The Spirit of ST Louis (28 page)

If I could throw myself down on a bed, I'd be asleep in an instant. In fact, if I didn't know the result, I'd fall asleep just as I am, sitting up in the cockpit -- I'm beyond the stage where I need a bed, or even to lie down. My eyes feel dry and hard as stones. The lids pull down with pounds of weight against their muscles. Keeping them open is like holding arms outstretched without support. After a minute or two of effort, I have to let them close. Then, I press them tightly together, forcing my mind to think about what I'm doing so I won't forget to open them again; trying not to move stick or rudder, so the plane will still be flying level and on course when I lift them heavily.

It works at first; but soon I notice that the minute hand of the clock moves several divisions forward while I think only seconds pass. My mind clicks on and off, as though attached to an electric switch with which some outside force is tampering. I try letting one eyelid close at a time while I prop the other open with my will. But the effort's too much. Sleep is winning. My whole body argues dully that nothing, nothing life can attain, is quite so desirable as sleep. My mind is losing resolution and control.

But the sun is sinking; its brilliance is already fading -- night lies ahead, not day. This is only afternoon, yet I'm experiencing symptoms I've never known in the past until dawn was closer than midnight. If sleep weighs so heavily on me now, how can I get through the night, to say nothing of the dawn, and another day, and its night, and possibly even the dawn after? Something must be done -- immediately.

I pull the Spirit of St. Louis up two or three hundred feet above the water, shake my head and body roughly, flex muscles of my arms and legs, stamp my feet on the floor boards. The nose veers sharply left, and I have to put my toes back on the rudder to straighten it out. I breathe deeply, and squirm about as much as I can while still holding the controls.

My body is shaped by the seat's design. My hand is tied to the stick and my feet to the rudder by cords of instability. Even the angles of my joints are fixed. But shaking clarifies my mind a little -- enough to make new resolutions. I will force my body to remain alert. I will force my mind to concentrate -- never let it get dull again. I simply can't think of sleep. I have an ocean yet to cross, and Paris to find. Sleep is a trivial thing, insignificant compared to the importance of is flight. It has no business bothering me now. It will interfere with my judgment, my navigation, my accuracy of flying. It can come later, after I land at Paris and have the Spirit of St. Louis put away safely in some hangar on Le Bourget. All this I tell myself savagely -- and futilely. The worst part about fighting sleep is that the harder you fight the more you strengthen your enemy, and the more you weaken your resistance to him. The very exertion of staying awake makes you sleepier.

The cramped feeling in my legs has left, as I knew it would. Only dull aches in my back and shoulders remain. I would almost welcome sharper pain. It might help to stay awake. I'm like a man lost in a blizzard, feeling the weight of sleep on his shoulders as though his coat were made of lead, wanting nothing so much as to fall down in the softness of a snowbank and give way to irresponsible sleep, yet realizing that beyond such relaxation lies the eternity of death. But there's a difference. The man in the blizzard has an advantage. He can use his mind to force his body forward, and the movements of his body to keep his mind awake. While I, confined to this tailor-fitted cockpit, must stay awake by will of mind alone. How simple, the problem of the man in the blizzard. If only I could take a dozen of his steps forward, if I could even stand upright for a few seconds, I could gain control of myself again.

I was caught in a blizzard once, in Minnesota. I'd thought I was sleepy that night. But it was nothing; I was wide awake. I never knew what the desire to sleep meant before this flight. Why I could stand up in the blizzard; I could stretch; I could walk; I could run, and swing my arms.

It was in midwinter. Deep snow had made roads impassable except to man and horse. I was seventeen years old then, and I'd just taken on a dealership for milking machines and farm engines. Early that morning, I'd saddled one of my ponies and started out for the little town of Pierz. It was a clear day, and sunny -- about five degrees above zero, Fahrenheit, when I left home. The ride to Pierz took over three hours. All afternoon I'd talked to farmers about their herds -- about the time saved by mechanical milking, about the best methods of putting teat cups on skittish cows. I'd ridden from one barn to another, until evening found me almost thirty miles from home.

