by Max Hennessy
Sammy shrugged. ‘Don’t know what you’re complaining about,’ he said blandly.
Ira tossed the newspaper aside. ‘I came over here to fly an aeroplane,’ he said. ‘Not to get hitched.’
Sammy pulled a face. ‘Things don’t always work out the way you expect,’ he said.
He had hardly finished speaking when the telephone rang. It was Alix. She sounded in low spirits, as though she’d been crushed by the news of her father’s disaster and hadn’t recovered.
‘Ira, I’ve seen Lave. It’s all fixed.’
‘It’s in the paper.’
‘It is?’ She seemed surprised. ‘He says he’s fixed it so tight nobody will ever unfix it again.’
‘Thank God for that!’
‘How are we for money?’
‘Hal says all the bills are paid. What did you end up with?’
‘I ended up with a mortgage on the house on Long Island. It was the only thing I’d got left.’ Her voice wavered uncertainly and she sounded as though she were trying to stop herself crying. ‘Ira, do you think we pushed him into this when we insisted on going ahead with the Dixie?’
Ira paused. The thought had occurred to him, too. ‘No, Alix,’ he said slowly after a while. ‘I don’t. Five thousand dollars wouldn’t have made much difference. Not to selling up the Boston factory.’
‘It might have just made the difference between safety and disaster.’ Her voice fell almost to a whisper. ‘There’s one other thing, Ira,’ she went on. ‘Lave says Hughesdens are still insisting. About the instruments, I mean.’
Ira’s brows came down. ‘They can’t insist! The machine’s yours now. How can they insist?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her voice shook once more. ‘I just hope to God the weather clears and you get away.’
* * *
The machine was as ready as it could be and the most they could do was check and re-check everything. The Wright engineers were standing by in case of a break in the weather and they had contacted the petrol and oil companies and the aeronautical association officials who would have to seal the tanks and instruments and fix the barograph in the cabin. Unfortunately, the weather still stubbornly refused to change and the Weather Bureau firmly refused to accept any responsibility.
‘Not a chance,’ they insisted. ‘There’s fog around Newfoundland and no sign of clearing over the Atlantic.’
Ira left the airfield early. After the first flurry of interest by the press over Courtney’s statement they’d been left severely alone. They’d already been forgotten by a public that sought only success. No one believed that the machine had been salvaged from the ruin of the Courtney businesses. Courtney had crashed and it was already clear that everyone thought that their Atlantic machine had crashed, too. Ira was still angry when he got to the hotel and the fact that Sammy, certain of not being called for the flight, had arranged to meet Mae Minter, didn’t help his ease of mind as he found himself alone to brood on his thoughts. During the early evening, he worked over his charts again, re-checking winds and headings, with a flask of strong coffee sent up from the restaurant by his side, and he was just sitting back, staring at the coast of Ireland, trying for the hundredth time to familiarise it, when the telephone rang. It was the hall porter.
‘Captain’ – he sounded excited – ‘you heard? Nungesser’s off! He made it!’
Ira sat bolt upright. ‘In this weather?’
The porter’s voice rose. ‘Seems it’s OK in France,’ he said. ‘It was on the radio. They broke into a fight programme. He’s passed Ireland and he’s due here tomorrow.’
Ira turned in his chair to stare at the window. ‘God help him,’ he said soberly. ‘How about getting a late paper for me?’
‘I’ve got one, Captain. It’s got something about him. I’ll send it up. Hey, wait a minute’ – the porter seemed to be laughing – ‘Mr Shapiro’s just come in and he’s got one in his hand. I guess he’s heard the news too. He’s just headin’ for the elevator and, gee whiz – is – he – movin’ – fast!’
Sammy was making double-quick time. Ira had hardly put the telephone down when the door burst open and he came running in.
‘Ira,’ he yelled. ‘Nungesser’s off!’
‘I just heard from the hall porter.’
‘You did?’ For a moment, Sammy seemed disappointed, then he thrust out the newspaper he was carrying, the sheets crackling and falling apart as he tried to hold it with one hand and point to the smudged type with the other. ‘Look! “Nungesser Over The Atlantic, White Bird Due In New York Tomorrow”.’
