Chapter 2
Pieter Van Dyck stretched sluggishly. Although it was barely morning, all signs were present that it would turn into a long and hot day. The storm of last night had not succeeded to dissipate the sultry weather from the past weeks. On the contrary, the sun already scorched at this early hour the micro solar cells mounted on the flat roof of the house. Those cells ensured that the air conditioning spread an even but freezing air current through the room. Pieter did not feel like leaving his comfortable position, but the flashing icon on the computer's flatscreen alerted him there was an urgent message waiting.
“Rise,” said the one voice in his head.
“Give yourself another quarter, that message will not go anywhere,” said the other voice.
“It will certainly not disappear,” answered Pieter his two internal voices, “that's what I am afraid of.”
Dozing off for an hour, he awoke with a start as his two day old stubbles got entangled in the mosquito-net. With some bickering he got out of bed, he pushed the net aside en took a seat at the small table packed with computers and communication equipment. He opened his mail program and skimmed through a series of new messages preceded by a red exclamation mark.
Languidly he tapped the keyboard en watched the most recent video message. It came from John Freeman, the chief air traffic controller of Diego Garcia’s watchtower and head of the rescue service in the region. Van Dyck had expected the message. Not only would the few eccentrics who still inhabited the atolls of Chagos invariably be contacted after any tropical storm to be checked upon. But the owners of airplanes (all the eccentrics having one) would also be requested to make as soon as possible a reconnaissance flight within a hundred kilometre radius to search for castaways. This time a sailing boat got into trouble. John's message ended with the GPS coordinates and the radio frequency on which the unlucky crew could be reached. There was no time for a coffee. At least, if he accepted the urgency of the message.
He sighed deeply, checked his watch to estimate how old the message already was and strolled to the bathroom. In the mirror he looked at his rough stubby beard and his grooved tanned face. His special assignment on what probably could be considered the most deserted corner of the world had run to three years. That started to show. Although he had well passed his mid forties, the small wrinkles around his eyes and his short greying hair gave him the looks of a sharp but naughty boy. Not that there was someone on the island who would care. Van Dyck happened to be the only – human - inhabitant. But he had not lost completely some sense of vanity. He quickly jumped under the rain shower and minutes later he stepped outside.
Dressed in shabby Bermuda trousers and T-shirt, with short protecting surf boots and a reversed baseball cap, Pieter gasped for breath to cope with the sudden temperature and humidity difference. He turned around – after walking a couple of meters on the large grass square – to get a good view on the house.
It was built in the eighteenth century in the typical French colonial style. It continued to astonish Pieter that they, whomever they were, had been capable of building a small castle on a lost island situated at the other side of the world. The expected flourishing business from copra was the hype of that century and multiple investors poured money in that trade hoping for a manifold return on investment. As with all hypes, it disappeared quickly and the region was again quickly abandoned. The austere freestone stairs led to a wide double door which was on both sides symmetrically flanked by three large windows. The upper floor seemed to be a mirror image of the lower floor. But instead of a door there was a protruding round balcony bordered by short pillars. The flat roof housed, carefully hidden, the solar panels and two small satellite dishes. Although the climate had inevitably left its marks, the house was remarkably well conserved. It had clearly been constructed to defy the centuries.
At first sight there was no visible damage, except for a loose severed blind that squeaked slowly around its last remaining hinge. The sharp noise of the breaking blind had woken him up earlier that night, but he had been too lazy in his bed to go out and check it. He had ignored the noise and had fallen quickly asleep again.
Relieved he continued his tour. He passed through a worn out iron fence which gave passage to the beach. As always after a storm, the beach was polluted by driftwood, dissolving jelly-fish, rotten starfish and a lot of black seaweed. That predicted again hours of cleaning with a broad raker to restore the beach into its white postal card state. One of the overhanging palm trees had collapsed and wobbled torn with the swell of the waves.
“Fortunately my hammock is still intact,” he thought. “But now I will need to find a new favourite tree.”
Pieter lived on the most southern and largest part of the Egmont Islands, called Ile Sudest. A series of atolls belonging to the Chagos Archipelago which, administratively, resorted under the British Indian Ocean Territory. The largest and most important island was Diego Garcia. Important, because Diego Garcia hosted a prominent naval base of the American and British Navy. That base had its glory period during the second half of the twentieth century, spanning the years from the cold war to the different gulf wars. But over the past decades, the base had lost its strategic purpose and had been slowly sliding into oblivion. The past years, only a skeleton staff was kept at the base for maintenance and simple operations. The staff themselves the first to wonder why the base was not closed all together. The Egmont islands formed a characteristic atoll. A half circle of small land masses surrounded by a reef on which the waves burst endlessly. The reef surrounding Egmont was interrupted in some places with shallow channels. This brought the unique advantage that one did not have to circle the full island to reach the protecting north side and the internal calm waters. Pieter had not yet figured out whether those channels were a natural phenomenon or if man had assisted nature with dynamite.
