Continuing Chance
Chapter 1

Copyright© 2014 by Old Man with a Pen

Our extras were loaded, baggage packed in the back of the suburban, the cats looking like area rugs spread out over the pile, and bicycles on the rack. Our diplomatic passports were on the dash ... just in case.

"Left side, David ... drive on the left side."

Grace said that every few seconds, that is going to take some getting used to, I kept drifting over to the right. Every muscle in my arms is screaming, WRONG LANE! You're in the wrong lane! I guess ... my brain is yelling at the idiots coming at me in the wrong lane. But it's me that's the idiot!

The cars are so little and the trucks are huge and old. There are bicycles ... thin English bikes and a few motorcycles ... and THAT was a Vincent Black Shadow!! I thought my head was going to twist off!

"Left lane, left lane. What were you looking at? Left lane. Never mind, rhetorical question. Guys and motorcycles. LEFT LANE!! PIPER! GET OFF! Piper, you have gotten heavy."

It's a wonder I didn't kill anybody ... Wonder? A positive miracle. I did see a few rude hand gestures in the rear view mirror. My comeuppance was the New Zealand policeman who pulled us over, thank god we were in uniform.

"Yanks?"

"Yes, Sir."

"There's a driving school for foreigners," he was writing out a ticket. "See that you take it. The course is cheaper than paying this." He tore out the ticket and handed it to Grace.

"Don't give it to me ... he did it," she said.

"Yes, officer, she's been yelling LEFT SIDE all the way from the port."

"Commander, you both have to take the course ... unless you decide to not drive."

"Yes, Sir."

"Now, tell me what you're doing in Dunedin?"

"We're going to be instructors at the University. We just received our doctorates from Berkeley."

"That would be... ?"

"California."

He didn't think much of Californians ... neither did we.

"Austin ... that would be the Earl."

"The Earl?"

"Of Huntly," then he said, "Mother's blood or father's?"

"Mom was a Finn."

"Father's then. Earl of Keith." He said, "You don't know your people?"

"Daddy said 593 AD."

"Keith Clan, get an Austin Tartan ... or a Keith. Get used to a kilt, lad. At least until the people get used to you. Americans aren't highly thought of in New Zealand," he said. "What else can I tell you or be of help?"

"The RNZAF Permanent Flying Training Station at Taieri closed as an RNZAF Station: this year?"

"Yes? What about it?"

"Umh ... we bought it from the Surplus Military Property Settlement people in Wellington."

"You bought the airbase?" he asked, "Why on earth for?"

"We needed a place for our airplanes and it's close to our work."

"Airplanes? As in more than one?"

"Seven."

That stumped him.

And then Grace said, "Where is it?"

"What?" The light dawned. "You bought an old airbase sight unseen?!?"

"I ... I ... we need a place..."

"You said ... seven ... where are they now?"

"At the airport ... delivered yesterday ... we'd like to get them moved ... hangars are expensive ... and well ... we own a place ... so..." Grace was untypically scattered.

"Why weren't they delivered to the base yesterday?"

"The Air Force is still there?" she said.

"They haven't finished moving out," I said.

"We thought we'd take a drive out to their Mosgiel and talk to the base commander ... tomorrow. But you're telling us we can't drive. We can fly but not drive."

"Your California license puts your age at 17?"

"Yup," said Grace.

"But you fly?"

"Yup."

"How long?"

"Four years."

"Since you were 13?"

"Out of curiosity, how many hours?"

"Log books, David."

"Why don't you do it?"

"Because I still rank you, Lieutenant Commander a day before."

"But ... Ike..."

"If you make Captain at the same time as I do ... then we're even."

"How do you know that?" I squinted at her.

"I read it in the Commissioned Officers Handbook."

"Sorry officer ... sibling rivalry ... I'm fifteen minutes older."

"Ah, I see," but he didn't.

I went to the glovebox of the Suburban.

Get this show on the road, David. We have to pee. Piper thought at me.

Hold it. I thought back. I grabbed the log books and as an after thought I snatched our Diplomatic Passports off the dash.

Leave the door ajar. We'll sneak.

The Officer was trying to explain to Grace that she had to be 18 to fly in New Zealand.

Grace was trying to explain to the Officer what the term, 'Pre-existing conditions, ' meant. I handed him my logbook, I handed Grace hers.

