The Higher They Fly Read online

  THE HIGHER THEY FLY

  Christopher Hodder-Williams

  © Christopher Hodder-Williams 1963

  Christopher Hodder-Williams has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1963 by Hodder & Stoughton.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  for ELEANORE and

  the devoted friends of

  JOHN STUART HERBERT

  who detested shoddy engineering

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Author’s Note

  I have taken a few technical liberties to make this novel as simple as possible in that direction. I hope those experts who advised me will be indulgent.

  The organisation of Air Traffic Control is more complex than I have implied; and the Watch Supervisor would most likely call a senior Ministry executive to the Airport in the kind of crisis I have described.

  Undercarriages do not, on the whole, play up. If and when they do it is not generally a calamity. Pilots are highly skilled in the art of the emergency landing and they’ll get you down safely somehow. The records show that. But this is a story, not a text book. What I have described could happen. But the technical defects would be more subtle and the design mistakes less outrageous. So far as the engineering is concerned, this is a parable. It nevertheless does no worse than exaggerate.

  My friends in aviation have been most generous with their time and knowledge. In return I must at least make it clear to the reader that they all had to think very hard in order for me to produce a plausible technical plot. It is exceedingly difficult to invent a hypothetical undercarriage which will go haywire to this extent. Nevertheless they managed it. I hope they will accept my grateful thanks for dreaming up the necessary nightmares.

  The Greek iambics on the preceding page were composed for this book by William Wyndham. Their significance will be seen within the text.

  1962CHRISTOPHER HODDER-WILLIAMS

  Chapter One

  Fleming stood with his hands in his pockets and looked up at the sky.

  It was a clear night, and the runway lights were sharp pinpricks that did not mush into each other. London Airport was the quintessence of orderliness; and this orderliness disturbed Fleming deeply.

  He hated it. Hated the rows of reds and whites and greens, which all meant particular things for particular purposes. He knew and understood them, but would never need them again.

  Because Robert Fleming was not allowed to fly.

  He chose to stand on this, his former special territory, because there was some satisfaction to be gained from the bitterness. He let it well over him until he came close to nausea.

  Then came the torque; as the rows of lights began to twist around, the Tower being the hub of their rotation. The airport was a catherine wheel, and its order turned into chaos to match the confusion in Fleming’s mind. It had to be this way . . . there could be no such thing as order. Vertigo was the antidote to cruel logic. The facts could spin around each other. They whirled past so quickly that they couldn’t be evaluated. Facts, facts, facts . . .

  ‘Captain Fleming!’

  The voice which shouted his name, with the brutal addition of rank no longer applicable, did not seem to come from anywhere in particular. The lights still spun around, and he could not place the source of the voice—for all the urgency it conveyed—any more than he could attribute direction to the sound of an engine being run-up somewhere over the other side of the airport.

  ‘Captain Fleming!’

  Abruptly, with a physical thud, the terrain jerked to a dead stop. It was as before: a grotesquely symmetrical presentation of clear-cut thinking. Harsh, and exact.

  ‘Yes? Who is it?’

  Whoever it was came running from the direction of the end of the runway. Immersed in shadows, the figure had no identity. Then the man broke darkness and declared himself.

  ‘My name’s Forbes.’ The owner of the name was out of breath and apparently bewildered. He was a short but well-built man in his late twenties. His face was sharp-jawed and looked capable—that of an underling used to receiving orders and carrying them out. But at this moment he looked wild; his hair was awry and his brow had broken into furrows.

  Now, he tried to get his breath back and panted: ‘I’m an M of A man and I was on duty in the Caravan. Mr Scrivens, the Watch Supervisor, phoned through and said there was someone wandering about the airfield and was coming up on the millimetric radar. My relief—Jenkins, sir—he said he’d seen you cross over from the apron.’

  ‘How did he know who I was?’ Fleming, still trying to orientate himself, couldn’t understand the man’s panicky attitude.

  ‘He said one of the pilots called after you, but you didn’t hear.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’ll phone the Tower and apologise. What’s the big flap about?’

  ‘It was . . . it was when I was coming round from the Caravan. I had to take the perimeter track and I crossed over by the boundary lights, just after that last jet got off. There was a wheel, sir—at least, the remains of one. It had cut a big rut in the turf. Then I found some other gear, including this.’

  He handed Fleming a piece of equipment. It was a heavy piece of steel, wet and slippery from some fluid that had been spattered on it.

  Fleming took it from Forbes and recognised it instantly. As he did so, he felt a sudden limpness that began at his fingertips and raced up his arms. Flatly, he said: ‘Piece of the main undercarriage lock. What was that last aircraft to get off? Did you see?’

  ‘A Jet-Four.’

  ‘Yes, it just would be.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘That’s what this belongs to.’ It was as if he had expected it to happen all the time. ‘You didn’t see the wheel actually fall?’

