Part 14 (1/2)
”On April 5, 1926, all of the plans being completed, and the last supplies of food to last fifty men for six months being stowed away, the Chantier sailed from New York for King's Bay, Spitzbergen. They got there on April 29th, after an uneventful trip, and anch.o.r.ed in the Bay.
But the problem of getting the plane to sh.o.r.e arose. They solved it by building a huge raft, loading the heavy s.h.i.+p onto it, and towing it to sh.o.r.e through the choppy, ice-blocked water.
”When they got the plane onto the sh.o.r.e, the wheels sank into the snow, and they had to replace them with skis, which seemed ample to sustain the weight of even that great craft. How frail they really were was to be proved later.
”Byrd and his men set up camp, and prepared for the take-off to the Pole. They had to work fast. The Amundsen-Ellsworth-n.o.bile Expedition with its dirigible the Norge was well on its way with its preparations, and while there was no bitter rivalry between the two expeditions, nevertheless the distinction of being the first to fly over the Pole was one not to be sneezed at. Everybody worked-eighteen hours a day, with meals taken on the run. And n.o.body thought to complain-the morale never broke once. That's the sort of man Byrd picks to take with him-and that's the sort of respect they have for a man who chooses them. Byrd's a leader. No matter where he has come in contact with men, he has won their love and respect, and has got more work out of them by his kindness and gentleness than anybody else could have by slave-driving.
They worked for Byrd because they liked to, not because they had to. He imbued them with his spirit of adventure, so that every man of them was determined that his expedition should be successful, and that Byrd should be the first man to fly across the Pole.
”One of the hardest jobs of all was packing down the snow into a hard, smooth runway for taking off. They had to take off going down hill, since there was no level stretch of snow for their start, and this hill had to be smoothed and leveled. The first attempt at a take-off was disastrous. The plane landed in a snowdrift, with a broken ski. The carpenters worked for two days and nights to make new skis, and the s.h.i.+p was ready for its second attempt.
”The second trial flight was a huge success. The s.h.i.+p rolled down the incline and took gently and gracefully into the air. At least they would be able to get off. The landing, too, was beautiful. So far, so good.
They discovered by this trial flight that they could make the North Pole and return without landing once, as they had planned before.
”The Josephine Ford was a mighty heavy craft, and loaded with fuel and supplies, which they would need in case of a forced landing and overland trek, she weighed five tons. This accounts for the terrible job getting her off the ground and into the air.
”Well, finally everything was ready, the weather was just right; the motors had been warmed up, and Bennet and Byrd climbed into the plane, ready to start. Down the runway they coasted. There was a tense moment.
Would she lift? With a groan, the men on the ground saw her lurch, roll into a snowdrift, and all but turn over.
”A lesser man, as I said once before, would have been discouraged. But not Byrd! He got out, inspected the plane, and found to his joy that it had not been damaged. No delay! Off again. They lightened the load as much as they dared by taking off some fuel, then taxied the Josephine Ford up the hill again. The men worked like Trojans to get the runway lengthened and smoothed out again. At last everything was ready.
”Byrd and Bennett decided to stake everything on that last trial. They decided to give the engine all the speed they could, so that at the end of her run she'd either rise into the air, or crack up once and for all.
Even as they planned, they hoped against hope that it would be the former, and not the latter. The weather was perfect. It was a little past midnight. The men of the expedition were gathered about, anxiously awaiting the take-off. Byrd and Bennett shook hands with them, stepped into the cabin of the s.h.i.+p and started down the runway. The great s.h.i.+p rose laboriously into the air. There was a shout from their comrades.
They were off for the North Pole! Those on the ground cheered l.u.s.tily.
The Great Adventure, for which one of those men in the air had been preparing all his life, had begun.
”They had to navigate first by dead reckoning, following the landmarks in the vicinity of King's Bay. They climbed to a good distance so that they could get a perfect view of the land below them, and looked down upon the snowy mountains, scenery grander than any they had ever seen before, and terrifying, too. In a short time they left the land behind, and crossed the edge of the polar ice pack.
