Calico Pennants (6 page)

But immediately after turning north they began to encounter difficult weather. Not wanting to fly directly into rain squalls, the pilot tried to steer the plane around each approaching storm center, flying fifty miles due north of one, thirty miles south of another. Increased wind velocity made the plane drift consistently starboard, rendering the gyroscopic compass and the autopilot quite useless. She calmly searched heavy skies for a ‘soft spot’ in the storm, but unwittingly flew right into the nucleus of the tempest.

The Electra bounced and pitched with a vengeance. Lightning illuminated the churning storm clouds in their flight path, and rain beat against the windshield, nullifying all sense of depth and direction. She fought against the twenty-five degree bank like a cowboy trying to break an obstinate horse.

And like a semaphore flag barely visible in the ultraviolet glow of the instrument panel, a new message appeared from Noonan on the infernal fishing line. She snatched the paper off the clothespin and cursed. Her hands were busy simply trying to keep the plane level; and she was perturbed by the navigator’s question: ‘Any chance of getting on top?’

It was ten minutes before her hands were free enough to jot a frustrated reply: ‘What am I supposed to do?’

His response was unemotional yet to the point. ‘My compass shows us seven degrees off course.’

Freddy was correct; they were off course. The magnetic compass was swinging so wildly that she was forced to determine a heading by averaging its readings, hoping to make corrections once they cleared the squalls.

And her arm ached from priming the ‘wobble’ pump. Her back hurt from the ten-hour-long confinement in the four-foot by four-foot cockpit. She smelled gas again, and the odor made her feel nauseous. Becoming increasingly alarmed by the apparent rate of fuel consumption, she ciphered her own calculations. Despite bucking stiff head winds, it was not reconcilable. More fuel should have been in reserve.

Another note along the ‘line of communication’ read: ‘Desperate for a reading. When?’

She penciled a reply and fastened it to their peculiar conduit: ‘Should I expend fuel for another climb?’

Freddy’s frustrated reply left no doubt: ‘We’re lost!’

Without delay she richened the mixture and throttled up. The Electra climbed to ten thousand feet. She switched on the landing lights to determine just how thick the vapor might be. But it was impossible to see anything. So she pulled back on the stick and took the plane to eleven thousand feet, then another thousand. Still nothing. Thirteen thousand. Fourteen. That was Electra’s absolute ceiling. Where was the top?

She tried to yell above the incessant roar of the engines, though she could barely hear the sound of her own voice. “Damn it, Freddy Noonan! Take your sextant reading now. I can’t hold it here forever!”

She leaned into the stick for the descent. Back into the rain, the plane lurched to port. She corrected. Again it swayed. Calmly, she reacted. Then came the navigator’s note: ‘No hope for pictures at Truk Island. Must abort. New heading for Marshalls to follow. Majuro Island by sun-up.’

Amelia hooted out loud. She sighed in relief and wiped perspiration from her face. They’d been successful; Freddy had fixed their position. They were probably low on fuel, but at least they weren’t lost...

WE ARE ON THE LINE OF POSITION 157 DASH 337. WILL REPEAT THIS MESSAGE. WILL REPEAT THIS MESSAGE ON 6210 kcs. WAIT/LISTENING ON 6210. WE ARE RUNNING NORTH AND SOUTH.”

Leaning forward into the stick, the pilot pointed the nose of her Lockheed Electra dural, NR 16020, downward and guided the plane through a dense layer of cumulus clouds. Within a thick mass of gray vapor she flew blindly for several minutes, the peace of a surreal aerial world broken only by the steady roar of the plane’s twin Pratt & Whitney engines.

Emerging from an opaque mist at seven hundred feet, she drew a concerned breath and turned to her navigator. “We should be in visual range by now, Freddy. But I don’t see it.”

Having crawled from the cramped quarters of the fuselage into the flight cabin, Freddy also searched the expanse of steely water below.

Since they’d turned eastward somewhere near Truk Island, he had tried to take a star fix, but to no avail. After several unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the cloud cover at thirteen thousand feet, he’d been reduced to dead reckoning in darkness to establish a heading. At first light they’d broken through the clouds for a few minutes and he’d been able to determine a sun line with the sextant. Yet now the tiny Pacific island where they were supposed to land was not to be found.

“Keep to the present course,” he instructed without alarm. “We’re close now.”

“I’ve been on the short wave trying to locate the non-directional beacon,” the pilot related. “I was hoping we’d have a sighting when we came through this break in the clouds. The visibility is lousy. No telling how far the clouds and fog extend.”

The pilot mentally recounted the US Fleet Air Base weather news received just before take-off from the airport at Lea, New Guinea: FORECAST THURSDAY, LEA TO ONTARIO. PARTLY CLOUDY, HEAVY RAIN SQUALLS TWO HUNDRED FIFTY MILES EAST OF LEA. WIND EAST SOUTHEAST, TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. ONTARIO TO LONGITUDE ONE SEVEN FIVE, PARTLY CLOUDY, CUMULUS CLOUDS ABOUT TEN THOUSAND FEET, MOSTLY UNLIMITED. WIND EAST NORTHEAST EIGHTEEN. THENCE TO HOWLAND, PARTLY CLOUDY, SCATTERED HEAVY SHOWERS, WINDS EAST NORTHEAST FIFTEEN. AVOID TOWERING CUMULUS AND SQUALLS BY DETOURS AS CENTERS FREQUENTLY DANGEROUS.

