The Lonely Sea and the Sky (31 page)

  Time after time I circled the town or village, as it appeared to be, but could not see any buoy or launch, or even a boat. I was about to alight in the lee of the pier, when I jibbed, thinking that there was no water there at all. So I alighted well out in the channel and taxied in slowly, expecting to run aground, but was surprised to find, when I anchored, that there was 40 feet of clear water under me. A light breeze was blowing, but the heat in the hot sunshine was like the radiation from a red hot stove. There was a steamer tied up to the jetty unloading cargo. After an age a ship's boat approached me from the side of the ship, sculled by a little brown man standing in the stern with a big oar. When only 10 yards off he was still coming down at full speed, in spite of my frantic shouts. I leant far out and caught the stem with both hands, and only then did he stop sculling and try to back paddle. I held off the bows and the stern swung to one side, when, catching the wind, it began swinging round fast to the wing. The trailing edge of the wing was too low for the boat to pass under. I waited until the boat was lined up with the wing's leading edge, when I gave it a mighty shove. I only just saved myself from falling in after it, but the boat shot off under the wing, with the brown man ducking his head. He came alongside again more carefully and landed me at the pier steps. There was such a crowd of Filipinos that I could not make a passage through them. I stood helpless, until a handsome young Filipino dug a passage through the mob with his elbows and said breathlessly, 'I am Chief Postmaster. When you leave? Doctor X wants you to take mail bag.' I thought, 'Damn Doctor X!' but said, 'I must get some petrol first.'

  'Petrol?' he said as we swayed to and fro, jostled by the surging crowd. 'There is no petrol here.' I felt desperate; I knew Mati was cut off from the rest of the island except by steamer, but here was the steamer. It seemed incredible that there was no petrol. I asked again, 'Have you no petrol at all?'

  'No, no petrol here.'

  'But your radio station! How do you work that?'

  'Press a key, just the same as for telegram.' Just then three more Filipinos forced a passage through the crowd and strutted up. The Postmaster said quickly, 'I introduce you to Chief of Public Works, to President-elect, and to Chief of Police.'

  Public Works – petrol. I asked him about it, but the Chief Postmaster translated his reply, 'No, no petrol here.' I thought of trying the steamer, but it was impossible to force a passage, so I asked the Chief of Public Works to make an inquiry on board. I watched a man mount the gangway and speak to a brown officer. I said, 'Where are the American officers of the ship?'

  'No American in Mati; all Filipino in Mati; Philippine island for Filipino.'

  The messenger returned; the officer regretted that he had no petrol; could I not use gasoline instead?

I took the Postmaster by the arm and asked him if he could find me a cup of tea. A new arrival said, 'I am Commandant of Military here.' He added, 'The Governor-General has wired to me about you. You will stay at my house. Do you carry passengers? Do you know that the President-elect likes flying? It is possible that the President-elect might find you some gasoline.' It soon became plain that the Public Works Department, the Police and the Army all thought that they would like flying. By the time I got to the house, hints were being hurled at me till I felt like an Aunt Sally. I began to fear that they would be offended when at last the Army said, 'What would happen if Governor-General Davis, Governor-General of the Philippine Islands wanted a ride in your plane?'

  'He couldn't have one,' I said promptly and firmly. It was a merciful reply, for if I refused the Governor-General they need not feel insulted. Tea, cigars and brandy were served on the veranda. The matter of gasoline? It was a matter that could be gone into presently, very soon. There was something queer about the business; I decided to shut up and wait.

  The PWD invited me to ride in an automobile to see the President. I said that I would rather eat and sleep, but they hinted, 'No President, no gas.' We started on a long drive along a narrow, washed-out road. Every now and then we met and forced aside a bullock and cart driven by a Filipino boy in a large, floppy, straw­plaited hat smoking a fat cigar. Every time I asked who owned the coconut grove or banana plantation we were passing through I was told, 'This belongs to President Lopez.'