”There are no landmarks on the ice, and when they reached the ice pack, they had to begin their careful navigating. In the first place, they had to hit the Pole exactly, chiefly because that was the place they had set out for, and then because if they didn't hit it exactly, they would have no way of reckoning their path back to Spitzbergen, and would be lost in the arctic wastes.
”But expert navigating was d.i.c.k Byrd's strong point. He had developed a s.e.xtant by which the alt.i.tude of the sun could be gaged without reference to the horizon line, and that was exactly what he needed now, because due to the formations of ice, the horizon was irregular. But figuring out position by means of the s.e.xtant requires at least an hour of mathematical calculation, and by the time the position had been figured, the men in the airplane had advanced about a hundred miles or more. So they used a method that they had learned, whereby their position could be judged by means of taking the alt.i.tude of the sun and laying down the line of position on a sort of graph.
”Their compa.s.s was of little value. They were too near the North Magnetic Pole, which had a tendency to pull their magnet from the geographical Pole to its own position, about 1,000 miles south. So they used a sun compa.s.s, that indicated their position by means of the sun.
Of course, the fact that they had sun throughout the whole trip was an advantage. I doubt if they could have made it otherwise. Navigating up there is too difficult. Then they had to figure on wind drift. The wind, blowing pretty hard, say, about 30 miles an hour at right angles to their plane would cause it to drift thirty miles an hour out of its course. This they were able to make up for by means of the drift indicator, which compensated for the drift.
”Bennett piloted first. He would glance back to the cabin where Byrd was busy with the navigating instruments, and Byrd would indicate to him how to steer his course by waving his hand to the right or the left. When they were certain of their course, Byrd looked down on the land that he had desired to see since he had been a boy in school. Below them, stretching for mile upon mile was the ice pack, criss-crossed with ridges, seeming like mere b.u.mps in the ice from their alt.i.tude, but really about 50 or 60 feet high. Every now and then they saw a lead, opened by the movement of the water-those treacherous leads that had led many a hardy explorer to his death.
”Byrd took the wheel. He steered with one hand while he held the compa.s.s in the other. Bennett poured gasoline into the tanks, and threw overboard the empty cans, to relieve the plane of weight. From then on they took turn and turn about at the wheel, Byrd navigating incessantly, until he had a slight attack of snow blindness from looking down at the snow so constantly.
”Soon they came to land where no man had ever been before. It was then that Byrd felt that he was being repaid for all the planning, all the hard work and heart-breaking disappointments that he had experienced.
The sun was s.h.i.+ning, the Josephine Ford functioning perfectly.
”Perfectly? Just a minute. They were about an hour from the Pole. Byrd noticed through the cabin window a bad leak in the oil tank of one motor. If the oil leaked out, the motor would burn up and stop. Should they land? No. Why not go on as far as they could, perhaps reach the Pole? They would be no worse off landing at the Pole than landing here, and they would have reached their goal. So on they kept. Byrd glued his eyes to the oil pressure gauge. If it dropped, their motor was doomed.
But they would not land, or turn back.
”Luck was with them. At about two minutes past nine o'clock, they crossed the Pole. It takes just a minute to say it, but how many years of planning, how many years of patiently surmounting obstacles had prepared for that minute's statement!
”Below them was the frozen, snow-covered ocean, with the ice broken up into various formations of ice fields, indicating that there was no land about. Byrd flew the plane in a circle several miles in diameter, with the Pole as a center. His field of view was 120 miles in diameter. All this while he was flying south, since all directions away from the Pole are south. And now, his purpose accomplished, his hardest task faced him. He had to fly back to Spitzbergen.
”Soon after he left the Pole, the s.e.xtant that he was using slid off the chart table, breaking the horizon gla.s.s. He had to navigate the whole trip back by dead reckoning! With the oil fast spurting out, and the motor threatening to stop any minute, and no s.e.xtant to show his position, Byrd had his hands full. They lost track of time. Minutes seemed like hours, hours like ages. Then they saw land dead ahead. It was Spitzbergen! Byrd had flown into the unknown, 600 miles from any land, had turned about, and come back to the very spot from which he had started.