by Alex Myers
“It would be nice if we had this tailwind the whole way,” Sam said. “It really saves on fuel.”
“I’m starting to be concerned. Look at those clouds out there to the east of us,” Robbie said, pointing.
The night had been clear with a big full moon, everything lit up almost as bright as a cloudy day. They were flying on a southwesterly track along the lower coast of New Jersey.
By the time they were flying over Cape May, the southernmost point in New Jersey, the clouds were choking off the sky. They crossed over the mouth of the Delaware Bay and pointed at the Cape Henlopen Light with its red and white flashing light.
“We’re going to have to get lower,” Sam said, pointing at the closing ceiling. For the first time on the trip, clouds covered the big full moon and it was like someone had closed storm shutters. What had been a strong tailwind from the northeast turned into ratcheting crosswind. Sam adjusted his flight angle to a slight south, southeasterly heading. The plane was getting tossed around in the strong currents.
Robbie turned back to see Frances. She was wedged in to her seat, no longer looking out at the scenery. “Think of it like waves on the water,” Robbie said. “It’s just turbulence and we’re going to be fine.”
“I have flown before, I even understand the principle of turbulence, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“We got thirty-four miles to Fenwick Island, and another nineteen miles to Ocean City. I think we will have to refuel there,” Sam said. “We are about halfway to Norfolk and we have about a half a tank.”
“I can feel the difference in the wind,” Frances said.
“If the weather continues to degrade we will have to fly even lower. Robbie, you’ll have to call out new compass settings as soon as you confirm ground landmarks. I will use the WLV, the wing leveler, and the heading hold as much as I can.”
The plane, in addition to the fuel gauge, had a turn coordinator, an altimeter that measured the atmospheric pressure, and a magnetic compass with 360 degrees of headings. One bit of technology that Edison must’ve added himself was a gyroscope that displayed an artificial horizon. Another instrument measured the airspeed as it entered air intakes on the belly of the plane.
“What time is it, Robbie?” Sam asked.
“It’s ten minutes until eight.”
“We’ve been flying nearly three hours. No wonder we have used so much fuel. We’re halfway there and a good half at that. I’m definitely stopping for fuel.”
“Where?” Robbie asked. “I don’t see an airport and besides, it’s Christmas Eve, there’s no one there to sell it to us.”
“There is an airport to the southwest of Ocean City, and I’ve been there before. They have fuel pumps and the keeper lives right on the field. I signed a copy of Huck Finn for him last time I was there.”
“Here’s the Ocean City Light, I see the airfield on this other map. It’s twelve miles away, give it a heading of one hundred eighty-seven degrees.” Robbie said, consulting a folding map.
Lightning cracked across the sky just slightly over the plane.
“That was close,” Frances said.
“I’m afraid it’s going to get worse. I think this is the leading edge of the nor’easter,” Sam said, his face looking grim.
Big bunches of rolling, churning, clouds were rolling in from out in the ocean. The clouds were still twenty or thirty miles out to sea, but it was an ominous backdrop for what was coming.
“When we stop to get fuel, I’m going to try to call my dad,” Robbie said. “I tried earlier and he didn’t answer. I think I figured out his reaction to seeing Jack earlier. Remember Kady Barnett?”
“I don’t think I could ever forget her. My ex-husband has a full-blown affair with your mother and I never get jealous, but when I thought Jack was seeing Kady, instead of being mad, I went mad.”
“Lovely girl as I recall,” Sam said, with a lilt in his voice, “but I thought she married and moved to Williamsburg?”
“Boy, you sure know a lot about her,” Frances said, surprised.
“I will admit I was a bit smitten with the girl.”
“She’s a widow, got a couple of kids and moved back in with her father in Virginia Beach,” Robbie said.
“So Kazmer is courting her?” Sam asked.
“Yes, they have been seeing each other for about three months. That explains his reaction to Jack. I know he thinks Jack came between him and my mom. He knows that Kady once had a thing for Jack. He really likes her, and has even talked about marriage as crazy as that is—he’s fifty-five and she’s forty.”
