CHAPTER 2

 

A GHASTLY MESS

 

Willy gasped in horror. “Oh! A shark! Quick! Land! We must save him!” he cried.

Mr Southall now had the ‘Catalina’ in a steep bank. The plane slid down towards the water and he stared out the window before easing the controls and levelling out a couple of hundred feet above the sea.  As he took the aircraft around in a wide, gentle turn Mr Southall said, “There’s a second man there.”

The co-pilot nodded and said, “I see him.”

Willy hadn’t but the tone of the men’s voices bothered him and he peered anxiously out. Then his eyes detected the second man and he realized why he hadn’t seen him earlier. The man was floating face down about fifty metres from the first and even at that height Willy felt sure he was dead.  Worse still there was another shark there, and it appeared to be tearing at the man’s left leg. Willy distinctly saw what looked like murky pink streamers trailing from the body.

The sight made him want to retch but it also made him cry out again. “Sir, quick! We must land and save that other man before those sharks attack him.”

Mr Southall appeared not to hear him. He kept the plane turning so that he could see both men out the port window but he made no attempt to land. Flying Officer Turnbull came and stood between him and the co-pilot and looked out.

“Sir!” pleaded Willy. “We must land. We have to save him!”

Mr Southall turned his head and Willy saw his jaw was set hard. He gave a slight shake of the head and said, “It’s not just his life young Willy. There are twenty lives in this plane and if I muck things up then they could be lost too.”

Willy had dimly known that but now he recognized the terrible weight of responsibility thrust onto the pilot. Whatever he did risked peoples’ lives. “Can’t we land sir?” he asked, swallowing to keep his stomach under control. He could still see the smaller shark gnawing and ripping at the floating corpse.

Mr Southall gestured with his left hand. “The sea is pretty rough. If we hit it hard or wrong the plane could plough under or, worse still, tip a wingtip and cartwheel. Even if we get down safely we may not be able to get off again.”

“But we could save that man if we did get down?” Willy pressed. He felt very personally involved in saving the man’s life and a sense of frustrated desperation was growing.

“Yes. But it’s a real risk,” Mr Southall answered. Willy knew that he had once been a squadron leader in the air force and also a civil airline pilot who had flown the big ‘Sandringham’ flying boats from Sydney to Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island back in the days when such planes were in service. ‘He has a lot of experience of flying seaplanes, and I don’t,’ he thought ruefully. He could see that Mr Southall was torn and felt sorry for him.

Mr Southall kept the ‘Catalina’ circling.  Flying that low meant a fair amount of turbulence but Willy barely noticed. He was just aware that Mr Southall was flying the aircraft with unconscious skill. Willy saw that the big shark was also interested in the body of the dead man but it wasn’t far from the man in the water. ‘Poor bugger!’ he thought. ‘He can see us and thinks he is saved, and he must be able to see those sharks. He must be terrified!’

Flying Officer Turnbull spoke next. “We must think of the cadets and their safety first,” he said.

That annoyed and sickened Willy. ‘Is he saying that because he is scared, or is he really concerned about us?’ he thought unkindly.

Flying Officer Turnbull then said, “We can radio a ship and it can come and pick him up.”

“Sir! That could take hours. That man hasn’t got a life jacket, and anyway that big shark could attack him at any moment,” Willy cried.

“Drop him a raft then,” Flying Officer Turnbull suggested. “Do you have an inflatable raft Mr Southall?”

“We have several and we will use one,” Mr Southall replied.

That, to Willy, was a poor second, but better than nothing. He was now feeling almost nauseous with anxiety and apprehension. To be able to see the poor man and the huge shark and be aware that at any moment he might have to watch him being torn to bits!

Mr Southall then said to the navigator, “What is the wind?”

“From the South East Ivan, varying from fifteen knots to twenty knots,” the navigator replied.

“So, that gives a wave height of about a metre and half to two metres,” Mr Southall answered.

