HINKLER’S STORY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20380, 11 April 1928, Page 10

HINKLER’S STORY.

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LOOKING DOWN ON THE HOLY LANDS.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN THE AIR.

Rights of Publication Secured by the Otago Daily Times,

In this chapter of his flight from London to Australia Hinkler tells of his passage over Palestine from Ramleh to Basra. He tells how the loneliness of the flight across the desert affected him.

Across the desert from Kantara to Ramleh, hugging the Mediterranean, a little railway line straggles, its steel rails half drifted over with sand. This evidence of civilisation makes the wilderness more lonely. Looking down as I crossed from Tobruk, I frequently picked out Bedouin camps, and eaw quick, curious faces turned up to me. Generally, however, I was flying in this country at from 8000 ft to 10,000 ft, and details were lost. After leaving my Arab friends 1 noticed the character of the country on either side of the little steel line change. Shabby, half-hearted vegetation flanked the line. One or two towns seemed to he making a more or less precarious business of living. Below my left wing, away out to the left, the sea glittered brilliantly like sapphire. Ramleh itself was a relief to my fagged eyesight. It was, at the time of my passage, green and cool. At the Ramleh aerodrome, I hoped to do nothing more than pick up my fuel, and have a hurried squint at my engine, neglected for the last two nights in the desert. My mechanical work there had consisted of nothing more arduous than pumping and' deflating my boat, and getting things shipshape for the night. It was my intention to push on to Basra, passing Bagdad, but well out of sight of this city of Arabian Nights. I needed all the time I could get to do it in daylight. Circumstances conspired against me. 1 might almost sav “ perspired,” for it was confoundedly hot, and things seemed to flag in the torrid climate. It was Saturday morning in Ramleh, and the troops were on parade. There is a squadron of the R.A.F. here, an armoured car section, with a splendid landing ground, but, at the time I was there, without machines, though their ground organisation is perfect. The absence of the soldiers on parade prevented me from getting the assistance _ I ■wanted, and delay ensued. Besides this, when the boys did come round me, they were so terribly pleased and excited that they would not hear of my doing any work till they had fed my face. . To the everlasting credit of my engine I. want to record that, in spite of inattention since leaving Malta, not a single defect had developed, _ and the usual grooming it had missed it hadn t missed, if I make myself clear. That much off my mind, 1 was quite glad to have breakfast with the lads. I was all set to leave immediately afterwards. If I had gone, I could have done the whole trip in 15 days. It was not to be. -. Ramleh. is in Palestine, just off the 'Mediterranean, and very near Jaffa, ’where the oranges, and Jonah came from. As a matter of fact, Jonah pioneered the first underwater transport in the district, and I was very interested in him. No one seemed to be able to give me any news of him, though I searched Jaffa all through one very hilarious night, as you shall see. NIGHT IN A NIGHT-LIFE TOWN. "- Now Palestine was very windy at that time about diphtheria, I think it was, that was coming in from Bagdad and Basra. As a new arrival in Palestine, it was necessary that I should be passed by the doctor. When the authorities demanded my health clearance, I hadn’t one to give, so the boys insisted on driving me to the town, some miles away, to be medically examined. Away went jny hopes of an early start. Out of the -car and into the doctor I popped. Two •words, showing I was inward bound from Europe, settled the difficulty, and 1 raced back. 1 found the Customs waiting for me. Now in Australia, the Customs are like brothers. They give no bother; they want nothing out of you, I am told. . In Palestine it is different. There are forms to be filled in as big in size as a large-sized bedroom mirror, but not nearly so clear. By the time 1 had finished writing the story of my boyhood in these enormous documents, time had flown some more. My chances of leaving, with any prospect of making Basra, were nil. I had to fly over rocky, inhospitable .country, where a landing was impossible. As I was hesitating, the boys began to argue. " Why not stay and get to bed early for once,” they said. “ You’ll be far fitter for to-morrow’s journey.” My real and best reason for staying was the chance it would give me to have a session with ipy engine. I stayed. I’d like to tell you how the lads of Ramleh carried out their idea of sending me to bed early. Jaffa is the place where night life* flourishes. There cabarets and dancing places keep open all night. What’s the good of being R.A.F.’s if you can’t be raffish ? This, at least, seemed to be the slogan of those chaps, and it was 1-30 before they let me go to bed. At several of the parties that night I d met wives of the officers —oh. yes, it was quite that sort of a party—and they had all expressed regret they couldn’t see my aeroplane. “Why not come out and see me off at daylight?” I said, and they politely promised to come. A woman’s promise, however, is made to be broken, and the time and circumstances of their making it were sufficient excuse for them to forget. What ■was niv surprise next morning, then, to Bee my partners of the night, fresh as paint, appear on the aerodrome! I felt heartened by the farewell 1 got from those nice people. FLYING OVER THE DEAD SEA. Bear in mind that I had not seen a paper or got a message since leaving England, and I had Ho idea that anything was being said about the flight. I was sending off cables of my progress, as I had contracted to do, but, for all I knew, the world was as ignorant or as uncaring of me and my doing as of any other stranger. My only thought when I saw these Rcmlch acquaintances waring me good-bye was that I hoped I’d see the folk at Bundaberg as interested when I flew into the town in a week or so. I had no more idea of the national welcome I have received than the man in the ’ moon. Let’s get back to Ramleh and the kickoff to Basra. This day’s flight was the most interesting I had had to date. We have all learnt at Sunday school so much of Palestine that the Holy Land seems hardly real It is “ out of the Bible,” and it seems almost wrong to find that Jerusalem, Jericho, Nazareth are real towns, and not particularly attractive towns at that; that the countryside over which so many of the r~eat figures of the Bible wandered is ugly, rocky, and barren. At least, that is what much of Palestine looks like from the air. My thoughts were busy with my schoolboy