“That’s not as bad as the gap between Jack and me,” Frances said.
“There’s nothing wrong with that age span.” Sam shook his head at Robbie. “What better explanation is there for him refusing to acknowledge Jack’s existence?”
“I know he’s lonely and Kady is such a wonderful person. I’ll try them at home and if there is no answer, I’ll try over at the Barnett’s. If I get a hold of him, I could send him over to talk to Jack.”
“If you think you could talk your dad into doing it,” Frances said.
“I think you could. My dad would do anything for you. I know he loves Jack too. I want him to talk Jack out of leaving.”
Sam dropped the plane’s altitude down to 2000 feet to stay below the cloud cover. What thirty minutes prior had been scattered cloud cover was now a solid churning mass with an encroaching wall from the east. The lights from Ocean City were on the left as they flew down the middle of the Isle of Wight Bay between the barrier island and the mainland.
“As we pass the last of the Ocean City Lights, the airport should be coming up on our right,” Sam said as he descended to 1000, then down to 700 feet.
“I see nothing but blackness,” Frances said, straining to see.
“Sam, it’s really dark out there, I can’t see anything on the ground, the water, anything,” Robbie said with his face pressed to the glass.
It was pitch black outside and Sam leaned heavily on his instruments. “We are down to 400 feet, I can’t see anything, it should be right here,” Sam said.
“There!” Robbie said. “We just flew over the beach and we’re heading out to sea—a heading of 195 degrees will put us back parallel to the shore.”
“I’m going to fly west until we see the beach again. I’ll keep our altitude at 250 feet,” Sam said. In another minute, they saw the beach and he turned the plane south by southwest.
“What about the airport?” Frances asked. “Are we going to go back?”
“We missed it the first time, and I’m not any more certain we would see it the second time.”
“I concur,” Robbie said. “We have got just enough fuel to get us to Norfolk, let’s not waste any on a maybe. Can you take us down any more, say to 200 feet?”
“I’m already at 200. I’ll take it down to 150. The Assateague Light should be coming up in about five minutes.”
Robbie consulted his charts. “It has two white flashes every five seconds.”
Right on time, in the front windscreen they saw the double flash. “There it is,” Sam said. “When we get there, set us on a course for Cape Charles.”
“That’s the one. That’s a long way away isn’t it?” Frances asked.
“It’s sixty miles as the crow flies, seventy if we fly by the beach,” Robbie said and as if by magic, the beach came into view. One second there was nothing but the gray of the ocean, the next the tan of the beach materialized with no fanfare or ceremony; it was simply there and they could follow it or not.
Sam saw it, banked left, and announced, “It looks like we’re following the beach.”
“Why didn’t we go the shorter way?” Frances asked as she fell into the sidewall in the momentum of Sam’s turn.
“While it may be a less ambiguous route, there are probably not fifty families that live between hither and yon,” Sam said, never taking his eyes from the faint outline of the beach below.
&n
bsp; “No cities, no lighthouses, nothing but State Route Thirteen, which is nothing more than an unlit dirt path,” Robbie said.
They were one hundred feet above the sand and the huge breakers rolling in from the sea.
Sam handled the stick like it was electric; his arms jerked right or left trying to keep the plane on course, but at other times he managed the stick with his right hand softly cupping the throttle in the palm of his left.
Rain started splattering on the windshield one drop after another until it became a solid wall of water.
“I think this is just the advance squall line of the bigger storm still to come. At least it’s not snow…yet.” Sam spoke softly, almost muttering it under his breath.
The instruments were lit by a soft red glow that cast Sam and Robbie in an eerie light.
It was spitting rain and the turbulence was getting nasty. The plane was weathervaning all over the place by gusts that came one second from the east, then the next from the northeast, and then the north.
Bam! Slide! Bam! Their tailbones, legs, and guts were getting pounded by the sudden slams of the turbulent air.
