Once he began his animated description of the sights of Belize City, there was no stopping him. The tour came with a sound track. Hornblower jammed a cassette into the tape deck of the car, and the blown-out speakers in the back window of the cab resonated with a calypso song called “Hot, Hot, Hot.” As the music played, Hornblower went through his well-rehearsed description of the sights on the tour.
We passed a policeman sitting on a park bench sound asleep with his chin to his chest. Hornblower gave him a wake-up call. This time when he hit the button, the “William Tell Overture” filled the streets of Belize City.
“Yeah, Hornblower!” yelled a shirtless old man in front of a carpenter shop, who broadcast a toothless smile in our direction as he held up a half-empty pint of rum.
“Day say da city built on rum bottles and mahogany shavings. Could be fiction, could be fact.” As we drove by several cruising yachts anchored in the bay, Hornblower sounded reveille.
Belize City was no day trip to the Grand Canyon. About twenty minutes after we started, Hornblower announced the tour was over, and we headed for the market. There was excitement in the streets as we made our way through throngs of people, cars, pushcarts, and trucks, all moving slowly in the same direction toward the old colonial market.
The traffic on Queen Street had come to a complete stop. Hornblower fired off every tone in his obnoxious arsenal, but we didn’t move an inch. We decided to eject ourselves and walk the final stretch to the bridge. We paid Hornblower and gave him a nice tip.
The street hustlers were on us again as soon as we exited the car. I saw one pair of cold eyes locked on my backpack, where I had hidden the money for the truck. I shot him a return glance that could have bored a hole through kryptonite, and he quickly scanned the crowd for a less threatening target. I cinched my backpack tighter to my body, and we navigated through the sea of humanity the last hundred yards or so to the swing bridge, where a rusty, weather-beaten road sign identified the Old Colonial Market. From the height of the bridge, the scene below me struck a chord, and I started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Ix-Nay asked.
“Well,” I said, “if you put turbans on the heads of all these people below, you would have the opening scene of The Man Who Would Be King.”
“I must see this movie that has such an effect on you,” Ix-Nay said. “It seems that movies, to gringos, are like myths to the Mayans. But this is not India, Tully. It is Belize.”
As usual, Ix-Nay’s point had been well taken. People of all colors were packed like fish in the aisles and alleys that ran between a long series of crowded market stalls, yelling in a variety of languages mixed in with Caribbean music, rap, and religious hymns being sung by a live choir. Cars honked, barkers yelled, monkeys and birds screeched, and several Hari Krishnas pranced around in orange diapers.
Suddenly I heard a scream, and when I looked around, a woman lost her balance and tumbled into me, almost launching me over the stairs. When I was finally able to turn my head, I was face-to-face with the skeletal head of one of two long, skinned, very dead animals that hung from her back.
“Jesus Christ!” I yelled at Ix-Nay. “What do you call that?” I instinctively recoiled.
“Lunch,” he replied. The dead creatures were skinned iguanas. “Tastes just like chicken,” Ix-Nay said.
It was precisely the time for our rendezvous with Sergeant Mercer, and as we turned back on the bridge, it didn’t take me long to spot him.
His appearance shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. He was standing with that military posture on the dock, about a foot taller than everybody else, checking his pocket watch, which hung on a gold chain and was attached to his trousers with what looked to be a giant tiger claw dangling from the chain. Though it was already close to ninety degrees, he wore a safari jacket and sported a spotless white pith helmet. He had long, thick muttonchop sideburns that ran all the way down the sides of his face and connected to a bushy mustache. A bulge in his coat at his right hip made me think a pistol hung from his belt.
“He looks so English,” Ix-Nay said.
“He looks like Daniel Dravot.”
“Peachy’s friend?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Is there a Land Rover in the movie?”
“No, it took place before cars were invented.”
“Do the good guys get killed?”
I didn’t answer.
Sergeant Mercer had spotted us and lifted his pith helmet slightly. “I like people who are on time,” he said. He snapped the cover of his watchcase closed and extended his large hand to me. “Archibald Mercer, retired gunnery sergeant of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. But you may call me Archie. And you must be Mr. Norman.”
