The Call of the Thunder Dragon (22 page)

He reckoned on a good airspeed of
about 70 knots. The wind was lower now and the clouds clear of
snow. A gentle wind from the south west was giving them a light
boost in the direction of Myitkyina. In three hours, he hoped to
see the Irrawaddy
¹⁸
river to guide them
into Myitkyina in Burma.

Falstaff always believed the best
way to know a country was to fly over it. He looked forward to
seeing the river, to see its currents surging below and to take in
the changing nature of its banks. He’d heard of the adventures on
Burma's Irrawaddy River, which aroused the imagination of Kipling’s
barrack room ballads.

Falstaff started to sing:

“By the old Moulmein
pagoda
¹⁹
,

Looking eastward to the sea

There's a Burma gal a settin'

And I know that she waits for
me

And the wind is in those palm
trees

And the temple bells they say

Come you back you mother
soldier

Come you back to Mandalay,

Come you back to Mandalay!”

The name Irrawaddy, Falstaff
realised, as he had struggled with the maps, was a corruption of
Ayerawaddy. He had sort of translated that as ‘the river that
brings blessings to the people.’

It was a fickle river. One which
tested faith. Receding during the country's dry season, until its
banks sat dry and exposed, cracking in the sun. Then the river
returned each spring with the monsoon, coming to life. Flooding
fields, refilling the irrigation with water, fish and fertile soil.
The Irrawaddy was the blood of the Burmese people. They washed in
it. They drank it and travelled on it. It was full of their history
and their spiritual life. Nearly every Burmese’s employment was
supported by the Irrawaddy: water fisheries, the mangrove forest
for timber and Jute
²⁰
, also providing the
staple diet of the Burmese, Nagapi, a paste made from seasonally
caught shrimp.

Falstaff kept alert by singing,
hoping to see the Irrawaddy soon:

“Can't you 'ear their paddles
chunkin...

From Rangoon to Mandalay?

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin' fishes play,

An' the dawn comes up like
thunder...

Outer China across the Bay!”

Zam regularly handed cups of hot
rice, wine or tea to him. The piping hot rice and tea filled his
insides with a warm glow. Mouthfuls of dried beef that had to be
well chewed kept the muscles in his face from freezing altogether.
He encouraged Zam to stay of out the wind, under the cover of the
cabin. After a couple of hours, Zam had become bored and in the
warmth of the cabin fell asleep.

Falstaff kept himself going,
checking the course and compass. He started think to about the
rewards of flying. Firstly, he pictured the look on the face of his
instructor at Cranwell when he heard about Falstaff’s
accomplishment. The instructor had called him a ‘dew dropping
dunce’ and thrown the navigator’s manual at him, missing from two
yards away. Now Falstaff was undertaking a mission to Bhutan, over
the snow-capped Himalayas, in the winter, in an Italian Trimotor
seaplane! The stiff instructor could choke on his ‘Z one over Z’
and drop his bubble sextant and break it, thought Falstaff.

Falstaff conjectured about the
halls of Cranwell, what were the RAF doing now anyway? He hadn’t
thought of home for a long time. He rarely had a thought of old
England. Not looking back since his running away from Harrow. How
he had worked in garages, learning to fly in secret from his
father.

It had been a long time since he
thought about his joining the RAF. The flight training, flight
testing and those cold, cold ditchings in the sea for the fleet air
arm.

All that felt such a long time
ago. What followed, his being posted to Afghanistan, his
imprisonment in a Khyber fortress for six months with an ancient
mad Tibetan monk had set the course for the rest of his life.

He chuckled when he thought of
the old man who’d taught him to speak Sanskrit and change the
inflexion to speak nearly every Indo-Chinese dialect derived from
it. After suffering six months, reciting the same words with the
mad old goat. The miraculous escape, all planned and pulled off by
the old fool was a touch of brilliance.

His homecoming to a family
scandal was predictable as his discharge from the RAF. After that
he’d simply absconded to the South Seas. However, the promise of
fame, fortune, reward and a chance to fly fighters again had led
him to the Spanish civil war.

