The Lonely Sea and the Sky

by Sir Francis Chichester

  Looking at the motor from a different viewpoint, I thought that we had got at it in time, and that it might be made to work again. That night I said to Phil Dignam, 'I believe I could make that seaplane fly again. It's a big job, and I should need some new gear.'

  'What sort of gear?'

  'I should need a new revolution indicator, an oil gauge, an air-speed indicator, a clock and the two magnetos. I should want four new wings and a pair of ailerons, and some new struts, bracing wires and fittings.'

  'What about the money?'

  'That is a hurdle; I haven't thought out that one yet.'

  During the night I was woken up by an idea. Why not extract the spars from the broken wings, and send them to the mainland? The new wings could be built on to them and that should mean a big saving. It seemed a stupid idea, not worth waking up for, because the spars were sure to be fractured at the roots. But when I went up to the boat shed in the morning, I found every spar intact.

  On the way back I met Kirby. He was about twenty-nine, my own age, and had been on the mainland for a time as a salesman. When I was selling land, I remembered that I could never sell to anyone with reddish hair. He asked me what I was going to do, and I told him I was going to try to rebuild the seaplane on the island, sending the spars to Sydney for the wings to be rebuilt there.

  'Don't be feeble, man! Why not rebuild the wings yourself?' He had a rather throaty, slightly nasal voice.

  'Hopeless,' I said. 'Obviously you can have no idea how intricate the inside of a wing is. There must be 4,000 different pieces of wood in those wings, a lot of them only half as thick as a pencil, and they all have to be tacked and glued in exactly the right place. There's the fabric covering to be sewn on, not to mention half a dozen coats of dope. There are no tools here, and no place to work in.' I walked off. The truth was that I myself knew nothing of wing building. Presently I was back in the boat shed, where I stripped each wing and re-examined it. I studied those wings for hours. Coming away I met another man, called Gower Wilson.

  'What are you going to do with the plane?'

  'Rebuild it here.'

  'And get new wings, I suppose?'

  'Oh, no. Rebuild the wings here, too.'

  'Why, what do you know about wing construction? It looked to me pretty intricate and besides there are no tools here, and there's no place to work in. It seems impossible to me.'

  'Oh, that's nothing, I'll just watch how they come apart, and rebuild them the same way.'

  'Well, I must congratulate you on the idea, at any rate.'

  'It's not my idea, damn it, it's Kirby's.'

  I set to work and made up a list of the material and replacements I should need. This made fourteen pages.

  Then began a strange, but strangely happy period of my life. I stayed with the Dignams, and settled into life on the island, fishing, rat-hunting (a rat's tail earned a bounty of 3d), and enjoying being a member of one of the friendliest communities I have ever met. As far as I could see the island was communistic in the Biblical rather than any political sense. Its income was derived from the sale of its produce, which was divided up equally. If anyone did extra work, the money he earned was deducted from his share of the community income. This island income was chiefly derived from selling palm seed of the Kentia palms growing there. The seed from these palms was the only kind that would germinate in cold countries. The island was owned by the New South Wales Government, which took orders for the seed, and instructed the islanders to ship the required number of bags of seed every time the steamer called. I began to find the island the most attractive spot imaginable. The islanders were happy, loveable people, the men interesting and the girls charming; the island itself a paradise. The beach of white coral sand with the piled up line of sea debris marking high-water mark was a romantic spot in the white light of the full moon with the lagoon at hand. Sometimes at night, the beauty would swell one's heart. The still air was pure, and strangely clear.

