Airship Over Atherton

by Christopher Cummings

  A few minutes of flight put the outer reef behind them. The sea colour changed back to a deep blue. A few detached reefs were visible.

  “Isn’t it magnificent?” Stephen said.

  But Willy had little time for the beauties of nature. His attention was focused on the altimeter which now registered 1900 feet. ‘We have lost a hundred feet in about ten minutes,’ he thought anxiously. The knowledge that the gas was being fed at a constant rate into the balloon added to his concern. However he said nothing to the others but began to try to calculate how long they might stay airborne.

  ‘One hundred feet in ten minutes equals.. er.. um.. at 40 knots; that is about seven miles every ten minutes. Now, how far is it from the reef to the coast?’ He guessed at twenty. ‘That means we should reach land in about half an hour. By then we will be down to 1600 feet. That should be OK,’ he decided. He relaxed and looked around.

  “There’s a ship,” Graham said, pointing out to the north. A large container ship with tiny red, orange and blue boxes on its deck cleaved a white wake.

  “We could ditch near it and they could pick us up,” Stephen suggested.

  Willy shook his head. “No. We are going alright. Look, you can see land,” he replied, pointing through the front. They all clustered to look at the dim grey-green outline of distant mountains. A few islands were also visible.

  At that moment the radio crackled to life. Marjorie listened then said: “It is the search aircraft. They have seen us. They are to the south and will join us within a couple of minutes.”

  They peered out the port windows. Willy pointed: “Yes, there he is.” A tiny speck was just visible which grew rapidly larger.

  “I’ll warn Pete,” Graham said. He went into the engine compartment just as the aircraft reached them. It was a twin engine Emergency Services machine painted a bright yellow. It buzzed past them and came back around in a wide circle. Its arrival caused a noticeable lift in spirits in the airship, not least Willy’s as the altimeter now read 1650 feet.

  Marjorie said: “The plane says steer two four six degrees.”

  Willy repeated the bearing and turned the airship slowly onto the new heading. It yawed on past it and he corrected to bring it back onto the course. The aircraft flew past on another wide circle.

  Graham came back out of the engine compartment and looked out. “I know where we are,” he said after a searching scrutiny of the distant coastline. “That is Fitzroy Island off there to starboard. The cape just to the left of it is Cape Grafton. The big pointy mountain in front of us is May Peak. Trinity Inlet and Cairns are on the other side of it.”

  “Soon be home,” Stephen said.

  “Just as well. We are still losing height,” Graham observed.

  Willy glanced at the altimeter and saw that it now read 1500 feet. He shrugged. “Who cares? They know where we are.”

  “Here comes a helicopter,” Marjorie said. “They will be able to save us if we ditch.”

  The helicopter buzzed past overhead, then circled and came down to fly alongside. The Emergency Service plane moved to circle further out.

  “Television News,” Stephen said, reading the logo on the helicopter.

  “How embarrassing!” Willy said. “My poor parents! They will never live this down. I will be ‘grounded’ for life!”

  “Not as embarrassing as poor old Roger pedalling over Atherton,” Stephen laughed.

  The others laughed at the memory and Willy wanted to know the details. These were relayed to him in garbled form by the others. As he listened he turned the airship slightly to port.

  “Where are you going?” Graham asked anxiously, looking at the line of mountains ahead.

  “I’m going to take a short cut through the saddle just south of May Peak. It is a more direct route. I don’t fancy a detour of ten or twenty kilometres out around False Cape, not with this cross-wind.”

  “Are we high enough?” Graham asked.

  “I think so. It looks like it. That is one reason why I am taking the short cut. We must be losing a lot of gas because we are coming down faster than before,” Willy explained. He indicated the altimeter which now read 1300 feet. He felt quite calm and relaxed. As the News helicopter buzzed up close alongside again he waved to it. The rescue plane was now circling high above them.

  At that moment Peter came through from the engine compartment. For a moment he stared at the mountains ahead, then said to Willy: “I thought you might like to know but the gauges on the helium bottles are all reading empty. I didn’t know if that information was shown here.”