“I can’t climb any higher,” Sam said. “I’m losing sight of the beach as it is. Robbie, I hate to ask you this, but can you put on the goggles and open the window to see if you can see any better?”
Frances looked surprised, but Robbie took it in stride. He unhitched his shoulder strap and stuck his head out into the rainy slipstream.
Sam fought hard to keep the plane level. He was hunched over the gauges watching the gyro, the compass, and he was checking and rechecking his airspeed, altimeter, vertical speed and every now and then checking his engine gauges, making sure everything was within safe operating ranges.
“I’m a hundred feet off the beach and can barely see it,” Sam said over the sound of the open window.
Robbie pulled his head back in and said, “There are no lighthouses, regular houses, no towns, no point of reference anywhere on this eastern shore. There is a two-mile break in the beach at Quinby Inlet. Once there, you’ll need to set your course 260 degrees west and we’ll make a run for the Chesapeake. Halfway across the peninsula we should see the lights of a small village called Franktown.”
“I can remember stopping there once and dining at a place called the Great Machipongo Clam Shack, it’s a really small town.” Frances said.
“If it’s such a small town, why were you there?” Robbie asked, wiping his goggles.
“I was flying to New York and our pilot had to make an emergency landing. It took him three hours to fix the plane. There was nothing to do but spend time in the restaurant eating clams and crabs, and how could you forget a name like Machipongo?”
“There are about thirty people living there. I’m hoping we’ll see some lights. From there, it will be five minutes to the Chesapeake and then about fifteen minutes to the Cape Charles Lighthouse. I’m also hoping that when we head west, our flying conditions will improve,” Robbie said.
“Trying to beat a storm like this,” Sam said, straining to keep sight of the beach, “flying this close to the ground, at any moment the earth may reach up and smite us.”
To the east was a solid wall of angry black clouds, just a small preview of the nor’easter show to come.
“It’s going to be hard to discern if what you’re seeing is really an inlet to Hog Island Bay or if we are off course and heading out into the ocean,” Sam said.
“I’ll do my best,” Robbie said. “I’ll keep a lookout until we get there.”
He once again stuck his head completely out the window. The icy blast coming into the cabin was not cold enough to ease the sweating of Frances’ hands inside her gloves. Sam was looking down the left side of the plane and Robbie was staring down the right.
“I lost sight of the beach,” Sam said over the noise of the open window.
Robbie indicated with his hand to keep moving forward. “Keep the same heading,” he said.
“Look at that light!” Frances said over the noise.
In the distance, through the murk and turmoil, a bluish-white, eerie glow appeared in the middle of the windscreen.
“I can’t see the beach,” Sam said, bringing his attention forward.
“I can’t see anything either. I don’t know what we—wow—what is that?”
The swirling milky-blue mass was easily two miles across and eight to ten miles wide. It appeared to be flowing from out in the ocean westward just ahead of the storm. As they flew closer, the glow became brighter and bluer.
“It’s a giant bloom of bioluminescence bacteria or squid or jellyfish or shrimp or algae or something—and it’s totally wonderful.” Robbie was excited.
“It seems to be moving to the west. It wouldn’t be able to go west unless that’s the inlet!” Sam said. His face turned into a big smile.
“Exactly, turn west right where the glow begins,” Robbie said.
The plane moved through the ninety-degree turn and headed straight west. The storm was pushing and steering the small marine creatures into a glowing blue soup and channeling them into Quinby Inlet flowing north to Revel Island and south into Hog Island Bay. It appeared as if they were flying above a field of blue swirling snow.
“What if we don’t get to him in time?” Frances asked.
“What if we do?” Sam asked and then added. “And he doesn’t want to stay?”
“I never thought about that—about getting there in time and Jack deciding to go back anyway. I can’t believe you left him alone in the first place.” Frances leaned forward, trying to see Sam’s face. “You had no inkling?”
Sam shook his head.
“Robbie?”
