‘You’re going at the best time,’ said Filson. ‘It’ll be worse later in the day when the sun has warmed things up. Now get the hell out of here and stop bothering me.’
O’Hara left the office. The main hall was emptying, a stream of disgruntled Samair passengers leaving for the antiquated airport bus. A few people still stood about – those would be the passengers for Santillana. O’Hara ignored them; passengers or freight, it was all one to him. He took them over the Andes and dumped them on the other side and there was no point in getting involved with them. A bus driver doesn’t mix with his passengers, he thought; and that’s all I am – a bloody vertical bus driver.
He glanced at the manifest. Filson had done it again – there were two crates and he was aghast at their weight. One of these days, he thought savagely, I’ll get an I.A.T.A. inspector up here at the right time and Filson will go for a loop. He crushed the manifest in his fist and went to inspect the Dakota.
Grivas was by the plane, lounging gracefully against the undercarriage. He straightened when he saw O’Hara and flicked his cigarette across the tarmac but did not step forward to meet him. O’Hara crossed over and said, ‘Is the cargo aboard?’
Grivas smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you check it? Is it secure?’
‘Of course, Señor O’Hara. I saw to it myself.’
O’Hara grunted. He did not like Grivas, neither as a man nor as a pilot. He distrusted his smoothness, the slick patina of pseudo good breeding that covered him like a sheen from his patent leather hair and trim toothbrush moustache to his highly polished shoes. Grivas was a slim wiry man, not very tall, who always wore a smile. O’Hara distrusted the smile most of all.
‘What’s the weather?’ he asked.
Grivas looked at the sky. ‘It seems all right.’
O’Hara let acid creep into his voice. ‘A met. report would be a good thing, don’t you think?’
Grivas grinned. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said.
O’Hara watched him go, then turned to the Dakota and walked round to the cargo doors. The Dakota had been one of the most successful planes ever designed, the work-horse of the Allied forces during the war. Over ten thousand of them had fought a good war, flying countless millions of ton-miles of precious freight about the world. It was a good plane in its time, but that was long ago.
This Dakota was twenty-five years old, battered by too many air hours with too little servicing. O’Hara knew the exact amount of play in the rudder cables; he knew how to nurse the worn-out engines so as to get the best out of them – and a poor best it was; he knew the delicate technique of landing so as not to put too much strain on the weakened undercarriage. And he knew that one day the whole sorry fabric would play a murderous trick on him high over the white spears of the Andes.
He climbed into the plane and looked about the cavernous interior. There were ten seats up front, not the luxurious reclining couches of Samair but uncomfortable hard leather chairs each fitted with the safety-belt that even Filson could not skip, although he had grumbled at the added cost. The rest of the fuselage was devoted to cargo space and was at present occupied by two large crates.
O’Hara went round them testing the anchoring straps with his hand. He had a horror that one day the cargo would slide forward if he made a bad landing or hit very bad turbulence. That would be the end of any passengers who had the ill-luck to be flying Andes Airlift. He cursed as he found a loose strap. Grivas and his slipshod ways would be the end of him one day.
Having seen the cargo was secured he went forward into the cockpit and did a routine check of the instruments. A mechanic was working on the port engine so O’Hara leaned out of the side window and asked in Spanish if it was all right. The mechanic spat, then drew his finger across his throat and made a bloodcurdling sound. ‘De un momento a otro.’
He finished the instrument check and went into the hangar to find Fernandez, the chief mechanic, who usually had a bottle or two stored away, strictly against Filson’s orders. O’Hara liked Fernandez and he knew that Fernandez liked him; they got on well together and O’Hara made a point of keeping it that way – to be at loggerheads with the chief mechanic would be a passport to eternity in this job.
He chatted for a while with Fernandez, then filled his flask and took a hasty gulp from the bottle before he passed it back. Dawn was breaking as he strode back to the Dakota, and Grivas was in the cockpit fussing with the disposal of his briefcase. It’s a funny thing, thought O’Hara, that the briefcase is just as much a part of an airline pilot as it is of any city gent. His own was under his seat; all it contained was a packet of sandwiches which he had picked up at an all-night café.
‘Got the met. report?’ he asked Grivas.
Grivas passed over the sheet of paper and O’Hara said, ‘You can taxi her down to the apron.’
He studied the report. It wasn’t too bad – it wasn’t bad at all. No storms, no anomalies, no trouble – just good weather over the mountains. But O’Hara had known the meteorologists to be wrong before and there was no release of the tension within him. It was that tension, never relaxed in the air, that had kept him alive when a lot of better men had died.
As the Dakota came to a halt on the apron outside the main building, he saw Filson leading the small group of passengers. ‘See they have their seat-belts properly fastened,’ he said to Grivas.
‘I’m not a hostess,’ said Grivas sulkily.
‘When you’re sitting on this side of the cockpit you can give orders,’ said O’Hara coldly. ‘Right now you take them. And I’d like you to do a better job of securing the passengers than you did of the cargo.’
The smile left Grivas’s face, but he turned and went into the main cabin. Presently Filson came forward and thrust a form at O’Hara. ‘Sign this.’
It was the I.A.T.A. certificate of weights and fuel. O’Hara saw that Filson had cheated on the weights as usual, but made no comment and scribbled his signature. Filson said, ‘As soon as you land give me a ring. There might be return cargo.’
O’Hara nodded and Filson withdrew. There was the double slam as the door closed and O’Hara said, ‘Take her to the end of the strip.’ He switched on the radio, warming it up.
Grivas was still sulky and would not talk. He made no answer as he revved the engines and the Dakota waddled away from the main building into the darkness, ungainly and heavy on the ground. At the end of the runway O’Hara thought for a moment. Filson had not given him a flight number. To hell with it, he thought; control ought to know what’s going on. He clicked on the microphone and said, ‘A.A. special flight, destination Santillana – A.A. to San Croce control – ready to take off.’
A voice crackled tinnily in his ear. ‘San Croce control to Andes Airlift special. Permission given – time 2.33 G.M.T.’
‘Roger and out.’ He put his hand to the throttles and waggled the stick. There was a stickiness about it. Without looking at Grivas he said, ‘Take your hands off the controls.’ Then he pushed on the throttle levers and the engines roared. Four minutes later the Dakota was airborne after an excessively long run.
He stayed at the controls for an hour, personally supervising the long climb to the roof of the world. He liked to find out if the old bitch was going to spring a new surprise. Cautiously he carried out gentle, almost imperceptible evolutions, his senses attuned to the feel of the plane. Occasionally he glanced at Grivas who was sitting frozen-faced in the other seat, staring blankly through the windscreen.
At last he was satisfied and engaged the automatic pilot but spent another quarter-hour keeping a wary eye on it.