The Higher They Fly

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘These flowmeters are usually accurate and I haven’t allowed for what might be slopping about in the tanks un-accounted for.’

  ‘Yes, well I don’t propose to go ploughing up a row of houses trying to prove that your gauges are over-pessimistic. We go down regardless.’

  ‘And Hubb?’

  ‘He must be out of there by the time we reach the outer marker. He deserves the same chance as everyone else—better, if anything—and he’s in the wrong place. See he gets clear when the time comes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Lord knows. He’s hopelessly brave. Maybe we can dynamite him out. Or something. Hold it—I want to hear this . . .’

  *

  Hubb yelled: ‘Can you speak louder? I missed that last bit.’

  The roar of the slipstream immersed him as vortices of iced air drummed around the wheels and undercarriage doors and skewed helically into the systems bay like a miniature tornado. Hubb had to work with hands that kept going numb, he had to strain his ears to hear the radio, and all the time he had to arrest the progress of the clock, as if by physical force.

  Below him, the undercarriage protruded like two prongs of a giant fork. Although the legs were successfully locked into place, the wheels still presented themselves broadside to the direction of flight. The fork would therefore dig itself in, upon landing, and fling the aeroplane on to its back.

  Twenty-one minutes.

  Hubb was yelling: ‘I’m going to try it with the safety rope. It’s the only way.’

  Fleming weighed the odds but it only took seconds. The safety rope wasn’t going to be any use to Hubb if the aircraft were to become a total wreck. As things were now the situation was infinitely worse than it would have been if the undercarriage had been left up and out of the way. The unforeseen had swung the stakes into the outsider range; and if the outsider were to have a chance at all then risk capital must be spent lavishly.

  So Fleming replied: ‘How will you do it?’

  ‘I’ll secure an end to the crank which turns the bogies and take the rope round a spar and then pull like hell.’

  ‘No good. You must get maximum leverage. Use it like a block and tackle. How did you secure the rope at the top end?’

  ‘Round turn and two half hitches.’

  ‘That’ll hold. Undo the rope from your waist but for Christ sake don’t fall out of the aeroplane—we need you! Leave the rope secured as it is at the top end. Now take the free end and loop it round the crank. Do you see the groove near the outer end of the crank?—the one which normally engages with the actuator?’

  ‘Yeah. I have it.’

  ‘Use that.’

  ‘The rope will slip out of the groove.’

  ‘No, not if you pull in the right direction. Use brain as well as brawn.’

  Hubb undid the bowline around his waist; then had a moment of horror as he looked down through the gaping doors and saw the lights of a city far below.

  ‘Hubb! Get a bloody rift on!’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Old English expression. It means take your finger out, which is another old English expression.’

  Hubb leapt into action and replied: ‘We know that one! I’ll need my hands free for this. I’ll call you when I’ve tried it.’

  There was an agonising silence.

  Nineteen minutes . . .

  Then: ‘I can’t get enough leverage—there’s a bloody great pipe in the way.’

  ‘What colour?’

  ‘Pink.’

  ‘That’s hydraulics to flaps . . . Captain Crooke?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Do you mind losing your flaps? I’m afraid it’s that or nothing.’

  ‘Not at all, old boy. Have ’em off. We’ll take ’em down halfway first through, if it’s all the same to you!’

  ‘Make it fast.’

  Crooke said to Geoff: ‘Flaps fifty-per-cent.’

  ‘Flaps fifty . . . flaps set.’

  Crooke, radio: ‘All set.’

  Fleming, radio: ‘Hubb, slash that pipe away. And the other one on the starboard side when you get to it. Stay off the radio from now on. It’s up to you. Don’t forget you’ve got to twist those two wires together when you get the wheels in position.’

  ‘If I do.’

  ‘There’s no “if” about it.’

  Crooke whipped off his headphones and said: ‘Geoff, hand me the graphs.’

  Geoff unclipped a document and handed it to the captain, opening it at the right page as he did so.

