Captain Billy Chunk: Cold Bay or Bust!

Cheese and Crackers! What is that Captain Billy Chunk up to now? Well, suspend your disbelief and grab a steaming cuppa of Folger's, light up a Camel No Filter, and enjoy this tangled mess of a yarn.....

Captain Billy Chunk: Cold Bay or Bust!

Chapter One: Mouth of the Rat

Magnus was cold. Magnus was old. He had been cold since birth, there in the shadow of his big brother Wernher. He had been cold at Peenemunde with the chill North Wind blowing off the Baltic Sea watching his big brother's firework show. But now he was in Florida and cold.

A warm Florida was part of the deal. A cold Florida was not part of deal. Operation Paperclip came with a lifetime guarantee many decades ago. Perchance, mused Magnus, it was his lifetime running out that put the kibosh on the deal.

It was the downward spiral of his health that had changed his place of residence. From a comfortable bungalow in Coral Gables to the now chilly Room 224 at the optimistically named Restorative Care Center nursing home in Boca Raton. The Fountain of Youth name was already taken by St, Augustine

It was a southbound spiral of frigid air that also decided to change it residence from the Arctic to Florida and set about chilling things down for the past week. However, there something Magnus found irksome about the cold beyond the confines of Room 224.

The cold presented a different problem from an engineering perspective that niggled at Magnus's brain. There was a space vehicle scheduled for launch down the road at Cape Canaveral. The anomalous frigid weather would be an unintentional Cold Soak Test for the vehicle, surmised Magnus. From his experience this would present minimal problems for the liquid fuel main engines. The snag would be the solid fuel boosters. In his judgement the boosters were no better than a common firework that you lit with a match. If a problem arose there was no way to shut them down. Magnus decided then and there that it was completely up him to scrub the launch.

The plan of action that was fomenting in his mind required the latest intel. Magnus got out of his hospital bed in Room 224, donned bathrobe and slippers and made his way down hall into the Television Room. He knew at this hour it would be populated with the usual harpies watching their "Show"!

Magnus strode with purpose into the TV Room and approach the Sony Trintron Color TV. He twisted the knob and changed the channel from their "Show" to the afternoon news program out of Boca Raton. This brought about much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the elderly female audience just trying to watch their Soap Operas. Magnus turned to face them and barked a few short phrases in Yiddish that silenced any and all opposition to his ad hoc matinee.

The news broadcast confirmed his doubts about the judgement of NASA. The Space Transportation System Crusader scheduled launch for 0800 HRS tomorrow was a GO! Magnus headed back to Room 224 now even more determined to put a stop to the launch.

Transportation would be vital to get to launch facility at Cape Canaveral in time. Perhaps a cab ride was in order. Then in an instant, Magnus saw the solution. Approaching up hall was the lanky teenage Pharmaceutical Courier. He was pushing a loaded hand truck, making the daily Unit Dose System delivery.

"Pharmacy Boy! A moment of your time please, Yah?" Magnus spoke tersely, then change to a sotto voce tone and asked, "Do you like rockets?"

Pharmacy Boy stopped and then swiveled his head as if looking for eavesdroppers or enemy spies. He then replied in a matching conspiratorial tone, "Yeah man! Who don't?"

At the 4 pm Nurses Meeting in the notes for the standard shift change it was passed on to the oncoming staff. The Patient in Room 224, Magnus Von Braun, Age 86, pancreatic cancer, appeared agitated and caused some mischief in the TV room earlier. A 10mg Diazepam PRN would be given in his apple sauce at the Dinner Meal. And maybe a 30mg Dalmane for good measure. They all concurred that this should and would take the wind out of his sails.

Room 224 had two beds. Magnus confided in his room mate Shlomo about his plans to halt the launch. Shlomo told Magnus that you're meshugana but he would be happy to help.

"All this science, I don't understand, but it's not so very often we can do such a thing so nice to like save a real live spaceship and it's peoples. Buck Rogers would be proud! Not to mention that Flash Gordon chappie!" said Shlomo. He told Magnus that he was most welcomed to the $89 shekels in his nightstand and a bottle of Brompton's Cocktail he should take along just in case the need arose. Semper paratus and all that.

Magnus gave Shlomo most his sincere thanks. He told Shlomo that tonight he could have his ration of apple sauce at dinner.

