Amerika (23 page)

‘Feathering one and two.’

Fatt’s hand hit the switches that rotated the propeller blades parallel to the air stream to reduce them from wind-milling and creating flight-killing drag. The clipper could fly on two engines, but the control forces it took to maintain heading demanded powerful legs on the rudder pedals. I felt Fatt’s legs helping mine as we struggled to keep her going in the right direction.

‘Uh, oh,’ he said. ‘Number three doesn’t look so good either. Losing oil pressure fast.’

‘C’mon cap,’ I said between gritted teeth. ‘Aren’t two dead engines enough for one day?’

‘It happened to Eddie Musick in ’34. Lost three, in a thunderstorm to boot, bless his heart, but he lived to tell the tale.’

‘Okay, bring it on.’

Fatt retarded the throttle and number three engine’s RPM needle slowly wound down. The choice was simple.

‘Prepare for emergency landing,’ I ordered.

‘Got something more up my sleeve too.’

‘Sweet Jesus.’

The radio operator said, ‘Do I simulate transmitting a Mayday, sir?’

‘Hell yes, and be sure about our position. We’ve got a load of scared passengers below who want to be picked up by a friendly ship the instant we hit the water – navigator, what’s our position?’

A long pause.

‘I repeat, where the hell are we?’

‘Sir, I thought this was a shakedown flight for operating systems.’ F

Fatt’s voice tightened. ‘You haven’t been plotting our position?’

Another pause. 

Fatt continued, ‘Just been sharpening your pencils, checking the bubble in your octant, and staring out the window with your thumb up your Navy ass?’

‘Yes, sir, I mean no, sir.’

‘You’d better find out where we are fast, mister.’

A flash of bright light and sulfurous fumes shot up my nose from the burning match Fatt held directly in front of me.

‘Fire just broke out in the cabin and we’re going down fast.’

‘Extinguishers forward!’ I shouted.

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ Fatt crooned, and lit another match.

I tried to wave it away but he kept it in front of me, whispering, ‘The day may come, kid…what are you going to do about it?’

‘This never happened to Eddie Musick, damn it.’

‘But it’s happening to you. Three engines out, four hundred feet and closing fast, and you damn well better know what to do or we’ll all be killed and I don’t want to die, do you?’

My hands and eyes moved like a frantic marionette as I alternated between scanning the flight instruments and the sky outside tilting wildly to starboard as I banked hard to port. Only one chance to get her down, not enough power for a go-around.

The German-accented voice crackled cool and crisp in my headphones.

‘Lufthansa Zero Five, Baltimore Harbor tower, are you declaring an emergency?’

Fatt said quickly, ‘I’ll handle this.’  

He keyed his mike. ‘Baltimore Harbor tower, disregard aircraft attitude, we are exploring flight performance envelope. Request landing clearance sea lane three.’

‘Lane three approved, Lufthansa zero-five.’

‘Some performance envelope,’ I said.

He snorted, ‘Bastards spying on us, as usual.’

The altimeter kept unwinding. No chance for flaps, too much drag and too little power. Had to be a straight-in approach. More matches, more sulfur and I had a coughing fit.

‘C’mon, kid, you’re almost home. Think of our passengers shitting bricks, praying you’ll save their sorry hides.’

Two hundred feet, our diving turn ending, wings coming level, and the bobbing buoys of sea lane three swung into view. It took both Fatt and me shoving on the rudder pedals as hard as we could to keep her nose straight and still she yawed sideways. Who could blame her? A plane designed for four engines, dragging along on one made everything topsy-turvy.

‘Hooray, the fire’s out,’ Fatt said.

‘Roger, fire out.’

‘No ‘thank you’ for my heroism beating back the flames?’

‘Do you mind shutting up long enough for me to get us down?’

‘Roger, wilco. One hundred feet...seventy-five...’

‘Ready full left rudder...’

I yanked number four engine’s throttle to idle.

The howling engine roar disappeared, replaced by the hiss of air passing over the wings of our powerless, behemoth glider sinking faster and faster.

‘NOW!’

Free from the asymmetrical pull of a single engine, we shoved her nose back to center.

‘Fifty feet...forty...’

‘She’s going to drop like a stone, damn it.’

‘No she ain’t. You’re doing fine, kid. Nose up, nose up, you’re still too hot. Stalls at seventy not eighty.’

