When we were empty Nash got into my boat. ‘I’ll row both ways, Sparks. Give you a break. I’m for finishing the job quick.’
So were we all. Zest was apparent, with the end in sight. The second dinghy was a few yards behind. Halfway to the shore he said: ‘If there’s any further argy-bargy between me and the skipper, you keep out of it, see?’
I nodded.
‘I’ll take care of him. I’ve known him a sight longer than you, and we’ve been through a fair bit together.’
‘If you want it that way.’
‘It’s the only way it’ll work’ With the mooring rope over his shoulder he leapt onto the beach. He worked quickly, passing the boxes to me, and we were away before the others landed. He rowed our last trip as well. We made the boat fast and, once on board, I stayed close to the hatchway, my dissociation from the world complete. But when Rose came I lifted the final boxes from Armatage, and while stacking them Bennett said: ‘I’ll see you get a campaign medal for this, Sparks – which is more than we poor aircrew got from the war!’
Appleyard volunteered for guard in the mid-upper, and Bennett sat on the flight deck. After a hot drink we slept – as they say – in our own footprints.
8
Easier said than done. Sometimes in sleep I go under and die, don’t remember dreams growing out of bedrock. I’d like to know what’s there, but my faculties have hooks that won’t grapple. I belong to another world so absolutely that during the time of contact I do not exist. What I endure while in that world is impossible to know. Or so I understand. I woke after an hour as if called up by radio even though the set was switched off.
Where Rose’s head pressed on the chart table, a tideline of sweat stained his pre-computed altitude curves. He breathed evenly and, without waking, though his eyes opened for a second, turned his head to lay the scarred cheek down. Perhaps he dreamed someone was trying to kill him. On the other hand, maybe while sleeping he was at peace.
Bennett, enthroned at the controls, sat up stiffly but fast asleep. Darkness beyond the canopy was thick with ground-level cloud in which anything could move without being seen. Whatever happened would be to our disadvantage. Appleyard slept in the mid-upper. The boat rocked unattended, hatches battened, tanks almost empty. Wilcox wouldn’t work his knobs and levers, or cough unspoken thoughts into the intercom – or play slot-machines anymore. We were also a gunner short, but did it matter with a ton of gold on board? The metal meant no more to me than a cargo of cement or wheat. Bennett was part-owner and skipper, but we were merely employees of the carriers.
The atmosphere was eerie. I put down the button of my radio and waited for the magic eye to dawn. Atmospherics drowned everything in the hour before daylight. Mountains closed in on the medium frequency and limited our range. Fragmentary weather reports on short wave bounced from too far to be of use. I switched off and stepped down the ladder, circumventing Armatage who was curled up like a baby. Nash snored in the bunk, bare toes pointing in the air. Mugs and plates were everywhere, tea towels spread, a box of apples going rotten. I lit the primus and put the huge kettle on. The smell of carbolic made me hungry when I used a handful of water to wash my face. I rifled the biscuit tin, and sat drinking coffee at the table.
‘I thought you’d died.’ Armatage woke me two hours later. ‘You didn’t even hear me shouting when I dropped a plate. I wouldn’t mind being twenty-five again!’
‘You never will be,’ said Nash, ‘and that’s a fact.’
Intensive sleep had oven-dried my clothes. Daylight air billowed in. Nash stripped to his underpants by the hatchway, did half a dozen knee-bends, then lowered a canvas bucket and emptied water over himself. He shook and danced, shot the contents of his nose into the drink and wiped the final sleep from his eyes with the corner of a towel. A corpse edged between the dinghy and the hull. The shoulders went under. One arm ended at gnawed and mangled flesh. However it had been trapped, the motion of the rope and bucket caused its release. Perhaps Wilcox had fought himself to death in the kelp. Nash got a boat hook under the belt and we heaved to get him out, except Armatage who went chalk-white and sat at the bottom of the ladder with his face turned away.
The open eyes looked up, as if the possibility of seeing horizontally would elude him for ever and he was doomed to view only the blank sky. The corpse stank of seawater as a cat’s fur stinks of rain.
Bennett took off his cap, and pulled at his dry springy hair – unlike Wilcox’s which was short and pasted to the skull like a dummy’s. ‘We must give him a decent burial.’
It would be kinder to fasten an anchor and let him go overboard, Nash said. He would sink to the bottom and stay put. ‘Wouldn’t mind such a resting place myself.’
But Bennett found a canvas sack where the towing pennant was stored, and Appleyard stitched the body in. We lowered our cargo into the dinghy with as much care as if we had charge of Lord Nelson himself. Nash stayed on watch, and we rowed ashore.
I had hoped never to leave the flying boat again, but was learning to respect the unexpected. Its homely confines were settled sparely on the water when I glanced round. We hauled at ropes through the mire, sledging the body uphill. So much for our day of rest. Wilcox hadn’t weighed more than seven stone, and though the mailbag slid well enough, we went slowly up the gradient, Bennett in front with a book under his arm, cap on and appearing taller than any of us at reaching higher ground first.
The path had been worn already by transporting the gold, and in an hour we reached our former diggings. Bennett manoeuvred a stone as if worrying a football, to the point from which the most central box had been taken. With spades and entrenching tools we shovelled sufficiently to demarcate an oblong hole. The displaced soil eased our job of getting the grave deep enough. Armatage wiped his sweat with a handkerchief. ‘He might have picked a better place to die.’
Rose picked up an earthworm, and dropped it. ‘Who can choose?’
‘I don’t suppose his next of kin will come with flowers.’ Appleyard’s shoulders were level with the surface, and only one man could work at a time. When Bennett signalled, he climbed over the parapet. We stood facing the skipper, hats in hands, senses blunted by geological layer-cakes at all points but for the slit of water on which the plane floated. ‘We shan’t do well without him,’ Appleyard said. ‘He was one of the best.’
Bennett nodded. ‘No more talking. And throw those cigarettes down.’ I expected him to remind us that we were on parade. All he needed to complete the scene was a gatling gun and a pack of natives coming up the hill to dispute our claim. He paced the flattened surface of the ridge, and perused his slim book to decide what portions should be read. I anticipated a few mumbled words, though dragging Wilcox’s body to this spot obviously called for something more.
‘After the war I lost touch with him, and went to a lot of trouble to find him. I finally reached him through his mother, who told me he’d had tuberculosis, and had just left a sanatorium. I didn’t know he’d walked out without being cured. When I told him our plans, he produced a certificate to say he was fit for work. Where he got it I don’t know, but there seemed no reason to believe it wasn’t genuine. He was dead keen to come, and I was just as keen to have him. By the time I found out that he’d been given only a short time to live it was too late for me to replace him with anyone else. It was hard to believe he wouldn’t last the trip, and I’m sure he would if it hadn’t been for the accident.
‘He wasn’t your ordinary everyday knobs-and-levers merchant. Not Wilcox. During the war we went through some hair-raising moments, as you know – except Mr Ad-cock – but we were part of a team, of which Wilcox was the perfect member. He would never hold back from doing more than his bit. We were all or nothing, and we came out with everything. On the other hand, we should never forget those who didn’t come out, who gave more than everything. But when we said goodbye at the end of the war none of us knew we’d meet again, and come to a place like this. Nor did I know that when we did, Wilcox would be killed in action. There were dozens of times when he could have gone, which leads me to wonder at the reason why God chooses the time and how He decides the place.’