‘Roger-dodger.’
Heading into daylight, we were safe. On land was danger, but with four engines bearing us through the air, though overloaded with fuel and gold, the worst was over.
‘They wanted us to surrender,’ I said.
‘Cheeky devils,’ Appleyard laughed. ‘I hope you told ’em what to do.’
‘Radio silence. And no bad language.’
‘Pity,’ Nash put in.
‘Keep it that way.’
Gaining height by inches. Kelp patched the narrowest point of the straits. An expanding funnel of land showed our route to the open sea. We were flying, all weight fallen from us, and waiting for it to go from the boat.
‘We’ll be so high the earth’ll be a tennis ball,’ Appleyard said.
‘But who’ll have the bat?’
‘Crawl down into your apple-pie bed and die,’ said Nash.
‘063 magnetic,’ said Bennett. ‘Until we’re in the clear at 48 south 70 east. Log that as well, Sparks. Wind westerly, ten to fifteen. Bring the computer. When we’re on automatic I’ll work things out.’
I tore a sheet from Rose’s log, noting the time and initial course. The island that divided us from the pursuing ship was two thousand feet high, so we were not visible. Nor when they turned the headland would they see any sign. They might search all indentations before realizing we had taken off, and then what could they do?
‘They’re not as daft as you think,’ said Nash. ‘But then, neither are we.’
17
We would reach base with fuel to spare, Bennett claimed, and our cargo intact. Rational and hopeful, he had worked his doubts out of existence. But logic said that while each mile lessened the weight of fuel to be carried, every gallon spent increased the possibility of not getting where we wanted to go. Rose had been right. We might as well be heading into space. The situation was that of a man humping food on his back through an area where no supplies were available. He would eat much and frequently in order to generate the energy to carry such heavy cargo. The more he ate the lighter his load would become, and he would need to eat less in order to transport what remained. But when all food had gone and he had not yet reached terrain where more was at hand, he would die of starvation. So the flying boat on running out of fuel would crash into the sea. Even if we had a little in reserve, a few failures of navigation would still cause a shortfall.
The track of the Aldebaran clipped the eastern dagger-point of Howe Island at a height of little more than a thousand feet, our gentle climb due as much to conserving fuel as to the weight being hauled. We go for the Equator, Bennett said, and keep travelling, and if we can’t reach Ceylon because of fickle winds we’ll beg, borrow or steal petrol – or even buy if the price is right! – from Diego Garcia, only 350 miles off our track.
He had studied the matter well, but Diego Garcia, the first outpost of civilization, was a dot on the ocean, and even if he worked the stars as competently as Rose (Nash insisted he could do it better), it would be a feat to locate the place, whether occupied at the controls or not. Instead of a thermal back-up at the tail, side winds would nudge us here and there, and difficulties in making the required track would adversely affect our fuel supply. If we weren’t forced to ditch a hundred miles short of our objective, 3270 miles away, we’d be lucky to alight with a pint in each engine. Shipping routes lessened the danger of drowning, but the sea was unlikely to develop woolly arms into which we could safely alight.
Radio would help little if star sights were impossible, bearings only useful when confirmed from other sources. It was the same old tale, I said. The first wireless beacon was on Mauritius, 1200 miles off our track. Then Diego Garcia would give bearings either to home in on or provide lateral fixes till I contacted HF DF at Negombo in Ceylon on 6500 kilocycles. The latter part of the trip would be safer in this respect, though how we would feel after twenty-eight hours on our Flying Dutchman was hard to imagine.
Blood had a smell, and that was a fact. The gun under my table was still tacky. With five rounds in the chamber I could persuade Bennett to make for Freemantle. The distance was a thousand miles less, and we would have the wind pushing from behind. But I couldn’t hold the gun at his temple for ten hours, beyond which he would have no option but to carry on. Nash and Appleyard, what’s more, had absolute faith in his ability to get us non-stop to Timbuctoo if he said he could – grumble as they might at his eccentricities. Against all three I was helpless. And then my duty was braced by a call from our pursuers, loud signals proving that we were not yet out of their reach.
‘PZX DE WXYZ = RETURN TO TAKE OFF POSITION = +’
I passed the chit, and Bennett decided there would be no acknowledgement. I thought it would be best to ask for terms, having done well enough to secure peace with honour. I preferred to live rather than perish in trying to save the gold for Bennett’s own use. And to fly on meant that, either way, destruction was certain. But to make clandestine contact would have been my last act. I was as chained to my position as a machinegunner in the Great War, for though my loyalty was not to Bennett and his gold, nor even to us as a crew, I felt much affection for this aircraft flying over the sea, with its engines, ailerons, guiding rudder, and all other parts. I viewed it as from outside, ascending slowly with sunlight occasionally flooding the canopy and shining on Bennett as if he had been fixed in his position during the plane’s construction and launched at the controls. Whether it would have been possible to see him as an ordinary person like the rest of us I do not know, for perhaps I thought that if I succeeded in doing so I would not be able to defend any of us against him should the time ever come.
The same view of the Aldebaran that I envisaged was in reality obtained by a seaplane on the starboard quarter. Nash regretted that there were no dark nimbus-cupboards immediately available in which to play hide-and-seek. ‘Watch that Dornier before he gets under our belly.’
‘I’ll have him, Skipper,’ Appleyard said as it veered away.
The plane came back and flew level, fixed at our speed, and kept its distance so cleverly that we seemed to have spawned a satellite. Another hung onto our tail, but at a greater distance. The crew of two in tandem, canopies back, were clearly seen. The rear man flashed a lamp.
‘Read it, Sparks.’
‘Will do.’
Nash got the message over the intercom. ‘We’re out of range.’
‘Hold them till we hit cloud.’
The message was repeated. ‘TURN OR WE DESTROY YOU.’
‘What kind of English is that? said Nash.
‘Sounds like Fu Manchu,’ said Appleyard. ‘Tell ’em to go to hell.’
Bennett surprised me. ‘Ask what’s the matter.’
‘“Going to a dance, send three-and-fourpence,”’ said Nash. ‘I don’t mind a fighter plane. All’s fair in love and war. But it’s the flak I can’t stand. Getting too old for it.’
My morse could not have been easy to read. The lamp was almost too heavy to hold. The second seaplane to starboard also winked its light across the blue, a message impossible to misread. At 2000 feet we were climbing, but like a flying barn compared to their nimble craft.
‘Watch ’em, Nash. They’ll try and nudge us in the opposite direction.’
‘You take the bastard to port,’ Appleyard said. ‘And I’ll sic the other.’
‘Can’t throw the old flying boat around like a Spitfire this time, Skipper.’
‘Straight and level does it. Press on regardless.’
Nash laughed. ‘Did we ever do anything else?’
The message was always the same. I wanted to send ‘Per ardua ad astra’ in morse, something I’d never thought of doing while wearing the uniform. We could no more turn than if we were in a railway train. The refuge of cloud got no closer. They lacked the range to follow us far, but we were only a hundred miles north of the island, its black humps still close.