  We drove up with terrific horn-blowing to a two-storeyed house where many people were lined up outside. The President took me upstairs to a wide veranda. He was dressed in expensive golf trousers of pepper and salt flannel, black silk stockings, and white kid shoes. A handsome .32 calibre automatic with a mother-of pearl handle made his cartridge belt sag at one hip. I was allowed to handle it, but not to fire it. He gave me a superb cigar, the best I have ever smoked. After dark, fireflies spangled the darkness, like twitching stars. The tropical night was cool and scented. The President took me off to see his crocodile. He shone his torch on a tough leathery brute about 9-foot long lying beside a concrete pool against some wire netting 12 inches high. It had a merciless unwinking stare. Then the President shone his torch round the wall of the snake house. I said, 'Where are the snakes?' He flashed his torch round again, but all I could see was a thick brown beam under the rafters on top of the wall. Did I not see it? It had dined on a cat the other day and was sleeping it off. Surely I could see the cat? Then I noticed that the thick bar all round the hut on top of the wall was mottled, and I saw a bulge in it like a football.

  We went back to the veranda and sat there forever. My last meal and the Sultan of Ternate seemed a long time away. In the end, after I had given up all hope, dinner arrived. We sat round a circular table, and a raised centre-piece was loaded with dishes. We spun this round and stabbed whatever we fancied. No one said a word; the only noise was the clatter of knives and forks, and the creak of the revolving table. It was quick work while it lasted. One after another the guests finished abruptly and moved away, to let the women have an innings. I was desperately tired, and every few seconds my eyes closed, and I angled for an invitation to sleep there. 'Sleep?' they said. 'Oh, no, no, no. The Postmaster has arranged a dance, and we must return to Mati.' So off we went again, after the President had presented me in front of his lined-up household with three tins of gasoline, some marvellous cigars, and a freshly salted wild cat skin. He had shot it himself the day before. We returned to the military commander's house to find the vast central room clear of furniture. I woke up a little at the prospect of a lively evening among the maidens of Mati. But although some coy maidens did drift in from the darkness, they were tightly cased in Spanish-looking dresses of stiff brocade, and each was guarded by a chaperone with the eye of a bird of prey. I was led round and introduced to everyone, one by one, with a long speech in each case. I tried to smile without looking silly, and I danced once or twice with girls who kept as far away from me as possible while every step was watched by the chaperone. At last I had to waylay my Army host, thank him for his great kindness, and regret that as I was falling asleep on my feet, I must beg to retire. The poor fellow was much put out and thought me a dreadful bore, I fear. I remember being shown a bunk and estimating that the big drum of the dance band was about four feet from my ear through the thin partition; then I was asleep.

  Next morning, in spite of the sultry heat, there was a good breeze and I took off at the first try, after a long run. I reached Ormoc, in Leyte, after a flight of only 300 miles. Again I was the guest of the local President. This one was a manual labourer. I had appalling trouble taking off again. The surface of Ormoc Bay was glassy smooth, and by 2 o'clock in the afternoon I had been five hours on the bay trying to get off. Each time I could get the seaplane very near to taking off, but she jibbed at the final lift. The suction of the smooth water seemed to hold the heels of the float firmly. I had pumped the bilges, and had found them in a good state, so I thought. I kept on trying to take off in the same direction round the headland, instead of returning over the same water: at least I was taxiing towards Manila in that way! After each failure I opened the petrol cock and let the reeking spirit patter on the wing surface. I was determined to get into the air in the end, even if I might have only enough petrol left to fly back to Ormoc. After much struggling, I was 15 miles across the bay from Ormoc. I managed to take off at last in heavy rain; I think the raindrops must have broken the smooth surface just enough to reduce the suction. I only had three and a half hours' fuel left, and searched my chart for some place within two hours' flight. I decided on Masbate.

