The press were quick to realize they were waiting at Cranwell and were buzzing about to pick up on any nuggets or hints about the departure. Hinch told them repeatedly that it depended on the weather. Levine, on the other hand, saw his stay at the barracks as a free pass for what he couldn’t get away with at the Ritz, and was often doing nothing but playing cards and drinking whiskey with his buddies. On days when the weather was ideal, Levine would be in bed until the afternoon, refusing to do anything but sleep off his hangover. Hinch also suspected that Levine’s chums had been bringing back some ladies from the brothel in the nearby town, as evidenced by the women’s hasty departure in the morning. Nevertheless, Levine was not shy about telling the reporters who were hanging around that tomorrow was the day; then it was the next day; then the next. The headlines were hitting the papers in accordance, and all Hinchliffe could do was shake his head. The flight was becoming a laughingstock and would be a full-blown joke if they didn’t take off soon. He had received leave from Imperial Airways, but he only had weeks left. Now the flight across the ocean and the return by ship would take more time than he had allotted.
After two weeks of waiting, Levine had worn down the patience of the proper Englishman. Hinchliffe had been staying at the nearby Sleaford hotel with his wife, Emilie; their daughter; and his parents. A strong, favorable west wind was coming in, impeccable conditions for the flight. Hinchliffe warned Levine to be ready the next morning, to get Mabel prepared to go; but when he arrived at the hangar at half past six, Levine was not ready. Mabel stayed in the car, not wanting to risk any more reporters’ questions about her love life, especially now that she was designated as “nothing.” Not only was Levine not in his flying togs, he was acting jittery as he and his mechanic, John Carisi, were hemming and hawing about the plane not being able to take off due to the wet ground. Hinchliffe called this nonsense: he was the pilot, he was aware of the conditions, and with this favorable wind, takeoff would not be an issue. Carisi disagreed vehemently and challenged Hinchliffe’s reliability, but every one of the onlookers was still shocked when the reserved, jovial, and well-mannered fist of Captain Hinchliffe rose in the air, ready to give Carisi his own bull’s-eye. Levine grabbed Carisi, then the pair vanished for an hour until Hinchliffe boiled over. He ordered the plane towed out onto the field.
“Is Levine ready yet?” Hinchliffe yelled as he came back into the hangar. “If he’s not, I’m through. There are limits to even my patience!”
But Levine, it seemed, wasn’t about to answer. He had returned to bed.
* * *
Captain Leslie Hamilton was a little drunk during the dinner at the Savoy when the princess laid out her proposition for financing the historic flight across the Atlantic to him and Captain Fredrick Minchin. Without a flinch, Minchin said yes. Behind his dark, deep-set eyes and generous, thick black mustache, he knew what he was capable of. He held the Military Cross for his daring night bombing flights over Egypt, and then was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, one step away from being knighted. His skills were no puzzle to him.
Minchin wanted this flight. He was sure.
The princess then turned her attention to Hamilton, and, feeling incredibly brave and remarkably gallant as the wine had allowed him—and having to follow Minchin’s definitive reply—he simply said, “Yes. Yes, I’m in.”
He regretted it deeply the next morning, but he had given his word. His honor. Hamilton, no stranger to combat and facing terror directly, had shot down six enemy planes in the war and afterward became a commercial stunt pilot.
Hamilton doubted the entire escapade would even take place, thinking that the princess would realize the imminent danger of the flight and cancel it. She had told the newspapers, “Think of how romantic it would be to die in the middle of the Atlantic!”—to which Minchin replied, “Not very. I have a wife and children.” Clearly, the princess didn’t realize that as the plane went down, romantically, there would be no one to cater to any whim but the freezing black waves of a cruel, unsentimental ocean. The princess was one of England’s titans of drama, and surely it was the attention she craved.
The craft Princess Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg had bought was enormous. Named the St. Raphael after the patron saint of fliers, the plane couldn’t even be issued an airworthiness certificate until the rudder and tail until were modified due to the enormous weight. They waited for decent weather; the headwinds were too strong to fly, especially with a plane so enormous. Princess Anne waited in the comfort of her home in London.
