by Carol Baxter
At last, on Tuesday, 8 November, the twenty-fifth day of what was intended to be only a forty-day trip, they took to the sky to begin the 280-mile run to Basra. As Chubbie gazed at the miserable villages and sullen rivers beneath them, Bill sighed with frustration. Magneto trouble again. He landed at Nasiriyah, two-thirds of the way to Basra, but found the landing area worryingly soft after the recent heavy rains. Afraid of being bogged, he took off again and flew a short distance to Ur of the Chaldees, once thought to be the birthplace of biblical Abraham. The terrain was as flat as an ancient coin worn smooth through handling. Centuries of sand had hidden nature’s contours and man-made constructions except for the ruins of this ancient city.
Soon after they landed, two RAF planes arrived from the Shaibah RAF base near Basra to conduct a tour of inspection of the Ur junction. Bill told them about the Red Rose’s journey and troubles. The officers reported that they were heading back to Shaibah the next day and could take the magnetos to their base and return them repaired the same day. When the officers returned though, they brought back a message from Shaibah’s commanding officer saying that he himself would bring the magnetos and escort them to Basra.
In the brief time it took the officers to convey this message, someone stole their book of Indian maps from the Red Rose. Not only had the maps cost a small fortune, it would be impossible for Bill to fly beyond Persia without their guidance.
The local authorities imprisoned most of the villagers—including the nimble-fingered children—in the hope of identifying the thief and recovering the maps. But everyone remained button-lipped.
Bill left Chubbie alone to guard the Red Rose while he went to send a message to Baghdad’s commanding officer asking for new maps. Chubbie stood outside the plane with an automatic pistol positioned ostentatiously on her hip. The locals surrounded her and the plane, squatting on their haunches, staring at her. She stared back. It was the first time she had ever experienced such a deep-seated anger, almost a malevolence. She knew that it wasn’t aimed so much at her as a person as at what she represented, but it was unsettling, frightening.
Soon afterwards, Shaibah’s commanding officer arrived with the two magnetos. As the men stood in the boiling sun trying to start the engine, Chubbie mused that the spectres of bad weather and engine trouble had slipped onto the flight and were showing no signs of leaving.
The men struggled to install the repaired magnetos. It was well into the following day before the Red Rose was able to take off again.
When they reached Shaibah, Bill cabled the Avro company for replacement magnetos, unwilling to risk any further problems with such an important part of the engine. The Red Rose would be stuck there until the parts arrived.
Chapter Seven
Basra’s customs officials were displeased. Glaring at Chubbie and Bill, they announced that the Red Rose and its crew should have cleared customs at Baghdad. Then they tossed around words like ‘broken the law’ and ‘arrest’ and ‘gaol’.
Bill apologised profusely and described their engine problems, saying that in the stress and confusion he had forgotten about clearing customs. Chubbie remained quiet, aware that as a passenger and as a woman her opinion lacked any value. Silently, though, she fumed that the whole thing was absurd, that little things like customs clearances were trivialities compared to the life-threatening dangers they had experienced.
Fortunately, Shaibah’s commanding officer had driven them the twenty miles into Basra. His authoritative presence and firsthand knowledge of their engine problems kept them out of gaol. Afterwards, he dropped Chubbie at the British Consul in Basra and took Bill back to Shaibah, where the RAF flying boats they had crossed paths with in Egypt had just arrived.
Chubbie spent the following days sightseeing and socialising. She thought Basra a remarkable place, a hub of industry and activity, with the usual stench of sewage warring with the delicious aroma of spices. The twenty miles separating them meant she saw little of Bill although they managed to keep in touch by telephone.
Shortly before the magneto parts were due, more bad luck befell them: a cholera outbreak. Quarantine regulations demanded a citywide lock-down and prevented anyone from leaving for seven days. And when the magneto parts finally arrived, they were missing a critical component. Bill had to cable for further replacements, which would take another eight days to reach them.
