Fire in the Sky Read online

  Mr. Martin read my mind. “Do not touch anything, Mr. Townend,” he said. “I have the same controls. This is a free ride for your sharp answer of yesterday! Indeed, it may be the only ride you have in a Jenny for some time.”

  I glanced down at my fellow trainees as I struggled with the safety belt a bit and then managed to strap myself in. They grinned and waved at me. Mr. Martin stood in his cockpit, looking at my shoulder. “Good. You’ve figured that out. Make sure it’s tight. You’ll have need of it.”

  From my peripheral vision I saw a man in overalls, presumably a mechanic, walk to the front of the plane. He gave Mr. Martin a wave and stood in front of the propeller. I had some trouble seeing what he was doing. A few of the lads ran around to see what he was up to, but he waved them away and pointed to the rear of the plane. Billy and another lad ran back and each gripped a flap on the tail.

  “Pay close attention, Mr. Townend,” Mr. Martin said. “This step is critical and you are receiving a rare opportunity. There are usually hours of book work before you get to this stage.”

  I nodded and tuned out everything other than the mechanic and Mr. Martin. What happened next was a series of exchanges between the two men that sounded like a code.

  “Petrol on!” the mechanic yelled. Then he said, “Switch off!”

  “Switch off!” Mr. Martin repeated.

  I heard a clicking sound.

  “Suck in!” the mechanic yelled. I saw him reach up and grip the propeller blade. He turned it in a wide arc, once around, and then again. I could feel the motion and tug on the front of the plane.

  “Contact!” the mechanic called.

  “Contact!” Mr. Martin said.

  The mechanic gave the propeller a hard swing, followed by another, and another. Suddenly the prop turned fully around on its own. The engine coughed. The prop continued to turn, slowly at first, caught once, and then turned faster and faster, with the engine coughing and sputtering. Then the engine roared to life and the propeller turned with such speed I could no longer follow its rotations. Wind blasted in my face and the plane became a living thing, pulling and tugging on its wheel blocks as if it wanted to leap into the skies.

  Mr. Martin shouted something but I couldn’t hear a thing above the roaring engine. Every piece of metal and wood around me seemed to shake and vibrate. Mr. Martin patted my shoulder and then gave me a thumbs-up. I reached back so he could see my own thumb in return. It was the moment I’d been waiting for ever since my first glimpse of a plane.

  The mechanic scurried over to the inside of the wing and reached down towards the wheels. He pulled the wheel block away and I caught sight of a student doing the same on the other side. The Jenny began to move!

  The flaps on the top wing suddenly lifted. Then the lower wing flaps also rose. I realized Mr. Martin was testing to make certain that all was in working order. A moment later I heard an increase in throttle. The wires and wooden struts on the wings rattled along with the noise of the engine. I shouted happily and raised my fists in the air.

  Once again Mr. Martin increased throttle. The wind blew more strongly against my face, and when I glanced to the side, I realized with a shock that Billy and the lads were some 50 yards behind us. With every second I felt a growing pressure on my chest, as if unseen hands were pushing me back. We bumped along as the Jenny picked up speed. My head and shoulders lurched and shifted constantly. It felt something like riding my bicycle after a heavy rain, when the gravel on the road was filled with dips. My arms would shake and there would be a jarring bump when I could not avoid a pothole. Only this was so much faster and the wind terrifically strong.

  I felt a larger bump beneath us and looked out. The Jenny leapt into the air!

  I could suddenly feel the weight of the plane as we pressed against the air, rising higher and higher. The sensation was so exhilarating I found myself shouting for joy and holding my arms out like wings. Far below, the aerodrome’s school buildings looked like painted wooden blocks on a green field. Something moved along the ground and I saw a train, just like the one that had brought us to Toronto, making its way through a copse of trees. Its steam broke above the green in billowing clouds. Farmers’ fences criss-crossed the fields to the horizon, and dotted here and there were tiny specks making their way through the pastures.

  How Sarah would have loved to see what I was seeing!

