by Max Hennessy
‘Yes, I know about him.’ Ira took the cigarette Boyle was holding out. ‘He’s dead. I was there when he killed himself.’
Boyle’s jaw dropped. ‘Killed himself?’
Ira nodded. ‘Burned to death. And while we’re at it, we’ve got to get a replacement for Sammy. He’s in hospital and likely to be out of action for some time.’
Chapter 3
‘Noble though its conception, this competition will inevitably drag behind its trailblazers a whole host of under-financed, under-prepared imitators, of which, unhappily, this was the first.’
The county coroner’s comment on Cluff’s death was well justified by the events, and though Ira and Sammy had come out of it well – ‘These two young aviators did all they could to dissuade the dead men from flying and, having failed, did everything in their power to save their lives when they crashed’ – it had been a high price to pay. The bereaved accusing stares directed at Ira by Dulcie Cluff showed quite clearly that she felt it should have been he who had died, and even the stiff naval condolences of Byrd – ‘We need people like Sam Shapiro to stop these people killing themselves’ – didn’t help much.
The newspaper stories had been vivid and left nothing to the imagination. With the foot-deep headlines in glaring black, it seemed that their one intention was to show how dangerous flying was, with photographs of the wreckage and tear-jerking interviews with the widow under the sombre staring words.
* * *
Ira insisted on going himself to fetch Sammy from the hospital at Newburgh where he’d left him.
Sammy was brooding and silent, his face patched with bright scorched skin. Mae Minter was with him, and had been ever since Ira had telephoned her. As they settled him in the big car Ira had hired, she was talking of removing him from Erwin’s Hotel to her own apartment so she could look after him. Sammy didn’t raise any objections and even seemed to think it had sorted out a lot of problems. He regarded his hands with a wry defeated smile, his eyes lifting to Mae’s pretty, anxious face, his expression surprisingly gentle and sad.
‘You don’t have to offer sympathy,’ he said gruffly to her. ‘Gifts of money are OK, of course, or you could mention me in your will.’
‘Shut up, Sammy,’ she said brusquely, and through her concern Ira sensed she was relieved that he was out of the race.
Sammy didn’t argue, watching her for a moment before he spoke again. His voice came harshly. ‘I ought to have had more sense than to go in like that,’ he said. ‘Cluffy never had a chance and it’d have been me, too, if Ira hadn’t yanked me out.’
As he watched Sammy hug his bandaged hands to his chest while Mae stuck a cigarette between his cracked lips and lit it for him, Ira began to feel vaguely responsible for his injuries. Though neither Alix nor Hal Woolff had uttered a word of blame, he’d known all along that Cluff’s attempt would be under-financed and under-prepared and knew he ought not to have wasted time on it. Only the pull of old friendship had taken him to Newburgh.
Sammy seemed surprisingly calm, however, despite the pain and the disappointment. For all his youth, he was very much a citizen of a harsh modern world that demanded toughness and cynicism and a ready acceptance of hard blows.
‘Well, it’s put me out of the running,’ he said. ‘Who’ll be taking my place?’
Ira shrugged. ‘Everybody we’ve tried is either under contract, not keen, or just plain scared.’
‘Bert Acosta was free.’
‘Not any more. He’s negotiating with Byrd.’
‘What about Alix?’
Ira turned and stared at him long enough for the car to wander across the road. He wrenched it back to the right and put the brakes on. Sammy was staring at him with a bland expression on his face and Mae was gazing from one to the other of them, bewildered.
‘What gives?’ she demanded.
‘What are you getting at, Sammy?’ Ira demanded slowly.
Sammy managed a painful smile. ‘She’s good,’ he said. ‘She knows her navigation, she’s flown blind and she’d like to go. What more do you want?’
* * *
The apartment seemed big and lonely without Sammy, and for a long time that evening Ira brooded on what he’d said.