I twisted and turned my control wheel in larger and larger arcs of motion as the ailerons and elevator grew mushy in the slower moving air. Baltimore harbor rose to meet us. Buildings, houses and factories appearing on both side in a blurring smear of brown, red and black. The airspeed indicator needle sank beneath seventy knots, and I waited for the dreaded sensation of falling out of the sky and slamming onto the water and bouncing up into the air again.

But instead, my rear end suddenly felt the distant ‘thrum’ of her hull kissing the waves once, twice, and then a steady rumble resonating throughout the entire aircraft as her fuselage settled deeper and deeper into the welcoming water.

I kept tracking in a straight line until she came to a stop, but not easy.

Once you’re on a runway it’s relatively easy to steer straight ahead. But the moment you land on water you become a sailing master, because the prevailing winds can shove the immense, slab-sided aircraft all over the place.

‘Three engines still out?’ I said.

‘Behold, Reverend Diaz’s prayers have been answered!’

Fatt unfeathered number one engine, flipped the magneto switch to ‘Both On’ and seconds later the propeller blades bit into the slipstream and the cylinders coughed into throaty life. With two fully operating engines on opposite wings, my sailing efforts eased because I was able to use the throttles to swing her around and head back to the boarding area.  I kept my hands firmly on the wheel, because if I didn’t, everyone would see how much they were shaking.

A bad peace is worse than war
.

-Tacitus

‘W
hen are you and Uncle O coming home?’ Abby said on the phone.

‘What?’

She repeated her question, her voice hollow and far away. It had taken the operator forever to make the long distance connection to Key West and I could barely understand what she was saying.

‘About a week. Maybe a little longer.’

‘A man flew in on a Lockheed Electra. All polished up and pretty.’

‘What man?’

‘The man who talked to Grams about your charter job. He gave her some money.’

‘Dark hair, short? A little pudgy?’

‘Yes.’

Had to be Trippe. Holding up his end of the bargain. Time I did the same.

‘What’d he do then?’

‘He flew away. Where are you?’

‘Baltimore.’

‘Where after that?’

‘A secret.’

‘C’mon, where?’

‘You know what Uncle O always says, if you tell, then it’s not a secret.’

‘I promise not to.’

‘Maybe later – by the way, I found a nice stay-at-home present for you.’

‘What is it?’

‘A secret.’

‘Daddy!’

‘Gotta’ go. Taking off soon. Uncle O sends you hugs and kisses. Me too, twice as many.’

Her voice faded as she said something else I couldn’t understand and then disappeared. I hung up and left the phone booth, one of ten that lined the rotunda wall of Pan Am’s Marine Air Terminal. Trippe’s famous ten-foot high globe of the earth slowly revolved above the green marble service counter in the center of the rotunda. To show the airline’s impressive international reach, glowing red lines inside the globe arced out in a spider’s web of air routes connecting the various continents.

Pan American had come a long way from flying drunks to Havana.

Me too.

Orlando materialized out of the crowd; elegant grey fedora hat in hand, tan  leather  briefcase,  highly  polished  shoes  gleaming  in  the  sunshine flooding down from the skylight. His dark grey business suit, white shirt and burgundy tie fit him like a second skin.

‘You look like a banker,’ I said. ‘Where’d you get the rig?’

He brushed his lapels. ‘What the well-dressed Chief of Engines, Atlantic Division wears on his inspection rounds.’  He stifled a yawn. ‘Delivered to my room at four this morning. What about your rig?’

He  reached  out  and  brushed  the  shoulder  of  my  uniform  jacket.  ‘Dandruff doesn’t like dark blue.’ He leaned forward and sniffed. ‘Mothball smell’s almost gone.’

To my astonishment, my original captain’s uniform had been hanging in my hotel closet when I returned from the systems test flight. Coat, pants, hat, shirt, the works. At first I thought it was just a standard, off-the-rack outfit, but when I saw where Estelle had darned a worn spot on the right elbow years ago, I broke down and cried. To keep that from happening in front of Orlando, I said, ‘Preister’s people must have kept it in storage. What a cheapskate.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ He hefted his briefcase.  ‘Time to meet my fellow passengers.’

‘Where’s your seat?’

‘Compartment A, directly beneath the flight deck. Hopefully next to some nice, fat Nazi. Be fun watching him squirm, sitting next to a Schwarzie like me.’

‘Where’d you pick that up?’

He grinned. ‘One of the Lufthansa agents whispered it when I walked into the terminal.’

‘Nazis got nerve, I’ll give them that.’