  ‘I’ll have to guess at our load, but it must be roughly along this line, here, with tanks emptied.’ He called out to Perkins: ‘Does half-flap affect the fuel position, do you reckon?’

  ‘No sir. Aren’t you at the same power setting?’

  ‘Thou shalt not make an ass of the captain!—quite right. Geoff, I make our stalling speed at half-flap a hundred and twenty-one knots. Agree?’

  Geoff knew he wasn’t being invited to argue. ‘What’s the margin going to be?’

  ‘Well, let’s say five knots. The stick will shake a bit but I must take time over the actual touch-down with a weak undercart and we mustn’t run out of concrete.’

  ‘We haven’t got an undercart yet.’

  ‘No gloom, please. Shallow approach. You maintain power for a hundred and twenty-six knots. And when I say chop it, really chop it. There’ll be virtually no flare-out and we just fly her on.’

  Just at that moment there was a heavy thump.

  Geoff said: ‘What the devil was that?’

  And Hubb’s voice: ‘Ya-hoo! Port wheel in place!’

  Crooke gave his beard an affectionate tug. ‘Well, just don’t forget the other one!’

  ‘Not on your sweet life!’

  Crooke said: ‘Geoff, did that go out on the radio?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘We’d better tell Fleming then. He might like to know . . .’

  *

  Susan made a final check that all was secure in the galley. Then she left it and passed Jill in the gangway. ‘Any time now,’ she said.

  Jill just looked at her. She was terribly frightened, but only with her eyes did she show it.

  Susan managed a quick smile and continued aft. And as she passed the windows near the trailing edge of the starboard wing she saw the flaps were down.

  She caught Eddie’s look as the steward glanced up at the illuminated sign:

  no smoking. fasten your seat belts.

  Passengers were exhorted by this into instant, military obedience. Cigarettes were never extinguished so fast as they were upon this occasion and on this command.

  There were exceptions . . .

  Jane Tyne folded her script neatly and zipped it into her overnight bag. Then she looked up and saw the heftier of the two stewards escorting Valentine from the alcove bar back to his original seat in front of her.

  Valentine was blubbering.

  Miss Tyne couldn’t bear to look. The horror of neat fear, visible in people’s eyes, was enough. But to see it exemplified in this way was a terrible elegy on the dignity of man. So she forced herself to think of Michael. She knew he would have dramatised it to the last, but though he would have been absurd in a way that wouldn’t have mattered he would never have let himself down . . .

  ‘This, my dear thing, is what is laughingly known as it. We die with our boots on, and our safety straps done up nice and tight. It’s like being tucked up in bed, only unfortunately Nanny isn’t here to bring the potty, this time . . .’ Miss Tyne smiled despite it all, then hunted around for her straps.

  Jill continued her way along the tourist class. Dulcie caught her eye. It was an enquiry. Jill gave her a tiny shake of the head.

  Dulcie nodded back her understanding but matched calm with calm. Needing something to do with her hands, she meticulously joined together the two halves of Hubb’s safety straps and pulled the buckle tight. Then she attended to her own.


  Keith held Pen’s hand very tightly over the back of her seat and said: ‘You know, I’m more frightened than you are.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, doesn’t that make you . . .?’

  ‘Make me what?’

  ‘Doesn’t it make you despise me?’

  ‘No. You’re a pilot. You understand what’s going on. I don’t.’

  ‘That’s generous. I told you you weren’t hard!’

  She looked at him, wondering. ‘I don’t want to be.’

  He looked back and then laughed momentarily. ‘Oh, it’s no good! I’m not the person to tame you!’ Then he wished he hadn’t said it, and looked at her to see it had defeated him.

  She said: ‘I think you might be good for me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because whenever you think you’ve put your foot in it, that’s about the only time you haven’t.’

  ‘I don’t see how that works at all.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t understand women.’

  ‘You’re a surprising person!’

  ‘I’m a scared person. And do up your safety belt. I thought you were the one who was supposed to be scared?’

  ‘Do I get my date?’

  ‘Yes. Now do it up.’