“How’s our fuel holding out?” Freddy asked.

“We’ve used more than I expected,” she told him. “Right from the start wind speeds have been much stronger than forecasted. I’m guessing twenty-five to thirty. Avoiding storm centers spent fuel, and even though I made regular fuel transfers from the storage tanks to the wing-mounted gravity tanks...” She bit her lower lip. “The autogiro should have kept us on course while I was priming the pump. My forearm is aching. Maybe the manual isn’t working properly.”

“I’ve never trusted Sperry’s autogiro,” Freddy complained sourly. “Sure, it’s good for keeping close to the intended course, but it can’t compensate for even minimal wind drift. One slight change in velocity or direction, and we’re out here trying to find a pimple on the backside of an elephant. But don’t worry,” he reassured, “I’m certain that ribbon of runway that FDR built for you is down there somewhere.”

“If you have any suggestions, Freddy, I’m listening.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Thirty to forty minutes—that’s all.”

“What about the Itasca?”

“It’s supposed to be in the vicinity. I’ve been in contact, but reception is patchy at best. I’ll try to raise them again.”

The pilot began another transmission: “ITASCA, WE ARE ABOUT 100 MILES OUT/ PLEASE TAKE BEARING ON US AND REPORT.”

The response was garbled and full of static: “CANNOT TAKE BEARING ON 3105/ PLEASE SEND ON 500, OR DO YOU WISH TO TAKE BEARING ON US/GO AHEAD PLEASE.”

“Which frequency are you signaling on?” the navigator questioned.

“I switched from 6210 kcs. to 3105 kcs.”

“Without a trailing wire our range is limited,” he grumbled. “But that shouldn’t be a problem this close in. Still, you’ve gotta stay with the pre-arranged frequency!”

Unable to completely understand Itasca’s instructions, the pilot radioed once again: “KHAQQ CALLING ITASCA/ WE MUST BE ON YOU BUT CANNOT SEE YOU/ GAS IS RUNNING LOW.”

“WE HEAR YOU ON 3105/ MESSAGE OKAY/ SENDING AAA’s ON...”

“What are they saying? Can you make it out?” she asked the navigator.

“Too much static,” he said. “Keep trying.”

“ITASCA WE ARE CIRCLING BUT CANNOT HEAR YOU/ GO AHEAD ON 7500.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAA/GO AHEAD ON 3105.”

“KHAQQ CALLING ITASCA/ WE RECEIVED YOUR SIGNALS BUT UNABLE TO GET A MINIMUM/ PLEASE TAKE BEARING ON US AND ANSWER 3105.”

“YOUR SIGNALS RECEIVED OKAY... IMPRACTICAL TO TAKE BEARING ON 3105 ON YOUR VOICE.”

Like impossible legends, the towering clouds were reflected in Amelia’s flight goggles. Fatigue and frustration showed on her face. Pressing chapped lips and closing her burning eyes for a moment, she hoped that once she opened them again she might see not the everlasting image of sky and ocean, but the newly constructed landing strip at Howland. And having lived her life on the cusp of expectation, desire, belief, and luck, there was at this point little choice but to acknowledge, for pilot and navigator alike, that the future remained suspended on something so intangible as currents of air.

“I’m sending a series of long dashes over five seconds,” she said to Freddy.

“Look,” he reasoned, “I’ve done my best. After all the detours last night, it’s amazing that we’re as close as we are. And we have a sun line! So there’s no reason we should be lost. I know Howland is down there!”

Three weeks prior to departure Noonan had implored her to install a trailing wire, warning her over and over again about the danger of becoming lost and disoriented over the Pacific. But she’d obstinately resisted the inclusion of a simple device that might have enabled them to broaden the band of short wave reception. “In all my years of flying,” she’d persisted, “I’ve never used my radio, except to break the boredom with a little music!”

Amelia busied herself with a perfunctory check of the Electra’s instruments. They were flying at an altitude of only seven hundred feet, due Northeast, at an air speed of one hundred forty miles per hour. Oil pressure was one hundred ninety-five pounds per square inch starboard, one hundred ninety per square ince port, and the internal temperature of each engine was within acceptable limits. It was the fuel gauge that threatened an insoluble problem.

Focusing upon the barely discernible horizon (gradients of light upon the water sometimes made it difficult to distinguish a land mass from a bank of clouds), the pilot continued to search for the landing site. Above the drone of the 500 horsepower ‘Wasp’ engines she could hear the short wave set hiss and crackle and make that curious tuning sound that seemed utterly nebulous one minute, and full of promise the next. She watched in silence as Freddy compared readings from each of his three compasses: one magnetic; one aperiodic; and the third a directional gyro. Concentrating intensely, he recorded readings from the Electra’s newly installed, though sometimes unreliable, drift indicator. Furnished with up-to-the-minute information, he referred once more to his charts.

With each updraft, Amelia’s mind drifted from the present to the past, from the cold reality of the moment into nostalgic reminiscence. In spite of Freddy’s unquestioned expertise as a navigator (the success of Pan Am’s early survey flights across the Pacific Ocean was due to a large extent on Noonan’s development of aerial navigational techniques), his growing reputation as a drinker—not wholly undeserved—had slammed certain doors in the world of commercial aviation squarely in his face. Not to mention arousing caution on more personal fronts. Amelia knew that Freddy felt as though he’d been blackballed unfairly, and by no means had he kept his disdain to himself. He had always said he didn’t give a damn about what most of his colleagues thought of him. Except for her. She sensed that. She knew also that, like herself, he loved to fly for the unbridled joy of it. For the sheer fun of it! Just to fly, and fly, and fly...

She had first experienced the ecstasy of flight at the age of eighteen and was immediately captivated. The road to esteem had been both long and difficult, but over time she’d won respect as an aviator, and as an iconoclast. It now seemed like eons ago that she’d been recruited as the first woman to cross the Atlantic non-stop. She knew that she was probably the best overall pilot on board the Friendship, still she was never permitted to fly the plane once they’d left Nova Scotia. She’d spent the entire crossing lying on her belly in the rear cabin—at least until the exhausted pilot over-shot their projected landing site in Ireland by nearly a hundred miles. Finally, it was she who had executed a nearly perfect water landing in the fog at Burry Port, Wales, though the truth of the matter had been hushed.

First in Wales, then at the beautiful Southampton estate of Lady Astor, the Brits had given the now celebrated crew of the Friendship the royal treatment. “My dear girl,” said Lady Astor, “your sense of daring leaves us all rather breathless. Nevertheless, I believe I would prefer to cross the Atlantic by ship!” she declared.

Still, that intensely scrutinized flight, as well as the subsequent reception and many forthcoming accolades, had hardly been the apex of her career in aeronautics. Flying from Long Island to LA over the checkerboard fields of mid- America, she had often landed her single engine Vega right on the main street of one dusty farm town or another. Seeing her plane touch down, farmers, shopkeepers, and their wives and children, had come running from their fields, or out of their stores and houses, to welcome her and offer her food and lodging.

And whether she was traversing mid-America or flying non-stop from Honolulu to Oakland, G.P. was inevitably waiting for her at journey’s end. Decidedly in his element, her husband entertained groups of overly eager publicity people, or pandered to a group of financial backers.

She had not turned to aviation for financial gain. The truth was that she would have worn rags just to stay in the air. But with G.P. handling the details of business such sacrifices were never necessary, for her husband had natural genius when it came to public relations. The mundane tasks he asked her to perform to help with fundraising—interviews, autograph signings, and personal appearances—were tedious, but in the end it was a small effort to make for solvency. Worthy airplanes, after all, were incredibly expensive.

She now recalled the staged conversation that had taken place between herself and G.P. just prior to her departure, and she grimaced not only at the duplicity of the event, but also at its scripted idiocy.

GP: Tell me dear, why are you going on this trip?

AE: G.P., you know it’s because I want to.

GP: Well, how about taking me along?

AE: Of course I think a great deal of you, but on a flight one hundred eighty pounds of gasoline might be more valuable.

GP: You mean you prefer one hundred eighty pounds of gasoline to one hundred eighty pounds of husband?

AE: I think you guessed right, GP.

To her chagrin, such contrived farewell scenes were always conducted in public view, and she always delivered her lines on cue, without spontaneity or conviction, and feeling as though she’d been made to face too many lenses. Over time George Putnam’s publicity effort had managed to remake her into some sort of weird icon, but her unwavering self-confidence had given her determination, and not even GP’s unflagging attempts at control and manipulation could put a crack in that foundation.

Her thoughts turned to her longtime friend and confidant, Eugene Vidal, a high-level administrator in Roosevelt’s Commerce Department.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to just go off and live on a tropical island?” she had once fantasized to him. She had then described in intricate detail how one might meet the challenges created by such a self-imposed exile.

Of course Vidal knew her well—perhaps even better than George Palmer Putnam—and he acknowledged that if any woman could survive the solitary, Spartan challenges of being marooned, surely it was she. Time and again he’d witnessed her singular focus and practical work ethic guide her over untried tides and currents, as famous aviatrix, a pacifist, and a feminist. What’s more, it had always seemed to her that Gene was intimately aware of the other side of her personality—the side that was whimsical and dreamy, and seldom expressed.

“You see anything yet?” Noonan asked, breaking her connection with the past.

“You kidding? In this fog it would be impossible to spot San Francisco, let alone Howland Island!”

“Anything on the short wave?”

“Nothing but static.”

“We need to begin constructing a grid,” Freddy advised. “We must be in the vicinity, so it’s only a matter of dividing the area into sectors.”

“It’s a big ocean, Freddy,” she said.