The Devil's breath

24

Down in the airfield’s bar, Ferdie van Reenen was rolling a cigarette, a cold beer on the countertop in front of him, as Tobias poured himself a mug of coffee.

Kallie was sitting next to her dad. “I thought you’d quit smoking.”

“I did, but you’ve put me back on to them. I’m too old for all this stress, y’know. Anyway, I haven’t lit it yet, have I?”

He emptied the tobacco from the cigarette paper into his hand and began the process again.

Mike Kapuo came in, closing the door firmly behind him. “Wind’s picking up.” He nodded at Tobias as the barman offered the coffeepot.

“Storm’ll break in a couple of hours, then no one will be flying. When are those Brits getting here?” van Reenen asked.

Kapuo checked his watch. “About an hour, maybe a bit more.”

Van Reenen had rolled another cigarette. “And what about your blokes?”

“Bogged down in bureaucracy and infighting. Army wants one thing, police commissioner wants another, and the politicians all want to be covered in glory.”

“They’ll be covered in something else if they don’t get this mess sorted.” Van Reenen moaned as he put the cigarette between his lips.

Kallie eased off the stool and moved away. “Don’t expect me to look after you when your lungs pack up.”

“What I expect is your antics will have put me in an early grave long before then.”

“Whatever,” she said, and found herself a stool further along the counter. Their chitchat was a way of relieving the tension because, whatever else was going on, they were being forced to wait and it was driving them all crazy. Kallie stared at the receiver propped behind the bar. Wherever Max was, he might still be able to reach a radio and send a message.

The storm whiplashed the air. Max was struggling to keep the plane flying on an even keel while it was being buffeted by the violent wind.!Koga was still unconscious and Max couldn’t even be sure whether he was still breathing. Flying with one hand, Max checked the radio; it was set to 121.5 megacycles. Was that right? Would that get through to anyone? Why would his dad have had that frequency tuned in? It must mean something. He pressed the handset to his lips. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.” He released the transmit button. Nothing. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Max Gordon. I need help. Can anyone hear me? I’m flying a plane and I need help. Hello? Mayday. Anybody?”

Ferdie van Reenen had scrambled over the counter, spilled his beer, and grabbed the handset. “Max. We hear you! Over.”

Kallie was right behind him.

There was a garbled response that then was cut off. “Max, listen, son, this is Kallie’s pa. Speak into the handset, release the button, and listen. That’s how it works.”

Max’s voice came over the speaker. “I understand. I need help.”

“I know. Is your father with you? Over.”

There was a pause.

“No,” said Max. “Dad’s at Skeleton Rock. But I’ve got an injured Bushman boy with me. He’s really hurt and he needs a doctor. Over,” Max said, remembering the radio procedure.

There was no doctor. Not in these parts.

“That must be!Koga,” Kallie said.

“All right, Max. Let’s get you down first. Can you see any landmarks? Over.”

Max peered down. From the air, the wilderness he had traveled across looked different. A ravine, scrubland, in the distance becoming more obscured by the dust, a straight line that was a dirt road. He clicked the handset.

“Nothing. Just … nothing. There’s a road, a track, dead straight. Running across my flight path. Bottom left to top right. There’s a huge storm behind me. I can tell you that.”

In the bar, Tobias had already unfolded a map. Kapuo and van Reenen scanned it, trying to get an idea of where Max might be. Kallie gestured for the handset and her father passed it to her.

“Where’d he take off from? What’s his compass bearing?” van Reenen instructed her. “If the storm’s behind him, he’s flying in a southerly direction.”

“Max, this is Kallie.”

The plane bellied into turbulence and the instrument panel shook on its mountings as a violent gust made it drop a hundred feet. Despite his seat belt, Max’s head hit the ceiling. He dropped the handset, his pulse raced, and the metal structure around him suddenly felt very flimsy. He leveled the plane, the horizon bar on the dial dipping left and right, but finally settling on an even keel. Max pulled back the handset’s coiled cable and pressed the transmit button.

