The Lonely Sea and the Sky (19 page)

  A week before this I had worked out a fine system of navigation. I had found that I could follow an invisible curved path to the island by taking sextant shots of the sun every hour; this was based on the fact that measuring the height of the sun above the horizon with a sextant enabled one to calculate the distance of the seaplane from the spot vertically below the sun on the surface of the earth. Having calculated beforehand how far the seaplane would be from the point vertically beneath the sun (if on her right path) at that time, the actual sun sight when the time came would reveal if the seaplane was, say, 5 miles to one side or other of the invisible path. Unfortunately all this depended on leaving the north tip of New Zealand early in the morning, which in turn depended on flying up there the night before. Not starting from Auckland till the morning had ruined this carefully­computed system. As I flew along I thought up a replacement, and began afresh. I estimated the time when I should arrive, and I computed the distance of the island from the sun position an hour before that time. Then I marked a spot on the chart 90 miles to the left of the island that would be the same distance from the sun position at that time. This was my first target. By the height of the sun a sextant shot at the time would then tell me if I had reached the spot or not. As soon as I reached the spot I would turn and keep the sun abeam, which would bring me to the island. I had to aim well to one side of the island in case of an error in the dead reckoning, caused by a faulty compass reading, or undetected wind effect should put me on the wrong side of the island. And the island being out of sight, I must be certain that when I turned to the right I was turning towards it, and not away from it. This system was afterwards dubbed by one of my friends as 'my theory of the deliberate error'. I estimated that I should reach the turn-off spot at 4 o'clock (1600 hours) and computed for that time.

  After 160 miles I flew over a deserted island of bare brown rock and had some trouble in locating it on the map. It gave me a shock to find that it was a third of the width of Norfolk Island. So far there had been no sign of any sun or a break in the grey-black clouds, but at 8.40 a.m. I spotted a shaft of light ahead, which cast a small circle of brightness on the dull sea. At 8.49 I struck the edge of the sunlight, and shot the sun four times before I was across. This was my last chance to check my astro-navigation. I worked out how far I was from the point under the sun and compared it with my position according to the chart. The observation was 140 miles out. For a second I felt panic. Then I found that I had forgotten to allow for the error in my watch. I felt desperate at thinking of all the blunders of this kind I could make. However, I recovered; the work required extraordinary concentration. It had been easy enough in a car driven at 50mph by someone else; in the seaplane it was at first difficult to concentrate enough while attending to the five instrument readings, maintaining a compass course, reducing the sun sight, and solving the spherical triangle involved. The 90 to 100mph wind of the propeller slipstream, which struck the top of my head just above the windshield, made concentrating difficult; so did the pulsating roar from the open exhausts.

  While all these thoughts went through my head, the Moth flew on, and looking over the side I found that I was passing Parengarenga Harbour. I skimmed round, looking for a place called Te Hamua where my petrol was. There were no other buildings to be seen except a group of three or four wooden huts in a small clearing by the shore with a great stretch of stunted scrub all round. I flew low to inspect, and fowls scattered in all directions madly flapping. As I throttled back, I was glad to see one or two people waving to me. I was just about to alight, when the pebbles, shell and weed showed so clearly that I feared there was no water; I knew that this part of the harbour dried at low water, so I shied off, and went round again. I noticed a dark streak of deeper water in a channel farther out, and alighted on that. The floats settled with a sizzling swish, the seaplane swaying slightly in a way that was a sheer delight. I cut the motor, and as soon as the seaplane lost way it began to drift rapidly downwind. There was a snappish breeze, and I threw out the 3¾ lb anchor with its 2 lb chain, and paid out the full length of line. After watching for a while I realised that the anchor was not holding, and that the sea­plane was drifting rapidly on to a lee shore. I looked round anxiously, but there was no sign of anyone. Then I looked at my watch, 9.30, I had been down a quarter of an hour already. I could not stay long. It was doubtful if the sun could be observed during the last hour before sunset, and I ought to have a reserve of time in case of a headwind. Also I needed some time up my sleeve for finding a place to moor on arrival. I ought to leave by 10 o'clock.