  Susan rushed forward to the cockpit.

  Surely they weren’t going to leave Jack Hubb down there . . .? She tried to speak to Perkins. He looked up and frowned. A new radar instruction was coming through. He motioned her to silence and jotted it down, then repeated it to Crooke. ‘Turn left-left on to one-two-zero. Intercept localiser and report. Cleared for descent at your discretion.’

  Crooke snapped back the details as a reflex and banked gently into the turn.

  Susan stood there helplessly while Perkins got back on to the radio again. Just as if Hubb didn’t matter.

  Crooke said to Geoff: ‘We’ll have to take it this time round, but I’ll spread the turn according to the fuel situation. When we land we’ll have to come in like a bloody rocket.’ He didn’t add that there was a good chance of exploding like one as well.

  Susan bit her lip and left the cockpit. Once outside it, there was the gaping hole that was the pressure hatch. She stood there, wondering what to do.

  *

  Gregg stood on the tarmac and watched the sky. The first faint signs of dawn were painted on it. It was still dark, but it was darkness of a different grade, and to the east the stars were fading.

  He stood on his own. Scrivens had departed for the runway. Gregg respected Scrivens. The man had judgement as well as courage. The combination was unusual.

  Gregg walked, slowly and painfully, back into the Tower building. He pressed the button for the elevator and waited. It seemed a very long time before the car came down the shaft and revealed itself with its imperturbable electric doors. Gregg entered and thumbed the correct button for his ascent. The doors closed and he, like Hubb, was in a box.

  He mentally compared their respective fortunes and wondered, for a while, which box he would prefer to occupy.

  Then he arrived at the familiar floor, and conveyed his chewed-up body to the radio room. He paused for a moment at the door, and entered.

  Fleming sat silent. His eyes were fixed on the speaker above his head. He did not at first notice Gregg’s entering. His eyes darted across, registered, and stared back at the speaker again. He said: ‘He’s turning on to finals now.’

  ‘Cart still unserviceable?’

  ‘That’s right. By a bloody millimetre.’

  ‘Can Crooke go round?’

  ‘No. Won’t risk it. Doesn’t want to rip up houses.’

  ‘He’s right. Isn’t that what you’d decide, if you were him?’

  ‘Yes of course . . . Come on, Hubb, for Christ sake!’

  Gregg said: ‘And if they don’t make it? . . . How will you feel then?’

  Fleming looked at him a moment. ‘Same as you. You know.’

  Gregg nodded. ‘It would be tough, after all this.’

  ‘They’ll have to do something about that undercarriage design. This has all been caused by insufficiently protected equipment.’

  ‘So you said, two years ago. And we didn’t listen.’

  Fleming shot him a look. ‘Ken showed you my report?’

  ‘Of course. Ken’s an honest man.’ Gregg added: ‘Well, he told me your report was dynamite. Now I know.’

  Gregg walked away.

  *

  Hubb ripped savagely at the starboard flaps hydraulic pipe and snarled as he hacked it out of the way. It gushed hydraulic fluid. ‘That’s got you cleared up, you bastard!’ Then he looped his safety rope around the second crank and heard Geoff yelling something in his ears.

  Something about getting out of there.

  Hubb didn’t listen. He put all his strength into heaving on that rope and the bogies came round first time. They thudded into position and changed the sound of the slipstream.

  ‘Now for the last job!’

  He climbed back into the systems bay like a man possessed. All that remained to be done was to bare two wire ends and join them together.

  So he slithered and stumbled across the floor to the tool-box.

  And couldn’t find the pliers.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  Frantically he tipped out the contents and was appalled to find they weren’t there.

  ‘Christ! Where did I put them?’

  Geoff yelled: ‘Hubb! Get out of there! Captain’s orders. We’re crash landing so get out!

  . . . No. God no! Not just for two lousy bits of wire . . .!

  *

  Geoff rapped: ‘He won’t come out, captain!’

  ‘Then leave the bloody man where he is.’

  Crooke meant not a word of this. Hubb was of his own breed. He knew inwardly, though he would never have admitted it to anyone, that he would have done the same.

