by Dan Hampton
This singled-minded purpose changed everything.
Thirty-three cadets, including Slim, beat the 50 percent attrition rate and continued on to the Advanced Flying School, across town at Kelly Field. The margin of error in using a high-performance aircraft for fighting other aircraft was infinitesimal compared to barnstorming, and he reveled in the precise discipline of military flying. Remembering that year, he would recall, “The Army schools taught me what I had never learned before . . . how to study, even subjects in which I had no interest.” Slim constantly carried a dictionary to expand his vocabulary while tightening up his grammar, and especially his writing.
It was a year mixed with sorrow, however, as his sixty-five-year-old father passed away in March, 1924. The elder Lindbergh never managed to reverse his fortunes and lost a final bid for a Senate seat. Tragically, he was then diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and passed away quietly in his sleep. Nevertheless, on March 14, 1925, a day short of one year since his arrival, Charles Lindbergh and eighteen other survivors were awarded their wings, then commissioned as Army Air Service Reserve lieutenants. Slim had finished second academically with a 93.36 grade point average, but due to his flying skills and instructor evaluations he passed out first in his class overall.
Unfortunately this made little difference, because the Army Air Service was so small that new pilots were barely needed. Reservists like Slim thus had to find other work. That, he reflected, was how he found himself back in St. Louis flying the mail, and it was during one of those flights he had begun planning this very trip.
SOMETHING CATCHES HIS eye again and Slim leans forward, peering past the struts at the ocean below. A second sign of life! A gull, wheeling low over the waves. And another. He hunches over the stick, staring at the big gray birds. If he can see them from this distance he figures their wingspan must be four to five feet. They float, pirouette, and dive magnificently. They are really children of ocean and air, Slim muses, while I am an intruder where I don’t belong. Gulls fly by nature, by God’s design; I stay aloft by man’s witchcraft. He wonders how long gulls fly, because these must be terribly far from land. If Spirit is at least three hours from Ireland then these birds are 300 miles away. Unless . . . unless he’s too far south and has drifted into the shipping lanes. Gulls follow boats—he knows that—so this is a definite possibility. The ocean looks different as well: flatter, less windswept, and much bluer.* Well, he decides, in three hours, if I haven’t sighted land, I’ll turn thirty degrees to the north.
Looking northeast from his left window, Slim notices that darker patches of gray dot a horizon already fuzzy with mist. Now that is a faint worry. More storms, probably. If so, how far do they extend? Hopefully not a thousand miles like the last one. Lindbergh is more concerned about fog when making landfall in Europe, because without seeing the ground he can’t be sure where he is.
Airmail pilots used all sorts of tricks to land in the fog, including following cracks on the surface of an icy river, or trailing car lights along a road at night. Slim frequently dropped a parachute flare through fog and used the vague light to land on some pasture, hoping for the best. One foggy twilight near Springfield, Illinois, he’d used a “beacon,” a hundred-watt light that a farm boy rigged in his yard, in order to land. “Your mail planes fly over my house every day,” the boy had written to them, “so I have fixed up an electric light in our yard. Maybe it will help you when the weather is bad this winter. I will keep it lit every night.”
Thank goodness he had, Slim recalled. But there would be no farm boys with beacons along the Irish coast waiting to help him. If he could see the ground, then it was possible to compare coastlines or cities to the contours on his map. The greatest test of my navigation will come if I make a landfall in darkness, he knows, when hills merge into valleys and railroad intersections are impossible to see. If the Spirit is too far north, but he can find his way to Dublin, then Slim is sure he can locate London and from there, Paris. But if he strayed south and missed Ireland altogether, well . . .
Putting it all out of his head, Lindbergh tries to relax, but his muscles are now at that miserable stage when no position is comfortable. In a way he’s glad because shifting every few seconds makes it impossible to fall asleep. To be drowsy and craving sleep, yet physically unable to let go—is there anything worse than that? The instruments are mesmerizing: too constant and too man-made, with perfect circles, precise lines, and straight needles. The variety of waves and clouds is better, and Slim forces himself to look outside again.
For a long moment he sits perfectly still.
