Through the Devil’s Eye
The Air Cadets
C.R. Cummings
Also By
CHRISTOPHER CUMMINGS
The Green Idol of Kanaka Creek
Ross River Fever
Train to Kuranda
The Mudskipper Cup
Davey Jones’s Locker
Below Bartle Frere
Airship Over Atherton
Cockatoo
The Cadet Corporal
Stannary Hills
Coast of Cape York
Kylie and the Kelly Gang
Behind Mt. Baldy
The Cadet Sergeant Major
Cooktown Christmas
Secret in the Clouds
The Word of God
The Cadet Under-Officer
*Through the Devil’s Eye
Barbara and the Smiley People
Through the Devil’s Eye
The Air Cadets
C.R. Cummings
Copyright © 2017 by Christopher Cummings
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Published 2017 by DoctorZed Publishing
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ISBN: 978-0-9945542-9-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-0-6480079-1-3 (e)
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Author: Cummings, C. R., author.
Title: Through the devil’s eye / Christopher Cummings.
ISBN: 9780994554291 (paperback)
Series: Cummings, C. R. The air cadets.
Target Audience: For young adults.
Subjects: Adventure stories, Australian.
Military cadets--Queensland--Fiction.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and dialogues are creations of the author or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any individuals, alive or dead, is purely coincidental. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Cover image © Scott Zarcinas
Printed in Australia
DoctorZed Publishing rev. date: 21/01/2017
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all members of the Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force who placed their lives at risk, and particularly those who lost their lives while serving their country during active service in Afghanistan 2001- 2016.
In particular I wish to hereby honour my youngest son Graham who thankfully survived two tours of duty (2010 with 1MTF and 2012 with CTU-4) as an officer in the Royal Australian Artillery.
This story is his idea and he was good enough to suggest it after he and his best friend, Marshal Lawrence, another Afghanistan veteran, had walked the Mungana to Chillagoe Railway in the heat of a North Queensland summer.
Chapter 1
THE GULF COUNTRY
Sixteen-year-old Willy Williams stared through the front windscreen of the Cessna 172 and shook his head with wonder. As far as the eye could see—and from five thousand feet that was a long way—the country was flat. Not a single hill broke the horizon. The only features were the lines of dark green trees that grew along the numerous watercourses that seamed the landscape. Otherwise everything was a dull brown or cream colour, even grey in places. It was the last weekend in November and the region had experienced a particularly fierce and prolonged dry season.
Willy had flown over the Gulf Country before but only once and during that flight he’d been preoccupied with the vintage aircraft he was in and the clouds. But there were no clouds today. The afternoon sun blazed with an intensity that made him glad of the tinted windows and the sunglasses he wore. Now he was getting both tired and bored and the beginnings of a headache were starting to niggle at the back of his eyes.
The aircraft had been airborne for nearly two hours since leaving Miranda Downs Station. Beside Willy on his left sat the pilot, fifty-seven-year-old Ken Drew. Mr Drew was Willy’s instructor on this flight and was testing Willy for the navigation phase of his unrestricted private pilot’s licence. Luckily Willy did not have to pay for the day’s flying. Mr Drew was taking part in a charity air race and was happy to allow Willy the chance of logging some more hours and of honing his navigation.
The air race was being run over a weekend and had begun on Friday afternoon. Seven aircraft were taking part along with support staff including fifteen air cadets. For Willy and his friends that had meant a rush home from school and then to the airport. Willy had then flown from Cairns westwards over the coastal mountains for sixty kilometres to Mareeba. Then, after refuelling, they had flown west for over a hundred kilometres to the tiny town of Muldarga where they had met up with their ground team and race control. The ground team included Willy’s girlfriend Marjorie Morton and her brother ‘Stick’, both air cadets. They had spent the night there, camped beside Mullock Creek near the end of the airstrip
On Saturday morning the aircraft had flown north for several hundred kilometres to land at Laura, a small town on the Peninsula Development Road. From there they had flown southwest for a similar distance across the rugged hills of the Palmer Country to Dunbar, a cattle station on the south side of the mighty Mitchell River. After lunch they had flown on southwards across the vast plains of the Gulf Country to Miranda Downs, another cattle station homestead. Now they were heading back to Muldarga where the aircraft were scheduled to spend the night.
Willy had been at the controls for more than half that time and a pleasant fatigue was now making him wish the flight was over. Once again he looked out, hoping to see a landmark to assist with his navigation. The aircraft had satellite navigation instruments and radio direction finding equipment but Mr Drew had these covered so