Amerika

by Paul Lally

‘And why shouldn’t it?’

  He frowned. ‘We Southerners are mighty particular about being trod upon.’

  ‘I’m Louisiana-born.’

  ‘Then your governor’s saying the same thing. Nobody’s in charge at the

  Federal level so he’s taking the bull by the horns and taking care of Louisiana first, by God, and to hell with everybody else. Same is true for us

  Floridians.’

  ‘You’re all dead wrong,’ Ava said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because even though Abe Lincoln was a damned Yankee, he had it right; united we stand, divided we fall. And this…’ She emptied her bag onto the ground. The coins sparkled and danced in the sunlight as they landed. ‘This is going to make sure we do just that.’

  While Button stared bug-eyed at the pile of coins, Ava knelt and began telling him about the Sons of Liberty while she stuffed them back into the bag. When she finished he said, ‘I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere if you want to fight back.’

  ‘We already have,’ Ava said. ‘And this gold is going to make things a lot easier.’

  As he pondered her words, the sea birds cried out at something they’d spotted in the water. The wind gusted, blowing Riley’s tousled hair. I felt like we were in some kind of tropical tableau, frozen in time.

  Ava finally said, ‘Now that you know the truth, you still going to report us?

  Button considered this. ‘I should... but I won’t.’

  Riley handed him a heavy bag of gold. ‘Then lend us a hand, partner. We need all the help we can get.’

  From the direction of Button’s private quarters a woman’s whiskey-rough voice shouted, ‘Billy, where the GUT-damned hell you run off to?’

  Riley cackled, ‘Your lady friend can help us, too, if she’s up for it.’

  Button’s face turned crimson. ‘She can’t. She’s doing research.’

  ‘Bet I know on what.’

  While the others finished stacking the gold sacks on the coaling dock, Orlando sat in the cockpit calculating the plane’s weights and balances. We had at least another thousand pounds to distribute evenly or we’d end up taxiing all the way back to Key West, which Orlando reminded me, would play hell on the engines and the airframe.

  But I figured we’d already burned up enough fuel to yank her off the water, and if things got desperate maybe I could stay in ground effect, the cushion of air between the wings and the water that’s saved many a seaplane pilot low on fuel and short on luck. We came to a cautious, uncomfortable agreement, as was often the case when engineers debate issues with pilots; they want the plane to function according to the book, pilots just want to fly.

  I got up to do a pre-flight. Orlando put out a heavy paw and shoved me back in my seat. ‘Ava said her and Riley’s daddies served in the Civil war, right?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Riley’s an old geezer. Ava’s young, maybe late twenties, tops. Her daddy would had to have been a baby back then. Babies can’t make babies.’

  ‘Agreed. Maybe she meant her grandfather.’ Orlando frowned. ‘That’s not what she said.’

  ‘She’s an actress. Maybe it was all for show.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Look, partner, let’s just fly these folks back to Key West, send them on their way to their Sons of Liberty and we’ll talk about it later, okay? We got us an airline to run.’

  ‘Do you believe the stuff about the Sons of Liberty, or is she acting that too?’

  ‘They’re for real, but is she part of it? Don’t know.’

  Rumors of ‘Sons of Liberty’ militias springing up all over the country had started immediately after the Neutrality Act went into effect. Not surprising. Americans have a habit of creating organizations at the drop of hat to serve a need. And in this case the need was for action, even if it only meant moving your jaw up and down, arguing for America to wake up and smell the coffee instead of coasting along in the netherworld of neutrality. From what Ava hinted at, her group was doing a lot more than that.

  Our loading went quickly, bucket-brigade style, with the bags being passed from Button to Riley, to Ava, to Ziggy and then to Orlando and I, who hoisted the first of them into the forward baggage compartment located in the S-38’s long nose. We were careful to spread the weight evenly and make sure the bags wouldn’t shift. We stacked the remainder on the passenger cabin floor. I did a final weights and balances and decided to play it safe and lose more fuel. We’d never get off the water otherwise. I reluctantly drained it out into five gallon jerry cans that Mr. Button gladly provided.

