Amerika (21 page)

The vast size of the Lufthansa’s Baltimore maintenance hangar took my breath away. Two immense Boeing Clippers rested on their beaching cradles inside a cavernous structure the size of two football fields. Parked nose to nose, surrounded by three-story high metal scaffolding that moved on wheels, maintenance workers swarmed over the planes, each performing his appointed task.

One team serviced the engines and propellers while another clustered around the nose section cutting out what looked to be a bent stringer. Still another team, unseen, was busy cleaning the inside of the plane from tip to tail, vacuuming carpets, spot-cleaning upholstered seats, making the metal- clad flying hotel beautiful once again.

Pan Am’s maintenance hangar in New York was still glowing with atomic  radiation  and  unfit  for  humans,  so  Lufthansa  had  placed  their Baltimore  base  on  a  24-hour-a-day schedule  to  accommodate  the  high volume of passenger traffic shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic.

Most of the eastbound loads were high level German compliance officers heading home, while westbound wealthy European refugees managed to beg, borrow, steal or bribe German officials to let them escape Hitler’s ever-widening  grip  of  National  Socialism  on  France,  Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Netherlands and all points east.

The maintenance teams had just twenty-four hours to fully service a Boeing, get it out of the hangar and back into the air to make room for the next one to come trundling up out of the water on its beaching gear to repeat the process all over again.

Trippe had invested millions of dollars to create this stunning display of coordinated activity under one enormous roof with one thought in mind: maximize profits. A pity those profits were now flowing into Germany’s bank account, instead.

When we first arrived in Baltimore, Ava, Ziggy and the Navy guys went directly to the crew hotel, while I followed Fatt and Orlando into the hangar, where, of all people, Chief of Engines, Atlantic, Jake Mulroney spotted us the instant we arrived. Fatt waved at him nervously and then headed for the men’s room, leaving us to shake hands, clap each other on the back, renew our friendship and try to preserve our cover story.

If they ever have a St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York again, Mulroney should lead it. By the grace of God he’d been in Baltimore the night the Nazis dropped the bomb on Manhattan. His friends and co-workers at the Pan Am hangers at LaGuardia field never knew what hit them.

But before we had a chance to start our lies about why we were here, a tall, spectral-like ghost of a man approached. His spotless white lab coat stood out in stark contrast to Mulroney’s oil-stained coveralls.

‘Cheese it,’ Mulroney whispered. ‘Hitler’s brother.’

‘
Herr
Mulroney,’ the man said when he arrived. ‘Who are these people?’

I stuck out my hand. ‘Captain Carter, South American division, just got re-assigned.’

He took it. Like shaking hands with death.

‘Brenner, Chief Shop Engineer, Lufthansa.’

‘So you’re the big boss around here.’

He nodded.

Orlando stuck out his hand. ‘Orlando Diaz, Chief of Engines, South American Division. Just passing through.’

The man hesitated and Orlando grinned. ‘I know what you’re thinking. What’s a colored boy like me tinkering around with the white man’s engines, right?’

Brenner said nothing but his disapproving mouth said it all.

Orlando rolled onward. ‘Engines don’t care whether the hands that feed them oil or change their sparkplugs are black or white. All they want to do is run sweet as honey. Too bad folks like you don’t feel the same way.’

Herr
Brenner had nothing to say. He turned to me, as if Orlando didn’t exist. ‘You are crew?’

I turned on my happy-boy headlights. ‘First officer on tomorrow’s flight. Can’t wait. Been flying S-42’s up until now. Big Boeings, here I come.’

‘I see. Well, we must make certain that your aircraft is ready for you in time. Correct, Mr. Mulroney?’

‘Yes, sir!’

Herr
Brenner turned on his heel and marched off like an SS trooper. We kept our faces blank until he disappeared into the scaffolding maze. Mulroney risked a smile, and then said softly, ‘What in blue blazes are you two fellows really doing here? The truth, damn it. I heard you were running a charter outfit down in Key West.’

‘Change of plans. Pan Am hired us back.’

‘For certain?’

‘Would I lie to you, Jake Mulroney?’

‘You have done so in the past, Captain Carter, and by God I fully expect you to do so in the future.’

Nothing had changed with Jake since I first met him ten years ago, except he had more gray hairs. He had been Orlando’s boss when they were stationed in Buenos Aires. On my turn-around days, we’d go out drinking together, where, if I didn’t watch myself I’d end up under the table while Jake stayed sober as a judge and sang Gaelic songs.

I continued. ‘All I can say for the record is that I’ll be in the right seat tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp when the
Yankee Clipper
takes off for Lisbon.’

‘I’m flying non-revenue,’ Orlando added.

‘As what?’

‘Chief of Engines, Atlantic Division.’

‘That’s my job, damn it!’

Orlando lowered his voice.   ‘Not denying it. But unless you want to work for
Herr
Brenner and Lufthansa the rest of your born days, you’d best keep your wings folded and your beak shut.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What are two you up to? I can smell it.’

‘Let it rest, brother.’

A long pause while he eyed us both.  Then, ‘Aye.’ He lifted his grease- stained wrench. ‘But if you need any help, say the word and Mulroney’s monkeys will come running.’

I said, ‘That day will come, but tomorrow comes first.’

Sometime around five, just as the sky began lightening with the promise of another hot August day, the Pan Am beaching crew hitched up their two caterpillar tractors to cables attached to the, 15-ton Kenworth beaching dolly  upon  which  rested  the  refurbished  and  refreshed 
Yankee  Clipper
, looking like a bird perched on a fencepost. Not having landing gear, the clippers relied upon these wheeled devices to get them from A to B when out of the water.

