Permissible Limits

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘You’re sure you’ve had enough?’

  ‘Absolutely. Your mother poured coffee down me. The last thing I need is more liquid.’

  I gestured loosely at the waiting cockpit, trying to make a joke of my weak bladder, but Harald didn’t smile. After he’d finished the bottle and handed it to a waiting mechanic, he helped me into the rear cockpit. As he bent to tighten the seat straps, I remembered the smell of his aftershave from the last time we’d flown together, back home at Sandown, and I remembered as well how different he’d been on that occasion. Relaxed isn’t a word I’d ever associate with Harald, but over the Isle of Wight he’d filled me with nothing but confidence - not in my own abilities but in his willingness to teach me just a little of what he knew. Now, that feeling of kinship seemed to have gone completely. He was brusque and impatient, as if I and this wretched Harvard had come between him and something infinitely more important. When I pressed against the seat harness and tried to turn my head, suggesting it was maybe an inch or so too tight, he just looked at me as if I were some punter at a country fair.

  ‘It’s there to restrain you,’ he said. ‘Or hadn’t you noticed?’

  I kept my mouth shut, not wanting the argument. Already, the draining heat and a flutter or two of pre-flight nerves were making me feel queasy. With the cockpit canopy shut, I knew I was going to roast. While Harald signalled for the mechanic to strap him into the front seat, I sat back, telling myself to relax.

  Compared to yesterday, the airfield was buzzing. A couple more planes had touched down - high-winged twins of a kind I’d never seen before - and they too were taxiing towards the hangar. At the far end of the apron, a big white minibus had just come to a halt, and I watched half a dozen men in combat gear step down on to the tarmac. Here was yet more evidence to justify Dennis Wetherall’s brisk analysis of Harald’s real business interests. The men from the minibus were carrying short, stubby weapons, machine guns of some kind, and they ambled across towards one of those old Huey helicopters you see in the Vietnam newsreels. The soldiers were dark-skinned, Latin American in appearance, and I was still watching them when I heard a crackle in my headphones and then the rasp of Harald’s voice.

  ‘Remind me how many hours you’ve got.’

  ‘On Harvards?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thirty-six.’ ‘Recent?’

  ‘Over the last year or so.’

  ‘OK, we’ll see how you do.’

  There was a brief silence, then he told me the aircraft was mine. He’d done the external checks already. After the start-up routine, I was to taxi to the hold. We would be taking off to the north-east.

  The intercom went dead. I sat rigid in my harness, staring at the back of his head over the top of the cockpit combing. What kind of brief was this? Where were we going? What should I expect in the way of conflicting traffic? How long might the flight last? What about the weather?

  My eyes went automatically to the fuel gauges. The Harvard can carry around 120 US gallons in the two wing tanks. If I was careful with the boost, a full load should give us a safe duration of about three hours with a thirty-minute buffer for emergencies.

  I fingered the intercom button.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  There was no answer. I stared at the instrument panel. The sun was beating down on the top of my head and I was sweating already, but Harald’s attitude - close, I thought, to real hostility - was making things much, much worse.

  For a second or two I toyed with aborting the flight, blaming a headache or jetlag, but the moment I pictured the expression on his face - contemptuous, or perhaps amused - I dismissed the thought. This was something I had to go through, had to conquer. Harald had doubtless set this up deliberately, a carefully planned ambush, crowding pressure upon pressure until he’d finally make me break. Rigging pitchers, I thought, listening to him working the hand pump to fill the fuel lines and the carburettor prior to ignition. You can only start the Harvard from the front cockpit, and I made the best of this brief respite until the engine fired and Harald’s voice was back in my headphones.

  ‘She’s yours now. Taxi to the hold.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice but failed. The heat was getting worse by the minute, but if I felt anything then it was anger. I surely deserved better than this. Humiliation is a crazy way to start a day’s flying.

  Grim-faced, I determined to press on. The aircraft’s call sign was taped across the dashboard, together with a note of the local tower freqency. When I called for permission to taxi, a Spanish-sounding voice gave me immediate clearance.

