The Spirit of ST Louis (42 page)

For a moment the clouds give way, and the moon itself peers through a tremendous valley, flooding unearthly bluffs with its unearthly light, screening the eastern stars with its nearer, brighter glow, assuming mastery of the sky by night as does the sun by day.

Far ahead, a higher cloud layer is forming, thousands of feet above my level—glowing, horizontal strips, supported by thick pillars from the mass below—sculptured columns and arches to a temple of the moon. Has the sky opened only to close again? Will they finally merge, these clouds, to form one great mass of opaque air? Must I still turn back? Can I still turn back, or have I been lured to this forbidden temple to find all doors have closed? North, south, and, west, clouds rise and tower; only the lighted corridors ahead are clear.

THE SIXTEENTH HOUR
Over the Atlantic
TIME - 10:52 P.M.

Wind Velocity Unknown Visibility Unlimited outside of clouds

Wind Direction Unknown Altitude 10,200 feet

True Course 69° Air Speed 86 m.p.h.

Variation 33° W Tachometer 1675 r.p.m.

Magnetic Course 102° Oil Temp. 33°C

Deviation 0° Oil Pressure 60 lbs.

Compass Course 102° Fuel pressure 3 lbs.

Drift Angle 10° R Mixture 4

Compass heading 92° Fuel tank Fuselage

Ceiling Unlimited

Above Clouds

Fifteen hundred miles behind. Two thousand one hundred miles to go. I'm halfway to Europe; not halfway across the ocean or halfway to Paris, but halfway between New York and Ireland -- and Ireland seems like Europe, though it's really an island lying well out in the Atlantic. If I can reach Ireland in daylight and in clear weather, it should be easy sailing from there on.

After I flew out through that gap in the mountains at St. John's, Ireland became, subconsciously, more of an objective than Paris in my mind. If I could reach Ireland, Paris would follow, I felt, just as I consciously always took for granted that if I could reach Paris, Le Bourget would follow. Now, I'm nearer to Ireland than to New York!

A long flight always divides up into such mileposts. They help pass time and distance -- the first state, the first shore line, the first hundred miles, the first thousand -- there's always some objective reached to give the feeling of accomplishment. My log of them is filling. In it I've placed the continent of North America, Newfoundland, three stretches of salt water, the first day, and the blackness of the first night. Next, still quite far away, will be the dawn.

There's the moon, a little higher, and too far north. I've let the plane veer off course again. If only those compasses would steady down, I could stop cramping my neck to see the stars, and rest. That's what I want most now -- to rest. Why try to hold a steady course? There's no accuracy to navigation anyway, with the compasses swinging, and after all those detours of the night. If I keep the Spirit of St. Louis pointing generally eastward, that should be enough; that will bring me closer to Europe. Why bother with careful navigation when it's so much easier to sit quietly and rest? After the night has passed, I can hold a straight course. It will be easier when the sun's up. Until then why should I worry about a trivial five or ten degrees? -- Ten degrees isn't much of an angle -- I can't possibly miss the whole continent of Europe -- What difference does it make if I strike the shore line a little farther from course than I planned?

I shake myself violently, ashamed at my weakness, alarmed at my inability to overcome it. I never before understood the meaning of temptation, or how powerful one's desires can become. I've got to alert my mind, wake my body. I can't let anything as trifling as sleep ruin the flight I spent so many months in planning. How could I ever face my partners and say that I failed to reach Paris because I was sleepy? No matter how inaccurate my navigation, it must be the best. I can carry on. Honor alone demands that. The more my compasses swing, the more alert I must stay to compensate for their errors. If my plane can stay aloft, if my engine can keep on running, then so can I.

I cup my hand into the slipstream, diverting a strong current of air against my face, breathing deeply of its gusty freshness. I let my eyelids fall shut for five seconds; then raise them against tons of weight. Protesting, they won't open wide until I force them with my thumb, and lift the muscles of my forehead to help keep them in place. Sleep overcomes my resistance like a drug.

My fingers are cold from the slipstream. I draw my mittens on again. Shall I put on flying boots? But I'd have to unbuckle the safety belt and take my feet off the rudder pedals, and do most of the work with one hand. The Spirit of St. Louis would veer off course and I'd have to straighten it out a dozen times before I got the boots on. It's too much effort. I'd rather be a little cold.