  All the time I schemed about how to rebuild the seaplane. I had worked out my list of materials, and when the steamer came, sent it off to Sydney. I soon realised that unless I hurried, I should be caught by the gales and storms of late winter, and I gave up the idea of doing all the work myself. I found Roley Wilson, Gower Wilson's brother, and asked him if he would help me. Certainly. How much should I pay him? He would gladly do it for nothing. No, that would not be right; how much would he be paid if he were working for an islander? He replied, 'So much for ordinary work, and then again, so much more if working with a horse.' I said I thought that he should get as much for working with me as with a horse, and away he went. He was a great craftsman, a splendid fellow to work with. Roley started painting the floats. It was tricky work, because an arm inserted up to the shoulder completely filled a manhole, making it impossible to look into the float, so that the painting had to be done by touch. One morning he called to me, 'Hey, Chicko! Just look at the keel of this float! Someone has plugged the crack between the keel and the shell of the float with putty. I can dig it out with my knife.' We thought this was a queer thing for anyone to do, but Roley picked out this putty as well as he could, and painted the seam with extra care to make sure of its being watertight. It was years before I found out that this 'putty' was simply the duralumin shell eaten away by electrolytic action. To think that I had before my eyes the source of such great trouble, and that I did not realise it!

  The Makambo returned from Sydney with materials for me, and we began rebuilding the wings. Often I feared that I had taken on too much. Studying a blueprint sent by the Sydney branch of de Havillands, I read that each bay of the wing must be trammelled to fifteen-hundredths of an inch.

  'Roley, what is a trammel?'

  'Trammel?' said Roley. 'Isn't that what a bishop carries when preaching in a cathedral?'

  'I think we shall get into an unholy mess with this blueprint. I think we had better keep one wing intact until we have rebuilt its mate.'

  'That's just what I think, too,' said Roley.

  Apart from the riblets of the leading edges and trailing edges, there were ten ribs for each of the four wings. Each of these was made of twenty-one pieces of spruce, no thicker than cardboard. Every piece must be in its right place, glued and tacked there, and the rib must fit tightly to the spars. We plugged away, and slowly the job yielded us its secrets. We acquired skill, and at the end of a week's work we knew something about building an aeroplane. We could plug and glue old screw holes, cut, glue and tack pieces of rib together; fit trailing edges; clean, screw, measure, saw, shave and shape like a pair of old factory hands. Each wing had two main spars, with a metal strut inside the wing between the two spars. It was a surprise to find each of these struts inside the wing full of sea water, although five weeks had already elapsed since the seaplane was wrecked. We finished the woodwork of the first wing and it looked pretty good to me. We painted it all over, every corner, stick and cranny, with waterproof Lionoil. Secondly, it must have a coat of dope-resisting paint, to prevent the cover from sticking to each rib. I had forty gallons of paint, but could not find this one. It was on the invoice so must be there. There was one tin not on the invoice; it was labelled 'Thinners'. So we slapped on a coat of thinners before laying the light brown linen fabric 14 foot by 10 foot on the frame. Should the cover be sewn on tight, or loose? Roley and I disagreed. 'If sewn on tight at the start,' I said, 'the dope would shrink it tighter, and would split it in half.' 'No, sew it on tight,' said Roley. By nightfall we still had not agreed, so we left it draped over the wing skeleton. Next morning I said, 'You know, Roley, you were right, sew it on tight.' 'That's funny,' he said, 'I was just thinking that you were right, and that it ought to go on loose.'

  We split the difference, and next day Minnie offered to do the sewing. She was a generous, warm-hearted creature who helped Auntie once a week, singing away at her work from morning till night. She was like a tall radiant sunflower that looks happily and generously at all comers until a slight touch contrary to its
fancy makes it curl up its petals, angry or hurt. With next day's sun she joyfully uncurls them all again. Minnie sewed away in great style, until she came to a corner where I said the fabric must be turned in and sewn with just so many lock-stitches to the inch. Now Minnie was an expert, the island's wizard at converting chiffon, ninon, voile, georgette or what have you to the latest fashion. The fabric, she said, must be sewn with so-and-so stitches to the inch.

  'But, Minnie,' I pleaded, while Roley, I could see in the corner of my eye, was barely suppressing his mirth, 'naturally so many lock­stitches would not be needed for a skirt.'

  But no, my way was wrong, the stitch was wrong, the number of stitches was wrong. At last I said, 'Well, I've got to fly the thing, why not let me have it the way I want, even if it is the wrong way?'

