They found out later he disappeared to give the cook a hand peeling a new lot of spuds. But when the cook went inside to prepare more potatoes, Tim slipped away from the group. The helicopter crews erupted in laughter as the potatoes sank. Distracted by something, he selected the wrong container and threw the spuds themselves into the deep, dark water. The ship’s cook was peeling potatoes for the meal, and at one point he walked to the side of the ship to heave the peelings overboard. Tim Wallis, the boss, was among the group, and they filled in time before the midday dinner swapping stories about how the flying had gone so far. The spoils of their war that day were in the ship’s hold – 100 red-deer carcasses. They looked like aircrews taking a break between sorties in some exotic war setting. One fine day in a remote part of Fiordland in the 1970s, several venison chopper pilots, shooters and gutters, up since dawn shooting the tops, were gathered on the deck of their mothership, waiting for lunch. This abridged chapter of 2005 biography Hurricane Tim: The Story of Sir Tim Wallis is published with the kind permission of its author, Neville Peat. On the good, keen man who pioneered the “deer days”, created the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow and survived numerous helicopter and plane crashes.
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