“Now push again.”
“What does it look like?” Jeanne panted. “I can’t see it. What does it look like?”
“Beautiful,” Will said. “Push!”
It was out, its body purplish-grey and steaming in the cold air.
“A girl,” Katerina said.
Jeanne’s face blazed with delight and surprise. “A girl! A girl! Oh my God, there she is! Hullo, baby. She’s so tiny.” Katerina placed the baby on Jeanne’s belly while she tied and cut the umbilicus. “Oh, she’s so hot.”
The baby yelped for a few seconds as Katerina dried her and wrapped her in a soft towel. Once in her mother’s arms, she fell sound asleep. “What a funny little thing,” Jeanne said. “She looks just like my grandmother.” She beamed up at Will and Penny and Suzy, who had been standing beside her to screen her off from the other passengers. “Isn’t she lovely?”
The plane jolted and vibrated through the anti-climax of the afterbirth and Katerina’s deft, careful stitching.
“Now you can rest,” she said.
“Oh, I’m too excited to rest.” But a moment later she was asleep. Katerina took the baby and placed her gently in the incubator beside Jeanne’s stretcher. The baby woke, blinked her dark, unfocussed eyes and went to sleep again.
The storm was enormous, even by the standards of the Southern Ocean, and crosswinds were fierce. Not until 1600 did Al finally pick up the Christchurch beacon; he found he was almost 10° east of his proper heading and adjusted accordingly.
“The needle just dropped,” Hugh said.
“I know.” Al could feel the rudder freeze and reached instantly for the bypass switch. “Grab that handle and start pumping,” he ordered. Then he called to Kyriclass="underline" “We have a malfunction. We are on manual for the booster hydraulic system.”
“Okay,” Kyril replied cheerfully.
By the time the rudder responded again, they were 20° west of their proper course. While Hugh pumped, Al cautiously swung the plane back.
“Are we going to make it?”
“Ask me again in half an hour.”
The crosswinds were weakening, and the beacon was increasingly clear. He wouldn’t have to ask much of the booster system until they made their landing approach; if it then collapsed completely, they could easily fly into the ground or overshoot the runway. They could try to ditch in Lyttleton harbour, if necessary, but Al had never ditched a Hercules and didn’t want to.
The clouds stretched to the horizon, giving no indication of what lay below them. But the plane must be rapidly approaching the South Island coast. Maybe they were close enough for line-of-sight radio contact.
“This is RNZAF Hercules 56740 to Harewood Tower. Hercules 56740 to Harewood Tower. Do you read me? Over.”
After a brief pause a surprised voice crackled in Al’s headphones. “Harewood Tower here. Hercules 56740, where are you? Over.”
“Harewood, I estimate my position as about 220 kilometres south-south-west of you, approaching on 355°. Request landing instructions. Over.”
“Ah, Hercules 56740, you must be the UFO we’ve been tracking here for the last few minutes. Your true distance is 195 kilometres. Can you confirm as Hercules 5, 6, 7, 4, 0? Over.”
“Harewood, yes, this is 56740, property of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Somebody left it in the Antarctic with the key in the ignition. We thought we’d bring it home before somebody swiped it. Over.” To Hugh he said: “Keep pumping.”
“Hercules, who in bloody hell are you? Over.”
Al roared with laughter. “The name is Al Neal. I’m the pilot for the Commonwealth Antarctic Research Program, and my passengers are the personnel of New Shackleton Station. Plus a few hitch-hikers, including a brand-new baby girl. Over.”
“What’s the name, Hercules? Over.”
“I don’t know if the mother’s chosen one yet. Over.”
“No, no, your name! Over.”
“Al Neal. Listen, Harewood, we are having some mechanical problems. Our hydraulic system is breaking down, and I’ll only have one shot at landing. We’ve got skis, so I’ll have to come down on grass. Our ETA is—” He recalculated — “about 1625. What’s the weather like down there? Over.”
“Uh, uh — Hercules, ceiling is three hundred metres, visibility about four kilometres. It’s raining hard, and there are winds from the south-east gusting to fifty k.p.h. You can land just to the east of Runway 20. Repeat, just to the cast of Runway Two-Oh. It’s good and wet, so you should have no problems. Keep the runway lights to your left. Over.”
“Thank you, Harewood. Beginning descent.”
The Hercules edged down into the clouds. In seconds they were flying in opaque greyness, with rain hammering at the windscreen. Al kept an eye on the hydraulic pressure: it was low, but it would do. The controls responded heavily, sluggishly, but properly. He switched on the PA system in the cargo compartment.
“We’re approaching Christchurch. Everybody strap in. The weather’s not so good down there, but we should be on the ground in about fifteen minutes.” He switched off. “Keep pumping.”
The rain intensified until the windscreen wipers could scarcely keep up. The gloom lightened, and then they were through, three hundred metres above the sea and just a few kilometres from the dark loom of land.
“Hercules 56740, this is Harewood Ground Control,” a new voice announced. “Raise your angle of approach by three degrees, please. Another degree — very good. Now four degrees east. Good… Two degrees west. Good. You’re right in the slot, Hercules.”
The plane swept low over Lyttleton harbour. Al stared: the oil-storage tanks along the south shore were like little circular islands well out in the water, and the docks west and north of them were gone. Streets ran down into the water and drowned. There were few lights despite the twilight gloom, and he saw no cars in the dark streets.
Gradually he lowered the flaps and ailerons, reducing speed as quickly as he dared. The runway lights stood out brightly, but Christchurch itself, off to the north and east, was oddly dark. Suburban rooftops and gardens slid by under the plane. Al extended the landing gear; at least the utility hydraulic system was working well. Runway 20 was dead ahead, a dim, straight line extended into the murk. He steered a little to the right, lining up with the long strip of dead yellow grass along the runway and brought the Hercules down as gently as he could.
The grass was half-flooded, the skis touched water and began to hydroplane. Al cut speed, trying to get the plane’s weight on to the grass before it could skid out of control. It wasn’t enough. The Hercules began to swing to the right; the nose ski struck something and sheared away with a detonation that shattered the windscreen. The ruined landing gear ripped into the soil, and the plane pivoted through 180° before it came to a juddering halt.
Al caught his breath and threw the FA switch: “Okay, everybody out by the nearest exit. Right away!” Through the crazed glass of the windscreen, he saw flashing red-and-blue lights approach down the runway. Kyril was shouting something in Russian, and confused voices echoed from the cargo compartment. Al checked the fire detection system: there was no fire, at least not yet.
He unstrapped himself and helped Hugh get to his feet. Kyril was already heading for the exit. “Follow him,” Al said, and went into the cargo compartment.
Someone had already got the aft cargo door down, and most of the passengers were already on their way out. He saw Will and Steve carrying Jeanne’s stretcher down the ramp; Katerina and Penny were right behind with the rough wooden incubator. Others were struggling to unlash the crates of scientific records, and ignored Al’s commands to get out at once.