* * *
Paris. May 8 – As the sun rose above the horizon this morning, Captains Charles Nungesser and François Coli started their heavily overloaded Levasseur biplane, the White Bird, rolling over the ground at Le Bourget aerodrome for the start of their transatlantic flight westward to New York…
Once, near Nancy on a visit to the French, Ira had been challenged by Nungesser to a mock dog-fight. He’d been older than Ira and already with his reputation made, but there had been no result because they’d been so evenly matched. Neither of them had been able to manoeuvre his machine into a killing position, and they’d finally had to drop to earth with empty tanks.
‘Monsieur Penaluna’ – Nungesser’s pronunciation of Ira’s awkward name had sent the English visitors into fits of laughter – ‘I think we had better go to the bar and see if we can’t drink each other under the table, because we shall never reach a decision this way.’
Ira drew a deep breath that was heavy with nostalgia. Now, with Coli, Nungesser was attempting something which had never been done before and it was impossible not to be impressed by his cold courage. Even to Ira, who was proposing to do it himself, the idea of flying through the anonymity of darkness, cutting themselves off deliberately from any hope of help, was chilling. Whatever prizes were at stake, they were still offering themselves as sacrifices to the future of a new form of transport which, despite the beliefs of the men involved in it, refused to budge from the realms of weekend sport. Nungesser’s faith in it was implicit in the fact that he was not only flying against the prevailing wind, a decision which had necessitated carrying extra fuel and had therefore increased his risk on take-off, but that he was also chancing, at the end of his flight, a forced landing on the inhospitable iron-bound coast of Labrador instead of in Europe where he would nowhere have been far from rescue.
Sammy’s thoughts were obviously following a similar path. ‘It’d be nice if we could go out to meet ’em as they come in,’ he said sombrely.
His words brought Ira to earth with a bump. ‘We probably couldn’t afford the petrol until we’ve got our affairs straightened out,’ he said.
Sammy looked at him shrewdly. ‘How much did you put into it, Ira?’ he asked.
Ira gave him an embarrassed grin. ‘All I’ve got,’ he said.
Sammy stared. ‘All you’ve got? Why? Because, if you hadn’t, Alix would have gone bust, too?’
Ira nodded. ‘I suppose so,’ he agreed. ‘How about you? How much did you risk?’
Sammy laughed. ‘All I’ve got,’ he said. ‘For the same reason.’
They grinned at each other. ‘Talking about girls,’ Ira said, ‘I thought you had a date.’
Sammy chuckled. ‘I did,’ he admitted. ‘But this is bigger than a date. It’s all right,’ he explained. ‘Mae understands.’
Ira gestured. ‘You ought to marry that girl, Sammy,’ he advised. ‘You’re one of God’s chosen few. And now, if we’ve got any bathtub gin left, how about having a drink to Nungesser?’
* * *
The first thing they did on waking the following morning was to telephone the Weather Bureau. ‘Not yet,’ they were told.
‘Nungesser’s off,’ Ira pointed out sharply.
‘He’s taking a chance, Captain,’ the voice at the other end of the line said patiently. ‘We’ve promised to let you know. There’s a high-pressure area moving up OK, but it’s slow.’
&nbs
p; Slamming down the telephone, Ira went for the newspaper and his heart leapt as he saw the headlines. Nungesser was already across the Atlantic, it seemed. A destroyer had sighted his great white machine off Cape Race, Newfoundland, heading towards New York.
Sammy switched on the radio and they caught the announcer in excited mid-sentence ‘…believed to have passed Nova Scotia already and to be heading for Portland, Maine. Crowds are already beginning to gather at the Battery for a good view of the French fliers when they put down in New York harbour…’
Sammy stared at Ira, his eyes alight. ‘By God, Ira,’ he said. ‘I’m glad somebody did it, even if it wasn’t us!’
* * *
No work was done anywhere that day, as the whole of New York waited for the arrival of the Frenchmen. Blond, good-looking, fantastically brave in the finest French tradition, Nungesser’s headlong spirit appealed to the American nation. He had been the darling of Paris society when he’d been invited to the States by the Aero Club of America, and he’d taken advantage of the visit to get himself engaged to a New York heiress before he’d left for home. The fact that the marriage had ended in divorce had never caused any cooling-off of affection.
