White Skulduggery

The pretty little town of Arba Minch in southern Ethiopia overlooks Lake Abaya nestling at the bottom of the Rift Valley. The rift is quite narrow in the area of Lake Abaya and the mountains, which form the wall of the rift, rise precipitously on either side. Our team had travelled far and wide across the southern regions of Ethiopia from our base at Arba Minch, but after two weeks we were becoming frustrated by our inability to get up to the villages at high altitude on the lip of the rift because of the poor state of the roads. I was there trying to assess the damage, and help the UN formulate a plan for recovery after the great drought in 1984. The huge variations in altitude over short distances in Ethiopia create numerous small niche agricultural systems and it was necessary to get to as many of these as possible.

The leader of our team at Arba Minch was a charming Polish lady who had not been long with the UN in Ethiopia, but had already made some very useful friends. In particular she got on well with the senior officers of the Russian air force. The air forces of many countries were based in Addis Ababa at that time, flying relief supplies to isolated communities. With time rapidly running out and no success reaching the high altitudes, I joined our Polish team leader on a mission to Addis to twist the arm of the Soviet Bear and see if we could 'borrow' a helicopter. Our mission was totally successful and we returned the next day to Arba Minch in our gleaming, white helicopter complete with a crew of five. We landed at the little airstrip at mid-day in stifling heat and without any further ado, loaded up the rest of the team and took off for the lip of the rift valley high above us.

Immediatly I sat down in my forward fold-down canvas seat, I noticed that some large instruments had been rather crudely fixed to the front bulk-head. These instruments were not visible from the seat I used on the way down from Addis. Now, as I examined them in more detail, I imagined they were there to assist the load-master when dropping or landing supplies out of the big side doors. There was an altimeter, an airspeed indicator and a gauge reading outside temperature. Naturally, I took a great interest in these instruments, and particularly the altimeter as we climbed higher and higher up the edge of the rift valley.

At first our rate of climb was quite fast; however, after half an hour or so, I noticed from the altimeter in front of me that the rate was falling fast and we were making precious little vertical progress. We were still some way from the top when one of the crew came back and announced that we could not go any further because the temperature was too great and the helicopter was unable to climb further. Out of interest I looked at my private temperature gauge and noticed it was thirty-six degrees centigrade. Back on the ground at Arba Minch we waited for the cool of the afternoon before setting off once again with a much reduced compliment of passengers and crew. This time we made it easily to the highest villages where we completed our work before hopping down the mountainside to look at successively lower and lower farm systems, ending the day at Arba Minch as night fell.

On the following day, we again went out early in the morning to repeat the investigations of the day before, but further up the rift valley this time. At mid-day, with temperatures rising, we finally called the exercise off and I accompanied the helicopter back to Addis to pick up the vehicle we had left at the Russian base camp the day before. I booked into a hotel in Addis, planning to leave early the next morning for Arba Minch. Later that evening, while I was finishing a snack supper in my room, there was a knock on my door.

'Come in,' I shouted, knowing the door was not locked.

A tall, tanned, man wearing casual dress entered the room and walked over to where I was sitting. He held out his hand, 'I'm Ted Elliot from the Royal Air Force.'

I shook his hand, motioned him to sit down, and said, 'I'm Paddy Fleming, can I help you?'

'Yes, I know who you are,' he replied with a grin. 'I hope you don't mind me barging in on you like this. Can you spare me a few minutes.'

'Sure. What's on your mind?'

'Yesterday you went down to Arba Minch in a helicopter. You may not know it, but that model of helicopter is one of the latest in the Soviet air force. Naturally, we're interested to know more about it.'

'How the hell do you expect me to know about helicopters?' I asked, grinning at his stupidity.

'Well, you never can tell,' he said. 'For example,' he continued, 'Did you see how many crew there were?'

'There were five,' I replied, 'Surely you know that much?'

He ignored my question. 'How many wore blue and how many brown uniforms.'

'Three blue, two brown.'

'You see!' he said. 'You do know something that’s important to us.'

I tried to find out the significance of blue and brown uniforms but, again, he brushed aside my questions while he fished in his pocket for a notebook and pencil. 'Do you remember how long it took you from Arba Minch to Addis this morning?'

I couldn't remember with much accuracy and told him so. 'But if you want to know how fast it flew - the airspeed - then, yes, I do know that.'

His head shot up from his notebook. 'How do you know that?' he asked.

I explained the instruments set in the bulk-head in front of my seat on the day before.

He let out a long whistle. 'Are you telling me that you were watching those instruments while you were flying around yesterday?'

'Yes, of course; and again this morning.'

'Jesus,' he blurted out. 'This is dynamite. Would you mind if I ordered us a drink? This may take some time.'

I didn't mind at all, and it took at least an hour before he was satisfied that he had squeezed the last drop of information out of me. Over and over again we went through how many passengers and crew on each flight, cruise altitudes, cruise speeds, descent rates and speeds, climb rates and speeds, take-off speeds at different temperatures, ceilings at high temperatures and so on.

By the time Ted Elliot of the Royal Air Force left my room, I realised that I had answered all his questions, and he had answered none of mine. He refused to tell me how he knew my name, how he knew I was at Arba Minch, or how he knew where I was staying. It struck me as slightly comical, even bizarre, that here amongst millions of starving people, where all the great powers were gathered to do good, they were all running around spying on eachother's hardware. It also wasn't lost on me in the hours after my interview that Ted Elliot of the Royal Air Force could just as easily have been Butch Daniels Jnr of the CIA with an English accent. Or even Ivan Sodovsky of the KGB with an English accent, coming to check that I had been properly taken in by the bogus instruments placed in the passenger cabin. Who knows?