The co-pilot answered. “Yes, but in the lee of the reef it should be a good deal less.”

“That’s what I thought,” Mr Southall answered. He spoke into his microphone on the intercom and Willy realized he was talking to the flight engineer down in the cabin. Then he turned and said, “OK we will try it. George, you radio the position and situation at once and then get the inflatable dinghy ready. Frank, go down and make sure all the cadets are securely strapped in and wearing life jackets.”

At that Willy sighed with relief. “Oh hurry please!” he cried.

Mr Southall turned to him, “I will go as fast as it is safe to go, now get me a lifejacket and then you strap yourself into that dicky seat there after you put a lifejacket on.”

Willy nearly cried with relief. He reached down and extracted two lifejackets from under the seat. Before the flight they had been shown where the lifejackets were stowed and how to put them on as part of the safety brief. Now it thrilled him to watch as the pilot pulled his over his head. By then the co-pilot, navigator and Flying Officer Turnbull had all gone below. Willy tugged the lifejacket over his head and tied the straps around his waist. Doing that gave him a sick feeling of worry but it was nothing to the tense apprehension he felt as they yet again went round in a big circle.

Just behind the pilot was a small folding seat and he pushed it down until it locked into position. Then he seated himself and buckled on the seat belt. The co-pilot came back and pulled on a lifejacket, then took over the controls while Mr Southall did his jacket up. All this took more minutes and with every passing second Willy felt he would explode with anxiety.

Only when he was satisfied that all the cadets were securely seated and wearing life jackets and that the inflatable rafts were ready for instant use did Mr Southall take control again. Willy watched from close behind him with fascinated interest which partly over-rode the apprehension. Mr Southall took the aircraft well away to the North West until they were several miles from the reef and the man. As he did this he told Willy to make sure he kept the man in sight the whole time. Willy kept looking back as though his own life depended on it, until the man’s head was just a tiny pinhead all but lost in the ripples and whitecaps.  As the aircraft flew away from the area the flaps were fully extended and Willy saw the small floats on the port wingtip lowered ready for landing.

Mr Southall brought the aircraft around to the left in a curve so tight that it surprised Willy and pressed him into his seat with the G forces. Then the plane levelled out and Mr Southall said, “OK Willy, where is he?”

“Almost dead ahead,” Willy answered, then felt ill at the real meaning of those words.

“Got him! Good, OK here we go,” Mr Southall answered. “Keep watching please, as we shall probably overshoot him.”

Willy stared through the front as the aircraft slowly lost altitude. The changing view surprised and worried him. At the start the odd-shaped reef was plainly visible but as they came lower it was lost among the endless ripples of the waves. Then the horizon seemed to change and he distinctly saw it become a jagged line of tiny wave tops. His intellect told him that was because as they came lower their range of visibility became shorter and shorter.

‘The horizon is about three nautical miles for a person standing on a beach?’ he thought, remembering something he had read. But now it was confusing. All he was sure of was that the man’s head kept vanishing in the wave troughs as they got lower. There was also an impression of things speeding up but that, he knew, was simply because they were much closer to the sea. A glance at the altimeter told him they were actually descending steadily from 200 feet to 100 feet.

‘Gosh! The waves do look big,’ Willy thought. He could not see Mr Southall’s face but a glance at the co-pilot showed a set jaw and lines of worry on his face.

The plane rocked and bumped through a layer of disturbed air and Mr Southall automatically corrected. Willy kept staring at the man’s head and now saw a waving arm. They were close now and seemed to rush towards him. He even thought he glimpsed the dreaded triangular fin of the big shark but later wasn’t sure if it hadn’t just been a wave top.  He noted that Mr Southall was aiming to land with the man just off the port bow.

Throttles were eased. The aircraft rocked and seemed to float as its nose was lifted slightly. Willy tensed and for the first time felt a prickle of concern that he might be in some danger himself. Then the man went by close underneath, his upturned face and open mouth clearly visible. That got Willy very anxious and he leaned sideways and craned his head to look back through the small space available to him. Glances ahead showed the horizon looking even more jagged and closer and then he saw a distinct line of white in the distance and a sort of smear. He realized the white was the surf breaking on the far side of the odd-shaped reef.

