The Voyage of the Golden Handshake (29 page)

To the great delight of Mr van der Loon and his two companions, a very large group of passengers gathered at the gangway to bid the little party farewell as they disembarked in Sri Lanka. Nelson, the amazing parrot, delighted the ladies by calling from the dockside, ‘Goodbye, my lovelies!’ which ensured him a place in their hearts for ever!

‘You know, Alice,’ said Albert, as they considered whether to go ashore before lunch or wait until the afternoon, ‘the more we travel, the hotter it gets. It’s boiling here.’

Alice agreed that it was very hot indeed and not much better in the Balcony Suite as the air conditioning was not of the best. Mr and Mrs Potts stumped off the ship early, the old man walking with a stick that he had obtained in Cochin and of which he was very proud. Although it gave him a feeling of well-being, he remained morose in appearance and it was doubtful at this stage in his life if that would ever change.

Mr Fennington Barley, the retired dancing farmer, had rather fallen for one of the elderly widows on board who came from a farming family in Iowa. It was strictly against Golden
Oceans policy for a dance host to show favouritism to any one individual - even if, as was often the case, ladies favoured him. To overcome this difficulty he had suggested that he might go ashore with a group of several of his dancing partners, and the lady in question, a Mrs Dora Guttenburg, would certainly sit next to him at every available opportunity. This caused some jostling for places at lunch which resulted in two rather well-built ladies occupying the same seat at a café, until the helpful waiter appeared with reinforcements.

It proved to be a very hot and sticky day, especially for four ladies of ample girth squeezed into the back of a taxi. Mr Barley never actually got to sit next to Mrs Guttenburg and this irritated him as he had gone to considerable expense in paying for the whole group to travel throughout Colombo and to dine also. Normally when in port he would rush back to the ship to enjoy a free lunch and then rush ashore again. On this visit he considered that would appear mean and so he was landed with bills for refreshments for five and also lunch for five. An expensive day, especially when he did not achieve proximity to the widow.

Harry Parkhurst had been totally occupied in making arrangements for Sir Archie and Lady Veronika to visit the Tamil Tigers. Although he had made it up with Enzo, he was still considerably annoyed that the foolish fellow had given away five hundred pounds and made a promise, on behalf of the ship, which
was very difficult to fulfil. Admittedly Lady Veronika, because of her previous association with the Tigers, had made life easier for him. She had put him in contact with a private airline who would fly the three of them to some obscure destination. He quailed when he received the quote, as the sum required would leave very little for a grand dinner in the evening. Oh well. He would cross that bridge when he came to it, he thought.

‘I say, my dear, these Tiger chappies.’ Sir Archie was applying some Blanco to his pith helmet in preparation for another long hot journey. ‘They are straight up, are they? We can’t afford to be delayed long with them, you know.’

‘
Dorogoy
,’ she replied with more than a hint of irritation in her voice, ‘I know Tigers. OK?’

Sir Archie knew better than to dispute with his Siberian wife or even to question her. Although she was exceptionally quiet in public, she smouldered within, and smoke and flame were released at a time when he was the only unfortunate recipient. He had been singed too often for his liking, so he remained silent and applied himself to the task in hand.

As soon as the ship had obtained Port Clearance and Enzo had come on the primitive address system to announce this, Harry met with his charges. Sir Archie was resplendent in his helmet and buttoned to the neck khaki drill uniform. He looked for all the world like a character drawn from the pages of Kipling.
Lady Veronika wore a long dress that seemed hardly appropriate for hot weather, but Harry assumed that as she had lived in a cold climate, what she was wearing might be considered very light indeed. On her head she wore a 1920’s style hat of the type favoured by the late Duchess of Windsor. She carried with her a very heavy case, within which were several bottles of Siberian vodka and a very expensive sable fur coat.

‘I think Tiger Chief like coat for wife,’ she said, as she showed Harry what she intended to take on the flight.

Harry did not remind her that fur coats were not frequently worn in Sri Lanka. He felt he had enough to cope with, without getting into further discussion.

