St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(100)

‘You’ve been moved up to first class. These are your new tickets. Please board by the front stairs.’

A glance at the front stairs showed they were empty.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You’ll be in first class right through to Athens and from there to Tel Aviv on a local carrier. Everything is in order.’

‘No, I mean we only paid for tourist class. Why are we in first?’

The travel agent had given them a quote for both tourist and first class and the price difference was staggering. Even the cost of the tourist tickets was astronomical. But Rebecca was set on seeing where Sarah was buried and she was the one who finally brought up the fact that there was enough money in the account they had started years ago to pay for their daughter’s wedding one day. Berlin ached at the memory of a sixteen-year-old Sarah declaring she would never ever get married and the money could be better spent on buying her a car when she turned eighteen.

The Qantas woman held up the piece of paper. ‘It just says on the telex that the difference between tourist and first class was paid and to reissue the tickets. It’s lucky we had some spare seats in first. I wasn’t sure I’d catch up with you for a minute there and we don’t want to delay the plane.’

‘Do you know who paid for this?’ Was it Lazlo? Berlin wondered. It was something he would do.

The girl looked down at the sheet of paper in her hand again. ‘The telex says Scheiner Constructions – it’s a Melbourne company, I believe. Everything is completely in order so you can go up the front stairs. I hope you have a wonderful trip.’

Berlin briefly considered tearing up the tickets right there on the tarmac but changed his mind. It would just make things too complicated and besides, it was going to be a very long trip and if it made Rebecca more comfortable he would just live with it.

The steward at the top of the stairs checked the ticket and boarding passes. He led them down the aisle to two seats on the right-hand side, took Rebecca’s small suitcase and overcoat and Berlin’s red vinyl bag and put them into the open overhead shelving. He showed them how to use the seatbelts and offered orange juice or champagne. Rebecca was seated by the window and she shook her head. Berlin said that he might have a drink later.

Initially they were the only people in first class but then more couples had joined them. The ladies were wearing skirts and jackets and the men business suits. One of them referred to the steward by his first name. The men had all nodded to Berlin politely.

Berlin’s seat was wide and quite comfortable. The door to the cockpit was open and he could see the pilot. Leaning out into the aisle he saw the co-pilot in his seat and a man at another station inside to the right. The men were busy, and the pilot, who looked to be about fifty, had an air of confidence about him, which Berlin appreciated. They were good at their jobs too, the take-off smooth and comfortable. The jet turned over the city and the Harbour, and over Rebecca’s shoulder he could see the bridge and tiny figures on scaffolding working on the shells of the still unfinished Opera House.

But now it was the middle of the night and he was walking towards the cockpit, like one of the boys and girls from tourist class who had been shepherded down the aisle by a hostess to visit the cockpit earlier in the flight.

Berlin stopped at the open cockpit door. Hughie took a seat facing a panel of instruments just to the right of the door. Navigator or Right engineer? Berlin wondered, but didn’t ask. The cockpit space was cramped, with the pilot and co-pilot seated side by side. On his Lancaster the right seat had been a simple fold-down bench where Wilf, his Right engineer, had been seated on take-off to assist with the throttles. There was a another seat behind the 707 pilot, currently empty. On the Lane that was the area where Garry the Canadian had his curtained-off navigator’s perch, and next to him Mick worked the radios. Somewhere forward, beneath their feet, Harry the bomb aimer filled in his time watching for night fighters in the nose turret and helping spot way-points for Garry until it was time for him to stretch out over the bombsight and guide them in on the target.

‘Gentlemen, this is Charlie.’

Berlin stepped into the cockpit. The pilot turned around and awkwardly put out his right hand. ‘Brian Hargraves, pleased to meet you Charlie. The sleepy fellow in the other seat is Damian. We just keep him here in case we urgently need someone to counteract my good looks.’

Berlin smiled at the joke. Hargraves was good-looking, there was no disputing that. About Berlin’s age, chiselled features and a face marred only by a subtly pockmarked forehead. Most people would take the marks for residual signs of youthful acne, but Berlin had seen scarring like it before.

The seats occupied by the two pilots looked very comfortable. Berlin remembered the sheet of steel he had sat on in the Lanc, sitting on his parachute for a somewhat softer ride but glad the steel was there beneath him when the hellish flak and searchlight belt, that was the Kammhuber Line, appeared out of the blackness ahead of the bomber stream.

‘Pull up a pew, Charlie.’ Hargraves indicated the single seat behind his own.

The seat was even more comfortable than it looked. Berlin clipped the seat belt tight at his waist and instinctively reached up for the shoulder harness straps then stopped himself.

‘What do you do for a crust, Charlie?’ Hargraves asked.

‘I’m a copper, down in Melbourne.’

Hargraves turned to Hughie and winked. ‘Better keep a close eye on those instruments, old chap, wouldn’t want to get a fine for speeding.’