  The Harvard, compared to my beloved Moth, has always felt like a big aeroplane. It taxies with its nose in the air and forward visibility is especially tricky from the back seat. In truth, though I hadn’t told Harald, I’d never flown the Harvard from the back before, and it took every ounce of my concentration to weave the aircraft out across the apron and on to the taxiway, eagle-eyed for anything that might be in the way.

  Taking off to the north-east meant reversing the landing we’d made coming in from Orlando, and the long taxi to the far end of the runway filled the cockpit with the stench of unburnt Avgas swirling back from the engine. I was half-tempted to pull the canopy back and block out the smell, but I was already dreading what the sun would do to the temperature through the hot perspex, and keeping the thing open seemed - on balance - the lesser of the two evils.

  At the end of the runway, I turned and then applied the brakes. The engine run-up and mag tests went without a hitch. I throttled back to 1,000 r.p.m., consulting the Harvard check-list I’d retrieved from Adam’s office back in Sandown. Thank God I’d bothered to pack it, I thought. I did my final checks - trim, mixture, prop, fuel, flaps - and then pulled the canopy back until I felt it lock. We’d now reached the point where Harald had to break the silence. The pilot with no idea where she’s going is seconds away from a major accident. Harald must have been reading my mind.

  ‘Left hand turn-out at five hundred feet,’ he grunted. ‘The circuit height’s fifteen hundred. I’ll talk again on the downwind leg.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  The intercom clicked off. I shut my eyes for a second or two, kissed the tip of my left forefinger, took a couple of shallow breaths, then steadied myself for the take-off. My left hand found the throttle and I inched the aircraft forward, making sure the tail wheel was properly aligned before pushing the throttle lever fully forward to the gate. Everything began to shudder around me, and as soon as the aircraft gathered speed, I knew that I was going to make a mess of it.

  The cockpit felt like a sauna. I was too hot, too ragged, too confused by the way this so-called proving flight had just acquired a momentum of its own. I must have taken off literally hundreds of times, yet never had I felt so mentally unprepared, so physically uncomfortable. If Harald’s plan had been to unnerve me, he’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

  At forty knots, I pushed the stick forward, raising the tail. The end of the runway swam into view, a line of green extending either side of Harald’s head, and the fact that I couldn’t see properly made my stomach heave. If something went seriously wrong, Harald would be closer to the accident than me, but even this thought was oddly unconsoling.

  My eye was back on the airspeed indicator. So far, through my feet and even my bottom, I’d felt every bump and groove in the runway, but at seventy knots I eased back on the stick and the moment the Harvard was airborne the juddering began to ease. At 400 feet I raised the wingflaps and seconds later I pulled the aircraft into a gentle left-hand turn, following Harald’s instructions. The shadow of the canopy drifted across the dashboard. I swallowed hard and mopped my forehead with the back of my hand, straining against the seat harness in the search for other traffic. Adam had always told me that the Harvard was a bitch to fly - endless re-trimming, lots and lots of things to do - but I think this was the first time I was po
sitively grateful for the workload. Given the chance to think of anything but keeping the bloody thing airborne, and I was certain I’d throw up.

  On the downwind leg, Harald came through again.

  ‘You remember those three white lines?’

  My heart sank. I heard myself say yes. I was looking down to the left of the aircraft, searching the far end of the runway.

  ‘You want me to hit them?’ I asked. ‘Go in for a landing?’

  ‘You got it.’

  I was still trying to find the lines. Then I remembered the heading we’d flown on yesterday’s touchdown.

  ‘They’re at the wrong end,’ I said quickly. ‘The lines are at the wrong end of the runway.’

  Harald must have caught the panic in my voice because I could hear him laughing over the howl of the engine. The fact that I’d said something funny was a huge relief.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll pass you on that one.’

  ‘Pass me? What does that mean?’

  He didn’t answer. I could hear him talking to the tower. Two imminent take-offs were to be put on hold. An aircraft inbound from the coast was to join overhead the circuit at 4,000 feet. By now, we were seconds away from another left-hand turn on to base leg. Base leg would take me back towards the runway and my final turn before landing.

