Her Outback Protector. Margaret Way

strict attention to their plight. Not that she could do anything, basically, but try to help Daniel spot a place to set the chopper down.

      Sandra stared fixedly at the magnificent landscape beneath them that had abruptly turned hostile. Daniel would have no other option but to force land.

      Tell him something he doesn’t know.

      But where? The vast terrain was covered in glittering swamps with a canopy of trees growing so close together if they were monkeys they could scamper across it. She even had a fevered thought if the worst came to the worst, they could bail out, land in the water then if they were lucky spring up a tree with a prehistoric monster snapping at their heels.

      If there was one thing Daniel had learned it was to stay cool under pressure. Even immense pressure like this. They were a few kilometres into a big, flooded paperbark swamp. The manifold pressure had dropped off and he was losing power and RPM. Air speed was declining as well. He knew the girl was only too aware of it and the consequent danger, though he was so focused on what he was doing he dared not turn his head to look at her or even speak.

      Seventy knots to sixty and bleeding off fast. No matter how he wished otherwise he had Alexandra Kingston with him. A girl whose father had been killed in a plane crash.

      He couldn’t lose another second. He used his radio to report a mayday, giving his bearings. What could be causing this failure? He scanned the control panel which was going haywire. Something was screwing the system. The helicopter was regularly serviced as a matter of course. Only he flew it. And Berne.

      He stared down, the muscles of his face rigid. There were huge paperbarks all around them fringed on the outer perimeter by pandanus.

      Fifty knots.

      God almighty! Was this the way it was going to end? A life span limited to a few decades? What a bloody mess. Adrenaline kicked in, flushing through his system. He was a good pilot, wasn’t he? A very good pilot. Now was not the time to be modest. He was lucky as well, which was almost as good. He had the girl with him and she deserved a life. They had to survive. He had to land the chopper safely even if he clipped the rotors which was a strong probability. He could sense the girl beside him was sitting rigid with fear, but she wasn’t screaming. Thank God for that! Many would be yelling their heads off at this point, when they were on the brink of a crash. She was, in fact, pointing frantically to a pocket handkerchief-sized clearing at the same time he spotted it coming up.

      He lined the chopper up. The clearing was shaped like a playing field with its boundaries set at one end by a stand of pandanus, at the other by four paperbarks, their foliage iridescent in the sunlight.

      Hell he almost loved her. She was far from stupid and she had kept her head. He had to applaud that.

      Okay. It was now or never!

      The swamp was rising to meet them with crocs in it for sure. Didn’t you just love them? He had to judge the tips of the branches of the trees by centimetres. He could feel the tremendous rush of adrenaline through his body, even the thrill of extreme danger. Paradoxically it gave him a weird feeling of excitement as well as fear; a buoyancy he had experienced before in tight situations.

      Ten metres above the water, the surface was quivering and shimmering like a sea of sequins, then it churned into waves by the strong down draught. He couldn’t run the chopper on in case the skids got hooked onto the arched root system of the trees. If that happened, the chopper would flip over. A rotor tip only had to clip those trees. He could hear a hissing sound clearly. The clearing seemed to be lit up, preternaturally brilliant. It could signal the end but he took it as a good omen. He hovered, shutting everything out of his mind but the need to set the machine down safely. The will to survive transcended fear…all the blades were at the same pitch…

      That’s it. Hold it still. Praise the Lord!

      At the last moment, Sandra shut her eyes, her small hands clenched into fists. Death was always waiting in the wings. She didn’t want to see it coming. If she was going to die she was going to die. There was not much anyone could do about fate. But if anyone could save the situation this guy might. Sweat was pouring off her yet her blood was running ice. They could drop like a stone. The chopper would be hurled around like a piece of debris before it went up in flames… It only needed one false move.

      Though she waited in limbo for the moment of impact and probable annihilation, the chopper seemed to come down in ultra slow motion as the rotor blades set up a whirlwind. The machine didn’t hit the water, rather it seemed to Sandra’s bemused mind it came down as lightly as a brolga on its tippy toes. She felt the skids sink and held her breath in case the probing skids got caught up in the trees’ root systems and tossed the fragile aircraft around like a child’s toy. Dread paralysed her limbs. This was a nightmare!

      Only slowly, so slowly, the skids settled on the swamp bed.

      She couldn’t believe it!

      Sandra’s eyes flew open. The chopper was bobbing on the surface of the swamp, the body surrounded by streams of bubbles. There was a gurgle of water somewhere but they were stable.

      Eureka!

      The aircraft gave a groan that was almost human. Daniel killed the engine. The beating rotors, main and tail, gradually stopped their thundering.

      All was still.

      Sandra couldn’t even turn to face him. Whole moments passed while her racing heartbeats slowed to normal. Then she turned to him whooping triumphantly, unaware her face was milk-white with shock. “Carson, you have to be the coolest cat on the planet!”

      “Supernatural!” he agreed wryly, tasting blood on his bottom lip.

      They hit an exultant high-five.

      “Which reminds me, you idiot! You could have killed us.”

      “I look on it more as a truly great save.” Daniel stared at the control panel. “The person I should really kill is whoever’s been tinkering with the chopper.”

      “What are you saying?” She heard the shrill note in her voice.

      “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Daniel backed off, removing his earphones and unbuckling his seat belt. “I have to get out and take a look. You stay here.”

      The very idea made her break out in a sweat. “You didn’t think I was just going to jump in? There must be crocs in there.”

      He shook his head almost casually. “The water around us isn’t deep. It’s already begun to subside. Nevertheless we could become waterlogged even supposing I can fix whatever problem we have. The good thing is we’re not far out of Darwin. Air Rescue will scramble another chopper in no time. I’ll send you back with them. You’ll have to be winched up. I’ll stay with the chopper until we can get it airborne.”

      “So who’s going to pinch it around here?” She resorted to sarcasm, not wanting to let him out of her sight. “The crocs? And don’t tell me they’re not lurking out there in among the reeds because I happen to know differently. I was born in the Territory, remember?”

      “The desert, sweetheart,” he jeered, not even aware in the stress of the moment he had called her that. “The Red Centre is completely different to the Top End. Desert and tropics, both in the Territory. Moondai might as well be a million miles away from the crocs.”

      “And I couldn’t be happier about that,” she retorted. “But shouldn’t you stay put? You could come to a grim and gruesome end. I think I’d hate that.”

      He merely shrugged. “You don’t happen to know how to handle a rifle?” He sounded extremely doubtful.

      Sandra snorted. “Do I ever! My dad taught me how to handle a gun. I’m sure I remember. It’s like learning to ride a horse.”

      Daniel studied her in amazement. “He must have started you off early?”

      “Because I wanted to learn,” she replied tartly. “Bernie could shoot. I had to be able to shoot too in case he planned a little accident.