  A man strolled on to the beach looking towards the plane. Then a boy followed, and they sauntered down to a dinghy that disappeared behind an anchored boat. This turned out to be a launch that moved away from its mooring, and swept round in a wide arc, dinghy in tow, to a point some 200 yards to windward of the seaplane. By the time the man and the boy had dropped into the dinghy they were 300 yards away; the seaplane was moving two yards to their one, and I anxiously watched the shore drawing nearer. At last I had to swing the prop, and as the plane moved forward I hauled in the dripping anchor line, precariously standing on a float behind the propeller blades. The launch moved away at full speed, and the two in the dinghy rowed like mad. Near the dinghy I switched off the motor and threw out the anchor. The rowers rested on their oars, staring speechless. They were Maoris.

  'I want an anchor,' I bawled. No answer. 'Have you got an anchor?' No answer. 'I must have an anchor.' No answer. This went on until at last the man said, 'Py corry, he want te anchor, I tink, hey?' The boy agreed, and without saying anything else they set off leisurely for the launch, and after a long discussion on board the launch set off leisurely for the shore. My three-quarters of an hour ran out. At last the launch started again, just as I was forced to restart my motor and taxi back to the channel. When the dinghy arrived I persuaded them to make fast their anchor to mine, which they did after sweeping for my anchor line with an oar.

  'I want the petrol,' I shouted.

  'Hah?'

  'Petrol! Where is my petrol?'

  'Ho! Petrol!'

  'Py corry!' said Hori senior to Hori junior, 'I tink he want his plurry petrol, hey?'

  'He! He! He!' said the boy.

  'Didn't you know I was landing here for petrol?'

  'Ho, we think you not coming this soon.'

  My request for him to get the petrol in a hurry was strongly worded. The Maori is a devilish fine fellow, friendly, good-natured, sporting and with perfect manners. The man in the boat said nothing, and rowed back to the launch. The launch returned to the shore. Men disappeared. It all seemed unreal; it was hard to connect this with a trans-Tasman flight already overdue to start. I was sick with impatience and anxiety, when suddenly I thought, 'There's nothing I can do about it; why worry?' Peace descended upon me, as the Bible says. I fumbled below the seat for the jam and butter and loaf of bread given me by the Isitts, cut myself a thick slice, and began eating it, riding astride the fuselage behind the cockpit. I saw the launch put off again, hastily rammed the remainder of the bread and jam into my mouth, and scrambled forward on to the float. Well, the position was not really so hopeless after all. But the launch shot by, headed to the other side of the harbour, and none of the crew took the slightest notice of me.

  It was 11 o'clock. At last the launch came back heading for the plane. It was 11.23. 'It's madness not to turn back now,' said Reason. 'You can be sure of a following wind,' said Instinct. The white bow waves increased in size. It really was petrol this time; the dinghy came down the anchor line, with three cases on board.

  'Got a funnel?' I called out.

  'No, we not got funnel. Hey, you make us present of this benzene case, hey?'

  'All right, how about opening it first!'

  'We not got a hammer, hey?'

  I scrambled back to the fuselage-locker behind my cockpit for my collapsible funnel, then on to the wing-root, to ransack the front cockpit for the tools at the bottom of it. I passed over a big spanner, and my new screwdriver, which they belted into the wooden case to open it. After making a hole in the 4-gallon tin big enough to take his fist, he handed up the tin. I worked it up from the wing-root to the motor-cowling, then on to the top petrol tank between the two top wings. I clambered up after the tin, and stood, precariously balancing myself on the top of the motor of the bobbing seaplane, my right arm round a 30 lb tin of petrol and my left hand holding the collapsible leather petrol-filter. And how that collapsible funnel could collapse! I got surges of petrol up my sleeves and down my legs, and when the seaplane pitched petrol shot into my cockpit. The Maori chose this moment for questioning me. It sounded as if they were questions he had been told to ask. 'You going far?' 'To Australia.'

  'Ho, Australia, hey! You give me that benzene tin when it empty, hey? How many miles this Australia?'

  'Fifteen hundred the way I am going.'

  'Py corry! That th' phlurry long way to swim, I tink. What time you get there?'

  'I'm only going to Norfolk Island today. That is to say,' I added looking up at the clouds, 'that's where I hope to get.'

