The Last Place God Made - Jack Higgins [13]
'I've known people who love horses - any horse - with every fibre of their being, an instinctive response that simply cannot be denied. Aeroplanes have always affected me in exactly the same way and this was an aeroplane and a half in spite of her shabby appearance and comparatively slow speed by modern standards. There was something indefinable here that could not be stated. Of one thing I was certain - it was me she was waiting for.
Hannah said, 'You can take the Hayley. I'll follow on in this.'
I shook my head. 'No, thanks. This is what you hired me to fly.'
He looked a little dubious. 'You're sure about that?' I didn't bother to reply, simply went and got my canvas grip and threw it into the rear cockpit. There was a parachute in there, but I didn't bother to get it out, just pulled on my flying jacket, helmet and goggles.
He unfolded a map on the ground and we crouched beside it. The Rio das Mortes branched out of the Negro to the north-east about a hundred and fifty miles farther on. There was a military post called Forte Franco at its mouth and Landro was another fifty miles upstream.
'Stick to the river all the way,' Hannah said. 'Don't try cutting across the jungle whatever you do. Go down there and you're finished. It's Huna country all the way up the Mortes. They make those Indians you mentioned along the Xingu look like Sunday-school stuff and there's nothing they like better than getting their hands on a white man.'
'Doesn't anyone have any contacts with them?' 'Only the nuns at the medical mission at Santa Helena and it's a miracle they've survived as long as they have. One of the mining companies was having some trouble with them the other year so they called the head men of the various sub-tribes together to talk things over, then machine-gunned them from cover. Killed a couple of dozen, but they botched things up and about eight got away. Since then it's been war. It's all martial law up there. Not that it means anything. The military aren't up to much. A colonel and fifty men with two motor launches at Forte Franco and that's it.'
I folded the map and shoved it inside my flying jacket. 'From the sound of it, I'd say the Hunas have a point.'
He laughed grimly. 'You won't find many to sympathise with that statement around Landro, Mallory. They're a bunch of Stone Age savages. Vermin. If you'd seen some of the things they've done...'
He walked across to the Hayley, opened the cabin door and climbed inside. When he got out again, he was carrying a shotgun.
'Have you got that revolver of yours handy?' I nodded and he tossed the shotgun to me and a box of cartridges. 'Better take this as well, just in case. Best close-quarters weapon I know; 10-gauge, 6-shot automatic. The loads are double-O steel buckshot. I'd use it on myself before I let those bastards get their hands on me.'
I held it in my hands for a moment, then put it into the rear cockpit. 'Are you flying with me?'
He shook his head. 'I've got things to do. I'll follow in half an hour and still beat you there. I'll give a shout on the radio when I pass.'
There was a kind of boasting in what he said without need, for the Bristol couldn't hope to compete with the Hayley when it came to speed, but I let it pass.
Instead I said, 'Just one thing. As I remember, you need a chain of three men pulling the propeller to start the engine.'
'Not with me around.'
It was a simple statement of fact made without pride for his strength, which as I was soon to see, was remarkable. I stepped up on to the port wing and eased myself into that basket seat with its leather cushions and pushed my feet into the toestraps at either end of the rudder bar.
I made my cockpit checks, gave Hannah a signal and wound the starting magneto while he pulled the propeller over a compression stroke. The engine, a Rolls-Royce Falcon, exploded