‘More than that, brother,’ He gestured to the revolving globe. ‘Almost got it all.’

‘See you on the flight deck later. You’ve got to learn this big fat bird, same as me.’

‘Plan on it.’ He frowned and mock-growled. ‘Chief of Engines, Atlantic Orlando Diaz is on the warpath about how Lufthansa’s been mistreating his engines and he’s going to get answers or get even, whichever comes first.’

‘Nice cover story. Keep it up.’

Orlando strode confidently across the polished granite floor toward the passenger waiting lounge. Purser Nawrocki, passenger list in hand, stood guard by its hallowed double doors.

He took one look at the well-dressed, approaching  mass  of  Orlando  and  swung  open  the  door,  smiled  and saluted. Good thing Pan Am crews were still handling the pre-boarding details. Lufthansa would have had Orlando spread-eagled, searching for a spear and a bone in his nose.

The lounge door had barely closed before the polished brass terminal doors whooshed open and a cluster of men scurried in like swarm of ants. They took a few hurried steps, and swung around their, cameras held high, voices calling out,

‘Over here, Miss James. Look here!’

Flashbulbs popped like mad as Ava appeared in a burst of scarlet and white, her red dress hugging every possible curve, her tiny white hat with huge feathers flowing from it like she was the lead swan in a formation flight. Ziggy scuttled along beside her, filled with importance as he rattled off answers to a reporter who matched him stride for stride. Two more reporters, a man and woman, notepads in hand, swooped down on Ava’s left, their questions cancelling out each other.

Taking up the rear, two Pan Am porters wheeled a cart stacked with enough luggage for a round-the-world trip on an ocean liner. Ava, along with her entourage of five photographers, three newspaper reporters, Ziggy, her luggage, and the eyes of everybody in the terminal, headed straight for the ticket counter.

The Lufthansa agent braced himself for the assault, which was not long in coming.

‘I’m ready to fly, darling,’ Ava said to him. ‘Which way’s the plane?’

The agent nodded politely, ‘And you are?’

The world’s longest pause filled the terminal. Everyone could have shouted Ava’s name, so familiar was her face to American audiences. But this poor German sap didn’t have a clue. She nodded imperiously to Ziggy, who loudly proclaimed, ‘Miss Ava James and Mr. Nathan Siegel for the Lisbon clipper.’

A wave of relief passed over the agent’s face.

‘Yes, of course. I have your tickets right here.’  He fanned out impressive-looking, multi-colored engraved pieces of paper. Trippe believed in making Pan Am’s tickets look ritzy to match the high prices they demanded.  Round trips cost almost seven hundred bucks. Pretty steep considering most folks were damn lucky if they took home fifty a week.

The agent said, ‘And your luggage, if any?’

Ava, looking bored, casually waved at the mountain of suitcases on the cart and the agent paled visibly. ‘But I’m afraid that’s entirely too much, Miss James. Passengers are limited to fifty-five pounds each.’

Another eternal silence. The agent nervously licked his lips and started to speak again, but Ava cut him off and turned to Ziggy. ‘Tell your Lisbon friends the deal’s off.’

She started walking away. Ziggy’s eyes widened in shock.

‘But the contract’s been signed!’

‘With your name, not mine.’

Ziggy caught up with her and skittered along like water in a hot skillet.

‘But it’s your career, darling. Principal photography starts in ten days.’

She stopped by the reporters. ‘Now you’ve got a real story.’ She framed her hands like an imaginary newspaper headline. ‘Ava James a no-show in Lisbon because of a big baggage blow-up.’ And you can quote me.’

Ziggy sidled back to the counter. ‘What’s the penalty?’

The agent eyed the pile. ‘One percent of the fare for every two-point- two pounds over the limit. I’ll have to weigh the items to get an accurate total.’

Ziggy sighed as he pulled out a blank check, signed it and handed it over. ‘Fill out whatever it costs.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘And here’s a little something for your trouble.’ He slipped the man a folded bill and turned away before the surprised agent could hand it back. So he pocketed it instead.

‘Done and done, darling,’ Ziggy shouted. Then to the gathered retinue:

‘Friends, last chance to photograph Miss James before we head to Portugal.’ Like  a  trained  ballerina,  Ava  glided  over  to  an  open  space  at  the counter, swung around, lowered a shoulder, tossed her head back and let fly a dazzling smile that lit up the room. Flashbulbs popped, the crowd murmured its approval and I felt a tug at my sleeve.