Daughter of the sky

by Jr. Paul L. Briand

Daylight finally dawned. Through the dim light Amelia found herself between two layers of clouds. Her eyes burned from the ordeal of the night and she rubbed them briskly with her hand. She fidgeted in her seat trying to relieve the stiffness and soreness. She rubbed her back against the back of the seat, and pressed her feet against the rudder pedals in an effort to stretch her legs. Below, the cloud layer began to break and clear. Amelia dropped down to examine the whitecaps; from the spray of the waves she hoped to determine the direction of the wind. She decided it was from the northwest.

Out on the leading edge of the wings she noticed ice. It had not yet melted from the heat of the morning sun. She climbed a little higher, but ran into another cloud bank. Suddenly she broke into the clear; the clouds were now below her, closely packed in clear white and looking like fields of snow she had once seen in New England. The upper layer of clouds began to thin out, and through an opening came the morning sun, blinding bright against the white snow of the clouds below.

Amelia reached into the pocket of her shirt, under the leather jacket, and took out a pair of dark glasses. Through the darkness of the glasses the light was still too bright. She nosed the Vega down through the lower layer, hoping to find some shade near the water.

Ten hours of the long flight had passed. She reached for the thermos bottle of hot soup. Pressing the stick firmly between her knees, she gulped down the hot liquid food. It was her first meal since the take-off from Harbor Grace. Amelia checked the fuel gauges: 120 gallons left. Since take-off the Vega had burned 300 gallons.

Amelia looked out across the water for passing ships. None were within sight. The sunshine and low-hanging clouds persisted. Preferring the shade, she continued to fly close to the water.

She looked out far ahead. In the distance a thin line of black stretched across the horizon. Was it landfall or a front of black clouds? She had been deceived before. Then a dark object moved out from the black line. It had to be a ship; whether a fishing vessel or tanker, it was too soon to tell.

The vibration of the exhaust manifold became severe. Amelia saw that the cracked weld had melted and grown larger from the exhaust flames during the night. The engine would probably not last much longer. Paris as a destination, she now decided, was out of the question. She would have to come down on the first available piece of land.

Gently applying right rudder and stick, she banked into a turn, leveled off, and held a new compass course of ninety degrees. By flying due east she intended to hit the tip of the black line on the horizon, the tip of what she hoped was Ireland.

Doc Kimball in New York had told her she might find bad weather south of her course during the flight. The fact of last night’s experience now convinced her she must be south of course, especially if the wind had been long from the northwest.

The line on the horizon grew in contour. It was definitely a coast line, and probably Ireland. By maintaining her course she would hit it, not at the tip as planned, but exactly in the middle.