Blinking, Slim struggles to process what he sees, but after so many desolate hours it refuses to register. There, several miles away off the right wing: a bobbing dark speck on the waves. Lindbergh squeezes his dry eyes shut, wincing as red-orange lights explode across the inside of his lids. Slowly he opens them, focusing again on the same spot of ocean, and his eyes widen.
A boat.
A small boat! Several small boats, in fact. Suddenly Slim’s weariness, his aches, all fall away like leaves in a gust of wind. Almost involuntarily his right wrist and foot move together, bringing the Spirit southeast toward the little vessels. The ocean is no longer a dangerous wilderness and Slim is exuberant. I feel as secure as though I were circling Lambert Field back home. Nosing over, he brings the throttle back slightly, pushes the mixture to RICH, and stares down at a changed world. He’s not alone. These aren’t porpoises or gulls, these are men! Men like him, who breathe and see and talk.
He’s a mile away from the boats now, close enough to see masts and a cabin. They are real. They must be real. Leveling off at 50 feet, Slim banks up, kicks the bottom rudder, and skids the plane sideways for a better view. These aren’t lake boats or day sailors, these are fishermen. The nearest craft is some sort of yawl, no doubt, about thirty feet long. Far too small to be hundreds of miles out to sea . . . so where is he? The coast, the European coast, can’t be far away! But which coast Scottish, or Irish, or . . . even French? He could be anywhere from the northern Scottish Isles to the Bay of Biscay. But these are men, and after fifteen hours of solitude over a dangerous ocean that’s all that matters.
Rolling out, Lindbergh heads to the next fishing smack and circles. Again there is no one visible on the deck, and he wonders if the noise has frightened them. After all, who would expect an aircraft to just drop in from the sky so far out to sea? As he leans from the window, a blast of thick, salty air ruffles Slim’s hair and he squints at the boat. Suddenly a dark ball appears from the cabin porthole. Not a ball, a head. It turns and a very pale face peers up at the plane. Stick forward . . . throttle back . . . left wing down.
Slim leans far out of the window and shouts excitedly, “WHICH WAY IS IRELAND?”
No response.
Flying solely by feel for a few seconds, he is fixated on the boat until his instincts kick in. So low, so close to the water, and in the excitement of the moment he’s suddenly in a very dangerous situation. Water fills his vision, the horizon disappears, and Slim instantly shoves the throttle forward while bringing the stick back to his lap. Spirit pitches like an angry horse, and as he rolls out, power throbs through his boot heels as the plane claws upwards to safety. The nose is up too far. Spirit could stall. It’s the distraction, the novelty of actually seeing other humans. He’s forgotten the most basic rule in aviation: fly the aircraft.
Releasing pressure on the stick, Slim lets the nose drop, and the down wing falls to the horizon. Roaring fills his ears as the Whirlwind’s powerful cylinders breathe, combust, and expel at full throttle. Rolling out, heart thumping, Slim stares at the airspeed indicator to the right of the stick, relieved to see the needle swinging up as the Spirit surges ahead to normal flying speed. That particular shot of adrenaline shattered all vestiges of sleep, and he’s fully alert now. This is the third circle he’s made around the boat and still the face hasn’t moved.
It looks like a severed head in that porthole, as though
a guillotine had dropped behind it. Why don’t they pay attention to my circling and shouting? Lindbergh guns the motor but it makes no difference. He wants to remain close, to see more men or at least get a warmer welcome than this, but it’s not possible. Rolling out a hundred feet above the waves, Slim glances at the Mercator chart and sets 120 degrees for a new course. He’ll hold this for a few more hours, then correct north if there’s no land. But what about that? Thirty-foot smacks don’t anchor in the middle of the ocean, so land must be close. It must be!
But how is that possible unless gale-force winds blew him much, much farther eastward during the night? He gazes northward to the darkening horizon. Well, only time will tell. And the time is . . . 10:52 in the morning along Fifth Avenue, according to his clock. He’s certainly passed the 20-degree West line of longitude, so regardless of Spirit’s distance from the coast he’s four hours later than in New York, so it must be nearly 3 P.M. here. Rain squalls sweep across on all sides, random gray curtains that drum onto the wings and wreath his propeller with mist. The struts gleam. Looking northeast from his left window, Slim notes that the horizon has darkened ominously with low clouds.