Meanwhile, trouble was brewing on the southern Iraq border. An Iraqi frontier police post at Busiyah (Al Busayyah), seventy-five miles north of the border, was attacked by a Wahhabi tribe from central Arabia leaving fifty dead including twenty Iraqi policemen. A Wahhabi sheik reportedly had five thousand men ready for another attack. As tension gripped Basra, RAF planes were sent out to scout the district. Meanwhile, the base’s officers were placed on active service and told to keep their rifles and ammunition with them at all times in case of an emergency.
Bill and Chubbie were deeply concerned. Although their new magnetos hadn’t arrived, Bill decided to escape Basra on a single magneto after quarantine was lifted on 21 November. But before they could set off, tragedy struck the RAF base. A bomb-laden plane plummeted to the ground just after take-off and exploded in flames, incinerating the crew. Then came the devastating news that Bert Hinkler had died during his attempt at the Great Circle route. Feeling like tragedy was surrounding them, Bill changed his mind about leaving. He would heed the omens and wait until his plane was fully functional.
Frustrated by the continued delays, they were delighted when the Royal Navy’s HMS Enterprise anchored in the middle of the river. The navy officers entertained them as if they were royalty. In the ruggedly masculine environment, where each man was attempting to prove his virility to the single pretty woman in their midst, someone threw out a challenge to swim from the ship across the shark-infested river to the shore. Bill accepted, much to Chubbie’s horror. It was as if he wanted to impress her the most. Luckily for both of them, the world’s press didn’t get to craft appropriately alliterative headlines: ‘Ace aviator eaten’ or ‘Feeding frenzy finishes flier’.
While they waited at Basra, Bill discussed his flight plans with his RAF colleagues. When he said that he planned to take the quick route across the Persian Gulf to Persia (Iran), the RAF pilots advised him to take the longer coastline route, explaining that the gulf was filled with sharks so they would have little chance of surviving a ditching. Bill refused to listen. He had swum through the supposedly shark-filled river without a problem and, apart from the now-repaired magneto issues, the engine had been working perfectly. Having travelled only a thousand miles in a month, he was determined to get cracking.
On 26 November, they set off on their 300-mile south-east leg to Bushire (Bushehr). Crossing the shoreline, they saw dozens of sharks drifting through the sluggish waters of the Persian Gulf. They gazed at them curiously—and with a twinge of alarm, a feeling they tried to suppress because it would be hours before they reached the eastern shore. Then their alarm turned to horror. Their brand new magneto was malfunctioning.
Bill immediately turned east towards the coastline to reduce their time over the water. Chubbie talked to the engine, alternately ordering it to keep going and pleading with it not to stop. Both kept a look-out for suitable places to land. There weren’t any. Even when they reached the shore, the coastline was too rugged. And ditching near the shoreline wasn’t much of an alternative. The sharks’ distinctive silhouettes were visible in the shallow coastal waters as well.
Onwards they flew as the engine continued spluttering. But at least it kept running. By the time they reached Bushire, Chubbie felt as if terror had drained her of all her energy and courage.
Somehow they and their machine had survived yet another potential disaster. Surely, though, this balance of bad luck followed by fortuitous good luck couldn’t last. Either their luck had to improve or one of their problems would end calamitously. It was only a matter of time.
People at the airfield commented on the dreadful noise coming
from the engine as the Red Rose came in to land—the aviation equivalent of nails scraping across a blackboard. When they inspected the engine they discovered that, after only four hours of flying, the new magneto had stripped the distributing gear.
Bill contacted Shaibah’s commanding officer who said he would try to find new magnetos and send them by air. As they commenced another interminable wait at the British Consul’s residence, Chubbie wondered why they had experienced so much magneto trouble. Bill speculated that the abrupt change from cold and wet Europe to the African heat was responsible.