"Four thousand hours!?! How did you perform that little number? Fly 12 hours a day?"

"Twelve to fourteen every day that it didn't rain and we started praying for rain. May to October for two years."

"What were you doing?"

"Espionage Act of 1946. We can't tell you."

"I need to call this in."

While he was doing that the wind caught the drivers side door ... three times ... then there was a bitter urine smell ... three times ... and the wind caught the door and slammed it. Grace jumped.

"What was that?"

"Cats had to pee."

"I need to see your passports," He shouted from the car.

Grace and I strolled over to the car and handed them to him.

"You know ... you could have stopped all this if you had given these to me first. Where's that ticket?"

I handed it to him. He wrote NUL across it and had me initial. "You still have to take the class." He folded the ticket into his book and asked where we were going first.

"Why?"

"For my sins."

"What?"

"I pulled you over, now I'm your escort." He had the look of a very sour apple bite.

"349 Leith."

"Don't tell me ... let me guess. You bought the Leith Mansion." He paused, "Three or four years ago."

"Yup," Grace said.

"You paid to have it restored," he said.

"Yup."

"You've never seen it."

"Yup."

"Your Barristers fired the first contractor."

"Yup, shoddy work."

"Who told you? The CIA?"

"You might think that, I couldn't possibly say."

We didn't hit anybody ... it might be because the Officer ... Dinwoody ... had his lights and siren on all the way to the house. The parade pulled through the gates, Grace opened her door and one gold streak and two grays bolted for the nearest patch of bare soil. Holes dug and well filled ... sniffed and covered and sniffed again, the cats immediately found a tree and started marking their territory. (Just so you know, Piper has feet half the size of my head ... and she's half Canadian Lynx ... Her now grown Kits are bigger. They are 3/4 Canadian.)

"What are those?" asked Dinwoody.

"Cats," said Grace ... in a tone that wondered where he's lived all his life.

"Those are the biggest cats I've ever seen."

"Laboratory experiment gone horribly wrong," said Grace. That earned her a glare from Piper. She bounded over and started mauling Grace, Grace mauled right back. The purr sounded a lot like an out of time Harley. As soon as she had Grace well distracted, Piper leaped in the air, snatched Grace's hat and hauled ass for the tree where her children were.

"Piper, Seven: Grace, Zero," I said marking up an invisible score with a wet finger.

"That cat has stolen seven of your hats?"

It was a six year old that answered, "Yeth," complete with twirling a toe in the drive.

"They haven't been through quarantine have they."

"No, thir." She twirled a toe, "They have their own Diplomatic Passports. David?"

"Yes, Sir." I hunted them up. The signature was paw prints. Very cute ... issued by the State Department ... who didn't have a clue. There was a list of their shots ... the only thing they could catch came from sharks.

"New Zealand has a cat problem."

"These won't be a problem," I said.

"All three are female. If you have a male cat brave enough to get near them ... our cats think cats are crunchy and good to eat. They are death on rats and roaches too," Grace said. "What sort of problems are dogs causing."

"Nothing as bad as cats."

"These cats respect dogs on a leash but they hate slipper dogs," I said.

"Slipper dogs?" asked Dinwoody.

"Those little yapping dogs you want to kick so hard in the ass they become slippers."

I could tell by the look Dinwoody was a dog person and he didn't think slipper dogs was funny.

"Let's go look at the house," suggested Grace.

"Join us, Officer Dinwoody?"

"Tomorrow, I am your driver ... Chief Constable said." Dinwoody looked nervous.

The house was everything three hundred thousand 1959 dollars could make it. The walls were smooth, the windows, state of the art. The heating system was hot water and the appliances were Harvest Gold ... the very latest color. The furniture was recovered or rescued from the buyers who purchased at the distressed sale. The house, except for the heating, lighting and the kitchen, was as restored to original as possible. The carpets were Persian ... not Iran or Iraq ... Persian from before the turn of the century ... the original carpets.