“No, he’s my boss at the lodge. I’m just a guide. Name’s Tully Mars, and this is Ix-Nay.”
“Damn my eyes, he could be Billy Fish.” He roared with laughter as he shook Ix-Nay’s hand.
“Who?” Ix-Nay asked.
Archie never heard the question. “Come, come. I bet you boys have had a long journey and are anxious to see the truck. She is a beauty. We have about an hour’s run up the river. Have you ever been to Belize before?”
“My first trip,” I said.
“Many times,” Ix-Nay told him. “To study with Attunaka.”
“The great shaman?” Archie asked. “I know him well. A fine chap. So you are also a fishing guide, Ix-Nay?”
“Yes, but before that, when I was in Belize, I worked for the National Geographic.”
“You don’t say?”
“My cousin is an archaeologist in Mérida. He specializes in the late classic Mayan period from the seventh through the tenth centuries. I have worked for him at Altun Ha, Tecal, and Caracol,” Ix-Nay said.
“An amazing civilization. As a jungle man, I admire what your ancestors carved out of the bush.” Archie pivoted and began to walk. We instinctively followed him like a couple of fresh recruits. “Boat’s down here,” he barked. Then he led us to the dinghy dock, where we boarded a freshly painted Panga with the words KAFIRI SAFARI stenciled down the hull. The old, tired-looking outboard coughed, sputtered, and belched smoke, but it finally came to life.
“Ix-Nay, can you get the bowline for me, please?” Archie asked.
Ix-Nay untied us, and we slipped away from the dock.
“Now just settle back, and enjoy the ride.” Archie steered the dinghy through a small fleet of sailboats anchored in midstream, waiting for the next opening of the bridge. “That bridge is perfectly balanced. Only takes four men to swing it. Built in Liverpool in 1923 . . . made to last.”
As we passed near the end of the bridge, I saw Hornblower flashing me a peace sign from the window of his Mercedes in the stalled traffic. “Hundreds of hurricanes, but not one revolution like all the bloody hot-blooded countries that surround us,” Archie said. “Some say Belize is so laid back, we are almost comatose, but you will have to be the judge of that.” We passed through the shadow of the bridge on the water that momentarily cooled the air. “God’s holy trousers!” Archie shouted, dropping the phrase on the tranquility of the moment like an incoming mortar round. “I damn near forgot.” He pulled an envelope from his jacket. “This came to the lodge for you. Brought to my doorstep at dawn.”
I had left a forwarding address with Bucky for Kafiri Safaris in case I heard from Willie while I was away. I had no idea how it had gotten to me so quickly, but I tore it open. The envelope was postmarked from Honolulu. I began to read.
23
Well, Hello, Cowboy
To: Tully Mars
From: Willie Singer
Honolulu, Hawaii
Well, hello, Cowboy,
It was nice to get your letter. I am sorry that we didn’t get to say good-bye in person, but the circumstances at the time were, to say the least, a bit awkward. Just so you know, I didn’t know Donna Kay was riding with me until she walked out onto the dock that morning as I was leaving.
As for your questi
on about a power source for your friend’s lighthouse, tell your captain I am on the case. I happen to be kind of a lighthouse nut myself. I used to spend summers on Nantucket Island, where as kids we would go to an abandoned structure off of Matamoy, which in the old days marked the entrance to Nantucket Sound. What a clubhouse that place was. I have flown over most of those old lights in the Bahamas, but I am not familiar with Cayo Loco. It must be way down there. I am also one of the few people I know who has actually fired up the mantles of a bull’s-eye lens at the Hopetown Light, so I know what you are talking about. Those are rare gems indeed.
Due to an unexpected turn of events, we are taking a new route to the Orient. It will take us in a roundabout way to Samoa, Tahiti, and then to New Caledonia, home of the largest lighthouse in the Pacific—it’s called Amedee Light. I will make a point to check it out, ask a few questions, and see if they might have an extra bull’s-eye lens lying around. I will drop you a line if anything comes up. I hope you don’t mind that this is such a long letter, but I have been approached by a publisher in New York to do a book about my travels and I don’t know a damn thing about writing a book. They suggested I start by sending long letters to somebody describing my travels. Since you are the only person who has written me a letter in over a year, I hoped I might be able to try out my writing skills on you. If they are too long or terrible, you have my permission to tell me so, and I will send postcards instead. Here goes.