There was little about the Courtney that, with his own background of engineering, he didn’t understand, and to do without Sammy simply meant that he was doing without someone who could only confirm his own fears if anything went wrong in mid-Atlantic. Alix Courtney not only knew how to fly and how to navigate but she also knew how to use instruments – something that plenty of experienced pilots admitted they knew nothing about – and, in spite of her quick temper, she had a ferociously exuberant vitality at times and was not the sort to panic in a crisis.
The idea of a woman attempting an Atlantic flight seemed a little startling at first, and he knew that plenty of people would be shocked by the idea. But plenty of women were flying now and some of them were already talking about attempts on long-distance records. In England, he knew, there were already two who were proposing to finance attempts on the Atlantic, while in America there were others who only needed the finance to set off themselves. Piloting an aeroplane over long distances required not strength but skill, intelligence, courage and determination, all of which Alix possessed in abundance. The more he thought about Sammy’s idea, the more it made sense, and whatever the coroner at Newburgh had said, they couldn’t abandon their attempt merely because of Cluff’s foolishness and the disaster it had brought on Sammy.
He was still turning over the suggestion in his mind when the doorbell rang. It was Boyle.
‘Ira!’ He sounded excited as he stepped inside the apartment and shook the rain off his coat. ‘I’ve found a guy who might be willing to take Sammy’s place.’
Despite himself, despite his doubts and his wary cynicisms, the old man had been caught up in the events surrounding the Orteig competition, and his enthusiasm was growing daily.
‘He’s an airmail pilot with plenty of flying hours,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get hold of Alix so we can work something out. Felton’s in Washington trying to raise some dough to get started again. In any case’ – Boyle shrugged – ‘it’s nothing to do with him now. Alix’s the major stockholder.’
Ira paused, Sammy’s words still ringing in his head. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked. ‘Go and find her for you?’
Boyle nodded. ‘Her telephone isn’t working,’ he said. ‘There’s a line down out Long Island way somewhere. And we’ve got to come up with something soon. The lobby’s full of newspapermen wanting to know what’s happening now that Sammy’s out.’
‘Have you told ’em anything, Mr Boyle?’
‘No.’
Ira lit a cigarette thoughtfully. ‘Go and tell ’em,’ he suggested.
‘Tell ’em what? We’ve fixed nothing.’
Ira smiled. ‘Tell ’em Sammy’s not out of the running yet,’ he said.
Boyle’s jaw dropped. ‘They’ll swallow that,’ he snorted.
‘I’m sure.’ Ira grinned. ‘But at least it’ll keep ’em busy thinking, and give me a chance to slip out without being followed. I have a feeling that this is something that’ll be best done without newspapermen around.’
As Ira left the hotel, the streets were damp and there was a never-ending stream of cars along Fifth Avenue, steel-and-glass monsters that seemed to advance, glowing with light and roaring like herded cattle, out of the distance down the glittering canyon towards him, swinging round the corners and past the traffic policemen, orderly, modern and terrifying in their numbers. The din was appalling, and the stink of engines, exhaust smoke and hot oil nauseating; the human beings, driven to the sidewalks by the machinery, seemed to flow in pale uncertain tides beneath the electric signs that jittered nervously above them.
There was a mist coming in off the Atlantic, however, and the new developments in Queens, just across the East River, looked stark and ugly in the damp. The motor road alongside the railway was em
pty of traffic and the red pumps of the new petrol stations came out of the mist like huddled sentries in front of the large signs, ‘we fix flats’.
The Long Island house was a low frame structure inside a white fence and surrounded by lilacs. It was small and built on the fashionable north shore between two huge empty holiday homes that probably cost a fortune to rent, and as Ira stopped the car, it was blanketed by the swirling grey fingers coming off the Sound.
He left the car some distance away and walked through the mist. As he reached the porch and was about to press the bell, the door opened and an elderly woman in hat and coat, just about to step out, cannoned into him.
She gave him a scared wide-eyed look in the gloom and promptly began to back away. ‘She ain’t in,’ she announced at once in a loud voice, then beyond her across the hall Ira saw a slender figure against the light.
‘Who is it, Abbie?’