Falstaff shook his head to shake
off the rambling thoughts. His mind was wandering from his
navigation; just as his career had drifted from his aim of a rich
retirement with sun, sea and sand on Bora Bora.

To keep his mind on their course,
he reviewed his progress. He had two compasses, the aircraft’s
which an old liquid compass that had seen better days and an
ancient German optical sight compass. Bought from the pawn shop. He
had no sextant, his maps were vague and largely blank. He was
literally flying towards the ‘Land of the Black Lisu’, where the
maps were blank.

He’d read the book of the Lisu
more than a decade ago. The story of how two British explorers, in
1905, had made the first expedition into the unknown land. The high
remote mountainous area might now have a few more scattered names
for the remote peaks and the deep ravines revealing the river
courses, but it was still a void with wild hill tribes that not
even Chinese troops dared enter.

His maps at least overlapped,
although the date of the maps varied and written names of towns and
emphasises placed on them diverged wildly. His route was noted down
as a list to be easy to follow. Although poor visibility and snow
meant, he’d started off with nagging doubts about his directions.
Blue skies and fair winds were always more welcome than clouds and
billowing snow.

He ran through the route and
headings in his head. Maps and note books were almost entirely
useless in an open cockpit. The wind whipped at him ceaselessly.
Everything was prone to collecting water from the misty clouds they
brushed past.

Air navigation consists of dead
reckoning that should include calculations of distances, bearings,
course, speed; all checked and aided by observation. It was a lot
to do, in a cold open cockpit when your face was frozen and your
gloves were moulded stiff. Turning to find a pencil could result in
you flying into a mountain.

Falstaff had headed north-west
immediately on take-off. Keeping within clear sight of the ground
until he got his bearings. He’d flown over the area a few times
before, but had never gone any further to the west of the Simao
area until today. Previously his RAF service in India and
Afghanistan had taken him as far as east as Bhagalpur. Between
there and his present position was new and unknown.

He carefully watched as the
landscape of China changed. At the start of their journey, he’d
spotted the bombed air strip and then continued west until he
spotted familiar roads and the river leading into a valley that
contained his first listed geographical feature.

Shitou mountain, a lion’s head, a
low mound capped with a white outcrop of rock resembling a lion’s
head. Easily missed, he had noted. Next on this list: Hut. Large
Hut on tea plantation ridge, between two passes; continue
north-west he had written.

On course, he climbed up out of
the flat valley over the rounded hills of the tea plantation to
find the black wooden hut contrasting against grey leafless bushes.
He reduced the engines down to a cruising speed. Keeping low over
the pine covered hilltop, before dropping down to the terraces of
tea on the other side.

Immediately the difficult part of
the flight started. Locating the correct river to follow. Even at
low speed he knew he’d have to keep his eyes peeled watching the
ground all the time.

First was the Lancang River,
bearing 204°. It came into view about twenty minutes later, just as
the snow started to clear. Xiang shan mountain, peaked with a cap
of snow, materialised through the cloud just as Falstaff found the
Xiaohei River looping around the mountain.

Hamlets and farms, clinging to
the sides of the valley over the river below, slipped by as he
waited. Another twenty minutes passed. The juncture of the river
with the distinctive island of muddy rock sitting in the confluence
with Long-ji-ang river appeared. Following the Northward course of
the river, he climbed bouncing over each hump of tea or rice
covered terrain. Always back down out of the clouds trying to keep
the meandering river in sight.

Falstaff continued to sit on the
edge of the hard bucket seat. The hilltops, reaching ever higher
were now covered with snow brushed pines. He flew close to the
trees following the gorge below. Gripping the yoke tightly, he was
afraid of wind shear around the rocky peaks and trees tops.

Thankfully, Zam soon brought tea
and rice which filled his stomach again with warmth. A fresh wave
of energy filled him, keeping the cold at bay. Half an hour later
than Falstaff had expected, their air speed lower than planned,
they found the next way point. A river bend at the foot of Datun
Mountain, which thrust up to tear at the thin sheet of white
cloud.

