Chapter 32 first quarter
The voyage home was his favorite.Over the past 30 years, he has been to more than 70 major cities, most of which are capitals, in his flying career around the world flying British Airways large passenger jets, and the original novelty has long since faded.
Thirty years ago, wearing a junior co-pilot uniform with two glittering golden circles on the cuffs, he was alert and nimble and was keen on distant and strange places.During layovers, he explored nightlife in the US and continental Europe, and visited monasteries and temples in the Far East.Now, all he wants to do is get back to his home near Dorking, England.
In the past, he had had some brief, fiery affairs with some pretty stewardesses, but after Susan married him, that sort of thing stopped naturally.The 5,000 nights spent in the hotel bed are long gone, and now he just wants to jump into his own bed and smell the lavender on Susan beside him.
He has two children.Son Charles, conceived by Susan on their honeymoon, is a twenty-three-year-old who works as a computer programmer; daughter Jennifer, who just turned eighteen, is studying art history at York University.The children gave him a sense of stability in the family and gave him even more reasons to be homesick.Retirement was two years away, and the sight of driving his hatchback up Watermill Lane with Susan waiting at the door of his house was far more attractive than anything in a foreign land.
On the other side of the corridor in the coach transporting the crew, his backup captain was staring motionless at the back of the driver's head.To his left, one of his two co-pilots was still gazing curiously at the neon sea of Bangkok that kept being left behind.
In the back of the air-conditioned employee bus sat the crew: a purser and fifteen flight attendants, four men and eleven women.Fallon had flown with them from London Heathrow two days ago. The purser, who could handle everything from the cockpit door to the tail fin, was an old hand like him.
Captain Adrian Faron's mission was to fly the Boeing 747-400 Jumbo from Bangkok to Heathrow with more than 400 passengers who could earn him wages, as shown in his flight log. As will soon be documented, from BKK (Bangkok International Airport) to LHR (London Heathrow Airport).
Two hours before take-off, the crew's coach drove up to the airport perimeter and, after a nod from the guards at the gate, headed towards British Airways offices.The waiting time is very long, but Captain Faron is a meticulous person, and the news from the British Airways office is that Flight 10 "Quick Bird" flew from Sydney at 3:15 pm local time, It will land on time at 9:45pm Bangkok time.In fact, the plane was already preparing for landing.
A mile behind the bus the crew was in was a black limousine.There was only one person in the car, and the passenger sat comfortably behind the driver in livery.Both the car and the driver belonged to the upscale Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and the impeccably groomed executive had already lived there for three days.In the trunk of the car was his suitcase, which was a hard-shell case made of genuine leather with a solid copper lock, making it easy and dignified for senior business people to travel.Beside him was a briefcase made of real crocodile skin.
In the breast pocket of his well-tailored cream silk suit was his British passport, bearing the name Hugo Seymour, and his return ticket from Bangkok to London—first class, of course. cabin.The limousine pulled up outside the check-in hall as Flight 10 "Quick Bird" left the runway and taxied towards the British Airways terminal.
Mr. Seymour did not push the luggage cart himself.He held up a white hand, and immediately a small Thai porter came running up.After paying the driver's tip, Seymour nodded towards the suitcase in the open trunk of the car, then followed the porter into the departure hall and walked towards the British Airways first-class counter.His exposure to the sticky heat of the tropics was only about half a minute.
Check-in for first class took less than an hour and forty-five minutes.The young British Airways clerk behind the counter was empty.In less than ten minutes, the cowhide suitcase had been sent by belt conveyor to the baggage handling area, where it would be labeled with a British Airways flight to London.Mr. Seymour had his boarding pass and was given the location of the first-class lounge, which was on the other side of the passport control counter.
The uniformed Thai immigration officer glances at the rose-red passport, then checks the boarding pass, and finally at the face behind the glass screen: middle-aged, slightly tanned, clean-shaven, with a well-trimmed head iron-gray hair, a soft silky white shirt that never sweats, a silky tie from Jim Thompson's, and a creamy silk suit from a famous Bangkok tailor that takes less than thirty hours A replica of a famous brand can be made.He handed back his ID from under the glass screen.
"Sawadeeka," said the Englishman Seymour softly.Thai officials nodded and smiled approvingly at the thanks expressed in Thai, something foreigners don't usually say.
