Free Old Songs in a New Cafe by Robert James Waller Page A

he is on “gold,” $20 per hour in American money.
    A 100-hour month earns him roughly $9,000 in 1987 terms. The rare melding of technical competence, practiced skill, good judgment,
     and courage always pays top dollar, anywhere. The CNAC pilots chronicle their exploits by making up song verses using the
     melody to the “Wabash Cannonball”:
    Oh the mountains they are rugged
    So the army boys all say.
    The army gets the medals,
    But see-knack gets the pay…
    Not everyone can do it. They arrive as experienced flyers and are trained for the Hump by riding as copilots, committing the
     terrain to memory, absorbing the mercurial techniques of high mountain flying, and practicing letdowns in bad weather. There
     is no time for coddling. Those who can’t move into a captain’s seat in a few months are discharged. Charlie Uban got his command
     in three weeks.
    One veteran pilot makes a single round trip as copilot, is terrified, and asks to be sent home by boat. Others will hang on,
     but are so intimidated by the Hump that they develop neuroses about it and become ill. Or, bent by their fears, they make
     critical mistakes where there is room for none. The Hump, rising out there in the darkness and the rain, is malevolence crowned.
    Was Charlie Uban afraid? He thinks about the question for a moment, a long moment, and grins, “I’d say respectful rather than
     fearful.”
    Fear and magic sometimes danced together in northern Burma. A Chinese pilot was flying a new plane from Dinjan to Kunming.
     Over the middle of the Hump, the temperature gauge for one of the engines began climbing. The instructions were clear: “Feather
     the engine at 265 centigrade.” Panic arrived at 250 degrees.
    With a full load, a C-47 will fly at only 6,500 feet on one engine. So the choices were three. Feather the engine and descend to an altitude that is
     not high enough to get through the mountains, let the temperature escalate and burn up the engine, or bail out in the high
     mountains. Three alternatives, each with the same outcome.
    But the manual had been written by Western minds. Therefore, and not surprisingly, the range of options was unnecessarily
     constrained. As the gauge hit 265, the pilot broke the glass covering the gauge and simply twisted the dial backward to a
     reasonable level Unable to get at the sender, he chose to throttle the messenger. There is some ancient rule at work here—if
     you can’t repair the problem, at least you can improve your state of mind.
    At Kunming, the gauge was diagnosed as faulty. The engine was just fine. Remember Kipling’s famous epitaph? “Here lies a fool
     who tried to hustle the East.” The C-47, like a lot of others, tried and failed.
    If a crew goes down in the Hump region, no search party is sent. The territory is wild and rugged, settled sparsely by aboriginal
     tribes or occupied by the Japanese. The snow accumulates in places to a depth of several hundred feet, and a crashed plane
     just disappears, absorbed by the snow.
    The pilots suffer through it and gather strength from one another, talking quietly when a plane is overdue and cataloging
     the optimistic possibilities. After a few weeks, the missing pilot’s clothing is parceled out among the others and his personal
     effects are sent home.
    Charles L. Sharp, Jr., operations manager for CNAC, is a realist. Roosevelt demands that China be supplied. There is not enough
     time for proper training. The weather is wretched, equipment humbled by the task, and the planes, which are cargo versions
     of the venerable DC-3s, always fly above the standard gross weight.
    So lives are going to be taken. Sharp accepts that. Still, he grieves for the pilots who vanish out there in the snow or thunder
     into foggy mountains during letdowns in China or blow up on the approach to Dinjan, and he worries about those who keep on
     flying.
    Small samples from his logs in CNAC’s war years intone a litany to risk and a chant of