Amerika (27 page)

He brightened. ‘One and the same.’

Bauer sighed and turned to Ava. ‘You seem to live such a glamorous life. Tell me, is it true?’

‘Do you want it to be?’ she said.

‘Doesn’t everyone?’

‘Then it is. Every bit of it. Every champagne-filled moment of my life is filled with excitement, adventure, and lots and lots of money.’

As she spoke, Bauer contemplated his silverware as if seeing it for the first time. When she finished he looked up at her calmly. ‘You are a great actress. I believed every word.’

She nodded her thanks.

‘If I ever had to interrogate you, I don’t believe I’d find out a thing.’

‘Now, you’re the bad actor. When the Gestapo wants answers, it gets them. Am I right?’

The soup course saved Bauer from responding. We ate in tortured silence, pretending we were hungry when in fact we didn’t know where to go in the conversation, until the New York Times reporter, a thin, intense man named Nick Anston said bluntly to Bauer, ‘So, what’s next on Hitler’s plate?’

The inspector took pains to daub his plump lips with his napkin before he said with a wink, ‘The moon, I’m told.’

We smiled at his little joke and he nodded sheepishly. ‘Mind you, a person could get arrested for saying a thing like that about our dear leader.’

‘By the Gestapo, right?’ I said.

‘Yes. And I hereby announce that I place myself under arrest - after I finish this lovely dinner, that is.’

And so it went, this surface-level conversation, each of us with a different agenda, and none of us revealing what we were really thinking or feeling, but somewhere, deep down, all of us aware of our fragile setting; drinking wine and chatting merrily, six thousand feet above the ocean while

Europe and Asia were going down in flames.

I had originally planned on making a graceful exit after coffee and mints impeccably served by Nawrocki and Addison, whose demeanor bore not a trace of impatience, even though they still had another dinner seating before making up everybody’s sleeping berths for the night.

I started making ‘excuse-me’ noises, but Bauer touched my arm and said, ‘I realize I am not your ordinary VIP passenger, but I understand you give tours of the flight deck. Do you think it might be possible...?’ He let the question hang.

Ziggy chimed in. ‘I’ve always wanted to see your guys’ office. C’mon, show us around.’

Nick Anston piled on after the whistle. ‘Make that three. I’ll give you boys good ink in the paper if you do.’

I turned to Ava, who shook her head. ‘Not my cup of tea, thanks.’

‘Sure?’

‘Count me out. This sounds like a toy store made in heaven for men.’

She stubbed out her cigarette and rose gracefully.  On cue, we scrambled to our feet and the whole place watched as she snaked her way aft, acknowledging their admiring smiles with a dazzling one of her own and a delicate wave of her manicured hand.

Moments later I led the conga line of men up the spiral crew staircase, and swung the counterweighted hatch upward. The men entered the dim, instrument-lit space with the same awe and reverence of entering a church to witness high priests going about their sacred duties.

I made introductions all around: navigator, radio operator, flight engineer, and I must say that these navy guys had a flair for acting. They projected the epitome of lean- jawed, keen-eyed professionals, intent on their duties, yet graciously willing to acknowledge the men who stood before them in silent awe.

Fatt was the highest priest of all as he sat at his ‘Master’s Station,’ the small office space against the rear bulkhead, head down, busily doing paperwork, which was actually part of his job. But the way he did it; with feigned officiousness and hunching of shoulders in concentration, was pure theater. And then, as if on cue, he lifted his noble head and regarded our visitors like Neptune would his loyal subjects.

‘Welcome to the bridge, gentlemen.  The heart and soul of this magnificent flying boat.’

For the next few minutes he regaled them as only Fatt could about the workings of his mighty airplane, interspersed with off-color anecdotes. But then, this was a gathering of male eagles in a nest six thousand feet above the ocean, was it not? A place where brave deeds and sex and excitement were the very things that kept the plane flying, aided now and then with one hundred-octane avgas, of course.

Ziggy, Bauer, and the newspaperman asked their share of questions, to which Fatt responded clearly and simply, with occasionally tosses to me when he felt so inclined. And then, as only Fatt could, he suddenly looked pre-occupied with the grave duties of leadership and nodded to me.

‘Captain, would you please show these men the pilot station?’

‘Gentlemen?’ I said temptingly.

They beamed like puppies.

Fatt intoned, ‘Reducing lights, stand by.’

With a turn of a dial, the golden yellow light on the flight bridge slowly faded to darkness, leaving only the dials and control panel lights gleaming like so many stars. I slid back the curtain to the cockpit. The relief pilot and first officer didn’t acknowledge our presence at first; they were too busy adjusting dials and twisting knobs, but this too, was an act because the Sperry autopilot was flying the plane and their job was to sit there and watch. But no way would they do that for an admiring tour group, so they ‘flew’ instead.

Anston asked some questions about fuel consumption and range and got precise answers that he jotted down in his notebook. Bauer seemed content to just be in the presence of such an array of modern technology.

Ziggy turned to me, ‘How do you park this thing once you land?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Do you use an anchor or what?’

I explained how the fourth officer manned the mooring compartment and handled the lines.

Anston chimed in, ‘What’s it like for you Pan Am guys flying for Lufthansa?’

The pilot and first officer remained pointedly silent, so I said, ‘We got into this business because we like to fly. Who we fly for doesn’t matter as much as what we fly. And flying a beautiful big bird like this? Let’s just say that up here, who owns her doesn’t matter as much as who flies her.’

