3
The following Tuesday the weather was good, a small high-pressure system dallying over East Anglia for a couple of days. Todd and Kim drove up from London and arrived at the airfield before twelve, Todd excited, Kim apprehensive.
Calder left them sitting on a bench in the sunshine as he ran through a thorough ‘A’ check on the Yak, examining the wings and fuselage, checking the oil and fuel levels, the instruments, the controls and the tyres and making sure the maintenance log was up to date. The aircraft belonged to a retired advertising executive who lived in Burnham Market. He had spent tens of thousands restoring it, and despite its age it was in very good nick. He was happy for Calder to fly it, for a hirer’s fee of course, and Calder had logged about twelve hours. It was fun, but there were only two seats, one in front, one behind. There was no room for Kim.
She looked concerned. ‘Are you sure this thing is safe?’ she asked Calder. ‘It looks like it’s made of Meccano. And it was manufactured in Russia, wasn’t it? Won’t it just fall apart?’
‘It hasn’t yet, and it’s been flying for fifty years. Of course it’s safe. All these aircraft are thoroughly maintained and checked. It’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t know.’ She glanced at her husband, who was untangling his headset.
‘You told me you trusted Alex,’ he said.
Kim turned to Calder. ‘I did. You promise you’ll be all right?’ She looked him straight in the eye.
For a second Calder hesitated. Then he smiled. ‘Of course we’ll be safe. No stunts, I promise.’
He installed Todd in the rear seat and in a few minutes they were up in the sky, washed clear by the previous few days’ rain. The mighty 700-horsepower radial engine growled. The Yak felt to Calder like a giant locomotive as it powered through the air.
‘Have you ever flown a small plane before?’ Calder called over the intercom to Todd.
‘Yeah, back in South Africa. My sister has a pilot’s licence and she used to take me up. But I’ve never been in anything like this.’
Calder opened the throttle and increased speed to 220 knots. He called up RAF Marham, his old station, for a flight information service. Although the Yak was fast for a general aviation aircraft, it was nothing like the Tornados he had flown over this same stretch of land twelve years before when he was in the air force. He often saw aircraft from his old squadron, No. 13, speeding along the coast, sometimes alone, sometimes in twos or fours. At first the sight had been almost painful, bringing back memories of the kind of flying he could no longer do, skimming at 600 miles an hour fifty feet above the North Sea, ducking and weaving through the Welsh mountains, spinning and twisting 30,000 feet above the English countryside. But now he had become accustomed to it and admired the stout war machines as they went about their business.
They reached the sea at Hanham Staithe and turned right, passing over his own isolated cottage and powering on towards Blakeney and Cromer. Calder glanced down at the familiar coastline, with its ever-shifting spits of sand, the band of rough marshland and the clusters of houses at regular intervals. He was keeping to 1,000 feet so that his passenger could get a good view.
‘I know I told Kim we wouldn’t do any stunts, but we can do a loop if you’re up for it?’
‘I’m up for it.’
Calder could hear the grin in his passenger’s voice. ‘OK. We’ll have to gain some altitude.’ He opened the throttle for full power and raised the nose for a climb.
The engine growl turned to a roar, the sea slipped down beneath the nose and the altimeter began to turn. Then it happened. Something in the massive old engine a few feet in front of Calder gave way. There was a bang and then the whole aircraft began to shake violently. The engine cowling bucked and buckled, the aircraft instruments blurred, and the wingtips vibrated to their own chaotic rhythm.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Calder heard from the passenger behind him, but he had no time to speak to Todd. Instantly he closed the throttle and slammed the propeller pitch to full coarse in an attempt to lower the speed and the strain on the engine. It was as though there were an angry giant in there desperate to get out, and willing to wreck the aeroplane in the process.
Calder tried to focus on the instruments but the shaking was so intense it was impossible to read them. He estimated they were at about 1,000 feet, facing out to sea. He pulled the stick to the right to begin a gentle turn back towards land. The speed was beginning to tail off but the engine was still leaping about like a mad thing. At any moment it might wrench itself free from the rest of the fuselage.
Calder hit the mic button and fired off a rapid Mayday in the hope that he wasn’t yet too low for Marham to hear him. He guessed a position somewhere to the west of Blakeney and then focused on fighting the aeroplane.
Oil was now leaking from the cowling in front of him, and worse than that, black smoke. The engine was on fire.
Calder cut off the fuel to the engine and switched off the magnetos. He had to get down to the ground, and quickly. But somehow they had drifted a couple of miles out from the shoreline.
The power was going from the engine and they were sinking. They were probably 400 feet up with a mile and a half to go, cold grey water beneath them.
‘Brace yourself, Todd,’ Calder called. No reply. ‘Todd?’
He turned to see Todd slumped back in his seat. Why? Despite the adrenaline flooding his system he felt suddenly tired himself. Carbon monoxide! Part of the drill for an engine fire was to open the cockpit to prevent carbon monoxide from the engine poisoning the pilot. With arms that were suddenly heavy, he reached forward and fumbled with the knob to release the canopy. He slid it open a few inches and the fresh air rushed by his face.
The sea was very close now. So was the shore, but they weren’t quite going to make it. To his left he saw a narrow bar of exposed sand half a mile out from the beach. He could just reach that. But with the engine on fire perhaps it would be safer to ditch into the water rather than risk a hard landing and an explosion. The trouble was that behind him Todd was unconscious; they were not wearing life jackets and if they ditched, Todd would be unable to climb out and swim to safety. Calder would have to pull him out.
Calder had been taught to make decisions under pressure; any decision was better than no decision. He chose the sandbar. He pulled the stick to the left and heaved the sluggish Yak towards the bank. He selected full flap and gear down and then the aircraft slammed into the sand. Had it been a smooth firm runway, all might have been well, but the sand was wet and uneven, the aircraft was bucking like a wild thing, and it slewed round to the left. For a couple of seconds sky, sea and sand whirled in bewildering disorder; there was a jarring impact and then everything was still.
Still, and inverted. Calder was held in his seat by the pressure of the harness on his shoulders. The aircraft was on its back. For a moment the stillness was a relief after the desperate thrashing of the stricken aircraft, but only for a moment. Calder could hear the drip of oil and the crackle of flames, and he could smell fuel. He knew he had only seconds.
Quickly but carefully, so that he didn’t fall downwards on to his neck, he unbuckled his harness and pulled himself out of there. He turned, released Todd and dragged him out too. Todd had a serious gash on the side of his head and was out cold. Calder slung him over his shoulder and staggered as far away from the Yak as he could. He was about thirty yards along the sandbank when the aircraft behind him exploded.
He turned to watch a ball of black and orange engulf the fuselage, and staggered backwards away from the heat. It seemed extraordinary that the old Yak could be transformed from perfect flying machine to twisted metal in less than three minutes. He felt himself shaking. They had been extremely lucky to get out.