  “No, it’s not,” Willy replied. He did more rapid calculations and tried not to look worried.

  Peter pointed to the mountain pass ahead of them. “We aren’t going through there are we?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Willy replied.

  “Are you sure we are high enough?” Peter asked.

  “Yes. We have a couple of hundred feet to spare,” Willy replied, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

  Graham looked anxious. “Can we climb higher?” he asked.

  “No. I’ve tried,” Willy answered. “Relax. It is our best option. At the rate we are losing gas we couldn’t go the long way round anyway. Look, you can see Cairns through the gap so we have plenty of height.”

  The coastline slid below them and they flew over rapidly rising jungle. The airship began to rock and wobble. For a horrible moment Willy thought he might have miscalculated because he hadn’t taken possible air turbulence into account. His eyes swept across the instruments. Their speed had risen to 50 knots and they had risen 50 feet.

  “We’ve got a tail wind and it is being channelled in between the mountains,” Willy said, indicating the jungle clad slopes which now towered high above them on both sides.

  Graham muttered and looked worried. Peter stayed to watch. Stephen shook his head and took his glasses off to polish them. The trees on the crest of the saddle swept towards them at what seemed an alarming rate. The airship appeared to speed up and slewed to port as a swirl of wind plucked at it. Willy corrected the yaw and tried to gain altitude. The trees looked to be just above them. At the last moment the airship rose with the wind being funnelled through the pass. The tree tops zipped by just below them and they shot out over the crest at 65 knots.

  Abruptly the motion changed to a sickening downward slide. They all hung on and Stephen and Graham both cried out in fright. The jungle seemed to rise towards them. Willy put the controls and motors to climb but suspected that the only reason they hadn’t crashed was because the ground was dropping away faster than they were.

  They levelled out at 900 feet over fields of sugar cane. The city of Cairns and Trinity Inlet lay directly ahead. The dark green of mangroves took the place of the light green sugar fields below them. The airship steadied in smoother air. Five minutes of flight brought them over the Inlet:- a channel of grey-green water between wide expanses of black mud, or dark green mangroves. They all gazed down at their home city through the port side windows.

  “Only a couple of minutes now,” Willy said, his eyes searching the buildings of the city. He located the High School. A glance at the clock showed it was 8:40 am. The school would be just getting ready for morning assembly. ‘Barbara is there,’ he thought. He had to sternly repress an urge to detour over the school, which was about two kilometres to port. Instead he held his course over the mudflats, aiming for the airport which he could now see in the distance.

  Marjorie suddenly called, “The airport are sending landing instructions.”

  “I’d better take the earphones,” Willy said. Marjorie handed them to him and he put them on and started listening to the controller’s instructions.

  As he did Peter pointed off to port. “Here comes another plane,” he observed.

  “We certainly are popular this morning,” Stephen replied.

  “I hope we are when we land,” Willy replied, trying to imagine what his reception might be after all the trouble he had caus
ed. He looked out and saw a small, high-wing monoplane, a Cessna of some sort, heading almost directly towards them.

  Willy held his course, confident that the aircraft could see them. The aircraft kept coming and swept past very close; so close that Willy had to restrain himself from taking avoiding action.

  “That silly bugger nearly hit the news chopper,” cried Peter.

  Willy looked out the window and saw the light plane bank around. It zoomed back beside them. When it drew level, it slowed down to match their speed. Then it began to move closer. Willy saw that there were two men in it and one seemed to be aiming a camera.

  The plane edged even closer. Willy stared at it and then focused his eyes on the people in the cockpit. He took in the skull-like face, white hair and glasses then reacted without conscious thought. His hand reached forward and pulled a handle marked ‘Ballast Release’. He had contemplated using it earlier but had decided to save it for an emergency.

  At the same moment Willy hauled the control column back. The others cried out in fear as the airship suddenly rose.

  Thwack!.. tack!... whack!.. crack!

