Chasing Icarus by Gavin Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page B

fearfully around him as the car creaked and groaned with every fresh gust. Huddled in the bowels of the lifeboat, Wellman and Jack Irwin felt themselves drop ever closer to the whitecapped waves of the Atlantic.
    If the lifeboat hit the surface, they knew it would be torn loose from its shackles, portending a miserable end to their adventure, and their lives. It was too dangerous to try to climb back into the car with the wind so strong, so through the speaking tube Wellman ordered the crew to lighten the craft’s load. Vaniman and this team of engineers jettisoned some gasoline, and for a while the America regained its buoyancy. “It’s a pity to see that good fuel going to waste,” Simon wrote in his log, “but we have to do it to save the ship.” Then he added as an afterthought, “I would like to have some of those longshore ‘old women’ here with us now.”
    At noon they dumped more gasoline to lighten the sagging America , but by two o’clock on Sunday afternoon they had passed through the eye of the storm, and a relieved Wellman and Irwin scurried up the ladder into the car. The strain of the last few hours was etched into every one of their faces, and Vaniman in particular seemed upset by their tribulation.
    Wellman asked Simon for an estimate of their position, and he replied that they had covered 140 miles since the sighting of the fishing boat at eight A.M. In the last couple of hours they had been pushed northeast and were drawing near to the transatlantic shipping lanes. Vaniman gave a nervous cry and asserted that the time had come to issue a Mayday over the wireless and to then launch the lifeboat. Wellman disagreed, accepting that while they didn’t now have enough gasoline to get them across the ocean, they could still make a run for England if the wind changed to out of the west. Vaniman laughed, a short disbelieving laugh, and challenged his captain to put it to the vote. Wellman turned to the first man, Lewis Loud, and asked if he wished to abandon ship or remain aloft.
    “Let’s stick by the ship,” said Loud.
    “I am with you for fighting it out,” said Simon.
    “So am I,” said Irwin.
    “And I, too,” said Aubert.
    To lift the spirits of the crew Wellman told Aubert to rustle up a hot meal. Later, as they sat back replete and momentarily relaxed, Aubert spoke wistfully to Simon of his girlfriend. How he wished he were back in Atlantic City, the two of them on the hotel veranda holding hands. He looked Simon in the eye and asked, “What our are chances?”
    “Very good,” replied Simon with a reassuring smile.

    Darkness brought a drop in temperature and in height as the cold contracted the airship’s gas. As they began to dip toward the sea, Wellman ordered the smallest of the three motors, the twelve-horsepower donkey engine, to be broken up and heaved overboard along with more gasoline. Then he joined Irwin in the lifeboat, and for a long time the pair crouched in the swaying vessel trying to establish contact with a shore station or passing ship. Frequently they heard their signal letter W repeated over the airwaves, but they were out of range to reply. All they could do was listen impotently as ships flashed back the same message to one another: “Any news of the America ?”
    Exasperated, Wellman began to climb the ladder to the car. Suddenly his sheath knife snagged on one of the rungs, and as he tried to free himself, he slipped, losing grip with both hands and feet. Only the jammed knife prevented his falling into the ocean. It felt to Wellman that his legs dangled a long time above the Atlantic, but in seconds Loud and Aubert reached down and hauled him up. For a minute or so no one spoke as they all recovered their breath, then the two engineers began to laugh. Simon joined in, and so did Wellman, his relief giving way to exhilaration at his narrow escape. “This crew seems to be made up of the right kind of men,” wrote Simon in his log, shortly after he came off