Magnus spent a cold and restless night in Room 224. Shlomo had zonked out immediately after his apple sauce desert and was sawing logs all night. A little before 4am he got up. Magnus dressed in his tweed suit and cap. In his pocket was $89, the bottle Brompton's, and an ancient artifact of his, an outdated NASA ID badge. He slipped out of his room and walked on down the hall. He made his way past the laundry to the rear Service Door that led to the dumpster area for the Restorative Care Center.

Pharmacy Boy was a stand up guy thought a grateful Magnus. Waiting in the Employee Parking Lot was a Volkswagen Beetle with it's motor idling and headlights off as to not draw any undue attention. However this tactic was defeated by the car's bright yellow color and a large plastic mortar and pestle mounted on the roof and door emblems of a pharmacopoeia theme. Magnus for a moment thought about the pedigree of this German "Peoples Car". This particular choice of vehicle seemed to be tacitly appropriate his mission. .

They drove through the dawn's early light and arrived at the Main Security Gate of Cape Canaveral. The young security guard on duty looked on with bemusement at the VW and spoke. "Jeez Louise, what do we have here? You gotta be kidding me! Let's see some ID right now!"

Magnus presented his vintage NASA ID card and the guard smirked, "What box of Cracker Jacks did you get this outta of!?"

Just then, the guard felt a tremendous pinching pain in his left shoulder and heard the voice of his older supervisor whisper into his ear from behind, " They're both Okay. Give him back his ID."

Then the older guard spoke up in a loud and respectful voice directly to the occupants, " Welcome back to NASA, Doctor Von Braun! " Access allowed, the Volkswagen drove onto the facility.

The young guard whined to his supervisor while rubbing his shoulder, "Ouch man! That really hurt my shoulder! Jeez Louise! Who were those jokers anyhow??"

The older guard replied wistfully, "Son, that was a real live ghost.....".

Under the guise of a nostalgic and perhaps a maudlin photo op, NASA Management granted Magnus a very short visit with the crew of the Space Shuttle Crusader. He met with them in the cafeteria while they were scarfing down their traditional preflight breakfast. Magnus felt like a irrelevant old man as he spoke to them. The crew didn't skip a bite and had more interest in their steak and eggs than his portentous words.

Chapter Two: Silbervogel

The Space Shuttle Crusader launched on schedule at Zero Hour 8 am on very cold Floridian morning. Puffs of exhaled vapor filled the chilly air along with the oohs and ahhs from the crowd outdoor reviewing grandstands. It was a seemingly perfect liftoff. Magnus knew better as he watched from the VIP section of the grandstands. He thought about those chilled solid fuel boosters as scaled up bottle rockets. Both would achieve the same explosive result. One by accident and the other by design.

Magnus looked at the cheering crowd then at his wristwatch. Well, he thought, who doesn't enjoy a fireworks display ? Magnus didn't bother to look skyward as the sound of oohs and ahhs transitioned into screams and shrieking. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the brown glass bottle. He took a long and healthy swig of the palliative concoction. "Show's over!" said Magnus to no one in particular.

The Space Shuttle Crusader on climb out was putting on a spectacular show for the appreciative audience below. But behind the scenes things were falling apart

"Skipper, we gotta sick bird! This thing is lighting up like a pinball machine!", stating the obvious was Second Officer Danny Todd in the co-pilot seat of the Space Shuttle Crusader. " Cheese and Crackers! Now the port booster nozzle gimbal is just about limited out!"

(At NASA. no matter how bad the situation, bag language was never used. You can check the tapes. I actually heard Fred Hayes of the Apollo 13 crew say this! )

"10-4, Eleanor!" Captain Billy Chunk affirmed outwardly. Inwardly his mind was racing. That old man at breakfast was right! His prediction was correct to the exact detail and sequence of the major malfunction that was unfolding aboard the Crusader.

Degradation of flight systems had begun at 60 seconds into liftoff. Captain Billy Chunk still had time. He had heeded the warnings of the old man just enough to earlier disable the First and Second Safeties to the explosive bolts. Activated, they would shear away the mounts that connected the Crusader to the external fuel tank and the boosters and away from danger.... In theory, that is.

"Hang on Kiddo!" announced Captain Billy and he toggled the EB's switch . There was subdued explosion and then the noise of the main engines diminished.

"WE HAVE SEPARATION!" Captain Billy exclaimed with a combination of relief and disbelief.

The Space Shuttle Crusader continued upwards and the cockpit crew swiftly checked flight systems and calculated their dilemma. Too much inertia had carried them too far away from the abort landing runways stateside and yet not enough inertia to achieve orbit.

