Authors: Walter J. Boyne
A sense of utter loneliness came over him. Hafner had not reappeared, and he had seen no other living thing, ship, plane, or bird. Maybe he was dead, down in the sea, and this was all some sort of dream. He'd long since let the noise of the engine and propeller grind into an anonymous white silence. He brought his hand to his mouth and bit down hard, letting the pain and the tooth marks prove him to be alive.
*
Aboard the
Miss Charlotte
8:00
a.m.
PST, August 17, 1927
The dawn had been welcome for Hafner, too. He took a carefully
measured sip of cognac from the flask he kept in his navigation case,
then washed it down with a pint of water. He picked through the
food Murray had prepared, settled on a waxed-paper-wrapped piece
of chicken.
He passed half back to Nellie and sat munching, aware of how much better the sunlight made it. Last night he'd gone through tremendous strain, fighting back the fears of a lifetime that had somehow squeezed into the cramped cockpit of the Bellanca. He
had never once been sleepy; instead, his strength was drained by the
constant dry aching fatigue of fear, the numbing realization that Bandfield had deserted him in the twin oceans of air and sea, and that there was no recourse, no alternative available to him. The
course he'd chosen was purely guesswork, a process of elimination that factored in all the information he had, most of which was many
hours old.
Periodically, he would rack the Bellanca, lighter and more spirit
ed now that fuel had burned off, into a tight turn, and he'd scan
both the sea and the sky, hoping to see an airplane or to find a break in the undercast that would reveal a ship or even a flock of birds,
anything to give him a hint of his direction. Each time there was
nothing, and each time the clutching spasm of fear would draw him
a little more tightly together, his scrotum contracting, his stomach twisting.
It bothered him most because the danger was not proximate; it
would be hours before the real life-or-death choices would be put to
him. Often in the past, in combat, in acrobatics, he had been only seconds from death, not caring because he held the answer in his hands and feet, able to move the controls, fire the guns, exert control over the situation. Now the only control he had was negative; he could end it all in a plunging dive to the sea, something he
knew he'd never do. Or he could wait, and hope that his course was
correct, that a ship would appear.
He vacillated between hoping that Bandfield had crashed and that
he would suddenly pop up somewhere, on course to Hawaii. When—if—they met again, Hafner swore to kill him, face to face, man to man.
*
Aboard the
Salinas Made
1:30
p.m.
PST, August 17, 1927
The strain of
needing
to see the islands had wakened him thorough
ly. Millie and Jack would be on the ground in Hawaii by now, surrounded by hula girls and reporters, accepting the first-prize money. A pang of conscience went through him as he wondered if he had left Hafner to die; he dismissed it. The fuel check was easy now that he was down to the main tanks. Either he found land in
the next two and a half hours, or he would be sailing the worst yacht
in the Pacific.
There was something on the horizon—two gentle smudges,
pressing through the clouds as a young girl's breasts bud through a
summer frock. He sighed in relief at the anticlimax. All he had to do was steer to them, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, then turn north and west again past the shores of Maui and Molokai and on into Oahu. He pulled a map from the satchel on the floor, and located the Army base at Wheeler Field. It was almost at the center of the western end of the island.
He ran a fuel check. It would be close, but he'd make it. The Wright Whirlwind and the ancient Breese airframe suddenly seemed to glow with charm; they were bringing him to Oahu, to Millie, and to $10,000. Not bad for a lash-up that Hadley had
advised him not to fly. He was going to beat the navigation problem
and
the fuel problem. He was going to live!
The clouds were breaking up, and he could see the surf curling on the shores of Molokai, the island of lepers and Father Damien, as he went by. He turned in toward Oahu and Wheeler Field at one thousand feet, letting down slowly, looking for other airplanes.
When he crossed over the coastline the airplane seemed to take on a
palpable solidity, as if the ground below had stiffened it in all the right places. Except for an Army training plane, wings bright yellow, off to his left, he had the sky to himself. Below, the green
beauty of Oahu spilled out before him, ten times as attractive as he
had imagined, more inviting than any land he'd ever seen.
He picked up the Waianae mountains that backed Wheeler Field, then saw the typical Army layout of hangars and post. He advanced the mixture and dropped down, determined to buzz the
field and see Millie wave to him before he tried the wheelless belly
landing. The Army would see what he was going to do and have the
meat wagons ready.
He checked the field. A flight of three Curtiss Falcons was taxiing
out, and two Boeing PW-9 fighters had appeared from nowhere,
bobbing up alongside. The pilot in the closest Boeing pulled in, grinning and holding up a single finger. He was first! Where was Millie? My God, where was Millie?
Breathing hard, heart pounding, Bandfield's hands trembled as he entered the pattern, slowing the Breese down to 95 mph, then 80, searching the flight line all the while. The yellow Vega would have stuck out; it wasn't there. Maybe they had landed on another island.
He forgot about the jettisoned landing gear, coming down to level off as if the wheels were below him. He stalled and dropped with a
shudder to the green grass surface. The impact forced the struts up
through the wings, and the Breese slithered around in a circle as he
cut the switches. He pulled himself up from the cockpit, feeling totally foolish, trying to get away from it before it exploded. Then the cheering crowds arrived in trucks, cars, and buses.