  We slowed and the vibration of the struts and wires lessened. The next thing I knew, we were banking to the left and the world opened up beneath me as the wings dipped. I was so close to the air and sky that if I had not been strapped in I would have spilled out and joined the clouds. Far from being frightened, I had the greatest feeling of my life. Although I knew Mr. Martin couldn’t hear me, I shouted, “Do it again!”

  He straightened out the Jenny and we flew smoothly for a minute or so. Then he banked left again and I spotted the aerodrome up ahead, with its signature white roofs and dirt field. I pointed at it. Mr. Martin reached forward and gave a thumbs-up signal. We flew right past it and I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d thought he was going to end the ride and land. Instead he began to dive.

  At first I thought he was simply bringing us down to level off. But when he didn’t stop and the nose continued to point downward, I knew something else was about to happen. The engine roared and the wings rattled violently. Suddenly we began to rise up again, sharply. We continued until all I could see anywhere was the sky. My stomach dropped. The next instant we were upside down, with the earth spinning below and the weight of a cow pressed against my chest. All the blood rushed to my head.

  I had read that pilots were able to complete loops, and that the manoeuvre was part of training. But experiencing a loop taught me instantly that reading about something and doing the real thing were two different realities. I clutched my stomach to keep it from falling out of my mouth.

  I managed to keep my eyes open and saw the horizon, a massive tilted line, through the Jenny’s wings. The plane looped round and the sky came back to where it belonged and the pressure eased off. I glanced back at Mr. Martin, just to make sure he was still there, and found him laughing like mad. He took his hands from the control stick and clapped. Then he mouthed the word, “Bravo.”

  Far too soon for my liking, Mr. Martin nosed the Jenny down for a landing. The ground approached quickly as we came closer and closer to the field. Once again my stomach tightened, and I gasped when we made our first contact. Dust spurted like smoke from a fire. We bounced up into the air again and then thumped back down, the giant flaps on the wings working hard to slow our speed. We bumped along the field towards the hangar.

  Billy and two others ran alongside us, waving their caps and shouting. Under the instruction of one of the field crew, they took hold of the tail as we slowed down. Soon, blocks were placed beneath the wheels and the Jenny came to rest.

  The fellows hoisted me onto their shoulders and marched me around like a hero. When they finally set me down, Mr. Martin strolled up and looked me over. “You did well, Mr. Townend. The last student to complete a loop spilled the contents of his breakfast all over the instrument panel. It took us two days to remove it from the crevices.” As he walked away he said over his shoulder, “You’re welcome, Mr. Townend.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Martin, sir!” I shouted.

  He gave me his first and only salute.

  That night I wrote down the flight from beginning to end in a letter to Sarah: I may have left the bubble of Winnipeg, little sister, but I could never have dreamed how big the world really is from the sky.

  I sketched the Curtiss Jenny with Billy holding the tail and me giving Sarah a wave from the cockpit. I tried to show the loop by sketching the Jenny in four different positions around a circle. I drew two hands sticking out of the cockpit in triumph at the completion of the loop. Sarah would laugh at that part.

  Writing to her caused me to think of Robert. It had been weeks since I’d received a letter from him. Of course, one might have arrived at th
e farm after I left, and Mother might have sent it on, but it just hadn’t arrived yet. I thought of Billy’s brother, dead in the trenches, and it turned my stomach more than the loop had done. I prayed right then that God might keep Robert from being killed.

  Usually, I would be sitting on the rake behind the horses at this time of year, forming row after row of hay. It was a job that never seemed to end, while heat beat down from a cloudless sky. With me gone, my dad had hired a boy from the church to drive the team. Sarah had taken my job on the rake. They would be all right, I told myself. It was a small farm, only 500 acres, and Dad could always call on a neighbour to help if rain was coming and he had to hurry to get the hay in. I felt no real pangs of homesickness yet. All I knew was that my ride in the Jenny had confirmed my decision to fly.

