Wilbur Smith - Assegai

Beside him Graf Otto made a small gesture, and Leon understood what it meant. The joystick was trembling in his fingers, and he pressed it gently forward. Behind him the massive tailplane lifted clear of the grassy surface, and the Bumble Bee reacted gratefully to the decrease in drag. He felt her quicken in his hands, and as Graf Otto made the next signal he was already easing the joystick back. Once, twice, the wheels bounced and then she was flying. He lifted the nose and settled it on the horizon ahead, in the attitude of climb. They went up and up. He shot a glance over the side of the cockpit and saw the earth falling away below. He was flying. His hands were the only ones on the stick, his feet alone were on the rudder bars. He was really flying. He soared on upwards joyfully.

Beside him Graf Otto nodded approvingly, then gave him the signal to level out of the climb, to bank left and bank right. Stick and rudder together, Leon put the Bumble Bee over, and she responded docilely.

Graf Otto nodded again and raised his voice so that Leon could catch the words: ‘Some are born with the wind in our hair and the starlight in our eyes. I think you may be one of us, Courtney.’

Under his instructions Leon circled wide, then lined up on the runway. He had not yet learned how to slow the machine and at the same time lose height. He should have held the nose up and let her bleed off speed, sinking under her own weight. Instead he pushed the nose down and dived towards the field, coming in much too fast. The Bumble Bee was still flying when she hit the ground with a crash and ballooned up off the grassy strip. He was forced to open the throttles wide and go around again. Beside him Graf Otto laughed. ‘You still have much to learn, Courtney. Try again.’

On the next approach he did better. With her vast wing area the Bumble Bee had a low stall speed. He came in over the fence of the polo ground at thirty feet above the ground, with forty knots of air speed indicated. He held her nose up, and let her sink to the earth. She touched down with a jolt that clashed his teeth but did not bounce, and Graf Otto laughed again. ‘Good! Much better! Go around again.’

Leon was getting the feel of it quickly. Each of the next three landings was an improvement on the preceding effort, and the fourth was a perfect three-point touch-down, the main undercarriage and tail wheel kissing the ground in unison.

‘Excellent!’ Graf Otto shouted. ‘Taxi to the hangar!’

Leon felt heady with success. His first day of instruction had been a triumph and he knew he could look forward to continued improvement over the days ahead.

When he swung the Bumble Bee around in front of the hangar he reached for the fuel cock to shut off the engines, but Graf Otto forestalled him. ‘No! I am getting out, but you are not.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Leon was puzzled. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I promised to teach you how to fly, and I have done so. Now go and fly, Courtney, or go and kill yourself. It is all the same to me.’ Graf Otto von Meerbach scrambled over the side of the cockpit and disappeared, leaving Leon, after the grand total of three hours’ tuition, facing his first solo flight.

It took a deliberate effort of mind and body to force himself to reach forward and grip the throttle handle. His mind was in a spin. He had forgotten everything he had just learned. He began his take-off run with the wind behind his tail. The Bumble Bee ran and ran, building up air speed so gradually that he was only able to wrench her into the air seconds before she hit the boundary fence. He cleared it with three feet to spare, but at least he was flying. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Graf Otto standing in front of the hangar with his fists on his hips, his head thrown back and his whole body convulsed with laughter.

‘Wonderful sense of humour you have, von Meerbach. Deliberately wounding a couple of buffalo and sending up a complete novice to kill himself. Anything for a laugh!’ But his anger was ephemeral and forgotten almost immediately. He was flying solo. The earth and the sky belonged to him alone.

The sky was bright and clear except for a single silver cloud that seemed not much larger than his hand. He put the Bumble Bee into a climb and banked towards it. It seemed almost solid as the earth and he flew close over the top. Then he turned and came back, and this time he touched the top of the silver billows with his wheels as though he was landing upon them. ‘Playing with clouds,’ he exulted. ‘Is this how the angels and the gods pass their time?’ He dropped down through the cloud bank and was blinded for a few seconds in the silver mists, then burst out through them into the sunlight, laughing with the joy of it. Down and down he plummeted and the great brown land rushed up to meet him. He levelled out, his wheels skimming the treetops. The wide expanse of the Athi plains opened ahead and he dropped even lower. Thirty feet above the earth and at a hundred miles an hour he charged across the treeless wilderness. The game herds scattered in pandemonium under his wheels. He was so low that he had to lift his port wing-tip to avoid collision with the outstretched neck of a galloping bull giraffe.

He climbed again and turned towards the line of the Ngong Hills. From two miles out he picked out the thatched roofs of Tandala Camp. He flew over it so low that he could recognize the faces of the camp staff who stared up at him in amazement. There were Manyoro and Loikot. He leaned over the side of the cockpit and waved, and they danced and cavorted, waving back in wild exuberance.

He looked for a white face among them, not just any white face but that special one, and felt a throb of disappointment that she was not there. He turned back towards the airstrip, and was skimming the tops of the Ngong Hills when he saw the horse. It was on the skyline directly ahead, the grey mare she always favoured. Then he saw her standing at its head. She wore a bright yellow blouse and a wide-brimmed straw hat. She looked up at the approaching aircraft but showed no animation.

Of course, she doesn’t know it’s me. She thinks it’s Graf Otto. Leon smiled to himself and dropped towards her. He pushed back his goggles and leaned over the side of the cockpit. He was so close to her that he saw the moment she recognized him. She threw back her head and he saw the flash of her teeth as she laughed. She snatched off her hat and waved it as he thundered over her, so close that the mare pranced and tossed her head with alarm. He fancied he could even make out the colour of Eva’s eyes.

As he climbed away he twisted in the seat to look back at her. She was still waving. He wanted her in the cockpit beside him. He wanted to be able to reach out and touch her. Then he remembered the signal pad in the locker beside him. Graf Otto had used a page of it to illustrate a point of instruction. A pencil was attached to it on a length of twine. He held the pad between his knees and scribbled quickly, keeping his other hand on the controls. ‘Fly away with me to Lonsonyo Mountain. Badger.’ He ripped the page out and folded it into a tiny square. In the locker where he had found the pad there was a ball of scarlet message ribbons, each six feet long. He pulled one out. One end was weighted with a lead slug the size of a musket ball and at the other there was a small, buttoned pocket. He slipped the folded page into it and closed it, then turned the Bumble Bee back.

She was still on the hilltop, but now she was mounted on the grey. She saw the Bumble Bee coming back and rose in the stirrups. He made a hasty calculation of height and speed, then dropped the signal ribbon over the side of the cockpit. It unrolled in the slipstream and fluttered down.