I heard through the coconut telegraph that Sammy Raye is sending you a batch of the overreported news clippings of our unplanned takeoff from San Francisco.
Between you and me, the flight under the Golden Gate Bridge was always going to happen. I simply did it as a tribute to Burt. He was standing in the middle of the bridge as we flew under, and I swear I could see the grin on his face. It was worth the consequences.
By the time the air-traffic controller in San Francisco figured out what had happened, we were well on our way to the islands. I used my most apologetic voice with the air controller to explain that the problem was due to our excessive load of fuel, lack of a headwind, and a litany of other problems. The controller was too busy with the stacked-up planes heading for a foggy approach at San Francisco International and just handed me off to the next guy, who told me that I would have to check in with the authorities when I reached Honolulu.
Well, when we reached Honolulu and put The Flying Pearl down in Pearl Harbor, you would have thought Lindbergh had come back from the dead. We made every local newscast and one of the networks as well. That, on top of the usual Hawaiian welcome, kind of put us into a hero category, and the under-the-bridge takeoff just became part of the event.
I left the crew at the celebration and went to see the local FAA chief at the airport. He was very stern and quoted rules from the air manual about the Golden Gate Bridge. He listed penalties that ranged from license suspension to large fines. But then he just told me not to do it again. He asked to inspect the plane, which I happily agreed to. He walked through the plane, and then we took a couple of pictures in front of the plane with the crew. He wished us good luck on the rest of the trip and went back to his office.
I had read Jack London’s The Cruise of the Snark when I was a kid, and it was one of the big reasons I went wandering. I had bought a copy to reread the story of his voyage that paralleled mine, but in route only. The passages in the book about what he saw when he arrived in Honolulu were a far cry from what greeted us. I think Jack London would be shell-shocked by modern Hawaii, but then again he saw it all coming. That is why he went sailing. Old Jack was well aware of how quickly the world was changing.
Sammy Raye was also in Hawaii for our arrival and had surprised me by bringing Burt along. We were covered with leis, which of course Sammy Raye loved, and he toasted the completion of our journey with many bottles of champagne, long after the camera crews packed up and went home. Fortunately for us, the next morning, news from the mainland hit like a tidal wave and swept us off the front page of the Star-Bulletin. A woman from Maui had hit a $50 million jackpot slot in Las Vegas. So an old seaplane story quickly gave way to an instant local multimillionaire, though we still had our share of airplane nuts who came out and peered through the fence at our wonderful old plane. We were already at work preparing for the next leg of the flight with logistic planners from Pearl Harbor who oversaw operations at the U.S. naval base on Midway Island.
I know this is going to kill you after our conversation at Lost Boys about our influences and heroes, but Gardner McKay showed up to look at the plane. He was fantastic. I recognized him immediately as simply an older version of Captain Adam Troy. He and his wife took me to dinner at the Canoe Club, and he told me stories of his remembrances of flying the old Clippers from Europe to New York.
I invited them to ride with us around the harbor the next day on our test flight. If you haven’t seen the tape yet of the “Pearl over Pearl,” as they are calling it over here, I will make sure that Sammy Raye gets you a copy. I must say, it brought a tear to my eye. So, after two days of basking in our own glory in the presidential suite of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, several great Thai meals at Keo’s, and a few surf sessions with the bathing beauties of Waikiki, we went back to work in preparation for the next leg of our journey to Midway. Just like the U.S. Navy in World War II, there was trouble waiting for us in that part of the Pacific.
We checked off Necker, Laysan, and Lisianski Islands on our chart. The Flying Pearl ran beautifully, and after leaving Honolulu, the green circle in the middle of the deep blue sea showed us the way to the atoll of Sand Island at Midway.
