Many a Close Run Thing by Tom Enright

Author:Tom Enright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

Discomfiture of an aide

Squadron lore tells of a flight (rather before my time in Fiji) to take the Governor General of Fiji on a State visit to the Kingdom of Tonga. Governors General in tropical regalia were an impressive sight, their uniform including a helmet trimmed with white ostrich feathers cascading down to the vice-regal waist. This magnificent headpiece was not of course worn journeying to and fro; it was transported in a big box while the Governor General wore his military hat. It was a principal duty of the Governor General’s aide-de-camp to ensure the box was brought along and safely held until required. On the flight in question, the vice-regal party, including aide and helmet box, was loaded at Lauthala Bay in an aircraft commanded by a senior pilot and was soon winging its way towards Tonga. In the wardroom, sherry was being drunk as delicacies were passed up from the galley. 5 Squadron was performing at its best. However, at the rear of the flying boat in the bomb room a different scenario was being enacted by a master signaller, a man who was invariably found at the centre of any trouble. He had undone the locks on the helmet box, taken out the helmet with its feathers and was parading up and down with the helmet on his head and the feathers flowing down his back. Suddenly the aircraft lurched as it passed through a stray cumulus cloud and our joker stumbled and lost his footing. Alas, the helmet and plumes managed to find their way through a gap between the flooring and the fuselage and rolled down into the bilges.

Now, in most vessels, bilges are not nice places to be, and the Sunderland was no exception. When the helmet was fished out, it was covered in old oil and sludge. The once white feathers were a bedraggled mess. The laughter that had accompanied the posturing quickly died away and the messy remains of the Governors General’s fine headpiece were hurried to the galley. Water was quickly boiled and scrubbing started. A large door in the rear fuselage that could be opened in flight was quickly prepared to accept the feathers for drying in the slipstream. All to no avail – the feathers were never going to be white again!

Crewmen listened with dismay as the order to prepare for descent and landing in the Tongan roadstead was given. What to do? This was going to be the worst diplomatic incident in the squadron’s history. The Governor General of Fiji would insult the Kingdom of Tonga by appearing in finery that was no longer fine. But the miscreant who was responsible, eyeing the open fuselage door, was equal to the occasion. He put the tarnished helmet and the filthy feathers back in their box, closed the lid and heaved the whole ensemble overboard.

On arrival, when the aide-de-camp called for his helmet box, he was asked, ‘What box? We haven’t seen any box.’ The distressed official was forced

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