  ‘No, sir. But I don’t think I would have.’ Forbes watched Fleming’s expression. ‘You feeling all right, sir?’

  When Fleming spoke it seemed he was halfway in a faint. ‘Go to the nearest phone and call the Tower. Warn them not to use that runway. Ask them to send the “pixie” truck over to where you found the debris. I’ll meet them there.’

  Eight minutes later a group of men stood examining the ground between the end of the runway and the Staines road. They worked in the light of car headlamps, and the spotlights mounted on the two air traffic control wagons that had driven up. Scrivens, the Ministry of Aviation Watch Supervisor, came over to Fleming. He said: ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think he can get down.’

  ‘But . . . he must!’

  Fleming glanced at Scrivens briefly, but said nothing.

  Scrivens said: ‘Is this debris from a Jet-Four?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it was that last flight off.’

  Fleming didn’t reply, but thought the man was wrong, without knowing why. He didn’t comment on this but said: ‘Who’s got the pilot on the radio?’

  ‘He’s over to ground frequency. It’s not ideal, but we ca
n talk to him from the truck on that channel.’

  ‘And the captain didn’t report anything abnormal on take-off? . . . Look, this doesn’t make sense. Losing that lot he must have felt something.’

  Scrivens was hard to shift. ‘Not necessarily. He could still have retracted what was left of the undercarriage, without knowing. This sort of thing has happened before.’

  ‘May I talk to him?’

  Scrivens looked at him for a moment, and to cancel prejudice. ‘Yes, if you think it will help.’

  Fleming walked over to the radio truck and took the microphone from the operator. They swapped a look as he did so. There were many on the airport who still remembered why Fleming had been grounded.

  The operator said: ‘He’s the only flight on this frequency. It’s Link Lines One Hundred.’

  Fleming switched to ‘transmit’, and called the aircraft.

  ‘One hundred,’ acknowledged a Detroit snarl, calmly enough. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I’ve been recently flying Jet-Fours and I know more or less what it should feel like when the undercarriage retracts correctly.’

  ‘I think I do too, and since I’m flying this thing I’d better be right.’

  ‘Did it feel normal?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m now flying with the undercarriage lowered. There is every indication that I have my full quota of wheels. Look, I’m going to ask the Tower to clear me for a dummy approach. I’ll be flying right over you and when I’m overhead, try and turn a spot on to my underbelly and see if there’s anything missing. I think your spare wheel belongs to someone else.’

  ‘Nobody reported it.’

  ‘That doesn’t prove anything . . . Anyway, somebody has to have some wheels left. I’m still hoping it’s me. Stand by . . . Hallo London Tower, this is Link Lines One Hundred. Did you catch my last transmission?’

  ‘Affirmative . . .’ There followed the usual instructions regarding wind and visibility. The Tower controller added: ‘Advise you not to attempt a landing.’

  ‘Brother, if I landed with the weight I’m carrying I’d go straight through the floor. I have a minimum of three hours fuel to burn up before I’m within limits.’

  ‘Roger. Change to Approach Control on one-one-nine decimal two. Come back on this frequency if no contact.’

  There was a long wait, down on the runway. An aircraft making an approach, whether dummy or in earnest, follows a strict procedure which takes it from either of the two stacks at Watford or Epsom. This takes time.

  Time meant tension to Fleming, and a gnawing sense of uncertainty. For a while he said nothing to Scrivens. Scrivens was not a pilot. Fleming had to keep reminding himself, grimly enough, that he wasn’t either. But whatever current opinion was concerning his own abilities, flying sense told him that the man in the captain’s seat of Link Lines One Hundred knew what he was talking about. It was in his voice—the knowledge that he had all the wheels that he was going to need.

  To whom did that junk at the end of runway ten-right belong? Someone, evidently, who didn’t know he’d lost it. Someone who could, by now, be halfway across the Atlantic, blissfully ignorant of a basic deficiency. Misleading indeed is the smooth perfection in an aircraft’s performance, except in that specific predicament which has yet to come.

  Fleming’s lighter flashed in the darkness. The flame showed that Scrivens had walked up to the truck. For a moment the two men seemed to be assessing each other. Then Fleming said: ‘It isn’t him. I’m sure of it.’

  Scrivens replied without looking at him. ‘If you’re right we’ll soon know. Air Traffic Control is making contact with every flight of Jet-Fours that took off from here within the last ten hours.’

  ‘How will the pilot of the damaged aircraft know, if this chap doesn’t?’

  ‘You say he does.’

  The radio was squawking through its headphones and the operator called out, ‘One Hundred is back on this frequency and coming in. He’s over the outer marker now.’

  ‘Right.’

  The preparations had been simple enough. The two trucks equipped with searchlights had been positioned either side of the aircraft’s path above the ground. To avoid dazzle, the lights were not to be switched on until the captain gave the command over the radio.

