He glanced at the gauges; the tanks were out of balance-there was more fuel in the starboard wing tank than in its mate-so he reversed the flow switches to close off the port tank and draw on the starboard one. Momentarily he recalled that the threads of the starboard filler cap hadn’t looked good when he’d screwed it on after topping up the tanks this morning in Reno. But it would have to do. What the hell, another three or four hours and the whole plane could collapse for all he cared. But to make sure he leaned as far forward as he could without pushing the elevators down and peered around past the Major’s shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of the tank cap on the starboard wing-and saw a plume of grey-white liquid pouring straight back from the wing.
Baraclough, at the window behind the Major, was rubbing at the pane and talking in a taut voice thinned by fear: “We’re losing fuel.”
The Major twisted around. “ What? ”
“That does it,” Walker breathed. His hand shot forward. Switch back to the left-hand tank. Close off the leaking starboard tank. Bring up the trim.
He leaned forward to look out again. The Major was barking, at him: “What is it, man?”
But the fuel was still streaming out. It would: the low pressure of fast-moving air over the wing would pull it out. And with high-octane flowing straight across the hot exhaust system…
It was no good. He flicked switches again-cut all starboard power flow, switch off magneto, feather starboard propeller: the sudden drag pulled her severely around to the right and he had to stand on the rudder and crank the wheel left to keep her flying.
Hanratty was bawling and Eddie Burt exploded in oaths and Walker saw the Major’s hands gripped white on the edge of his seat
She was flying on one engine and the mountains were a looming threat off the port wingtip. The gasoline was coming out of the tank in a fine spray now and that was likely to keep up for a long time.
The Major grabbed him by the arm. “Captain…”
“Shut up.” He shook off Hargit’s hand. He was tipping her over on one wing to look at the ground below.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for a place to land.”
13
“You’re out of your mind!”
“Major, it’s not as if we had any choice.”
“You’re panicking. Any twin plane will fly on one engine-every schoolboy knows that.”
“And every schoolboy knows what happens when you run high-octane vapor over a hot exhaust pipe in low-pressure air that’s charged full of storm electricity. If we can get on the ground before that wing catches fire we’ll be lucky.”
And because it would have been anticlimactic he didn’t add that the fuel remaining in the port wing tank would be hardly enough to carry them fifty miles single-engine.
The earth tilted away beneath the wing and then rose again, swooping, making Hanratty cry out. The ground was all buckled up-foothills. Walker made a tight economical turn to starboard without adding any unnecessary power and headed for the flats. Behind him Baraclough said, “What about that highway?”
“Too far. We must be forty miles north of it.”
“No highway,” the Major snapped. “Use your head.”
He had about two thousand feet and the Apache was noseup to the horizon, struggling, beating a jagged track through the turbulence; the stall-warning light was flickering a wicked red. He had to shove things forward to pick up a little airspeed. Flaps down full. “See those handles?”
The Major followed his pointing finger. Walker said through his teeth, “When I tell you, pull.”
“What is it?”
“Landing gear. I’m going to have my hands full.”
The hills were flattening out underneath. Nothing in sight but scrub. Cutbank gullies ran out onto the flats from groined foothill canyons and there were house-sized boulders scattered around like Easter Island statues.
Little shocks ran through the wings and the plane lurched: they were crossing the leading edge of the storm front again. Walker had one eye on the starboard wing: no sign of flames yet. “If anybody knows how to pray this might be a good time for it.”
Baraclough said, “If you’re half the pilot you think you are you’ll get us down in one piece.”
14
The sky was cut down the middle in two neat halves: black storm to the west, cobalt blue clarity to the east. In the cockpit it was cold and there was no more talk, only the gutteral growl of the port engine. The Apache had no more than five hundred feet and now there was a flicker of flame on the starboard nacelle. The wind whipped it away and for the moment it was gone.
He was looking for a flat stretch clear of boulders and uncut by gullies. The sun was behind the storm and there were no clear shadows; the bad light made it hard to judge the terrain. Walker’s eyes whipped from point to point.
Flame burst from the nacelle again and Walker toggled the starboard extinguisher. He heard the hiss of foam; he didn’t waste time looking. It wouldn’t matter now anyway.
With all power concentrated on the port side the plane had a heavy tendency to yaw and tilt. The little airplane silhouette on the turn-and-bank indicator was all over the gauge. She still had a hundred and ten knots airspeed but even at that she wanted to corkscrew.
“Over there,” the Major breathed. “Flat as an ironing board.”
“Don’t kid yourself. That’s soft clay. But it’ll have to do.” He had to turn counter to the plane’s tendency to spiral right; she fought him heavily and they were all pitched violently around in the cabin.
“You’re going to overshoot,” Baraclough hissed.
“Shut up. Gear down- pull! ”
He could hardly budge the controls. His ears picked up the grind and thud of the landing gear going down. The straining port engine throbbed and chattered. “Brace,” he said.
The ground came up slowly and she was beginning to tilt, banking into the beginnings of a spiral; at seventy-five feet he shot his hand forward to the board, snapped off fuel and. ignition, punched the feathering button. Sudden silence: the rush of wind over the wings. Hit this wrong and there’ll be nothing left of us but a spot of grease.
The greasewood clumps were bigger than they had looked from the air. Silent flames began to flicker from the engine again. He shoved the nose down, dead stick, fishtailing with the rudder to reduce speed, and he thought Christ I’m coming in too fast… He had overshot the first hundred feet and there was a gully running across their path up ahead there and he shoved the nose down savagely and only yanked it up at the last instant, hauling the wheel back into the pit of his belly. If the nosewheel hit first she’d flip right over on her back and crumple them all to jelly. No sound at all now, then the cracking of twigs, the earth rushing past and under them, waiting for the ultimate sickening grab and flip… He had a vision of the gray Portland runway swooping up above his head as the old DC-6B had crashed-and he almost closed his eyes.
… She hit on her main gear: hit and bounced, nose-high, tailskid flicking off a bush. For an instant she was airborne again and then she settled in, main wheels snagging thickly into the soft clay of the earth, bringing the nosewheel down with a blow that slammed them all forward against their seatbelts. Greasewood rushed toward them and around them and against them. The starboard nacelle was fully on fire now and the wheels snagged against roots and rocks, rivets sprang loose in the airframe, a branch scratched the length of the fuselage with a wicked chatter. The gully was dead ahead and coming toward them too fast and so Walker did a groundloop by hitting the right footbrake and putting her into a spin. She whipped around in twice her own length and tried to stand up on her wingtip and there was a moment when he knew they were going over backwards… And she settled back down, right side up on her gear, with a jarring crash that crumpled the port oleo and left her sitting in her own dust cloud on one main wheel and one wingtip.