I draw the flying suit's wool collar across my throat. Should I put the windows in now? Why not shut off the world outside, relax in the warmth of a closed cockpit, and gain that last mile or two of speed from streamlining? Those windows, resting idly in their rack, pushing down on the plane with their three of four pounds of unused weight, still rankle in my mind -- fifty miles of range thrown away. There's still time to save more than half of it, still time to make them pay a profit on their passage. But the same argument that kept them out before steps forward and wins its case again. If I shut myself off even partially from outside air and clouds and sky, the lure of sleep may prove beyond resistance. The coolness of the night is a guard against it; the clarity of moonlit clouds helps to overcome it; the exhaust of the engine, barking in through open windows, serves to ward it off.

How wonderful it would be if this really were a dream, and I could lie down on a cloud's soft, fluffy quilt and sleep. I've never wanted anything so much; never found anything more impossible to attain. I'd pay any price -- except life itself. But life itself is the price. This must be how an exhausted sentry feels: unable to stay awake; yet knowing that if he's caught napping, he'll be shot.

I've
got
to do something to clarify my head. I've got to do a better job of navigation. This isn't a college problem with nothing but a grade mark in the balance. The entire flight – Europe – Paris -- life or death -- depends on the answer. How shall I compensate for the night's errors? When morning breaks, what estimate will I make of my position? I force my hands to unfold the chart on my knees and slant the flashlight's beam across its surface. The white paper glares back into my night-accustomed eyes as though it were reflecting a midday sun. The great-circle course runs off the edge. I pull the "Eastern Half of the North Atlantic Ocean" from the map pocket and join it to the western. Changing pressures on stick and seat warn me that the Spirit of St. Louis is climbing -- yes, the air-speed needle's down to 80 -- now 75 -- now 70 miles an hour. I switch off the light and level out my plane.

This cockpit was never made for spreading out charts. The paper wrinkles. The ends hang down and flutter in swirls of air. I need four hands—one for the stick, one for the flashlight, and one for each strip of paper. I try holding the stick between my knees and the flashlight under my chin. It works for a moment; then comes that out-of-balance feeling which tells me the plane's veering off again. I clamp the charts firmly against my legs with one forearm, and throw the flashlight onto the instrument board -- turn indicator's far to the right -- air speed's up -- altimeter's dropping. I shut off the light, pull the stick back, kick left rudder, and look out the window to find some plane of reference from which to level out. But the moon's covered. There's not even an approximate horizon. I look up through the skylight to find stars. There are none. The glaring whiteness of the chart has blinded me to such vague pinpricks.

Gradually sight returns. I find my stars, and straighten out on course -- or rather what I estimate, from the oscillating compass, the course to be. I piece the charts together again, flying entirely by instruments, so that my wind-dried eyes work always in an even light. But the Spirit of St. Louis refuses to be left unattended for five seconds. As soon as I

look down at the charts the plane starts cutting up like a spoiled child piqued at a moment's neglect.

Finally I give up trying to hold the charts, and decide to visualize them in my mind while I watch the moon and stars. I've worked over them until their features are as plain as a familiar face on memory's screen. I can see the outline of the European coast almost as clearly as though I were looking at the charts themselves. The finer details can wait until I learn the wind's direction after daybreak.

I'm in the sixteenth hour of flight, still angling slightly northward, but bending toward the east each hour. Far ahead and to the left should be Ireland; to the right, the tip of England and the westward point of France. It's better to err to the northward, in the direction of nearest land; yet fate's been pushing me farther and farther south—south to detour the storms in Nova Scotia; south to fly above St. John's; south around most of the thunderheads; south with the movement of the stars. The wind above the clouds may be drifting me southward too. I may be pointed at the Bay of Biscay instead of Ireland.

The Bay of Biscay! Its name strikes back In memory to my childhood in Minnesota, to a ditty my father used to sing as we drove along winding dirt roads on crystal summer nights, looking up at the moon and stars just as I'm looking up at them now. The words run through my mind, as though he were sitting at my side, singing them:

"All through the Bay of Biscay, That gallant vessel sailed,

Until one night among the sailors, They raised a merry row -- "

For me, that song has always been connected with night, stars -- and sleep, for I was young and usually very sleepy when he sang. And here I am, at night, over the ocean, dependent on the same stars; flying, possibly, toward the Bay of Biscay itself. I may sail above it before another day has passed. I shout out the words as loudly as I can, trying to make them pierce the engine's roar. Singing may help to keep awake, and pass the hours until dawn. Maybe that's why my father used to sing, along those lonely Minnesota roads -- to help keep awake, as I must keep awake tonight.