Dinwoody, settling into a second Speight's, said, "This is what the house looked like before Mr. Leith died. The first Mrs. Leith loved the house, the second loved to garden. The third Mrs. Leith hated everything about it. Emiline, she was Dunedin born and bred, was given a position as a tweeny, a maid of all work, when she was ten." He saw that look, "Common knowledge, Miss, common knowledge. Athena Leith, the second Mrs. Leith, trained her and then gave her over to the housekeeper, Mrs. Badger. There were two other maids, downstairs and upstairs. Emiline was the between maid. She did the unpleasant work, dumped and cleaned the chamberpots, helped in the kitchen and she hauled coals and coppers."

"Coppers?" asked Grace.

"Five gallon kettles of boiling water for the masters bath. Charles, the footman, hauled cold water to cool it off. When Emiline was 17, she tripped on a carpet lump on the stairs, lost her kettle and all that boiling water splashed the Mistress and she died. Some say Emiline did it deliberately, but the inquest showed a recent repair to the carpet. Mrs. Badger confessed she had done it because Charles was sweet on Emiline and he had been Mrs. Badgers lover before Emiline had, blossomed, so to speak. Even in her 80's Emiline boasted a grand figure."

He took a breath, wiped his chin, and looked expectant. I handed him another Speight's. He realized:

"You haven't had time nor been out of my sight and you're minors at 17, where did the beer come from?"

"We own stock in Speight's. They've been keeping the house stocked for us."

"But you don't drink."

"We might not drink but we are good hosts. Daddy taught us manners," we both rubbed our bottoms, "With a switch ... I think you might call it caning ... a Willow stick is worse."

"To get on with it, the sons went to France in 1914 but never came home. There was no one to inherit ... Emiline took to drink ... and some say the poppy. She died from a fall ... some say the ghost of Mrs. Badger pushed her. The house went vacant until you bought it. The University wants the land."

Poor Officer Dinwoody. We put him to bed and went to our tower room, the cats snuggled around ... and it was morning.

Grace made coffee ... we brought our Jamaican addiction with us.

"Oh, please say that's coffee." Grace poured. He sipped, "Oh, I've died and gone to heaven ... what is this magical brew?"

"Jamaican Mountain," I told him. "How do you like your eggs?" I asked.

Fed, we dressed in the blues required by convention and weather. We packed up flight gear and the cats. Officer Dinwoody drove our suburban to his flat and changed into "calling uniform."

He complained about the steering ... it was on the wrong side ... he was used to shifting with the other hand ... the brakes were touchy ... he was too high off the ground ... the tires were noisy and we stopped at the front gate. I explained to the guard ... he called the Commander ... and we were in business. Officer Dinwoody cooled his heels ... actually ... he drove the suburban all over Mosgiel, "getting used to it," he said, while the Base commander flew us to the Airport ... that was an up ... five minutes ... down. All three of us flew back to the base, Grace, the SNJ, I flew the Beech, and the commander flew the hack. It took us longer in the pattern than the flight.

Back we went, Grace flew the Minus Q the base commander took a quick evaluation flight with me and flew one of the spares and that made three back. Officer Dinwoody drove the three of us back to the airport, Grace and I made a quick familiarization flight in the Anson and Grace flew that back, the Commander and I flew the last two AD-2's back and it was over before noon.

The commander handed us the keys to the gate and the Anson and we had our own WW2 bomber and a base to park it on. We need a mechanic.

The flying club was waiting. We understood that they had an in perpetuity lease to use the base and park their aircraft in the small hangars. The Anson was their normal parachuting aircraft and that was why the Air Force left it. I handed over the keys and enquired about a radial engine mechanic. Several hands were raised ... only one was registered ... we hired him on the spot and paid a year in advance. The cats sniffed him and Piper thought at me, Ok ... we'll find him if he runs off.

The base came with everything including two million gallons of 135 avgas in underground vaults ... all the machine tools, the housing, the hangars, the termites ... were all part of the package deal.

Off we went, this time to storage where we picked up our Chevrolet Bel Air's and took them to the house. We picked up a following. Cars in the garage, we went to the boat, had a sail out to Port Chalmers and beyond ... sailed back to our warehouse dock, drove to a discrete shop, fitted out our clan, went to a restaurant, went home, went to bed, and awakened by the cats telling us someone was in the garage.

Grace was impressive.

We called Officer Dinwoody.

"But ... he's all to pieces."

"They're all there. He shouldn't have been in our garage."

We went back to bed.

Grace was still hyper from the butchery so she got a rubdown.

I got a woody.

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