David Gilman - The Devil's breath

Taking off was one thing. Landing was a far more terrifying problem.

Down in the airfield’s bar, Ferdie van Reenen was rolling a cigarette, a cold beer on the countertop in front of him, as Tobias poured himself a mug of coffee.

Kallie was sitting next to her dad. “I thought you’d quit smoking.”

“I did, but you’ve put me back on to them. I’m too old for all this stress, y’know. Anyway, I haven’t lit it yet, have I?”

He emptied the tobacco from the cigarette paper into his hand and began the process again.

Mike Kapuo came in, closing the door firmly behind him. “Wind’s picking up.” He nodded at Tobias as the barman offered the coffeepot.

“Storm’ll break in a couple of hours, then no one will be flying. When are those Brits getting here?” van Reenen asked.

Kapuo checked his watch. “About an hour, maybe a bit more.”

Van Reenen had rolled another cigarette. “And what about your blokes?”

“Bogged down in bureaucracy and infighting. Army wants one thing, police commissioner wants another, and the politicians all want to be covered in glory.”

“They’ll be covered in something else if they don’t get this mess sorted.” Van Reenen moaned as he put the cigarette between his lips.

Kallie eased off the stool and moved away. “Don’t expect me to look after you when your lungs pack up.”

“What I expect is your antics will have put me in an early grave long before then.”

“Whatever,” she said, and found herself a stool further along the counter. Their chitchat was a way of relieving the tension because, whatever else was going on, they were being forced to wait and it was driving them all crazy. Kallie stared at the receiver propped behind the bar. Wherever Max was, he might still be able to reach a radio and send a message.

The storm whiplashed the air. Max was struggling to keep the plane flying on an even keel while it was being buffeted by the violent wind.!Koga was still unconscious and Max couldn’t even be sure whether he was still breathing. Flying with one hand, Max checked the radio; it was set to 121.5 megacycles. Was that right? Would that get through to anyone? Why would his dad have had that frequency tuned in? It must mean something. He pressed the handset to his lips. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.” He released the transmit button. Nothing. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Max Gordon. I need help. Can anyone hear me? I’m flying a plane and I need help. Hello? Mayday. Anybody?”

Ferdie van Reenen had scrambled over the counter, spilled his beer, and grabbed the handset. “Max. We hear you! Over.”

Kallie was right behind him.

There was a garbled response that then was cut off. “Max, listen, son, this is Kallie’s pa. Speak into the handset, release the button, and listen. That’s how it works.”

Max’s voice came over the speaker. “I understand. I need help.”

“I know. Is your father with you? Over.”

There was a pause.

“No,” said Max. “Dad’s at Skeleton Rock. But I’ve got an injured Bushman boy with me. He’s really hurt and he needs a doctor. Over,” Max said, remembering the radio procedure.

There was no doctor. Not in these parts.

“That must be!Koga,” Kallie said.

“All right, Max. Let’s get you down first. Can you see any landmarks? Over.”

Max peered down. From the air, the wilderness he had traveled across looked different. A ravine, scrubland, in the distance becoming more obscured by the dust, a straight line that was a dirt road. He clicked the handset.

“Nothing. Just … nothing. There’s a road, a track, dead straight. Running across my flight path. Bottom left to top right. There’s a huge storm behind me. I can tell you that.”

In the bar, Tobias had already unfolded a map. Kapuo and van Reenen scanned it, trying to get an idea of where Max might be. Kallie gestured for the handset and her father passed it to her.

“Where’d he take off from? What’s his compass bearing?” van Reenen instructed her. “If the storm’s behind him, he’s flying in a southerly direction.”

“Max, this is Kallie.”

The plane bellied into turbulence and the instrument panel shook on its mountings as a violent gust made it drop a hundred feet. Despite his seat belt, Max’s head hit the ceiling. He dropped the handset, his pulse raced, and the metal structure around him suddenly felt very flimsy. He leveled the plane, the horizon bar on the dial dipping left and right, but finally settling on an even keel. Max pulled back the handset’s coiled cable and pressed the transmit button.

“Kallie! Brilliant. I just fell into some kind of hole in the sky. This isn’t fun.”

“Max, I’m not even going to ask how you got up there-that can wait. What does your compass say? Over.”

The compass needle wavered as the plane was pushed this way and that. “South … southeast … a hundred and thirty something, hundred and forty degrees. You get that?”

“Got it.” Her voice crackled through the speaker. It was difficult to hear her without a headset, the plane’s engine rumbled loudly, its pitch changing as it dealt with the buffeting wind. “Where did you take off?”

“Below the Devil’s Breath somewhere. Can’t be sure. Must have been south. Must have been.”

Van Reenen turned the map, his finger tracing the possible route. Using the edge of a beer mat and a stub of pencil, he drew two intersecting lines. One from Skeleton Rock, through the Devil’s Breath, and the other from the approaching northerly storm.

“He’s going the wrong way. There’s nowhere we can talk him down. He has to turn towards us.”

Kallie pressed the transmit button. “Max, you have to turn the plane on to a southwest course. Repeat. Southwest.”

“Er … right … ah … er … turning it … er … pushing me down!”

“Lift the nose! Lift the nose. Get her level!”

Crackle. Static. Silence.

“Max?”

There was an agonizing pause.

“OK! I did it! Kallie … listen …!Koga’s skull is fractured. He’s really bad. Get a doctor and get me down. Can you do that?”

Van Reenen shook his head. “There’s a military hospital at Khomtsa.”

“It’d take him hours at his speed,” Kapuo said.

“You’re right. We get him down here, I’ll take the boy in the Baron,” van Reenen told them. His twin-engined plane could make the journey in less than half an hour.

Before anyone could say anything, Max’s voice filled the bar. “Kallie, the fuel gauge … both needles are below the quarter mark on the dial. I think I might be almost empty.”

Kallie barely hesitated, she shoved the handset into her father’s hand and ran for the door. “We don’t have time for him to find us. Keep him on course. I’ll find him.”

Van Reenen didn’t have a chance to argue. Kallie was sprinting for her plane.

Clouds snatched at the windscreen as light rain splattered on the plane’s skin. Max hadn’t realized that by keeping the nose pointed just above the horizon he had overcompensated. The altimeter showed 2600 feet. He must have been going upwards since he took off. He needed to get down to where he could identify features on the ground. No wonder the plane had been gobbling fuel-not that he knew how much he had had in the first place-one of the things he’d forgotten to check. Not that it would have mattered. He’d have taken the chance anyway.

He pushed the nose down gently. No sensation of dropping, just the view through the propeller’s flickering shadow. It could be really easy to gaze through that, see the ground coming up, closer, closer, until it was too late to pull up.

He was well below the cloud now, down to about 1000 feet. Still in the middle of nowhere. In truth, he didn’t want to land. That was a really scary thought. He was just fine, skimming through the sky. If he had an unending fuel supply he could just keep going.