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.
“We are still nearly six hundred miles from New York,” he shouted. “How’s the fuel holding up?”
“I estimate six more hours of flight time,” Nungesser stated. “The head winds have changed and are now blowing north to south.”
“Then we have just enough to make it,” Coli said, “if nothing happens.”
“Then I should stay the course of forty-five degrees latitude?” Nungesser asked.
“Affirmative,” Coli said. “We’ll enter the Unit
ed States just north of Perry, Maine.”
Nungesser stared at the wall of clouds only minutes away. “What then?”
“Once we enter the cloud bank, I’ll be unable to take a fix,” Coli said. “Our only chance will be to follow the coastline until the clouds break or we reach New York.”
“So we pray the winds push us south before we run out of fuel,” Nungesser said.
“That’s the idea,” Coli said wearily.
ANSON BERRY WAS in a small wooden rowboat on the south end of Round Lake, a dozen miles north of Machias, Maine. Berry was part owner of an icehouse. The coming months were, of course, his busy season, but his passion for fishing had got the best of him today. He had left work in early afternoon. After catching a few fat pickerel for tonight’s meal, he was due to spend the night at his camp on the shores of the lake. Casting a plug fifty feet away, he slowly reeled it back.
FIVE HUNDRED MILES from fame—five miles from infamy. White Bird was flying through a spring storm. On the ground, the storm was wind-whipped rain; at two thousand feet, it was a freezing hell. Hail and sleet pelted the small curved windshield to the front of the cockpit, and Nungesser’s goggles were fogged.
At just that instant, a bolt of lightning shot up and passed through White Bird.
Coli stared forward to the radium-coated instrument needles. The shock had shorted out the instrument panel, and the needles lay useless on the left side. Then the Lorraine-Dietrich started to sputter. They were above Gardner Lake, Maine. Nungesser twisted the knob to enrich the fuel mixture, and the engine smoothed some.
“We’re flying blind,” he shouted.
“What do you want to do, Captain?” Coli asked.
It was the first time in the entire flight that Coli had called Nungesser by rank.
“I’ll try to remain over water,” Nungesser shouted. “If the engine quits we can attempt a water landing.”
“Otherwise?” Coli asked.
“Otherwise we keep pushing on,” Nungesser said. “There is nothing else.”
BERRY WAS SWATTING at a black fly at the same second his bobber was pulled under the water. Yanking the rod up in the air, he set the hook. Passing the rod to his left hand, he led the fish around the stem of the rowboat.
“Gotcha,” he said.
INSIDE THE BULLET-SHAPED housing protecting the Lorraine-Dietrich engine of White Bird, all was not well. The sleet being sucked into the air intake had iced the carburetor slide. Condensation in the low fuel tanks was magnifying the problem. The engine sputtered and popped as more of the chilled fuel was introduced. With the uneven running failing to burn off all the fuel, the engine began to flood.
“The engine is icing,” Nungesser shouted. “I’m going to take her down and see if we can find some warm air.”
BERRY FOUGHT THE pickerel to exhaustion and then slowly reeled in his catch. When the plump silver fish was alongside the rowboat, Berry glanced down into the water. The fish was sucking in water past her gills and flicking her tail in an attempt to find freedom. Reaching into the water, Berry grabbed the fish behind the gills and hoisted her into the boat. Removing the hook with a pair of pliers, he set the fish on the floor of the boat and held her back. Taking a wooden fish club in his other hand, he swung the club at a spot just behind the eyes. There was a loud thump, then the fish quit twitching.
Thump, thump, thump.
Berry stared at the fish.
Pop, pop, pop.
“Damn,” Berry said aloud, “it’s coming from above.”
Squinting through the mist, he scanned the sky for the source of the noise.
“WE MUST MAKE a decision,” Nungesser said. “To the south the clouds seem thicker, but looking north and east I can see light.”
“Without the airspeed indicator,” Coli said, “it’s difficult to calculate fuel burn.”
“We fought the good fight,” Nungesser said, “but I believe the Orteig Prize is going to elude us this trip.”
“If we continue on for New York, we will arrive on fumes,” Coli said.
“But the Paris-to-Quebec prize is within reach,” Nungesser noted.
“Quebec is only two hundred miles away,” Coli said easily. “We could make it with two hours of fuel remaining.”
“Then it is decided,” Nungesser said. “We make Quebec today, refuel, and make New York tomorrow. As soon as the weather cooperates, we fly home west to east.”