  ‘I never turn down free gas. I’ll use it in my generator.’

  His whiskey-voiced friend never did join us. I figured she was content to sleep off their night’s adventures. We made our goodbyes. Handshakes all around, Ziggy about to burst from excitement, Ava cool and determined. Me? I was just ready to move on.

  Riley kept my hand after we shook. He leaned closer and whispered, ‘You take care of that little lady, you hear?’

  ‘She’s a big lady, and doesn’t need anybody’s help, believe me.’

  ‘Where she’s bound, she will.’

  I nodded, but thought instead of having supper in Key West and seeing

  Abby and Rosie and telling them about my big adventure.

  ‘One more thing,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That gold? Don’t spend it all in one place.’ He cackled and bounced up and down on his heels, pleased with his little joke.

  I’ve had my share of tricky takeoffs over the years. Hot, humid days in Rio de Janeiro, full load of passengers and luggage, all four engines in the S-42 firewalled, props at full pitch, and still took forever to unstick that fat Sikorsky from the glassy-smooth water.

  Airplane designers and engineers can only do so much with lift ratios and power-to-thrust coefficients. There comes a point where the wings have enough lift to fly or they don’t. And with a thousand pounds of gold and four passengers, the wings of our puny little S-38 were doing their best to lift us up, but I had my doubts.

  I got us off twice, and each time lowered her nose to gain some airspeed but she settled back down onto the water like a tired Mallard duck. On the third attempt she rose about ten feet. I cranked in a touch of flaps which lowered my speed alarmingly, but the added wing surface ballooned us up another twenty feet. And so we went like a yo-yo; flaps down, nose down, more airspeed, flaps down, nose down, more airspeed until we achieved a positive rate-of-climb.

  I patted my big round control wheel. ‘Colonel Lindberg would be proud of you, old girl.’

  Ava heard my remark. ‘Lindberg?’

  ‘He flew this very plane on Pan Am’s first mail run to Rio back in ‘31.’

  ‘The same Lindbergh who…’‘He’s an advisor to Pan Am. He and Juan Trippe are drinking buddies –except neither one drinks.’

  ‘Ever meet him?’

  ‘Just in the newsreels.’

  We leveled off at two thousand feet. The higher we went, the thinner the air and the less happy the wings would be in keeping us up. But right now Carter Air 45 seemed to be a happy airplane, and I was too. The instruments were in the green, visibility unlimited, and I was in the air, in command, and that was enough.

  Other men want different pleasures I’m sure, and might sneer at my idea of contentment, preferring more earthly delights. You can have them, boys. Any day I can strap into a cockpit, start an engine and fly like a bird is a day in heaven for me. Feeling especially buoyed by this line of thinking, I turned to share it with Ava, who aimed a small, polished-nickel revolver straight at me.

  ‘We’re not going back to Key West, captain,’ she said calmly.

  ‘That thing real?’

  ‘Want to find out?’

  I laughed. ‘Go ahead and shoot. Who’s going to fly the - wait a second…’

  She smiled. ‘I’m multi-engine rated, remember?’

  I kept my hands on the wheel. ‘Why the Cagney bit with the gun
?’

  ‘Insurance that you’ll do what I say. And what I’m saying is that we’re flying to Lake Salvador, just south of New Orleans.’

  ‘I’ve got barely enough juice to get us home. We’ll never make it.’

  ‘We’ll refuel on the way.’

  She shifted the gun from her right hand to her left, reached inside her jacket and pulled out a slip of paper.

  ‘This is a list of airports, both land and water. Any one of them will have the gas we need.’

  ‘You had this all figured out?’

  ‘From start to finish, long before we met.’

  ‘How are you going to pay for the gas? The gold?’

  ‘That’s not your concern. Set course for Lake Salvador.’

  Something in her voice caught my attention. So I decided to take a risk and said, ‘Cut the act, sister. You’re not the type.’ While staring at her half-lidded greenish-blue eyes, I slowly reached out and pressed down the gun barrel.

  ‘Try talking to me instead.’

  She shook my hand clear and raised the gun again, her eyebrows a single scowling line. But then she smiled, shrugged and dropped the gun in her lap.