As they were about to leave, Enzo appeared, all smiles. He was apprehensive about seeing the couple off as Harry was taking them when it ought to have been him doing it. Given the sensitive nature of the visit, there was no way in which Harry would have entrusted Sir Archie and his odd wife to Enzo. The latter’s record as tour leader was far from 100 per cent, and Harry could not afford this particular trip to go wrong. Effusive as always, Enzo expressed delight at the destination chosen by the couple, even though he had no idea where it was they were going. It was part of his job to pretend to know everything - and he did that part of his job superbly.

Just as Enzo was about to return to his office, who should appear but the doctor, who was also planning a day ashore.

‘By jingo,’ he said, as he viewed Sir Archie and his wife. ‘If you’re filming the discovery of the source of the Nile you’re in the wrong part of the world, old boy.’

Harry looked at him sternly, but not sternly enough to silence him.

‘Watch out for the crocs, Enzo. They recognise a good dinner at fifty paces.’

Enzo explained that he was simply seeing off the travellers and not going ashore himself.

‘Pity,’ chuckled the medic. ‘The most effective way for you to lose weight would be to have an encounter with a croc!’

Sir Archie laughed and Lady Veronika remained mute as usual. With a cheery ‘Pip Pip’ the doctor trotted down the gangway. Enzo wished the intrepid couple a very happy day and returned to his inner sanctum.

With the heavy case safely in the boot of an ancient motor vehicle, the trio set forth for the airport. The driver, suitably dressed in peaked cap and gold braided livery, drove at a stately pace to what appeared to be a grass landing-strip some miles away from the ship. Harry, to his alarm, saw two small biplanes parked side by side. Each was open-topped and looked exactly like the planes he had seen in pictures of the Wright Brothers or Amy Johnson. He prayed that one of the antiques was not the aircraft he would fly in, and he was right. One wasn’t, but the other was! Sir Archie and his wife were assigned aircraft
Number One and he was assigned aircraft Number Two. They entered a hut, no bigger than a garden shed, where two leather-clad individuals were drinking tea.

‘G’day,’ said one in an Australian accent that would have terrified the average citizen of Sydney, let alone the UK.

Lady Veronika remained impassive. Bruce, the one who greeted them, nodded in the direction of his companion.

‘That’s Kevin,’ he said. ‘Ever since he had to make a forced landing in the Main Street of Sydney, Kevin doesn’t say much. I think the police can be tough on that sort of thing there.’

Harry swallowed hard and greeted the two aviators.

‘Like your clobber, mate,’ said Bruce, eyeing Sir Archie’s khaki uniform, ‘but you can’t wear that bloody beehive in the plane.’

He handed the party leather flying helmets and a pair of goggles each.

‘I hope you’ve got your winter grundies on, it can get damn parky up there.’

Harry wondered at this point if Lady Veronika knew something he did not, as she was pretty well covered for the flight, especially when she slipped the fur coat on.

‘Nice bit of rabbit,’ grinned Bruce. ‘Who got the pie?’

Lady Veronika had yet to speak and the rhetorical question asked by Bruce was treated with the disdain it deserved.

‘OK,’ said Bruce, slapping Kevin on the back. ‘Time to say
our prayers. We’re off.’

Sir Archie left his precious headgear in a corner and the case with the vodka was stowed and secured in the spare seat in plane Number Two. The prizewinners were safely placed in the two seats in the Number One plane. It was slightly unnerving for Harry as the pilot in this ancient biplane sat behind him, so Harry was directly at the front.

Kevin came to life when they were on board. ‘Strap yerself in, mate,’ he ordered, as Harry settled into a somewhat confined space. ‘Your job is to keep your mud pies peeled! Look out for jets. Get caught in their slipstream and we are goners. There’s no bang seat in this old kite, you know, so you would have to jump.’

In flight Number One Lady Veronika occupied the very front seat with Sir Archie at her side and bringing up the rear, Bruce.

When everyone was as comfortable as they could be, an elderly man, wearing tattered blue overalls, ambled over from nowhere in particular and removed the chocks from under the wheels of both planes. He gave a few swings of the propeller of plane Number One, which soon spluttered into life. He repeated the action for Number Two and then ambled away again as casually as he had arrived. Bruce and Kevin gave each other the thumbs-up sign and both flights bumped their way across the rough grass.