  'You give me that benzene tin when you finish him? Norfolk Island! You hear that? Ho! Ho! Ho! Norfolk Island; you hear that! How far is Norfolk Island?'

  'About 500 miles from here.'

  'Five hundred miles! Why! That's the phlurry long swim too, py corry!'

  I filled up with 12 gallons so that I now had about ten hour's fuel. I had tanks for twelve hours, but knew that it would be hopeless to try rising with more than 50 gallons, ten hours. I made a deal with him for his anchor, and this took time, because I knew I should never get it if I tried to cut short the customary haggling. I asked him to hurry and lift the anchors, take off mine and bend on his, and he said they had a telegram on shore for me. I clutched my hair swearing till I cooled off. Then I laughed and suggested he go and fetch it. It must be the weather forecast I was expecting. Then a launch came up, with a white man in the bows waving a telegram. 'Forecast from Dr. Kidson,' he read out. 'Weather expected fine; fresh to strong south-easterly breeze; seas moderate becoming rough.'

I opened the throttle wide, but the seaplane thrashed on and on through the water without a sign of leaving it. After more than a mile's run I had to stop because of the opposite shore ahead. As I turned and taxied downwind, I tried to think of a reason for the failure; at dawn, the seaplane had taken off in less favourable conditions; the motor was the same; were the floats leaking? They had been tested; when filled up with water scarcely a drop had leaked out, and if none could leak out none could leak in? (So I thought, but one float had been steadily filling all the time I was down on the water.) I turned into the wind for another attempt, but the seaplane bumped and porpoised with no sign of rising. I snatched at the control-stick and jerked up the seaplane's nose; she jumped out of the water, and settled back again with the waves dragging at the float heels; but she was not as deep in as before. I snatched again, and again she jumped, settled down after the jump, but this time held off the water. Slowly she gathered speed, overcame the heaviness of her stalled condition, and rose. I was away.

  I headed for my imaginary point 90 miles to the left of Norfolk Island. Ahead, I could see an edge to the layer of black cloud with clear sky beyond. I slipped off my goggles and lifted the helmet flaps, so that I could stuff each ear with a plug of cotton wool, which muffled somewhat the roar from the open exhaust. At noon I flew over the edge of New Zealand; it was Spirit's Bay, where the Maoris believed there was a vast cavern through which all the spirits of the dead passed. I flew from under the cloud into clear sky. All my miserable anxieties and worries dropped away, and I was thrilled through and through. Over my left shoulder, the last of New Zealand receded rapidly. Ahead stretched the ocean, sparkling under the eye of the sun: no sport could touch this, it was worth almost any price. I seemed to expand with vitality and power and zest.

  Although I could not rely on dead reckoning, I intended to work it up carefully. It was most important to determine the speed and direction of the wind. For example, a 30-mile wind from the north-east would cause the seaplane to drift 24 miles to the side of its route during an hour. At the time pilots said that it was impossible to determine what the wind was over the sea when flying alone, because it was impossible to read the drift of the plane. I had devised a new way of doing it, however, by reversing the ordinary method. Instead of looking over the side, and trying to decide how much the plane was drifting by looking at the sea, I looked over the side, fixed a point in the water such as a fleck of white, and flew the plane so that this fleck left the side of the fuselage at an angle of, say, five degrees. In other words, I made the plane drift five degrees as it flew away from that speck. Then I looked back quickly at the compass, and if the compass reading showed that the plane was still on course, then the five degrees of drift must have been correct. If the compass showed that the plane was now off course, say, two and a half degrees, then I had judged the drift wrongly and I would try again. The next time I would make the plane drift seven and a half degrees, and if the compass showed that the plane was on course afterwards, then the correct drift was in fact seven and a half degrees. I reckoned that I could tell the drift to one and a quarter degrees by imagining a five-degree angle split into four. Of course, one drift was only part of the data needed, because lots of different winds could make a plane drift seven and a half degrees. I determined the drift on three different headings, and then plotted them on the chart for those headings. Whereas lots of winds could cause any one of the drifts, there was only one wind that could cause the different drifts on the different headings at the same time. I observed and plotted three drifts every half hour, and used the mean of the two winds for the hour's flight.