  ‘What gave me away?’

  ‘That last part sounded like you were reading from a script. ‘’Set course for Lake Salvador.’ Like you were Captain Bligh on Mutiny on the Bounty.’

  ‘I thought I sounded pretty damned good.’

  ‘Why the gun?’

  ‘I’ve got to get the gold - and you - to Lake Salvador. I knew you’d say no, so I jumped to act three and used the gun.’

  I regarded the small, toy-like pistol. ‘That’s real? Not a prop?’

  She slipped it into her purse. ‘My mother taught me how to defend myself. After five years of living with Hollywood wolves, I’m glad she did.’

  ‘Ever use it?’

  She shrugged and then shook her head. ‘Used my knee instead.’

  ‘What’s at Lake Salvador? And why me?’

  ‘Because of what happened - to your wife and child, I mean.’

  My face got hot and I heard a rushing sound in my ears that wasn’t coming from the engines.

  ‘That’s nobody’s business.’

  ‘And because of what happened to thousands of other Americans who died that same day along with Estelle and Eddie.’

  ‘How do you know their names?’

  She hesitated, lost in thought. Then her eyebrows lowered and I could see it coming a mile away, so I said, ‘Don’t go for the gun. Just tell me the truth.’

  Her full lips pressed into a thin line, then softened.

  ‘Certain people want to offer you a chance to do something about what happened to your family, and what will happen to America if we don’t take action.’

  ‘The Sons of Liberty you mean.’

  She nodded.

  ‘What if I’m not interested?’

  ‘Hear them out first.’ I thought about Estelle and Baby Eddie and Abby and the empty hole inside me cracked open again. I wanted to pour whiskey down to fill it up like I did when it first happened. But whiskey wouldn’t bring back what the Nazis had stolen from me. Maybe the gold would. But I doubted that too. Even so...

  I tapped the fuel gauges; the needles were getting low.

  ‘What airports you got on that list of yours?’

  Like an airborne tiddlywink, we made the seven hundred-mile journey in a bunch of short hops. We’d take off, fly along the west coast of Florida for a while, get low on fuel and set down again. With such a heavy payload we had no choice. The plane’s normal range was seven hundred miles, but with four passengers and a thousand pounds of gold, I could only carry half-full tanks with no reserve.

  The laws of flight are few but immutable; exchange altitude for airspeed, and vice versa. Exchange weight for range; ditto. Flight rules are not bendable, which is a relief, because you never waste time figuring how to get around them, you just obey them or else.

  We landed in Naples first, then Clearwater. From there I took a chance and leaped across the Gulf of Mexico to Apalachicola in a single hop. If we ran into engine trouble we were sunk, but if we didn’t start cutting corners it would be dark before we got to Lake Salvador, and landing a seaplane in the dark without a lighted flight path is one those rules you never break. The only one who ever did and lived to tell the tale was my mentor Captain Fatt, and I was in the right hand seat when he did it.

  I told Ava the story of how were on final approach in San Cristobal; a full load of passengers and cargo, ten o’clock at night, overcast with the ceiling about a thousand feet. Pan Am had spent tens of thousands of dollars rigging up a fancy underwater lighting system that would show pilots the outlines of the watery runway, including a flashing approach line, which was well and good when it worked.

  Tonight it worked, and a more welcome sight I couldn’t imagine after hand-flying the S-42 for the past two hours non-stop on instruments through heavy weather.

  When I spotted the landing path, I wiggled the control column, relieved to surrender the plane to Captain Fatt for landing. Pan Am policy specified that the captain made landings when weather was at issue. But this time he waved his unlit cigar at me and said, ‘Keep it kid, she’s all yours.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘What’d I just say?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  My fatigue vanished, replaced by adrenaline as I scanned the instruments, made power adjustments, called for flaps and settled down to the business of landing a four-engine seaplane like I was easing a baby down on a pillow.