For Hamilton, however, the stress of waiting was weighing deeply on him. He did not want to do this, and felt he had just committed himself to an inglorious death.
When asked by a fellow pilot, Freddie West, why he didn’t remove himself from the flight, Hamilton shook his head. “I couldn’t stand the ridicule if I did,” he confided.
Minchin, on the other hand, was more than hopeful that success was on their side.
“It depends on the winds,” he said. “If they’re at all reasonable, we’ll get over. If they’re not, well, someone will make it sooner or later. I only hope it’s an Englishman and not that fellow Levine.”
Then panic struck. Princess Anne learned that Hinch and Levine were out at Cranwell getting ready and became hysterical, demanding to leave the next day. She was not going to let an American, even with an English pilot, kill her vision of a successful crossing. Levine had already had his chance; he had no right to take hers. After checking with the Air Ministry, she learned that conditions were favorable; she would be leaving for Upavon in the morning. The time, gentlemen, she assured them, was now.
Although Minchin agreed, Hamilton balked, certain they were being pushed into a takeoff with less-than-optimum weather by Levine and Princess Anne’s egotistic trigger finger. The weather was fine, but it wasn’t the best; it would pay to wait until the most optimum moment. His words fell on determined ears; his say made no difference.
At the farewell party that night in the mess hall, the men gathered around the piano, sang, and drank. Hamilton asked the pianist to play “My Heart Stood Still,” and then asked for it again. It had been playing at the Savoy the night he foolishly agreed to go. He sat by the piano all night, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. When things wound down at midnight and Minchin suggested they both needed sleep, Hamilton looked at him with red-rimmed, watery eyes and said only, “There’ll be plenty of time to sleep when we get there, and permanent rest if we don’t.”
At five the next morning, the engine of the St. Raphael choked to life and began humming. Hamilton arrived with bloodshot eyes, trying to shake a hangover. It was misty, but when the princess arrived, the sun broke through the clouds as she stepped out of her Rolls wearing purple velvet riding breeches, fur-lined boots, a purple leather jacket, and a tall, brimless, black satin toque, resembling a mad character in a play.
The first thing she did was ask for a shot of brandy in her coffee.
Hamilton slipped behind the hangar and vomited violently.
He returned a deathly white color and mumbled to Freddie West, “This is a grim ordeal, a grim ordeal. I’ll make a good meal for the sharks.”
“No one believes that plane will lift,” West replied, patting him on the back. “It’s just too heavy.”
Minchin, however, was in high spirits, telling reporters, “I’m pleased. Everything is in our favor. The wind is right, the weather is good, the plane is in perfect trim.”
Minchin pulled himself up on the wing and entered the plane.
Hamilton turned to Freddie West and pressed a wad of bills into his hand.
“Here’s twenty-five pounds, Freddie,” Hamilton said, looking his friend in the eye. “All my spare cash. Will you give it to the RAF mechanics who have been working on the plane? It’s better they get it than the fishes.”
He boarded the St. Raphael against everything he felt and everything he knew. The princess was helped on board by
the archbishop who had come to bless the plane, but not before she fell to her knees and kissed his ring.
She scurried into the cargo hold over the fuel tanks and wiggled into her wicker throne, seated right behind the pilots.
The plane slowly heaved forward slightly, then began rolling, its tires squeezed by the enormous weight of the plane. It gained speed but was still sluggish.
The plane vanished in the mist, and a wing reappeared where the ambulance had been stationed, still showing no evidence of lifting. Minchin stared straight ahead, unfazed. In the next moment, with the plane shooting toward an earthen bank, the plane finally became airborne, just enough to clear it.
“My God, Minchin!” Freddie West yelled from the ground. “Well done, Minchin! You certainly know how to cut things fine!”
The St. Raphael sank back toward the ground, then sliced over a plateau that saved it from crashing, and from there the plane held steady, disappearing into the fog.
* * *
“Mabel, please,” Levine begged, even outstretching his hand. “Please understand.”
