Chasing Icarus (8 page)

The twenty wooden hangars (plus four canvas ones that had been requested by the Wright brothers) stretched in a line north from the clubhouse for more than fifteen hundred feet. Each hangar was fifteen feet high and spacious enough to house the airplane, its spare parts, and a team of mechanics. On Monday afternoon the names of the airmen had been put in a hat along with the numbers 1 to 27. There was no number 13—that was considered the kiss of death by the airmen—but the thirteenth name to emerge from the hat had been Claude Grahame-White. Now in the fading evening light the workmen were adding the numbers to the front of the hangars, which had earlier been painted green.

No doubt about it, thought the
New York Herald
correspondent as he tested his seat in the press stand, Belmont Park was unrecognizable from that May day in 1905 when forty thousand hysterical race-goers had seen the little bay Sysonby finish in a dead heat with Race King in the Metropolitan Handicap. So busy was the
Herald
reporter musing on the past that he didn’t spot the small figure away to his left ease himself into his monoplane; the first the reporter knew that his day might not entirely be wasted was when he heard the gnarl of the machine’s engine.

For the next twenty minutes the reporter, and the workmen who had set down their tools, were engrossed in the impromptu flying display. When the show finished, the reporter scampered across the grass to discover the airman’s identify; with that done, he rushed back to the press stand and began his copy for the next day’s edition: “Sysonby’s ghost stood at the far turn of Belmont Park as the heavy shadows of dusk were fading into the mystic light blues of early moonlight last night and gazed wistfully at a weird, batlike thing that flitted in swooping circles back and forth across the widespread infield. In the air was the herald of a coming day for Belmont Park that is in a fashion ghostly or unreal. Darting swiftly about the field and wheeling around the pylons as swiftly as a swallow turns, Mr. John B. Moisant of Chicago . . . was tuning up a brand new ‘flat plane’ Blériot racer.”

But he had done more than tune it up, exclaimed the reporter, he had performed “one of those things that other aviators will tell you cannot be done.” He explained how the propeller of a Blériot monoplane turned clockwise, which, in theory, meant it was only possible to bank left. But in twenty minutes Moisant had turned that theory on its head by executing “one of the prettiest figure eights ever seen and [he] made the turn to the right with as little trouble as though directing the flight of a pigeon.”

How on earth could a novice pull off such a feat? Moisant shrugged, it was nothing really, just a bet he had with some friends a fortnight earlier. But how had he navigated if he had no knowledge of the Channel or its coastlines? “I found my way by compass entirely. Set my direction by it, allowed for the wind, and here I am.” You do realize, said the
Daily
Mirror
representative, that “all airmen have previously asserted that their compasses have failed owing to the vibration of the machine?” Moisant led the reporters to his airplane and pointed out the compass, which was insulated in glycerin and lay on the floor in front of his seat. “That’s what took me straight to Amiens [from Paris] last night and right on to Calais this morning.”

Moisant was lauded on both sides of the Channel with the French newspaper
France Patrie
hailing his “energy, audacity and intrepidity,” and
France Presse
saying he had “won the admiration of the whole world.” He was headline news in all the London papers with the
Daily Chronicle
carrying his exclusive account of the voyage under the legend REMARKABLE FLIGHT BY UNKNOWN MAN.

The British in particular were fascinated by Moisant, a man so unlike their own aviators, most of whom were in a similar mold to Claude Grahame-White—tall, handsome, and dapper, with the suave self-confidence of the privileged. The American was five feet three inches and 135 pounds, with a hairline in rapid retreat, but as the
Westminster Gazette
told its readers on August 18, “One would expect that this journey of his [across the Channel] would knock his nerves up, but he maintains a calm equal to that of the Trafalgar Square lions.” The
Daily Express
called Moisant “chivalrous to his fingertips,” another paper considered him “the most self-possessed of aviators,” and the
Pall Mall Gazette
was struck by his “keen brown eyes,” which took in everything and everyone around him. Once, just once, it was noted, the eyes flashed with anger, when a group of spectators had begun pawing at the wings of his monoplane.

In the second half of August the fascination for Moisant was transplanted to endearment as his stated intention to reach London turned into what the British loved best—a series of glorious failures. His landing in the field of oats on August 17 had been just a temporary stop to fix a slight problem with his engine, but the fault proved to be more problematic than at first thought, and it took Moisant another three weeks and seven flights to cover the seventy miles to the British capital. But he still received a two-foot, silver-plated cup from the
Daily Mail
newspaper for being the first aviator to fly from Paris to London, along with the affectionate tributes of a nation whose people were impressed that his “cheerfulness of temperament does not seem to have been in the least degree impaired by the chapter of accidents which befell him.” Moisant returned the compliment, telling the
London Evening Standard
, “I have been treated right royally here in England, and I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude for all the kindness shown me. Such hospitality I have never met with in my life before.” The paper then inquired what his intentions were now his epic flight was over. “I have no plans for the future,” replied Moisant. “I am a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow and never know twenty-four hours in advance what I am going to do.”

But someone else was planning Moisant’s future, even as he spoke to the
Evening Standard
. The president of the Aero Club of America, Cortlandt Field Bishop, had been in Europe since early May negotiating for the services of several French aviators for the Belmont Park Meet, and he made sure he was in London to greet his compatriot when his airplane finally touched down. On September 15 the British press broke the news that Moisant would shortly return home to challenge for the International Aviation Cup. After entertaining the British public in a couple of air shows, Moisant sailed from France aboard
La Savoie
, eager to be back in the USA after more than a year in Europe.

