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  Chesterfield passed by ... and still we drove on to the north-east. The atmosphere had become much cooler and we now dropped first to 1000, then to 600, and finally down to 300 feet. The trailer rope was dragging on the ground. Obviously something had to be done, and done quickly. Another bag of ballast was heaved overboard. Just as I dropped the bag overboard, the trailer rope started to play around the glass roof of a large hothouse building. Playfully it flickered about the large panes and finally it knocked in several of them, then proceeded on its way with glee. It was like a live thing, rejoicing at the damage it had done. The next encounter was with some fowls in a yard. A few Buff Orpingtons came off much the worse for the encounter, and tail feathers followed the trailer in a cloud as it jumped the wall with a huge bound.

  We had parted with bag after bag of ballast and were now approaching Sheffield. A thick pall of smoke lay to the north-east of us, coming ominously nearer as we rapidly travelled towards the city of steel, but the sun had come out again and was beating down on the huge envelope so that the gas was expanding and stretching the casing to its limits.

  I glanced at the barometer ... 8500 feet. It had been an ambition of mine to reach 10,000 feet and we were still two thousand feet from my objective. Something must be done about it. We reached 8750, and finally 9000 feet. All eyes were fixed on the aneroid barometer suspended from one of the ropes which held the basket to the envelope. That little instrument was the only guide to our movements. We were so high up that we seemed to be stationary, judging by the land beneath us. We were now approaching a large bank of clouds. Swiftly and silently, they enveloped us. In a few moments we lost sight of the earth and were lost in a filmy mist. We watched the little instrument and saw the needle creep round—9200 ... and then 9500 feet. All at once came a glimpse of blue sky and then again we were into another bank of clouds. Once through these we came out suddenly into the wonderful sunlight of the upper air and saw stainless blue skies above us. Below was a carpet of white mist and surrounding us great mountains of cumulus white, limiting our horizon. Even I had forgotten the barometer. It was an awe-inspiring experience. We seemed to hang absolutely still, held as though by an invisible thread from the sun above us, poised in the eternal ether, 10,000 feet above the earth.

  Captain Spencer turned to me. 'Well, Mr. Hales, are you satisfied at last?'

  As he spoke a gap appeared in the clouds beneath us, and through that gap, as through the wrong end of a telescope, we saw the earth far, far below us, such an infinitesimal fragment it seemed that it was difficult to realise that we could see twenty miles of country through our chink in the clouds.

  Soon after this we reached our highest altitude—11,100 feet, more than two miles above the earth. Queerly enough I had not given a thought until now to that long drop below. Perhaps it was that vision of the earth through the gap in the clouds that did it—but whatever the reason, I looked up at the glistening bag above me and realised with a throb of fear that we had only that thin, oh! so very thin, silken tissue between us and the end.

  'Let's go down, Spencer. I am satisfied,' I remarked.

  Spencer pulled a cord and I felt a rush of cold air as we rapidly descended. Down, down, down, into the clouds once more. ... Soon what had been our floor became our roof. Below us gleamed the river Trent, to the north lay the Humber estuary, plainly visible.

  Heaving over another bag of ballast did not seem to check our descent appreciably and we still continued our headlong downward career. I noticed that even Spencer looked anxious.

  'Now listen carefully,' he said, and gave us directions as to what we must do immediately as we hit the ground. I had always longed for thrills, but now I was not sure that I wanted any more. Gone was that feeling of suspension and immobility. Instead, the earth seemed to be charging up at us> A little village lay in our path. For a moment we wondered if we would land on some housetop, but we just cleared the roofs and there before us lay the shining Trent bordered by green fields.

  'Get ready. Don't jump out or let go the ropes,' commanded Spencer. The earth rushed up. 'Bend your knees and crouch down low!' shouted Spencer. 'Steady....'

  This looked like the end. My special providence had no chance this time, I thought, as we waited for the crash.

