Amerika (26 page)

‘Be nice.’

‘I will. Unlike you.’

He grinned.

Before talking with Stone, I stopped briefly at the radio operator’s station directly and marveled again at the immense size of the Boeing’s flight deck. Because of my six foot three-plus height I had to duck slightly to keep my head from hitting the padded, soundproofed, six foot-high ceiling, but compared to the cramped cockpits of the Sikorsky and Douglas aircraft I’d flown in the past, hunched over double, this was like strolling along the deck of an ocean liner.

Allen, our radio operator, earphones clamped on his head, held court before two immense radios as he rapidly worked the Morse key. From long habit  I  mentally  pictured  the  letters  forming  into  words  as  he  busily reported our position back to Baltimore. But the further we flew across the Atlantic, the weaker the signal would become, until finally silence would descend and he’d have to put his earphones down - for a little while at least - and we would be at the mercy of Stone’s calculations.

When Allen finished sending his message I said casually, ‘What kind of music you got, Sparks?’

He brightened and grinned. ‘Some Benny Goodman. Want it on the speakers?’

‘Nope, just give me a reverse bearing on it if you don’t mind.’

‘Sure thing, cap.’

He dialed up a radio station frequency on one of his receivers, and then slowly turned a small wheel located in the padded ceiling directly above us. The action, in turn, rotated the loop antenna located outside the fuselage. He smiled and rocked his shoulders back and forth to the beat as his earphones picked up swing music coming from some radio station three hundred miles behind us. We both watched the needle on the S-meter rise higher and higher, and then fall off to null as he turned the loop the other direction. He did it two times to confirm the exact bearing, jotted it down, and then found another radio station and did the same thing.

He made a face at what he heard in his earphones. ‘They’re saying Brylcreem helps you win the girl, and I’m using Wildroot.’ He repeated the tuning action until he got another bearing.

I took the numbers and crossed over to Stone, who was acting like he was absorbed in his work all this time, but I knew for a fact he’d been watching my every move.

‘Do me a favor,’ I said quietly so that nobody else could hear.

‘Sure.’

‘Run these numbers for me.’ I handed him the bearings.

He frowned and started to say something, but I lifted my hand slightly.

‘No offense to the United States Navy, but something tells me we might be off course a tad.’

‘We’re absolutely not.’

‘I know, you told me. But I disagree.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘This.’ I pointed to my gut. ‘Plus, how confident you acted when you gave me the course.’

It happened fast: a flicker of doubt in his eyes. I smiled to make myself look friendly, even though I wanted to ream him out. But that would get me nothing but an enemy. We needed a navigator.

‘Do me another favor,’ I said.

He stared hard at me. A real cement-head in the making, if I didn’t do this right.

‘If you come up with a different number than the one you gave us, don’t tell Fatt, okay? This is just between us navigators, okay?’

He hesitated and I continued, ‘Look, it takes one to know one, okay? Remind me to tell you the time I almost sent a clipper into the side of a mountain because I was absolutely, positively sure we were right on course.’ I picked up his well-worn protractor and idly examined its etched numbers, waiting for him to respond.

‘So, what happened?’ he finally said.

I nodded in Fatt’s direction. ‘That man at the wheel is what happened.’

‘What’d he do?’

I handed back the protractor. ‘The same thing I’m doing to you. And I didn’t like it either, but you know what? The son-of-a-bitch was right.’

And I was too, when five minutes later I dialed our adjusted course into the autopilot. Fatt made sure he was looking in the opposite direction when I did so.

‘Something wrong?’ he said casually as he stared out the window.

‘Nope, just trying to get used to this autopilot. It’s different than the S-42’s.’

A soft chuckle. ‘Was he mad as hell?’

‘Oh, you bet.’

‘You were too. That’s when I knew you damn well weren’t going to make that dumb ass mistake again. And you never did.’

‘And I never did.’

‘Of course you made others too numerous to mention.’

He returned to his thousand-yard stare at the cloud-filled horizon.

‘Wake me in time for dinner. I’m starving.’

As ‘Master of Ocean Boats,’ Fatt’s duty was to preside over the first dinner sitting in the Clipper’s lounge, while I inherited his hallowed left- hand seat in the cockpit to pilot the clipper ever onward as ‘Officer of the Watch.’ I could picture him presiding over the crowd like an aerial Falstaff, slugging back club soda instead of scotch. No drinking on duty for flight crews, but we always made up for it later.

I checked the time: 8:16 pm. Fatt would be returning to the bridge soon, and according to Pan Am tradition it became my turn as first officer to  host  another  ‘Captain’s  Table’  for  the  second  sitting,  so  as  not  to overlook any VIP.

Most captains detested this social function as not being germane to their lofty title. But I enjoyed it. The secret was to let everybody else do the talking and just listen and nod. Never a shortage in that department. The amount of nervous energy contained in a flying boat six thousand feet above the water is an awesome thing to behold.

Passengers endure an alien environment where every bounce, every strange noise, can freeze them into immobility like defenseless jungle creatures trying to survive the night. No wonder their laughter is louder, arguments stronger, drinking heavier. Me? I was just putting in another day’s work - at six thousand feet, true - but work all the same.

The last rays of the setting sun touched the high clouds gliding overhead. The ocean played occasional peek-a-boo through broken clouds as we sailed serenely in between, the engines a faraway roar, their noise muffled by thick insulation. I watched, fascinated, as our autopilot nudged the yoke slightly to starboard, and then a moment later, satisfied that the clipper was maintaining the correct heading, returned the yoke to center.