Waiting for Moisant’s ship at the New York quayside on Saturday, October 8, were a throng of reporters, all scanning the disembarking passengers for the small Chicagoan with the big cup. They pushed and shoved and cursed, but they needn’t have bothered because what they all desperately wanted was the answer to the same question—and it had nothing to do with aviation. What they longed to know was if the John Moisant who had flown from Paris to London was the same John Moisant who had led an armed uprising against the president of Salvador.

The moment the
Chicago Daily Tribune
’s report of August 18 hit the newsstands in America, describing Moisant as the new “King of the Air,” a reporter for the
Evening Standard
in Ogden had sat back in his chair and started to turn over the name in his mind. Where the hell had he heard it before? Then it came to him. He searched the paper’s archives to make sure his memory wasn’t playing tricks. It wasn’t. He found a short piece from May 13, 1909, headlined CRUISER ALBANY HAS ENGAGEMENT. The opening paragraph began, “Unconfirmed reports were received in shipping circles today that the crew of the United States cruiser
Albany
has had an engagement with a party of emigradoes being led against the republic of Salvador by John Moisant, an American citizen, formerly owner of several plantations. More recently Moisant has been involved in revolutionary movements in Nicaragua and Salvador.”

Within a short time the reporter had filed his piece for the evening edition of August 18. It made the front page, under the headline MOISANT’S ROMANCE.

For what ever reason the British newspapers had left the story alone, perhaps because they considered that what an American got up to in Central America was none of their business. So it was something of a shock to Moisant when he descended the gangplank of
La Savoie
to discover that aviation was the last thing on the reporters’ minds. When he’d recovered from his surprise, Moisant reacted waspishly to any question he didn’t like. “You’ll have to find out about that from somewhere else,” he snarled at a reporter from the
New York Globe
who asked about his revolutionary activity in Salvador. The
New York Morning Sun
received a similar rebuff from Moisant “with a swift, nervous utterance.” On the subject of his nationality, Moisant’s patience was wearing thin, and he turned on the reporter who asked if he was of Peruvian origin. That was a new one, Moisant replied with a sarcastic smile. “They [the press] have guessed many times that I was Mexican, Spanish, South American, even French—anything but American, which I am.”

Exasperated by the tone of the interrogation, Moisant told the reporters that if they didn’t have questions about aviation, then he’d bid them good day. The
Sun
sulkily asked if he was confident of success at the forthcoming meet, at which point Moisant brightened up and rattled off, “I do not expect to win any prizes in the Belmont Park Meet. What chance would I have in my fifty-horse power Blériot against [Alfred] Le Blanc’s hundred-horse power machine? I came here at the request of and to oblige my friend Cortlandt Field Bishop, and I will leave soon after the meet, as I want to attend to the completion of my new machine, which I believe will be able to make between 120 and 130 miles.” Moisant launched into an explanation of his new machine, a monoplane that would be shaped like a torpedo boat and “made entirely of aluminum and steel,” but the reporters were already beginning to drift away, uninterested in all his aviation talk.

Unfortunately for Moisant, his wish to focus solely on his aeronautical feats was being undermined at the very moment he left quayside to check into the Hotel Astor, for on the other side of the country, the people of San Francisco were waking up to read the definitive account of John Moisant in the city’s
Chronicle
newspaper. The article was headlined THE REVOLUTIONIST FROM SAN FRANCISCO, and its author, J. R. James, had evidently spent weeks on the story, interviewing everyone from the city’s collector of the port to former friends and family members, including one of Moisant’s sisters, Louise. This brilliant piece of journalism gave the truth behind the legend, and the more people read, the more their jaws dropped. As Moisant had admitted in England, wrote James, he had been born in Chicago in 1875 to American parents, and the family name came from the Normandy region of France. He was younger than his three brothers, George, Alfred, and Edward, and also had three sisters. In the early 1880s they had moved to San Francisco. When their parents died, the three elder brothers went south to Salvador and engaged in coffee planting and banking; soon they were joined by John and the sisters, and the businesses flourished in the years that followed.

Then one morning in April 1907 soldiers had arrived at the plantation in Santa Emilia and a search of the ranch turned up seventeen rifles. George and Alfred were arrested and thrown in jail on charges of plotting to overthrow Salvador’s tyrannical President Figueroa. The Moisants protested that it was a plant, a dirty little scheme dreamed up by the government because they didn’t like to see Americans doing well for themselves through their own honest endeavors without recourse to bribing corrupt officials.

The family appealed to the American State Department for help, but Secretary Elihu Root wasn’t interested, so Moisant set out to free his brothers on his own. He met with Dr. Prudencio Alfararo, a long-standing opponent of President Figueroa’s, who was impressed by Moisant. Soon he was outlining his plan in front of José Santos Zelaya, president of neighboring Nicaragua, another man who wished to see the back of his Salvadoran rival.

Moisant was furnished with a Nicaraguan gunboat, the
Monotombo
, and three hundred soldiers. One of the most daring attempts to overthrow a government ever seen then ensued, a tale fit to grace the screens of the movie theaters that were now cropping up all across America. The
San Francisco Chronicle
illustrated the coup with a sketch depicting a bandolier-wearing Moisant marching through the jungle at the head of his army. The accompanying text was every bit as swashbuckling: