Swinging around in his right-hand seat, Captain Demerest instructed Second Officer Jordan, "Open the door."
Cy Jordan was seated behind the other two pilots at a complex panel of instruments and engine controls. Now he half rose and, extending his long, lean figure, released the flight deck door which opened outward. Through the doorway, in the forward passenger section, they could see a half dozen figures in Trans America uniform, Gwen Meighen among them.
"Gwen!" Demerest called. As she came into the flight deck, "What the devil's happening?"
Gwen looked worried. "The tourist passenger count won't tally. We've made it twice; we still can't agree with the manifest and tickets."
"Is the ramp supervisor there?"
"Yes, he's checking our count now."
"I want to see him."
At this stage of any airline flight there was always a problem of divided authority. Nominally the captain was already in command, but he could neither start engines nor taxi away without authorization from the ramp supervisor. Both the captain and ramp chief had the same objective---to make an on-schedule departure. However, their differing duties sometimes produced a clash.
A moment later, the uniformed ramp supervisor, a single silver stripe denoting his rank, arrived on the flight deck.
"Look, chum," Demerest said, "I know you've got problems, but so have we. How much longer do we sit here?"
"I've just ordered a ticket recheck, captain. Tbere's one more passenger in the tourist section than there ought to be."
"All right," Demerest said. "Now I'll tell you something. Every second we sit here we're burning fuel on three and four, which you gave the okay to start... precious fuel which we need in the air tonight. So unless this airplane leaves right now, I'm shutting everything down and we'll send for Fueling to top off our tanks. There's another thing you ought to know: air traffic control just told us they have a temporary gap in traffic. If we taxi out right away, we can be off the ground fast; in ten minutes from now that may have changed. Now, you make the decision. What's it to be?"
Torn between dual responsibilities, the ramp supervisor hesitaited. He knew the captain was right about burning fuel; yet to stop engines now, and top off tanks, would mean a further half hour's costly delay on top of the hour which Flight Two was late already. On the other hand, this was an important international flight on which the head count and ticket collection ought to agree. If there was really an unauthorized person aboard, and he was found and taken off, later the ramp supervisor could justify his decision to hold. But if the difference in tallies turned out to be a clerical error---as it might---the D.T.M. would roast him alive.
He made the obvious decision. Calling through the flight deck door, he ordered, "Cancel the ticket recheck. This flight is leaving now."
As the flight deck door closed, a grinning Anson Harris was on the interphone to a crewman on the ground below. "Clear to start two?"
The reply rattled back, "Okay to start two."
The forward fuselage door was closed and secured; in the cockpit, its red indicator light winked out.
Number two engine fired and held at a steady roar.
"Okay to start one?"
"Okay to start one."
The forward boarding walkway, like a severed umbilical cord, was gliding back toward the terminal.
Vernon Demerest was calling ground control on radio for permission to taxi.
Number one engine fired and held.
In the left seat, Captain Harris, who would taxi out and fly the takeoff, had his feet braced on the rudder pedal toe brakes.
It was still snowing hard.
"Trans America Flight Two from ground control. You are clear to taxi..."
The engine tempo quickened.
Demerest thought: Rome... and Naples... here we come!
IT WAS 11 P.M., Central Standard Time.
In Concourse "D," half running, half stumbling, a figure reached gate forty-seven.
Even if there had been breath to ask, questions were unneeded.
The boarding ramps were closed. Portable signs denoting the departure of Flight Two, The Golden Argosy, were being taken down. A taxiing aircraft was leaving the gate.
Helplessly, not knowing what she should do next, Inez Guerrero, watched the airplane's lights recede.
Go to Part Three
PART THREE
11 P.M. - 1:30 A.M. (CST)
01
AS ALWAYS at the beginning of a flight, Senior Stewardess Gwen Meighen experienced a sense of relief as the forward cabin door slammed closed and, a few moments later, the aircraft began moving.
An airliner in a terminal was like a dependent relative, subject to the whims and succor of its family. Such life as it had was never independent. Its identity was blurred; supply lines hobbled it; strangers, who would never join its airborne complement, moved in and out.
But when doors were sealed as the airplane prepared for takeoff, it became once more an entity. Crew members were most keenly aware of the change; they were returned to a familiar, self-contained environment in which they could function with skill and independence for which they had been trained. No one impeded them; nothing was underfoot, except what they were used to and at home with. Their tools and equipment were the finest; their resources and limitations were inventoried and known. Self-reliance returned. The camaraderie of the air---intangible, yet real to all who shared it---was theirs once more.
Even passengers---the more sensitive ones---were attuned to a mental transformation and, once in the air, awareness of the change increased. At high altitude, looking down, concerns of the everyday world seemed less important. Some, more analytical than others, saw the new perspective as a shedding of the pettiness of earth.
Gwen Meighen, occupied with pre-takeoff rituals, had no time for such analysis. While four of the five stewardesses busied themselves with housekeeping chores around the airplane, Gwen used the p.a. system to welcome passengers aboard. With her soft English voice, she did the best she could with the treacly, insincere paragraph from her stewardess manual, which the company insisted must be read on every flight.
"On behalf of Captain Demerest and your crew... our most sincere wish that your flight will be pleasant and relaxing... shortly we shall have the pleasure of serving... if there is anything we can do to make your flight more enjoyable..."
Gwen wondered sometimes when airlines would realize that most passengers found such announcements, at the beginning and end of every flight, a boring intrusion.
More essential were the announcements about emergency exits, oxygen masks, and ditching. With two of the other stewardesses demonstrating, she accomplished them quickly.
They were still taxiing, Gwen observed---tonight more slowly than usual, taking longer to reach their takeoff runway. No doubt the reason was traffic and the storm. From outside she could hear an occasional splatter of wind-driven snow on windows and fuselage.
There was one more announcement to be made---that which aircrews liked least. It was required before takeoffs at Lincoln International, New York, Boston, Cleveland, San Francisco, and other airports with residential areas nearby.