  Willy stared at the holes appearing in the Perspex window. Part of his mind noted them with detached satisfaction. He had been right! The rest of his mind was swamped by disbelief and fear.

  Then the rattle of a machine gun came to them and more holes appeared; some in the walls and some in the windows. Willy opened the throttles and turned away. The aircraft tried to climb and turn with them but had to bank to avoid a stall. It slid from view underneath them.

  Willy at once turned the other way and put the controls and motors down. The airship swung in a wide circle and passed the aircraft nose on as they swept past each other.

  Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

  The machine gun stuttered briefly and Willy had no idea where the bullets went.

  “Anyone hit?” he called.

  “What’s going on?” Marjorie cried.

  “The Doctor, Dr Eckenheim. He is trying to shoot us down!” Willy replied. Already he was swinging the controls the other way, but still going down. The hotels and houses lining the Esplanade slid past underneath only a few hundred feet below.

  Willy watched the plane as it came around again. This time it came in from behind his port quarter where he could not see it. Abruptly Willy turned to port and threw the propellers into reverse pitch.

  The plane zoomed past perilously close as the airship yawed and slowed. Again the gun rattled. The shots struck the plastic balloon just above their heads with a peculiar thwacking noise. Stephen cried out on fear: “He almost collided with us then!”

  “Good! He might be more careful next time,” Willy snarled grimly. He knew this contest could not go on long before one of his friends was shot and killed, or they were all blasted out of the sky.

  “Get us down Willy, before we are killed!” Graham cried, gripping his seat in fear.

  The airship slewed around and swept back out over the mudflats. Willy put the engines and controls to dive and looked around for the plane. He knew he was fast running out of tricks.

  Stephen stared out the window while gripping on with white knuckles. “They must be mad! To try to kill us in front of a whole city full of witnesses!” he cried.

  Willy swung the controls to turn and climb. He clenched his teeth grimly and tried to collide with the plane. He at least succeeded in making it swerve. It shot past just in front of them. Willy distinctly saw spurts of flame and wisps of smoke from the gun and a bullet hole appeared in the windscreen right in front of his eyes. The bullet cracked past his face and thudded into the back wall.

  Fear made him angry. He swung the controls viciously round so as to follow the plane. “I don’t think the good Doctor is so much interested in killing us. I think it is the laptop and that briefcase. He wants to destroy the evidence,” Willy said. He then tensed himself for another desperate manoeuvre as the plane went out of sight behind him. The air traffic controller was jabbering away in his earphones, demanding to know what the devil was going on but Willy barely heard him. In desperation he put the nose down and aimed for the Esplanade, which was about half a kilometre away.

  “Land Willy!” Graham cried. “Land!”

  “I’m trying to,” Willy snapped. “You keep watch for that plane.”

  “Here he comes!” Peter warned, indicating below and to starboard.

  Willy nodded and tensed ready to swing the controls that way.

  At that moment the door to the engine compartment crashed open. They all looked around in amazement. Klutz stood there for a moment waving a steel bar. Then he rushed to the cabin door and wrenched it open. As he did Willy saw that he was wearing a parachute.

  “Stop!” Peter shouted. In reply Klutz snarled and bared his teeth. He swung the steel bar warningly, then turned and hurled himself out. Out of the corner of his eye Willy glimpsed the plane and pulled the airship into a climb to starboard. A second later he swung the controls over the other way and looked desperately around for the plane. He heard a gasp of horror from Peter and Graham who were staring out the starboard windows.

  “Where is the plane?” Willy cried. “Where did it go?”

  “He hit it!” Peter shouted. “His parachute opened right in front of it. He...”

  Marjorie and Stephen craned to look. Graham and Peter stared in horrified fascination. Willy kept the airship in a tight turn and looked out. He was just in time to glimpse the light plane spinning down with its front end enveloped in the parachute and a black shape which must be Klutz swinging crazily around it.

