Clive Cussler; Craig Dirgo (35 page)

In that instant, Nungesser became completely enamored with flying.

After a few weeks of flying lessons and a stint barnstorming in Argentina, he returned to France just as the winds of war began to howl. After a brief time in the cavalry, he wrangled a transfer to the air service and began a distinguished, if dangerous, career. Nungesser loved aerial combat and approached it with a passion that bordered on foolhardiness. After crashing many times, shooting down forty-five German planes and getting wounded seventeen times, he ended the war with a chest covered with medals, a plate in his head, and a silver ankle.

But after the thrill of war, his civilian life seemed sedate and ordinary.

He suffered financial setbacks and failed endeavors. After traveling to the United States, he barnstormed and starred in an early silent movie, but the fame and adoration he sought were slow in coming. All that was soon to change.

As soon as he and Coli made New York City, it would all be his.

“WE SHOULD SEE Ireland in the next few minutes,” Coli shouted.

Coli, too, had felt the tug of flight. After switching from sea to air, he had been commander of an aircraft squadron during the war. Where Nungesser was foolhardy, Coli was persistent and methodical. As soon as he agreed to attempt the flight, he had insisted that they rigorously train and plan for the event. The men began a program of physical fitness using barbells, medicine balls, and light running. They practiced staying awake for long periods so they could better understand the effects of sleep deprivation. Their record was sixty hours. To ensure that he could keep them on course, Coli studied charts of sea and land. He checked and rechecked currents, wind patterns, and meteorological information. On test flights aboard
White Bird,
he noted speeds and elevations so he could better plan the route. And he studied Nungesser and his flying style. His partner on the flight seemed much more comfortable over land than water, and Coli had figured that into the plans. Once they reached North America, he would keep them over land as much as possible. Reaching into a picnic hamper, he twisted the top off a ceramic container of hot tea and poured himself a cup.

After he had finished, he poured one for Nungesser and handed it forward.

“SHOO,” THE WHITE-HAIRED man said quietly.

Shamus McDermott sat on a rocking chair just outside the door of the net maker’s shop at the port of Castletown Bearhaven, Ireland. A few moments before, he had fed the fat, yellow tabby cat at his feet a sardine, and now the animal would not leave him alone. A lifetime of cod fishing had taken its toll on McDermott. The cold, hard work had given him arthritis, and the hand pain and phantom aches from the missing ring finger on his left hand never seemed to leave him nowadays. He would turn seventy years old this fall, and his days of working were eight years past.

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 United 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.