Crossing the Horizon

by Laurie Notaro

  She stared at the photo for several additional seconds, but then could take no more.

  She slammed the paper shut, took a deep breath, and then shuddered.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  FALL 1927

  Ruth Elder and George Haldeman’s ticker tape parade on Broadway, New York City, 1927.

  When the Aquitania, the ocean liner that brought Ruth and George back to New York, got close to shore, Ruth was leaning out from a porthole, smiling broadly, her dark curls framing her face. On the top of her head was perched a brand-new tiny French hat. George, in a tweed overcoat with a red poppy in his buttonhole, leaned out of the next porthole. The city yacht Macon trailed alongside the liner, waiting to bring the two now-famous aviators ashore, and when the gangplank was pulled out to it, Ruth was the first one to run merrily down to the other vessel, followed by the bashfully smiling George.

  They had been on the liner for a week, getting some rest and not having any appointments or reporters following Ruth around. The only exception was the portrait she sat for while on the ship that was auctioned off for a seaman’s charity. It brought one thousand dollars and was purchased by Joseph Schenck, the president of United Artists and husband of film star Norma Talmadge. He liked what he saw in Ruth.

  It was kind but funny, Ruth thought, to think of herself as an actress, but with all of the options Mr. Cornell said she had, she was reluctant to commit to anything just then, even a movie offer.

  But now, as she crossed the gangway, Ruth could’ve been the biggest star in the world, in view of the reception that waited for her.

  The first person to greet Ruth was Mrs. Joseph Dixon, who represented the National Women’s Party. She handed Ruth a massive bouquet of roses that took two arms to hold, and behind her were Pherlie, Pauline, and Aunt Susan, whom she embraced wholeheartedly as much as she could with an armload of roses between them.

  “Lyle is up at the pilothouse,” Pherlie whispered to her as photographers captured the moment of Ruth’s arrival. “Will make for a good show, I think.”

  Ruth nodded and looked behind her and, sure enough, Lyle appeared as dark and handsome as ever. He stood with his arms wide open, waiting for her to come to him, and she did; she ran down the length of the Macon and threw herself into his arms as he picked her up off the ground and twirled her like they were newlyweds. When he finally put her down, she blatantly stuck her tongue out at him. Undeterred, he stood beside her and kissed her on the mouth.

  “Don’t be a damned fool,” Ruth said from behind her smile.

  When the Macon came up the bay, tooting its shrill horn, Ruth and George stood up at the top of the pilothouse, watching the panorama of their welcome. Ruth was wearing her new black coat trimmed in black fox with a Chanel wool jersey suit underneath. She linked arms with George, and the closer they got to the pier, the louder the cheers became.

  When the boat docked at Pier A, a throng of reporters were waiting for them. Ruth, Lyle, and George and Mrs. Haldeman stood at the front, fielding questions. Mrs. Haldeman required the use of her smelling salts every couple of minutes.

  “Where is your famous lipstick, Ruth?”

  “I suppose it’s in my trunk. I just might auction it off, if you want to place a bid!” she said, then laughed.

  “Why didn’t you bring your husband with you on your flight?”

  “He simply weighs too much in gasoline.” She smiled.

  Lyle did not.

  “Are you planning another trip back, to make it a success this time?”

  “I would love to go back and perhaps we’ll try again next year, right, George?” Ruth answered.

  “Would you fly with her again, Captain Haldeman?”

  “I’d be tickled to death to do so,” George shyly replied.

  “Pardon me, but I’m back wearing the pants,” Lyle interrupted. “And there will be no more flights, as far as I’m concerned.”

  The reporters suddenly became quiet. It seemed as if no one knew exactly what to say, including Ruth, whose face flushed red with embarrassment.

  Finally, one brave soul spoke up.

  “Is that true, Miss Elder? Will you stop flying and go home to wash his dishes?”

  “Well,” Ruth began, “I’ve washed his dishes before, but there’s no reason I have to do that all my life. Why can’t I fly? And why should my husband object?”

