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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 ru
“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.
Thump, thump, thump.
Berry stared at the fish.
Pop, pop, pop.
“Damn,” Berry said aloud, “it’s coming from above.”
Squinting through the mist, he sca
“We must make a decision,” Nungesser said. “To the south the clouds seem thicker, but looking north and east I can see light.”
“Without the airspeed indicator,” Coli said, “it’s difficult to calculate fuel burn.”
“We fought the good fight,” Nungesser said, “but I believe the Orteig Prize is going to elude us this trip.”
“If we continue on for New York, we will arrive on fumes,” Coli said.
“But the Paris-to-Quebec prize is within reach,” Nungesser noted.
“Quebec is only two hundred miles away,” Coli said easily. “We could make it with two hours of fuel remaining.”
“Then it is decided,” Nungesser said. “We make Quebec today, refuel, and make New York tomorrow. As soon as the weather cooperates, we fly home west to east.”
“Not quite as we’d pla
“I’ll make the turn,” Nungesser said wearily.
If all went as pla
Anson Berry stared up at the clouds. The noise was closer now and becoming more defined. What had first sounded like a faraway locomotive now sounded like a logging truck in the air. Berry now knew it was a plane, a rarity in these parts, but where was it? The sound was coming from the south and growing in volume. He craned his neck around. For a second, he saw a flash of white. Then only clouds once again. He followed the sound as it passed over the lake from south to north. The sound diminished, then he heard it sputter, then go quiet.
“Merde,” Nungesser shouted.
Though Nungesser had no way of knowing it, the slide in the carburetor had frozen open. Raw fuel had poured into the float bowl and was choking the engine. Inside each of the twelve cylinders, the spark plugs were becoming wet. A strong spark might have helped matters, but the lightning strike had weakened the alternator and wreaked havoc with the voltage regulator. Just then the engine fired up and raced.
“Buy us as much altitude as you can, Captain,” Coli shouted. “I’ll seek out a lake for landing.”
Nungesser pushed the throttles forward. White Bird clawed at the air.
Anson berry waited until the plane was out of earshot, then resumed his fishing. Two more pickerel and he would call it a day. He had an hour, maybe two, of light, and he wanted to be inside his cabin with di
The engine sputtered and died once again. The clouds were thi
“Hold on, François,” he shouted.
Mountains and bogs and wilderness below. White Bird floated down, slow at first, then gaining in speed. The landing angle was all wrong. Instead of a gradual descent, White Bird was plunging down like an albino fish hawk after prey.
Nungesser jammed an unlit cigar into his mouth and clenched his teeth as they fell downward, just on the edge of control. Coli knew it was bad — in the last hour his emotions had gone from exhaustion to disappointment to euphoria to acceptance. He was no longer mourning the end of his dreams but praying instead that he might somehow live. The hell with New York City or even Quebec — just to land safely once again would be enough. He removed a rosary from his leather flight bag and clutched it in his hand. Nungesser struggled with the yoke to pull White Bird from the steep dive, but the controls were sluggish and his arms weak from the long hours without sleep. White Bird slowly began to flare out of the dive. Nungesser could see the water below.
“François,” he shouted, “we’re going to make it.”
A moose stood in water up to his belly. He was chewing a mouthful of plants. A shadow passed over his head, followed a second later by White Bird. The sound of the wind whipping against the fabric wings less than twenty feet overhead spooked the beast. He beat a hasty retreat out of the water toward shore. Nungesser had managed to level out the plane, but he had no way to slow the forward movement. He slowly lowered the plane down to water level. White Bird was now ten feet above the water. He stared forward out of the cockpit.
The lake ended less than two hundred yards ahead. A rocky ridge rising eight hundred feet in the air lined the shore. If the engine would fire one last time, he might be able to force the plane into a 180-degree turn. He tried the starter, but the engine was dead. Nungesser pushed the yoke all the way down. They would not have a soft landing.
White Bird struck hard.
The bottom of the stationary propeller cut into the lower fuselage. The top broke off and shot rearward like a razor-sharp boomerang. It severed the top of Nungesser’s head just above the eyebrow.