The easy access made the island popular with world travellers and sailors keen to insert a break in their voyage to spend a couple of days at the isolated beaches and become Pieter's guest.
Fortunately even today the number of world sailors was rather limited. And Pieter did not feel like being known for running the most remote bed and breakfast on earth.
He followed the beach up north and reached a large wooden mooring adjoined by a massive boathouse. The centuries old pier ran for at least twenty meters into the protected waters of the lagoon. Pieter had to admire the craftsmanship by which this massive construction was put in place. The black pylons, made from rough tropical hardwood, disappeared deep in the clear blue water and were strongly anchored into the rocky bottom of the lagoon. Robust logs and planks were seamlessly joined through wooden pegs giving the whole an indestructible appearance. Cast iron bollards, ordered mathematically alongside the pier, ensured a secure anchorage for the large sea-plane that gently swayed on the few waves.
The plane was Pieter's pride. When he first arrived on the Chagos Islands, the local instances had put the plane from nineteen hundred fifty five at his disposal. The machine belonged in a museum, but apparently someone in the administration had decided in a burst of frugality that it should last another couple of years as cheap reconnaissance plane.
He clambered on the large over-wing and untied the carefully attached camouflage-net which served as a protective tarpaulin against the rain and wind gusts of the past days. He opened a couple of hatches and peeked through the holes to check the engines. A gush of lukewarm briny water spouted on him as he opened carelessly a valve. He was afraid this forebode that starting the old engines was going to be quite an endeavour. Grumpily he knocked randomly on the wing, listening to the different tones as if trying to find a rotten spot in a wall. He untied the rest of the wet knots. Carefully he coiled the ropes around his stretched arm and disappeared in the boat house where he threw them over some hooks on the ceiling so they could dry. Before he left the boat house, he quickly checked the large brand-new semi-rib which was securely moored against the roofed-in jetty. The black twelve m
eter boat was the modern sailing counterpart of the old plane.
Limberly Pieter crawled into the main cabin of the plane. He bumped his head against the low door-frame, cursed in Flemish and pushed himself into the cockpit. He shoved the worn pilot-seat forward till his knees edged against the instrument panel and made contact.
Only after several attempts the first engine sputtered and cautiously he revved up. With a fairly graceful turn he steered out of the lagoon while also the second engine got going irregularly. Although the swell of the open sea was still heavy, the plane gained speed and lifted off from the waves in a cloud of spraying droplets and foam. Van Dyck got ready to complete his reconnaissance flight around the island. He climbed to five hundred feet and headed towards the west to make a couple of complete turns. Attentively he looked down to the atoll screening for damage, but at first sight the storm had only uproot a handful of palm trees. The unkept coconut trees were the prime vegetation of the island and Pieter was glad that they had not been hit too much by the storm. He hated it when he had to cut the fallen trees blocking the paths on the island. The few animals living on the atoll had gathered collectively at the most northern part, where the protection was the highest because of the slight elevation. Now the storm was over, they started to spread into the bushes again. “All in all not too bad,” Pieter thought, “when I am back I'll be chasing pigs for a change.” Besides the green spots of the islands there was nothing to see on the endless blue surface. He put on his headphones and established contact with the traffic controller of Diego Garcia.
“Red Knight calling DG control tower.”
“Good morning, Pieter. This is John.”
“Not too many lost Volvo Cuppers this year.”
“Indeed, but there is always one. Did you receive my messages?”
“Afraid so. I am already on my way.”
“Did you say already on your way? With you speed they probably have drowned by now.”
“You are so very funny. Are there new coordinates?”
“Yes, there is a lot of current in that area this time of year. You will receive them on your GPS receiver. However, the crew did contact me a couple of times in the meantime. Each time a bit more panicking. Not surprisingly since I told them that help would come momentarily.”
“My aircraft gives a completely new dimension to the notion fast. Do you have information about the crew?”
“Yes, they are two retired tax controllers from Switzerland. They don't speak a word of English. As Belgian I suppose you speak some Swiss?”
“I will deploy my best Swiss and drop them linea recta at your place. Over and Out.”
The white dot soon became a yacht listing heavily to starboard under the snapped mast. The main sail was scooping water, dragging the boat deeper and deeper in the water, making it impossible to straighten it back. Probably the crew had not been able to reef down the sails – or they had foolishly bet that their mast could withstand the powers of the storm.
