Touchfeather

by Jimmy Sangster

  ‘It’s about fourteen bloody flying hours,’ he said. ‘Especially going the way he wants us to. And knowing him he’s just as likely to want to come back half an hour after we arrive.’

  But I had stopped listening to him and was trying to hear what was going on in the passenger lounge. I recognised Gerastan’s voice, and Bill’s, too. The Eunuch might have been there, but he never had much to say, and I didn’t hear him speak. Just before the Captain started the engines Gerastan came onto the flight deck.

  ‘How long after takeoff will we be in radio range?’ he asked.

  ‘You keep a very tight beam here, sir. Not more than thirty minutes.’

  ‘Tell them to keep in touch,’ said Gerastan. ‘If they have any news, any news at all, they should call us and we’ll come back.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the Captain.

  ‘After we’re out of range get them to phone any news through to the Gerastan Corporation in Tampico. We’ll pick up a signal from them.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the Captain, and I heard Gerastan move back to join the others. I had been right, then. He was still hoping for news of me that would obviate the necessity for his having to take this trip.

  ‘Where we going, then?’ asked the co-pilot.

  ’Cairo,’ said the Captain. Right again, Katy.

  ‘So what are we doing over Tampico?’

  I would have asked the same question if I had been in a position to do so.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ said the Captain. ‘We fly Southeast down to Mexico and turn due East over Tampico. We overfly Cuba, the Sargasso Sea, pass to the North of Cape Verde, change course East-Northeast, overfly the Sahara, Southern Libya and into Egypt.’

  ‘It’s a hell of a way to get to Cairo,’ said the co-pilot.

  ‘Stop griping,’ said the Captain, who had been doing nothing else all evening, ‘and go plot me a course. We’re to make no land calls except Tampico until we’re over Africa, so make it a good one.’

  ‘You’re kidding! We’ll be lost seventeen times over,’ said the co-pilot.

  ‘That’s what the man wants,’ said the Captain. ‘Now unless you want to go back there and tell him, you do as you’re told.’

  A moment later I heard the Captain speak over the landline to the mechanic who was waiting to start the engines.

  During the business of takeoff I tried to calculate how long it would take us to get over the sea and whether either of the crew was likely to want to use the toilet before that time. It was about twelve hundred miles to Tampico. Then we were due to turn due East and we’d have another nine hundred miles to go before overflying Cuba. There wasn’t much traffic in the Gulf of Mexico, and what there was was unreliable, so what I wanted to do would have to wait until we were past Cuba and overflying the Southern Bahama Islands, say one hour’s flying time after Havana. Altogether about six hours—and if someone didn’t want to use the toilet in that time, he had something seriously wrong with him. So I was going to have to play it by ear and hope their bladders would stand the strain as long as possible. Because once I was discovered I was going to have to work very hard, and it was much too comfortable sitting there, lulled by the engine noise, and with no passengers to fetch and carry for. But play it by ear as I might, my ultimate objective was crystal clear, and during the long time following takeoff, during which I heard the Captain make his last call to Santhoma, I had plenty of time to reflect on what I had to do.

  Both pilots were kept pretty busy. Although they were unable to transmit, they could receive beacon signals, and they used these to keep a check on their course. A couple of times we were called to identify ourselves, having been picked up by ground radar. But we were heading out of the United States at seven hundred miles an hour and nobody on the ground bothered to send anyone up to press the issue. We picked up the beacon at Tucson, and fifteen minutes later we were out of America and over Mexico. There was another beacon over Saltillo and then the Captain told the co-pilot to switch to the Gerastan Corporation’s Tampico frequency and ask if there were any messages for Mr. Gerastan. I knew what the answer would be. As the Captain signed off he spoke to the co-pilot again. ‘I’ll break the news to the old man,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a long night ahead of us.’

  I couldn’t hear what was said in the passenger compartment, but whatever it was, it didn’t take long. I heard him come back onto the flight deck, mumbling to himself, and at that moment he decided he would take a pee. When he saw me sitting on the toilet with the gun pointing at his navel, he very nearly did.

