The Infinite Air (33 page)

IN ROTORUA, NELLIE AND FRED WERE CHARMING
and funny and kind to one another, making jokes when they all met for breakfast at the Prince’s Gate Hotel. Jean and Fred played a duo on the hotel piano one evening to great applause, and then Nellie and Jean offered to do high kicks together, something Jean had taught her mother in her dancing days, which caused a riotous party to erupt in the lounge. The manager came in and said that, really, he knew there were famous people present, but some guests had come for peace and quiet as well.

The lake lay cool and blue in the mornings. They walked in the gardens and swam and fished. Jean said that if she ate another trout she would start to look like one. If Fred had had a past in the town,
it was not in evidence, except for the occasional person who stopped him on the street to thank him for the best dentures they had ever had. Te Arawa held another welcome for Jean, this time at Ohinemutu, not far from where the Battens had lived, the village where the children had been forbidden to roam. Nellie’s chin trembled a little when the moment came to press noses in greeting with the chief. Jean was presented with a feather cloak of her own, and bestowed with the name Hine-o-te-Rangi, Daughter of the Skies.

Beverley, impatient with this extended family reunion, wrote to her regularly, asking how soon she would be back. Now that they had had their time together before Christmas, he knew how much he needed her with him. If she didn’t come soon, he would come and collect her himself. She told him that she planned to be back in Sydney in mid-February:
Can we meet straightaway? I will be all yours. Let’s meet at our special restaurant again
.

Within a matter of days, the Gull was lifted onto the deck of the ship that would take her and Nellie to Sydney. A huge crowd gathered to say farewell. If it were possible for Jean’s fame to increase, it had in the past week. She had received news that the Royal Aero Club had awarded her the Britannia Trophy for the greatest flight of the year by a British subject, for the second year in a row. And there had been two more trophies.

When their ship berthed in Sydney on 19 February 1937 Jean and her mother made their way to the hotel, where Jean planned to change and go to meet Beverley. But before she could leave for the restaurant, the doorman asked her casually if she had heard the news. He thought she might be interested, given that it was about a plane.

‘Yes?’ she said, impatient to be away.

A Stinson airliner bound for Sydney from Brisbane was missing, with seven passengers and two pilots aboard.

‘Did you say a Stinson?’

When the doorman agreed that, yes, that was what he had heard, she turned deathly pale. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I have to make a phone call.’

One of the pilots was Beverley Shepherd.

CHAPTER 31

THAT NIGHT, THE NIGHT BEVERLEY SHEPHERD DISAPPEARED,
Jean Batten ordered that her Percival Gull be unloaded off the ship from which she had so recently disembarked, and taken to Mascot aerodrome. Mechanics, she insisted, were to work all night to put it together, ready for her to join the search for the missing Stinson in the morning.

The distance between Brisbane and Sydney is just five hundred miles. Somewhere, in a clearing, the Stinson would be found. It wouldn’t be too hard. She would go to it like a homing pigeon, the first to see it. She would find him. He would stand up, his fair hair shining in the sun, and put his arms out to greet her. ‘I knew you’d come,’ he would say. Everyone aboard the plane would be safe, and she would be glad for them all. But most of all, she would be glad for him. How careless of you to miss our dinner date, she would say, and he would laugh and say that she had kept him waiting long enough. What was another day or so?

These were the things she told herself as day after day she rose around 5 a.m., before taking off to search over the mountains and rainforests. By now there were dozens of planes in the sky, whirling around in the heat of the summer. They had to watch out for one another.

Every day she circled the mountainous country, searching ravines and areas dense with ancient beech trees, pigeonberry ash and rosewood. Beneath them grew peach myrtle and everlasting daisies. She remembered the daisies because these cool glades, buried away from the sun’s harsh light, were the only place in the world where
these relics of the last Ice Age had survived. This should have told her what was quickly becoming apparent to the searchers — the trees were so dense that the plane might never be found. The trees hid their secrets well. They didn’t admit the sunlight, or the gaze of strangers.

When Jean had flown for some thirty-eight hours, over five thousand miles of terrain, she stopped to rest, because she could go on no longer.