Pieter descended a bit more and circled slowly around the ship. Based on their enthusiastic waving it was obvious that the two on board were happy and relieved to spot the plane. Again he made contact with Diego Garcia's control tower.
“Pieter calling Diego Garcia control tower.”
“Please go ahead.”
“A forty footer or so taking in water. I can distinguish two of the crew. Their long hair makes me suspect that the tax controllers have been travelling for a very long time. The name of the yacht is the Port of Call and they are sailing under the Australian flag.”
“That must be them. Thanks in advance for picking them up.”
“No problem, as long as I can dump them with you.”
“You're always welcome here, Pieter.”
Pieter removed the pinching headphones and throttled down. The steady humming of the two large engines turned into an irregular murmur only to be interrupted by the clapping noise of the streamlined hull hitting the first wave. The plane bounced and lifted from the surface, finally hitting the waves once more with a loud smack tens of meters further. There it came to a halt, gently rolling on the waves.
He slowly increased the power of the left engine to make sufficient speed to navigate closer to the sinking yacht. He was cross with himself that he could not master a decent landing on the sea. The hard pounding given to the old plane could not always be a great contribution to the strength of the airframe.
Warily he manoeuvred the sea plane into the direction of the yacht. Coming closer he could see that the passengers had already gathered their personal belongings and had stowed it into the rubber dinghy fastened to the stern. Only now could he measure the damage caused by the storm. The snapped mast dragged the boat deep into the water and waves started to gush over the main deck into the cabin. Most likely the machine room had been flooded, breaking down the engine and possibly choking pumps and killing electricity mains. However, there was no acute danger. With some luck, the ship would stay afloat for hours till too much water would have entered the cabin and other parts of the boat. Then it would silently disappear into the deep.
He pushed the main switch and the engine silenced. The clicking and humming of the many systems and relays made place for the soft dashing of the water against the hull. He unlocked the five point safety belt, pushed the pilot's seat to the back and crawled via the small stairways out of the cockpit. When he opened the door, he saw that the two passengers had already boarded the small life boat. One of them made desperate attempts to crank up the miniature outboard motor. Apparently without a lot of success.
Pieter brought his hand above his eyes to observe the scene in more detail.
“Just what we needed. Some rich dudes on a filthily expensive yacht, but none of them ever had the brains to check or try the dinghy's outboard.”
After a while, and more futile attempts to get the engine going, the two started to beckon Pieter to come closer. Amused he gestured back that they should start rowing. One of them seemed to get the hint and grabbed clumsily an oar. Without being hampered by any sense of direction he started to row against the waves while the other kept on pulling stubbornly at the start cord. Pieter yawned. This was going to be a case of load and unload as soon as possible.
When they finally came alongside, Pieter threw a safety line which was eagerly caught and attached to the small boat. He pulled the rubber dinghy in front of the cabin door and held out his hand to help his first passenger boarding the airplane. To his big, but secretly happy, surprise the two tax controllers turned out to be two girls. Unstable they first threw some colourful back packs and expensive looking travel bags in the cabin to finally enter themselves, sinking exhaustedly in one of the available passenger seats. Pieter untied the boat and pushed it hard away with the oar. The last thing that he wanted was that the light rubber boat would get caught in one of the propellers when lifting off.
After he closed the door, van Dyck watched his guests and almost felt pity for them. He could not imagine that they had checked themselves before a mirror lately. Behind the dark blue rims under the eyes, the salt-crusted hair, cleaved lips and soaked clothing, there were probably two people hidden between twenty five and thirty years of age. Two people who, a couple of days ago, waved and laughed as they cheerfully sailed away on their snow white yacht from an Australian harbour.
It seemed that none of them was inclined to start a conversation, so van Dyck coughed once to catch there attention.
“My name is Pieter van Dyck, the unluckiest fellow in a radius of a hundred miles. Unlucky because I intended to sleep in this morning but you were so kind as to shipwreck close to my island while you could have picked tens of others. So I missed my breakfast and my morning coffee. Since I can imagine fairly well what you have gone through last night, I assume you are too tired to talk about it now. However, I need your names. It is a matter of having a full passenger list on board this fine piece of machinery operated by Air van Dyck.”
After some hesitation,
the first girl whom he helped entering the plane, started. She spoke with an unmistakable Aussie accent, taking away any doubt that they indeed originated from that part of the world.
“I am Jane Hutton and that is my little sister Jackie. We departed from Adelaide last week, intending to follow the route of the Volvo Cup. And that while all weather reports clearly indicated that it was not the best season of the year to sail around this area. But no, my dear sister wanted it and would have it her way.”
“Ah,” was Jackie's snappy answer, “just shut up”.