It was then that the very last word the old man had said to Captain Billy came to mind. Silbervogel. Silver Bird. This referred to the technique that the World War Two Germans had come up with to launch a rocket plane from Berlin and bomb New York. To achieve this the rocket plane would bounce off the upper atmosphere like flat stone skipping across a mill pond. This just might work thought Captain Billy.

"Give me a rough heading to Alaska if you would be so kind, Mister Danny!" spoke Captain Billy as he recalled an arcane fact.

"That an awful big state, Skipper. Any place in particular?" asked Danny.

"Cold Bay! I was there a lifetime time ago."

"You got it, Skipper"

"Oh, and by the way," said Captain Billy, "Better check up on our passengers and tell them of our little side excursion. Also tell that when we get there the drinks are on me. I know the barkeep!"

Chapter Three: I've seen the Elephant!

The map of Alaska sort of looks like the left profile of the head of an Elephant. The settlement of Cold Bay is located where the trunk joins the face just to the east of Unimak Pass. Cold Bay's claim to fame is leftover relic of World War Two in the form of a 10,000 plus foot runway. It was considered briefly and then dismissed as an alternate Shuttle Emergency Landing Site.

The vagaries of air travel has diminished it's usefulness over the years. Once in a blue moon Cold Bay, Alaska is the go to place for aircraft in dire straits. It was just the prescription for a sick bird named the Crusader.

On the actual bay there is fuel dock to offload barges to supply aviation fuel. There are a few support buildings and hangars. Perhaps the most notable structure is the bar named with the double entendre; "THE WEATHERED INN".

Customers had always been few and far between at The Weathered Inn. Wally Chunk had been the barkeep for over thirty years. He had seen the planes making fuel stops evolve from prop jobs to jets. There was steady trickle of crew from fishing boats that brought in just enough revenue to keep the lights on. Three or four scheduled flights a month, dependent on the weather, also helped with the bills. After all, it was a business.

It was a slow day again and Wally had completed all his chores. Outside, there was just light dusting of snow and calm winds. He sitting at the bar sipping a Coke and puffing on Camel No Filter. He was reading a Travis McGee novel for the umpteenth time. There was a noise from outside caught his attention. It was a totally unfamiliar type of aircraft sound but making a landing approach from the South. The distant chirp of tires confirmed it had landed. That was the sound of customers to Wally!

Wally put down his book and began to prepare the bar for business. He turned up the thermostat and drop a few coins in the jukebox. The plaintive voice of Vern Gosdin gave the command to "Set'em Up Joe!". He then loaded the coffee urn and fired it up. The smell of Folgers Red Can percolating soon filled the air. One last touch and Wally turned on the neon sign hanging the triple pane weatherproof window. The Bar is now OPEN!

The outside set of front doors to The Weathered Inn leads to a long hall to a second set of doors to mitigate blustery weather from getting into the bar. Wally heard the squeak of the front doors open followed by the spring loaded banging of them shutting. He heard approaching voices coming into the hall. Happy, boisterous voices of people wanting to celebrate life!

The loudest voice of all seemed very familiar to Wally but that would be impossible he reasoned. But he was dead certain that it was who he thought was. He impulsively yelled out, "Brother Billy!! Welcome home!"

Then in an instant the voices faded to silence. After a few minutes, Wally went to investigate. He opened the second set of doors and looked. The hallway was empty save for a few damp footprints. He ran down the hall and out the front doors to a vacant and lonely runway located halfway to nowhere somewhere in Alaska.

Epilogue : Back to Life, Back to Reality, Back to the Here and Now.......

At the 4pm Nurses Meeting the turn over notes said that the old German chap in Room 224 became agitated in the TV Room yesterday. However, during the night he had passed away. Some things just seem to take care of themselves. Apple sauce sometimes has the habit of doing that.

In Room 224 Shlomo said his room mate died quietly. His last words were something muttered in German. Shlomo translated it for the nurse. Silver Bird.

The nurse smiled and thought what a pretty image. Silver Bird, like some sort of beautiful silver angel she imagined.

Silbervogel? What a scary image! The project name of the German World War Two intercontinental rocket plane. Silver Bird, like some sort of angel of death the Von Braun brothers had imagined.

Pharmacy Boy was killed by a drunk driver in a head on collision on U.S. Route 1 earlier that morning. It appeared that he had been returning from Cape Canaveral several hours before the ill fated launch. It was puzzling as no deliveries were slated for that area....

At Cape Canaveral the Space Shuttle Crusader exploded at 91 seconds into liftoff after the port Solid Rocket Booster O-Ring failed and ignited the main fuel tank . There were no survivors.