  “Mr. Womack?” the reporter continued. “Do you object?”

  “Well,” Lyle said, “I feel better about this than I did a month ago, but I still can’t warm up to it.”

  “Women can do lots of things,” Ruth interjected. “And husbands and homes and families should not interfere with them. I’ve washed a lot of dishes in my time and I don’t intend to go back to that right away. Just what I will do, I don’t know yet. But I’ve no intention of quitting now.”

  Lyle looked as if he had been hit with a hammer, and Ruth moved away from him and put her waterfall of roses in between the two of them.

  Mrs. Haldeman went for her smelling salts again.

  The air around the fliers grew thick and uncomfortable, and the silence, which was compounded by the second, became nearly intolerable.

  “Who has a question about flying?” Ruth finally said, to break the tension.

  “Miss Elder, what was your primary reason for wanting to make this flight across the Atlantic?”

  Ruth smiled shyly. “Well,” she began, and paused, looking down and then back up to the reporter. “I knew if the venture succeeded, it would lift me from obscurity and perhaps place me where I could earn more than four dollars a week. If it failed and I went down, it would only be another useless life lost.”

  “We’ve heard that you’ve been offered over two hundred thousand dollars in contracts. Is that right?”

  “Really?” she laughed, shocked. “Isn’t that nice?”

  “Can you tell us more about the flight: the dangers, and what happened with the engine failure? How did you crash? Was it hard? Were you hurt?”

  “There’s really not much to say that hasn’t already been told,” Ruth responded graciously, even though she had been asked those questions a thousand times in the last several weeks. “Although the flight was not the exact success we had hoped it would be, it certainly was more dramatic.”

  * * *

  For the next half an hour, Ruth stood kindly and patiently, looking ever so comely, answering every question the reporters had. Then, amidst the waves of roars and whistles, George and Ruth were escorted to a convertible with members of the Mayoral Welcoming Committee. Lyle, Ruth’s sisters, Aunt Susan, and Mrs. Haldeman traveled in the second and third cars. A procession of photographers and reporters followed them closely to Broadway. There, the car slowed to a crawl for the crowds of people lined on the sidewalk as the mounted police trotted along next to them and the motorcycle police guided them through the valley of Broadway and Wall Street and into a fluttering white wall of ticker tape and confetti. The streamers shot out of windows and twirled down, the confetti drifting lazily to the ground below. The crowds were ten people deep on either side of the street as New York cheered for Ruth and George.

  It was so overwhelming Ruth covered her ears with her one free hand, quite lost in the awe of this moment of wonder. She marveled at the tape flying out of the windows so high up above, spinning, darting, spiraling down. The sky was full of white flecks, almost like twinkling lights, and people waved at her from every story, every window, every rooftop.

  She was speechless, stunned by the volume and scale of it all, surprised that thousands had come to see her and George and that so many people even knew about it. They were cheering for her, the girl whom reporters had laughed at, the one whom people called a phony and even doubted had the ability to fly. They were there to see her.

  Ruth suddenly realized that she had done it. She might have had to ditch her plane into the ocean, but she had really done it: a woman had flown across the Atlantic, just as a man had. Despite what everyone h
ad said and the names people called her, Ruth had done what she said she was going to do. And that would be true for as long as she lived. It had almost cost her everything, but Ruth was good for her word. She had done the impossible, and it could never be taken back.

  As George calmly smiled at the crowd and waved politely, Ruth had to restrain herself from jumping up and screaming with abandon. She felt electric, as if a joyous symphony had collected in her and the mass of it was too much to contain.

  I told you I could do it! she wanted to yell in jubilation, particularly at Lyle. I told you!

  Ruth couldn’t bear to sit still on the ledge of the car any longer and jumped up, waving, yelling “Hello! Thank you!” and rising again and again to her toes in an effort to get even closer to the crowd. George quickly grabbed her right arm and kept her steady as he laughed boundlessly, watching Ruth, her eyes wide, her smile wide, her pinnacle of happiness as true as it would ever be.