“Kallie! Brilliant. I just fell into some kind of hole in the sky. This isn’t fun.”

“Max, I’m not even going to ask how you got up there-that can wait. What does your compass say? Over.”

The compass needle wavered as the plane was pushed this way and that. “South … southeast … a hundred and thirty something, hundred and forty degrees. You get that?”

“Got it.” Her voice crackled through the speaker. It was difficult to hear her without a headset, the plane’s engine rumbled loudly, its pitch changing as it dealt with the buffeting wind. “Where did you take off?”

“Below the Devil’s Breath somewhere. Can’t be sure. Must have been south. Must have been.”

Van Reenen turned the map, his finger tracing the possible route. Using the edge of a beer mat and a stub of pencil, he drew two intersecting lines. One from Skeleton Rock, through the Devil’s Breath, and the other from the approaching northerly storm.

“He’s going the wrong way. There’s nowhere we can talk him down. He has to turn towards us.”

Kallie pressed the transmit button. “Max, you have to turn the plane on to a southwest course. Repeat. Southwest.”

“Er … right … ah … er … turning it … er … pushing me down!”

“Lift the nose! Lift the nose. Get her level!”

Crackle. Static. Silence.

“Max?”

There was an agonizing pause.

“OK! I did it! Kallie … listen …!Koga’s skull is fractured. He’s really bad. Get a doctor and get me down. Can you do that?”

Van Reenen shook his head. “There’s a military hospital at Khomtsa.”

“It’d take him hours at his speed,” Kapuo said.

“You’re right. We get him down here, I’ll take the boy in the Baron,” van Reenen told them. His twin-engined plane could make the journey in less than half an hour.

Before anyone could say anything, Max’s voice filled the bar. “Kallie, the fuel gauge … both needles are below the quarter mark on the dial. I think I might be almost empty.”

Kallie barely hesitated, she shoved the handset into her father’s hand and ran for the door. “We don’t have time for him to find us. Keep him on course. I’ll find him.”

Van Reenen didn’t have a chance to argue. Kallie was sprinting for her plane.

Clouds snatched at the windscreen as light rain splattered on the plane’s skin. Max hadn’t realized that by keeping the nose pointed just above the horizon he had overcompensated. The altimeter showed 2600 feet. He must have been going upwards since he took off. He needed to get down to where he could identify features on the ground. No wonder the plane had been gobbling fuel-not that he knew how much he had had in the first place-one of the things he’d forgotten to check. Not that it would have mattered. He’d have taken the chance anyway.

He pushed the nose down gently. No sensation of dropping, just the view through the propeller’s flickering shadow. It could be really easy to gaze through that, see the ground coming up, closer, closer, until it was too late to pull up.

He was well below the cloud now, down to about 1000 feet. Still in the middle of nowhere. In truth, he didn’t want to land. That was a really scary thought. He was just fine, skimming through the sky. If he had an unending fuel supply he could just keep going.

Wake up! the voice in his head shouted. The hum of the engine, the whirring propeller and the exhaustion that was quickly claiming him had eased him into that strange dream state where he thought he was awake but wasn’t. His eyes didn’t want to stay open. He needed air. He wedged the side window open and felt the freezing-cold air prickle his skin.

“OK! I’m awake! I am awake!” he shouted to the sky. And then he heard van Reenen’s concerned, insistent voice. Max answered, assuring him that he was OK, but he was frightened that he had not heard Kallie’s dad calling him.

Van Reenen’s voice kept up a steady stream of instructions, mostly to keep him edging on course and telling him that Kallie was going to fly alongside him. Could he see her? Coming from starboard. Keep your eyes open. Stay on course. Stay level. Keep looking. Keep looking.

And then, like an ageing, overworked angel, the battered Cessna flew into view. A streak of sunshine escaped through the leaden sky, painting her wings a shiny gold. Max had never been so happy to see anybody in his life. Except his dad, that is. He waved. She smiled and waved back. Her plane was flying level, not twenty meters away.