  On arrival at the Governor's house I noticed several large poles rising through the floor in the middle of the big room of the upper storey. They were evidently part of the structure of the house, and coils of stout rope round a piano bound it to one of the poles. I thought this was odd until I was woken up in the night by an earthquake. It seized the house and shook it violently until it rattled. I counted eleven earthquakes during the night, and each shake was weird and uncanny. The next morning was a terrible one. Before I started out on the hunt for petrol I felt feverish and dull-witted from my six hours in Ormoc Bay the day before, followed by the earthquakes through the night. I had no breakfast, and my head ached, and I went round asking, 'Where can I buy ten gallons of gasoline?' countless times. A motor-car took me to the Government offices, where the Governor, whose name was Cordova, introduced me to treasurers, attorneys, and many other kinds of official, all working in a big room in clean whites at schoolboy-type desks. After hours of discussion the town presented me with 12 gallons of petrol, for which I was most grateful. We then left on a hunt for oil, visiting shop after shop. I think the Governor started on the least likely ones; he was enjoying putting on an act in each shop, unbending affably and at great length to his people. After I had bought some of the most suitable oil I could find, it was difficult to find anything to put it in. The Chinese storekeeper was hurt at my noticing the dirt in the bottom of a tin he produced. I was quite firm that I did not want it in the engine, and finally he produced his handkerchief and wiped the tin clean with that.

  If my difficulties in Ormoc Bay the day before had made me sorry for myself, I should have saved my self-pity for today. I had only 18 gallons of fuel on board, and a brisk 7-knot breeze to help me. At each attempt to take off, the motor vibrated horribly. One propeller tip had a piece bitten out of the edge where it had evidently struck a piece of floating wood or coconut, and the gap gradually widened as the propeller flogged the spray. The heat sucked my energy from me. Waiting for the engine to cool, I squatted on a float in the shade of a wing and wrote in my notebook, 'It would break your heart, this game; I have been out here three and a half hours now.' At my next attempt, when I opened up the motor, the starboard float buried itself in the water like a submarine submerging. For some distance I could not get it above the surface. At first I thought the float must have been holed by one of the many waterlogged coconuts drifting about. I tried all the bilges again, but they only held the usual quart or so. Then I thought that the starboard wings must have become waterlogged, and looking closely I found that the little drain holes along the trailing edge had never been punched through the fabric. I opened the nearest one with my knife, and some water ran out. In my rubber shoes, carefully balancing, I walked along the rear wing spar, pricking the holes open, but no more water ran out, so I decided that it must be the bottom wing at fault. For twenty minutes I tried to attract one of the canoes drifting round the shore, and at last one came up, the little man and his family in it watching me open-mouthed. I climbed in and manoeuvred the craft under the lower wings, so that I could prick each drain hole. There was a cupful of water in the wing, but no more. Next time I started taxiing, the seaplane went round in a circle as soon as I opened up. I kicked on full opposite rudder and pushed the throttle wide open, but the only result was that the starboard float drove under water and went on submerging until the wing also dipped in. I switched off before the seaplane capsized.

  Next I tried streaming my drogue, like a canvas bucket with a hole in it, from the outer strut of the opposite wing, but it had no effect whatever. I seemed well and truly stuck. A motor-boat approached, which the Governor had sent to find out what was wrong. I asked for a tow, and threw out a line, but they missed it four times, the man at the wheel going full speed ahead each time he drew near the rope. When they did pick it up, they made it fast to their bow instead of the stern, and proceeded to cross ahead of the seaplane at full speed. A pull from the side on a seaplane only makes it glide forwards or backwards, and as soon as the rope from the floats to the bow of the motor-boat took the strain, the motor-boat was pulled right round like a toy, and made straight for the seaplane's tail at full speed. I shouted at them to cast off the rope, but either they were taken by surprise, or else expected the seaplane to follow the motor-boat, because they held on, and I waited for them to crash into the tail. Then someone acted on the motor-boat and cast off the rope, and the boat just missed us. At last the tow rope was secured properly to the stern of the boat, and the seaplane was towed safely across the bay.