DEPARTURE OF THE AIRMAN CHARLES LINDBERGH FROM NEW YORK ON HIS FLIGHT TO EUROPE]
LINDBERGH:
I shall have with me
First a couple of torches
And 1 coil of rope
Then 1 roll of sticking plaster
And 1 knife
And 4 red flares too
Protected by rubber tubing
And 1 watertight container with matches in
1 big can containing water, likewise a service water bottle
And also 5 emergency rations issued to me from US Army stores, each of them sufficient for one day, or longer in a crisis.
I shall have with me
1 large sailor’s needle and 1 chopper
And 1 hacksaw and
1 pneumatic raft.
I’m flying now.
It’s now twenty years since Blériot
Became a hero, for
Having flown a wretched thirty kilometres
Across the English Channel.
I shall be flying
Three thousand.
4
THE CITY OF NEW YORK INTERROGATES THE SHIPS
NEW YORK CITY (RADIO):
New York City calling:
This morning at eight o’clock
One of our people took off here, heading
Over the ocean
He was flying off to Europe.
For seven hours now he’s been on his way
We’ve had no report from him
So we are asking
All shipping, would they tell us
If he’s been seen?
LINDBERGHS:
If I do not get there
I shall never be seen again.
SHIP’S RADIO (Chorus):
Calling New York: Empress of Scotland
49 degrees 24 minutes latitude north by 34 degrees 78 minutes longitude west:
A short while ago we could hear
Through the cloudbank the sound
Of an engine
Some distance above us.
Due to the fog there, we were
Not able to locate it
But we think it might be
That this was your airman
In his aeroplane
Spirit of St Louis.
LINDBERGHS:
Nowhere a ship, and
Now here comes the fog.
5
DURING MOST OF HIS FLIGHT THE FLIER HAD TO BATTLE WITH FOG
FOGBANK (RADIO):
I am the fogbank and I am feared by
All who would conquer the ocean.
Here comes the first man of our second millennium
Who wants to fly around in the air.
What kind of man are you?
But we are going to make sure that
No one in future flies round in our air here!
I am the fogbank!
You – turn back!
LINDBERGH:
[Like the hell I will!]
What you have just said
Calls for reflection.
If you get denser, maybe I really shall
Turn back.
If there is no prospect
I’ll give up the struggle.
If it’s do or die
You can count me out of that.
As it is
I shan’t turn back yet.
FOGBANK (RADIO):
So far you feel tall, but
You don’t know you’re dealing with me.
So far you’ve seen there were waves under you
And known
Your right hand from your left. But
Just you wait another day and one more night
Till you see no waves and you can see no sky
Nor your controls, nor
Your first-class compass.
Best grow older, and you will
Realise who I am:
I am the fogbank.
LINDBERGH:
[I’m not frightened of you.]
Seven men built my machine in San Diego
Often twenty-four hours without a break
Using a few metres of steel tubing.
What they have made must do for me
They have done their work, I
Carry on with mine, I am not alone, there are
Eight of us flying here.
FOGBANK (RADIO):
At present you are barely twenty-five.
What about when you are
Twenty-five plus another night, after just one more day
You’ll be more frightened.
For tomorrow and during a thousand years, there will still be this ocean
Air and fogbanks
But you’ll not be
There to see it.
LINDBERGH:
So far it’s been day. But
The night will fall soon.
FOGBANK (RADIO):
For ten hours I have been fighting a man who
Has been flying round the air. That’s something
Has not been seen for these past thousand years. I found
No way of bringing him down
It’s up to you now, snowstorm!
LINDBERGHS:
Here you come
Snowstorm!
6
THAT NIGHT THERE CAME A SNOWSTORM
SNOWSTORM (RADIO):
For this past hour I’ve had in me a man
A man who has an aeroplane!
Sometimes he flew over me
Sometimes so close to the water!
For the past hour I’ve buffeted him
Down to the water and up to the heavens
Nowhere can he keep steady, but he
Will not be brought down.
First falling upwards
Then climbing downwards.
He is weaker than a tree by the seashore
Flimsy as a leaf off its branch, but he
Will not be brought down.
It’s hours since this wretched man glimpsed the moon
Or could see his own hand
But he will not be brought down.
I have been loading his plane with icicles
So the weight may topple it downwards
But the ice breaks off the plane and
He’ll not be brought down.
(6b)
LINDBERGH:
I can’t go on
I’m heading for the water:
Who would imagine
There were icicles up here!
Three thousand metres at one point my height was, and
Three metres down, skimming the water.
