The Orteig Prize had been funded by a Frenchman, and it was a matter of national pride that it also be claimed by a French team of flyers. Right this instant, however, Doumergue was cursing French engineers. The 1925 Renault 4 °CV carrying the president was stopped on the side of the road three miles distant from La Bourget. The driver had the hood of the car, emblazoned with the diamond-shaped Renault emblem, raised and was staring into the engine compartment. He fiddled with some wires, then returned to his spot behind the wheel and turned the engine over.
The engine fired and settled into a quiet purr. “My apologies, Monsieur,” the driver mumbled, as he placed the Renault in gear and pulled away from the curb.
Just under ten minutes later, they arrived outside the hangar.
* * *
François Coli was sipping from a glass of Merlot and nibbling on his breakfast of crusty bread smeared with runny Brie. Charles Nungesser had spurned the offer of wine for another cup of coffee rich with heavy cream and sugar. He was alternating between a chunk of bread heavy with pate and a hard-boiled egg in his left hand.
“Is the mailbag safely aboard?” he inquired of a mechanic who walked past.
“Stowed forward, as you requested,” the man noted.
Nungesser nodded. The special postcards would be post-marked after their arrival in New York and later sold as souvenirs for a handsome profit. He stared over at his navigator. Dressed in his full-leather flight suit, Coli looked like a sausage with a meaty head attached. Still, in spite of their differences, Nungesser trusted Coli’s ability completely. Coli came from a family of seafarers based in Marseilles, and navigation was in his genes. Shortly after the war, he had piloted the first nonstop flight from Paris to Casablanca across the Mediterranean. He was originally slated to make his own attempt for the Orteig Prize, but Coli’s plane had been destroyed in a crash.
For all his quiet demeanor, Coli wanted the honor as much as Nungesser.
* * *
The Renault steered past the crowds and made its way to the side of the hangar. The driver shut off the engine and climbed out, stepped back to the rear door, and opened it for Doumergue. The French president walked to the hangar’s side door, waited for the driver to open that, too, then walked inside.
Glancing to the right, nearest the overhead doors, he saw the white Levasseur. The tail of the plane was painted with a vertical stripe of blue nearest the cockpit, then an open stripe of white, then a stripe of red at the end of the tail. The colors of the French flag. Horizontally, above the stabilizer, were black block letters that read: P. LEVASSEUR TYPE 8. Just below the stabilizer was a painted anchor. The sheet metal surrounding the engine was also white and was rounded, like the end of a bullet. The nose of the plane was peppered with access panels, four round air intakes per side and a single exhaust pipe to port and starboard.
The light from the few electric lights in the hangar was dim, but Doumergue could make out Nungesser and Coli standing off to one side. He walked over and shook the men’s hands.
“This is the first I’ve seen the plane up close,” Doumergue said.
“And what do you think, Monsieur President?” Nungesser asked.
“The cockpit is farther to the rear than I thought it would be,” Doumergue admitted.
“Three aluminum fuel tanks that can carry 886 gallons are mounted just under the wings, just aft of the engines,” Coli said, grinning. “We wouldn’t want to run short of fuel before reaching New York.”
“An excellent idea,” Doumergue said.
Nungesser looked over to the French president. “Have we heard word of Chamberlin?”
“The rumors were false,” Doumergue noted. “At last report, he was still in New York.”
“Then the winds are against him and favoring us,” Coli said.
“So it would seem,” Doumergue said.
Nungesser turned and shouted to a mechanic. “Hook White Bird to a tractor and pull her onto the runway. Monsieur Coli and I have a date in New York City.”
The dozen workers in the hangar broke into cheers.
* * *
The eastern sky was paling with the first light of the coming dawn, as Nungesser and Coli climbed into White Bird and started the engine. A cacophony of noises washed across the hundreds that had gathered to watch the historic journey. Popping noises sounded as the engine belched and wheezed and then settled into a loud roar. Puffs of smoke billowed from the exhaust ports.
