Stranger to the Ground

In the red light, on the windowed face of the radiocompass, are four selector knobs, one switch, and one coffee-grinder tuning crank. I turn the crank. It is as old-fashioned in the cockpit of a fighter plane as would be a hand-wound telephone in an atomic research center. If it was much more quiet and if I wore no helmet, perhaps I could hear the crank squeak as it turned. I turn the handle, imagining the squeaks, until the frequency needle comes to rest over the number 344, the frequency of the Laon radio-beacon.

Turn up the volume. Listen. Crank the handle a little to the left, a little to the right. Static static crank dih-dih. Pause. Static. Listen for L-C. Dah-dih-dah-dih. . . . Dih-dah-dih-dih. . . . That is it. My right glove turns the selector from antenna to compass, while the left has the unnatural task of holding the control stick grip. The slim luminous green radiocompass needle spins majestically from the bottom of its dial to the top—a crosscheck on the TACAN—Laon radiobeacon is ahead. A little adjustment with the crank, an eighth of an inch, and the radiocompass is locked strong on Laon. Turn down the volume.

The Laon radiobeacon is a solitary place. It stands alone with the trees and the cold hills in the morning and the trees and the warm hills in the afternoon, sending its L-C into the air whether there is a pilot in the sky to hear it or whether there is nothing in the sky but a lone raven. But it is faithful and ever there. If the raven had a radiocompass, he could find his way unerringly to the tower that broadcasts the L-C. Every once in a long while a maintenance crew will go to the beacon and its tower and check its voltages and perform some routine tube-changing. Then they will leave the tower standing alone again and jounce back the rough road the way they came.

At this moment the steel of the tower is cold in the night and the raven is asleep in his stony home on a hillside. The coded letters, though, are awake and moving and alive, and I am glad, for the navigation is working out well.

The wide TACAN needle shares the same dial with the radiocompass needle, and they work together now to tell me that Laon is passing beneath my airplane. The radiocompass needle is the most active of the two. It twitches and quivers with stiff electronic life, like some deep sea life dredged and placed on a microscope slide. It jerks to the left and right; it quavers at the top of the dial, swinging in wider and wider arcs. Then, in one decisive movement, it swings all the way around, clockwise, and points to the bottom of the dial. The Laon radiobeacon has passed behind. The TACAN needle swings lazily five or six times around the dial and finally agrees with its more nervous companion. I am definitely past Laon.

That part of my thought that paid serious attention to navigation classes guides my glove to tilt the stick to the left, and the crowd of instruments in the center of the panel swings into an awareness of the seriousness of my action. Heading indicator moves on tiny oiled bearings to the left, turn needle leans to the left a quarter of an inch. The miniature airplane on the attitude indicator banks to the left against its luminous horizon line. Airspeed needle moves down a knot, altimeter and vertical speed needles drop for just a second, until I see their conspiracy and add the thought of back pressure through the right glove. The errant pair rise again into line.

Once again, the routine. Ready with the position report, thumb down on microphone button.

Though the cloud is almost at my flight level, and very dark, it looks as if the forecaster has once again gone astray, for I have not seen a flash of lightning since over the Channel. Whatever severe weather is afoot tonight over France is keeping itself well hidden. I am not concerned. In fifty minutes I shall be landing, with my precious sack of documents, at Chaumont.

CHAPTER THREE

“France Control, Air Force Jet Two Niner Four Zero Five, Laon.” There is quiet static in the soft earphones. I wait. Perhaps my call went unnoticed.

“France Control, France Control, Jet Two Niner Four Zero Five, how do you read on frequency three one seven point eight.” There is no answer.