  I stood up slowly, so’s not to frighten him into stupidity, then I nodded to indicate that he should get out of the way and let me out onto the flight deck. He backed away like a lamb, his eyes rivetted on the gun, only flicking occasionally to my face to see if I really meant it. I moved out onto the flight deck as he continued to back up until he bumped into the rear of his seat. The co-pilot sensed he was there and spoke without turning.

  ‘We should be fixing to change course in a couple of minutes,’ he said.

  I indicated with the gun for the Captain to take his seat. It was the first time I had seen him up close. He was getting on, pushing fifty-five by the look of him, a retired airline Captain drawing his pension and twice as much again from Gerastan. He looked very tired, as though he could suddenly see his entire life flying out of the window. He had a wife and a girlfriend, probably a couple of kids at college and a hefty mortgage. Apart from all that he didn’t like his employer. He was going to be no trouble at all.

  I wasn’t so sure about the co-pilot. I saw his face for the first time as he looked sideways at the Captain, and then followed the Captain’s stare, homing onto me. He was much younger, about thirty, and if he had ever worked for an airline, he hadn’t retired; he’d been kicked out. He had a hard, truculent mouth and cold eyes. He didn’t bat an eyelid when he saw me and my gun.

  ‘Lady, we only work for him,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got any bones to pick, go do it in there.’ He nodded towards the door leading to the passenger section. It was a good job, he reminded me. Keeping my eye on them both, I backed to the door, fiddled around behind me and clicked the lock. Then I moved up forward again. I saw the co-pilot glance at the Captain and, realising he was going to get no help there, he decided he would be a hero all by himself. Perhaps he thought Gerastan would give him the Captain’s job. He started to get to his feet and I stuck the barrel of the gun into his ear. He sat down again, a little subdued, but not enough.

  ‘You shoot that off in here, lady, and we’ll all be dead,’ he said. I knew the line. I’d used it myself. I angled the gun so that it was still stuck in his ear but pointing downwards.

  ’It’s got your breastbone, your stomach, your backside, the seat, the cross bulkhead and whatever you’ve got stored below,’ I said. ‘If it’s got any power left in it after passing through that lot, it may fracture the pressure hull, but I doubt it.’ He doubted it, too, because he stayed where he was.

  ‘So what happens now?’ he asked. He may have been doing the talking, but the Captain was flying the plane, so I spoke to him.

  ‘Isn’t it about time you changed course?’ I said. He pulled himself together like a man coming out of deep shock.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ve got your instructions,’ I said. ‘Turn East over Tampico, wasn’t it?’ He nodded mutely and read off the new course to the co-pilot. There was no immediate reaction, so I waggled the gun about in his ear until he responded. I felt the great plane bank gently beneath my feet, and waited until the artificial horizon settled down again before continuing.

  ‘How long to Havana?’ I asked. The Captain looked more frightened than before. I even got a reaction out of the co-pilot. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to turn you over to Fidel. We’re going further on.’

  ‘There isn’t anything further on,’ said the co-pilot. ‘Not till we get to Africa.’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later,�
� I said. ‘How long?’

  The Captain checked his course and speed quickly. ‘Ninety minutes,’ he said.

  ‘Less,’ said the co-pilot. ‘We’re beginning to pick up a tailwind.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘Now do I keep this gun in your ear, or do I take it out?’

  ‘Take it out, lady. It makes me nervous.’

  ‘I’ll take it out, but I won’t put it away,’ I said.

  ‘Suit yourself, lady,’ he said. ‘But for forty thousand dollars a year I’m not about to get shot.’

  ’Just remember that,’ I said, backing away to the seat normally occupied by the Flight Engineer. ‘And remember one other thing. I’ve been around aeroplanes for a long time. I know what keeps them up in the air, and I know how they should be treated. So fly this one as you’ve been taught to. I’ll know if you don’t.’

