Джон Болл: Phase Three Alert

At that moment Staff Sergeant Andy Holcomb, the flight engineer, craned his neck down from the flight deck in some position he found possible and called back, “Hey, Bill.”

Stovers unbuckled and got up to answer the summons; as he started walking forward the pull of another steep turn hit him and he hoped that the overlong demonstration of flight tactics would soon be finished.

He reached the short ladder and climbed up onto the flight bridge to answer whatever schoolboy question Ferguson wanted to put to him for the benefit of the local men. As soon as he was able to straighten up and take hold of the back of the engineer’s chair he sensed at once that his initial guess had been wrong. There were five other men in the good-sized cockpit and all of them were concentrating their attention out of the windows. The C-130 had excellent visibility, even down at the sides.

“Look,” Holcomb said, and pointed ahead. Stovers looked and in a matter of seconds picked up a dark object half-buried on the ice cap. As they came up on it and it swept underneath, Sergeant Stovers was already prepared with the answers. Since he was the senior man in the crew, both in terms of age and experience, he expected that his opinion would be asked.

It was. “What do you make of it, Bill?” Ferguson inquired.

“It’s a World War II B-17, sir. It’s one of a flight of nine, I believe it was, that took off on a ferry flight to England and ran into impossible weather as they neared Greenland. As I recall, sir, some turned back, one ship made it to the destination airport, one or two got in along the coast line, and this one made a forced landing on the ice cap. Colonel Bernt Balchen subsequently rescued the entire crew — no casualties. It was lost for something like twenty-two years, then a few years ago it was rediscovered.”

“Are you describing the My Gal Sal?” Ferguson asked.

“Yes, sir, that was the name of the aircraft.”

“Tell him, nav,” Ferguson directed through the intercom.

“That isn’t it,” Jenkins answered. “I know where the My Gal Sal is — it’s on the ice cap south of Sondrestrom. We’re way north of there now.”

The loadmaster was not given to being impulsive; he waited until the C-130 had been racked around again, then, with thoughts of discomfort forgotten, he took another close look. Definitely it was a B-17 with its nose vaguely pointed toward the west, apparently the direction in which it had gone in. It appeared to be in reasonably good condition, which suggested that the crew had probably at least survived the landing.

“Have you seen the My Gal Sal?” Ferguson inquired. Although the question appeared to be open, Stovers knew that it was meant for him.

“Officially, no, sir, actually, yes. We swung by it a time or two when Major Sams was out supplying the DEW Line. Naturally we all wanted to have a look at it.”

“I’m with you,” Ferguson responded. “Then you remember that Sal had her fuselage broken just back of the wing, right?”

“Yes, sir.” Stovers looked again at the object on the ice cap which was coming up once more and saw that it was definitely not the same wreck. The wing was not tipped forward at the same drunken angle and it appeared to be a little deeper in the wind drift lines that patterned the loose snow on the surface.

“My apologies, sir, I was mistaken. That isn’t the Sal; I don’t know what it is. When we get back we can check with the Air Rescue people and see if they have it charted. If not, then its a new find and we can report it as such.”

As soon as he had spoken he realized that he had given justification to all of the many exploratory trips that Ferguson had made over rarely visited sectors of the ice cap, but the man had possibly made a discovery and he was entitled to the satisfaction that went with it.

Ferguson studied the surface of the ice cap less than 500 feet below his aircraft with fierce concentration. He seemed to be memorizing and analyzing every detail. When he spoke again into the intercom, it was for everyone’s benefit.

“I remember what happened when the My Gal Sal was found; they located the pilot in California and brought him all of the way back up here to revisit his aircraft. Colonel Balchen came too. Then, at the last minute, somebody issued an order that they couldn’t land out there. The idea was that the pilot — he was a doctor named Stinson, I believe — was to go back on board and see if he couldn’t find something of his own to recover after all those years. Life magazine had photographers on board the aircraft and there was one correspondent. Well, they flew around in circles, took some pictures from the air, and then came home.”

“Sounds like a fizzle,” Jenkins said.

“No, not quite that bad, but nothing to what it might have been. Colonel Balchen, who knew more about those things than anyone, said at the time that a landing would have been easy.”

Sergeant Stovers, who was definitely not slow witted, was already engaged in making a series of mental calculations. He had them completed to his satisfaction before another low-level pass close to the downed bomber had been completed. After that last flyby, Ferguson eased back on the yoke and pulled the C-130 up to a comfortable 1,000 feet above the seemingly endless ice plateau.

“I think we should take a vote on this,” he said. “It looks very good to me, but I can’t deny an element of risk. All those in favor…”

Corbin, the youthful copilot, nodded his approval; being a copilot, he knew he had better.

Jenkins, the navigator, lifted a thumb in the air.

“Andy?” Ferguson asked.

Aware that he would have to make any repairs required if something went wrong, the flight engineer hesitated. “As far as I can see it looks all right,” he hedged.

“Bill?”

Sergeant Stovers knew that if he, as loadmaster, issued a veto, it would be respected. He had only to say that in his opinion the fuel load made it unwise and that would be that. Ferguson had not asked for his vote as a man as much as for his professional opinion. The fuel load was well within tolerances and the big freighter was all but empty. With a slightly light-headed feeling, he drew breath into his lungs. “OK by me,” he declared.

Ferguson did not even look at him, which would probably have been a mistake. Instead he concentrated totally on the wind lines that marked the top of the ice cap. Then he issued a crisp command.

“Skis down.”

When the safety of his aircraft and the welfare of his crew were involved, Ferguson did not underestimate the ice cap. He was acutely aware that if anything happened to disable the C-130, the consequences could range from serious to disastrous. Therefore, once having decided to land, he proceeded with such obvious caution that Sergeant Stovers was amazed.

After deciding on the area which looked most promising as a runway, he inspected it minutely during a flyover in each direction at minimum safe speed and altitude. When he had done that, he pulled up to give himself a little more maneuvering room, swung around 180 degrees, and then set up a long, slow approach at a very shallow rate of descent. He timed it almost perfectly so that he arrived at the beginning of his selected landing area just as he was at flaring altitude. He eased back on the yoke and then rested his right hand on the pitch controls as he waited for the two rear skis to touch. When they did so, the harsh, loud scraping sounded through the whole aircraft. He did not drop the nose ski on; instead he added a fraction more power.

Nose lifted, the big turboprop moved across the ice cap just under takeoff speed with its rear skis tracing a firm pattern on the snow cover. Concentrating intently, and ready to add power the moment there was any evidence of a possible snow bridge that might give way, or any other unseen hazard, Ferguson felt out the surface without committing himself to a landing. When he had covered a good 8,000 feet, he eased back on the yoke to increase the angle of attack, added additional power, and lifted quickly back into the security of the air.