‘Captain Thing. Dat guy with the name.’
The dark figure appeared in the hall and gestured from the shadows. ‘OK, Abbie, I’ll handle it. You’d better get on home.’
The old woman stared at Ira suspiciously then she edged round him, muttering under her breath, as though his strange-sounding name was a talisman she were afraid of. As she slammed the door behind her, Ira turned to face the shadows along the hall and Alix switched the light on. She was wearing a thick skirt and the familiar green jersey, and carried a coat over her arm. The smoky black eyes regarded him steadily.
‘Hello, Ira,’ she said in a whisper. ‘How’s Sammy?’ She came forward and lifted a hand to touch his forehead and singed eyebrows. ‘I guess you were both fools to go up there, but I guess what you did was brave, too.’
She stared at her feet for a moment before she lifted her eyes to his. ‘What happens now?’ she asked. ‘Who’s taking Sammy’s place?’
‘That’s what I’ve come to talk about.’
She looked tired and strained, as though her father’s affairs had exhausted her. She moved her head wearily as they went into the living room. ‘I guess I don’t really mind who you get, Ira,’ she said slowly. ‘So long as he’s sound.’
She stared at him for a moment, the black eyes unfathomable. ‘I was just going out.’ She gestured with the coat she was carrying. ‘How about coming with me? I like walking in the mist. We can talk out there.’
As she turned and began to dig into a closet for a coat, he looked round the room. It was comfortable but shabby, with pictures of horses and cars and aeroplanes on the walls, and low lights and an old radio playing classical music softly in a corner. There were also a few family photographs over the fireplace, one of Alix, one of Courtney and one of a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman he took to be her mother, Courtney’s dead wife. Then, unexpectedly, he saw his own face staring dimly out at him with Alix’s from a small frame by the window and he recognised the picture they’d had taken together on their visit to Coney Island.
She caught his eye on it and her face looked defiant.
‘I thought I threw that away,’ he said slowly.
‘I rescued it,’ she pointed out quietly. ‘It was a good picture. I liked it. It was a great night till that damned woman loused it up. She made the whole evening seem rotten.’
They were silent for a moment then she held out a man’s ulster she’d unearthed.
‘Your father’s?’ Ira asked as he put it on.
‘No.’ She looked at him with hard, unhappy eyes. ‘It belonged to my husband.’
She seemed to be waiting for him to make some comment but he remained silent as he held the door open for her. She glanced at him as they began to push through the mist between the houses towards the sea. Dim yellow lights shone through the dampness and there was a raw ocean smell coming from the Sound.
‘His name was Herb Elliot,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to explain to me,’ Ira said quickly.
‘I guess I do,’ she insisted.
‘Alix, I don’t want to know about him. He doesn’t make any difference. It’s none of my business.’
‘Like hell it isn’t,’ she said angrily, but she made no attempt to explain.
They stopped by the beach, smelling the sea and the damp loneliness of the night. She was silent for a long time, then she hunched her shoulders, thrusting her hands into her pockets and nodding towards the waves. ‘When I stare out there,’ she said, ‘I keep thinking how far it is to France and what it’ll be like in the darkness.’
‘Think you could face it?’ Ira asked casually.
For a moment she said nothing, standing motionless with her back to him, then she turned slowly to face him. ‘What did you say?’ she asked.
He grinned. ‘I said, do you think you could face it?’
‘Face what, for God’s sake?’
‘That distance and that darkness you were talking about.’ She was only a disembodied shape in the mist and her face a mere grey blur in the shadows, but he knew her expression was one of bewilderment, anger and irritation.
‘What are you getting at?’ she demanded.
‘I thought I’d made it clear.’
‘I don’t like people teasing me,’ she snapped. ‘Not even you.’
‘I’m not teasing you. I’m asking you to take Sammy’s place.’
For a long time she didn’t speak; when she did, her voice was soft and uncertain. ‘You mean that, Ira?’