After fretting for a while at this new delay, Bill decided that he’d had enough. He would try to craft his own distributing wheel. He and Chubbie extracted the magnetos and took them to a Persian workshop that had a lathe. With the Persians’ assistance, they made tools to cut a new wheel. After ten attempts over four days, trying a variety of materials, they produced a brass one. It was only moderately ‘true’ but it would at least get them on their way again.
Meanwhile, their trip across the Persian Gulf had proved to be more than just a nightmare-inducing near-disaster. It was a relationship watershed. And conveniently, their British Consul host went on leave a short time after their arrival, leaving them alone in his residence.
It wasn’t only the lust that commonly follows a near-death experience that spurred their new intimacy. Their victories and vicissitudes over the previous six weeks had exposed their characters, warts and all. And each of them had come to appreciate—indeed to love—what they saw in the other.
They knew that the world would label their love ‘adultery’ and that many would believe there was a price to pay for such a sin. Whatever the label, whatever the judgement, it was clear they had reached a turning point in their lives.
Chapter Eight
Relying on a makeshift repair wasn’t ideal at the best of times, let alone when flying across the unforgiving Middle East. However, Bill was increasingly worried about their delays. The news of Bert Hinkler’s death had been premature. The Australian aviator was apparently back in England making who-knew-what plans. As Bert owned his own Avro Avian, he might suddenly decide to throw his goggles into the ring and attempt to beat them to Australia. And it was feasible that he could do so. He had recently flown 1200 miles in thirteen hours, compared with their own 1000 miles in a month. If he set off now and maintained that daily pace, he could catch up with them in little more than a week—particularly if their own appalling luck continued. It would be best if they didn’t give him any reason to try for the record.
When they reached cruising height after leaving Bushire on 2 December, a tailwind sped them on their way to Bandar Abbas. They hoped it was a sign that their bad luck had changed at last.
While the flying conditions had improved, the terrain beneath them remained hostile. Rugged pinkish-purple mountains rose straight up from the shore, offering not a sliver of flat land for a safe set down if the magneto failed. Thankfully their engine kept purring—no grinding, no cutting out. When they checked it on their arrival at Bandar Abbas, they were pleased to discover that their makeshift wheel had stood up to the stresses.
The next day they had another excellent flight, arriving at nightfall at Charbar (Chābahār) on the Gulf of Oman. The telegraph officer was one of only four Europeans in the village and was happy to accommodate them—indeed, all aviators. Their exciting stories provided a welcome break in his tedious existence.
When they woke, the wind had changed direction. They would be battling yet another headwind on their 400-mile flight to Karachi.
As they attempted to take off, their tailskid broke. After aborting the take-off, they lifted the tailskid and wheeled the plane off the airstrip to inspect it. The fuselage seemed undamaged so they decided to continue. After experiencing so many problems and so much fear, they were developing an attitude of ‘what will be, will be’.
They followed the Persian coastline again, looking down on quaint villages nestling under towering cliffs to the north and the Gulf of Oman to the south. The headwind didn’t ease. Instead, it grew stronger.
As if they had tempted fate by speculating about their change of luck, they flew into heavy clouds. Then a violent sandstorm enveloped them, preventing them from seeing more than a few feet in front of them. Bill was not only blinded, he was disoriented. He couldn’t see water or coastline or mountains. He wasn’t even sure if he was flying the right way up. He shut down the engine and let the plane glide, knowing that the Earth’s gravitational pull would provide the answer. As they drifted downwards, he and Chubbie desperately hoped that they were still flying above the sea and hadn’t drifted over the nearby mountains.
The clouds and sandstorm continued to smother them, forcing Bill to make the same dangerous move over and over again. When the cloud layer thinned, they were thankful to see water beneath them. They flew east by compass alone without seeing any land for hours.
Worried about their fuel supply, Bill tried to set down at Pasni, India (now Pakistan), only to see that the aerodrome was flooded. He landed safely at a nearby beach and sent a request for fuel to the aerodrome via an English-speaking local.