New bearing 213°, keeping the
distant Kunming shan mountain away to the east, on his left. He
followed the bends of the Long-ji-ang.

Next, the route took on a
zig-zagging game, to follow the river for next half an hour
constantly curving around. The gorge was also deeper, the sides
sheer. The peaks higher and nearer the thick clouds boxing them
into the gorge. He kept under the clouds where he could, with the
sides of the gorge ever present looming close on either side.

They continued westward away from
the safety of Kunming, into the Baoshan area. Falstaff counted two
major bends in the river then searched for the Hunhua mountain
starting a long slow climb through the clouds that could easily end
with them flying into the rocks.

When they broke through the final
layer of shrouding cloud, the top of the ridge showed itself last.
The altimeter showed over 10,000 feet. Once past the peak Falstaff
took a bearing and followed the far ridge down through the cloud to
the west.

Ever present, the low clouds
obscured the shapes of the ridges and peaks as far as the eye could
see. Kunming started to look like a much more sensible destination.
Falstaff’s spirits began to fall. The cold was now biting. The
thick clouds to the west had shut the door on the Dali valley or
turning back for Kunming. Determined, he ploughed on over the low
cloud. Still and silent at the helm, twinges from his ribs made him
grimace, fixing a deep frown on his frozen face.

Flying down to 7,000 feet, back
into cloud so thick it soaked the cockpit at it flushed past.
Watching out for the ground, he spotted the tree lined river bank
at the bottom of the new gorge. Descending slowly towards the
river, it soon widened. They found themselves over empty paddy
fields on a wide flat plain.

Zam joined him to point out the
villages below. Above the skyline was dominated by the huge peak of
Daxue Shan mountain, 11,000 feet tall. The engines maintained a
steady buzz dragging them up slowly over the western shoulder of
massive black peak.

Three hours twenty minutes; still
at 8,000 feet and now over Shidian county. Falstaff checked the
fuel now at 45 percent if the gauges were to be trusted? Through
another deep ravine and out the other side. Over the flood plain of
the Xiaosongshu. Descending towards another tributary, he took
bearings for the Tenglong Bridge, which they shot over twenty
minutes later.

Zam was taking full part in the
navigating now. Falstaff stiff at the controls, shivering he found
it easier to shout out the bearing for her take with the German
compass while he adjusted course.

Sight of the bridge confirmed the
Chinese maps they were now using. Drawing a huge sigh of relieve,
Falstaff adjusted his course northwards towards Tengchong. The
distinctive volcano peaks with their sharp ridges soon filled the
horizon. Brandy was called for. He quickly knocked it back to warm
his stiff and aching limbs. Falstaff munched on dried beef, the
chewing stimulating him and keeping hunger at bay.

Spotting and counting the many
volcanoes and villages they flew over helped pass the time quickly
as they flew further eastward. Finally, it felt like they were
making progress.

From above they could see the
rural villages clinging to the mountain sides and distinctively
shaped volcanoes sleeping under thin mists, collapsed in on
themselves their outer ridges covered with pines. Here and there,
hot water spouts and steam rose adding to the mist.

The shadow of the Caproni flitted
across flat farmland, over farm buildings. Now nearly forty minutes
on the same bearing, sticking at 5,000 feet with nothing ahead but
bands of grey cloud, cold and tense, anxious concentration.

Falstaff was furious, the rear
engine was running rough and irregular. Then Zam come forward to
tell him how much hotter it was. The oil lost was still trailing in
drips behind them. It was the last straw for the pilot.

“Oh, you backstabbing trollop!
Why the bloody hell did you induce me to ever get into this
infernal raggedy kite!” Falstaff burst out. “You blasted bitch! All
wide eyed and innocent, you smooth skinned succubus, lured me right
in! Dropped me right in it! Damn it, didn’t you think it though
while you were whimpering in pleasure last night? I should have
known! There’s nothing more dangerous than an wanton woman away
from home! For god’s sake, I said no! But you had to go and rake me
over anyway!”