this baby.” He caressed the bakelite control wheel of the Carrier.
Connie stared out over the wide brown stretches of the airfield, glowing golden in the evening light, to the dim blue line of the hills up to the north. “Where are you based?” he asked. “Where would the job be?”
“I run from the Philippines to Saigon,” said Schafter carefully. “But the job’s not there. I’ve got a private strip way out in the country, where we do the maintenance. It’s very quiet there, of course—no Europeans nearer than a hundred miles. But that won’t worry you, because you speak Chinese.”
“I speak Canton,” said Connie. “Does that go at your strip?”
He nodded. “The people that you’d come in contact with understand Canton. Not the peasants, but you wouldn’t have to worry about those.” He paused. “It’s very isolated, but the job will probably be over in six months. Give you eight hundred American dollars a month, and transportation back here to Bangkok.”
Eight hundred dollars a month is at the rate of £2500 a year, a high wage for a ground engineer even in the East. In all hislater life, I never knew Connie to take the least interest in money. He always earned a good salary because he was first class at his job, but he lived on the Asiatic standard. I know that he had no money at the time of his death; I think he gave it all away. While he worked for me he preferred to be paid in cash each month. I don’t think he had a bank account at all.
It certainly wasn’t for money, then, that he left Siamese Airways and went to work for Dwight Schafter. I know now that he had been in close touch with the ecclesiastics of Buddhism while he was working in Bangkok, and he spoke once of his horoscope. My own belief is that he felt the need to go out into the wilderness for a few months, to get away from the crowd for a time to meditate on what he had learned of Buddhism. That is a possible explanation, and it certainly fits in with the life that Dwight Schafter offered him, a time of long periods of inactivity while Dwight was away flying, with only Asiatics for his company, upon the abandoned airstrip at Damrey Phong.
He had no illusions about the job. “I maintain aircraft,” he said, there in the beautifully finished cockpit of the Carrier, with the long rows of black-faced instruments in front of him below the windscreen. “I take no part in wars. I would not fly with you to any foreign country to deliver any load.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said Schafter, looking at him curiously. “I don’t want you for an air crew. I’ve got a C-47 and I’ve got this baby, and I guess there’s plenty for you to do keeping those two in the air. I want somebody that I can trust to stay back at the strip and keep the maintenance of the one ship going while I’m away with the other. I think I can trust you. What do you say?”
He said, Yes. He left Siamese Airways a week later. Dwight Schafter reappeared at Don Muang in a Dakota with a brown man called Monsieur Seriot as his co-pilot, and Connie got into it with his small luggage, contained in an old parachute pack and a tool chest. The Dakota cleared for Prachaub in Siam and flew towards the sea and down the coast of Cambodia into Indo-China. Two hours later they landed on the strip at Damrey Phong.
Damrey Phong lies on the river Kos about fifteen miles from the coast. It is about a hundred miles from the Siamese border,and about a hundred and eighty miles as the crow flies from Saigon. It is a small Asiatic village of palm thatch houses, the homes of a purely rural community. Superimposed on this was the civilization of the airstrip, built for strategic purposes during the war. There were two houses built of wood in European style, and a store building; there had been a hangar, but the roof had fallen in with neglect and the remains of the wooden building were rapidly disintegrating. There was a wharf to which small coasting motor vessels
Connie stared out over the wide brown stretches of the airfield, glowing golden in the evening light, to the dim blue line of the hills up to the north. “Where are you based?” he asked. “Where would the job be?”
“I run from the Philippines to Saigon,” said Schafter carefully. “But the job’s not there. I’ve got a private strip way out in the country, where we do the maintenance. It’s very quiet there, of course—no Europeans nearer than a hundred miles. But that won’t worry you, because you speak Chinese.”
“I speak Canton,” said Connie. “Does that go at your strip?”
He nodded. “The people that you’d come in contact with understand Canton. Not the peasants, but you wouldn’t have to worry about those.” He paused. “It’s very isolated, but the job will probably be over in six months. Give you eight hundred American dollars a month, and transportation back here to Bangkok.”
Eight hundred dollars a month is at the rate of £2500 a year, a high wage for a ground engineer even in the East. In all hislater life, I never knew Connie to take the least interest in money. He always earned a good salary because he was first class at his job, but he lived on the Asiatic standard. I know that he had no money at the time of his death; I think he gave it all away. While he worked for me he preferred to be paid in cash each month. I don’t think he had a bank account at all.
It certainly wasn’t for money, then, that he left Siamese Airways and went to work for Dwight Schafter. I know now that he had been in close touch with the ecclesiastics of Buddhism while he was working in Bangkok, and he spoke once of his horoscope. My own belief is that he felt the need to go out into the wilderness for a few months, to get away from the crowd for a time to meditate on what he had learned of Buddhism. That is a possible explanation, and it certainly fits in with the life that Dwight Schafter offered him, a time of long periods of inactivity while Dwight was away flying, with only Asiatics for his company, upon the abandoned airstrip at Damrey Phong.
He had no illusions about the job. “I maintain aircraft,” he said, there in the beautifully finished cockpit of the Carrier, with the long rows of black-faced instruments in front of him below the windscreen. “I take no part in wars. I would not fly with you to any foreign country to deliver any load.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said Schafter, looking at him curiously. “I don’t want you for an air crew. I’ve got a C-47 and I’ve got this baby, and I guess there’s plenty for you to do keeping those two in the air. I want somebody that I can trust to stay back at the strip and keep the maintenance of the one ship going while I’m away with the other. I think I can trust you. What do you say?”
He said, Yes. He left Siamese Airways a week later. Dwight Schafter reappeared at Don Muang in a Dakota with a brown man called Monsieur Seriot as his co-pilot, and Connie got into it with his small luggage, contained in an old parachute pack and a tool chest. The Dakota cleared for Prachaub in Siam and flew towards the sea and down the coast of Cambodia into Indo-China. Two hours later they landed on the strip at Damrey Phong.
Damrey Phong lies on the river Kos about fifteen miles from the coast. It is about a hundred miles from the Siamese border,and about a hundred and eighty miles as the crow flies from Saigon. It is a small Asiatic village of palm thatch houses, the homes of a purely rural community. Superimposed on this was the civilization of the airstrip, built for strategic purposes during the war. There were two houses built of wood in European style, and a store building; there had been a hangar, but the roof had fallen in with neglect and the remains of the wooden building were rapidly disintegrating. There was a wharf to which small coasting motor vessels
Similar Books