  It came. We were hurled into a heap in the bottom of the basket. We had skimmed a barn roof with only a few feet to spare. The basket, with its human load, had crashed at thirty miles an hour on a ploughed field. I have never been able to sort out the events of the next few minutes accurately. A sense of utter confusion remains. There we were, a struggling heap at the bottom of the basket. Then with a huge leap the basket crashed through a hedge. Here we stuck for a moment. Spencer was doing his utmost. He struggled frantically to get the anchor grounded, but it was firmly entangled in the ropes. The wind was doing its best to kill us. Still another gust came, and then another, and we bumped sickeningly over a third field, all huddled together and clinging to the ropes with the courage of despair. It seemed to me then that it would be a miracle if we came out of this alive. Looking back on those awful minutes it seems incredible that we were not pounded to unconsciousness, for the earth struck up at us with crushing blows.

  The fourth hedge loomed up, and again we crashed through. This last obstruction saved us, for the impact shook the anchor loose and it became embedded in the ground. With a series of frightful jerks we were brought to a standstill, the balloon flapping on the ground with the three of us—my brother, Captain Spencer, and myself—all in a struggling heap beside it, hardly aware of whether we were alive or dead.

  We crawled out of the mess. Spencer and my brother were bleeding profusely, and I felt that I had been pounded with some monstrous battering-ram and rammed full with mouthfuls of dirt. Our clothes were in shreds. We had been dragged through hedges and fields for more than a mile. Two hundred yards away the river Trent flowed peacefully towards the sea. As usual, when I got into difficulties, we had stopped—just in time.

  David, a fun-loving helicopter pilot, faces a Court martial for flying under Sydney Harbour Bridge. Then his squadron is called to the rescue of a sinking supertanker. He longs to take part in the rescue operation...

  Rescue Squadron

  PHILIP MCCUTCHAN

  The collision occurred at precisely 19-34 hours local time, two hundred miles east-north-east of Cape York, Australia's northernmost tip, at the entrance to Torres Strait. The 40,000-ton supertanker Newcastle Transporter, bound from Sydney for Singapore in weather so bad that the officer of the watch couldn't see the forward end of the flying-bridge for the blinding spray.The ship was carrying a part-cargo of high-octane aviation spirit and he drove her forefoot into a meat ship southward bound in ballast for the Brisbane River, cutting in deep by the Number One hatch and leaving a hole in the meat ship's plating big enough to drive a bus through—as could be seen momentarily as the Newcastle Transporter's engines pulled astern to draw her clear. The only reason it could be seen at all in almost nil visibility was that, by some freak trick of the impact—a spark probably—the high-octane in Numbers One and Two deep tanks had exploded on the instant of collision and the flames were now leaping, roaring up through the shattered stem-plating, riding over the water that was pouring in through the Newcastle Transporter's smashed collision bulkhead. A blaze of blinding red fire shot upwards like a blow-lamp, illuminating the patch of stormy sea where the tanker lay, and on the fringe of it the meat ship could be seen, down by the head and listing heavily, the water pouring in through that gaping hole; and then, except for a signal lamp which winked briefly before being cut out, she disappeared into the blackness of the storm and the inky night. The tanker herself was now in an extremely perilous position, with her stem badly torn and that fire raging forward.

  Consequently, when a few minutes after the impact her radio officer reported a distress call from the meat ship, a call for immediate assistance which indicated that she was sinking, the tanker was unable to do anything about it; and very shortly after that all wireless transmission from the meat ship ceased abruptly.

  As her crew ran out the foam fire-fighting equipment, the Newcastle Transporter sent out her own distress call.

  Off the Great Barrier Reef an aircraft-carrier of the Australian Navy, M.H.A.S. Flemington, picked up those urgent signals as she ran to the southward through the Coral Sea for Sydney, her sheered grey sides streaming water into the night as she laboured along in the mounting seas which threw solid sheets of blown spume across her steeply-canted flight-deck; and within minutes of the calls being reported to the carrier's Captain, the tannoy clicked on. The order came:

  'All officers of 1049 Squadron report to the pilots' readyroom immediately.'

