Wings of Duty — Page 53
53 staying, at a very late hour. In the morning Huzoor learnt of what had happened. In his heart he must have been relieved that we had not been harmed. Outwardly, however, he was furious with us for breaking the discipline of the community and for not obeying his instructions. The previous night he had told us to stop by Chaudhry Zafarullah Khan’s home on our way to the airport and find out if he had received news of the missing convoy. If any information had come to him, we were supposed to abort the assignment. Shortly after we had left for the airport, Chaudhry Zafarullah Khan had phoned Huzoor and told him where the convoy had stopped and that it was safe and would reach Lahore the following afternoon. Thus our night-time mission to find the convoy had been in vain. The reason we had not stopped by Chaudhry Zafarullah Khan’s house was that we did not want to disturb him so late into the night. However, we ended up receiving our due punishment for disobeying Huzoor. After this accident, we were left with only one airplane. However, by then, Deputy Muhammad Latif had taken leave with Huzoor’s permission to look for a job. So just as the community was left with one airplane it was also left with one pilot—myself.