‘I’ve thought it all out. You’re as good a navigator as Sammy. You’re probably as good a pilot. You’re as good on instruments and you know the plane. The only thing you can’t match him in is engines and I don’t suppose, even if you could, it would help us much in the middle of the Atlantic.’
She was silent for a long time. ‘You don’t have to take me,’ she said.
‘No,’ Ira said. ‘I don’t, and it so happens Lave Boyle’s found another pilot. I’d rather have you.’
‘Why?’ Her voice was still wary. ‘Because I’ve got the qualifications? Because I know the ship?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s some of the reason,’ he admitted. ‘But not all of it. I know I could rely on you. But I don’t think that’s all of it, either.’
Again she was silent, then she seemed at last to absorb what he was saying and turned completely round to face him.
‘Ira…’ She lit a cigarette quickly and he could see the wonderment and delight and excitement in her face in the glow of the match.
‘Ira…’ She tried again, as though she couldn’t trust herself to speak, then she snatched the cigarette from her mouth and tossed it away in a long curving arc and flung her arms round him, her cheek against his so that he could smell the faint scent of the perfume she used. ‘…Oh God, Ira, what the hell did I do before you arrived?’
* * *
Back at the house, she moved about excitedly, hardly able to contain herself. She wrenched off her coat, shaking the drops of moisture from the fur collar, then she pulled the ulster from his shoulders and tossed it down by the door. Turning towards the kitchen, she bumped into chairs in her haste and inability to contain her eagerness.
‘Open the bourbon,’ she said, ‘and I’ll show you how to make a mint julep.’ She was bewildered and ecstatic at the same time and she lit a cigarette, then snatched it from her lips and tossed it into the fireplace.
‘No,’ she announced. ‘I’ll cut ’em down. I’ve got to go into training.’
Almost immediately she lit another, caught his eye and laughed as she crushed it out. ‘Maybe in time I’ll get ’em down to a million a day,’ she said. ‘I’ll try, anyway, Ira. I’ll try.’
She pushed him into the kitchen and dragged out a stool. ‘Stay for supper,’ she begged. ‘I guess I’m no cook but I can manage a steak.’
They discussed their plans while she busied herself at the stove, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, not quite in control of her voice, throwing questions at him and answering them herself in the same breath, then they sat over the steak and eggs, with a pad of paper betwee
n them, first one and then the other writing as they talked of all the things she’d have to do.
‘Forty hours is a long time,’ Ira pointed out. ‘A lot of people will say it’s no trip for a woman.’
‘I’m not scared,’ she said quietly.
Afterwards they huddled in front of a fire of driftwood that spluttered and crackled and threw out sparks on to the hearth, maps across their knees, and discussed plans for a long time with the radio playing softly in the shadows. Then, as they laid the sheets aside, her hand touched his and she took it and held it without embarrassment, and for a while they talked in fits and starts, until it dawned on Ira that it was long past midnight. As he stirred, she turned towards him, uncertain in her drowsiness, one hand to her forehead, brushing the hair from her eyes. The rain was beating gently at the windows now.
He rose to his feet. The fire was dead in the hearth alongside them and the radio had long since stopped. She rose with him, standing in front of him while he jerked his tie straight. Beyond the window, the rain dripped from the eaves.
‘Alix…’
Drowsily, as though the action were instinctive, she lifted her arms and put them round his neck. For a moment, she clung to him like that, then she snapped to wakefulness and her head lifted and her arms dropped. She stared at him for a second in embarrassment then she frowned and turned away abruptly.
‘You need a button sewing on,’ she said sharply, touching his jacket.
He nodded. ‘I caught it on something on the Dixie,’ he said. ‘Sammy’s often said I look a bit like a rag-picker’s mate. He’s rather a snappy dresser himself.’
‘I’ll do it for you.’
She found a needle and thread and he watched her as she sewed, sitting on the floor in front of the dead fire, aware of the quick swell of tenderness in her eyes when she looked up at him as their hands touched, and the glow of her white skin; knowing well that behind that tense and prickly pride of hers there was an unexplored warmth and happiness.