  Sub-Lieutenant David Preston, a dark, rather quiet-faced young officer of the Fleet Air Arm, on loan to the Royal Australian Navy, heard the order as he was trying to write a letter home in his cabin. His usual mischievous grin was absent that evening, the fun no longer lurking in his eyes as he worked at that letter, for in it he was having to confess that he was facing Court Martial. The fact was that he had been foolish enough to fly under Sydney Harbour Bridge before leaving on the current exercises a week earlier, taking a jet right below the span in an excess of joie de vivre to land, in accordance with orders, on the Flemington's deck outside the Heads. Now, hearing that order, he chucked down his pen thankfully and, wondering what was up, left the cabin. As he went quickly along the steel-lined passage-way and up the ladders, the great ship lurched violently to starboard. David heard the wind's shriek coming down the open hatchway from the hangar deck and then the ship lifted one vast side out of the water in a gigantic roll which nearly threw David off the ladder.

  The carrier was turning

  A carrier was turning


  A couple of minutes later in the ready-room Lieutenant-Commander Wilson, Commanding Officer of 1049 (Helicopter) Squadron, glanced over the assembled flyers. David noticed that the C.O.'s eyebrows went up a little as he saw him there with the others, but Wilson didn't say anything. Taking up a long pointer and bracing himself against the ship's roll, Wilson tapped the chart on the bulkhead. He tapped it in a spot some way to the northward of the carrier's own position, which had just been passed from the navigating bridge and was indicated by a neat dot in a circle on the chart. He said:

  'That's where she is—the tanker. We're the nearest ship, and we're about two hours' steaming away.'

  An officer asked, 'What about the other ship, sir?'

  'Assumed sunk,' said Wilson briefly. 'If there's time we'll have a look, but....' He shrugged. 'Now took, the weather's too bad to send a boat away, but the tanker's got a number of crew injured in the collision and in the fire-fighting. Some of them are pretty bad, and they've got to get to a properly-equipped sick bay quickly. The Captain's idea,' he went on, 'is to stand by the tanker until the weather moderates, and then pass a tow and take her into Sydney. According to the reports, the weather won't moderate for another forty-eight hours at least. Well, that's too late for the injured men, so meanwhile we've got to lift 'em off by helicopter.'

  One of the pilots asked incredulously, 'In this wind?'

  Wilson nodded. 'Course, it's going to be tricky—and that, I suspect, is an understatement! But we've got to do our best.'

  He said quietly. 'Now, I'll want you standing by at'—he looked at this watch—'21.30 hours, all ready to get the helicopters up on the lifts. You'll take off the moment the lifts reach the flight deck, get straight up and away. The Captain'll take us in as close as he can, and if the fire's out, as I hope it will be, the tanker will be lit up with searchlights from the bridge. Right? Okay, then, fall out for now. I suggest you all get a bit of rest once you've made sure your machines are ready. There won't be much chance after we rendezvous!'

  As the pilots filed out of the compartment, Wilson beckoned David over to him. David knew what was coming now, of course.

  Wilson asked. 'What are you doing here, Preston?'

  David flushed darkly. 'The pipe was for all squadron officers, sir.'

  'I know, but it didn't apply to officers who're relieved of their duties, Preston, and you know it. You know quite well I can't let you fly tonight.... I'm sorry, sub, but there it is.'

  David knew that Wilson's regret was genuine enough— knew too that there was nothing the C.O. could do about it. But he had hoped that in an emergency such as this he would be allowed to join his squadron. After all, his offence might be classed as a flying offence but it certainly didn't mean he couldn't handle aircraft. And this was an emergency involving human life....

  Sadly, David turned away.

  At just before 21.30 hours David was standing, miserably, in the walkway which ran below the edge of the flight-deck, the rain lashing on his face and trickling down the neck of his oilskin. He was on the starboard side of the bridge superstructure when he first saw the glow in the sea ahead, and soon after he felt the carrier heel a little as the Captain turned her off to come up and give the tanker a lee. The fire, thought David, was not so bad now—it was more of a glow of red-hot plating than a flame—no doubt they'd got it under control fairly quickly with the foam apparatus. But the tanker herself, in the beam of the carrier's big searchlight, seemed to be in a bad way, with her head well down so that the seas were racing back almost as far as the midship island.

  As he watched, David heard the tannoy, faintly: 'All 1049 Squadron pilots, stand by your helicopters in the hangar.'