A silence fell over the group as the meditated upon my profundity, aided by moonlit clouds gliding past in a serene parade. The soundproofing reduced the engines to a hypnotic hum, which seemed to cast a spell on the group.

After a while, Bauer politely cleared his throat and said. ‘I must say being up here on a night like this, it is hard to believe that we are a world at war.’

‘America sure as hell is not,’ I said without thinking.

‘Not for now, perhaps. But your Uncle Sam will not sleep forever. Sooner or later he will wake up and fight.’

‘Not with atom bombs hanging over his head.’

‘Perhaps you are right.’

I stifled a yawn and Ziggy said, ‘Is it the time or the company’?

‘Neither. I need to rest before our shift goes back on watch.’

‘Where do you sleep?’

I pointed to the baggage hatch on the bulkhead directly behind Captain Fatt. ‘We’ve got crew cots back there past the luggage cages. Not as fancy as yours and a little cramped, but they do the job. Now then, may I escort you gentlemen back to your staterooms?’

Ziggy waved me off, ‘Forget it. We know our way back, don’t we, boys?’

They rumbled their thanks and threaded their way down the spiral staircase. I swung the hatch closed on their good natured chatter and the sound of their voices cut off like a knife. Freed from our gawking audience, the flight crew quickly resumed its state of calm teamwork.

Sparks handed Fatt the latest met report from Horta. Instead of the overcast breaking the way they had predicted during the night, it had worsened and so had the winds. Fatt groaned and got up from his station and stretched.

‘Jeeves, would you mind turning down my bed?’ he said to me.

‘Let me draw your bath first, sir.’

He smiled and led the parade through the door leading to our cramped crew quarters. True to form, within minutes of hitting his narrow canvas cot, Fatt was snoring like a buzz saw. In contrast, I lay on my cot in the windowless dark, listening to each of the engines go slightly in and out of synchronization as the relief flight engineer ran through a ritualistic fine- tuning of fuel mixture and prop pitch that only he could appreciate. From the cot beside mine, Mason grumbled, ‘Why doesn’t he leave well enough alone? I left them running sweet.’

‘Want me to tell him ‘hands off’?’ I said.

‘A lot of good that would do. You know how flight engineers are.’

‘Used to be one myself, briefly.’

‘Why didn’t you stay at it?’

‘Pan Am’s different than the navy. It’s one long ladder you’re always climbing from apprentice pilot to master of flying boats. Every other job you do along the way is just one more rung.’

‘Hell of a way to run a business.’

‘It is, but when everything starts going to hell, it’s nice to know everybody on board can fly.’

‘Too many cooks can spoil the broth,’ he warned.

‘That’s for soup. Too many cooks can save a dying plane.’

He rolled over with a grunt and that was that. He had a point of course. Most companies and organizations hire specialists to achieve the greatest efficiencies. But Juan Tripp and Andre Preister embraced the apprentice- master approach from the very beginning. And they were right to do so. It’s one thing for a Master of Flying Boats to call for more power from his engines, and quite another to know what that requires of the aircraft at that particular moment, unless he himself has sat and squirmed and sweated in the flight engineer’s seat while staring at instrument readings that said what the captain was asking for was impossible – and found the courage to tell him.

Mason was right, too, though, about overly-fussing with the engines.

He had tuned the clipper’s engines to a state of perfection that I’d rarely encountered in Pan Am flight engineers. These navy guys were meticulous specialists, or General Patton wouldn’t have secured them for the mission. Too bad not all of them could fly, which put the pressure on Fatt and me and our relief pilots as the only qualified crew. But, I reminded myself again, this was no ordinary flight, and the weather seemed to sense it by going from bad to worse.

Two hours later, rested and refreshed, Fatt took over for landing at Horta. Instead of puffy cumulous clouds and blue skies bathing an azure-colored ocean as forecast, we slugged our way through dense cloud cover, glued to our instruments and putting more faith in what they indicated than any god up above who might help us.

‘What are they reporting now?’ Fatt said.

Sparks, his voice still heavy with sleep despite two cups of coffee said, ‘Four hundred feet, visibility half-mile, winds two-two-zero at fifteen.’

‘That won’t last long,’ he grumbled. ‘And if the winds maroon us in Horta, our scientist pal will be in deep trouble. That conference only lasts three days. And it started yesterday.’

‘So?’

‘So, when the party’s over, everybody goes straight home to Germany, including the good
Herr
Doktor
, or they’ll get suspicious.’

‘The Gestapo, you mean?’

‘They’re watching those eggheads like a hawk. Portugal’s neutral. Any one of them could hightail it to an embassy and defect.’

‘They’d just storm the place and grab him.’

‘Maybe yes, maybe no. The Nazis are dumb, but they aren’t stupid.

That would make egg-on-your-face headlines.’

‘What’s the plan if we don’t make it in time?’

‘None that I know of. But I sure hope there is one. They don’t tell me everything, you know - Sparks, get me the latest.’

‘Aye, cap.’

Fatt switched off the autopilot and took the yoke. ‘Time to earn our pay.’

Then he wiggled it slightly. ‘You have the aircraft, captain.’

‘C’mon, don’t you ever fly anymore?’

He grinned. ‘Not if I can help it. Besides, you’ve got to learn how to make love to this fat lady.’

‘I’m getting there.’

‘Getting there is not the same thing as arriving, as we both know from long experience.’