The two aviators – Coli, with a patch over a destroyed eye, Nungesser with his scars and the platinum plates his wounds had necessitated in jaw, knee and foot – had a stature that was heroic. Not only the French nation’s hopes rode with them in their big white biplane, but also the hopes of the Americans who were generously unpartisan about the result.
On every street corner, men and women were studying the headlines, and all over Curtiss Field, officials, pilots, mechanics, petrol-truck drivers and chauffeurs were crowding round radios to listen to the news flashes. The weather had not come up to expectations and the high-pressure area that had been expected to help Nungesser had not yet materialised. In the end, fighting the sleet and the headwinds all the way with the Frenchmen, Ira borrowed a radio which Woolff set up in the office in the hangar, trailing a wire through the window and over a nail outside to make an aerial, and they all stopped work every time a programme was interrupted for an announcement.
First the white machine was reported at Portland, and then over Boston, and Woolff grinned.
‘They’re making good time,’ he said.
During the morning, with Sammy out trying to find the latest newspaper, Boyle arrived with a shaken Courtney, bringing a folder of papers to sign. Courtney looked exhausted and grey-faced and, as he hooked forward a chair with one foot and sat down, Ira had the strange impression that it was a different man inside Courtney’s skin, doing all the things Courtney did, looking like Courtney, but still someone else, someone who was curiously flat and diminished and like an old photograph of himself.
‘I’m glad it’s over, Ira.’ His booming voice sounded oddly cracked. ‘I’m only sorry it took so long because it looks as though it’s probably too late now. Nungesser’s almost here and you’re landed with a plane that’s broken no records. Just a plane.’
Ira shrugged. ‘She’s a good one,’ he said.
Courtney moved his shoulders wearily. ‘I didn’t expect this, Ira, when I brought you over here,’ he said. ‘God knows I never expected this. I thought the Dixie would pull me out of trouble, but it came up on me too fast.’
‘Forget it, Felton,’ Ira said.
Courtney seemed in the mood to unburden himself. He appeared to feel weighed down with guilt and needing to explain. ‘They were pushing me, Ira,’ he said. ‘I’d got myself in a hopeless mess. Hughesdens have cleared all my business debts and squared me away with enough to live on, but I guess the field and the house at Medway’ll have to go.’ He looked at Hal. ‘It’s a lousy way to tell a guy he’s out of a job.’
Woolff managed a smile. ‘I don’t need a job, Mr Courtney,’ he said. ‘Not now. I own part of an aeroplane. A good one, too. We’ve only to get her across and we’re all in the money. Even if we’re not first.’ He looked puzzled and worried for a moment, then went on quickly: ‘Hughesdens can’t really insist on us using their damn pump, can they?’
Courtney went red and slammed his hand down on the desk. ‘No, by God, they can’t!’ he said. ‘Sure as hell they can’t! I let ’em try in the hope they’d hold off a while longer but when you said “No”, they pulled the plug on me. But there’s no contract that I ever signed with them that allows them to put their damned instruments on the Dixie. None at all!’ He gestured angrily. ‘I wish to God I’d never gone in for this stupid competition,’ he said bitterly. ‘I might have raised the dough to square Hughesdens and the bank then.’
Boyle’s heavy head lifted. ‘Forget it, Felton,’ he growled in his old cracked voice. ‘Stop kidding yourself. The house and the airfield and everything you have down at Medway wouldn’t have settled your debts. The house’s a white elephant and the airfield consists of a strip of land that no one wants – not even for building – a few sheds that are falling apart, and a few planers, sanders and sewing machines. A few thousand dollars altogether.’
‘The Dixie would have saved us,’ Courtney insisted.
Boyle wasn’t impressed. ‘Until she’s flown the Atlantic,’ he said, ‘the Dixie’s nothing but a few steel tubes and a roll of canvas fitted to some other guy’s motor. Twenty thousand dollars’ worth. You needed more than that, Felton.’