“Kallie! Amazing! What do I do? Can you hear me?” he shouted into the handset.

“Loud and clear,” she replied. “I’m going to fly slightly ahead of you and a little higher. In a few minutes you’ll see what looks like a riverbed, but it’s a crack in the ground, then a couple of lumpy hills and, past that, there’s the runway.”

“Understood.” The tone of her voice meant there was no time to talk. She turned, he followed. He was surprised how easy it was to miss landmarks, the whole perspective when flying altered his awareness. He concentrated madly, trying to see where they were going, but the barren land yielded no sign of an airstrip.

“To your right, towards the horizon. You see the airfield?” Kallie said after about twenty minutes. He looked hard, his eyes scanning the ground.

“No!” he said, feeling the edge of panic in his voice. “I just can’t see it.”

“OK, relax, just follow me,” she reassured him, remembering her first solo flight. She’d thought she’d never find the airfield again-and that was down in Windhoek, which was big enough to be seen from space. She knew the difficulties Max was experiencing. “Look below my aircraft, let your eyes go to the horizon and then look left. There’s a plateau that looks like an upside-down iron….”

“Got that!”

“Look to the point of the iron, there’s a couple of buildings.”

Yes! The corrugated roofs made a wave of shadows as the light changed. “I can see it, Kallie. I can see the buildings and the strip. I’ve got it.” Relief flooded through him and he relaxed his hands, which had been gripping the controls too tightly.

“OK, Max. Fuel?”

He looked at the fuel gauge needles. They’d dropped to the bottom of the dial. “They’re in the red.”

She didn’t answer. And he realized this was it. One chance at getting the plane down in one piece.

“OK. You don’t have to spell it out, Kallie.”

“Excellent. So, normally we’d take a pass over the airfield, check the windsock and get the wind direction, but we don’t have time for that. And I know where the wind’s blowing from. Trust me?”

He thought she was amazingly calm and promised himself he’d try to control the anxiety in his voice from now on.

“Trust a girl? I’d have to think about that-if I had the time.”

“Ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

The moment he heard the words come out of his mouth, a strange calmness settled over him. The rocking of the aircraft, the uncertain picture through the windscreen-none of it mattered. He was going in for a landing, and when something this big stared you in the face, when there was absolutely no choice left, you faced it with as much calm as you could. Like a man about to be executed.

Kallie’s voice sounded gentle but firm, as if she was holding his hand. “You’re nicely established on the downwind, keep it going until I ask you to turn to the left. OK, time to do a couple of prelanding checks. Don’t waste time responding unless you can’t do any of them.”

She didn’t need to ask him to check that the fuel selector was on the Both tanks setting. It was now or never.

“Check the mixture is on Rich.” She paused, giving him time. “Check the magnetos are on the Both mark.” She could see his head dipping as his fingers traced her instructions. “OK, Max. Good. You’re doing really well. Now, reduce your power to a steady ninety knots.” She had already cut back her own speed and watched as Max’s plane slowed. The boy was getting it right. He was listening and doing what was being asked of him. Maybe they were in with a chance after all. “Max, find the lever and lower the flaps to ten degrees.”

The trailing edge of the wing showed the gap when the flaps lowered.

“How you doing, Max? Have you done everything?”

“Yeah. Everything. All the checks.”

“Here we go. We’re going to make a crosswind turn ninety degrees to the runway.”

Max followed her, and the runway lay to his left. Now he could see everything. The strip was flanked by a couple of buildings: one of them looked like a workshop area, the other was just a tin-roofed shack. There were men standing at the door, one of them wearing a lurid yellow T-shirt and red baseball cap.

In the center of the field a civilian jet was parked next to a smaller plane with twin propellers. Near the white-painted jet half a dozen men, bare-headed and dressed in black, were gazing up at him. Everyone was looking up at him. He was the center of attention. All eyes on him. He hoped he wouldn’t make a mess of it. He’d never live it down.

