When he entered the room he found, as he had expected, that some ten of his colleagues were gathered, seeking consolation. At once his broad face illuminated in a beaming smile; he suggested Franklin D. Roosevelt listening to the election returns whenever he happened to be running for President.
Without waiting for an invitation, Sergeant Feinberg seated himself. “Gentlemen,” he announced. “Our troubles are over. I have reached a decision.”
Sergeant Steele, from Operations, looked at him from under heavy lids. “Would you care to favor us with your conclusions?” he asked.
“Certainly.” Sergeant Feinberg was expansive. “After carefully reviewing all aspects of the matter, I have decided that the boys in Det. Four are going to bring in the wing root sections for us. Sergeant Prevost, who owns one of the Jollies, has advised me that they can do it. I regard his opinion as final.”
Bill Stovers said nothing, content to wait and see what was coming next.
Atwater, from Supply, filled in as straight man. “Now that it has been decided that the splendid gentlemen from Det. Four, which includes the junior officers, are going to accomplish this miracle a couple of hundred miles beyond their normal operating range, has anyone been so thoughtful as to notify them of this fact?”
Sergeant Feinberg lit a cigar in the grand manner. “All in due time,” he answered. “A few minor details remain to be resolved.”
“The colonel for one,” Holcomb suggested.
“Quite possibly, yes,” Feinberg concurred. “But I regard the colonel as a most enlightened man of great capability. It’s the dunderheads who usually bollix up the works. They lack imagination.”
“If he needs to get someone in line,” Steele said, “the colonel can be highly imaginative.”
“Now,” Sergeant Feinberg expounded, “what we need to do is to impress on the commander of Det. Four the somewhat urgent need for a realistic, long-range training exercise.”
By a fortunate — and carefully arranged — coincidence, two of the younger helicopter pilots from Det. 4 developed a sudden interest in the C-130 airlifter and in its forthcoming mission on the ice cap. They were, therefore, on the flight line quite early the following morning, in arctic flight suits, prepared for an orientation ride in the big Hercules. Ferguson welcomed them and after a brief preliminary agreement, he took them into Hangar 8. Four men were working on the engine that had already been stripped of two of its cylinders. “It’s been there thirty years,” Ferguson said, “but it’s been in a deep freeze — no corrosion, no rust. It can be overhauled.”
“That’s incredible,” one of the helicopter pilots declared.
“If you can freeze a steak, why not an airplane?” Ferguson asked. “And the airplane is a helluva lot more durable. Think of it this way: a lot of planes are tied down outside the year around in all weather and they still last for twenty years or more.”
“That’s true,” the other pilot agreed. “I used to own part of one.”
Ferguson made the most of the carefully shined-up left stabilizer. He exhibited it and let his two guests look it over in detail. When they had done so, he knew that he had them sold. “Another thing,” he added by way of further explanation. “Just because aircraft are few and far between up here right now doesn’t mean that we’re short of good mechanics. Some of the best in the business are here, many of them in other types of jobs. This isn’t being undertaken by a bunch of amateurs.”
“Obviously not,” the first pilot agreed. “Let’s get going, we’re ready.”
“Sergeant Stovers is the loadmaster,” Ferguson told him. “He’ll let us know when the gear is loaded. The bird is cocked, so it won’t take us long to fire up.”
Less than fifteen minutes later the Hercules lifted off the Thule runway with a total of twenty persons on board and a considerable amount of equipment. A small tractor tug with a snowplow attached sat close to the rear ramp opening. Its nineteen-year-old operator had a wide grin on his face: he knew that he was good and he was anticipating the chance to prove it.
Even Sergeant Feinberg had to admit that the cockpit drill was beyond reproach; it was a premium quality crew all the way. He still thought so after what remained of The Passionate Penguin showed up, within one minute of Lieutenant Jenkins’s estimated time of arrival. Ferguson put the skis down and executed another of his near-perfect ice cap landings. There was a moderate crosswind, but that did not trouble him at all. When the big Here slid to a stop, it was again almost wingtip to wingtip with the derelict B-17, an arrangement that was spoiled only by the fact that the World War II bomber had no wingtips left — they were back in Hangar 8 at Thule.
The work for the day had been carefully laid out in advance. Enthusiasm had returned; it was assumed that somehow the helicopter detachment would solve the problem of the oversize wing root sections.
A large A-frame that had been left at the site was rigged over the outer end of the right wing root and a sling was fitted under the wing section. When that had been done, the line from the block and tackle was attached to the small tractor that was fired up and ready for action. As the tractor backed away, its driver cautiously obeying the hand signals of Andy Holcomb, the sling tightened and for the first time in more than a generation, the right main wheel lifted off the ground.
A canvas was spread underneath it to make the job easier and four men began to disassemble the landing gear. In the sub-zero temperature and moderate wind high on the ice cap, it was a difficult job, but a large portable heater helped greatly by unfreezing the fittings and by offering a warmed area in which to work.
While that was going on, the remaining engine was being removed with the aid of a smaller, but powerful, heater-defroster. The remaining large heater was once more at work pouring warmed air into the fuselage.
Meanwhile the fairings at the wing root were being taken off to expose the heavy driftpins that held the wings on. They would have to be sledged out and it would be, at the best, a difficult task.
But nobody minded. Least of all Sergeant Holcomb, who was foreman for the whole job. Inside the fuselage, Lieutenant Jenkins was busy carefully removing the bolts that held the front and rear sections of the fuselage together. He was not alone: the two helicopter pilots joined him in his labors while Bill Stovers carefully undid the turnbuckles that held the complete double set of control cables in position.
In one hour and twenty-two minutes that job was completed; The Passionate Penguin’s fuselage had been separated into two sections just behind what remained of her wings.
For the next forty-five minutes the tractor operator was in his glory. With his snowplow blade he built a ramp at the rear of the C-130 up to the interior floor level. When the ramp on the aircraft was raised to the level position, he pushed some snow onto it to make sliding easier. Then he drove his powerful little vehicle across the snow toward the tail of the old bomber.
It took ten minutes to rig the ropes properly. When Sergeant Holcomb was at last fully satisfied, the tractor was ready to pull. At that moment someone remembered; he yelled, “Stop! You forgot the tail wheel!”
It took forty-five minutes to correct that oversight. The wheel could not be raised into its well, so it was taken off after enough snow had been shoveled away to make the work possible.
The rest was almost anticlimactic — the tractor pulled, the fuselage shuddered slightly, and then the rear section slid slowly backwards, an empty tapered cylinder that had been stripped of all of its tail surfaces — only the dorsal remained in position.
With expert skill the tractor driver turned the section around, then pulled it across the loose snow to the end of the ramp he had made with his blade. Then he unhitched and drove around to the open end so that he could push the half-fuselage section into the C-130, tail end first.