  For a moment Willy watched them falling and felt a wave of sick fascination. This turned to revulsion and horror as the machine crashed into the mudflats in front of the hospital. The glutinous black mud splattered outwards then seemed to quiver and suck back inwards to almost engulf the wreckage. Only one wing protruded. Klutz made a distinct splotch of his own nearby.

  In the airship there was stunned silence for about half a minute. Then Marjorie looked away. “How horrible!” she cried, her voice almost drowned by the roar of the diesels through the open door.

  Willy pursed his lips and muttered: “Serve the mongrels right! That is what they were trying to do to us.” Then he raised his voice. “Pete, shut that outside door. Steve, shut the engine room door.”

  They did so. Willy held the airship in a circle and looked down again at the wreckage embedded in the mud.

  “Anyone hurt?” he asked.

  No-one was, which was lucky as there were at least a dozen bullet holes in the walls and windows. Willy looked outside. The circling had carried them over the city and they were now dangerously low, almost level with the tops of the large hotels. He turned the controls.

  “What are you doing Willy? Where are you going?” Graham asked.

  “I’m going to land,” Willy replied. The wild idea had crystallized in his mind. He pointed the airship towards the High School. Barbara would be there.

  ‘This will impress her,’ he thought. ‘Now, what do I say to ask her for the date?’

  “Aren’t we supposed to land at the airport?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, but we are losing height fast. The balloon must be riddled by bullets,” Willy replied with a smile. It was true enough. He switched the radio to ‘send’ and informed the air traffic controller of this.

  The High School was below them now. Willy tried to estimate the wind drift as they powered low over the school buildings. Then he noted what he was hoping to see. ‘Yes! Hundreds of kids are out in the yard, all looking up. She will be watching.’ Willy grinned. He eased the airship round in a turn over the school oval until it was head-to-wind, then he began a slow descent.

  He aimed at the centre of the oval but he took the landing very slowly, mostly to allow time for the hundreds of running kids to reach vantage points to watch. ‘I don’t want Barbara to miss the big moment,’ he thought. By juggling the throttles, engine angles and rudder he was able to bring the airship
steadily down.

  “How will we moor the thing?” Peter asked.

  “I’m just going to land. I don’t think the wind is all that strong,” Willy replied.

  The airship edged down. Willy worked the controls and judged the descent by eye. By then they were down level with the trees. Right in front of the nose were the football goal posts. Hundreds of kids were swarming to the edge of the oval. Teachers were visible, shouting and waving their arms in an attempt to control them. Willy smiled again. It looked like the whole school was there. ‘Good! Barbara should be there.’

  Smiling with satisfaction Willy said, “I will hold her down with the motors till you are all out and clear, then I will switch off. Get ready at the door.”

  Once they had done that Willy moved the motors to the ‘down’ position and the airship settled the last few feet. Graham wrenched the cabin door open and was out even before the machine bumped gently on the grass. Willy turned to watch as the others jumped out: Stephen, Marjorie, Peter (with the incriminating briefcase). All gone. ‘Good! My friends are safe,’ he thought.

  With a swift movement Willy switched off the diesels. The airship settled. To be sure the airship stayed down Willy kept the electric motors running until the diesels had spluttered into silence. Then he stopped them as well. The airship seemed steady so he stayed and turned off all the switches. Satisfied it was safe he sat for a moment and slid his fingers over the controls and sighed.

  Movement outside attracted his attention. His friends were calling and beckoning to him. Willy smiled and looked at the assembled throng. ‘Well, I have certainly got my audience,’ he told himself. His eyes roved over the hundreds of students as he searched for Barbara. But she was nowhere to be seen. Willy felt a sharp twinge of disappointment. With another sigh he eased himself from the pilot’s seat and walked to the door. Calmly he stepped down and began walking towards the crowd, his eyes still questing.

  Once clear of the airship Willy stopped and looked back. The monster took up all of the oval, the nose and tail resting between the football goal posts. There were dozens of tiny black dots on the plastic covering which he decided must be bullet holes. The balloon was already looking droopy in places as it deflated.