Somewhere out of sight, passengers arriving in Bangkok from Sydney were filing out of a Boeing airliner and down a long corridor leading to an immigration checkpoint, followed by transit passengers.After all the passengers on the plane have been emptied, the cleaners will board the plane and clean the fifty-nine rows of seats in the cabin, and clear out 14 bags of sorted garbage.Mr. Seymour, carrying a crocodile leather briefcase, walked quietly to the first-class waiting room, where he was warmly received by two extremely beautiful Thai waitresses.They led him to his seat and brought him a glass of sweet and delicious white wine.He quietly buried himself in an article in Forbes magazine.In this spacious, cool and luxurious lounge sat another nineteen first-class passengers.
What he doesn't bother to notice is that the place where he checks in for first class is just a stone's throw away from the check-in counter for business class.The British Airways Boeing 747-400 passenger plane has 14 first-class seats, and 10 seats have been sold. Four of them are passengers from Sydney to London.Mr Seymour was one of six first-class passengers who boarded the flight from Bangkok.Twenty-three business class seats have been sold out, of which eighteen passengers will be boarding in Bangkok.At that time, these business class passengers were queuing up to check in at the counter just a few steps away from him.
Next to them is the queue of economy class passengers.A large group of people crowded in front of the counter, moving forward slowly.The ten counters are fully equipped to cope with almost 400 passengers.Among the passengers was the Higgins family, dragging their own luggage.They came by the airport shuttle bus. Although the air conditioner was turned on, the heat exhaled by so many passengers made it useless even if the air conditioner was turned on.Economy class passengers were sweating profusely and looked embarrassed.It took nearly an hour for the Higgins family to enter the departure lounge. After a quick visit to the duty-free shop, they finally sat down in the non-smoking area, and they had thirty minutes to board the plane.Captain Faron and the crew were already on the plane, but the first to board the plane were the flight attendants in the cabin.
The captain and crew spent the usual fifteen minutes in the office dealing with paperwork: the all-important flight plan telling him the distance to fly, the minimum amount of fuel to load, and the details of the route he had to follow tonight.All of this information has been submitted to various air traffic control centers on the Bangkok-London route.He took a closer look at the weather data on the route, and the UK on the other side will usher in a peaceful night.He flipped through the "Instructions for Crew" with ease, memorized the pages that were relevant to him, and ignored most of the irrelevant text.
When the last document was saved or signed and returned, the four pilots were ready to board.They were well ahead of the passengers, and those who arrived from Sydney were gone long ago.The cleaners were still on board, but that was the responsibility of Harry Palfrey, the purser, who would handle it with his usual unhurried grace.
The cleaners in Thailand are not the only concern of the purser, all toilets must be ventilated and cleaned, and then inspected.Sufficient food and drink for four hundred passengers was being loaded, and he had even managed to snag some fresh London newspapers from another jet that had just flown in from Heathrow.Midway through Mr Palfrey's work, the captain and pilots boarded.
In the summer, Captain Faron only needs two co-pilots to accompany him, but now it is late January and the oncoming northwest wind has increased the flight time of the aircraft to thirteen hours, which requires a captain who can change shifts up.
Adrian Fallon himself thought it unnecessary.There is a small cabin on the left hand side at the rear of the cockpit, which has two beds, and the captain turns the plane into autopilot mode and hands it over to the other two pilots to take the time to sleep for four or five hours, which is very unusual But that's all.But the rules had to be followed, so the flight had four pilots instead of three.
As the four walked down the long aisle to the almost empty plane, Faron nodded to the young co-pilot.
"Excuse me, Jim, go and check."
The young man who had been gazing away at Bangkok on the crew bus nodded, opened a door at the end of the entryway, and stepped out into the sweltering, sticky night.It was a routine job they all hated, but had to do, and it was usually assigned to the youngest and least senior of them all.If the entire jumbo jet was packed, from bow to tail, and wingtip to wingtip, into a square box, the box would occupy more than an acre of land.All the patrol inspector has to do is walk around the entire plane to see if everything that's supposed to be there is in its place, that's all.A panel might be halfway off, and a puddle of fluid that the ground crew couldn't spot might indicate a leak.To put it bluntly, although there are ground crews, airlines always like to have their own personnel do the final inspection.
Sometimes, it is freezing cold outside or the sun is scorching red, and this kind of time is not very lucky.Under these circumstances, the hard-working co-pilot returned twenty minutes later sweating and carrying a few small bags of bug bites.However, all aspects of the aircraft are normal.
Captain Fallon climbed the gangway at the entrance door to the upper deck, then entered his domain through the cockpit door.Within a few minutes, the two captains and another co-pilot had taken off their suits and hung behind the lounge door.They are already sitting in their seats.Faron naturally sat on the left, and the senior co-pilot sat on his right.In order not to affect their work, the substitute captain went into the rest cabin to study the stock market.