In order to preserve night vision, I reached for the curtain separating the cockpit from the rest of the flight deck. But just as I untied the hold- back loops, Orlando’s laughter boomed out. My partner had arrived on the flight deck an hour ago and began peppering Mason our engineer with questions  while  they  busily  monitored  the  Yankee  Clipper  like  hotel concierges pampering a favored guest, making sure everything is in perfect order.

Their talk was miles over my head. Sure, I understood basic things like fuel-mixture ratios, cylinder head temperatures and cowl flap settings. But when their conversation soared into the high atmosphere of potentiometer readings, pyrometers and thermocouple sensors, I left them to their sacred rituals and just flew the damn plane, or in my case, watched the autopilot do it for me.

A pounding sound on the floor and I became instantly alert. If I had been flying an S-42 or the S-38, I would have immediately known what was wrong. Planes are like people, each one has their own quirks. But the Boeing 347 was still new to me, and no matter how many hours I had as a pilot, no matter how confident I acted, new was still new and unfamiliar was unfamiliar, and I felt my chest tighten in a mixture of fear and dread like I was nineteen again and a novice.

By now Orlando was standing on top of the closed stairwell hatch, bent over, listening. Suddenly I understood, and felt relief as he unlocked the hatch and swung it open.

Fatt clumped up the stairs and onto the flight deck. ‘Damned thing got stuck.’

I said, ‘How was dinner?’

‘Okay, if you like listening to everybody talk German.’

‘That bad?’

‘You’ll find out. Now, scram out of here and let me get some peace and quiet.’

I stood and stretched. Fatt dropped into his seat with a contented grunt and pulled out his familiar baseball-bat-sized cigar. ‘Yank that curtain before you go, willya’ kid?’

I left him and the cigar smoke to follow Orlando down the staircase to the lounge, filled with sudden bursts of laughter, bright chatter, and the clink of glass and silverware.

Like aerial magicians, Nawrocki and his steward Addison had transformed the passenger lounge from what had been a stylish cocktail bar an hour ago into a formal dining room complete with white Irish linen tablecloths, flute-edged, Lufthansa-monogrammed china, Gorham sterling flatware, and fresh flowers. They had also reconfigured the tables and upholstered chairs for the passengers to sit in groupings of two, four and six.

Before entering the dining area, we stopped by the closet-sized galley where Addison, now dressed in a starched white waiter’s jacket, was making up a tray of appetizers.

‘What’s on the menu?’ I said.

He rattled away like a machine gun, ‘Chilled Utah Celery, Consommé Madrilene, Grapefruit Supreme, Breast of Chicken with Peas
Francoise
, Parsley Spring Potatoes… ’

‘Lots of French-sounding food for a bunch of krauts.’

‘Don’t interrupt, sir.  Followed by after dinner mints, Fresh Fruit, Brandied Dates, coffee, tea or milk, wine or beer as well.’

Orlando said, ‘What, no
Wiener Schnitzel?’

He rolled his eyes like a suffering saint, ‘That’s coming, I’m sure.’

As we entered the lounge I noticed that Nawrocki had made good his promise and I could have socked him, because sitting at the captain’s table was my Gestapo buddy Bauer. Fortunately, Ava and Ziggy were there too, along with the New York Times reporter who – naturally – only had eyes for her. So did the other passengers too, only they studiously avoided looking our way, as if traveling with a famous movie star was par for the course on a clipper flight. And they were right.

Soaring across the Atlantic in a matter of hours instead of suffering days on an ocean liner represented the height of luxury, privilege and glamour. Not all of the diners exhibited that stylish quality, however. Only the Americans. The rest were dour-faced Nazis mercilessly plowing through their food the same way Hitler finished off Poland, counting the hours until they were back in Berlin for their bratwurst und bier und frauleins.

They did, however, bring their food assault to a momentary halt when Orlando and I made our entrance. And it wasn’t me who caused it, I can tell you that. Not a first officer doing his duty but  the sight of a Schwarzie standing in the same room with them, not dressed in a waiter’s jacket and scraping and bowing, but instead sporting a stylish business suit and gracefully bowing to Ava before he took his seat beside me at the captain’s table.

‘What an honor it is, Miss James, to meet you at last,’ Orlando said smoothly. His southern accent had a rolling, theatrical cadence that made you want to hear more.

Ava slid in, right on cue. ‘Now tell me what it is you do, Mr. Diaz. I saw you going up to where they fly the plane. Something the matter?’

‘Not a thing, Miss James.’

‘Call me Ava unless you hear otherwise.’

‘If you insist.’

‘I do.’

‘I work for Pan American Airways and I happen to know all there is to know about engines.’

A frown wrinkle touched her smooth brow. ‘Something wrong with them?’

I said, ‘If there were, we wouldn’t be sitting here enjoying dinner.’

Ziggy waved a piece of celery. ‘The menu doesn’t look too bad this time.’ He turned to Bauer, ‘You like chicken,
Herr
Bauer?’

He shrugged. ‘I can eat anything. And over the years I think I have.’

‘I do hope the asparagus is fresh this time,’ Ziggy lied away, playing the role of experienced world traveler. ‘On my last crossing it was terribly overcooked. Like shoe leather.’

Bauer said, ‘You travel often on these flying boats?’

‘In my line of work it’s one sleeping berth after another. Train, boat, plane, makes no difference.’

‘You are Miss James’ theatrical agent?’