There was no answer.
“Mabel, tell me what you want,” he whispered while everyone behind him watched. “I’ll get it for you. A diamond? A car? You can keep the Rolls and the driver.”
“You know what I want!” Mabel hissed from behind the glass. “You promised!”
“I know, I know I did, but things have changed. You understand that, don’t you?” Levine said softly, as if he were trying to calm down a bear that was showing its teeth.
“You said you were a man of your word!” Mabel screeched. “And don’t tell me they’re ‘different words,’ because I’ve heard that damn story too many times!”
Levine pulled back, turned around, faced the crowd, and shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said simply. “She won’t come out.”
“She’s got to come out,” Hinchliffe said bluntly. “We won’t be issued an airworthiness certificate if she stays in there.”
Mabel had been the first one out to Cranwell on the day of the takeoff. She was dressed modestly, wearing only three thousand dollars’ worth of jewels, the fakes in her suitcase. Before Levine could talk to her, she’d climbed into the cockpit through the window—there was no door—dragging her blue suitcase behind her, and had been there since three a.m.
But Mabel wasn’t going to get close to being airborne. She didn’t know that yet, but both Carisi and Hinch—in the rarest of moments—agreed that her additional weight would surely sabotage the flight. It was either toss out fuel or toss out Mabel. And there she was, all settled in, before Levine broke the news that the princess had taken off. To his credit, Levine argued with Hinch and Carisi until an Air Ministry official stepped in. The plane was too heavy, and it wasn’t Levine who was giving up his seat.
“Mibs, baby, I’ll buy you a bigger plane and we’ll take that one across the ocean together, all right? Come on, doll face, let’s get out now.”
He leaned a little farther into the cabin where Mabel was holed up, clutching her blue suitcase, her luggage, and her enormous ermine cape.
“I thought we were a team,” she hissed at him. “I thought we were a pair. You left your wife for me, and now you are leaving me here?”
“She left me,” Levine corrected.
“Shut up, shrimp!” she said, and kicked him right in the chest, pushing him backward and almost off the wing where he was perched.
“That’s enough,” Hinchliffe said, and pulled Levine aside. “Mabel,” he said sternly as he climbed up. “It’s time for you to go.”
“Ugh,” Mabel replied. “I hate the English! I hate England! I hate you! The only thing worse than an English pilot is a Canadian pilot!”
“Ah, yes, I heard about that from my pilot friend Erroll Boyd.” Hinchliffe smiled. “You hospitalized that man with a concussion, dear Miss Boll.”
Then he leaned in and whispered something in harsh tones. Hinch did not move from the window of the cockpit; he stood silently, as if he were in a staring contest.
Suddenly, Mabel’s hand was seen gingerly reaching out for Hinchliffe’s, who took it and gently helped her, the cape, and the blue suitcase out of the plane.
She was smiling, but there was a growling behind those shining teeth.
“And I just made out my will last night!” Mabel snarled as she smiled.
“I certainly hope you left me that cape,” Hinchliffe replied, guiding her off the wing.
“Pardon me,” she said pleasantly as she walked back through the crowd to Levine’s waiting Rolls. “Pardon me.”
The driver opened the door, she got in, and they quietly drove away.
“What did you say?” Levine asked Hinch, shocked.
“I told her we were overweight by a certain number of pounds, which was all Mabel,” he said as he stared at her car disappearing down the drive. “And I wouldn’t hesitate to tell the press the exact amount.”
Hinch motioned for the crew to tow the Miss Columbia out to the field, and within the hour the two men—and only the two men—were on their way to Rome so that Levine could kiss the pope’s ring.
CHAPTER SIX
FALL 1927
Mabel Boll and friend.
By Dr. Cunningham’s observations, Lady Inchcape had suffered a mild heart attack, and initially the situation appeared grave. Upon Elsie’s return from the airfield, she found her mother pale, grey, and unresponsive. Her breathing was steady but shallow. This sent a trail of alarm up her spine, and although she knew her mother had been feeling tired and unwell, she chalked it up to the stress of the wedding. Elsie had always seen both her parents as indestructible, able to withstand any challenges that faced them. Now it was undeniable. Her mother was just a mortal. It was a scathing moment of truth. Elsie couldn’t help it: she broke down in tears, then sobs.