  That seemed to cover everything, and we spent the next twenty minutes in a companionable silence, with only the noise of the engines between us. Then the co-pilot tried to get chatty.

  ‘What’s he to you, doll?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘You’re taking an awful lot of trouble over nothing.’

  ‘It’s in my nature,’ I said. ‘Now please shut up.’

  ‘Just as you say, lady.’ He was getting cocky, too. Another twenty minutes and the only conversation was an interchange between the two of them, talking about altering course two degrees to allow for drift. The co-pilot started to explain to me all about drift and I told him to shut up again.

  ‘How about a cup of coffee?’ he said twenty minutes later. I was dying for a cup of coffee, for anything in fact, but I didn’t trust that one moving about.

  ‘No coffee,’ I said.

  ‘Suit yourself, lady,’ he said. ‘But do you mind telling us what you intend doing?’

  ‘Later,’ I said.

  ‘I love a chatty dame,’ he said, and that finished that particular round.

  Fifteen minutes later we picked up a beacon from Havana. You can’t trust anyone in Cuba these days, so we swung North and passed Havana a hundred miles to seaward. We were flying along the Tropic of Cancer and twenty minutes later we picked up the beacon from Nassau, a couple of hundred miles to our North. All right, Katy, enough sitting around. Time to get to work. I stood up and moved forward again.

  ’Put her down,’ I said. They looked at one another, then back at me. The co-pilot even grinned.

  ‘Sorry, lady,’ he said. ‘There’s nowhere down there.’

  ‘He’s right, miss,’ said the Captain. ‘There’s only a couple of small islands. Nothing that will take a DC-8.’

  ‘I know what’s down there,’ I said. ‘And that’s where we’re going.’

  ‘Into the sea?’ said the Captain.

  ‘Into the sea.’

  Then the co-pilot really started to give me trouble. So much so that I had to hit him over the head to stop him getting to his feet and strangling me. He subsided gently and the Captain nearly passed out cold in sympathy. But it served a dual purpose because the Captain decided that he was more frightened of me than he was of putting the aeroplane down in the sea. The aircraft at his fingertips was reasonably predictable in its behaviour and would do what he told it to, but as for this kookie, red-faced madwoman, who the hell knew what she would do next? If an aircraft is under full control, a water landing is no more difficult than a belly landing on dry land, which is another way of saying that it is very difficult indeed. But my frightened Captain had learned his business in the thirty-odd years he had been flying.

  ‘I’ll have to warn the passengers,’ he said.

  ‘Do,’ I said.

  He switched on the intercom. ‘This is the Captain speaking, Mr. Gerastan,’ he said. ‘Due to circumstances beyond my control I am forced to make a landing in the sea. We will be down in about five minutes. I will give you another warning about thirty seconds before we hit. At that time brace yourselves as best you can. Do not inflate your life jackets until you are clear of the aircraft.’

  He clicked off the intercom and I gave him a pat on the shoulder by way of encouragement. A moment later I heard the handle of the door being rattled. Nobody could put Roger Gerastan down into the sea unless Mr. Gerastan knew the reason why. When the door didn’t open, I heard Gerastan start to thump it.

  ‘Tell them we’re going in now,’ I said to the Captain.

  He clicked on the intercom again. ‘We are going to hit in forty-five seconds,’ he said.

  The hammering stopped immediately, and I gave the Captain another pat. We were descending quite fast now, but were still a few thousand feet up. I found three life jackets and slipped one on myself. I managed to wriggle the unconscious co-pilot into another and I helped the Captain into the third. Then I strapped the co-pilot securely into his seat and gave the Captain his final instructions. He nodded that he had understood them and, now that he had accepted the inevitable, he was all concentration, flying the aircraft as though he were part of it. I moved back and strapped myself to the Flight Engineer’s seat, put a pillow on my lap and, ten seconds before contact, buried my face in it.

  Twenty minutes later I was swimming away from the DC-8 making for the life raft that held the Captain and the barely conscious co-pilot.