Midway had been one of the fueling stops along the original Pan Am route to China. They had built a hotel, which they had named the Gooneyville Lodge in honor of the birds that nested there. Juan Trippe, the owner and mastermind behind Pan Am, had transported all the creature comforts of home to Midway, including mahogany speedboats that carried passengers from the Clippers in the lagoon to the dock, where “woody” station wagons took them from the dock to the lodge.
Flying the Clippers across the Pacific was similar to flying the Concorde these days. Did you know that in 1935, the price of a ticket from San Francisco to Macao was twice the salary of the average American? It was the airline of the rich and famous. Ernest Hemingway and Captain Tony had stopped on Midway once. It seems those Key West boys did get around. Well, the war changed all that, and history was written when the Battle of Midway became the turning point of the war in the Pacific. It was also about to be the turning point of our adventure.
I was in the bombed-out remains of the old seaplane hangar when I got the news from the commander of the Navy base that our fuel barge had sunk in a storm off of Wake Island. The base itself would have been happy to give us fuel, but all they had was jet fuel. The only solution was to head back to Hawaii and try to arrange another delivery.
Problems in paradise are just not as disconcerting as problems in a different climate or environment. We took advantage of the Navy’s hospitality and toured the battle monuments. I could really feel the history of the life-and-death struggle that took place on the island. It was as much a part of the atoll as the coral reefs, crabs, birds, people, and palm trees.
That evening we had dinner at the Officers Club. Though we had an invitation to stay on by our hosts, we decided to head back to Honolulu as soon as possible to tackle our problems. I walked the old runway to check the plane late that night. I stood under a blanket of stars and a full moon that reflected gouges in the concrete made by Japanese machine guns fifty years earlier. Staring at the old Pearl, I wondered how many places like this there are on this earth that have seen such conflict and now seem almost heavenly. As you might expect, that night I dreamed about seaplanes and battles.
Our return to Hawaii was not quite the event our first landing created. There were just a few observers who watched us taxi to the far side of the airport, where our team of problem solvers met us. The bottom-line consensus was that we simply had
to wait for another barge to make its way to Midway, a delay of at least two weeks. I was not happy.
We settled into the routine maintenance to occupy the time, and the next afternoon, I was busy with a screwdriver and sullen thoughts when I heard someone calling my name. A young blond guy in shorts and a Hinano beer T-shirt was standing under the wing. “I think I can solve your fuel problem right now,” he said, and I slid down the nose of the plane as fast as if it were a ride at a water park.
The guy’s name was Ben Cooper. I recognized the accent as Texas immediately. Ben told me he had seen us on TV and heard about our problems at Midway. He said he had been in the Navy at Midway but had mustered out and now worked for U.S. Fish and Wildlife and managed a private bird sanctuary on the island of Minola.
I tried to be polite but direct, and I told him I had never heard of Minola and asked him what that had to do with my problem.
“That’s where the go juice is, Captain,” he answered, and then in that rambling, Texas storytelling style, he proceeded to tell me a tale that was music to my ears.
It seemed that the Corps of Engineers was in the area doing some kind of surveys and had chartered an old piston engine DC-4 from New Zealand. They had begrudgingly been given permission to use the runway at Minola for their work despite protests about the effect it would have on the nesting birds. Well, as usual, something went sideways, and the whole project was suddenly diverted to Alaska. But what did show up was a barge with the fuel requisitions the engineers had asked for. It seems that some clerk in the General Accounting Office back in Washington must have fallen asleep at the keyboard of the computer, for instead of 6,000 gallons of aviation gas showing up, 26,000 gallons had arrived. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Ben Cooper told me there were still 19,000 gallons of 100-octane aviation gas sitting in a barge in the harbor at Minola. They had informed Washington about the mistake, and the response was the usual finger-pointing and a suggestion to use the extra fuel to run the lawn mower. Ben told me he could mow every lawn on the planet and still not dent his supply. “I can’t think of a better use of it than to get you across the Pacific, but there’s a catch,” Ben told me. That is when I offered to buy him a beer on the beach and have further discussions.