House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe by Christina Lamb

Author:Christina Lamb [Lamb, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Africa, Autobiography, Biography, History, Military, Non-Fiction, South
ISBN: 9781556527920
Google: ns94rRV7NQ8C
Amazon: 1556527926
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2009-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Nigel circled over Devil's Cataract, the most powerful of the falls, and looked down at the bridge again. ‘Angels in flight’, Livingstone had written. It was irresistible. It was also illegal. A fellow pilot had asked one of the soldiers if it was permitted for planes to fly over the bridge. ‘Yes,’ came the reply.

‘And under?’

‘No, then we shoot,’ the soldier had replied. Nigel was undeterred and had arranged for a friend to go on the bridge to divert attention.

He eased the throttle, took a breath and let the plane dive deeply through the spray. The sound was roaring towards him and the gorge was narrower than he realized, churning black waters and rocks below so near. The turns were very sharp and my stomach was churning around as if I was on a roller-coaster. The sides of the gorge were steep and menacing and this mass of grumbling white water was only a metre or two beneath and flying past us at great speed.

The wings of the small Cessna seemed terribly fragile and he fought to keep them stable amid the wind currents that came through the gorge from the falls. At the same time he tried to keep an eye out for cables that hang down from the bridge as well as any soldiers. Then he was under the bridge and out the other side, spraying crystals of water like bridal confetti and coming back up through a rainbow.

As I pulled out of the gorge there was a tremendous sense of relief then almost immediately a need to do it again. Flying was the greatest thing in the world.

Nigel looked fondly at his plane. I had always wanted to fly. I had grown up with my father's stories of being a Spitfire pilot and my uncle Noel Waller had a Beechcraft Bonanza and during the [Rhodesian] war flew Air Wing. We used to go up with him sometimes and I loved it, it was hang of a treat.

He was 25 when he bought his first plane, shortly after returning from university in South Africa. He had used all the money he had to buy a four-seater Piper Cherokee PA140 with blue stripes on its wings and its registration painted boldly on the side in black-Zydu Yankee Delta Victor. It was underpowered and very slow-about 90 knots-but I saw that as an asset because it gave me more time in the air.

There was, he thought, no better life than as a bush pilot in Africa. To me the smell inside an aircraft cockpit ignites the senses, a bit like the first swirl of whisky in the mouth. I guess it's the smell of the fuel but I love it. As the props start spinning and the engine takes, a feeling of such freedom follows.

He loved the thrill of landing on runways hacked out of the bush, makeshift windsocks rigged up on top of a pole, clearing wildebeest and zebra out of the way. It was great for impressing girls

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.