A week after Lady Inchcape collapsed, Dr. Cunningham gathered the family and Cousin Bluebell in their mother’s favorite room and found it safe to say that she would recover slowly and with plenty of rest. The stress of recent events, albeit happy ones, had most likely been too much for her, and until further orders she was to be on bed rest, waited on hand and foot.
Upon hearing this, Effie buried herself in her new husband’s arms and bawled.
“My wedding gave Mother a heart attack!” she cried as Eugen comforted her.
Kenneth sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, looking bored. “Weddings don’t suddenly bring on heart attacks. If that was the case, there would be no woman alive in England over the age of fourteen.”
“Kenneth’s quite right, my dear,” Lord Inchcape said, looking toward Effie from his spot where he sat next to the fireplace, but not making an effort to go to her side. He found the dramatics frivolous. “We now know why Mother’s health has been declining. So there will be no excitement, and that means no sharing of recent events.”
Janet and Kenneth nodded, but Elsie made no move at all.
“Such a shame. She’s been a friend of Mother’s for such a long time,” Margaret said. “It seems only right that she should know, Father.”
“There’s still no word of Princess Anne?” Kenneth inquired.
Margaret shook her head. “A ship saw them pass above in the mid-Atlantic a day after they took off, but nothing since.”
“It’s been nine days,” Elsie added.
“That woman was nothing but a fool any way you look at it,” Lord Inchcape interjected. “Princess Anne had good qualities about her, but dragging those two men to their deaths is beyond irresponsible. It’s almost murder.”
“We don’t know if they’re dead, Father,” Elsie replied. “They are just missing.”
Lord Inchcape uttered a hearty guffaw. “Missing? In the Atlantic?” he said as he stared at Elsie and shook his head. “Mousie Mine, you’ve been across the Atlantic. How long do you think you would be ‘missing’ in the middle of it? I’m afraid there’s no hope for them. If a steamer had picked them up, we??
?d know by now. Foolhardy! And for what? To satisfy a silly whim of a silly princess?”
“Wars have been fought over less, Father.” Kenneth smirked.
The thought of it was so irritating to Lord Inchcape that he readjusted himself in the tufted blue horsehair armchair. “She had no business making that flight,” he said, finally sitting back. “And look what it is putting everyone through. We can’t even tell your mother, as it may interfere with her recovery. And I know you say flying is relatively safe, Elsie, but out there, once a plane goes down, there is no rescue.”
“Well, there is no first class, that’s true,” Elsie replied calmly. “But the Atlantic has had no shortage of collecting victims from ships, Father. Almost three thousand with the Lusitania and Titanic alone. By far, the ships are winning, I’d say.”
“I hope you have no plans for embarking on a ludicrous event of your own?” her father grumbled, and every eye in the room turned and landed on her.
“Oh! Can I come?” Bluebell blurted out.
Elsie shook her head. “Absolutely not, Father. I have no plans to fly across the Atlantic, I can assure you.”
Without the best copilot available, she would be a fool to even begin to organize such a thing, and the Air Ministry had already denied her request for a recommendation, stating in a roundabout way that they were not about to send a pilot to an early grave. Plus, Princess Anne had two excellent pilots—two of the most skilled men in Britain. And now all three were missing. Without every aspect being absolutely optimal—without the pilot of her choice—it was nothing she would even consider.
* * *
As Charles Levine found, even having a modicum of fame or celebrity grants access to worlds otherwise unattainable, and he was thrilled when he received an invitation from the pope for an audience. As Levine entered hall after hall, each lined with Vatican guards who saluted him as he passed, his eyes got bigger and bigger, his jaw falling a little after he passed priceless tapestries and artifacts, until he was escorted into the room where the pope had just met with the king of Egypt. Of course, Levine kissed his ring.