Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men (92 page)

Not that Stannage was totally in accord with everything that master did. I wish he would tell us to dump the mail, he tapped out, a little disloyally. Then we could climb. I don’t like this being right down on the water.
¹⁹

The tension ebbed and flowed. One thing John Stannage had particularly noticed in his brief flying career was how the ocean itself had moods. On some days it looked as bright, breezy and welcoming as a beautiful girl on a summer’s day. On other days it scowled and threatened, angrily. This was such a day. At times he was certain that all was lost—

9.37 a.m. Going down, I think. Wait!

—and was aghast to look out the window and see the hungry ocean just 100 feet or so beneath them, but then things would come good for a bit—

9.38 a.m. No! She’s right! Picked up again.

Shortly afterwards Stannage went forward and was immensely cheered to see that Smithy’s familiar broad grin was back. ‘Just holding it now, Johnnie,’ Smithy shouted above the slightly muted roar of what used to be three motors, but was now just two. ‘She’ll do it if the motors can stand up to full throttle.’
²⁰

And in many ways, ‘holding it’ was exactly what he was doing—holding the plane in the sky. John Stannage didn’t know how. Somehow, amazingly, Smithy achieved an aerial equilibrium between stalling and setting the starboard propeller windmilling that enabled them to continue inching their way towards the Australian coast. Smithy’s confidence was reassuring too.

But just as Stannage was feeling less worried, their situation deteriorated again. This time, as they slowly began to lose altitude with the wavering and overheated motors, Smithy reluctantly called for him to hurl out the door all their luggage, their spares and the freight—everything except the mail—which Stannage instantly did, as if his life depended on it, because it most certainly did.

As Smithy, with Bill Taylor right beside him, kept nursing the plane onwards the best he could, all of them were now physically and mentally spent. The minutes crawled by and they continued to approach the Australian coast at a rate of about 70 miles per hour, with still around 300 miles to go to reach solid land. John Stannage kept broadcasting:

9.49 a.m. Smithy says could you please spare a boat to come out on our course with plenty of smoke. Port engine dropped a cylinder now. Smithy says also to tell them he is frightfully sorry about it all.

10.05 a.m. Smithy says could you get a message to all of our wives, and tell them not to worry. We are not in the water yet.
²¹

11.16 a.m. Things look much brighter now as the petrol load gets less. She can be throttled back a bit to save the motors. The port motor seems to be hanging on O.K. If we carry on like this, we will probably strike the coast about Port Stephens and, boy, will the coast look good!
²²

In fact, a favourable shift in the wind direction meant that they soon altered course and headed straight to Sydney, instead of Stockton Beach. But then things took another bad turn. It became clear that the port motor was in agonised death throes, blowing more and more smoke and screaming its protest at being made to operate so hard without sufficient oil.

In the cabin, John Stannage looked up to see an obviously exhausted Smithy coming back from the tight cockpit for some room to get out of his heavy flying clothes while Bill Taylor took over the flying. Almost as if he thought he would soon be…
swimming
?

Christ.
Yes.

Now Smithy held both thumbs down and told him straight: ‘Looks like we’ve collected it this time, Johnnie,’ he said surprisingly calmly. ‘Port motor can’t last another hour. Let’s have a spot.’
²³
With which the two had a few swigs from a small bottle of whisky Stannage had been given by friends in New Zealand, marked
Radio Operator’s Moaning Fluid.
Stannage could only wish that he had Smithy’s calm in the face of their perilous situation.
²⁴

It was Smithy’s next words, however, that really hit him hard. ‘Now just one cigarette.’
²⁵

Under normal circumstances in a plane like the
Southern Cross
, ever awash in petrol fumes, lighting a match to start a cigarette was strictly forbidden. It was only something you would contemplate if it looked like it didn’t matter any more. As Smithy now said, ‘It doesn’t really matter if it does blow up, does it?’
²⁶

With one match, which didn’t turn their plane into a flaming hulk, Smithy lit both their cigarettes and they drew the wonderfully consoling smoke back into their lungs.

‘When we go in you’ll have to get out of there quite smartly,’ Smithy now told him calmly. ‘Collect all the demolition tools, tie them together and make them fast to a longeron. The tail will finish up high in the air, and you’ll have to make your way down the fuselage to try and dig Bill and me out of the cockpit if we get stuck. We might be a good way under too. The weight of the engines will drag the nose well down. Take your boots off, John. Bad luck, isn’t it? But we’ve had fun, haven’t we?’
²⁷

With which, he took a last deep draw on his cigarette, stubbed it out, and went back to take over from Bill in the cockpit.

Have
mercy
! This time, it looked like it really was all over.

12.12 p.m. Port motor only last a quarter hour. Please stand by for exact position. Going, going, going…

12.15 p.m. She’s going fast.

12.16 p.m. Wait a sec. Going down any minute.

Up the front, Bill Taylor had been doing some serious thinking, even as he stared, mesmerised, at the wavering needle on the oil pressure dial, heading inexorably lower. They needed to get oil into the port engine. If they didn’t get it there, their deaths would be all but certain, and grisly deaths they would be. And yet they had oil with them! The only problem was, it was in the crippled starboard engine. All he needed to do was to find a way to get the oil from the one engine into the other. Yes, he would have to climb out the small opening on the side of the cockpit, into the slipstream, and get that oil! After all, Smithy—who had just come back and taken over again—couldn’t do it as they needed his skills to nurse the plane home, and Johnnie couldn’t do it, as it was very important that he maintained contact with the authorities to give them regular updates on their positions. So, it was up to him.

The decision taken, he moved swiftly. Leaving the controls to Smithy, he moved back into the cabin and yelled at John Stannage.