  The day was magnificently bright for the beginning of November, and it was startling. It was beautiful.

  This was auspicious, she thought as they slowly made their way up to the St. Regis hotel, the crowds cheering, yelling clapping.

  This was lucky.

  * * *

  After a fast lunch at the St. Regis, Ruth and George were escorted to City Hall, where Mayor Jimmy Walker was to address them in the Aldermanic Chamber. A full band was already in swing. They joined the mayor on his dais. The last time Ruth had been under lights like this and in front of an audience, she was in a bathing suit.

  There are a thousand people in this room, she thought, and suddenly felt flushed.

  “New Yorkers have always had a respect and chivalry for womanhood,” Mayor Walker began his speech. “Womanhood has been in the front rank and now you bring another reminder to us that womanhood has also another place, even in science, in courage and in self-sacrifice for the world’s progress. The courage of Captain Haldeman cannot be magnified nor exaggerated. We look to you, Captain Haldeman, as a real pioneer. America is proud to call you one of its own. You will be an inspiration to other generations. You will leave them to do great things that will be worthwhile and will be a great benefit of our country and to our people and you, Miss Elder, will take your place in the history of beautiful, cultured, courageous, self-sacrificing American womanhood.”

  The passionate applause beat on tremendously loud and steady, hands slapping almost in sync, until Ruth, burning with pride, took the dais and smiled humbly until the peal wore down a bit.

  She cleared her throat, and tried to begin.

  “My dear . . .” she started, but her voice came out weak, thin, and brittle. Through all of the talking of the day thus far with reporters and her sisters, and yelling “Thank you!” to the ticker tape crowd, her voice was a broken thread, squeaky and worn.

  “My dear Mr. Mayor,” she said again, this time in a whisper. “I am so sorry you asked me to speak, because I cannot, especially in a crowded place like this, because my heart sticks in my throat. But I want you to know how much I thank you. This is much more than we expected.”

  Another roaring round of applause as Ruth mouthed “Thank you, thank you” several times and left the microphone for George.

  He hesitated for a moment, then spoke in a clear voice as the applause died down.

  “When Miss Elder and I started our flight,” he said, “we wanted it to be a success for commercial aviation and for the interest of flying in general, and although we did not reach our goal, we hope that our trip, in some way, will be a benefit to flying in the future.”

  George moved back next to Ruth and she tucked her arm into the crook of his.

  The prolonged cheers and the band, which had started back up again, filled the chamber with the most delightful rumbling.

  They both smiled.

  They had failed splendidly.

  * * *

  Elsie pulled up to the hangar at Brooklands very eager to see the progress that had been made on the Stinson Detroiter. Her work at P&O had kept her quite busy since her father’s departure, and now that she was appointing Princess Mary’s suites, her days began at six a.m. in her office in Seamore Place, and she rarely turned out the lights before ten p.m. There was much to do, not only with the liners, but also in regard to the details that only she could attend to about the flight. She, as agreed with Captain Hinchliffe, had taken out a ten-thousand-pound life insurance policy on his behalf, payable to Emilie. It was the most important aspect about the flight aside from landing in North America.

  Although her work hours were grueling, all it took was one thought of the beautiful plane in the hangar at Brooklands and she felt instantly charged with what felt like a joyous delirium. It was a feeling she vaguely remembered every time she saw Dennis and he smiled at her.

  At her next trip to Brooklands, she let Chim out of the car as usual, and he ran up to Hinchliffe as the pilot walked out of the hangar, bounding and jumping and excited to see his great new friend. Hinchliffe greeted Chim with a couple of solid pats to his side and a playful roughing of the dog’s floppy ears. Hinchliffe was not alone. Next to him walked a slightly shorter man, who was balding a little and had pointed features. He looked very French, Elsie thought to herself as she quickly walked over to the pair and held out her hand.

