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“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 pla
“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.