  He checked the airspeed indicator. 127 knots. Belly her with all that useless stuff hanging down? Don’t make me laugh! If Hubb can’t fix that thing, well, this is the big bang.

  There are the runway lights now, nice and clear. God, did ever a runway look so short?

  126 knots. Hold that. What an unholy speed . . .

  This is the closest I’ve ever been to hitting the approach lights. Six balls for a penny . . . let’s see how many of the buggers I can knock off . . .

  Geoff said: ‘Grass, or concrete?’

  Crooke answered without shifting his eyes. ‘If we have to crash I’ll take the grass. It looks as if it could use some mowing.’

  *

  The steward who had been guarding Valentine suddenly realised Susan’s intentions. So he grabbed her roughly and slammed her bottom down on to the nearest seat. ‘Get strapped in!’ he commanded.

  ‘No! Don’t you understand? I’ve got to get him out of there!’

  ‘And block his way up?’

  She stared at him.

  Then she fastened her straps and prayed.

  Behind her, all the way down the cabin, was a study in still life.

  Only one person was heard to say anything. It was Keith. He said: ‘The first time I tried to land an aeroplane it was much worse than this. I had a bright idea. I tried to do it upside down.’

  *

  Hubb fought panic and dashed across to the other side of the systems bay. He had been holding the pliers when he’d taken the last pill and maybe he’d left them on the rack by the draining-cock.

  They were not there.

  In utter desperation he turned—and tripped over something.

  ‘Thank Christ!’ he yelled—and meant it.

  He leapt back to the distribution box and stripped off an inch of insulation from the first of the two essential wires . . . Crooke reported ‘over approach lights’ and heard Perkins repeat the statement into the radio. It seemed a particularly futile thing to say.

  Crooke inched the throttle levers back as far as he dared and watched the runway ripping up toward him. The aircraft was on
ly just flying—so close to the stall that the warning stick-shaker was pulsing through his arms as if he had a road-drill in his hands.

  Neither Geoff nor Perkins cracked. They took their time from their captain, and his strength was their strength.

  Quite calmly, as if he were still playing chess, Crooke said: ‘Well, Geoff, which bit of grass would you like?’

  The answer to this was quite clear. It had to be the right; all the fire and rescue equipment had been drawn up on the left side of the runway.

  Geoff knew that Crooke would not attempt bellying on concrete with an undercarriage calculated to jack-knife them over. And yet it seemed to him that the captain was flying as if he were still going to take the runway itself. He asked why.

  ‘Faith,’ said Crooke. ‘Just blind, fanatical, idiotic faith.’

  And suddenly, ripping into his ears, came Hubb’s triumphant war-cry.

  Without averting his eyes from the windscreen Crooke said: ‘My God, he’s done it . . .!’—but to Geoff there did not seem to be any great surprise audible in the captain’s voice.

  Crooke had too much to think about, for that. Racing toward him was a stretch of concrete that could tear weak bogies from their roots unless the kiss was perfectly timed. So he thought of the slipstream coiling around flaps only partly lowered; slipstream that would try to break away into fatal vortices until the wings had no air to grip. But he found time to snap into the microphone: ‘Hubb? Are you clear?’

  To Hubb, the question seemed to be coming from outer space. Hypnotised by the vision below him, he could not answer at first.

  Not until after landing did he know what he finally said in reply, and it was Crooke who told him.

  His words were these: ‘Captain Crooke, next time you almost lose your pants you can damn-well do up your own flies!’

  When Gregg walked back into the communications room he found Fleming sitting there, apparently motionless.

  Gregg walked up to the console, slowly and very painfully. He saw that Fleming was scribbling something on a piece of paper.

  ‘Well, Robert? How do you feel?’

  ‘What? . . . The thing is, I think we ought to strengthen the main bolts that run through the lock-casing—here and here. This cross-member will have to be shifted forward a bit to allow for larger jaws. Then . . . What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing, old boy. Nothing at all.’