  'Now you've done it,' said Roley as she stalked off. However, with next day's sun she was as cheery as ever. Our tiff of yesterday was quite forgotten – but so was the sewing.

  The curved surgical needles remained stuck in the fabric. I began to think I must have been posted as an impossible boss, and that we should have to do all the sewing ourselves, when Eileen, surprised to hear that we had no seamstress, enrolled on the spot. She was Gower's eldest daughter and what a jewel! She often suggested an improvement to de Havilland's written instructions, and it always turned out to be an improvement. There was a lot of sewing; there was 92 foot of it just around the edges of the wing, and tape had to be sewn over the top and bottom of the forty ribs, each 4½ foot long, with a lock-stitch every 3 inches. During the night, after Eileen had finished sewing the first wing, I suddenly woke up to realise – to be told from within, I would say – that I had forgotten to lock the bracing wires inside the wing bay. Poor Eileen had to take the fabric half off again.

  One morning Roley took me aside. 'Look here, Chicko,' he said, 'I know another girl who would help with the sewing.' 'Who's that?'

  'Ah, ha!' said he. I thought, 'So that's how the wind lies,' but I asked no more questions and he brought her along. Now there were four of us in our island plane factory, and the sheer pleasure of craftsmanship, of using hand and eye, was a revelation to me. It was hard but interesting work, which made one's appetite keen for everything. How craftsmen and artisans are to be envied.

  We were ready to start doping, and life became more strenuous because of the hours I spent thinking at the end of the day's work. With no previous experience, I had to plan every operation in advance. I knew nothing about doping, and it would be serious if I spoiled a fabric wing cover. The wings had to have three coats of red dope, followed by five coats of aluminium dope. Besides a right way to dope and a right consistency of dope to use, the temperature must be 70° F. while the dope was put on. Did that mean it must be 70° all the time while the dope was drying? With winter approaching, it did not often reach 70°, even at midday with the doors closed. In the morning we would watch the thermometers: one read 4° higher than the other, and we promptly discarded the one with the lower reading. As soon as the thermometer reached 70°, coats, brushes, and dope began to fly in all directions.

  The first wing was not a complete success. One panel, especially, was so baggy that I tried to take a tuck in the slack of it, doping another piece of fabric over the scar. The wing had a gaunt look, like a half-starved mongrel with its ribs showing. Something had gone wrong.

  A wireless message from Sydney solved the puzzle; the dope­resisting paint had been omitted. The fabric had stuck to every rib, instead of drawing tight over the whole wing like a drum skin. It was a relief to know that the mistake was not more serious, and as the fabric could not be taken off once it had been doped, we went ahead and finished it, making the best job we could. What arguments we had about doping that wing! Everybody helped – Frank, whose idea was to slap it on good and hearty, with the biggest brush he could find; Charlie Retmock who made me think of 'Gert' Jan Ridd in Lorna Doone, and who painted steadily and ponderously, as if the wing were a barn door; young Stan, the postmaster and Minnie's brother, who dashed it on with furious abandon and energy; young Tom, the island buck, who used small strokes with a flourish and who did not exceed the speed limit, even when no island damsel was framed in the doorway (it was queer how often one happened to pop in just when Tom was there). They had different views on how to dope, but they were all agreed on one point, that I was a poor hand at it.

  'Here!' cried Frank, pointing to a rib I had taped the day before, 'you can't do that sort of work here, you know!'

  'No, I say, Chicko,' Roley added, 'you can't go to Sydney and have them think that that is the sort of work we do at Lord Howe Island.'

  'We wouldn't mind,' said Frank, 'if they knew that it was your work; but of course, after one look at you, they are bound to realise we have done all the important work on the plane.'

  Frank had offered to do all the doping for me. He didn't want any pay, he said, but would like my old altimeter. I told him that it had never worked when I needed it, even before its bathe in the sea; but that seemed to make him keener to have it; perhaps he thought it would be a suitable alarm clock for him.