Jane wanted to react but Pieter was too fast: “Ok, this is all very enlightening and I don't need to know more. Nor do I want to, honestly. Fasten yourself tightly onto the seats. Taking off can be rather bumpy. And ... enjoy this short flight with us.”
He got back in the cockpit and made radio contact with John.
“This is the almighty saviour of pathetic castaways. “
“Ok, this is John. What did you catch in your nets, Red Knight?”
“The family Jay-Jay.”
“Really? I could have sworn I heard another name.”
“May I introduce you to the Hudsons? Jane and Jackie. I am sure that their father is called James and the dog listens to Jack. Their yacht is, or better was, the Port of Call with home port Adelaide.“
“Our family name is Hutton and not Hudsons,” Jane corrected.
Without being disturbed, Pieter continued his sarcastic conversation with the control tower. Jane shrugged her shoulders and wondered warily why did they had to be picked up by an oversized child.
“They both seem to be in good order and health. But of course we will only know for sure after they have been washed and cleaned thoroughly.”
“Nice work, Pieter. This is sufficient to alert their families that the lost offspring has been recovered.”
“Well, than we will be on our way to their luxury hotel on Diego.”
“Sure, pop in – at this moment there is not a lot of traffic in the area but that will change later on. It promises to be a busy day today.”
They closed the conversation and Pieter thought: “no, no, for me it will be quiet for the rest of the day once I drop those two.” He smiled at the idea of lingering in his hammock between two new trees for the rest of the afternoon.
He started the engines and was relieved, in a macho manner, that they ignited immediately.
The airplane bounced and jumped on the waves as it gathered speed. Both the passengers sat straight, uncomfortably. The old plane cracked and made ominous noises. Jackie and Jane tightened their worn out seat belts to the maximum while they looked intensely outside the oval windows. A bitten fingernail fell on the ground. With a last firm drone that shook them heavily, the plane slowly lifted in the air. Pieter turned to gain height and to look one last time at the sinking yacht. His voice cracked over the intercom: “well people, take a good look at her. The chances that she is still afloat tomorrow are very slim.”
He had the impression that the ship already lied deeper in the water than an hour ago. Van Dyck shook his head compassionately. A fine yacht did not deserve to end this way.
He switched off the fasten seatbelts sign, realising that it was the first time he had used it. Actually, he had never taken more than two passengers. The last time was years ago. And they were his two flight instructors who had soon been drunk on the whiskey they smuggled in the plane between the islands.
Pieter looked in the reverse mirror and saw the two girls gazing in front of them, silently.
A couple of miles before the landing, Pieter broke the silence. In his fake captain voice he proclaimed:
“We will be arriving shortly on what will be your home for the next couple of days, namely the naval base of Diego Garcia. Please ensure that your seat belts are securely fastened and the table in front of you is in its upward position. I forgot, there are no tables in this plane.”
His joke was not understood nor appreciated.
“And Jane, would you be so kind as to check that your luggage is secure? I don't want to see it gliding towards the front of the plane to help us with a nose dive. Thanks.”
The RPM of the engines lowered slowly as he pushed the large gas handles above him. With some slight pressure on the circular yokel, the aircraft left its horizontal course and started to glide towards the blue surface of the sea.
At that moment, Jane crawled into the cockpit and took place in the co-pilot's seat. She put on the second set of headphones which was dangling from a retracted switch. She fiddled with some buttons till finally her voice came through on Pieter's headphone.
“Amazing that this still flies,” it sounded mockingly in his ears.
He could not resist a smile. “Well, for the moment it even floats better than your vessel.”
“I always wanted to sit in front of the cockpit to witness a landing.”
“Oh really?”
“I love to fly on my flight simulator at home.”
“What a coincidence. That is where I learned to fly myself! Now you can assist me with the landing. I am still not getting that right.”
“What about putting the flaps at twenty degrees?”
She pulled a handle that was mounted against a scale of five to sixty till an arrow arrived at a rusty twenty.
“Flaps on twenty” she confirmed while a scraping sound vibrating through the plane affirmed the flaps shoved out of the wing.
“Flaps to forty,” commanded Pieter, “and don't pull too hard. Her forty is very sensitive.”
“Flaps to a gentle forty.”
Pieter called the control tower which had now come into visual range.
“Control tower, we are almost there. Please confirm clearance to land.”
“Hello this is John. We already saw you and we know what you have been doing. You can land alongside the harbour and come in immediately. And don't descend too steeply. Don't make a hole in the sea. Please.”
The landing in front of Diego's shore was a copy of the previous one. A noisy blow that shook the passengers roughly.
“Probably one of your best landings,” said Jane.
“It sure was,” he answered happy with himself.
For one reason or another, he was in a very good humour. Despite the hunger he now started to feel.
* * *