‘Ought to be able to see those hills from here,’ said Mart.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘We probably could if it weren’t for all the fires. The air’s full of smoke and dust.’
Abandoning the road, we motored slowly across country, this time with a Kamangan scout vehicle out ahead. The terrain was changing. We’d left the open mopane scrub behind us and were in tall grassland, with clumps of big trees dotted about. Not until midday did we start to see the hills; then gradually, through the haze that masked the horizon, we began to get glimpses of a high, dark-looking barrier which seemed to advance and recede as we moved towards it, depending on the clarity of the air. The closer we came, the rougher it looked, with a lot of grey rock showing among the scrub.
At 1230 Joss called a break. The vehicles pulled into the shade of trees for a quick brew, and it was because all the drivers had switched off that Chalky, who had the sharpest ears in our party, heard the noise of an engine.
‘Aircraft!’ he called.
I’d heard nothing, but I knew that years of firing weapons had left me slightly deaf. ‘Sure it isn’t a truck?’
He shook his head. ‘Definitely an aircraft, and it’s got problems. There — look!’
He shot out an arm, pointing to our left. In the distance a small white plane had appeared, flying very low on our side of the hills. My first thought, quite illogical, was that Steve, the Aussie pilot, had brought his Cessna back to pick up another body. Then I saw that this aircraft was larger, and twin-engined.
At once we knew it was in trouble. Its engines were running rough, spluttering and hiccuping, and it was losing height. As it came closer, we could see puffs of black smoke trailing behind it and hear its engines back-firing.
‘That fucker’s going in,’ went Pavarotti.
‘It’s a Beechcraft,’ said Danny, who had his binoculars on it. ‘South African.’ He read out the registration on the fuselage. ‘G-SAF. The pilot’s got his undercarriage down. He knows he’s in the shit.’
For a minute the Beechcraft flew more or less level with the contours, but it was sinking gently as it passed across our front from left to right. Then the pilot turned away from us, towards the hills, as if trying to nurse his crippled machine back over the ridge.
‘He’ll never make it!’ shouted Pav again. ‘He’s knackered.’
We stood in a line and watched, awaiting the inevitable. The end came quicker than I expected. With a final volley of back-firing the engines cut, and for a few hundred metres the plane glided on. Through my glasses I saw its starboard wing flick through the top of a tree. Debris flew — whether branches or parts of the wing, I couldn’t tell. Then, in an instant, the aircraft vanished from view.
‘It’s down!’ exclaimed Stringer.
‘Wait for the bang,’ said Whinger.
To our surprise, none came.
I’d seen aircraft go down in open country before — choppers, too — and every one had exploded. A pilot can get away with a belly-landing if he finishes up skimming a road or a level field, but in rough terrain like that, the plane had no chance. For several seconds we fully expected to see a cloud of smoke erupt, and hear the boom of a distant explosion. Yet neither materialised. Nothing further happened. The aircraft just disappeared silently into the hillside.
‘Well damn!’ said Pavarotti. ‘Where in hell did it go?’
‘Into a deep, dark hole,’ I told him. ‘Listen, I’m going up there to see if there are any survivors. I’ll take Whinger and Phil. Pav, set up an LUP and get everybody under cover, okay?’
I took a bearing on the spot we’d last seen the plane, and we set off in one of the pinkies, weaving our way forward between trees and shrubs. But at the foot of the hills we found our way blocked by a series of rocky ledges; though each was only a few feet high, we kept being confronted by small vertical cliffs. There came a point at which we could drive no further, and for the last half a kilometre or so Whinger and I took to our feet, leaving Phil to guard the vehicle.
The chance that somebody might still be alive made us run, and by the time we reached the impact area we were sweating like pigs. Up there the terrain was still more broken. The shoulder, which looked smooth from a distance, turned out to be a series of shallow, scrub-covered, rocky ravines aligned up and down the slope. I stopped, panting, on a high point and took a back-bearing on to the grove of trees under which our force was parked. This showed we’d strayed a bit to the left of our line, so we struck out again right-handed.
The further we climbed into that harsh wilderness, the more certain I became that nobody could have survived the crash. The Beechcraft must have gone in with an annihilating impact. At last, as we came up on to yet another little ridge, we saw a single wheel sticking up above some rocks.
‘Upside down,’ Whinger gasped.
We scrambled on a few more yards. The aircraft was lying on its back in a grassy hollow dotted with bushes. Its dented nose was high in the air towards us. The outer end of the port wing had been torn off, the leading edges were full of dents, the glass of the landing lights smashed, both props crumpled. One wheel had disappeared, together with its mounting, and the tail fin was crushed down nearly to the level of the fuselage. Doors on both sides of the cabin were hanging open.
‘Arse over tit,’ I went. ‘It must have hit these rocks we’re standing on, and flipped. Yeah — look at this.’
Right under our feet were fresh, white scrape-marks. I glanced behind me and spotted the tree I’d seen the wing slice through: fresh white splinters jutted from the ends of smashed branches. The air around us was saturated with the high-octane smell of aviation gas.
‘Watch yourself, Whinge,’ I said. ‘This fucker could go up any minute. Look at that — there’s fuel dripping out of the wing tanks.’
The vapour seared our throats as we tried to recover our breath. Then Whinger said, ‘If it hasn’t gone already, it probably won’t go now.’
‘You’d better be right.’
Two more steps forward, and I could see a body lying face-down on the ground, then another, both well clear of the plane: two white men, both dressed much the same, in tan-coloured bush shirts and shorts, with knee-length stockings and desert boots. I ran to the first and started to roll him over. When I pulled at his shoulders, his torso turned, but his head didn’t come with it, because it was only hanging on by a couple of strands of gristle.
‘Nothing to be done for this bugger,’ I said.
‘Dead as a dodo,’ Whinger agreed.
‘We’ll need to ID him,’ I said. ‘Grab his passport. There, in his shirt pocket. What about the other?’
The second casualty’s crew-cut, mouse-coloured hair was a mass of blood; the top of his skull was pulp.
‘Instantaneous,’ went Whinger. ‘Big impact. Flung on to a rock. I guess this guy was the pilot.’ He pointed at the breast pocket, still full of ball-point pens. Then he added, ‘South Africans. They must be.’
‘Yeah.’ I looked at the big, heavy whites, with legs like tree trunks. What else but Afrikaaners?
The smell of avgas was stronger than ever.
‘Let’s get out,’ I said. ‘Leave ’em.’
Just as I spoke, a noise came from the plane.
‘Shit!’ exclaimed Whinger. ‘There’s some other bastard in there.’
He started towards the fuselage.
‘You’re not going in there!’ I snapped.
‘I fucking am!’