Everywhere the storm rages on
With everywhere ice and fogbanks.
Why was I so foolish as to start this?
Now I’m afraid of dying.
Now I’m being brought down.
Four days before me two other pilots
Started out flying the ocean like me
And since then the water has drowned them
And I too shall be drowned.
7
SLEEP
SLEEP (RADIO):
Sleep, Charlie
The dreadful night
Now is over. The storm’s
Blown out. Go to sleep, Charlie
The wind will bear you.
LINDBERGH:
[I must not sleep.
I’m not exhausted.]
The wind is no help to me
The water and the air are against me, and I
Am their enemy.
SLEEP (RADIO):
Only for a minute, just let your head
Droop towards the joystick. Let your eyes close for one brief instant
You’ve a wakeful hand.
LINDBERGH:
[I must not sleep.
I’m not exhausted.]
Often twenty-four hours without a break
My comrades in San Diego
Built this machine. Let me
Be no worse than them. I
Must not sleep.
; SLEEP (RADIO):
So far to go. Best have a rest
Think of the meadows of Missouri
The river, the house
Which is your homestead.
LINDBERGH:
I’m not exhausted.
[8
IDEOLOGY
LINDBERGHS:
1
Many say time is ancient
But I always knew this was a new time.
I tell you it is no accident
That for twenty years buildings have shot up like bronze mountains
People move each year expectantly to the cities.
And on the laughing continents
The word gets round that the great and awful ocean
Is a tiny puddle.
Today I am making the first flight across the Atlantic
But I am convinced: by tomorrow
You will be laughing at my flight.
2
Yet it is a battle against what is backward
And a strenuous effort to improve the planet
Like dialectical economics
Which will change the world from the bottom up.
So now
Let us battle with nature
Till we ourselves have become natural.
We and our technology are not natural as yet
We and our technology
Are backward.
The steamship competed with the sailing ship
Which had left the rowing boat far behind.
I
Am competing with the steamship
In the struggle against what is backward.
My airplane, weak and tremulous
My equipment with all its defects
Are better than their precursors, but
In flying, I
Struggle with my airplane and
With what is backward.
3
So I struggle with nature and
With myself.
Whatever I may be and whatever idiocies I believe
When I fly I am
A true atheist.
During ten thousand years, unimpeded
Where the waters grew dark in the sky
Between light and twilight, there arose
God. And in the same way
Over the mountain tops, whence the ice came
Did ignorant people, incorrigible
Glimpse God, and in the same way
In the deserts he arrived in a sandstorm and
In the cities he was produced by the disorder
Of the different classes, for there are two kinds of men, thanks to
Exploitation and ignorance; but
The revolution abolishes him. Yet
Build roads through the mountains and he disappears.
Rivers drive him out of the desert. The light
Shows up voids and
Scares him away at once.
Therefore take part
In the battle against what is backward
In the abolition of the other world and
The scaring away of any kind of god, where-
Ever he turns up.
Under more powerful microscopes
He collapses.
Improved equipment
Is driving him from the skies.
The clearing-up of our cities
The removal of poverty are
Causing him to vanish and
Chasing him back to the first millennium.
4
Thus there may still remain
In our improved cities confusion
Which comes from lack of knowledge and resembles God.
But the machines and the workers
Will battle against it, and you too
Take part in
The battle against what is backward.]
[9
WATER
LINDBERGHS:
Once more
The water’s getting closer.
NOISE OF WATER (RADIO)
LINDBERGHS:
I must
Gain height! This wind
Thrusts me down.
NOISE OF WATER (RADIO)
LINDBERGHS:
That’s better now
But what’s this? The joystick
Won’t respond. Something
Is not right. What’s that
Noise in the engine? Now
We’re losing height again.
Stop!
NOISE OF WATER (RADIO)
LINDBERGHS:
My God! That
Nearly did for us!]
10 (8)
THROUGHOUT HIS FLIGHT THE ENTIRE AMERICAN PRESS KEPT SPEAKING OF LINDBERGH’S LUCK
AMERICA (RADIO):
All America thinks
Captain Lindbergh’s flight
Across the ocean must succeed.
Despite the bad weather forecasts and
The very faulty state of his vulnerable aircraft
Everybody in the States believes
He’s going to get there.
‘Never’, declares one paper, ‘has a man
From our country seemed
Such an embodiment of our good fortune.’
When the fortunate crosses the ocean
Even the tempests hold their peace.
If the tempests cannot restrain themselves
The plane will keep going.
If the plane can’t keep going, then
The man will win through.