  The S-42 was a handful. Her controls were stiff, reaction times sluggish, and just as I was approaching the threshold to begin my flare for landing, the path lights disappeared. I felt like I had been thrown into a black sack. I could see the distant lights of San Cristobal, but beneath a fathomless void. The water’s surface could be fifty feet away or five. Impossible to tell. I had to abort the landing, go-around and figure out what to do next.

  I started to shove the throttles to full power, but Fatt slapped my hand away.

  ‘I’ve got the aircraft.’

  To my amazement, he continued the descent, carrying just enough power to keep us above stall speed. The altimeter was no use. We were too close to the ground for it to register precisely. I held my breath, ready for the sudden slam that would signal we’d crashed into the rock-hard water. I ran the emergency drill: get the life rafts inflated, shove the passengers out and into them fast.

  ‘I know you’re there, sweetheart,’ Fatt crooned. ‘Come to daddy and give us a kiss.’

  As if in answer, I heard a singing TWANG, then another, and another as the S-42’s keel kissed the water surface. Fatt backed off the throttles and let her slowly decelerate until she finally settled safe and sound into San Cristobal Bay.

  He had literally flown her onto the water, staying just above stall speed, ever descending until, with years of experience and thousands of flying hours under his belt, he sensed the nearness of the water and made a landing as smooth as if it had been the middle of the afternoon in a dead- calm sea.

  ‘Home, Jeeves,’ Fatt said and wiggled the control column, which meant

  I had the aircraft again. As I taxied toward the landing dock, Fatt lit up his cigar, which was strictly against Pan Am regulations as laid down by Dutchman Preister. But Fatt was an old-timer who did as he pleased. Had been with Pan Am from the start, worked shoulder to shoulder with Preister and Trippe in Key West, where I had first met him as a new-hire.

  I began turning the S-42 in the wide arc that would lead us to the dock. As I did so, the water around me lit up and sparkled as the landing path lights came back on again.

  ‘Nice, very nice,’ Fatt said. ‘Just when we needed them too.’

  When I finished recounting my Captain Fatt story, Ava said, ‘He still flying?’

  My throat got thick for a second. ‘He went down with the Dixie Clipper on a test flight right after Lufthansa took over. A Boeing 314, queen of the flee
t.’

  ‘The crew?’

  ‘All hands lost without a trace somewhere fifty miles east of New York. They searched forever, but no luck. Like the China Clipper disappearing a few years back on its way to Manila; that one they’re sure think was Japanese sabotage. My guess is that the Nazis did the same thing to Captain Fatt and the clipper.’

  ‘Miss him?’

  ‘Every day.’

  We flew in silence. I tried not to think about that cigar-chomping, hell- for-leather man. The last of the breed. I was the type replacing him; cool, rational, no-nonsense professional, except for when I got pissed, or worse, pissed off; then I was more like my mentor.

  Ava said, ‘Miss flying with Pan Am?’

  ‘Miss the big birds. But as for doing it for Trippe, no thanks, not with swastikas on their tails.’

  ‘But that’s just the clippers Lufthansa uses for their transatlantic flights.’

  ‘And they use Pan Am crews to fly them, thanks to him. Traitor Trippe’ll do anything to keep that precious airline of his alive.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How?’

  A slight hesitation. ‘I read the papers. Times like this, people do the damndest things to keep going. Like you and this airline of yours.’

  I laughed at that. ‘One bloody seaplane.’

  ‘It’s a start.’

  She looked away, and then back at me. ‘You were in Buenos Aires when they bombed us.’

  The drone of the engines faded into the background.

  ‘Who the hell are you, anyhow?’

  ‘None of your business. You’d just gotten your Master Pilot’s wings. No more First Officer Carter for you, no sir. Captain Carter would be at the controls. How’d it feel? To be the boss at last?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Try.’

  Instead I remembered Estelle’s angry face, red with tears, and Baby

  Eddie crying in the crib the night I left for my first trip as captain.

  ‘Sam, you promised,’ she said. ‘Can’t you call in just this once? We’ve planned this forever.’

  Her sister had just her first baby. All along the plan had been for us to fly to D.C. and visit her and Estelle’s parents who lived there too. I glanced at the new wings pinned on my uniform chest: three small stars on them now, denoting full command.