Flying Blind

china, silver, and water goblets (no liquor was served) in a lavish, spacious lounge where the ten passengers sat in roomy, well-padded seats facing each other, five abreast. A second passenger compartment, aft, served as a sort of game room, with wicker chairs at tables for cards or checkers. Another cabin, further aft, converted to sleeping berths, but we only used them on the first leg of the flight, from San Francisco to Honolulu.

That first leg had seemed endless. The China Clipper had lifted off from the Alameda seaplane base on San Francisco Bay on a beautiful afternoon, accompanied by only the gentlest breeze. Sunshine had glistened off the hull and wings and prop blades of a white, red-trimmed four-engine ship that seemed at once sleek and ungainly, its wing riding atop the fuselage like a perfectly balanced teeter-totter. Once the lines had been cast off, we’d made several circles on the bay, warming the engine up, before surging forward, only barely flying at first, under the heavy burden of fuel, finally gaining altitude, cruising into an afternoon that stubbornly refused to let go of the day.

Many hours later, when darkness finally sheathed the ship, the Clipper settled in between layers of cloud and cruised along. My traveling companion, William Miller, wearing a dark suit and dark blue tie, to add a festive touch to our flight to the tropics, pointed out to me that we were flying a route charted by Fred Noonan.

“Isn’t that reassuring,” I said.

Dawn took its time arriving, too, and out a window, at breakfast, I spotted the familiar shape of Diamond Head; the last time had been from the deck of the ocean liner Malolo. And after only twenty and a half hours, we were landing at Pearl Harbor to a typically flower-strewn welcome. Meanwhile, the Clipper was loaded up with staples of the island Naval bases—crates of fresh fruit and vegetables, mostly—while limos with Pan Am drivers escorted the passengers to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for a leisurely evening of dining and dancing and the sight of Oahu’s starry purple sky, golden moon, ebony ocean, and white breakers. Then dawn slapped us back to reality and we were soon aboard the Clipper for the easiest leg of the trip, the mere 1,380 miles to Midway.

The entire briefing for my mission took place in hotel rooms, along the way, and of course the passenger cabin of the China Clipper, over the four days of flying. Only ten passengers were aboard—me, Miller, and four wealthy couples, two from New York, one from Los Angeles, one from Dallas—the little California to Hong Kong six-day jaunt, after all, cost $950, one way, one tickee. The cabin soundproofing was remarkable, allowing conversation in a normal, even hushed, voice.

So Miller and I sat apart from the paying customers and played endless games of checkers—which ended invariably in deadlock—while the government agent filled me in on my distressingly detailed cover story, suggested plans of action and various routes of escape. At no time was anything hand-or typewritten given to me; everything, like a pill, was administered orally.

“That saves us the annoying necessity of having to eat the papers,” Miller said, and I was never sure whether he was kidding. Probably not. A sense of humor didn’t seem to have been among his government-issue materials.

Out the window occasionally I’d spot one of the many little islands that we seemed to be following like bread crumbs to the atolls of Midway, where a beautiful lagoon waited for us to touch down. Waiting too were attentive white-uniformed Pan Am staff at the landing float with its long, pergola-style deplaning dock. A brick walkway led to a sprawling white-pillared hotel, its two wings spread like open arms, gathering us up into a sanctuary of Simmons beds, bathrooms with hot showers, classy lounges with wicker furniture, and tasty exotic meals served by white- uniformed native stewards.

On the spacious verandah that evening my bosom pal Miller sat with me as we watched an unruly surf crash upon the encircling reef, and observed bald-headed, turkey-looking birds that would run crazily along the beach, flapping their wings in takeoff, invariably nosing over in a feathery flurry of a crash landing in the sand. Most of my fellow passengers found this endlessly amusing. Takeoffs that wound up in crash landings were never my idea of a good laugh.

“Gooney birds,” Miller told me. “In fact, some people call Midway itself ‘Gooneyville.’…They’re really Laysan albatrosses.”

“Is that something I have to remember? If so, I’m really glad that one wasn’t written down; I’d hate to have to swallow the definition of a gooney bird.”

“No,” Miller said humorlessly. “You needn’t remember that.”

So of course I did.

The next day’s hotel, at Wake, was almost identical to the one at Midway, but the island itself was a barren, cruelly tropical atoll that had been home to hermit crabs and nasty rats and not humans, until flying boats like the Clipper had come along. It was a world with no fresh water, shade or harbor, a wind- blown bevy of scrubby sand dunes. For recreation we were offered air rifles and the chance to go rat hunting. I passed.

The cliff-bordered harbor at Guam had been arrayed with Navy warships and a few freighters. A small yellow bus with a small yellow driver had taken us along a scenic coastal road, dotted with big beautiful poinciana trees bursting with red blossoms. It was almost enough to make me forget about Wake; but my stomach was unsettled, and scenery, barren or bountiful, had nothing to do with it.

My Clipper cruise among millionaire tourists was coming to an end; I wouldn’t even have my warm and wonderful friend William Miller at my side, before long. I would be embarking on what might charitably be called an adventure, what more realistically might be termed a fool’s errand, and what most likely was a suicide mission. Two thousand dollars, give or take a buck, half from the Foundation, half from Uncle Sam, was all I would haul to shore; good money, in these Depression days, but only if I lived to spend it.

Why the hell was I doing this?

It was a question I had asked myself over and over again, on the various legs of this journey; and the answer was Amy. Amy and what she had told her flighty secretary, in confidence, about a possible child on the way. Whenever I had looked out a Clipper window at shimmering Pacific waters, I knew why I’d come. It was waters like these she’d disappeared over.

Now, on a verandah in Guam, outside a Navy Quonset hut, I took a last swig of my drink and looked out toward the ocean. By Clipper, Saipan was only an hour or so away. But I wasn’t going by seaplane.

Miller was on his feet and so was I. We had been joined by a singular physical specimen in a light-blue denim shirt with rolled-up sleeves, darker denim trousers, and white rubber-soled shoes. Leathery tan, his sunlightened brown hair cropped short, he regarded us through the narrow slits his eyes hid behind, the strength of a slenderly hawkish nose offset by a shyly boyish smile. His bull neck led naturally into a massive upper torso, then tapered to a