  NINETEEN

  ‘The whole operation sounds ill-conceived, badly planned and abominably executed, Miss Touchfeather,’ said Mr. Blaser. ‘I would be extremely gratified if you would tell me the whole thing again, during which time I shall do my best to follow you.’

  I took a deep breath and explained it to him again. As soon as we had ditched—a remarkably good ditching it had been, too—I lifted my face out of the pillow, unstrapped myself, and opened the door to the passenger section. The three passengers were still picking glass and furniture out of their hair. Gerastan was seated, well strapped in and, as expected, looked the least troubled of the three of them. The Eunuch’s vast bulk had ripped his seat belt from its fastenings and he was flat on his face against the bar, just beginning to stir. Bill’s chair had broken away from its moorings and slid across the room against the far bulkhead.

  There were only three of them. Apparently Marvin had got out while the going was good. Everything that hadn’t been double-fastened down had broken adrift and the place looked a shambles.

  Gerastan saw me first. I would like to be able to say that he looked shocked or terrified, but he didn’t even register surprise. He reached down to unfasten his seat belt.

  ‘Leave it, Mr. Gerastan,’ I said. The sound of my voice pulled Bill’s head round towards me.

  ‘Katy!’

  ’Stay there, please, Bill,’ I said.

  He had bumped his head and there was a cut just below his hairline. I felt one brief moment of weakness, but I stifled it quickly. Now the Eunuch rolled over to a sitting position, his back against the bar, staring flatly at me. He’d give me no trouble. If he moved, it would be to break my neck, and he wouldn’t stir a muscle until he was sure that he would succeed. For a long moment we all looked at one another, the only sound the sea lapping against the side of the plane. We were still dead level, well afloat, and the rocking motion of the floor was a little nauseating. Gerastan spoke first.

  ‘I assume that you, Katherine, are the “circumstances beyond his control” that the Captain referred to?’ I nodded.

  ‘Are you all right, Katy?’ This from Bill.

  ‘I’m not dead, Bill, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Thank God,’ he said. And he meant it, too, which didn’t make things any easier.

  ‘What happens now, Katherine? A Nassau-based British gunboat?’

  ‘No, Mr. Gerastan, that would be too complicated.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Complicated how?’

  ‘International complications,’ I said. ‘CIA and the State Department knocking on the door. “Please can we have our United States citizen back?” Questions in Parliament. Questions in the Senate. Too much trou
ble all round.’ I think he started to get an inkling of the idea about then, but he didn’t show it.

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Wait and see,’ I told him. The floor below me gave a sudden lurch and we developed a definite forward angle. Although we could still hear only the gentle, deceptive sound of the calm water outside, I knew that we must be shipping the stuff very fast from below. The rocking motion of the floor had grown sluggish. I risked a quick glance over my shoulder onto the flight deck. The crew escape hatch was open and, as I looked back, I could see the legs of the co-pilot disappear through it as he was dragged from outside. At least the Captain was doing what I had told him.

  ‘Katherine!’ I looked back at Gerastan. ‘You realise, of course, that this aircraft will only stay afloat for fifteen minutes?’

  ‘Twelve,’ I said.

  He inclined his head slightly. ‘I bow to your superior knowledge.’

  ‘I thought you were dead, Katy,’ said Bill. ‘You told me she was, Roger.’

  ‘Wishful thinking, William,’ said Gerastan. Bill looked from him to me, then back to him again. Then he decided that they had better move. He bent over to unfasten his seat belt.

  ‘No, Bill,’ I said.

  He looked up at me. ‘We’ve got to get out, Katy. We’ll be going down soon.’

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  ‘Now come on, Katy. We haven’t got much time.’

  ‘I know,’ I said evenly. He still didn’t understand; he had no idea what I was getting at.

  ‘Katy, we’re sinking. We’ve got to get out,’ he said, as though he were speaking to a child. Gerastan explained things for me.

  ‘She knows that, William. Unless I’m seriously mistaken, that is the object of the exercise. Right, Katherine?’