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‘Doing my best,’ was Liam’s grim-voiced reply.
She could feel the plane’s descent and panic rose again, but she pushed it away from her. She had faith in Liam Conway. He was going to make this. They were going to be safe.
Joe’s eyes were shut and she wondered if he’d fainted again, but when the sound of the motor suddenly changed, his eyes flashed open.
‘Pull all the way back on the throttle,’ he cried.
‘Pull all the way back on the throttle,’ Alice repeated.
‘I’m pulling!’
This time Liam sounded really worried. Alice could see the tension in his shoulders, the strain in the back of his neck.
Through the windscreen in front of him, she saw the airstrip, tilted at an alarmingly rakish angle, zooming closer, closer.
She almost jumped out of her skin when Joe’s hand grabbed her wrist. ‘You should have your seat belt on,’ he said.
‘What about you?’
‘I can’t bloody move. I’ll be okay down here.’ He was grasping the legs of seats on either side of the aisle. ‘You get in a seat. Quick!’
The plane teetered back to the correct level as Alice scrambled into her seat and buckled up. Oh, God, they were almost touching the ground. She wanted to yell to Liam that he could do this, but her throat was too jam-packed with fear. Besides, she knew he was listening intently to the person talking him down on the radio.
She held her breath.
The hard red dirt of the outback airstrip was so close now. Coming closer every second.
Alice shut her eyes as the wheels skimmed the earth. They bumped and bounced off again and then reconnected with a rough thump that almost jolted her out of her seat. Oxygen masks tumbled out of overhead lockers as their tiny craft bounced and streaked at breakneck speed along the rough airstrip. Alice didn’t dare to breathe.
On the floor beside her, Joe’s face was contorted with the effort of holding himself in place.
But they were slowing. Yes, they were definitely slowing. They were alive and the plane... was... coming... to a stop.
‘You did it!’ she screamed, unclasping the seat belt and jumping over Joe in her eagerness to get to Liam.
He turned as she reached him and he looked pale and shell shocked, as if he didn’t quite believe he’d made it.
‘That was just fantastic!’ she cried, throwing her arms about him and hugging him.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘But I think we’d better get out of here fast. God knows what I’ve done to the plane.’
She stepped back quickly, realising that her celebration was premature.
‘You get out, while I get the pilot,’ he said.
‘I’ll help you.’
‘No, you look after the door.’
Right. Alice turned to the door and saw the complicated handle. Oh, heck. How on earth was she supposed to open it? For a moment she felt embarrassingly useless – especially when Liam had been so amazingly resourceful – but then she noticed a helpful sign and a diagram.
Liam hauled Joe’s arm over one shoulder and got him to his feet, but the poor fellow only took a few steps then folded, so in the end Liam had to carry him out and they settled him on the ground in the shade of a gidgee bush.
Shading her eyes against the glare, Alice saw two four-wheel-drive vehicles scorching towards them, their cabins barely showing above clouds of billowing red dust.
Minutes later they were being congratulated and slapped on the back by Bob and Noreen King, the owners of Redhead Downs and their head stockman, Blade Finch.
‘Bloody well done, mate,’ Bob said to Liam. ‘Civil Aviation called to warn us and they said you’d never flown a plane before.’