Snow was falling lightly when I said my last good-by and started back. The night was so black that I could hardly see the road we were following. I'd pulled my fur hat down, buttoned my sheepskin collar around my face, and almost gone to sleep in the saddle, leaving navigation to my pony. I don't know how many miles had passed when I was jolted to alertness. It was really a change in rhythm more than a jolting. The pony's steps had become stiff and slow. And as I noticed it, he stopped walking. Heel pressed to flank moved him only a few feet forward. Then he stumbled, stopped again, stood quivering -- legs spread apart as though he were afraid of losing his balance and toppling into snow. I dismounted, spoke to him, and led him on. He could walk alone, but my weight on his back was too much. It wasn't stubbornness. He was a faithful pony. But he was getting old, and the day had been long.

I'd made the rest of the way home on foot, some fifteen miles, my pony following behind. The first hour was easy enough, even pleasant as a change. Then, the heavy winter clothing began to bear down on my shoulders, and my felt-lined boots grew heavier with every step I took. The snow thickened with a rising wind, lashed against my eyes, drifted over the road, held back my plodding feet like desert sand.

Sometime after midnight the blizzard stopped, and it turned cold—that bitter cold in which a quickly drawn breath strikes into lungs with pain. I'd fisted my hands inside their mittens to keep the fingers warm. Hoar frost formed on the fur of my cap, on the wood scarf wound below my eyes. My pony's hoofs crunched into the silence of the night. As hours passed I lost consciousness of muscles moving. My legs swung back and forth like clock pendulums, as though they were part of a machine on which my upper body rode.

Oh how I wanted to lie down in a snowbank and sleep! Each drift carried an invitation. That night I did lie down. I commanded my legs to stop walking. It took a definite mental effort. I hooked the bridle reins over my arm, fell into the snow, and for two or three minutes let every muscle forget its responsibility; while the pony stood above me, head down, also resting. I could lie, and rise, and make my body walk, and stop, and walk again. I wasn't bound to a cramped position in a cockpit.

But I'm not in Minnesota. I'm in the Spirit of St. Louis, over the ocean, headed for Europe and Paris. I must keep my mind from wandering. I'll take it in hand at once, and watch it each instant from now on. It must be kept on its proper heading as accurately as the compass. I'll review my plans for navigation. Then, I'll concentrate on some other subject.

The first quarter of my flight is behind. There's a sense of real accomplishment in that fact. How satisfying it is to have 800 miles behind -- No! that's the wrong tack. Sleep has crept up a notch. Anything that's satisfying is relaxing. I can't afford to relax. I must think about problems -- concentrate on difficulties ahead. Actually, I haven't quite reached the quarter mark. In another three hours, I'll leave Newfoundland behind and start out over nearly 2000 miles of ocean. If the wind keeps on increasing and swinging tailward, I ought to average over 100 miles an hour through the night. A strong tail wind would put me over Europe well ahead of schedule -- No, I'm getting off course again -- concentrate on difficulties. Suppose the wind shifts north or south during the night, and blows me hundreds of miles off route (This ought to be a line of thought to stay awake on!) The night has always formed a gap in my plans for navigation. How many hours I've spent thinking about it! If the sky stays clear, I may be able to check my drift by wind streaks In the moonlight -- if I fly low enough. But suppose it's overcast. I've already had my share of good weather.

"If you had a sextant, you could climb over the clouds and take a sight on the stars. Maybe you made a mistake not to carry one."

"I couldn't take a sight and fly the plane at the same time. The slightest turn throws the bubble off."

"You never really tried, you know. You took other people's word for that."

"Well, I took the advice of experts. What more could I do?"

"Most of the experts said you couldn't make this flight at all. You didn't believe them."

"I couldn't possibly use a sextant. The Spirit of St. Louis won't hold a straight course for two seconds by itself. Besides, there's the weight -- you can't carry everything on a record flight. If we'd tried to carry every safeguard, the plane couldn't have gotten off the ground -- dump valves, parachute, radio, sextant; it would be nice to have a fourengined flying boat as far as that's concerned."