Or maybe fog.
Or . . .
Slim’s eyebrows slowly knit together. Incredulous, he hunches forward, gaping from the window. Can it possibly be land? He blinks, looks away, and carefully stares again to his left. Pillars of rain to the north and south perfectly frame a hard coastline, not fifteen miles away. Flat and purple below with a jagged blue-green band of hills above. Lindbergh is instantly relieved, confused, and relieved again. It is definitely land, but where? St. John’s is just sixteen hours behind him and if he’s averaged 100 miles per hour then Spirit ought to be—must be—300 miles from Ireland. What land is within 1,700 miles of Newfoundland? Iceland . . . but surely it would be much colder that far north. No, that just isn’t possible. The Azores? No, those are about 1,600 miles southeast of Newfoundland, but he can’t be that far off course.
Ireland?
But . . . but he’d figured at least eighteen hours to reach Ireland, so if that’s where he is then Spirit is three hours ahead of schedule. He wonders if it could be a mirage, like the “land” he saw earlier. Well, there’s an easy way to find out. His other islands disappeared when he got close, so Slim banks up to the left, angling toward the “coast” and staring hard. It doesn’t vanish. In fact, details grow sharper. Adding power he begins a gentle climb while looking down the left wing.
It is definitely real.
Slim’s excitement mounts. Awake and fully alert he levels the Spirit off at 2,000 feet heading southeast parallel to the coast. Islands, true islands, jut up from the sea like green, broken teeth weathered by centuries of wind, rain, and sea.* He can see at least three of them guarding the entrance to a bay that is so long it looks like a fjord. Wedging the stick in the crook of his right elbow to hold it steady, Slim crouches forward and spreads the Mercator chart across his lap. Assuming this is Ireland, what contours on his map match what he can see?
Galway.
Galway is a huge bay with some outlying islands. No . . . his tired eyes and the engine vibrations make the map fuzzy. But the Aran Islands, they lie smack in the middle of that bay on his chart, and there are none here like those. Craning his neck left then right, Lindbergh can see a big island on the south side of the bay hugging the coast. Mostly flat, with startling blue waves breaking against charcoal-colored cliffs. Gray granite covers the worn, inland hills like old frosting on a cake. By walking the rudder pedals, Slim manages to hold the plane steady while his eyes flicker over the chart. Studying his chart again, he sees that the River Shannon estuary is too narrow, and Loop Head, near its mouth, is sharper than this spit of land. It also doesn’t fit Bantry Bay, or Cape Clear far to the south of Ireland.
Well, what’s in the middle?
Stick back in his right hand, Slim begins a slow, shallow circle over the funnel-shaped opening. There are small farms inland, and crooked lines of chalk-colored fences. Kenmare Bay has islands at its mouth, he sees on the chart, and a curved bite mark along its southern shore just like this one. He takes a mental picture of it before peering outside again. No, this island is much bigger. Holding the chart flat with his left hand, Slim squints at the next series of contours. A long, tapering bay with scattered islands at its mouth to the north, a curving bite mark on the south shore that’s practically filled with a much larger island. Yes, there’s a place on the chart where it all fits . . . lines of ink on lines of shore.
Dingle Bay and the island of Valencia.*
It all fits.
But it can’t be southern Ireland.
But it is.
I CAN HARDLY believe it’s true. Lindbergh is astounded. Three thousand miles and twenty-seven hours of flying, and his landfall in Europe is just 25 miles north of the planned route! All of those long hours bent over a drafting table in San Diego plotting this out, and to hit it so close. After all the wild compass swings from the storm and his deviations during the night, and of course, the wind. How powerful had the wind been to blow him here, over southern Ireland, hours early? The fishing boats he’d seen made perfect sense now; they weren’t hundreds of miles from home, more like twenty. They may have even been from the port Spirit is now circling.
