One Summer: America, 1927

declared: ‘My heart was in my throat. It seemed impossible. It took guts.’ Fokker predicted that Lindbergh would reach Europe, but would come nowhere near Paris because of the impossibility of navigating while flying solo. Byrd was especially gracious. ‘His takeoff was the most skilful thing I have ever seen on the part of any aviator,’ he told reporters. ‘He is a wonderful boy.’
    What most spectators remarked on afterwards was the silence. As the Spirit of St Louis took to the sky, there was no cheering – just an uneasy quiet at how close Lindbergh had come to those wires and how alone he now was in that small, fabric-covered plane. The time of takeoff was officially recorded as 7.52 a.m. The spectators watched until the plane was no longer visible, then quietly dispersed, in a contemplative frame of mind.
    From Roosevelt Field, Lindbergh turned north, passing over the great estates of Long Island’s North Shore, before heading out over the misty grey waters of Long Island Sound at Port Jefferson. Across the sound lay the Connecticut shore, thirty-five miles away. Perhaps nothing speaks more powerfully of the challenge that faced him than that that was more water than he had ever crossed by plane before.
    Through most of that Friday Lindbergh’s progress could be followed fairly closely. As the Spirit of St Louis sailed over Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, reports came in more or less constantly confirming his position and that he seemed to be doing fine. By noon he was over Nova Scotia, and at mid-afternoon over Cape Breton Island. In Washington, Congressinterrupted its proceedings for regular announcements of his progress. Everywhere people gathered outside newspaper offices for updates. In Detroit, Mrs Lindbergh taught chemistry at Cass Technical High as on any other day. She wanted to keep the flight out of her mind, but students and colleagues constantly brought her the latest news. Shortly after 6 p.m. eastern time Lindbergh passed over the last rocky extremity of North America on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland and headed out over open ocean.
    Now he would be out of touch completely for sixteen hours if all went well; for ever if it didn’t.
     
    At Yankee Stadium that night, an audience of 23,000 people attending a fight between Jack Sharkey and Jim Maloney bowed their heads in a minute of silent prayer before Sharkey beat Maloney senseless. All across America wherever people gathered, prayers were said. No one could do anything now but wait. For many the tension was too much. Ten thousand people called the New York Times asking for news even though everyone knew there couldn’t be any.
    In Paris the possibility of Lindbergh’s arrival stirred little sense of anticipation at first. Myron Herrick, America’s ambassador, had no idea at all when he awoke on Saturday 21 May what excitements the weekend had in store for him. He planned to spend that Saturday at the Stade Français at Saint-Cloud watching his fellow Americans Bill Tilden and Francis T. Hunter compete against Jean Borotra and Jacques Brugnon in Franco-American team matches, a kind of warm-up for the coming Davis Cup tournament.
    A wealthy widower in his seventies, Herrick was a former governor of Ohio (Warren G. Harding had been his lieutenant governor), and now was a good and caring ambassador. He had matinee idol looks – silvery hair, excellent teeth, dapper moustache – and the kind of effortless charm that wins hearts. He had made his wealth as a lawyer and banker in Cleveland. In Paris, he endeared himself to the locals with his warm manner and deeppockets. In two years he spent $400,000 of his own money on entertainments and improvements to the ambassador’s residence.
    The match at Saint-Cloud offered a welcome and very exciting diversion, for tennis was a big attraction in 1927 and Bill Tilden was the greatest – and most improbably great – tennis player of the age. For the last seven years he had utterly dominated the game. Yet, curiously, before that he had shown almost no special aptitude for the game at all.
    Tilden grew up in a rich and distinguished family in Philadelphia – a cousin, Samuel Tilden, had been the Democratic Party nominee for president in 1876 – but his personal life was full of tragedy. All four of his siblings and both of his parents died before he reached adulthood. It was his older brother, Herbert Marmaduke, who had been the star player of the family. Tilden himself