Nungesser engaged the propeller for a test.
A loud thumping noise came as the massive wooden blades began to beat at the air. Next, a screech, as Nungesser powered up and moved White Bird a short distance.
“Manifold pressure and temperature okay,” Nungesser shouted to Coli.
“Check,” Coli said.
“Control surfaces responding — fuel shows full.”
“Check,” said Coli.
“I say it’s a go,” Nungesser said.
“Confirm the go,” Coli shouted. “Next stop, New York City.”
Nungesser steered White Bird into an arc at the far end of the runway, then stopped and ran up the engines while holding the brake. The crowd had followed the plane downfield, and hundreds of people stood watching. Nungesser raised his arm over his head and as far out of the cockpit as he could, then waved to the crowd.
“Au revoir,” he shouted.
He pushed the throttles forward and started down the runway. It was 5:17 A.M.
* * *
André Melain watched White Bird roll past, then followed with the tractor. From his perch atop the tractor, he had a better view than most of the crowd. White Bird was gaining speed and passed the one-mile marker. Slowly, the plane inched skyward, then sagged back onto the runway. A collective sigh ran through the crowd. A hundred yards farther and the tail wheel was far off the ground. Suddenly, Melain could see under the belly of White Bird as she climbed foot by foot from the runway. A mile past the end of the runway and the plane was only seventy feet in the air. Then he saw what he was watching for — Nungesser dropped the landing gear, which fell through the dim light to the ground below.
Melain set off in the tractor to retrieve the prize.
* * *
“Coast ahead,” Nungesser shouted.
Coli marked it on a chart. “You are right on course.”
White Bird passed over the English Channel at 6:47 A.M.
* * *
Nungesser stared at the gauges. All seemed in order. He headed toward Ireland as he thought of his past. His had been a life of challenges and adventure. As a teenager, he had favored boxing, fencing, and swimming — all individual sports. As a young man, he’d found school oppressive and his desire to be outdoors almost overwhelming. At sixteen, he had quit school and convinced his parents to allow him to visit an uncle in Brazil. The uncle had resettled in Argentina, and it would be nearly five years before Nungesser found him, but in Brazil
Nungesser indulged in his love of mechanical things. He began to race motorcycles, and later automobiles, supporting himself with his increasing skills as a mechanic. He gambled, boxed for money, and lived the life of a bon vivant, but still something was lacking. He began to feel bored with his life and bound to the earth.
A few years later, he traveled to Argentina to locate his uncle. There he found the passion he had sought so long. Visiting an airfield one day, he approached a pilot who had just landed. He explained to the man that he was an accomplished automobile racer and thus felt qualified to fly — and the man laughed him off as if he were the village idiot. The man went inside, and Nungesser climbed into the cockpit, roared down the runway, and lifted off. After a short flight, he approached the runway and touched down. The owner of the plane was not so much angered as amazed.
In that instant, Nungesser became completely enamored with flying.
After a few weeks of flying lessons and a stint barnstorming in Argentina, he returned to France just as the winds of war began to howl. After a brief time in the cavalr
y, he wrangled a transfer to the air service and began a distinguished, if dangerous, career. Nungesser loved aerial combat and approached it with a passion that bordered on foolhardiness. After crashing many times, shooting down forty-five German planes and getting wounded seventeen times, he ended the war with a chest covered with medals, a plate in his head, and a silver ankle.
But after the thrill of war, his civilian life seemed sedate and ordinary.
He suffered financial setbacks and failed endeavors. After traveling to the United States, he barnstormed and starred in an early silent movie, but the fame and adoration he sought were slow in coming. All that was soon to change.
As soon as he and Coli made New York City, it would all be his.
* * *
“We should see Ireland in the next few minutes,” Coli shouted.