The tractors slowly took up the slack, rolled forward and pivoted her around until her nose peeked out of the hangar. Perched precariously, she resembled an ungainly, beached whale with wings. Ava and the rest of the crew were still back at the hotel sound asleep, but I had risen early because I wanted to witness the transformation of this silver whale into a graceful swan and to think about the adventure to come.

Dressed in white coveralls, the crew bustled here and there, waving red flags that signaled the cat drivers when to go forward and when to stop. The men aligned the beaching dolly’s wheels with the steel guide rails built into the concrete taxiway and locked them in place. The rails ran four hundred feet, arrow straight to the beaching ramp, and then gently sloped down and into the water.

Double plumes of black diesel smoke shot out of the cat’s exhaust stacks as they took up the strain. Hard to believe that this land-bound aircraft would be soon be cruising at one hundred-forty miles-an-hour.

When the clipper reached the top of the ramp, the two front-end tractors pulled her forward to where the dolly began its downward slope. They swung clear, while the two rear tractors took up the slack on the cables to prevent her from rolling down the ramp. You could tell from the way her graceful nose leaned forward, that that was exactly what she wanted to do. Slowly, maybe a foot-a-second, the cats advanced, allowing the dolly to bear its impatient burden to the sea.

By now the sun had just opened its eye over Baltimore Harbor. The sea smells returned as if by magic and the surrounding buildings emerged from the misty night and back into hard focus. The immense maintenance hangar no longer carried the graceful words across its arched entrance proclaiming, PAN AMERICAN AIRWAYS. Instead, the blunt block letters of LUFTHANSA sat there like an uninvited guest that refuses to go home.

As the
Yankee Clipper’s
nose touched the water I swear I saw her quiver with excitement. Foot by foot she settled deeper and deeper into her watery home until the float-equipped beaching dolly bobbed gently up and down. At that point, the dolly’s internal flotation cells slowly deflated and it sank to the bottom to be retrieved later. The beautiful Boeing seaplane was officially free from land, but still on the water. Even so, she looked happier here than in the hangar.

A bleary-eyed Mulroney joined me on the patch of grass where I stood clear of the beaching crew but with a perfect view of the proceedings.

‘Don’t you ever go home?’ I said.

‘T’is my home, lad. For now at least. Those Lufthansa fellows are learning the ropes faster than I ever could.’

‘And then what?’

He sighed and stretched. Faint sounds came from his shoulders as weary ligaments and sinews released their grip. ‘Start looking for work, I suppose. Got any openings with that big charter fleet of your down in Key West?’

‘I told you I’m flying with Pan Am now.’

‘In a pig’s foot.’ He quickly held up his hand to ward off my response. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t pursue my line of questioning, even though I could weasel it out of you in a jiffy. You never were good at keeping secrets, Sam Carter. Especially the big one you’re trying to hide inside.’

We both watched in silence as the PanAir launch took over the job from the beaching crew and slowly towed the clipper over to the boarding dock where, in less than an hour, we would take her up for a shakedown flight before passenger boarding began at ten.

Mulroney cleared his throat. ‘I fought in the Great War, y’know.’

‘I know.’

‘A miserable foot soldier I was, but I knew which end of the rifle to hold.’ Another long pause. I knew what was coming but kept my mouth shut.

‘Still do.’ His bloodshot eyes were boring into me like a drill.

‘Don’t doubt it.’

‘Militia’s forming here and there. Every state it seems. Here in Maryland, Virginia. That true in Florida too?’

‘Heard talk of it, yes.’

Mulroney thumped his narrow chest. ‘We’re not going to take this like a bunch of baby birds shivering in a nest, no sir. Mark my words, we are eagles about to fly, and I’m going to be one of them.’

‘Me too.’ I said without thinking.

He smacked his fists together and cackled, ‘I knew it! You and Orlando both?’

I surrendered.

‘Chief of engines, Atlantic, my flat foot. Wait until I get my hands on his sorry black hide.’

‘Hope you’re still good at keeping secrets. Especially this one.’

‘With the best of them, providing...’

‘Providing?’

‘That one of these days I get to fly with you fellas.’

‘Thought you were afraid of heights like Orlando.’

‘Not if I’ve got a Messerschmitt in my crosshairs.’

The rising sun flashed off the
Yankee Clipper’s
silver wings as she drifted at rest at the boarding dock. A set of slender lines held her fast. But not for long.

Our crew of ten boarded the clipper with no fanfare, no fuss, and no fancy uniforms. That would come three hours later when the passengers arrived.  The ‘Post Turn-around Check Flight’ was Pan Am standard operating procedure. Much the same way you stretch and bend and touch your toes after a good night’s sleep, that’s what we were about to do from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail, testing each flight system to be sure that whatever repairs that needed to be made had been made, whatever upgrades had got upgraded, that crew complaints, from master to engineer, to navigator to steward, had been satisfactorily resolved.

I for one had no complaints. The thrill of walking down the long wooden ramp, single file, Fatt leading the parade, with me and Orlando and the others trailing behind in a Vatican-like procession, made my missed hours of sleep fade away.

My footfalls sounded like a bass drum when I walked out onto her stubby sea wing. Instead of drag-producing  wingtip  floats,  Boeing  had borrowed  the  ‘sea  wing’  concept  from  the  Dornier  flying  boats  and designed a broad, fuel filled, airfoil-shaped structure that not only allowed the plane to make water turns without tipping, but also provided additional lift,  not  to  mention  serving  as  a  convenient  boarding  platform  for passengers and crew.