  ‘One eighty degrees right,’ I heard Harald say.

  ‘Right? ‘

  ‘Just do it.’

  I did what I was told, hauling the big old plane round until the compass told me we were heading back the way we’d just come.

  ‘Watch your needles. Speed’s falling off.’

  I looked at the airspeed indicator. Harald was right. In my eagerness to find the exact reciprocal of my old course, I’d allowed the nose to rise, shedding speed. The Harvard, in this respect, is unforgiving. Keep the nose up and she’d flick on to her back with precious little altitude to sort the situation out. I was beginning to feel nauseous now, the taste of fear in the back of my throat.

  ‘You still want those bloody lines?’ I muttered.

  Harald must have heard me. He was laughing again.

  ‘Line,’ he said, ‘Singular.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The third one. Chuck rigged the detonators this morning. Use the tail wheel as a hook. It’s fishing line, minimum breaking strain. There won’t be a problem.’

  ‘And I’m cleared to land?’

  ‘Ask. You’re the pilot.’

  I contacted the tower. The controller was as impassive as ever. The surface wind was still three knots from 130 degrees. I glanced down to the right. I could see the two aircraft waiting to take off, both stationary on the taxiway. Somewhere overhead, another aircraft was orbiting at 4,000 feet. Nothing like an audience, I thought grimly, going through my landing checks before dipping a wing and turning on to base leg.

  With twenty degrees of flap, the Harvard began to drop. Out to the right, the runway was slowly coming into line, and I left it another twenty seconds or so before easing the aircraft into the final turn. I was a little high and I crossed the controls a moment, sideslipping down before kicking the aircraft straight and lining up as best I could on the smudge of white which were Harald’s precious markers. Snagging the fishing line with the tail wheel meant a three-point landing - all three wheels touching down at exactly the same time - and while I rather prided myself on my three-pointers, it would obviously mean a last-minute flare-out to bring the nose up and the tail wheel down. That in turn would mean losing all sight of the three white lines for the critical part of the landing, hardly ideal for the kind of pinpoint accuracy that Harald was demanding.

  I was still trying to configure the landing in my mind when everything - quite suddenly - began to fall apart. I had just under a hundred feet of altitude. My airspeed was a nudge over eighty-five knots, way too fast if I was to touch down at seventy. Worst of all, Harald’s head had blacked out my last sure fix on the onrushing blur of white. Like an idiot, I put the nose down, trying to improve the visibility. The speed increased. Go any faster, and I knew I’d damage the flaps.

  I hauled back on the stick and it was at this point that I lost what we pilots call ‘the picture’. The picture has absolutely nothing to do with what you can see out of the cockpit window. It refers to that inner mental knowledge you retain of exactly where you are, and exactly what happens next.

  In both respects, I knew I’d lost it completely. I’d been going way too fast and now - nose up again - I was losing speed at an equally alarming rate. My glide slope, ideally a nice smooth descent on to the runway, was beginning to resemble the Cresta Run. Short of speed and height, the Harvard was beginning to wallow. I knew, with a terrifying certainty, that I’d never been so close to a crash.

  My left hand closed on the throttle. The engine missed a beat then responded with a throaty surge of power. Harald, who had a grandstand view of the impending disaster, said absolutely nothing. At thirty feet, I’d recovered control. I knew where I was now. I knew we were going to make it.

  Slowly, I eased the power off, letting the aircraft sink. Watching the blur of racing tarmac behind the right wing, I waited until the last moment before lifting the nose and flaring out. The soft nudge of a perfect three-point landing brought a little gasp from my lips, part surprise, part relief, part deliverance. I kept the stick hard back, my knuckles bunched in the pit of my stomach, anchoring the aircraft’s tail to the runway. Knowing I still had plenty of tarmac to spare, I applied the brakes in little dabs, watching the speed drop off. Only when we were down to fifteen knots did I open the intercom again. The last thing I wanted to give Harald was the chance to be first with the news.