  “Captain Sinclair,” she said pleasantly as she shook his hand. She liked his handshake: steady, brief, and substantial. His eyes twinkled and he had a genuine smile. She approved of him immediately. “Elsie Mackay.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Mackay,” said Gordon Sinclair, who had flown with Captain Hinchliffe during the war and was a decorated ace himself.

  “Please—Elsie,” she said as Chim begged her to throw the stick she had brought for him in her hand. “I still haven’t convinced Captain Hinchliffe to call me that. Go get it, Chim! Run! Run!”

  The stick flew widely out over the grass and the dog leapt away, chasing it.

  “I believe I’ve mentioned several times that I will call you by your Christian name when you call me by mine,” Hinchliffe leaned over and said, smiling.

  “Captain Hinchliffe, that is a truly silly idea,” Elsie said, and laughed back, shaking a finger at him. “I’ve engaged you as my official pilot. There must be some level of decorum!”

  “Let’s move inside where we can talk privately, shall we?” Hinch suggested.

  They started for the seclusion of the hangar, and Elsie whistled for Chim, who came running instantly.

  In the corner of the hangar, the three sat at a wobbly wooden table and hashed out a plan.

  It was only a matter of time before the press caught wind of their intentions, and if that happened, Elsie understood all too well that her father would make good on his ultimatum. With Hinchliffe officially her personal pilot, Sinclair would become the navigator and copilot, participating in test flights, instrument calibrations, and calculations with weather reports.

  They would stick to the line that Elsie only had a financial interest and was in no way planning on flying. It would be Sinclair and Hinch at the wheels, so to speak, and anything else would be firmly denied.

  Hinch wanted the longest runway in Britain for takeoff, which was Cranwell, and that was not good news.

  After Levine completed his tenure at the aerodrome, the officials at Cranwell were so horrified with his behavior that the base was permanently closed to civilians altogether. Hinchliffe, trying to use his connections and banking on his good reputation, had already inquired and was turned down flat. It was a crashing blow to their plans.

  “Would you mind if I tried?” Elsie asked. “Perhaps I may persuade some of my friends at the Air Ministry to help the officials change their minds.”

  “Whatever spell you have to cast, I say utter it,” Hinchliffe said. “We have no other option. Cranwell is the only place we can depart from successfully. Sinclair also has some news that is pertinent to our flight.”

  “Oh?” Elsie said. “That doesn’t sound go
od.”

  “Although Germany has banned transatlantic flights, and France is bound to follow,” Sinclair began, “several German teams and just as many French crews are planning crossings come spring. There’s a vast amount of competition.”

  “I see,” Elsie pondered.

  “Inevitable,” Hinchliffe said. “Even Drouhin has thrown his hat back into the ring. I knew we’d be challenged by a few; I didn’t think there would be so many.”

  “There are, by the latest count, thirteen teams vying for it,” Sinclair continued. “The advantages that you have, Miss Mackay—”

  “Elsie,” she interrupted.

  “Elsie,” he obliged, “—are certainly your pilot, and your machine. As far as I know, there hasn’t been another Stinson Detroiter purchased for a flight anywhere in Europe.”

  “And although I am partial to English planes,” Hinchliffe added, “they simply cannot compare to our craft. But that really means very little when we have such competition snapping at our heels.”

  “Can we push our departure date up any?” Elsie asked.

  “It all depends on Cranwell,” Hinchliffe said. “If there’s anyone who can get permission for the airstrip, it’s you. If we don’t succeed, I don’t know where to go.”

  “I will do my best, I guarantee you. And in the meantime, when do we get to go up in that plane?” Elsie asked, motioning with her head behind her to the Stinson Detroiter, which was now painted dead black on the body and a brilliant, sparkling gold on the wings and struts.

  “I was about to coat the wings in paraffin this afternoon, but it can certainly wait until later,” Hinchliffe said. “Anything I can do to stop ice from forming on them, I’ll do. I’d say we could take her up today if we really wanted to.”

  “That is the most beautiful plane I’ve ever seen,” Sinclair said, gazing at it. “What’s she called?”