The Lost Flying Boat (27 page)

I lifted the first box. ‘And the skipper?'

He winked. ‘All jolly and bright.'

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.'

He turned a few pages of the book. ‘Blessed be the Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who formed you in judgement, who nourished and sustained you in judgement, who brought death on you in judgement, who knoweth the number of you all in judgement, and will hereafter restore you to life in judgement. May David Samuel Wilcox come to this place in peace.'

In spite of such grand words, I felt he believed nothing of what he was reading, till in one pause came the faintest smile, a moment perhaps when he sensed the biting relevance of his text, suggesting that this ritual of getting Wilcox to such a burial spot was an attempt to work something human back into himself. Why else would he have done it? I recognized his peculiar smile as a mark of pain, which spread into every fibre of his body and soul.

‘He that dwelleth in the shelter of the Most High abideth under the shadow of the Almighty. I say of the Lord. He is my refuge and my fortress. Thou favourest man with knowledge, and teachest mortals understanding. Forgive us, O our Father, for we have sinned; pardon us, O our King, for we have transgressed. Look upon our affliction and plead our cause, and redeem us speedily for Thy name's sake. Vouchsafe a perfect healing to all our wounds.'

Appleyard wept.

‘As for man, his days are as grass; as the flower of the field so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.'

Heads down, we saw a world of grit and ash. Whoever cannot weep is damned because he will not. But I couldn't. Stinging wind made tears. I felt the power of desolation, in a country I had never known. The most unreal comes to be the most real, a truth apparent as I listened to the Ninetieth Psalm and the whine of the uprising gale behind each line. Death drummed us into a silence that was not bitter, but neutral. The only good was that the words of the Book rooted us in a common past, and held promise of a common future, provided we could get out with no more dead.

‘Lay him to rest. He's better off than we are.'

‘God gave him a Blighty one,' Appleyard murmured. Unable to deny it, I rolled the body to one side. We drew the rope under the middle, them steadied the sack down.

Bennett set his cap on and stuffed the book inside his jacket. ‘Put plenty of stones on top.'

We made a cairn on the hump of ground so that the location was unmistakable – which was what Bennett wanted. ‘A trig point,' said Rose. ‘Let's hope all of us get one.'

Beyond the reverse slope a stream descended from the re-entrant. A cloud of birds wheeled clockwise above rushing water near the beach. We were close enough for the crying skuas to overlap the sky and investigate us. Distaste blighted Bennett's expression when he lowered the field-glasses from what he had seen.

Out of its wide circuit a skua came close. We avoided its scything beak. Black eyes glittered, swooping on a wide span of wing with proprietary rage, a flash of white near each tip. Armatage hurled his spade like a javelin. ‘I'd like to twist its bloody neck.'

‘Our necks would be bloody if it had half the chance,' Appleyard said. I saw no advantage in such a fray. To know when to stop is vital. A step forward due to curiosity, or because you move without realizing, makes you a plaything of some force which is beyond explanation.

Bennett was halfway down. Other predatory outriders of the feast swirled about. Probably a seal, said Rose. There's no animal protection society in these parts. I never liked birds. Nothing's safe from them. Our voices became crazed as we advanced in line with spades and entrenching tools. ‘It may be king of the air,' said Appleyard, ‘but if the bugger comes close, it's had it.'

They wheeled in pairs, riled that we would compete at their feed. I felt the wind of one sweep by, and swung at another coming near. Appleyard sicked them with salvoes of gravel, and stung the most daring which, unsuspecting, got it full against the head, swerving not to come back. There were a dozen by the river, and we fought off those which would not move. Armatage enjoyed the skirmishing. ‘They're bloody game birds!'

I ran to unseat the last pair. What they had been dining on was scattered by the water, red flesh on black gravel. A bar of rock held gobbets at its rim, but most had been pulled ashore – cloth, a hat, a familiar boot, and pieces of kit as if thrown by some St Vitus-stricken murderer, discernible because soaked blood made them like wads of flesh.

At another rush of air I cut with the spade, striking the head as a beak swept by. It crashed and flapped, and tried to run. The sight of Bull's eyeless decapitation settled by green flies sent me chopping at the wings, cries mixing with the flash of nearby water, till I was pulled from my mad hacking.

I wanted to be alone, block off their gloating and congratulations, to slaughter what other birds came close. Bennett's command from his own world had no effect. He stood to one side while Armatage wrapped the wallet in his scarf.

We would go back along the beach rather than over Wilcox Hill. Across a headland, thousands of white-chested penguins moved like the surface of a lake with indistinguishable shores. A pigeon-coop smell came on the breeze. Fate was intent on us dying like flies at the end of summer – till nothing was left but an oil stain on a sea without end. Rose said we should deposit Bull's remains in the same grave as Wilcox. Bennett told him they could stay where they were. It was no more than he deserved for having deserted his post. We had work to do. And common graves were bad omens.

9