Coli, too, had felt the tug of flight. After switching from sea to air, he had been commander of an aircraft squadron during the war. Where Nungesser was foolhardy, Coli was persistent and methodical. As soon as he agreed to attempt the flight, he had insisted that they rigorously train and plan for the event. The men began a program of physical fitness using barbells, medicine balls, and light running. They practiced staying awake for long periods so they could better understand the effects of sleep deprivation. Their record was sixty hours. To ensure that he could keep them on course, Coli studied charts of sea and land. He checked and rechecked currents, wind patterns, and meteorological information. On test flights aboard White Bird, he noted speeds and elevations so he could better plan the route. And he studied Nungesser and his flying style. His partner on the flight seemed much more comfortable over land than water, and Coli had figured that into the plans. Once they reached North America, he would keep them over land as much as possible. Reaching into a picnic hamper, he twisted the top off a ceramic container of hot tea and poured himself a cup.
After he had finished, he poured one for Nungesser and handed it forward.
* * *
“Shoo,” the white-haired man said quietly.
Shamus McDermott sat on a rocking chair just outside the door of the net maker’s shop at the port of Castletown Bearhaven, Ireland. A few moments before, he had fed the fat, yellow tabby cat at his feet a sardine, and now the animal would not leave him alone. A lifetime of cod fishing had taken its toll on McDermott. The cold, hard work had given him arthritis, and the hand pain and phantom aches from the missing ring finger on his left hand never seemed to leave him nowadays. He would turn seventy years old this fall, and his days of working were eight years past.
These days, most of his time was spent watching and waiting.
In the mornings, he would head to the port and see the ships off. At night, he would wait for their return, then share a pint with the working fishermen. After a few tall tales and the dispensing of mostly unwanted advice, he would return to his small stone cottage to make dinner over his peat-fired stove. By 9 P. M., he would be asleep.
“That’s a strange sight,” McDermott said to himself and the cat.
Two thousand feet overhead, a stark white plane approached from the east. It continued over the town and out to sea in a relentless pursuit of some faraway location. McDermott watched it recede into the distance.
“Like a fine white arctic plover,” he noted happily.
Then he rose from the chair to walk inside the shop to notify the others.
The time was five minutes before noon.
* * *
“Reset to eleven A.M. local time,” Coli shouted at the moment the chart showed they had crossed the time line.
“Affirmative,” Nungesser said.
The Irish isle was no longer in sight. For the next thirteen hours, their only companion would be an endless expanse of open water. Coli stared at the sea below. From his vantage point thousands of feet above, he could make out small whitecaps on the ocean. The sea was breaking east. The predicted tailwinds had shifted.
“What’s she feel like?” he shouted to Nungesser.
“By the engine revolutions and indicated airspeed, I think we have about a twenty-five-knot head wind,” Nungesser said quietly.
“What happened to the predicted tailwinds?” Coli said.
“The weather is an unpredictable mistress,” Nungesser said easily.
Coli took a pencil and slide rule and calculated. On takeoff, White Bird had carried fuel sufficient for forty-four hours of flight. With the head winds, their speed would be reduced to close to eighty miles an hour. The current rate of fuel burn would leave them nearly four hundred miles short of New York City. He performed the calculations again.
* * *
“The low pressure has lifted,” the designer of Spirit of St. Louis, Don Hall, said.
“I’m planning to take off shortly,” Lindbergh said.
“No word yet on Nungesser and Coli,” Hall admitted.
“I pray they make it safely,” Lindbergh said.
“Then why fly to New York?” Hall asked.
“If they are successful,” Lindbergh said, “I can still claim the prize for the first solo flight.”
“The Ryan is gassed and ready to go,” Hall said.
“Let me just fill this thermos with milk,” Lindbergh said, “and I’ll be on my way.”
An hour later, he was high above the earth following the railroad tracks east.
* * *
The phosphorescence of the ocean and the stars overhead were their only companion. They were twenty-eight hours into the flight and an hour away from Newfoundland when the first pangs of doubt and fear crept into Nungesser’s mind. He was tired and hungry, and aching from sitting so long. The vibrations had made his arms cramp and his bottom numb, and the loud roar from the engines was giving him a splitting headache.