Tugging the throttle back, Lindbergh drops the nose, kicks the left rudder, and spirals down over the little town. There are boats, of course, and wagons on the road, and—people. Townspeople are running out in the streets and waving. With joy and relief bubbling up from his chest, Slim levels off at a hundred feet, stretches as far from the window as he can, and waves back. I’ve never seen such beauty before, he grins from ear to ear, here’s a human welcome! Stone forms the jetty and the houses are painted in reds and yellows, like St. John’s.* Is it the bleakness of towns like that in winter that feeds the love of color, or maybe the inhabitants just want a break from all the green?
And Ireland is green.
All shades and variations of it can be seen with a single sweep of the eyes. A sage ring surrounds the blue waters of the bay, though beyond the foothills darken to jade as they rise. Fields cover the upper slopes like dragon scales, their mints and emeralds laced with gray stone fences. Colors fade at the top into a dull olive fringe that hangs from the crown of each hill.
During my entire life I’ve accepted these gifts of God to man and not known what was mine until this moment, Slim muses. He is relaxed and reflective after crossing the ocean, and why not? I know how the dead would feel to live again. Beginning his third circle, Slim spreads his map out. It had once seemed an enemy, presenting an endless number of segments to conquer, challenges yet to be met. Not anymore. Now it’s a lifeline.
Continuing southeast he figures to cross counties Kerry and Cork, then fly across the St. George’s Channel to Plymouth, England. That’s about 300 miles from Dingle Bay, and then another 300 to Le Bourget. Only six more segments to fly, only six hundred miles to Paris. Slim is so excited he can barely sit still. It’s just after 3 P.M., so most of the next six hours will be done this afternoon, and then the long summer twilight ought to get him close. With any luck, Spirit should touch down a little after 10 P.M., Paris time. Six hours is a shorter flight than most of the airmail runs he’d made, and all the big water is behind him now. After Plymouth there is only the English Channel . . . about 80 miles between Start Point Lighthouse and Cape La Hague on France’s Cherbourg Peninsula.
The wicker seat doesn’t seem so hard anymore and minor compass deviations have lost the grave importance they had carried over sea. The Whirlwind’s throbbing is comforting now, and every variation in sound doesn’t send him upright, eyes fastened to the tachometer. Slim is grinning and cheerful now; there is nothing like absolutely knowing your position and being certain of what lies ahead. Now if only the weather will hold. The smile freezes, then slides off his face.
There is no coast ahead!
All the excitement, all of his hope, drains straight down
through his boots. Slim’s cheeks sag and his eyes widen in shock. Another mirage . . . another cruel trick of nature. It’s not possible. His mind reels and the muscles in his back knit together tightly. Have I lost ability to distinguish fact from fancy? Is this perfect landfall also an illusion?
Or a nightmare?
He blinks, shakes his head, and slowly focuses on the curtains of rain breaking up the desolate horizon far beyond Spirit’s propeller.
There is nothing ahead but open ocean.
NINE
DREAMS
HE COULD NOT have imagined it.
Cliffs, beaches, and people waving. It just wasn’t possible. But what about the misty islands and the phantoms in his cockpit? Or the boats and haunted fishermen. Was he that exhausted and detached? There must be an answer. All Ireland couldn’t disappear! Slim shakes his head and cranes forward to look down each wing, right and left, then right again. His belly is hollow, and more from desperation than anything else, he looks back toward the tail.
And freezes again.
There. Valencia Island is less than a mile behind him.
Somehow he had rolled out of his circle and inadvertently headed out back to sea. Like the incident over the boats, this is another example of how dangerous it is for a pilot to become fixated. He’d stared at the chart too long, and his body didn’t recognize that Spirit was no longer spiraling around the island.
Enormously relieved, Slim tilts the plane on its left wing and pulls around to the southeast. He’s north of his course so about a 5-degree correction should do. Leveling off at fifty feet, heading 126 degrees, he figures it’s a good time to check the magnetos again. When was the last time? Just after leaving St. John’s and heading into the darkness of last night, some seventeen hours ago. Seventeen hours. Each minute seemed so slow at the time, yet now the entire night is a blur. And why not? The sky is clear and he is skimming over the hunter-green fields of County Kerry at 90 miles per hour. Rock walls careen haphazardly across the hills, carts creep along dirt roads, and clumps of sheep break apart at the roar of his engine.