‘Has Mr Southall miscalculated?’ Willy wondered.

Then he saw that he hadn’t. The near edge of the reef was just visible a few hundred metres away. The nose went up and the keel hit the first wave top. It came as a solid thump which threw up a shower of spray behind, obscuring Willy’s view. There was another hard thump and then more in rapid succession. Willy sensed that the nose was being held high to ensure the bow did not tilt and plough into the face of a wave. He also noted that they were running into much smaller waves and that the speed was coming down fast as the aircraft settled and the drag slowed it.

The aircraft suddenly slewed sideways and gave a slithering shudder. Willy saw that the port wingtip float had buried itself in a wave crest, the drag of the water pulling hard. For the first time awareness really sank in of how close they were to a crash, and how dangerous it actually was. A cold sweat instantly prickled his skin under the blue air cadet work uniform. But Mr Southall was ready for it and the aircraft yawed as he corrected. Then the wingtip float tore free of the water in a smother of foam and the plane straightened out again and thumped on over the wave tops, each thump being less solid and the speed quickly falling away.

And then they were safely down and turning on the surface of the sea. Willy felt relieved and then amazed at how much the aircraft rocked about as the wave motion took over. Mr Southall reached up and slid the port window open and then turned to look out to port as he swung the plane around back onto a reciprocal course. The engines roared, throwing up spray and making the motion slightly easier.

The navigator unstrapped himself and went down the steps into the cabin. Willy was able to lean his head half out the window to get a better view. That gave him a bit of a shock as he realized that the spinning propeller blades were close behind his head and seemed to be very close. To his relief the man’s head and waving arm were clearly visible. The plane began surging back with the waves, taxiing across the sea as fast as it could safely go.

Even that seemed agonizingly slow for Willy. ‘Oh hurry! Hurry!’ he thought. Now his eyes were scanning for a sight of that dreaded fin. To his dismay he could not see it anywhere. ‘Where is that damned shark?’ he wondered.

The fuselage door was opened just back and below where Willy sat. He saw the flight engineer lean out to look. In his hands he had a boat hook and lifebuoy secured to a rope. The navigator’s head appeared beside him. Willy watched with great interest as the wave tops caught at their wingtip float, the water surging and grabbing at it. Mr Southall had to use continual corrections of course to keep the plane taxiing in a straight line.

As they got closer to the swimming man Mr Southall turned away and then brought the Catalina around in a curve so that the wind and waves would drift the man down towards the plane. “We don’t want to run him over,” Mr Southall explained.

The delay involved got Willy all anxious again. ‘If we aren’t quick the shark will get him!’ he fretted.

And there was the shark! Its fin broke the surface about fifty metres away. “Oh hurry!” Willy cried. “There’s the shark!”

He looked down and saw the man was now close alongside and swimming with an awkward breaststroke towards them. What bothered Willy the most was seeing the man’s legs so clearly in the water. The aircraft’s engines went into reverse and the plane slowed right down, even as Willy feared they would run the man right over. Mr Southall now turned the aircraft, using the rudder and port propeller, so that the swimming man appeared to slide astern. In fact it placed him back under the wing and safely away from the spinning propeller blades, which Willy noted were coming dangerously close to the surface of the water as waves swept under the hull.

The flight engineer tossed the lifebuoy towards the man, a young man Willy now noted. The man splashed towards it, making Willy mutter, “Don’t splash!” The swimming man at last made it to the lifebuoy and grabbed it. Willy could tell, by his face and the floundering strokes, that he was exhausted. ‘Oh hurry!’ he kept thinking, very anxious about the sharks, both of which had now gone out of sight.

