Arthur Upfield - Wings above the Diamantina

“Rather an extraordinary business,” said the doctor. “If the girl did not steal the machine, where is the pilot? No trace of him?”

“None-if there was a pilot with the girl. What about having a look at her to-night?”

Dr Knowles laughed shortly and pounced on the whisky decanter.

“I am not sufficiently drunk to fly and set down in the dark in a strange place.”

“Then you had better get drunk enough without wasting time,” Cox said in the exact tones he used when ordering a reveller off to bed. “Half a mile north of the Coolibah homestead is a stretch of level claypan country good enough to land on. We can make it before dark. Mr Nettlefold will be waiting with a car.”

“How far is it?” asked Knowles, again tipping the decanter.

“One hundred miles, as near asdammit. We’ve got an hour and a half of daylight left us.”

“All right! What about you, Loveacre?”

“Is it a prepared ground?” asked the famous airman, who had been forced to air-circusingfor his daily bread.

“No.”

“But I could land the de Havilland on this Emu Lake without being cramped, couldn’t I?”

“Yes,” chipped in the doctor, again tipping the decanter. “I’ve never been there, but I have heard Nettlefold talk about it. He says it is the best natural ’drome in western Queensland. Hi! Mrs Chambers!”

“Aren’t you drunk enough yet?” Cox asked with frozen calm.

“Just about, Sergeant. Oh, Mrs Chambers! Bring me my black bag, please. I shall be away all night.”

“Well, when you come back don’t have to be carried in again like a squashed tomato,” grumpily returned the old housekeeper.“Flying about in the dead of night.”

“Now, now! Get my bag, and don’t take the door frame with you. I told you before not to go in and out of door framesfrontways.”

Loveacre chuckled, and the doctor once more tipped the decanter. Sergeant Cox glared. Then he stood up and took the decanter from the flying doctor and placed it inside the sideboard cupboard.

“We’ll be going,” he snapped.

Dr Knowles stood up, swaying slightly.

“You are a good scout, Sergeant, but you are damned rude. I’ll make you as sick as a dog for that.” His voice was perfectly clear. Turning to the captain, he said: “Come along with us to my plane, and I’ll loan you a decent map of the country.”

The doctor’s pale face now was tinged with colour. His dark eyes gleamed brilliantly. He visibly staggered on his way to the door, but his articulation was perfect when he again called to Mrs Chambers. He was talking to her in the hall, and solemnly assuring her that he had left her the house in his will, when the airman touched Cox’s arm.

“Good in the air?” he asked doubtfully.

The sergeantnodded, his body as stiff as a gun barrel.

“Better drunk than sober,” he replied. “He has had three crashes these last two years, but he was stone sober on each occasion. You will be flying to Emu Lake to-morrow?”

“Yes, I’ll go with the boys in the de Havilland, and fly my own machine back. That landing ground you will come down on to-night-how big is it?”

“I don’t know. I’ll get Mr Nettlefold to ring you up later. He can give you all the information you require.”

“Good man! I’ll be at the pub. I’m thundering glad that machine wasn’t damaged. I am not too well off, and the insurance would not cover the complete loss.”

“Well, come on. The doctor is ready. Might I ask you not to discuss the frills in reference to your monoplane being found?”

“Certainly, Sergeant.”

At the street gate, Cox parted from the doctor and the airman to hurry back to his house for his bag. The sun was low in the western sky. The air was motionless and painted a deep gold where in it hung the dust raised by the dairy-man’s cows and the two separate mobs of goats being driven to yards on the outskirts of the town.

On passing opposite the post office, he noted that the main door was shut, and that at the door of the telephone exchange room a girl stood talking with a tall, finely built man. The man was John Kane, owner of Tintanoo, and the girl was Berle Saunders, the day telephone operator. Coming along the street was her brother, who was employed by the department as night operator.

Cox looked straight ahead after that one eagle glance. Miss Berle Saunders was a most presentable young woman and one, moreover, able to look afterherself even with a suitor like Mr John Kane.

Having given his final orders to Mounted Constable Lovitt, Cox kissed his wife, renewed his order to his son regarding the square roots, and made his way with his suitcase to the hangar where Dr Knowles housed his black-painted monoplane. The colour was a touch of the doctor’s irony.

On his arrival he found the aeroplane standing outside the hangar, the engine already being warmed up by the doctor, who occupied the pilot’s seat. He had not troubled to put on either coat or helmet, but he wore goggles.

“The doctor says hewill hedge-hop to Coolibah, so it won’t be cold,” shouted Captain Loveacre.

“All right! But I’m wearing my overcoat, all the same,” stated Cox, putting on his heavy uniform coat. The captain indicated the grim head of the doctor, to be seen above the cockpit and behind the low windscreen.

“He’s a corker,” he cried. “Directly he climbed in he became sober.”

“Apparentlysober,” the sergeant corrected.“So long! He’s ready.” He climbed into the passenger’s seat, and then he turned to shout above the engine roar: “Do I put on the parachute?”

“Never use one,” said the doctor. “If we crash, we crash. Anyway, we don’t go high enough for a parachute to be any use.”

He revved the engine to a prolonged roar for ten to fifteen seconds. When the roar died down, Captain Loveacre whipped away the wheel chocks. The engine voiced its power, and the machine began its race across the gibber plain before rising.

It was not the first time that Sergeant Cox had been off the ground, but it was the first time that he had left Mother Earth in the company of Dr Knowles. Looking down over the cockpit edge he saw Golden Dawn laid out for his inspection. There in the middle of the street stood the white-dressed figure of the exchange operator, still beside John Kane. Outside the police-station stood his wife and son waving to him, and he waved down to them. They and the town slipped away from beneath him, the machine sank nearer to the plain and then flew directly towards the sun.

To Sergeant Cox this air journey was by no means boring. The earth did not appear flat and featureless. It was too near to be either. He could even see the rabbits dashing to their burrows to escape the huge “eagle.” He could distinguish the track, faint though it lay across the gibber plain, and he could observe the shadows cast by the old-man saltbush growing along the bottom of a deep water-gutter.

When they met a truck coming from Tintanoo or St Albans, the doctor deliberately dived at it, almost spinning his wheels on the driver’s cabin roof. When they arrived over the scrub, the brown track lay like a narrow ribbon winding across the dark-green carpet, and now Dr Knowles’ set out to show just what he could do with an aeroplane-or to show just how mad he was. He followed the road, and when coming to an exceptionally high creek gum or bloodwood tree, he made the topmost leaves brush the dust off the wheels. Only when the sun went down did he fly higher, keeping steadily in its golden light until forced up to three thousand feet.

Presently the sun set even at that altitude, and then the ground was sinking into the shadows of night. The world came to be like an old copper penny lying on silver tinsel paper. Then, far ahead, two motor lights winked out to greet them.