Back at my wireless, half the day had gone. The Heaviside Layer was a band of spinning water, and I was a babe new born with a deafening overdose as I sensed a storm towards the prevailing wind. I told Bennett that weather could hit us within the hour.
He poured a glass of brandy, which I drank straight off. ‘Shouldn’t bother us, in this anchorage. A few ups and downs. It might blow itself out before it gets here. Or change its mind at the last minute. Such things have been known.’
‘We’ll be carrying less weight back. Of the human sort, anyway.’ He pressed a clutch of fingers at his forehead, and on taking them away looked relaxed. Two men were dead, but the gold was aboard. What else mattered? ‘Stop worrying. Bull and Wilcox were careless. Luckily they only harmed themselves. I’m sorry, believe you me, but we can’t let their deaths interfere with our purpose.’ He pointed to a chair. ‘I’ve got more radio gen for you.’
‘Will we be able to take off with so much weight, and more than a full load of fuel?’ I couldn’t let the topic alone.
His left eye was bloodshot, and his smile became a scowl. ‘Has Rose been talking? A good navigator – who’s losing his grip. He’s been tainted by four years of civvy life.’
I sat down. ‘So have we all. But he got us here.’
‘Too true. And he’ll get us back. We’re a team, Sparks, and I need you all, because a hundred things can go wrong – though there’s no reason why they should. The task is straightforward, but the execution is complicated. There’s no mystery. When the goods are delivered we’ll set up a pay parade, and everyone will be on a first class boat back to Blighty. Or you can hitch the flying boat service – if you still have the stomach for it!’
I topped up the next glass with water. ‘I suppose you wanted Wilcox’s grave to be visible for miles, as a decoy? The seaplane looking for us yesterday was after the site of the gold diggings. And now they might assume that’s where it is.’
He laughed. ‘Any ruse in a storm. You’re right, Sparks. A man after my own heart. They may think we haven’t got the stuff out, and concentrate on that spot rather than on us. Wilcox wouldn’t mind. With a bit of luck, such as bad visibility for another fifteen hours, we’ll be up and away.’
‘And if the weather clears?’
‘We shoot our way out of trouble. Take off on a wing and a prayer, if need be. But that’s speculation. I’ve no time for it. Our fuel ship should now be near the northwest corner of the island, at 48 45 South and 69 15 East. The schedule was worked out three months ago. It’s a single deck 600-tonner built in 1928, 145 feet long, manned by the captain, two mates, chief engineer, nine sailors and a radio operator. It’s carrying the best aviation juice money can buy. The master will bring it through the bay at 4 knots, on a zig-zag course for 24 nautical miles, and then he’ll do 2 knots for 96 minutes while negotiating the tricky bits – before picking us up on his radar. It’s the smartest piece of navigation in uncharted waters without a pilot as any captain who’s lost his ticket is ever likely to undertake.’
‘What’s the ship called?’
‘My memory seems to have gone for a Burton.’
‘Where’s it registered?’
He gave that Dambuster smile. ‘Where hasn’t it been registered? The last name painted on its stern was the Difda. Not much of a star, but we’ll call it that, shall we?’
Dizzy from the brandy, I pressed my eyes back into alertness with such force I thought they would stay stuck to the plates of my cranium forever. When they shook loose I looked at him. ‘Do you want me to give him a call?’
‘This is what you’ll do: send the letter K every hour on the half hour, on 425 kilocycles. If you don’t hear the answering letter L, tap it out again after five minutes. But if there’s no response don’t bother for 55 minutes. Carry on till you get something back. But no call signs. Nothing except that single letter. When you finally get an L in answer to your K, send nothing for another hour. Then send K again, and wait for the answering L. When you get the first response, let me know. And tell me, on the hour, when the other answers come.’
‘What if I don’t hear anything?’
He gripped my shoulder. ‘We’re in trouble. But we’ll talk about that if it happens.’
10
There was a while to go before the half hour struck, but I knew that the bell had gonged for Bennett. The barren world had a more human aspect than the wilderness in him. I felt dead in his presence, and alive out of it. I did not expect him to tear his hair or cover himself with ashes about Bull and Wilcox. We were beyond that. No deaths could interfere with a dream that had turned real. It was easy to understand. The presence of an alien metal aboard the flying boat infected us all. I glanced at the boxes as if each held human remains, musing that a few more dead would make no difference as far as Bennett was concerned.
Rose bent over his chart, working out a course for Perth.
‘Do we have the petrol?’
‘We will.’ He closed his dividers. ‘Though without Wilcox to work his fruit machines we’ll be lucky. And that old wind god will have to blow hard at our tail.’
From the astrodome I looked east to the steep-sided channel in which we had landed. Like a fly in a bottle, could we get out? A kelp patch lay under the southern cliffs. Where the throat widened, the waters were mined. The north-south channel which we could use for take-off was hidden by a headland. Mist swirled along the water. Bays, capes, glaciers and mountains were weather-pots continually boiling. When a squall peppered the glass I got back to my radio and listened so intently for that bit of short-long-short-short squeaking that I heard it coming when it wasn’t there. Would I recognize the sounds if they suddenly turned up? I sent the letter K five minutes later, but at no answer leaping back I stayed by the set as if my sanity was bolstered by the glowing button of its magic eye.
The mist protected us but, after an hour, showed us up for miles. The starboard float, suspended from the wing, was the last man-made object between us and India. Mist turned into rain. I put out my hand to feel the patter. No one could speak without being heard. A cough or heavy breath was audible. The world beyond my earphones was a tap of footsteps on aluminium ladders, a spanner falling, a garbled song, the call of seabirds, a clatter of tins from the galley. Water slopped and gurgled at the hull. The peace was accentuated because I no longer felt unsteady underfoot.
Damp air swept through open hatchways, and Nash at the draught called for wood to be put in the hole. Appleyard threw a cigarette end into the water. ‘When the weather clears we’ll be spotted because of this cloud of birds. They’ll do for us yet, if we’re not careful. They’re like flies over a dead cat, a beacon that can be seen for miles.’ He claimed to distinguish between cries of skuas, penguins, petrels and seals. He would guess at their distance, saying that while some were across the water, other sounds carried from far off.
I felt a pang of desire for sight of the sun as I went to my radio for the next schedule, wondering how high one need go to reach blue without limit. I wanted to be airborne and away from this sub-Antarctic envelope. Checking the time with Rose, and hoping I was spot-on frequency, I sent the letter K. Perhaps the other man was not listening, or our signals lacked strength to cross the void. The laws of power and distance were inexorably fixed, and maligning the operator of the Difda for laxity had no effect. Maybe the 600-tonner was swamped already – the SS Maelstrom with its berserking crew caught in the switchback of the Roaring Forties. Perhaps it was a postage-stamp picture of Bennett’s imagination and didn’t exist at all. Nothing seemed real or possible in this world of the anchored flying boat.