A group of pilots grabbed him and carried him to a beautiful
young Hawaiian girl who heaped a garland of leis around his neck
and almost kissed him on each cheek. "Where's the Vega? Have you
heard anything from Winter?"
A big major introduced himself. "I'm Major Bill Grant. Con
gratulations—you're the first one we've seen. The last report we had
on anyone was the message you got from the W. S.
Miller.
How much time should we give them before we put out a search?"
The pilots crowded around, staring at him, wondering if he was too tired to realize he'd won, that the $25,000 was his.
Bandfield yelled, "Start now, goddammit! The Vega was much
faster than my airplane. They're either down, or they've missed the island. Get out every goddam thing you've got and get it in the air.
The major walked away, irritated with this smart-ass civilian who'd humiliated him in front of his men. James Dole, short,
self-important, wearing a white snap-brim hat, came smiling up with the check in his hand.
"Mr. Bandfield, it's my honor
..."
Bandfield ignored him, turning to run and grab the major by the arm.
"Listen, I'm sorry, I'm crazy with fear. My girl's on that airplane.
Please don't get mad. Just get me an airplane to go after her."
Grant looked at him. "Take it easy, Mr. Bandfield. I'll go in and
notify the Navy. We'll put up a full sea and air search. You'd better
get some rest."
Bandfield staggered back with the group of pilots, subdued now.
Hawaii revolved around him, new odors, bird calls, flowers, and he
was unaware of it all. He had only one thought, that of a yellow Vega, circling, looking for those gray dots that he had found. It must still be flying.
*
Wheeler Field, Hawaii
4:00
p.m.,
August 17, 1927
Bandfield was stretched out in the flight surgeon's office, the pain
fully austere white walls and cane furniture somehow offset by some
plants with absolutely obscene waxy red flowers. He was totally
bushed, the hard work and twenty-six-hour flight providing an easy target for the two ounces of Old Grand-dad, its label clearly marked
"For Medicinal Purposes Only."
Major Grant came into the room.
"We've had a radio report from Oakland, Mr. Bandfield. Three of the airplanes returned to Oakland. Three did not, including yours. They have no word on either Winter's Vega or Hafner's Bellanca."
Bandfield followed his characteristic practice of embracing guilt,
telling himself that if he hadn't abandoned Hafner, Millie would have been all right. He went through the whole routine, blaming himself, then telling himself that he wasn't so important that God would hurt Millie to punish him, then retreating into the wallow of guilt again.
A crackling roar sounded over the flight line. Tired as he was, he
recognized it as a Liberty engine, instead of the Wright Whirlwind he was praying for. He got up and walked to the window as the phone rang.
A yellow-winged Loening amphibian, wheels extended, made a
precise pattern and landed into the wind. He saw it turn around at the far end of the field, to taxi back to the Wheeler operations building.
Grant hung up the phone and turned to him, smiling. "It's one of the rescue ships, Bandy. Looks like they've got somebody."
They raced out to the ambulance and sped, siren roaring, down
streets bordered by flowering trees and redolent with plumeria per
fume. Bandfield sat with his eyes closed, praying that it was Millie.
The Loening was big enough to carry Winter and Gordon too.
They pulled up at the operations building just as the Loening taxied in and shut down. The pilot clambered out of the front cockpit and slid back along the wing as Bandfield ran up and
grabbed a strut. He thrust his foot on the little steel steps and leaped up to peer in the cockpit—at Bruno Hafner, wet and very angry, a
bedraggled Nellie clutched in his lap.
*
Oakland Municipal Airport
10:00
a.m.
PST, August 18, 1927
The atmosphere in the
Post Enquirer
radio shack was funereal, the
silence broken only when the radio crackled to life, people drifting in and out, talking in whispers. The tiny room was fouled in a
distinctive fog of stale smoke, spilled coffee, and unwashed bodies.
Hadley Roget recoiled when he stuck his head in the door.
"Dolan, I'm surprised the air in here doesn't short the radio gear out. You can cut the smoke with a knife."
Ray Dolan, obviously under severe strain, nodded abruptly and
looked away. After Bandfield had landed and Hafner had been rescued, there had been absolute silence.
By midafternoon, the crowds had increased until a respiratory
rotation system started, people outside rushing in to fill the place of
those who staggered out to breathe.
The jubilation that had followed Bandy's landing had changed into a morbid gloom. Dolan, chairman of the race committee, was
white, his hands shaking, leaping at every vagrant buzz of the radio.
He had told Hadley earlier that he felt like a murderer, that Dole
was a murderer. The relatives, ground crews, and hangers-on of the
missing aviators forged into the radio shack, enduring the foul air and eventually displacing almost everyone else as the minutes lengthened into hours.
A monumental rescue effort was underway. The
Golden Eagle
was out of fuel, down somewhere in the endless Pacific. Search missions were to be flown from both California and Hawaii. The
Navy was already searching, diverting the destroyers that had been
stationed en route and deploying every available patrol plane.
The field pulsed with the false reassurances that attend futile efforts. As at the election-night headquarters of a losing politician,
every morsel of positive news was greeted with enthusiasm, while
reality was shrugged off. A wild surge of elation greeted the news that red flares had been seen streaking from Mauna Loa, but nothing developed from the rumor.