Once aloft, Kevin maintained his lively attitude. Now,
instead of increasing his verbal attributes, he showed what he could do as far as flying an aircraft was concerned. For a while he followed the lead aircraft. After several minutes, he shouted forward to Harry, ‘Is the juice safely secured?’

Harry had personally supervised the loading of the vodka in the spare seat and assured Kevin that all was OK.

‘Righto,’ he responded, then: ‘Make sure you don’t fall out’, and with that he took the biplane into a most terrifying dive.

Harry gripped the edge of the cockpit in terror as Kevin pulled out of the descent and began to climb vertically. By now Harry had lost all sense of direction and had closed both eyes tightly. Suddenly, he experienced more curious sensations as the biplane completed a backward arc and began yet another rapid descent. The little engine groaned and strained as Kevin levelled out and then began to roll the plane over in a circular motion until they were flying upside down. Harry thanked his stars that he had indeed secured his belts properly, otherwise he would certainly have descended at an even more rapid rate than his conveyance. Eventually they resumed their correct flying position.

‘Great little bus this,’ said Kevin with genuine enthusiasm. ‘No time for any more now, mate. Sorry about that.’

It was a greatly relieved Harry Parkhurst who followed the next set of instructions that came from behind, which was to keep a lookout for flight Number One. Try as he might, Harry
could see no sign of another plane. Kevin banked to the left and then to the right, but there was nothing to see except blue sky.

‘Too bad,’ he shouted. ‘Bruce is the one who knows where we are going. I don’t!’

Harry groaned inwardly. The ship had been plagued with problems since the terrible launch from Southend and, on the whole, they had managed to keep the passengers happy. Now for him of all people to lose two important Balcony Suite passengers was too much.

‘I’m going to put down,’ bawled Kevin, and began to descend towards a stretch of deserted beach. He flew low to see if it was clear, then he banked, turned and within a few moments the little plane was taxiing to a halt. Both men climbed out and removed their helmets.

‘Hold on, mate,’ said Kevin. ‘I’m bursting. Must go and syphon the python.’ He went round to the other side of the plane and returned a few moments later. ‘Pity we’ve no tinnies,’ he said, ‘but what about cracking open the firewater?’

‘Look, Kevin,’ said Harry, anxious and somewhat angry, ‘the vodka is not ours - it belongs to the guests who I am supposed to be accompanying to an important meeting. Now you have lost them. What do you intend to do?’

Kevin scratched his head and looked hurt.

‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘The radio in the plane packed up last week so that’s crook. I think Bruce wrote down some directions
which are in my kit somewhere.’

He rummaged in a compartment, whilst Harry marvelled at the casual incompetence of his pilot. Some people on the
Handshake
were bad enough, but this was frankly ridiculous. Eventually Kevin produced a crumpled piece of paper which looked as though it was last used to wrap sandwiches in.

‘Got it!’ he exclaimed with glee. ‘Right, mate, back on board and chocks away.’

Once more Harry strapped himself in, adjusted his helmet and goggles, and they were off along the deserted beach as though they were competing for the land-speed record of Sri Lanka. Once aloft, Kevin kept quiet for about half an hour until he startled Harry by shouting, ‘There they are, mate! What a beaut!’

Way down below Harry could see a grass strip with flight Number One positioned to the side of it.

He breathed a sigh of relief as they landed, removed his helmet and goggles and went across to join the small group who had come to meet them. For a moment, Harry thought that there was going to be a stand-up fight. To put it politely, Bruce was very cross with Kevin and told him so. Kevin responded by returning a further string of insults, after which they both went off in search of a beer.

Sir Archie, clearly missing his pith helmet, had knotted a large white handkerchief over the top of his perspiring head. He
greeted Harry like a long-lost relative.

‘My dear boy,’ he uttered, ‘when we saw your plane doing those remarkable gyrations we really thought you had been shot down. Thank goodness you’re alive and well. We were most worried, let me tell you.’

Harry explained that Kevin had got carried away and then lost the lead plane.

‘Well, it’s very good to see you,’ Sir Archie repeated. ‘Come on, let’s go and meet the others. My dear wife is having private talks with someone from the Tigers at the moment and so I was just having a refresher.’ He poured something from a hip flask and offered it to Harry, who refused.