memories as I looked at my map and saw where I was flying. I flew over the valley of the Dead Sea, and saw it lying beneath tne. Away beyond a range of hills rises, rough and ngly-looking, its foothills gradually smoothing out into desert once more, the horrible wild desert of Assyria. I shall never forget the terrible monotony of the rest of that day’s flight* Hour after hour went by; beat-beat-beat went the engine. The air was hot: the cockpit got terribly stuffy, and my bones ached with -the cramp. I lay back to rest myself, and then my spine began to ache confoundedly. I sang, I whistled, I spoke, I felt the loneliness of damnation ; I wondered whether I had ever properly valued companionship. Up there in the blue sky, 10,000 ft above the earth, with not a sound except the engine, a man begins to realise what solitary confinement is. I love flying, but I did not love that day. I was glad when away off ahead I saw the muddy little stream, which is one of the most famous rivers of history and fairy-tale—the Euphrates. A little further on beyond this I picked up the Tigris. At Basra, my destination for the day, the two rivers join. Even then they don’t make a decent river. I suppose that in that waterless country any stream, however muddy and ugly, deserves to have yarns written about it. NEAR THE SPOT WHERE ELLIOTT DIED. I should like to have flown over Bagdad, and seen the hanging gardens from the air, trying tc imagine what the city was like when lovely girls were whipped up by Caliphs. I wasn’t on a sightseeing tour, though, and I was too impatient to see what Australia looked like to go poking 'round after even the most wonderful cities of the East. At Basra the old R.A.F. “ possy ” was operated by Imperial Airways. A chain of landing grounds, from 40 to 50 miles apart over the desert, is connected by a motor road, kept in good repair. These landing places are marked by huge alphabetical letters, seen from a great way off, and affording enormous assistance to the navigator, wlio would find it hard to pick up his marks in that country. I had set my course from Ramleh to Basra north of this motor road. 1 made for the Euphrates, which crosses the track a third of the way down. Prom 8000£t I saw the tiny, sharply-defined track, and was able to fix my position. I sat on the line for a few miles, when I was able to locate the aerodrome marked A. From here the surroundings begin to show a slight change for the better. Scanty vegetation on both sides of the Euphrates gives a hint of better things to come—a hope destroyed by two long hours of desert before Basra comes into sight. I passed near the spot where poor Elliott was shot, and the place looked pretty sinister to me. The few Bedouins I had seen showed not the slightest disposition to loose oh at me anything more deadly than curiosity. They were loaded to the muzzle with this. I landed at Basra, about 950 miles from my hopping-off place, about 4.30 in the afternoon. I taxied to the tin hangar in a cloud of .-dust. No one was there to meet me, but people soon came out with offers of good assistance. _ I was busy till after midnight with my inspection. Owing to the aerodrome being at Shaibah, several miles from Basra, I didn’t get a chance of seeing the town. Seeing the town, I had discovered at Jaffa, has its disadvantages, I contented myself with paying my best respects to the Squadron, and turning in early to get some rest. The previous instalments of Mr Hinkler’s story were published jn our issues of March 28, 29, 30, and April 9 and 10.