In the morning, after her return to Sydney, the Stinson was discovered by a man called O’Reilly, who lived in the mountains. On a hunch, he had gone out on foot to search. The headlines shouted the news. Two survivors.

Neither of them was Beverley.

One of the survivors told of how the two pilots had laughed and chatted as they crossed the mountains. They had flown lower and lower. The passenger had grown anxious. He had looked at the face of the co-pilot, a fair young man, and seen that he was worried, too. In fact, he had said, as they boarded, he wasn’t flying on his normal run. He had to get back to Sydney to meet his girlfriend. She’d chew his ear if he didn’t turn up. Fine young fellow. Last thing he remembered before the crash, this young chap had an awful look on his face as he leaned forward to adjust something on the control panel. But it was too late.

‘I’M COLD,’ JEAN SAID TO HER MOTHER,
again and again. ‘I’m so cold.’

Outside the temperature was close to a hundred in the shade. Nellie fanned herself, desperate for air, as Jean closed all the windows to stop the draughts.

‘You need to get dressed for the service,’ she said.

‘Service. What service?’

‘You know, dear. You know whose it is.’

‘Are you mad? Why would I go to that? It isn’t a funeral, there isn’t
even a body. How can you have a funeral when the person is lost in the mountains?’

The decision had been made to leave the four men who had died at the crash site, buried alongside the plane that had taken their lives. The terrain was too difficult, the forest too dense, and the cliffs and ravines so perilously steep that the call had been made not to bring them out. Some of the families were holding a small service to commemorate their lives.

Jean wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked backwards and forwards. ‘I wanted to hold him again. I wanted to touch him.’

‘His mother,’ Nellie said, helplessly. ‘We should go for his parents’ sake.’

‘What am I supposed to do at their damn service?’ Jean shouted. ‘Press their hands and say, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” And they’ll look at me, sorry for themselves, and sorry for me. Well, I won’t have it, I don’t want their pity.’

‘Jean,’ Nellie tried again, ‘it’s not their fault.’

‘I don’t care about his parents. I don’t care, do you understand? Get me a blanket if you want to do something useful. You hear me? Get me a bloody blanket.’

Cold. Everlasting. The everlasting bloody daisies.

She huddled under the blanket and whimpered. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said in a voice that Nellie could hardly hear.

‘What is it, dear? What did you say?’

‘My heart. My heart is frozen, don’t you see?’

‘It’ll pass,’ Nellie said, trying to hold her.

‘I’ll always be on my own now. I didn’t want to be alone.’

‘You won’t be,’ Nellie said. ‘So long as I live, you’ll never be alone.’

Her mother brought her hot chicken soup. She rang Fred in New Zealand. ‘No, don’t come,’ she said. ‘I’ll get her back to New Zealand if I can. Treatment? We’ll have to wait and see.’

In the end, Jean said she just wanted to stay there for a bit, get some sun, swim, try to get warm. The months passed. Some days she drove alone to look at the sea. John and Madeleine were passing
through Sydney, on their way from Tahiti to New Zealand. Nellie met them, but Jean said that she would rather go for a drive that day. Nellie could tell her all about them. Nellie reported that John looked very tired. The little girl was a dear wee thing, and seemed very bright. Madeleine hadn’t had much to say for herself. Apart from that there seemed little more to tell.

Amelia Earhart, the American pilot with whom Jean had shared a trophy, but never met, disappeared in July while on a round the world flight. She and a companion, Fred Noonan, had been flying a Lockheed Electra. They had last been heard of on their radio above the Pacific. ‘It’s what happens to us,’ Jean said, resignation in her voice.

But Jean didn’t mention the cold again, and Nellie decided that some kind of thaw was setting in. An Australian pilot called Jim Broadbent now announced he was planning to break Jean’s record England–Australia time. He had already set a number of records of his own. This appeared to galvanise Jean into action. She drove to Mascot and ordered the Gull wheeled out. She hadn’t flown it since Beverley’s death. That day, she took to the skies again, flying over the city and above the Blue Mountains. It was a salute and a farewell.

