Desmond Bagley - Flyaway

'He was a good pilot,' protested Paul.

'I don't care if he could fly as well as the Archangel Gabriel — it still seems bloody impossible.'

'Maybe the angeloussen helped him,' said Byrne. 'Now, we've got to do this real careful. No one goes off alone. We keep in sight or sound of each other. If you're out of sight keep hollering.' He stared at Paul. 'In this mess a guy can get lost awful easy so mind what I say.'

Paul mumbled assent. He was quivering like an eager dog who wanted to go and chase rabbits. I said, 'I didn't look at those photocopies too closely. How big is this Northrop?'

'Forty-eight feet wingspan,' said Paul. 'Length, thirty-two feet. Maximum height, nine feet'

It was bigger than I had assumed. We were looking for something in an area of, say, fifteen hundred square feet I felt a bit better, but not much.

'We spread out in a line, Paul in the middle,' said Byrne. 'And you take your direction from me.'

And so began the search. We quartered the area in overlapping sweeps so as not to miss anything, and it was damned hard work. This was not a mere matter of making a march; we had to cover and inspect an area, which meant scrambling over rocks and looking behind every column in that broken wilderness.

We searched all day without finding anything but rocks.

That night Paul was dispirited. He huddled in his djellaba and aimlessly tossed a stone from one hand to the other while staring blankly with unmoving eyes. I didn't feel too good myself and said to Byrne, 'What do you think?'

He shrugged. 'Maybe Atitel was out in his distance and direction. We'll look again tomorrow. Get some sleep.'

'God!' I said. Talk about needles in haystacks. And there's that proverb about leaving no bloody stone unturned.'

Byrne grunted. 'If it was easy to see it would have been found years ago. Atitel says he came on it only by chance four years ago. He'd come up here trying to trap wild camel foals and got himself lost.'

'Why didn't he report it when he got back to Djanet?'

'It didn't mean that much to him. If there had been a body he might have, but he said there was no body near.'

'Do you think Billson tried to walk out?'

'He was a damned fool if he did.'

Paul came alive. 'He wouldn't try that,' he said positively. 'He knew the rules about that. All the pilots in the race were told to stay by the plane if they came down.'

'Yeah,' said Byrne. 'It's the sensible thing to do and, from what I've heard of him, Peter Billson was a sensible guy.' He paused. 'Sorry to bring this up, Paul; but when Atitel told me there was no body I had my doubts about this being the right airplane. What in hell would a good flier like your old man be doing way over here anyway? He'd be off course by nearly two hundred miles.'

'Atitel identified the plane,' said Paul obstinately.

'Yeah, but when I first suggested the Tassili you said yourself your father was too good a pilot to be fifteen degrees out.'

It was all very depressing.

We found it next morning only ten minutes after restarting the search. I found it, and it was infuriating to think that if Byrne hadn't called off the search the previous night another ten minutes would have done it.

I scaled the side of a pillar of rock that had fallen intact and walked across it to see what was on the other side. There, in a sixty-foot-wide gully was an aeroplane looking as pristine as though it had just been delivered from the manufacturer. It stood in that incongruous place as it might have stood on the tarmac outside a hangar.

'Luke!' I yelled. 'Paul! It's here!'

I scrambled down to it, and they both arrived breathless. 'That's it!' shouted Paul. That's my father's plane.' I looked at Byrne. 'Is it?'

'It's a Northrop "Gamma",' he said, and passed his hand almost reverentially over the fuselage. 'Yeah, this is Peter Billson's plane. Look!'

Over forty years of wind-driven sand had worn away the painted registration marks but on the fuselage one could still detect the outline of the letters which made up a word — Flyaway.

'Oh, God!' said Paul, and leaned on the trailing edge of the wing. Suddenly he burst into tears. All the pent-up emotion of a lifetime came out of him in one rush and he just stood there and wept, racked with sobs. To those brought up in our stiff-upper-lip society the sight of a man in tears is apt to be unnerving, so Byrne and I tactfully walked away until Paul could get a grip on himself.

We walked a little way down the gully away from the plane, then Byrne turned and said, 'Now how in hell did he put it down there?' There was wonder in his voice.

I saw what he meant. There was not much clearance at the end of each wingtip and beyond the plane the gully narrowed sharply and if the aircraft had rolled a few feet further the wings would have been ripped off. I said as much. That's not what I mean,' said Byrne. He turned and studied the terrain with narrowed eyes. This airplane is in a goddamn box.' He pointed to the wall of rock at the wider end of the gully. 'So how did it get in the box?' He shook his head and looked up at the sky. 'He must have brought it down like a helicopter.'

'Is that possible?'

'Unlikely. Look, the guy is in trouble; it's night time and something has gone wrong, so he has to put down. He can't see worth a damn, his landing speed is sixty miles an hour, and yet he sets that thing down right way up on its wheels in a space that should be impossible.'

I looked around. 'No wonder it wasn't found. Who'd look on the Tassili anyway? And if they did it's in an impossible place.'

'Let's go get the gear,' he said. 'We'll set up camp here.'

He called out, telling Paul to stay there, and we went to round up the donkeys, load them, and take them back to the plane. It was difficult to find a way in but we found a cleft big enough to take one donkey at a time, and unloaded and set up camp in the clear space just behind Flyaway. After that the donkeys were taken out again, hobbled, and turned loose to feed on what sparse vegetation they could find.

When we got back Paul had recovered, although his eyes were still red. 'Sorry about that.'

'That's all right, Paul,' I said. 'I didn't expect an icy calmness.'

Byrne was pacing the distance from the rock wall at the end of the gully to the tail of the plane. I walked towards him. 'Sixty yards,' he said, and blew out his cheeks expressively. 'I still don't believe it. Paul okay?'

I nodded and put my hand up to touch the rudder. 'She looks ready to fly.'

'You'd have to lift her out of here with a crane,' said Byrne. 'And then build a runway. But there's more. Look!' He pointed down to the tail wheel which was flat. When he kicked it, it fell apart in a powdery heap. 'That's the weak link. The airplane is fine — all metal. 24ST Alclad according to the specification, and the desert wouldn't hurt that. The engine will be fine, too; it'll just need the dried oil cleaning out and it'll run as sweetly as new. But all the sealings will have gone, and all the gaskets, and anything made of rubber. And I guess any plastic parts, too. I hear those early plastics weren't too stable chemically.' He sighed. 'No, she'll not fly again — ever.'

As Paul joined us Byrne said, 'Mind if I take a look in the cockpit?' Paul looked puzzled, as well he might, because this was the first time Byrne had asked his permission to do anything. Byrne explained, 'I guess this is your airplane — by inheritance, Paul.'

Paul swallowed, and I saw the glisten of tears in his eyes. 'No,' he said huskily. 'I don't mind.'

Byrne walked around the tailplane and put his foot on the step on the wing fillet, then swung himself up to look into the cockpit. The cockpit cover was slid back and he looked down and said, 'Fair amount of sand in here.'

I left him to it and walked back to get my camera. I spent some time cleaning the lens, which wasn't easy because the air was dry and the static electricity such that you could see the fine dust jumping on to the surface of the lens under its attraction. I did my best and then loaded the camera with a film and went back to take pictures.