The flight engineer and navigator hauled slowly on the rope to draw the lifebuoy towards the aircraft. Willy understood that they were doing it slowly so that the exhausted swimmer did not lose his grip but every second was nail-biting tension as he kept fretting about the sharks. Then the man was alongside. He reached up but they failed to grab his hand as the waves sucked him down and away. Then the man was washed hard against the hull by the next wave. To Willy’s consternation the man went under.

For a few seconds Willy thought they had lost him, even wondered if the shark had pulled him under, but then his desperate, spluttering face appeared again. The swimmer still had a grip on the lifebuoy. Again he reached up, his eyes wide with fear. The flight engineer and navigator leaned out and reached down to grab the man’s arms (He wore no shirt, Willy noted). As soon as they had a grip they hauled, dragging the man up inside.

As the man’s legs vanished inside the door way Willy sat back and almost cried with relief. ‘Oh got him! Safe!” he thought happily.

The navigator appeared at the top of the steps. “Got him skipper,” he called.

“Good,” Mr Southall answered. “Now we will try to collect what we can of that other poor bugger. Can you see where he is?”

The navigator shook his head and said, “No Ivan.”

Willy craned his neck to look out and scanned the tossing wave tops. As he did he tried to orientate himself. ‘The body was about fifty metres west of the swimmer,’ he reasoned. But which way was that?  He had heard the comment about the wind direction being from the South East. The ‘Catalina’ was rolling sharply in a quartering sea which came in under the starboard bow so he decided that west was back under the wing. He peered back through the spinning disc of the propeller in that direction.

It was a shark he saw, not the dead man. A swirl and splash in the waves caught his eye and a moment later he clearly glimpsed the long, pointed tail fin of one of the sharks.

“Back that way Mr Southall. I can see one of the sharks.  I think the.. the body is there,” he called, pointing as he did. He actually thought that the shark was attacking it but did not say so. The idea made him nauseous.

“Good lad Willy,” Mr Southall replied. “Now keep your eye on it while we taxi over.”

He opened the throttle of the starboard engine slightly and the nose of the ‘Catalina’ came around. When it was pointing directly at the area both engines were used to get the seaplane moving forward. The result was an uncomfortable slithering and pitching motion as it outran each wave and slid awkwardly down its face.

The navigator came up and stood between the pilots to look through the front. He chuckled. “There are a few customers getting a bit seasick back there,” he said.

“They’ll be even sicker if they see this bloke all mangled,” Mr Southall replied grimly. “Try to stop them looking.”

The navigator shook his head. “That will be difficult. There is a cadet at every port hole and the door is right in front of them.”

Mr Southall shrugged. Willy wondered if he had forgotten he was there but did not say anything.

It was the co-pilot who spotted the shark again and a minute later the dark bobbing shape of the corpse became visible among the waves. Willy was now filled with morbid fears and wondered if he should look away rather than give himself nightmares but he found he just had to look. As the seaplane edged down closer he was able to look straight down on the dead body. What he saw made his stomach heave and it was only with an effort he kept the contents down, rather than spewing them all over Mr Southall and the flight deck.

The body had lost an arm, all of one leg and half of the other and its stomach had been ripped open. Revolting streamers of pink, purple and brown flesh, intestines and sinews waved in the moving water. ‘Not much blood,’ he observed. For a few seconds he watched with ghastly fascination the way the limbs and head lolled loosely in the waves. Then his stomach heaved again.

As quickly as he could Willy unbuckled his seat belt and struggled out into the passageway. Mr Southall turned and raised his eyebrows. “Going to be sick sir,” Willy managed to croak. Then his stomach heaved. To stop it he clenched his teeth and held his mouth shut as he stumbled down the steps behind the navigator. It didn’t work. Vomit squirted up into Willy’s nostrils and began to trickle and drip out.

Worse still, as he reached the bottom of the steps he found Finlay standing at the toilet door. She also had her hand over her mouth and looked green and miserable. As Willy gestured to get out of the way she shook her head and kept a firm grip on the handle. Willy then noted Flight Sergeant Anderson and Corporal Francini standing behind her, also looking sick.

