Michael Ridpath: See No Evil

They reached the sea at Hanham Staithe and turned right, passing over his own isolated cottage and powering on towards Blakeney and Cromer. Calder glanced down at the familiar coastline, with its ever-shifting spits of sand, the band of rough marshland and the clusters of houses at regular intervals. He was keeping to 1,000 feet so that his passenger could get a good view.

‘I know I told Kim we wouldn’t do any stunts, but we can do a loop if you’re up for it?’

‘I’m up for it.’

Calder could hear the grin in his passenger’s voice. ‘OK. We’ll have to gain some altitude.’ He opened the throttle for full power and raised the nose for a climb.

The engine growl turned to a roar, the sea slipped down beneath the nose and the altimeter began to turn. Then it happened. Something in the massive old engine a few feet in front of Calder gave way. There was a bang and then the whole aircraft began to shake violently. The engine cowling bucked and buckled, the aircraft instruments blurred, and the wingtips vibrated to their own chaotic rhythm.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Calder heard from the passenger behind him, but he had no time to speak to Todd. Instantly he closed the throttle and slammed the propeller pitch to full coarse in an attempt to lower the speed and the strain on the engine. It was as though there were an angry giant in there desperate to get out, and willing to wreck the aeroplane in the process.

Calder tried to focus on the instruments but the shaking was so intense it was impossible to read them. He estimated they were at about 1,000 feet, facing out to sea. He pulled the stick to the right to begin a gentle turn back towards land. The speed was beginning to tail off but the engine was still leaping about like a mad thing. At any moment it might wrench itself free from the rest of the fuselage.

Calder hit the mic button and fired off a rapid Mayday in the hope that he wasn’t yet too low for Marham to hear him. He guessed a position somewhere to the west of Blakeney and then focused on fighting the aeroplane.

Oil was now leaking from the cowling in front of him, and worse than that, black smoke. The engine was on fire.

Calder cut off the fuel to the engine and switched off the magnetos. He had to get down to the ground, and quickly. But somehow they had drifted a couple of miles out from the shoreline.

The power was going from the engine and they were sinking. They were probably 400 feet up with a mile and a half to go, cold grey water beneath them.

‘Brace yourself, Todd,’ Calder called. No reply. ‘Todd?’

He turned to see Todd slumped back in his seat. Why? Despite the adrenaline flooding his system he felt suddenly tired himself. Carbon monoxide! Part of the drill for an engine fire was to open the cockpit to prevent carbon monoxide from the engine poisoning the pilot. With arms that were suddenly heavy, he reached forward and fumbled with the knob to release the canopy. He slid it open a few inches and the fresh air rushed by his face.

The sea was very close now. So was the shore, but they weren’t quite going to make it. To his left he saw a narrow bar of exposed sand half a mile out from the beach. He could just reach that. But with the engine on fire perhaps it would be safer to ditch into the water rather than risk a hard landing and an explosion. The trouble was that behind him Todd was unconscious; they were not wearing life jackets and if they ditched, Todd would be unable to climb out and swim to safety. Calder would have to pull him out.

Calder had been taught to make decisions under pressure; any decision was better than no decision. He chose the sandbar. He pulled the stick to the left and heaved the sluggish Yak towards the bank. He selected full flap and gear down and then the aircraft slammed into the sand. Had it been a smooth firm runway, all might have been well, but the sand was wet and uneven, the aircraft was bucking like a wild thing, and it slewed round to the left. For a couple of seconds sky, sea and sand whirled in bewildering disorder; there was a jarring impact and then everything was still.

Still, and inverted. Calder was held in his seat by the pressure of the harness on his shoulders. The aircraft was on its back. For a moment the stillness was a relief after the desperate thrashing of the stricken aircraft, but only for a moment. Calder could hear the drip of oil and the crackle of flames, and he could smell fuel. He knew he had only seconds.

Quickly but carefully, so that he didn’t fall downwards on to his neck, he unbuckled his harness and pulled himself out of there. He turned, released Todd and dragged him out too. Todd had a serious gash on the side of his head and was out cold. Calder slung him over his shoulder and staggered as far away from the Yak as he could. He was about thirty yards along the sandbank when the aircraft behind him exploded.

He turned to watch a ball of black and orange engulf the fuselage, and staggered backwards away from the heat. It seemed extraordinary that the old Yak could be transformed from perfect flying machine to twisted metal in less than three minutes. He felt himself shaking. They had been extremely lucky to get out.

He lay Todd down on the damp sand in the recovery position and examined his wound. Blood was seeping from the gash. Todd’s face was pale, a grey shade of white, but he was breathing shallowly. Calder felt for his pulse; it took him a few seconds of frantic fumbling to find it, but there it was. Faint, irregular, but beating.

There was nothing more Calder could do for him. He looked around. On all sides was the grey sea, calm in the faint breeze, breaking in small wavelets over the edge of the sand. At sea level the bar seemed further from the shore than he had thought, closer to a mile than half a mile. Along the coast was marsh and then a road which ran beside a couple of isolated houses. Black smoke was pouring out of the Yak, it would be easy to spot. Calder could probably swim the distance to the shore by himself, but not while encumbered with an unconscious Todd. Besides which a tidal current seemed to be moving rapidly from right to left. Swimming would be a struggle.

They would wait.

Calder had just decided this when he glanced again at Todd. What he saw made his blood run cold. Todd was still motionless, but whereas the sea had been several feet away from them a moment before, a wave was now lapping against the prone man’s feet. The tide was coming in!

Calder had flown over this stretch of coastline many times before. He knew that at high tide this spit of sand was under water. He also knew how rapidly the tide on the north Norfolk coast could cover the miles of exposed sand and mud.

He examined the sandbar, shrinking before his eyes. The Yak, still burning, now rested in a few inches of water. At the centre of the bar he noticed a hump of sand, perhaps a foot above the rest. That would have to do. He picked up Todd, slung him over his shoulder and staggered over towards it. Water began to lap at his feet. He reached the hump and lay Todd on the bare sand.

He looked about him. Where was the help? It had been a few minutes since he had crash landed the Yak so help should be on the way. Assuming Marham had received his Mayday call, or someone on the road had spotted the burning aeroplane and done something about it.

The water ate into the sandbar. A wave stole over the summit of the hump, seeping under Todd’s prone body. There was nothing for it. Calder picked up the dead weight of his passenger and slung it over his shoulder once again. He stood there, legs apart, water around his ankles, and waited.

Todd grew heavier. The water rose. Calder’s shoulder and back ached under their burden. His spine had suffered a compression fracture many years before when he had ejected from his Tornado after a mid-air collision, and it was complaining loudly. The water was up to his thighs and he could feel the pull of the current along the shoreline. It would be very hard to swim ashore in that. But he was going to have to try.