"Ridiculous! The idea of comparing a sextant to a flying boat! A sextant doesn't weigh five pounds. With a flying boat you couldn't get off the water at all with enough fuel to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. And you didn't give up everything that wasn't essential. You've got thirty pounds of emergency equipment right behind you—the rubber boat and the flares, and the -- "

There's no use going over the argument again. It's just thinking around in a circle, just making my mind more tired and confused. That isn't planning navigation. I must concentrate on navigation. That's what I started out to do. I made my decision weeks ago in San Diego. Now, right or wrong, there'll be no sextant sights. I'll have to get to Europe by dead reckoning, or not get there at all. I'll correct my heading for the wind at nightfall. If it's blowing in a different direction at daybreak, I'll estimate that it blew half the night in one direction, and half in the other.

My watch will give a general indication of my position as I approach Europe. If I sight land on or ahead of schedule, it will probably be Ireland, for Ireland lies farther west than any other country. If my landfall comes a little late, that may be caused either by a head wind holding me back from Ireland, or by a cross wind drifting me north to Scotland. If I fly for two or three hours beyond my estimated time of crossing, and still there's only sea ahead, I'll probably be south of route and over that portion of the ocean which extends eastward to the coast of France. In that case, I'll take up a northeast heading and hope to strike England or the Channel.

If I make a landfall in daylight, or even in clear moonlight, I'll know what country I'm over. Ireland has green mountains rising from a fjorded coast. Large islands lie westward of Scotland. Cornwall has a cliff-lined shore, and is so narrow that an airman can see across it. The French coast is lower; and it too has characteristic lines. From the heathered mountains of Scotland to the Pyrenees of Spain, each country is distinctive from the air. If there's any doubt in my mind, I'll drop down over the first village I come to and see in what language the store-front signs are written.

Suppose Europe is covered with fog, or I make my landfall after dark? Well, I'll simply hold my course until -- until -- There's trouble in the cockpit -- I've been half asleep again, dreaming about my navigation. The compass needle's a full ten degrees right of the lubber line! I bank the Spirit of St. Louis back on course, and hold the needle firmly on its mark, gripping the stick as though hundreds of pounds of strength were required on controls instead of ounces.

Cape Breton Island is nearly a hundred miles behind. I've been staring out of windows at the horizon, dragging my eyes back to check the compass, making them look blearily at instruments, performing routine duties of flight mechanically and dully, and only because I know they must be done. Suddenly, I become aware of a difference -- one of my senses is banging on a distant door, shouting for attention -- there's an essential message I must have. It's like the moment of confusion that precedes alertness, when you've been startled from a deep sleep -- who? -- what? -- where? And then life clarifies. Consciousness becomes a skull-encompassed prisoner again.

The ocean ahead has assumed a different texture, brighter, whiter -- an ice field! It turns dazzling white in sunlight as it slides in beneath my wing. I feel that I'm entering the Arctic. Even those patches of snow on the bleak hillsides of Cape Breton Island did not prepare me for this change. I knew, of course, that my route lay north of the ship lanes, and that ships keep south because of floating ice; but I wasn't ready to be transported so quickly to a frozen sea.

Great white cakes are jammed together, with ridges of crushed ice pushed up around the edges, all caught and held motionless in a network of black water which shows through in cracks and patches as I pass. A quarter mile in from the field's edge, the sea smoothes out, the waves disappear, and there's not a sign of movement among the blocks of ice. As far as I can see ahead, the ocean is glaring white. Despite the noise and vibration of the engine, I feel surrounded by the stillness of a Minnesota winter -- the frozen silence of the north. I feel a trespasser in forbidden latitudes, in air where such a little plane and I have no authority to be.

The brilliant light and the strangeness of the sea awaken me -- make my mind the master of my body once again. Any change, I realize, stimulates the senses. Changing altitude, changing thought, even the changing contours of the ice cakes help to stay awake. I must look for differences, and find ways of emphasizing them. I can fly high for a while and then fly low. I can fly first with my right hand and then with my left. I can shift my position a little in the seat, sitting stiff and straight, slouching down, twisting sidewise. I can create imaginary emergencies in my mind -- a forced landing -- the best wave or trough to hit -- the stinging wetness of the ocean. I can check and recheck my navigation. A swallow of water now and then will help. And there's the hourly routine of fuel tanks, heading, and instrument readings. All these tricks I must use, and think of others. Similarity is my enemy; change, my friend.