  The doping was not the short job we had expected. We seldom had two hours in the morning or afternoon warm enough for it, and as we had to give each coat several hours to dry, we were lucky if we could give a wing one coat in a day. One morning a retired Australian architect called Giles visited our 'factory'. He was about seventy, tall and handsome with a short white beard. 'I should like to know why a young man like you wants to grow a beard,' he said.

  I said, 'Growing a beard is like undertaking a flight. First you have the idea which you dare not reveal to a soul. You feel that there will be wide open spaces you cannot cover. If it fails, have you the courage to face the condescending pity which people have for failures? If it succeeds, have you the endurance to be pleasant to everyone who asks why you did it?' 'Well, anyway,' grunted Mr Giles, 'I don't agree with half the funny things people say about it.'

  The Makambo was due to call again a few days later on her way to Sydney, so I thought that I had better put the motor together before she arrived. I went down to Kirby's to ask about the cylinder heads. 'Oh,' he said, 'the valves must first be thoroughly ground and the cylinders thoroughly cleaned. When I do a thing I like to do it properly.'

  'Don't you think I ought to put the engine together again before the boat returns?' I said. 'It's not much good cleaning the cylinder heads until they shine only to discover after the Makambo has left that a new one is required. How about just a little grinding of the valves? After all they were perfect when I left Norfolk Island.'

  He washed his hands of a job unless it was done properly, so I set to work grinding them myself at his bench. It was a job I disliked intensely.

  Putting the engine together again was simple enough in one way. All the tinfuls of nuts, bolts, washers, screws and parts must be used up. If anything was left over, I nosed round the engine until a place was found for it. In the end, the engine seemed perfectly all right, except that it would not go. There was no spark in either magneto, so I packed them off to Australia on the Makambo.

  We could not cover any more wings until the Makambo returned with the dope-resisting paint. Roley and I carried on rebuilding the wing and aileron frames. We finished the second wing in three days, the third and fourth in two days each. The steamer was soon back, and life became still more arduous. Repairing, covering and doping all went on at the same time. We were always jostling for room, though the islanders had lent me the only other shed large enough to hold a spread wing, the seed-packing shed. There was only room there to work on one wing, and room in the cargo shed for the wing being covered.

  I had been going about barefoot, but I gave it up because the sand had grown cold. It was the edge of winter, with the days shortening and rain squalls more frequent. As the warmth went out of the sunlight, the glow of my island life cooled. I had to think day and night. It was not a question of making as few mistakes as possible; I mustn't make any mis
takes. All the time I felt the urgency of hurry; the stormy westerlies were setting in, and they lessened the chance of obtaining a run of fine days necessary for assembling and launching the seaplane. Once the wings were attached to the fuselage they must stay out at the mercy of the weather, for there was no room to take them back under cover. Once the seaplane was on the lagoon, it must stay there until it left the island.

  CHAPTER 15

  FRESH START

  The magnetos had returned with the dope-resisting paint, and one morning I set about fixing and timing them. I had not had much to do with motors, and this was another chore that scared me beforehand. However, after I had locked the doors, and, sitting on a petrol-case, had mastered the principles of the operation, it turned out to be easy. It was only a matter of marrying a cog wheel on the magneto to a cog wheel on the engine, so that a spark was produced when the piston was in a certain position. Then came the fun – we had to test the motor. I went off to find Ted Austic, the island's star cricketer. I had no trouble in coaxing him away from his task of building himself a house, and he sauntered along with a peaked cap on the back of his head and a vast curl in front overhanging his forehead. Hammering long spikes into lengths of wood he made a horse, a frame for the engine as used for sawing wood. I climbed up with a gallon tin of petrol, and balanced it on a rafter of the cargo shed. This represented the petrol tank in the top wing of the seaplane. A long rubber tube led the petrol from the tin on the rafter down to the carburettor. The engine horse stood on the edge of the pit inside the cargo shed, so that the revolving propeller should not strike the floor. I laid an earth-wire from each magneto to the metal of a screwdriver, and gave Roley the screwdriver to hold, and told him to earth the current if the pace grew too hot. 'Now listen, Chicko,' he said, 'are you sure this is all right? Everyone seems to have urgent business somewhere else suddenly.'