  Chapter 3

  August–September 1916

  Mr. Martin was right: there was little flying for us in the first few weeks. Tension was high as we watched students from other huts go up in the Jenny day after day. I did manage to go up once more in the next week — me and three others, Billy included, for nearly an hour. I memorized the controls and my instruction manual. We spent the majority of our time learning about the construction and mechanics of planes. The Jenny, I learned, was an amazing flying machine. She weighed over 2000 pounds, a fact that surprised me, since she seemed so light when she was aloft. In the air she rode the wind like a bird and yet, on takeoff or loops, her whole weight pressed down on the pilot. Her top wingspan was 43½ feet. The wings, made of stretched canvas over a wood frame, required a good deal of caution.

  In the fourth week of training, we also learned to stitch the canvas. When I asked why, one of the sail makers said, “Do you want to understand your plane or not?”

  “No. I just want to shoot down some Germans,” Billy muttered.

  “Then you’re stupid,” replied the sail maker. “An expert horseman knows his animal well. He knows what his animal eats and when to apply a blanket or a poultice. A flyer must know his plane. If you don’t, I doubt you’ll last long.”

  After flying with Mr. Martin on that first day, I found myself agreeing with the sail maker. I made it my goal to learn everything I possibly could. After my second flight, I made it a habit to sit in a chair in our hut every day, imagining I was in the cockpit. I pressed my feet down as if moving the rudder and moved a broom handle with my hand as a control stick.

  “Shall I make some propeller noises for you?” quipped Billy one day as I practised. I decided to humour him and took my makeshift plane into a steep bank. Billy’s engine whined as we went into the turn. The door of our hut suddenly opened and one of the lads stood staring at us. Billy and I froze in mid-motion. The man cleared his throat and then said, “When you manage to land, do join us for the soccer match outside.”

  At the end of August, two events occurred that changed everything for us, and paved the way for Billy and me to go to England. One cloudy morning another Curtiss Jenny arrived. We now had two planes and the prospect of getting some actual flying time. The second event was the graduation of the entire Hut C, who had been given the only share of flying in the Jenny for the past week. With them off to England, Mr. Martin and the new pilot, Mr. Edwards, turned their attention to us.

  Late in September I flew again, this time with Mr. Edwards and in the new plane, the JN-4. The Jenny 4 — or Canuck, as our American pilots liked to call her — was faster and stronger than the Jenny 3, with a cruising speed of 60 miles per hour and top speed of 75. The Jenny 4 could also go as high as 11,000 feet. It had a more powerful engine and a higher ceiling capability.

  I thought for a moment and then asked, “Can the Germans go higher, Mr. Edwards? It seems to me that if you can be higher than your enemy, you have an advantage.”

  He gave me a solemn stare. “Yes they can, son — for now. Everyone is working on the problem.” He paused and looked at the Jenny. “Mr. Martin tells me you’ve been up twice and learned quite a bit!”

  I nodded.

  “Good. Then you’ll do a little flying yourself today. You’ll sit aft, and you’ll note I’ve given you flyer’s gloves.”

  I couldn’t respond. I just stared at the smart-looking leather gloves.

  Then he said, “You will watch for my signal,” and he raised his left hand above his shoulder. “Then you take the control stick and rudder.”

  I was so excited I wanted to yell. So I did. Mr. Edwards smiled and clapped me on the shoulder.

  The thrill of taking off from the ground was no less exhilarating than my first time. Whether Mr. Edwards was a better pilot than Mr. Martin or whether the ground had been more fully groomed that day, I couldn’t tell, but there were far fewer bumps. We rose steadily and a glance at the altimeter told me we had reached 8000 feet. Mr. Edwards steadied us off and then raised his left hand.

  I put my feet into the pedal stirrups on the foot bar experimentally, and immediately felt the tug and sway of the plane. When I took the control stick for the first time, my heart leapt. Being an observer was one thing. Controlling the Jenny was completely different. I felt her every move. Every time the wind buffeted us, I had to balance the pressure I put on the rudder with my feet. I could feel the pull of the propeller and engine on the control stick.

