not volunteering the gen, and forcing the effort out of him, I had at last done what was right.

‘No one knows except you and me.'

He leaned over the chart table, as if to read a description of how his life had been wasted. ‘Nash must.'

‘I don't see why. But does it matter?'

He didn't answer. I was to wish he had. In the gap before responding lay the waste of his life – and its loss. The two hour watch was up. ‘I'm going to find a place to sleep,' he said. ‘We're a pretty clapped-out lot, aren't we?'

‘Depends which way you look at it.'

‘The last of the many, if you ask me.' He scribbled calculations, erased them, wrote a couple of lines, then threw the pencil down. I thought he was making too much fuss and was glad when my turn for watch came because, though tired, and not knowing when I would sleep again, the radio waves would keep me alert.

15

Every few minutes I detached myself from the ambrosia of static and walked to the flight deck, hardly able to imagine the cold flying boat coming to life and getting us beyond the surrounding wall of night and rock. I was cheered by the magic eye of the Marconi, and knew that inevitably the darkness would lift and my watch reach its end. I felt some trepidation, for when it did, with a ton of gold and such a quantity of fuel, we would need limitless visibility and the longest run for take-off that a flying boat ever had. At supper we agreed that only Bennett could get the
Aldebaran
airborne. ‘A good captain never reflects on danger until he is right near it,' said Nash. We needed luck, however, and who in the history of the world had as much as they needed? The bold prospered, the just progressed, the skilful succeeded, but now and again someone fell from on high because his luck ran out, no matter what qualities he had.

On my way to the wireless I examined Rose's chart, and saw that his sharp pencil had written: ‘Not enough petrol for Colombo. God no longer with us.'

I laughed at such effrontery, wondering how long it was since God had been with anyone, never mind us. It seemed to me you had to be with Him, not Him with you. Rose didn't think so, and I hoped his madness wasn't catching. Was Bennett passing his insanity onto him via me, and was Rose, in sensing this, trying to push it back down my throat? Of course we had enough fuel for Colombo, if Bennett said so.

Perhaps the night was eating into my soul because it was the last through which I would live. I did not believe it. We were a cohesive crew, whether or not we had attempted one operation too many. Those bombing trips in the war had been undertaken from different motives and in another spirit, but what happened to one ricocheted through all, to test the strength of our mutual dependence. We were a pilot, navigator, wireless operator and two gunners, a competent team to work the plane on its final leg to safety. Wherever we set out for did not matter, and I couldn't believe that Bennett would take risks with treasure that had already cost so much blood. To cut things fine was another matter. We had all done that a time or two in our lives.

I dozed, twiddled at the receiver and smoked a cigarette, walked to the galley and back, looked through the astrodome and saw one star above the gully in which we were stranded. Otherwise, I listened on the common frequency of distress and waited for the dawn. Though at peace, there was no understanding.

The naval operators swapped the strength of their signals, but on my own low frequency no one called. Whoever the other ship was, why did it observe radio silence? Silence was more ominous than a manifestation of sound. To the ear it was a lack, but a positive one, and had qualities which sound could never know about. With sound you had a clue to what was going on. Silence, though it kept you guessing, was a tactical weapon which could be used with double the effect of sound. All the same, silence worried me more than noise.

I kept my personal belongings in a hold-all by the radio, feet sometimes resting on it while at work. The Smith and Wesson was wrapped in underwear and spare clothes, and should Bennett call me to a duty that would transcend the rules of human behaviour – as it were – the gun might be of use. The body of the flying boat was cold, and after a premonitory pre-dawn shiver I reached to take out the gun. Having been much thrown about since beginning the trip, and rummaged in for changes of clothes, the bag was not in a tidy state. Allowed only one piece of luggage, it was also large, and wondering why the pistol was not there, I heard an ear-splitting clap of noise in the distance which sounded like a salvo of anti-aircraft fire in the war.

Meteorologically, nothing surprised me. On the line of the Antarctic Convergence two antipathetic systems produced weather quick to change and impossible to predict. A summer thunderstorm, at whatever part of the day, caused no surprise. Those with more experience believed it to be no such thing and, as I wondered why the revolver I had packed so carefully was missing, several more echoing clouts erupted which could be nothing less than cannonfire.

‘Somebody's hitting the flak,' Nash shouted. I fumbled in my kit, unable to imagine what was happening till I heard the awesome rhythm of an SOS coming out of the earphones.