‘I’ve decided to fly the Gull back to London,’ she told Nellie. ‘Then I’ll be the first person to hold both England-to-Australia and Australia-to-England records at the same time. Just see if I’m not.’

Nellie shook her head. ‘There have been too many accidents. I couldn’t bear anything to happen to you.’

‘I don’t especially care,’ Jean said. ‘It’s the way to go if one must.’

Lord Wakefield had continued to write to her from London. He didn’t mention the loss of Beverley, although Jean imagined word might have got back to him. He sent her a diamond brooch. She turned it over in her hands, delighting in the sparkle of the exquisite stones, but wondering if he had forgotten an earlier gift of a brooch. When she wrote to thank him, she told him that he hoped he wouldn’t mind, but she had decided to exchange it for diamond ear clips.

She showed them off to Nellie. ‘People will be missing us back in London,’ she said. ‘We need to get back, Mother, have a good time, paint the town red.’

Her mother suggested again that they return to New Zealand. ‘Your father would like to see you.’

Jean gave her a blank stare. ‘I don’t want to see him. After what he did.’

Nellie looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You must. He betrayed me to Frank Norton.’

‘But you and he were happy when we went on holiday.’

‘Holiday. What holiday?’

‘Jean. Listen to me. Your father didn’t betray you. He saved you from embarrassment. We all went away together. You do remember that, don’t you?’

Jean had a bewildered look in her eyes, and shook her head, as if to clear it. ‘You go back to New Zealand if you want to.’

‘Jean, listen to me, my darling, I’ve told you, I won’t ever leave you.’

‘I know,’ Jean said, and put her arms around her mother. They clung to each another. ‘Best get a ticket for London.’

‘Two tickets?’

‘Just one. I’ve told you I’m flying. And it would be so wonderful if you were there waiting for me.’ Jean had recovered herself, as if nothing odd had happened. ‘You’ve never seen me land at the end of one of my big flights. I have to get the Gull ready. That’ll take a few weeks. So if you were to leave now, you’d be there for me.’

‘If you’re sure.’ Nellie was still doubtful.

‘I’ll be all right. I promise.’

JEAN SET OUT FOR DARWIN ON 15 OCTOBER,
battling through red dust storms, flying low over kangaroos that hopped out of her path, following cattle tracks and causing stampedes amongst herds on the
ground. After four days in Darwin, she took to the air again. News had come through that Jim Broadbent had set out upon his journey from England.

Before her lay one of the most difficult flights she had ever embarked upon, storm after storm battering the plane. She flew on, through monsoon rains, through the nights ahead, over the lonely Burmese coast where Smithy had disappeared. As she neared the edge of Pakistan’s Sind Desert, she was so tired she leaned her head against the side of the cockpit and propped one eye open at a time to stay awake. Death or a record, it didn’t really seem to matter. She took out a bottle of eau de Cologne and dabbed some on her burning face with a handkerchief, ate an orange, and drank some black coffee. Near Karachi, the heat was so intense that the crêpe soles of her shoes melted and stuck to the rudder bars.

She slept at Damascus for four hours. When she left, more storms hit, and she decided to turn back. Later she would think that, after all, some instinct for self-preservation still lurked within. Besides, her time was now so far in advance of the record that she could afford to take this break.

Storms confronted her again, but this time she determined that she would ride them out. Lightning flashed, the strange phenomenon of St Elmo’s fire creating thin blue circles of light around the propeller. Somewhere near Greece, she and Jim Broadbent passed in the air without seeing each other. Not that he would make it much further: his plane ran out of fuel, stranding him in the Iraqi desert.

At Naples, Jean was lifted from the plane, gaunt with exhaustion. A doctor called to the airport advised her not to continue for the sake of her health and there were grim warnings from the meteorological office of more bad weather ahead.

She flew on.

On 24 October, she arrived at Lympne, unable to walk. She recovered sufficiently to fly on, after twenty minutes, to Croydon, where vast crowds awaited her. She had flown from Australia in five days, eighteen hours and fifteen minutes, breaking the record by
fourteen hours. She was the first person to hold both outward and inward records at the same time. Two policemen carried her from the plane head-high so that people could see her.

And there was Nellie, waiting, as she had promised.