  I kept us steady for the first minute, getting used to the tug of the wind and the force I needed to raise or lower the nose. As I prepared for my first turn, I thought back to something the sail maker had said: “An expert horseman knows his animal well.” He was right. Flying did feel a little like horseback riding on the farm. The horses liked me at home. I could only hope the Jenny would too.

  I took a deep breath and then eased the control stick to port. The Jenny responded beautifully, banking smoothly into the turn. Suddenly the rudder bar pressed against my foot and the Jenny shuddered. I wondered if Mr. Edwards had taken over. Then I remembered something I’d read in my manual. In a turn, the pilot often had to compensate for what was called adverse yaw, a drag force caused by the wings that pushed in the opposite direction of the turn.

  I applied the rudder firmly and the Jenny eased back into the turn. We banked and straightened out, heading directly over the aerodrome. I glanced ahead to find Mr. Edwards with both of his thumbs up. We tried several more turns in either direction before he took over and we headed back.

  “Well done, Mr. Townend,” he said when we landed. “I expect you’ll want to do a little more next time.”

  “I’d like to go up again right now,” I answered.

  He nodded. “Good lad. You have a natural feel for aircraft.”

  The next two days I flew with both Mr. Martin and Mr. Edwards, exploring the Jenny’s speed and turning capabilities. At one point I had the plane going at full throttle — over 70 miles an hour!

  “We’re going to try something special today,” said Mr. Martin one morning. “You remember our first outing?”

  I grinned and nodded.

  “Do you think you’re up for executing a loop?”

  My smile disappeared. “I am, Mr. Martin,” I said.

  He traced a loop in the air with his finger. “It’s a very significant manoeuvre and, once mastered, allows you to attack and defend more effectively.”

  I took the plane up to 8000 feet, making my turns sharper and sharper in preparation for the more difficult manoeuvre. Finally I signalled to Mr. Martin that I was ready.

  I had read about the loop many times, and had pored over an amazing chart that provided step-by-step instructions. I relaxed my shoulders and flexed my fingers.

  “Here we go,” I murmured. I pushed the control stick forward and began to dive. To complete the loop I needed speed, and a dive was the easiest way to get it. I increased throttle as well and balanced the rudder at my feet. The earth came into view ahead of me. I had increased speed quickly before, but never this steeply.

  The wind whistled through the struts and wires and I knew the Jenny was working hard. I pulled back on the stick and the pressure
forced me back against my seat. As we hurtled straight upward the engine suddenly sputtered. It sputtered again and then stalled altogether. What a ghastly feeling to be without an engine so high in the sky!

  The next thing I knew, Mr. Martin had taken over the controls and we were rolling over and headed back down. The engine caught and roared back into life.

  I slapped my knee in frustration. I had ruined it! Mr. Martin looked back at me and tapped his ear. Listen, he was saying. Listen to the engine. He smiled and moved his finger in an arc. Do it again.

  I brought us back up to 8000 feet. I realized I had brought the nose up too sharply on the first try, and without enough speed. The manoeuvre needed to be smoother, more natural. The Jenny needed help to complete a loop and I wasn’t working with her.

  This time I held on to the dive a little longer and gained terrific speed to make the loop. And when I pulled back on the stick to bring us up, I kept the pressure steady, adjusting for the buffeting wind.

  The engine laboured again, as it had the last time, and I fought back the urge to even out. I listened more carefully, timing the sound of the engine with the entrance into the loop. We were in the upper arc of the loop now, with the nose high. The engine sputtered but held steady. We had just enough speed to complete the arc!

  For a brief moment we were upside down. The blood rushed to my head and I struggled to keep calm. “Almost there,” I said to myself. I started humming a Christmas carol and found it easier to focus on the controls. Before I had finished the first verse, the loop was completed. We came back up with the engine roaring and I levelled out.

  Mr. Martin gave me a thumbs-up, then took over the controls again and landed in front of a group of students. Despite my numbed fingers and toes, I jumped out of the plane.