Lights! There are lights under my left wing. A ship on the ocean! Then the fog's broken, and it's clear below! There are men down there on that ship; I'm no longer alone. If my engine fails, there's help within reach. I could spiral down through that funnel in the clouds, glide past the captain on the bridge, and stall onto the water. They'd stop and pick me up --

What's the matter? -- The lights are rising -- They're too far apart for lights on a ship ten thousand feet below -- They're gone all together -- flashed off as they flashed on! I turn to the instruments; yes, I've been flying right wing low. I'm too far north of the ship lanes to be seeing boats. I must have been looking at some stars. Several of them dropped down through the clouds, unnoticed, to rest for a moment on the surface, of the ocean, and I caught them there.

THE SEVENTEENTH HOUR
Over the Atlantic

TIME - 11:52 P.M.

Wind Velocity Unknown Visibility Unlimited outside of clouds

Wind Direction Unknown Altitude 10,000 feet

True Course 70° Air Speed 90 m.p.h.

Variation 33° W Tachometer 1675 r.p.m.

Magnetic Course 103° Oil Temp. 32°C

Deviation 0° Oil Pressure 60 lbs.

Compass Course 103° Fuel pressure 3 lbs.

Drift Angle 10° R Mixture 4

Compass heading 93° Fuel tank Fuselage

Ceiling Unlimited

Above Clouds

It's midnight in New York, and I've covered about thirty degrees of longitude since take-off. That makes it two hours later local time. Here, it's two o'clock in the morning, if I think in daylight-saving terms. Dawn isn't many hours away. The moonlight is brilliant. Objects in my cockpit are taking form again; I can almost read the figures on the charts. Only corners and out of the way places remain hidden in darkness. Clouds are clear and sharp -- the rolling, crevassed surface below; columns rising from it; high cirrus layers, floating miles above my altitude, lightly veiling the moon as they pass. From a distance these cirrus, cumulus, and stratus clouds had blocked the sky completely, except for corridors lit by the rising moon; but as I approach they separate into layers and isolated masses, with fields of stars between -- no -- yes -- with fields of stars between -- Why can't I stop my eyelids closing? -- Yes, with fields of stars between -- See that gaping entrance to a cave of cloud -- no, earth -- See the moonlight gleaming on the mist -- no, leaves in wind -- I step down from my airplane's cockpit -- no, it's my motorcycle that I leave behind -- I'm in Kentucky, with two other Field Artillery cadets. This is Sunday. We're free of Camp Knox's three-inch guns and classes. O'Connor and Drewary, in their streamlined "Bug," and I on my motorcycle, are out to judge the virtues of the state. At this spot, we'll stop to rest and eat a sandwich.

"You fellows been to Mammoth Cave?"

It's a local boy who comes up to ask us—grinning highschool age.

"Yes, we just came from there," O'Connor answers. We'd spent hours walking through the damp, cool passages.

"Quite a place, isn't it?" the boy goes on.

"Sure is."

"This country's full o' caves," he tells us. "Ya know, we think we got a better one. Like to take a look at it? 'Tisn't far."

"Well - - - sure, let's go."

We've been hunting for caves ourselves, climbing along the banks of a river, and crawling under rocky ledges where an opening might be. Here's a chance to do some exploring with the help of an expert and inexpensive guide.

"My name's Homer Collins," the boy volunteers as we follow him. "We call ours 'Crystal Cave.' It's a lot purtier, an' mebbe it's bigger 'n Mammoth. Some o' the passages go further 'n we been."

We take lanterns and flashlights, and start in through the mouth. The temperature drops. The air is moist. Weird formations surround us, crystalline and white. Water drips in puddles. Our voices return strangely from the walls. We pick our way between stalagmites, duck down as Homer enters a tunnel where there is no trail. It's wet and slippery. In places, we have to crawl under stalactites on our knees. In others, our shoes sink down in muck.

"Have to watch this stuff;" our guide tells us. "Sometimes it caves in."

Then the passage opens to a gallery, high, wide, white in our lantern light—it might well be a secret palace of the gnomes.