‘I’m going to have a crack at getting oil out of the tank of the starboard motor! Got anything to put it in?’

Stannage, delighted to have a plan of action, though barely believing that Taylor could be serious, looked around. The thermos flask that had contained the coffee was an obvious choice. Putting the end of a spanner down its mirrored throat, he broke the internal glass to expand its capacity, and then looked around for something else. In a blessed instant he spied the small leather case which contained some radio spares and other tools. It wasn’t much, but it could definitely contain oil.

Bill calmly removed his boots and bound his long leather coat around him as tightly as possible, before moving back into the cockpit. As he went, he kept repeating to himself, almost as a mantra:’
Get the oil from the starboard tank. Go out and get it. Get the oil from the starboard tank. Go out and get it
…’
²⁸

And there was Smithy, hunched over the controls, every fibre of his being concentrated on keeping the
Southern Cross
aloft for as long as possible.

Taylor shouted at him: ‘Going to have a stab at getting some oil!’
²⁹

In response Smithy shook his head violently, in the manner of a man wondering whether Taylor had taken leave of his senses, and then stopped. The look in Taylor’s eyes said he would not be stopped, even if he
had
taken leave of his senses. Meanwhile Taylor’s mental mantra went on…‘
Get the oil from the starboard tank. Go out and get it. Get the oil from the starboard tank. Go out and get it…
’
³⁰

One more thing, though. As a safety measure, he tied a thin postal bag cord around his waist and attached it to a strong piece of steel in the cockpit, in the admittedly vain hope that if he fell, this would save him. Absurdly, it made him feel better.

And then he climbed up onto the starboard pilot’s seat and agonisingly slipped through the opening straight into the teeth of a 100-mile per hour cyclone from the centre motor! And with every inch more of his body that he got out there, the more the wind clawed at him. For an instant, he was overwhelmed by the sheer
futility
of what he was trying to do, but one look at the sea below was enough to settle him down. If he was going to die, at least let him die while trying to save them. He pressed on, his spirit forcing his body to do something that his mind told him was insane…

12.24 p.m. Bill is trying to get oil out of the other engine. Stand by.

In that fierce slipstream, Bill Taylor was fighting for his life, as the rushing wind was a living, killing thing, slapping his face, pulling his hair, tearing at his entire body, billowing into his shirt, up his sleeves, inside his coat, even as the breath was sucked from his lungs and his ears were filled with the roar of a thousand banshees screaming his death song. And all Smithy could do was to keep the
Southern Cross
as steady as possible, just as he had back in the Hollywood days with a madman on his wing.

Despite everything, Bill got a foot onto the horizontal strut that joined the motor to the fuselage, pressed his head and neck hard against the leading edge of the wing and hung on with both hands to the cockpit window for grim death, acutely aware that that was exactly what awaited him if he slipped.

Then with both feet on the crossbar, he risked releasing the death grip of his right hand, and grabbed for an engine-mounting strut. Then both hands. He was still alive! Fighting a strong urge to make a mad rush along the beam and grab the now-cold engine, he inched his way forward…steady…steady…steady…ever so slowly.

And all of a sudden he was there! Blasted by the wind still, but securely holding onto the support strut of the starboard engine. With faltering hands he worked to loosen the cowl pins, not an easy task at the best of times, yet somehow he managed it, with bleeding, shaking fingers and torn nails to expose the engine proper and…and then he realised he’d forgotten something. A spanner with which to loosen the oil plug. He looked back to see that John Stannage was on top of the problem and was leaning out of the cockpit proffering the only adjustable spanner that hadn’t been jettisoned with everything else. With both men leaning out to their maximum degree, Taylor was
just
able to get his fingers on the spanner’s end and breathlessly secure it.

Now, carefully, oh so carefully, Taylor sat and linked an arm around the engine strut then got the spanner onto the drain plug on the oil tank at the back of the engine and began to loosen it. Then he quickly jammed the vacuum flask beneath it to collect the liquid gold, the sauce of their salvation. It was no easy thing to remove the flask and get the plug back in without spilling the precious oil, but he at last got this part of the job done, and passed the flask to Stannage in the cockpit, who emptied it into the briefcase. Both men repeated the process several times until the briefcase was full, and then the exhausted, frozen Taylor fought his way back inside the
Southern Cross
, away from the blasting wind. The job had been half done.

12.54 p.m. Still in the air. Bill the hero, climbed out and got oil for the dud motor.

Now for the port engine. It was at this point that John Stannage himself attempted to finish the job by climbing out the window to the port side, only to find that he was facing certain death if he tried to continue. A much shorter man, when he stood on the strut his head did not come up to the bottom of the wing, meaning he had no capacity to get out to the engine. It would have to be Bill once more or no-one.
³¹

Smithy had to change seats to the starboard side, to give Bill room to get out the other cockpit opening. And this time it not only looked impossible, but
was
impossible. For no sooner had Bill begun to force his body out the opening than he was nearly hurled into all eternity, as he was hit with the wash of both the central
and
port propellers. And yet it had to be done, as the oil pressure on the port motor had nearly fallen away to just 15 pounds from its normal level of 63 pounds per square inch, and it could only be a matter of moments before the engine seized solid. The solution?

There is safety in speed and height.

Well, on just two engines, he couldn’t get speed, but Smithy could maybe get a little height. By gunning both the healthy centre engine and oil-starved port engine, he managed to climb to an altitude of about 700 feet, at which point he idled the port engine. Yes, on only one engine they would swiftly lose altitude, but with the howling slipstream reduced it might be possible for Bill to climb out to the port engine to pour the precious oil into its reservoir before Smithy would have to power the engines back up to escape the gaping jaws of the grey waves below.