The entire population turned out to watch their perilous take-off. The plane faced the gulf as Bill spun the propeller. Climbing onboard, he gunned the engine and raced down the beach’s short steep slope towards the water. If he couldn’t build up enough speed to lift off, the plane would plough into the sea, with devastating consequences. As the propeller began to slice the water, the wheels lifted off the beach. They were airborne.
Every mile from Pasni to Karachi was a battle with the elements. Thick sandstorms banked around them as if determined to prevent them from completing their journey. The sand scratching their eyes and slipping beneath their clothes made them feel as if they were back in Africa again.
Darkness was falling by the time they arrived at Karachi. A welcoming line of flares greeted them. It turned out that the airport authorities had almost closed up shop but had decided to light the flares, just in case. Despite Bill’s worries about the broken tailskid, he managed a perfect wheels-only landing.
In the day’s dramas, they had forgotten about the makeshift distributing wheel. When they checked it, they were appalled to discover so much wear and tear that they would have remained airborne for another thirty minutes only. It meant further delays while repairs were undertaken at the nearby RAF depot.
The good news was that they had reached the halfway point, having travelled nearly 6000 miles. Admittedly, they had only flown ninety-two hours in fifty-one travelling days and should have already reached Australia. However, as the undaunted Chubbie told the press, ‘Our tail is still up.’
Their Karachi sojourn felt like a reunion when the RAF flying boats and the HMS Enterprise joined them there. With a week at least in Karachi and a busy social calendar, Chubbie paid a tailor to run up a white China-silk tennis frock. She also bought a white felt hat, which Bill later used to wrap tools, much to her annoyance.
Another expatriate society; another gossip hub. They knew they had to be careful. No looks. No touches. Nothing to give away that they were no longer just business partners. The consequences of such a revelation didn’t bear thinking about.
Fortunately, Karachi and its inhabitants had their minds focused on other things. The city was preparing for a visit from His Majesty the Amir of Afghanistan. Like Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Amanullah Khan was a social and religious moderate. He had gained Afghanistan’s independence from British rule in 1919 and had set out to modernise his country, establishing schools for boys and girls and overturning the strict dress codes for women. He had even established a small air force with donated Soviet planes. He was to visit Karachi while on a trip to Europe and Great Britain and had expressed a wish to meet Chubbie and Bill and to inspect the Avian.
On the day of his visit, Bill flew the Red Rose to the Imperial Airways aerodrome, where they waited for the Amir to arrive. Like a mother wanting her ch
ild to impress, Chubbie tried to visualise the Red Rose from a stranger’s perspective. She decided that it looked a little wilted after its many trials.
The hours passed. They were feeling hungry and fed up when a group of fifty people headed towards them, led by a man who could only be the Amir. Chubbie suddenly felt terrified. She had no idea what she was supposed to do or say. She had never met royalty before. Housewives from Melbourne rarely did.
The Amir stopped in front of them and held out his hand. In perfect French, he said, ‘How do you do.’ He was so gentlemanly, so gracious, that her panic subsided. He stayed for about twenty minutes, questioning them and examining the plane, intrigued by its folding wings. He asked if she liked flying and whether she was herself a pilot. After signing their logbook and shaking their hands again, he congratulated them and wished them all the best for the remainder of their journey.
While the Amir was in Europe, reactionary opposition to his moderate rule increased. He was forced to abdicate a year later and few of his modernist reforms were maintained.
On Wednesday, 14 December, they saluted the Enterprise and the other ships in the bay and began the 400-mile journey to Jodhpur. The Red Rose had been thoroughly overhauled by the depot mechanics, so they were no longer concerned about engine problems. They were also rich—well, richer than they’d been at any other time in their journey. Sir Charles Wakefield of Castrol Oil had sent them £50. A.V. Roe & Co. had sent them a similar amount, perhaps grateful for Bill’s cable expressing his conviction that only an Avro Avian could have survived their ordeals. After paying their expenses, they had £75 between them.
