arrive. The rain had eased somewhat, but the wind merely grew in intensity.
“It won’t come,” said Hatayama. “I bet it won’t.” He looked rather relieved at the idea. I could see what he was thinking. Of course he wasn’t looking forward to a tongue-lashing from the Chief. But that would be better than dying in a plane crash.
At that moment, there was a faint whirring sound in the distance, mixed with the sound of the wind.
“There he is now.” Red Nose and Sticky Eye got up.
We rushed out of the hut in front of them. We wouldn’t be happy until we could see this aeroplane with our own eyes.
A light plane, flying at low altitude from the Shiokawa direction, was making a sweeping circle above the bean fields. I didn’t know what type it was, but it had a stumpy fuselage with a propeller on each wing.
“Well, it’s more or less a proper aeroplane, isn’t it. We’ll be all right in that. Won’t we. Eh.” Hatayama was trying to convince himself.
“What else were you expecting, if not a proper aeroplane?” I countered, staring at him. “Don’t talk garbage.”
Pummelled by the wind, the plane shook violently as it turned and prepared for landing some distance from the runway. Then it came towards us, flapping its wings up and down. The wings weren’t flapping in alternation. They flapped up and down
“Can aeroplanes flap their wings?” asked Hatayama in a frightened little voice.
“Of course they can’t,” I replied with irritation. “It’s just the wind doing that.”
“Wait a minute! The runway’s too short!” Hatayama shrieked. He stood transfixed as the aeroplane approached, wheels still retracted. How close would it come? Hatayama prepared to run.
When the wheels at last touched the ground, the plane bounced on the runway. I closed my eyes.
“No. It ain’t Gorohachi,” yelled Sticky Eye, standing behind us. “He’s better at it than that.”
Who was it, if not Gorohachi? I opened my eyes again to find out. The plane made a thunderous noise as it careered towards us on the runway. It was sure to plough straight into us.
“Nooooo! It’s going to hit the hut!” Hatayama was long gone. I followed him, diving headlong into the bean field beside us.
The aeroplane reversed the pitch of its propellers, and screeched to a halt just inches from the hut.
We looked at each other in the bean field. “We nearly died in a plane crash without even getting in!” said Hatayama. In his sheer terror, the pupils of his eyes had contracted to the size of pinheads.
We waited until the propellers had stopped before crawling out of the bean field. As we approached the plane, we saw how close it had come to destroying the farmers’ hut.
“Look at that! About five inches,” said Hatayama, measuring the gap with his fingers. He turned to me and added sarcastically, “Now that’s what I call service!”
I frowned. It was hardly a laughing matter.
Behind the plane lay a parallel trail of deep wheel ruts, two thick ones for the main wheels on either side of a thinner one for the front wheel – like gigantic mole tracks. They must have been made when the pilot had braked on the rain-softened runway.
The door of the plane opened and a wooden ladder was thrust out. Nothing as grand as an ‘air stair’ for these passengers, then. And onto that wooden ladder stepped a plump middle-aged woman, who clambered down shakily with a baby strapped to her back.
“Hello there, Yone,” Sticky Eye called to her. “I thought it might be you. How’s old Goro doing, then?”
“Bah. There ain’t nothing wrong with him. Just that the doctor said he weren’t to move,” she laughed, showing a mouthful of blackened teeth. “Goro knew you was here, and was that worried, saying he’d come and get you, like. But seeing as the doctor told him to lie down, I had to come instead, see.”
“Well, it’s a long time since we flew with you, Yone,” Red Nose said cheerily. “I see you haven’t forgotten how to do it.”
“As if I would!” replied the woman, throwing him a flirtatious look as she laughed. She was obviously Gorohachi’s wife. “It kept coming back to me as I went along.”
Hatayama poked me several times in the backside. “Hey! Hey!”
“What,” I groaned. I didn’t turn round – I knew what he was going to say.
“Er, you’re not planning to get on this plane, are you.”
So I did turn round. I looked hard into Hatayama’s eyes, which were now completely round with fear. “And why not?”
“You mean you are? You’re going to get in a plane flown by a fat farmer’s wife who’s carrying a baby on her back and hardly knows her wings from her ailerons? An aeroplane you get in and out of using a ladder?”
But he obviously realized that I had no intention at all of changing my mind. A sardonic half-smile came over his face as he continued. “All right, let’s do it, then! After all, it’ll be a rare experience, won’t it, flying in a plane like this in a raging typhoon!”
“Cut the sarcasm, will you? You’re getting on my nerves,” I said, turning away from him. Actually, I was only pretending to be strong. I needed him to get on that plane with me. But deep down, I was quivering with fear.
Sticky Eye had been talking to Gorohachi’s wife and occasionally glancing back at us. Then he nodded and called over to us with a laugh. “Hey, travellers! You’re in luck! She says she’ll take you!”
“Really?” I approached Gorohachi’s wife with a suitably grateful demeanour. We were entrusting our lives to her care, after all. We could do worse than ingratiate ourselves. “Thank you. Thank you very much!”
“It’ll cost you though,” she said. “Two thousand yen each.”
Sticky Eye intervened from the side, rather hurriedly.
“Actually, Yone, I just told ’em it were fifteen hundred, one way.”
“Oh. All right, fifteen hundred then,” she said casually, without any sign of discomfort. “Well, come on then. Up you get.”
“Gorohachi’s wife seems like a good person,” I said to Hatayama as we walked across from the hut with our baggage.
He was shivering with fright. “That doesn’t mean she can fly a plane, does it,” he replied.
I pulled a face. But he just carried on, with his waterproof camera case slung over his shoulder. “Just now, they said this Gorohachi had a proper pilot’s licence. I heard them. But they haven’t said anything about the wife. Then again, we’re in no position to go round asking questions, are we.”
“Exactly,” I answered in exaggerated agreement. “So don’t.”
“Yes, well, we’re sure to get back to Shiokawa in one piece, aren’t we. Yes.” Hatayama laughed nervously, nodding to himself several times. “After all, she’s had
I said nothing. Otherwise, he might have started screaming his head off.
We climbed the ladder into the aircraft. Inside, there were ten half-dilapidated seats, five on either side of an aisle covered with straw matting. There was no partition between the passengers and the pilot; the controls were in full view. Hatayama and I sat in the front two seats, on either side of the aisle.
As soon as we’d sat down, Hatayama started up again. His hawklike eyes had spotted something in the roof of the cockpit, above the front window.
“Look at that!” he exclaimed. “It’s a miniature shrine.”
“So it is.”
“That’s for luck, I suppose.”
“So it is.”
“So that’s why this plane has stayed in one piece so far. Sheer luck!”
“Just shut up.” I glared at him again through narrowed eyes.
Hatayama ducked his head apologetically. “Do you have to get so angry at everything I say? Give me a break, will you?!”
The two farmers finished loading their baskets of beans and farming tools onto the plane. Then Gorohachi’s wife hoisted up the ladder and closed the door.
