N-4 Down by Mark Piesing

Author:Mark Piesing [Piesing, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Custom House
Published: 2021-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Nine

“We Will Die When God Has Decided”

WHERE THE ITALIA HAD hit the ice pack looked like the crash site of any other aircraft, but with one big difference: the airship had survived.

The survivors buried under a tangled mess of metal and canvas must have wondered if they were alive or dead. It was impossible to know who else was beneath the remnants.

The shape of the cabin was evident despite the force of impact. Strips of canvas fluttered noisily in the breeze. The pride of Italy was now a “dreary note of gray against the whiteness of the snow.”1

It was only the control cabin under the airship and the stern engine that had smashed into the snow and ice. The rest of the airship was still—more or less—intact, and the huge envelope of the airship still filled the sky above the crash site; on its side ITALIA was visible in big black capitals.2

Free of human control, the airship slowly rose skyward into the bank of fog like the balloon it had now become, its prow pointing up as if it were taking off again, which in a way it was. Two of the three engines were still in place, though useless.

The survivors on the ice could make out the remaining crew staring down at them through the gaping hole where the cabin had once been. Two had been asleep when the crash happened. Now the astonishment on their faces turned to horror as the men realized their fate.

One man on board the airship didn’t freeze up but acted quickly. Chief engineer Ettore Arduino started throwing fuel, food, a tent, a pistol, and the portable radio through the gaping hole and, in so doing, saved their lives.

The six men still on the airship were never seen again. The wreckage was never found. No expedition was ever mounted by a government consumed by the desire to destroy their leader, General Nobile. The only clue as to the ultimate fate of the N-4 may have been a column of black smoke that was seen for a while far to the north.

NOBILE WROTE:

I looked up to the sky. Towards my left the dirigible, nose in the air, was drifting away before the wind. . . .

It was only then that I felt my injuries. My right leg and arm were broken and throbbing; I had hurt my face and the top of my head, and my chest seemed all upside down with the violence of the shock. I thought my end was near. . . .

I was calm. My mind was perfectly clear. By now I was feeling . . . a terrible convulsion in my chest. Breathing was a great effort. I thought I had probably sustained some grave internal injury. It seemed that death was very near.

I was glad of this. It meant that I should not have to watch the despair and slow agony of my comrades. What hopes were there for them? With no provisions, no tent, no wireless, no sledges—nothing, but useless wreckage—they were lost, irremediably lost, in this terrible wilderness of ice.

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