Again his stomach moved and there was only one place to go, rather than throw up all over the passageway in the cabin- the open door. It was only two steps away but the flight engineer and navigator were blocking it. Willy staggered over and tapped the flight engineer on the shoulder. The flight engineer turned a quizzical face to him but Willy could not speak. His mouth was now full of vomit and he was having trouble breathing. When he tried to suck air in chunky bits moved in the back of his nostrils and blocked the left one. The revolting stench and taste of bile burned at his throat and airways.

The flight engineer took one glance and grabbed him, then moved aside to hold him in the doorway. As soon as green water appeared below Willy opened his mouth and heaved. Then he spluttered, coughed again and saw the dead body directly below him. The horrible sight made him heave again. Lumps and sour liquid squirted and dribbled out and he felt hot tears of shame. He was aware that the flight engineer and navigator had a firm grip on him. They suddenly thrust him back inside and the navigator dragged Flight Sergeant Anderson to the door to throw up as well.

Feeling upset and bilious Willy stood back against the bulkhead to make room. Through eyes that were streaming he saw Anderson shoved back out of the way and then the two men knelt and reached outside. “Get out of the way you kids! And don’t look!” shouted the navigator.

Willy tried to but he could only go back up the passageway towards the cockpit. Before his horrified and disgusted eyes he saw the dead body come slithering and flopping onto the deck at his feet, hauled in by the two crewmen. Finlay and Cpl Francini both stared at it in wide-eyed horror and then spewed. The vomit poured onto the deck and then began to swill around their feet and the body as the plane rocked about. The door to the toilet opened and a pale and drawn looking Cadet Todd looked down, plainly aghast. He then heaved again and fled back into the toilet.

“Back off kids!” the navigator shouted, pointing aft. Finlay, Francini and Anderson all backed away, their eyes wide with fear and shock. Along the corridor Willy could see the horrified eyes of other cadets and officers staring towards the mess at his feet. He began to back up but the navigator looked at him and called, “Pass us those garbage bags please.”

Willy was next to the door of the tiny galley and saw some large green garbage bags there. He nodded, quite unable to speak and having trouble breathing. With shaking hands he passed the garbage bags quickly to the navigator. Unable to tear his eyes from the scene he watched with grisly fascination as the man began sliding the bag over the corpse’s head. As he did Willy began to experience searing flashbacks. This was not the first time that he had seen a dead body. Seven months before his uncle had been murdered; mutilated by a chain saw. It had been Willy who had found the body. A few weeks later he had seen a man obliterated in a spray of blood and mince when he fell into a wood pulp machine. The man had been attempting to kill Willy, who had spent the previous night in terror as he faced his death. It had been a very dark period in his life and now it chilled him with redoubled force.

With an effort Willy snuffled and blew his nose into his handkerchief. A lump of something stuck in the back of his left nostril and he gagged and felt as though he would vomit again. His eyes watered and he clung to the door of the galley. A movement in front of him caused him to lift his eyes and through the mist of tears he saw the face of the man they had rescued.

The man looked to be about twenty and wore only shorts and a belt with some sort of zip-up bag on it. He had blond hair and startlingly blue eyes. These were fixed on the body of the dead man as the navigator and flight engineer struggled to wrap it up. The rescued man was also standing, clinging to the opposite doorpost, the entrance to the tiny crew’s mess and bunk space.

The navigator turned to him and reached out a hand. “Pass me a blanket please mate,” he said.

The man did so, then shook his head in obvious distress. Willy was also very upset. He met the man’s eyes for a moment and said, “I’m sorry we weren’t quicker. If I’d seen you earlier we might have saved your friend.”

The man stared at him and then went wide eyed and shook his head. “No. No. You couldn’t have saved him. He was dead already.”

“Dead already!” Willy echoed. He swivelled his eyes to stare at the body.

“Yes,” the man said. “He was shot.”