Coli was not faring much better. He was seated to the rear of Nungesser, farther back in the cockpit. Here there was less fresh air, and the fumes from the massive aluminum fuel tanks gathered in the fuselage. This, combined with the light rocking as White Bird made its way west, was giving him a mild case of seasickness. He opened a tin of crackers and nibbled a few.
“François,” Nungesser said, “open the flask of brandy and pour me a measure.”
“Very well,” Coli said.
He unsnapped a leather satchel and dug around in the bottom until he located the flask. After filling a tin cup, he tapped Nungesser on the shoulder and handed it forward.
“Merci,” Nungesser said, after taking a sip.
Coli stared at his pocket timer. “It’s time to switch tanks,” he noted.
Nungesser switched the brass lever. He watched as the fuel gauge reset to full.
“How long until we should see Newfoundland?” he asked.
“Within the hour,” Coli said.
* * *
Aboard Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh was approaching the western end of the Rocky Mountains. The moon was giving him some light. He could just make out strips of snow still atop the highest peaks. Climbing to thirteen thousand feet, he followed his course through New Mexico. And then the engine started to sputter. Below were jagged peaks and rocky ravines that offered little chance for a safe landing.
Lindbergh enriched the fuel mixture, and the engine smoothed some.
Most worthwhile pursuits are defined by moments of decision. He could either turn away from the string of mountains ahead and seek a safe place to land or he could press on. Lindbergh coaxed the balky engine to climb slowly. Altitude spelled safety if the engine conked out.
* * *
Two A.M. and Venus was at her zenith.
“To starboard,” Coli said, shaking Nungesser’s shoulder.
Nungesser concentrated on the water below. His head was reeling from lack of sleep and the incessant roar from the engines. It was cold at that elevation, and his nose was dripping. Wiping it with the sleeve of his flight jacket, he stared into the darkness below.
* * *
At the airfield just outside St. John’s, Newfoundland, it
was six minutes before 2 A.M. Two dozen small fires had been lit on each side of the packed-dirt runway, and every available electric light had been turned on and pointed skyward. The fires formed twin lines and the main offices a giant dot — from the sky, the display looked like a giant letter i. The manager of the airfield, Douglas McClure, stared at his watch. The French flyers were a little overdue. They might be having trouble finding land.
“Go ahead and light the fuel pits,” McClure said to several of his helpers.
Yesterday they had dug a dozen holes in the earth with a tractor, then lined them with sand. Thirty minutes ago, McClure had driven past each hole and poured the contents of five-gallon diesel fuel containers into each hole. There were now pools of standing fuel and saturated sand spaced ten feet apart. He watched by the office as one of his helpers threw a lit torch into the first pit. The fuel flared twenty feet in the air, then began to burn with clouds of black smoke.
* * *
“Flare to starboard,” Nungesser shouted happily.
Coli strained his neck to get a better view. “There’s another.”
“I see lights,” Nungesser said.
“That’s St. John’s,” Coli said. “They promised they’d light the way for us.”
“North America,” Nungesser said.
“If all continues to go well,” Coli said, “we should reach Maine around seven A.M.”
* * *
At that same instant, Charles Lindbergh was looking down on the eastern plains of Kansas. Once he had dropped past the mountains, the air had warmed some and his engine smoothed out. Deciding the problem had been carburetor icing, he made a mental note to watch for it when he crossed the Atlantic.
* * *
Ungesser and Coli were exhausted. The vibrations, the relentless roar of the engines, and the lack of sleep had reduced them to automatons. An hour earlier, they had passed over Nova Scotia, but little had been said. They were thirty-four hours into the flight and 550 miles from New York City. Far below White Bird was the Bay of Fundy. The water was being whipped into whitecaps by a stiff wind. François Coli poked his head out the side of the cockpit and stared at the wall of clouds approaching to port. The sight was not reassuring. He scrawled equations on a sheet of paper and stared at his results.
The Sea Hunters II: More True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks Page 31