5.Over the Atlantic
AE shook her head and looked out the small square window in the side door of theFriendship. She wondered what the implications were of her nine-year-old disinterest in that early airplane. Certainly now, as she had for many years, she hated hats and loved airplanes. Why the exact opposite in attraction repulsion, why the substitution in meaningful symbols, why the clean and clear-cut reversal? She did not trouble herself for the answers; she took out her log and made some quick entries:
140 mph. 3,600 feet. Mist and fog, white from the afternoon sun churn in the props. 4:15P.M.It is cold in the cabin and colder outside. Bill Stultz has picked up XHYRexmore, a British ship, which gives him a bearing—48 North, 39 West, 20:45 GMT. The HXY has promised to give New York theFriendship’s position.
140 mph. 3,600 feet. Mist and fog, white from the afternoon sun churn in the props. 4:15P.M.It is cold in the cabin and colder outside. Bill Stultz has picked up XHYRexmore, a British ship, which gives him a bearing—48 North, 39 West, 20:45 GMT. The HXY has promised to give New York theFriendship’s position.
Amelia knelt beside the chart table, drinking in the color from the sun splashing on the mist, fog, and clouds. Cloud peaks tinted pink from the setting sun towered in the distance; their hollows were gray and black. The mist on the arc of the propscombined with the sun into three bright rainbows. The pink exhausts from the three motors matched the pink of the cloud peaks. The plane sank in the fog to 4,000 feet. They were 1,096 miles out from Trepassey.
It was night. Cloud, mist, and fog combined. Ten o’clock. Amelia tried to write in the dark by using the thumb of her left hand as the starting point of a line. The words were uneven on the logbook but distinct:
How marvelous is a machine and the mind that made it. I am thoroughly occidental in this worship. Bill sits up alone. Every muscle and nerve alert. Many hours to go. Marvelous also. I’ve driven all day and night and know what staying alert means.
How marvelous is a machine and the mind that made it. I am thoroughly occidental in this worship. Bill sits up alone. Every muscle and nerve alert. Many hours to go. Marvelous also. I’ve driven all day and night and know what staying alert means.
Bill climbed to get over the fog and roughness. Five thousand feet. There was another mountain of fog to climb. Six thousand feet. The north star was reflected in the wing tip. Three fifteenA.M.More mountains of fog had to be scaled. Bill gave the plane all she had. Nine thousand feet. Ten thousand feet. Since Trepassey theFriendshiphad been in the air thirteen hours and fifteen minutes, despite the four-hour advance in clock time. Periodically, Slim Gordon focused a flashlight on the compass so Bill could take a reading.
Stultz had to fly his plane now completely by instruments. He decided to go down through the fog. He began slowly, then more quickly, down to 5,000 feet. Amelia’s ears hurt from the rapid descent. Water streamed on the windows. The left motor started to cough, then the other two. Bill opened the throttles wide, trying to clear the cylinders.
Three thousand feet. The left motor still sputtered. Slim took over the controls, while Bill came back to try the radio. It was dead. Everlasting clouds were everywhere. It began to get lighter as the day dawned. The plane came down through an opening in the clouds. Everything in the cabin slid forward, Amelia with it. She thumped against the forward bulkhead. That sensationagain. She grinned, then smiled broadly. The story of her life could be given in forward slides. The roller coaster, the belly whopper, the Columbia dome. It seemed that she had always been coming down from altitude, after seeking the highest point of woodshed, street, or building and exulting to the thrill of quick descent.