Appleyard, with the reflection that some poor sod was getting it over Hamburg, levered himself into the mid-upper in the hope that the view might explain where the gunfire was coming from. The clack and follow-up along the fjord and over the heights was like trains leaving a station and going in different directions across the sky. There was six-tenths cloud at 4000 feet, and visibility was good for take-off. A floorcloth of cloud was about to wipe the ridgeline of the mountains clean.

My hand shook as I wrote. The operator was separating the SOS letters instead of running the dots and dashes together, indicating that he had not sent one before, and probably not heard one, either. ‘SHIP FIRED AT STOP SHOTS ACROSS BOWS STOP BUT NOT STOPPING STOP POSITION 4901 SOUTH 6910 EAST WAIT WAIT WAIT' – a sense of humour to the end.

A fast modern steamer came out of the dawn and ordered the
Difda
by lamp to heave-to and accept a boarding party. Captain Ellis told his flash-man to send something he wouldn't dare say in front of his mother, and the operator added a few unprintabilities of his own, which puzzled the other ship whose signaller didn't understand that kind of English.

I tore the sheet from the pad and took it to Bennett in his room. He shaved before a mirror, insistent to the end, in spite of the gunfire, on being the smart captain, while the
Difda,
having kept her part of the bargain, was being pounded to ashes in the next fjord. ‘I should at least tell him we're getting the message, Skipper.'

‘You'll do no such thing. He's being attacked because it's thought he has the gold on board. They don't know about us. They have their suspicions, but won't know for certain unless you do something bloody silly.' He laughed at how the play was working to our advantage. His luck could not have been better if he had planned everything with God Almighty. There is no one more cynical than he who is always lucky – at least so he seems to those who get in his way. That he never thinks himself merely fortunate is part of his cynicism. ‘Isn't there anything we can do for them?'

When he wiped his face a fleck of soap fell across the dead dragonfly not yet removed. ‘We have neither bombs nor depth charges. They've got an 88-millimetre by the sound of it, not to mention a couple of seaplanes. You should be glad we've got the
Difda
as a decoy. While it's being dealt with we'll up anchor and away. When they find that the
Difda
has no gold they'll come for us with greed and murder in their hearts. It's time to get weaving.'

I too wanted the scheme to work, and caught his smile of satisfaction in the mirror as he ringed his neck with collar and tie. His expression said that each move had been planned. While knowing that Fate could not work eternally in anyone's favour, he may well have sat down months ago and plotted as far forward as possible. Optimism and hard work made each event come to pass, and so drew me as much under his spell as the rest of the crew.

But I refused to believe in him, and maintained a small area of freedom by telling my fellow operator on the
Difda
that he was being heard. If Bennett and all of us paid the price of my disobedience, or stupidity, or integrity, it was because my actions were as much out of my control as Bennett's were out of his.

I continued to search my hold-all, and had to conclude that the revolver was missing, which meant that if Bennett told me to account for my actions (in the same way that Armatage might have been ordered to say his prayers before the promised execution) I would be defenceless. Perhaps Armatage had taken the pistol, in which case he would be able to look after himself, a solacing thought as I worked at my radio to receive what details I could of the
Difda
's tribulation.

Bennett did not think to ask why the ship continued sending, otherwise he might have guessed that it was because I encouraged the operator to do so. In any case, did he really expect me to put a bit of cardboard between the contacts of the key? My occasional letter R was not a long enough exposure for our direction to be fixed, and the
Difda
was not sending for my benefit alone, but to any other ship which might hear and go to his assistance.

‘STRUCK AMIDSHIPS STOP MAKING FOR COVE 485930 SOUTH STOP BOARDING PARTY ON WAY STOP GUN FIRING FROM DECK TWO SEAPLANES ALSO ON DECK STOP WAIT WAIT WAIT.' Then came the request: ‘DO SOMETHING STOP GET GOING.'

I felt a kind of triumph at handing the message to Bennett. That I listen and send nothing in return was the cry of someone who still relied on chance to protect him. The drill of departure left no flexibility of manoeuvre. Seaplanes would reconnoitre for whatever vessel acknowledged each message from the
Difda.
If Bennett's luck held and the attacker, assuming the
Difda
to be the only ship in the area, ceased all W/T listening – hearing neither their pleas for help nor my responses – they would only look for us on finding no gold on the fuel ship, by which time it would be too late because we would be away.