  ‘Missed,’ I said. ‘Sorry about that.’

  It wasn’t a laugh this time, more like a chuckle.

  ‘The wires or the flight deck?’ he said.

  We flew for the rest of the morning, except for a brief refuelling stop during which we swapped cockpits. After the trauma of that first landing I managed to improve, but Harald spared me another attempt at the white lines. Whether or not my near-miss had unnerved him I never knew, but I think he was pleased that I’d refused to give up, even if he didn’t admit it. Up at altitude, away from the airfield, he put me through a series of recovery manoeuvres - some of them reasonably tricky - and although I didn’t cover myself in glory, I sensed I’d done enough to bring a slightly lighter note to his brisk interjections from the back.

  Once I’d managed to sort out a stream of nice cool air through the ventilator control beside my left foot I felt much better about the world, and I even managed to steal a glance or two at the purple-streaked thunderheads that had been building up all morning. Later on, when I’d done a lot more flying, I came to recognise these massive towers of cloud as a regular feature of the Florida sky. The blackness of the shadows they cast on an otherwise brilliant sea never ceased to fascinate me, but that first morning I was too busy with the Harvard to pay them anything but the briefest attention. As a piece of scenery, they were wildly exotic, full of mystery and threat, a confirmation - if I needed one - that I was an ocean away from lazy circuits around the Isle of Wight.

  With forty minutes’ flying left in our tanks, Harald gave me a new compass heading. What he called ‘the classroom stuff’ was evidently over. Before we returned to Standfast, he wanted to show me a little action.

  I flew south-east for maybe fifteen minutes. Soon the neat rectangles of citrus fields gave way to an endless tract of swamp dotted with dark-green islands of mangrove. Its flatness and lack of features - no trees, no hills - robbed the landscape of depth and dimension, and looking down it was hard to work out where the water ended and the sky began. These, I knew, were the Everglades - a huge area of humid, knee-deep wilderness teeming with alligators, snakes and mosquitoes - and the rattling cocoon of the noisy old Harvard suddenly seemed an altogether nicer proposition than fighting it out with the reptiles and insects below. I’d heard stories about this place. How a snake called
the water moccasin could finish you off in five minutes. How female alligators liked nothing better than the taste of human flesh. Even from three thousand feet I could well believe it, and when Harald directed my attention to a curl of smoke away to port, I was at first reluctant to investigate.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked him.

  ‘Some guys from Standfast, part of Chuck’s detail. Let’s go look.’

  I nosed the Harvard down and dipped a wing. For some reason, Harald wanted me to approach from the west.

  ‘You’re looking for five hundred feet at the bottom of the run,’ he said. ‘Give yourself plenty of room for the pull-out.’

  Run? Pull-out? I pressed the intercom button.

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘Chuck’s leading an infil exercise. He drops in with the Huey and off-loads the guys. It’s our job to make it realistic’

  ‘How?’

  ‘OK, you see the button at the end of the throttle lever?’

  My thumb found the button. In our Harvard, it triggered the bomb-release mechanism.

  ‘Got it,’ I confirmed.

  ‘OK, now look at the dash. You know where to find the bomb-master and selector switches?’

  I did. The bomb-master switch is on the left-hand side of the dashboard, the last in a line of six. The selector switches, four of them, fell to my other hand. Here again, we had the same configuration in the Old Glory Harvard. Keeping the original armament fit, according to Adam, had brought a tear to many a veteran’s eye. I glanced up at the rearview mirror. Harald was gazing out to the right, his lips curled in what might have been a smile.

  ‘Which switch?’ I asked him.

  ‘Second from the right. Starboard inboard.’

  I reached for the master switch and flicked it down, then my right hand found the bomb-selector switch. During our brief refuelling stop back at Standfast, one of the mechanics had taken me across to the hangar for a glass of iced tea, and looking back out at the apron I’d seen a couple of guys attaching something to the underside of the starboard wing, but only now did it occur to me that the sleek olive canister might actually have a purpose.