Courtney stared at him and, as he rose to his feet angrily, his chair fell over backwards. Woolff moved forward to pick it up but Courtney brushed blindly past him so that the chair went down again and Woolff staggered. As he vanished, Woolff shook his head.
‘He sure isn’t the man he used to be,’ he said.
Boyle shrugged. ‘I wonder if he ever was,’ he said slowly. ‘He could build cars but he sure as hell couldn’t carry corn. When he made any dough he always spent it instead of putting it back in the outfit.’
‘He’ll come back,’ Woolff said loyally.
Boyle shook his head. ‘Not him,’ he said. ‘He’s in the tumbril. He’s finished. He’s tired. He’s worn out. There’s nothing left. He’s been carrying too much for too long. That’s why, when it fell apart, it fell apart quickly.’ He shrugged. ‘At least they didn’t get the Dixie. There’s no chance of that now.’
‘And no chance of Hughesdens insisting on our using their instruments?’ Ira asked.
Boyle was pulling papers from his attaché case and he looked up slowly. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he said.
‘You mean they can?’ Woolff asked.
Boyle tossed the papers to the desk. ‘I don’t know whether they can,’ he said. ‘Felton says they can’t – you heard him – but they’re talking mighty damn big! They think they’d make big profits if you pulled this thing off.’
Ira turned away angrily. ‘With a Hughesden pump, we might not pull it off,’ he said.
Boyle grinned. ‘There’s one thing,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘If the weather breaks and you go, they sure as hell can’t bring you back.’
‘Mr Boyle!’ Ira smiled. ‘A lot of the point’s gone out of that now. The Dixie would be just another plane that made it. I wouldn’t be the first. Nungesser’s across already.’
The old man looked up, then he bent over his paper again quickly. ‘You’d still make a profit,’ he said shortly. ‘Even if not a big one. Now let’s get down to signing these papers. Where’s Shapiro? He jumps about like a flea on a dog’s back.’
Even as he spoke, they saw Sammy running across the hangar, flourishing a newspaper.
‘Nungesser’s been seen!’ he was shouting. ‘Over the mainland! Over Portland and heading for Boston! It’s definite! They’ll be here this afternoon!’
It was a feat worth getting excited about and Ira’s anger evaporated at once. There was no feeling of envy or frustration in him, no feeling of disappointment that they’d been beaten, only the same high sense of elation that was felt everywhere on Curtiss Field.
‘I’m glad they’ve done it,’
he said sincerely. ‘If only to shove out the noses of all those people who said it couldn’t be done.’ He turned to the charts of the Atlantic, measuring distances with the span of his hand and working out speeds and times in his head, then he paused and frowned. He looked round at Sammy, suddenly concerned, and saw Boyle’s tired eyes on him, dubious and sceptical.
‘Sammy,’ he said slowly. ‘It seems early. I wonder if these reports are genuine.’
‘They must be,’ Sammy said enthusiastically, tossing the newspaper at him. ‘It’s there in print, isn’t it?’
Ira tossed the newspaper back at him. ‘Sammy, they say I’m “romantically linked” with Alix.’
Sammy’s expression changed. ‘You think it might not be true?’
Ira gazed at the sky through the window. ‘The Weather Bureau says there are headwinds and fog round Newfoundland,’ he pointed out. ‘And their high’s vanished.’ He shrugged, putting the uneasy thoughts from his mind. ‘Perhaps it’s just that Nungesser’s faster than anybody thought,’ he ended.
Sammy grinned again, his doubt dispersed. ‘Clarence Chamberlin says he’s going out to escort ’em in,’ he said. ‘He says the city’s preparing the biggest welcome there’s ever been.’
* * *
As the day wore on, the headlines grew more excited. Nungesser had been seen over Maine and Newburgh and was finally said to have appeared low over Boston, just to the north of New York.
Down at the Battery and along the piers down the Hudson and East Rivers, the crowds were gathering. Fire-float crews were standing by and the coastguard cutters by the Staten Island Ferry were manned to pick up the two airmen and tow their machine to safety when they landed. But as evening approached, no further reports came in. Nungesser had not yet reached Rhode Island or Connecticut, and now, it seemed, the report that he’d been seen over Boston had turned out to be false.