  David ducked down an opening leading off the walkway into a narrow catwalk slung below the flight-deck and descended to the hangar. Maybe it was foolish, but even though he couldn't take off with his squadron he wanted to be one of the party down there, a cog—even a spectator-cog—in the controlled, disciplined activity which got the helicopters into the air. As he entered the hangar, the after lift came down with an electric whine, letting the gale in with its attendants, wind-blown torrents of rain and the wild roar of the storm, into that great, echoing, steel barn.

  The lift went up, came down a minute or so later, empty; another helicopter was wheeled on to it by the handling party, was sent up to join the first in its mercy flight. In view of the weather conditions, Wilson had ordered them to be sent up one at a time, and he had gone in the first one himself.

  The Newcastle Transporter lay head-under the enormous, tearing seas as the helicopters came in one after the other. The carrier's searchlight cut through the gloom and the slicing rain to show a battered, weary little bunch of seamen clustered on the raised abaft on the engine-room casing, gazing upwards, white-faced, clinging to the guard-rails in the shrieking wind and spray as the helicopters came hovering in, the pilots holding them with great difficulty against the gale, crews winching down their cables for the rescue. The tanker's top-hamper of masts and rigging had been cut away to make the helicopters', task the easier; but the job of getting those hoverplanes there, of holding them in position over that heaving stern, remained.

  Down in Flemingtoris hanger, David watched the results of their efforts as the first helicopters returned and were brought down quickly on the lift. He saw the half-frozen merchant seamen being gently taken out, some of them cruelly burned, other with broken limbs and lacerations ... taken out, and rushed to the comfort of the sick bay and the surgeons' skill.

  And then, as another machine came down on the lift and the pilot got out to speak to the squadron C.O. whose helicopter was also back aboard just then, the carrier gave a big lurch, dropping very sharply over to port. The pilot slipped on the greasy steel deck, staggered wildly, arms waving, fingers clawing for a grip on something solid. As he fell, a leg doubled under him and David could almost hear the crack of breaking bone ... the pilot's face was white, strained, as some men of the handling party ran up and helped him to his feet; Wilson hurried across, took a look at the officer, and ordered him away to the sick bay.

  David's heart leapt.

  He made himself a little conspicuous, hoping the C.O. would notice him ... then, unable to restrain his anxiety any longer, he went up to Wilson, saluted smartly. He said:

  'Permission to take Lieutenant Fergusson's helicopter up, sir, please?'

  Wilson frowned, seemed about to give David a sharp brush-off, when his expression altered. He grinned through the streaks of oil and dirt. 'Circumstances do alter cases, sub, don't they ... being short of a Kite's not going to help much.' He looked shrewdly at David, made up his mind. 'Hop aboard, Preston,' he said briefly. 'I'll take this on my own bat ... the Captain wouldn't thank us for bothering him on the bridge just at the moment. But you keep your mouth shut afterwards, mind! Is that a bargain?'

  'You bet it is, sir!'

  Wilson clapped him on the shoulder, laughed at his enthusiasm for a tough and dangerous job. 'Go ahead, then.'

  David ran for the aircraft, climbed up, grinned at his crew, gave the thumbs-up signal through the windscreen. The lift whined into life, the helicopter reached the flight-deck, came into the full, vicious whip of the howling wind. From the way that wind tore at the machine's body, sending a shudder through the frames, David thought that the force of the gale had increased even since he had left the walkways. Starting up, he was taken almost bodily in the gale's grip, found himself clear over the ship's side and away in the night before he could sort himself out.

  Desperately he fought the controls as the wind bore him away the north-east.

  Doomed men who had a little longer to live, saw him coming, saw his lights. They tried to attract the attention of the men in that helicopter; roaring seas had long since doused the matches with which they had struggled to light flares, the very lights were equally useless. The flooding, invading seas below decks had put the dynamos out of action and all power—power for radio, signalling lamps and all other electrics—had gone from the ship; the lifeboats with their flares and signalling apparatus had been ripped away bodily by huge tearing waves which rushed over the helpless, drifting meat ship. Only a pathetic battery torch belonging to the Chief Officer winked towards the helicopter.