“I am,” said Steve.
“You’ll find this a lot different from a city call,” Kate said, but in the darkness Steve couldn’t see her face clearly: her tongue could have slipped again or she could have been showing her old hostility.
Tristram and Charlie went out with Covici and Steve in the truck. Tristram drove, and Steve could see who had been Kate’s tutor. The few lights of the town blinked out behind them; Tristram drove furiously into the darkness. They reached the airdrome without mishap, but Steve would never understand why.
The plane stood outside the hangar, its engines ticking over. “It’s an old Anson, almost on its last legs,” Billy said. “A real jaloppy.” He looked up at the sky. “Not a peep of the moon, just bloody starlight. Trust you, Doc. Why didn’t you pick a night when there was a cyclone blowing to go out to Emu Downs?”
“Stop laughing,” said Covici, laughing heartily. “One flight a week, and you want daylight and perfect conditions all the time.”
The airdrome was lit by inadequate flares: the take-off strip was just a long stretch of blackness between the pale yellow lights. Billy didn’t waste any time; he took the plane straight down the strip and they were almost immediately airborne. Steve, sitting behind him and Covici, noticed the competent way he handled the plane: he had the same confidence as he had on the ground, but without the brashness. Billy Brannigan was a man made for flying.
He leaned towards Covici, who was sitting beside him. “When we tune in to Emu Downs, give me a minute with him first.” He took the microphone from its hook above the instrument panel. “7AV calling 7KXQ. Can you hear me, Kate? Over.”
Kate’s voice came into the cockpit, faint against the sound of the engines. “This is 7KXQ. I hear you clear, 7AV. Emu Downs is waiting to come in. Come in, 7ED.”
Another voice came into the cockpit, fainter still against the sound of the engines, blurred by static. “This is 7ED. Dave Keating. You on your way, Doc?”
“Hallo, Dave,” Billy said. “This is Billy Brannigan. Look, get out to your strip as fast as you can. Take your truck and park it at the end of the strip. The down-wind end, understand? Park it with its light facing away from me up the strip – I don’t wanna land right into the glare of them. All I wanna know is where is the end of it. Get your blacks to light as many fires as they can along the sides of the strip, with a big one at the end of it. Got that? Over.”
Keating’s voice came back, repeating the instructions. “She’ll be jake, Billy. Is the doc there? Wally looks pretty crook, Doc. Will it be all right to leave him alone while I come out to the strip?”
“There’s nothing else you can do, Dave,” said Covici. “If we can’t get down on the strip, Wally will have to wait till morning to see me. Over and out.”
Billy looked back at Steve. “How you going, Doc? This strip at Emu Downs is about seven miles from the homestead. Even after I get you down, you’re gunna get your guts jolted out in the truck. You should of stayed in Sydney, Doc. You want your head read.”
Conditions were turbulent. The plane dropped and bucked: Steve looked out of the window and thought he saw a star fall, then realised that the plane had lurched sharply upwards. He began to feel a little sick: he was not used to air travel, certainly not in a plane like this. He looked up and saw Covici laughing at him, his huge fat face looking like that of some mirthful heathen idol in the light from the control panel. He’s been doing this for eighteen years and laughing all the time, Steve thought. And that’s how a hero looks: fat, heathenish, his trousers held up by an Old Etonian tie. He grinned back at Covici, and the sickness went, along with the momentary fear he had begun to feel.
Then at last Billy yelled: “There it is! Fasten your belts and hang on to your hats. Here goes!”
He took the plane round in a wide circle, going down all the time, and Steve tried to see out of the window. But he caught no more than a glimpse of some lights: the rest was blackness below. The plane went steeply down and Steve clutched at the edges of his seat. The engines were still going, but Billy had cut their power; inside the plane it was comparatively silent now. The plane dropped suddenly and Steve thought they were down; then the motors revved suddenly and he saw Billy and Covici leaning back in their seats, both tense. The plane rose steeply and Steve, looking out the window, saw the glow of a fire almost beneath the wing-tip and the swiftly vanishing figures of some men.
“Missed the bastard!” Billy yelled, and took the plane up in a wide climbing circle. “Well, here we go again. That bloody hill is the trouble – it’s like coming in over a switchback!”
He put the stick down again and the plane was going down in another steep descent. Steve felt the safety-belt cutting into his lap; he had made it too tight. This will fill two or three pages, he, thought; the relations in Auckland were in for an exciting time.
The plane dropped suddenly, Steve guessed they had come in over the hill, wherever it was, then they had passed over the blaze of a truck’s lights, and a moment later the wheels had touched down.
And then it happened. He heard Billy swear a moment before the plane lurched. One of the fires alongside the strip seemed to rush straight at the plane from the side. There was a terrible grinding sound outside the plane, a ripping as of a giant sheet being torn, and a blinding flash of flame. Steve felt himself lifted and he threw up his hands; then he was hanging upside down and the safety-belt was almost cutting him in half. He could hear someone screaming with pain, taste the blood in his own mouth, and smell the thick acrid smoke that had suddenly filled the cabin.
It took him some time to realise that the plane had crashed, it was on fire and he was going to burn to death.
He would never know how he got out of the plane. The belt all at once broke and he hurtled to the roof of the cabin. He landed on his knees and looked up and saw the gaping hole in the side of the cabin. He struggled up, grabbing at the edges of the hole and trying to haul himself clear; and then he remembered he wasn’t alone here in the plane. He looked down past his own body and saw Billy crawling backwards out of the wreckage of the cockpit, pulling something after him.
“It’s Doc!” He coughed in the smoke that now enveloped them: the front of the plane was now just a wall of flame. “He’s out to it!”
Steve dropped down into the cabin again. Something sheared against his leg: he felt a long stab of pain, but somehow it meant nothing now: the pain of fear was stronger. The plane seemed to be crumbling to ash about them; blossoms of flame fell from the steel branches of the struts. The heat was now a physical force, pressing in on them; the skin felt ready to split, the eyes ready to bubble. Steve had once attended a man burned to death: he knew how he himself would look in death: black, bloated, his eyes like jelly on his cheeks. He reached over Billy’s shoulder and grabbed at Covici. Using only his forearms, possessing strength he would never have again, he lifted the huge inert body.
“Get up on top!” he yelled, his voice faint against the roar and crackle of the flames.
Billy clambered through the hole. A sheet of flame stood up behind him and he reared involuntarily, a black silhouette that Steve thought for one horrible moment was already a corpse. Then Billy was reaching down, and Steve was lifting the unconscious Covici. Steve’s lungs were full of smoke, withering inside him with the burning air he was inhaling; he gave a final heave to push Covici through the hole in the cabin and felt the white-hot spear pass through his chest. Then Billy and Covici were gone from above him and he was reaching up for the edges of the hole. He heaved, trying to lift himself, but he had no strength left. He could feel the shirt on his back beginning to smoulder; his trouser-legs felt as if they were already on fire. He looked down and he was standing in the midst of fire, and he thought, what a bloody awful way to go. Then hands were pulling at his arms, he didn’t even have