When Faron started his career, moving from routine flights in Belfast to long-haul flights, he was at the age when he needed a navigator and a pilot.But those days are long gone.His pilot is now a row of technical equipment above and in front of him; enough dashboards, joysticks, and buttons to do all the work of a pilot, and more.His navigator is now three sets of inertial reference systems, the "black box" of which can complete all tasks of the navigator, and it is faster.
The first mate was going through the first of five separate safety checklists - the pre-launch check - and Fallon glanced at the loading slip, after all the luggage had been confirmed loaded and the purser, Palfrey, had counted the number of passengers head-by-head. Then he will sign the document.The captain's nightmare is not so much that passengers are on board and no luggage is loaded - that can be loaded on the next flight - but that luggage is loaded and passengers are not on board.In this case, all baggage must be unloaded until unclaimed baggage is excluded.God knows what's in that kind of luggage.
The entire plane is still powered by its auxiliary power unit, which is actually a fifth-generation jet engine that few travelers know about.The auxiliary power unit on the giant plane is powerful enough to power a small fighter jet; it allows the airliner to generate electricity, provide lighting, power the air conditioning, start the engines, and so on, without outside help.
In the economy lounge, Mr and Mrs Higgins and their daughter Julie were tired and restless.They left the two-star hotel where they stayed four hours ago, and according to the modern way of travel, they were tired enough on the way.Load luggage on the bus, make sure nothing is missing, wait in line, sit in a cramped seat, encounter traffic jams, worry about being late, another traffic jam, transfer from shuttle bus to airport, search for luggage, children, Finding the trolley, waiting in line at the bustling crowd at the check-in counter, having your carry-on luggage checked by X-ray security equipment because the belt buckle triggered the alarm system, a medical check, the child being taken away for a doll and Putting it on the security check equipment and crying, buying some candy in the duty-free shop, continuing to wait in line... Finally, at last, I sat on the hard plastic chair before boarding the plane.
Tired of the endless waiting, Julie started walking around with a doll she bought locally.A few yards away, a man stopped her.
"Hey, little one, this doll is so beautiful."
She stopped and stared at him.He was nothing like her father.He was wearing mid-heel cowboy boots, dirty ripped jeans, a denim shirt, a string of ethnic beads, and a small backpack by his side.His hair was matted and probably hadn't been washed in a long time, and he had a large, unkempt beard on his chin.
Had Julie Higgins known that there were many Western backpackers in the Far East, she would have realized that the man she had just spoken to was one of them.She was only eight, though, so it was unlikely she knew.The Far East is a magnet for thousands of such people, partly because of the ease and cheapness of life there, and partly because the drugs on which they depend are often more readily available there.
"She's new," said Julie, "I call her Phuket."
"Good name. Why is it called that?" drawled the hippie.
"Because Dad bought her in Phuket."
"I know it. Golden Beach. Did you just get back from vacation there?"
"Yes. I swam with my dad and we saw all kinds of fish."
At this moment Mrs. Higgins touched her husband's foot with her toe and nodded in the direction of their daughter.
"Julie, come back, dear," called Mr. Higgins in a tone his daughter could understand.This tone implies disapproval.Julie walked briskly back toward them.Higgins stared at the hippie.This was the kind of guy he hated: free-spirited, filthy, and almost all drug addicts, the last thing he wanted his daughter to talk to.Hippies sensed this.He shrugged, took out a pack of cigarettes, saw a no-smoking sign above his head, and walked slowly to the smoking area to light a light.Mrs. Higgins sniffed.At this time, the radio began to call passengers to prepare for boarding, firstly rows 34 to 57.
Mr. Higgins looked at his boarding pass: Row 34, seat numbers D, E and F.He gathered his family, checked everyone's carry-on bags, and made his way to the end of the line.
The departure time at 11:45 pm will definitely be delayed, that is only the time announced to the public, generally speaking it is false.What Captain Faron was concerned about was whether he could get a time limit for takeoff from the Bangkok airport control tower before 0:05, and he wanted to catch up with that time limit.In modern civil aviation, getting time to take off or land is what counts.If you miss this time limit in Western Europe or North America, you risk circling the air for an hour before the next time limit.
A twenty minute delay was fine, he knew he could make it up mid-flight.His flight plan had an estimated duration of 13 hours and 20 minutes due to strong headwinds over Pakistan and southern Afghanistan.Because London is in zone zero, the time difference should be seven hours.He would arrive in London at about six-twenty on this cold January morning.The temperature outside London is close to zero degrees Celsius, and here and now, in Bangkok at midnight, the temperature is twenty-six degrees Celsius and the humidity is as high as ninety percent.
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