“I'm sorry, Mr. Williams, my pilot was confused, well, you know how it is… she's just a girl… girls can't really fly, everyone knows that… actually, she had the map upside down…” They were both laughing, amused at their own schemes, but the next day, when they took off, some of what she'd said proved to be prophetic.
They hit an unexpected lightning storm two hundred miles out, and after assessing the situation, and the winds, they agreed to go back to Howland Island. And as they attempted to land, it grew to a tropical storm of surprising proportions, and Cassie couldn't help wondering if this was what had happened to Noonan and Ear-hart. But she had her hands full bringing the plane down in ferocious winds that almost blew them off the island. In the end, they came down hard and fast in a cross-wind, and almost missed the runway. It took everything she had to bring the
“May I remind you,” Billy said casually to her as she fought to turn the plane around, ‘that if you drop this airplane in the drink, we're going to be in serious trouble with Mr. Williams.”
She couldn't help but laugh at his warning, and she wasn't entirely sorry to spend another night on Howland. It was far from an exciting place, but at least her life was peaceful. Perhaps for the last time. She couldn't imagine what it would be like for them after Honolulu.
By late that night, the storm had calmed down but they discovered early the next morning that it had damaged their direction finder beyond repair. She and Billy both felt it was safe to fly on anyway, but they radioed ahead to Honolulu that they would need a new one upon arrival. The day was sunny and bright as they left early for the eighteen-hundred-mile flight to Honolulu. But three hundred miles out of Howland, they ran into another problem. It seemed to be a problem with one of their engines. Billy was checking for an oil leak, with a quiet frown, and she was watching him, checking their gauges.
“Want to go back?” she asked calmly, keeping her eyes on her instruments.
“I'm not sure yet,” he answered, still puzzled.
He played with one of the engines for a while, listening, fixing, adjusting, and after another hundred miles out, he reassured her that everything was in control. She nodded and kept a close eye on the instruments, she wanted to be sure she agreed with him.
Cassie left nothing to chance, which was why she was so good. Billy appeared to be a lot more casual than she was, but he was also extraordinarily careful. And he had an uncanny sixth sense about flying, which was why she loved flying with him. They were a perfect team.
She changed her course slightly after that, to avoid some heavy clouds ahead, and what looked like rough weather. And it was early afternoon when he looked out at the autumn sky, and then at her compass. “Are you sure we're heading right? It feels off to me.”
‘Trust your compass,” she said, sounding like an instructor, as she smiled at him. It was the one instrument she always trusted and the only reliable information they had, since both the sextant and the direction finder had broken in the storm.
‘Trust your eyes… your nose… your guts… and then your compass.” He was right, as it turned out. With a brisk wind they were slightly off course, but not enough to worry them, and then as she checked the instruments again, she looked up and saw smoke in their number-two engine and thin streams of fuel running back across the number one.
“Shit,” she muttered and pointed it out to him as she cut the power to the number-two engine and feathered the prop. They were already a long way from Howland. “We'd better go back.” They'd been in the air for two hours, and were already out of radio contact.
“Anything closer than that?” He checked the map, and saw a small island. “What's this?”
“I'm not sure.” She looked at it. “It looks like bird shit.”
“Very funny. Give me a reading, where are we?” She read the compass off to him, while he looked out at the engine. He wasn't pleased with what he saw, or the knowledge that they were carrying (our hundred gallons of fuel near the engine.
They flew on for a few more minutes and decided to try for the island they'd seen on the map. But Cassie was worried about putting the
But as they looked out the window, they both saw that the engine was burning.
“Happy birthday, Cass. And that's not a cake.”
“Shit.”
“Precisely. How far are we from Bird Shit Island?”
“Maybe another fifty miles, give or take a few.”
“Wonderful. Just what we need, another fifteen minutes with four hundred gallons of fuel in our armpits. Oh goody.”