“Not quite as we’d planned,” Coli said, “but whatever is.”
“I’ll make the turn,” Nungesser said wearily.
If all went as planned, they could still beat Chamberlin and Lindbergh across the pond. And they would make the return flight with the benefit of experience. The Frenchmen were not giving up—at least not yet.
ANSON BERRY STARED up at the clouds. The noise was closer now and becoming more defined. What had first sounded like a faraway locomotive now sounded like a logging truck in the air. Berry now knew it was a plane, a rarity in these parts, but where was it? The sound was coming from the south and growing in volume. He craned his neck around. For a second, he saw a flash of white. Then only clouds once again. He followed the sound as it passed over the lake from south to north. The sound diminished, then he heard it sputter, then go quiet.
“MERDE,” NUNGESSER SHOUTED.
Though Nungesser had no way of knowing it, the slide in the carburetor had frozen open. Raw fuel had poured into the float bowl and was choking the engine. Inside each of the twelve cylinders, the spark plugs were becoming wet. A strong spark might have helped matters, but the lightning strike had weakened the alternator and wreaked havoc with the voltage regulator. Just then the engine fired up and raced.
“Buy us as much altitude as you can, Captain,” Coli shouted. “I’ll seek out a lake for landing.”
Nungesser pushed the throttles forward. White Bird clawed at the air.
ANSON BERRY WAITED until the plane was out of earshot, then resumed his fishing. Two more pickerel and he would call it a day. He had an hour, maybe two, of light, and he wanted to be inside his cabin with dinner on the table before night fell.
THE ENGINE SPUTTERED and died once again. The clouds were thinning, and Nungesser knew there were clear skies only a few hundred feet above. White Bird continued to climb, powered only by the force from the last burst of speed until she exhausted her forward momentum. For a brief second, Nungesser could see the bank of clouds from above. To his left there was a hole in the layer, and he glimpsed the blue-green hue of water. Flaring his propellers, he pitched White Bird over in a dive.
“Hold on, François,” he shouted.
Mountains and bogs and wilderness below. White Bird floated down, slow at first, then gaining in speed. The landing angle was all wrong. Instead of a gradual descent, White Bird was plunging down like an albino fish hawk after prey.
Nungesser jammed an unlit cigar into his mouth and clenched his teeth as they fell downward, just on the edge of control. Coli knew it was bad—in the last hour his emotions had gone from exhaustion to disappointment to euphoria to acceptance. He was no longer mourning the end of his dreams but praying instead that he might somehow live. The hell with New York City or even Quebec—just to land safely once again would be enough. He removed a rosary from his leather flight bag and clutched it in his hand. Nungesser struggled with the yoke to pull White Bird from the steep dive, but the controls were sluggish and his arms weak from the long hours without sleep. White Bird slowly began to flare out of the dive. Nungesser could see the water below.
“François,” he shouted, “we’re going to make it.”
A moose stood in water up to his belly. He was chewing a mouthful of plants. A shadow passed over his head, followed a second later by White Bird. The sound of the wind whipping against the fabric wings less than twenty feet overhead spooked the beast. He beat a hasty retreat out of the water toward shore. Nungesser had managed to level out the plane, but he had no way to slow the forward movement. He slowly lowered the plane
down to water level. White Bird was now ten feet above the water. He stared forward out of the cockpit.
The lake ended less than two hundred yards ahead. A rocky ridge rising eight hundred feet in the air lined the shore. If the engine would fire one last time, he might be able to force the plane into a 180-degree turn. He tried the starter, but the engine was dead. Nungesser pushed the yoke all the way down. They would not have a soft landing.
White Bird struck hard.
The bottom of the stationary propeller cut into the lower fuselage. The top broke off and shot rearward like a razor-sharp boomerang. It severed the top of Nungesser’s head just above the eyebrow.
The brain matter splattered Coli, who screamed in horror. White Bird continued forward on momentum, the ripped lower fuselage dragging while the left wing dipped over and struck a rock. White Bird spun counterclockwise as the wing was ripped off the side. Coli fell out and was hit in the chest by the horizontal tail wing. It crushed his ribs and broke his back. He was alive when he slipped from the wreckage, but he had no feeling in his arms and legs.
And then it was quiet, save for a small fire that the rain quickly extinguished.
II
Clive Cussler; Craig Dirgo Page 32