  Somebody shouted: ‘She’s coming in now!’

  The airliner was approaching with all landing-lights switched on, and it slid down a slope in the sky toward the threshold of the runway. The plane presented a curiously disembodied appearance, as if it didn’t belong to anything else.

  There was absolute stillness on the ground while the ship flew the length of the runway. It presented a striking spectacle of absolute power . . . wings exactly level, four jet turbines belting-out in unison with precisely equal thrust.

  ‘Okay, shoot me those lights!’

  Immediately on the captain’s command, two sharply-focused beams fizzled into life. They zeroed on to the underside of the aircraft. The air was ripped by deafening shockwaves as the captain resumed full climbing power while he was almost exactly overhead.

  The lights caught the exposed belly and for a moment the whole assembly was sharply clear.

  Then, almost before it was possible to register the image, the aircraft was tail-on, leaving behind a wake of shattering din.

  ‘You were right,’ said Scrivens, ‘and in a way I wish you weren’t. We’ve got a tough job now.’

  By way of confirmation, Fleming told the captain over the RT that all appeared to be well.

  ‘May I go now?’ asked the captain, as if he were a small boy asking to get down from the tea table. There was splendid comedy in his voice at that moment.

  *

  A team of engineers, who had been waiting in a truck parked on the taxy track, now arrived at the bottom of the runway. They went to work like detectives, after a crime. A man armed with a Speed-Graphic took photographs of the debris; another, who had been hunted out of one of the drawing offices, made a drawing which showed the exact disposition of the parts which had been scattered.

  A second team had been sent to the far side of the Staines road. They searched the grass verges of the highway, then continued along the path of the aeroplane, walking under the stanchions which supported a line of approach lights which were there to guide aircraft when the runway was in use in the reverse direction—as dictated by the wind prevailing.

  Three hundred yards along this line they found a particular and significant component. It was photographed before being removed for further inspection.

  Scrivens took Fleming across to identify it.

  ‘Part of the undercarriage hydraulic gear,’ said Fleming, then he looked at Scrivens and held his eyes. ‘You’d better tell Air Traffic Control at once. Because if the owner of this little item tries to get his undercarriage down he won’t be able to get it up again either.’

  Scrivens led the way back toward the road. ‘As long as he can get it down I can’t see how that matters. He’s only lost one wheel out of a total of eight.’

  Fleming felt suddenly sick. ‘I think you’ll see, all right, when you have a look at the drawings.’

  Scrivens was watching him. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Fleming stooped to try and ward off a feeling of faintness. Then he partially recovered, and noticed something lying on the ground. He picked it up and handed it to Scrivens without comment.

  Scrivens said: ‘A piece of the tyre tread . . . Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m . . . a lot better off than those poor sods. Let’s get back.’

  Chapter Two

  Robert Fleming was left waiting in an office in the Tower building. ‘We’ll keep you posted,’ Scrivens had said.

  ‘Can’t I help?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t allow you to intervene. It’s up to the pilot.’ Scrivens had paused before closing the door. ‘You’re in pretty bad shape. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. So is that damaged aircraft.’

  Scrivens had hesitated, as if about to say so
mething. Then he changed his mind and left the room.

  The office seemed insufferably bare. A map of the airport hung on one wall. The other three were naked. There was one small table, two chairs and a telephone. That was the entire inventory.

  For what seemed like a very long time Fleming stood by the window. From here you could see the car park and part of the apron at Central, but little else. You heard one or two aircraft taking off, but you couldn’t see them until they climbed away, circling, anti-collision lights blinking with clockwork routine.

  Fleming began to feel oppressed by the room; and he began to think how it would be like to be trapped in a Jet-Four under these circumstances. It was terrible, he told himself, to know that someone was in trouble, when you yourself couldn’t do a thing about it.

  Yet he knew that some perverse section of his mind was enjoying it.

  It isn’t me. I am safe. This isn’t my fault. They were wrong about me. It wasn’t fair. Julie is a bitch. A damn little bitch. It was her fault. Somehow, she was at the bottom of it . . .

  He went to the phone and called her, compulsively, hardly questioning the act.

  ‘Julie?’

  ‘Robert, don’t call me. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘On who?’

  She sighed. ‘All right. What is it? Only do make if fast, because I’ve got a hard day tomorrow and I’m trying to get an early night.’

  ‘Alone?’

  Patiently, she replied: ‘Yes, alone. Because I prefer to be, and not to please your ego. Now, what’s all this about?’

  ‘There’s serious trouble here. I’m at London Airport. Someone took off—we don’t know who—and left bits of his undercarriage all over the runway. We thought it was a Link Lines flight, but we drew blank. The bits belong to a Jet-Four.’

  Her voice sounded quite different. ‘Where are you on the airport?’

  ‘In the Tower.’

  ‘What extension?’