“No clue.” Robbie pointed out the front of the plane. “I think we’re crossing over to land, and there, I see lights. It must be Franktown.”
They were beating the storm and the rain had even stopped. The airplane surged free of the mist and came bounding out of the clouds. The full moon could be seen in the distance.
“I can see all the way to the Chesapeake,” Robbie said.
“Let’s go as fast as we can,” Sam said, turning south early, “as long as we can see the shore, I’ll head us down the far coastline.” Sam set the power at WOT, wide open throttle, and climbed to a more comfortable 500 feet.
“It’s so beautiful,” Frances said.
“It’s no wonder Satan sought to tempt Christ by taking him to a place with a lofty view,” Sam said.
“We’ve got fourteen miles to the Cape Charles Light,” Robbie said.
“There it is,” said Frances, pointing out the front.
Sam looked at Frances and smiled, “Nice spotting, we’re going to turn you into an aviatrix yet.”
“No thank you. It’s better to be on the ground wishing you were flying, than to be flying and wishing you were on the ground.”
Robbie turned his head toward the eastern sky. Flash…then…flash—a lightning bolt laced the sky. From the east, the sky poured onto the land like black, gooey tar.
“The wind is at eighteen miles per hour and gusting to thirty-five, no, make that forty miles per hour,” Robbie said.
More flashes. The raging, towering, anvil-shaped cumulus was flinging electric bolts. They didn’t have a landmark other than the Cape Charles Light.
“I think that will be enveloped before we get there,” Sam said. “I’m going to cross the Chesapeake.”
“It’s over twenty-five miles to Fort Monroe.” It sounded as if Robbie wasn’t on board with the idea.
“I’m going to try to cross while I can still see a little.” Sam’s dauntless, supremely confident attitude in the plane was in total contrast to his loose, jaunty attitude on the ground.
They were flying on a heading and correcting for wind drift when the landmarks finally ran out and they were over the water of the Chesapeake Bay.
“Here,” Sam jabbed his finger against Robbie’s map. “Here’s Fort Monroe, from there it’s a ten minute ride to No
rfolk.
“You’re going to land at the complex?” Frances asked.
“Robbie, what time is it?”
Robbie checked his watch in the red glow of the flashlight, red as not to ruin their night vision. “I have eleven o’clock.”
“No, we’re going to have to land in the field before to have any hope of getting there before Jack leaves,” Sam said.
“Why would Jack want to live in the past?” Robbie asked.
Sam raised his eyebrows and hinted back in Frances’s direction. Frances saw him do it.
“No, I think it’s a fair question, Sam, and one I’ve asked myself a lot in the last twenty-four years. I know he loves me, but I think it’s more than that. He feels that he can make a difference here. Perhaps more than he can make in his own time.”
“He certainly accepts responsibility for his actions and their future ramifications,” Sam said.
“You’re heading right for those dark clouds,” Frances said.
“That’s a great metaphor.”
“No seriously look,” Frances said, pointing.
The black, billowing clouds were rolling like an avalanche over the dark, smudgy gray of the water.
“That’s exactly the way we have to go,” Sam said, never taking his eyes away from the flying.
“Our heading takes us right into the tempest.” Robbie was staring hard at the killer cloud mass. “I don’t think it’s solid,” he said. “I think there are lanes, breaks that we could fly through. I just saw the double red flash of the Point Comfort Lighthouse station at Fort Monroe through it.”
“Let’s do it,” Sam said. “I don’t want to die over the water, not tonight at least.”
From the backseat, Frances leaned forward and looked at Sam’s face. His mouth was turned into a grim, half smile. She knew what this expression meant; he was determined to find a way to get them to Norfolk.
As they approached the clouds, the turbulence became stronger, the compass spun wildly, and the plane rose and fell like a marionette. Robbie opened his window to help gauge their course. Sam worked the rudder. The engines roared and the floorboards shuddered. The cockpit was filled with the icy cold wind of the open window mixed with the burnt oil from the engines.