If he lived.

Outside the bar, Tobias’s can of beer hovered between his chin and his lips. Van Reenen chewed an unlit cigarette and Mike Kapuo’s unblinking eyes were locked on to the two aircraft, now only a few hundred meters away. The one below the other seemed to be wobbling.

“The landing gear on those Cessnas is made from spring steel,” van Reenen said, to no one in particular.

Kapuo and Tobias dared a glance away from the unfolding drama.

“What does that mean?” Tobias asked.

“Anything other than just about a perfect touchdown, and he’ll be bouncing from here to kingdom come,” he said. “That might just finish off that kid with a fractured skull. And he’s too low. I hope she can see it. Come on, Kallie, tell him. Tell him,” he muttered to himself.

Pilots talk in feet, Max thought in meters, but his eyes told him he needed to be higher. Should he pull up? The wind was being difficult, a rush across the ground, a swirl at rooftop height. Whatever happened, Max did not have the skill to start side-slipping the plane. He had to come in dead straight.

“You’re getting a little low, Max, apply a touch more power. Keep her level, a little more power, come on.”

That was how you did it. Don’t pull up, just “a touch more power.” That was it.

Max didn’t take his eyes away from the ground as he reached out, pushed the throttle in, heard the engine pick up and then her voice telling him that was better, and that he could slowly reduce power again.

Couldn’t she make her mind up?

“You’re about thirty feet off the ground, Max. Twenty-five. Remember after touchdown to keep the plane straight.

Use your rudder, do not touch the brakes until you’ve lost speed and the tail wheel is on the ground. OK, good, twenty feet, lower thirty degrees of flap and try and keep the speed at sixty knots with the throttle.”

Her voice was now a continuous assurance. Calm, even, steady. Almost tender. “Ten feet above the runway, start reducing power and be sure not to let the nose drop.”

Max couldn’t see the runway anymore, it had slipped below the propeller, and it felt as though the plane was sitting back on her tail. The bloody wind snatched at him.

“Keep it straight! Don’t drop that wing. You are just about to touch down.”

The hum of tires on concrete vibrated through his seat.

“Great, you’re down, keep it straight and close the throttle completely!”

He pulled the lever all the way out. The propeller began to slow.

“Your tail wheel is on the ground, you can apply brakes gently. Well done! Raise the flaps and taxi in. Looks like you’ve got a welcoming committee.”

Max saw Kallie’s plane soar upwards to come around again and make her own landing. Mother Earth. Solid, unyielding. Welcome home, everybody.

The engine died, the last gasp of fuel spluttering, and then silence. For a moment he couldn’t move, but then he saw the men running from the jet; they were dressed in assault gear. Then someone yanked open the door and eager hands reached in for him.

“All right, son, bit of a blinder, eh? Good one.”

A cockney accent. What was its owner doing here? He didn’t have time to figure it out.

“My mate’s in there-” Max began.

Another man. Scottish. “Aye, don’t you worry about him, we know he’s hurt.”

The men passed him from one to the other down the line, until he stood clear of the plane and watched as one of them clambered in and began easing!Koga out.

Someone familiar looking was walking towards him. Max stared. It couldn’t be. Mr. Peterson!

“No!” Max yelled, turning back to the soldiers who had put!Koga on to a folding stretcher. He hadn’t gone through all of this to fall into Peterson’s hands.

One of the men grabbed him, not roughly but with enough strength so that Max knew he couldn’t compete with him. Everything seemed to give way inside him. He’d lost. Max almost cracked up.

It made no sense.

Kallie’s plane landed and stopped in a very short distance; Mr. Peterson was standing in front of him, a big smile on his face, and the men in black were carrying!Koga to the twin-engined plane, where a man with a wild beard sat in the cockpit, shouting for them to hurry.

The world had finally gone mad.

Max went down on his knees.

He saw Mr. Peterson frown, saw his mouth shaping his name.

And couldn’t stop himself falling into blackness.