And suppose that he loses
Then good fortune will win.
That’s the reason why we believe
That the fortunate get there.
11(9)
THE THOUGHTS OF THE FORTUNATE
LINDBERGH speaking quickly and softly, without expression:
Two continents, two continents
Are expecting me! I
Must get there.
Whom are they expecting?
Even the man they are not expecting
Must get there!
Courage is nothing, but
Getting there is everything.
He who flies out over the sea
And is drowned, is a damned fool, for
One does drown at sea.
Therefore I must get there.
Winds are thrusting me down and
Fog stops me steering, but
I’ve got to get there.
Yes, my airplane
Is weak, and weak my head, but
Over there they are expecting me, saying
He’ll get here, and so
I must get there.
12 (10)
SO HE FLIES, WROTE THE FRENCH PRESS, WITH STORMS ABOVE HIM, SEA ALL AROUND HIM AND BENEATH HIM THE SHADE OF NUNGESSER*
EUROPE (RADIO):
Heading for our continent
Over the past twenty-four hours
Flies a man.
When he gets here
We shall see a speck in the heavens
Start to grow larger
Look like an aircraft
Execute its descent
And out of it will step down on the grass a man.
We’re sure to recognise him
From the picture they put in the magazines beforehand.
But we’re afraid he won’t
Get here. The storms
Will drown him in the salt water
His engine will go dead on him
And he will never find his destination.
That’s why we all believe
That we shall not see him.
13 (11)
LINDBERGH’S DIALOGUE WITH HIS ENGINE
ENGINE (RADIO) running.
LINDBERGH:
Now it’s not all that far. The time
Has come to pull ourselves together
We two.
ENGINE (RADIO) running.
LINDBERGH:
Have you got enough oil?
Will the gasoline see us through?
What’s your temperature?
Ho
w do you feel?
ENGINE (RADIO) running.
LINDBERGH:
Ice is no problem now.
If you were worried by the fog, that’s my affair.
Get on with your business
Keep ticking over.
ENGINE (RADIO) running.
LINDBERGH:
Let me remind you, we two were airborne even longer
Back home there in St Louis.
It is not all that far now. First there’s
Ireland, then comes Paris.
Are we going to make it?
We two?
ENGINE (RADIO) running.
14 (12)
AT LAST, NEARING SCOTLAND, LINDBERGH SIGHTS FISHING-BOATS
LINDBERGH speaks:
Those are fishing-boats
They’ll know
Where the island is.
Hey, where
Is England?
FISHERMEN (RADIO):
I heard someone shout.
Who would be shouting?
Something’s humming
In the air!
What can be humming?
LINDBERGH speaks:
Hey, where
Is England?
FISHERMEN (RADIO):
Look, there’s
Something up there flying!
That is an airplane!
But how can there be a plane?
A device composed of canvas
Tied to iron, how can that
Fly over water?
Even a fool
Wouldn’t dare go up in it
He would fall down and
Drown in the water.
Just the wind is
Sure to write it off. And where’s the man
Could stand so long a spell at its controls?
LINDBERGH speaks:
Hey, where
Is England?
FISHERMEN (RADIO):
But take a look at least!
What good is looking
When we know it can’t happen?
Now it’s flown past.
I agree that it
Can’t happen.
But all the same, it did.
15(13)
ON THE AIRFIELD AT LE BOURGET NEAR PARIS, AT 10 P.M. ON THE EVENING OF 21 MAY 1927, A VAST CROWD IS AWAITING THE AMERICAN AIRMAN
EUROPE (RADIO):
He’s coming!
In the heavens
There’s a speck
Getting bigger. It is
An airplane.
Now it’s going to land.
Out of it on the grass steps a man
And we
Recognise him: it is
Lindbergh.
The storm had no power to drown him
Nor the water
His engine kept on turning, and he
Has found his destination in us.
He really has got here.
He has found his destination in us.
16(14)
ARRIVAL OF THE AIRMAN CHARLES LINDBERGH AT LE BOURGET AIRFIELD OUTSIDE PARIS
Orchestra only.
LINDBERGH speaks:
I am Lindbergh. Please carry me
To a dark shed, so that
No one sees my
Natural weakness.
But tell my comrades in the Ryan works at San Diego
That their work was good
Our engine held out
Their work has no flaws.
Brecht Collected Plays: 3: Lindbergh's Flight; The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent; He Said Yes/He Said No; The Decision; The Mother; The Exception & the ... St Joan of the Stockyards (World Classics) Page 5