duty, “and I never wish to be shipmates with a better bunch.”
When the meeting of the balloonists at the Jefferson Hotel broke up at lunchtime, there was, to the undisguised relief of Albert Lambert, unanimity, with not a disgruntled European to be seen or heard. They had all agreed on the definition of a landing during the race, and Lambert dispatched one of his assistants to type out a press release on the subject:
• If the basket touches the ground, a landing is made.
• If the drag rope becomes entangled in trees or trails along the ground for fifteen minutes, a landing is constituted.
• If a balloon alights in a lake or a river, a landing is made.
• If a balloon descends in salt water, it is disqualified.
Lambert had also happily informed the ten teams that the Laclede Gas Light Company had agreed to reschedule the inflation of the balloons from Sunday afternoon to early Monday morning. This news, coupled with the announcement that the winner of the race would receive $2,000, the runner-up $1,500 and the third-place balloon $1,250, sent the balloonists off to lunch in great cheer. One of the French competitors, Walther de Mumm, a scion of the champagne family, produced a couple of bottles with which they celebrated a harmonious morning’s work.
After lunch the men retired to their rooms and the comfort of soft beds and clean linen. All of the ten two-man crews were experienced balloonists, gloomily aware that that they might not get the chance to lay their head on a feather pillow for several days.
If the men couldn’t sleep, then they checked and rechecked their provisions and equipment. Had they the right quantity of coffee and an adequate number of canned soups? Would it be better to take more apples and fewer oranges? Should they pack a quart of whiskey or a bottle of crème de menthe? They cleaned their revolvers for the umpteenth time, made sure they had the correct maps, included a spare pair of gloves ( just to be safe), and laid out on the floor of their room the most precious items of all: barometer, thermometer, compass, barograph, and an air-recording aneroid barometer. They lovingly cleaned and polished each one, then repacked them in their cases.
A little while later they’d unpack everything and do it all again, just to occupy their minds and ward off the inevitable feelings of apprehension that collected in the hollows of their imaginations like pockets of mist on a fall morning. As one of the American entrants busied himself on Sunday afternoon, he stoutly refused to entertain thoughts of the fate that had befallen him in the 1908 International Balloon Cup race. Instead, thirty-six-year-old Augustus Post, copilot to Alan Hawley in the balloon America II , pored over a large map of the Great Lakes region, supplied to him the previous week by Major Hersey of the Milwaukee Weather Bureau.
Post was handsome, with black hair and eyes and a goatee that made him look more like a French musketeer than an American balloonist. His personality was just as exotic. He was a poet, raconteur, singer, an entertainer who could imitate the sounds of everything from airplanes to canaries, and an actor who had appeared in theaters across America.
Having graduated from Harvard Law School, Post had returned to his native New York City and bought a Waverley electric car, reputed to be the city’s first horse less carriage. A few years later at the 1900 Paris Exhibition he took to the air for the first time in a balloon, and in 1905 Post became not only one of the founding members of the Aero Club of America, but also its first secretary. Among his friends he counted the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, and that fact alone—his ability to be on good terms with these implacable enemies—was proof of his affability. Everyone liked Augustus Post, except his estranged wife, Emma, who in October 1910 was waiting for their marriage to be annulled in a New York court. To her, Post was nothing but a
When the meeting of the balloonists at the Jefferson Hotel broke up at lunchtime, there was, to the undisguised relief of Albert Lambert, unanimity, with not a disgruntled European to be seen or heard. They had all agreed on the definition of a landing during the race, and Lambert dispatched one of his assistants to type out a press release on the subject:
• If the basket touches the ground, a landing is made.
• If the drag rope becomes entangled in trees or trails along the ground for fifteen minutes, a landing is constituted.
• If a balloon alights in a lake or a river, a landing is made.
• If a balloon descends in salt water, it is disqualified.
Lambert had also happily informed the ten teams that the Laclede Gas Light Company had agreed to reschedule the inflation of the balloons from Sunday afternoon to early Monday morning. This news, coupled with the announcement that the winner of the race would receive $2,000, the runner-up $1,500 and the third-place balloon $1,250, sent the balloonists off to lunch in great cheer. One of the French competitors, Walther de Mumm, a scion of the champagne family, produced a couple of bottles with which they celebrated a harmonious morning’s work.
After lunch the men retired to their rooms and the comfort of soft beds and clean linen. All of the ten two-man crews were experienced balloonists, gloomily aware that that they might not get the chance to lay their head on a feather pillow for several days.
If the men couldn’t sleep, then they checked and rechecked their provisions and equipment. Had they the right quantity of coffee and an adequate number of canned soups? Would it be better to take more apples and fewer oranges? Should they pack a quart of whiskey or a bottle of crème de menthe? They cleaned their revolvers for the umpteenth time, made sure they had the correct maps, included a spare pair of gloves ( just to be safe), and laid out on the floor of their room the most precious items of all: barometer, thermometer, compass, barograph, and an air-recording aneroid barometer. They lovingly cleaned and polished each one, then repacked them in their cases.
A little while later they’d unpack everything and do it all again, just to occupy their minds and ward off the inevitable feelings of apprehension that collected in the hollows of their imaginations like pockets of mist on a fall morning. As one of the American entrants busied himself on Sunday afternoon, he stoutly refused to entertain thoughts of the fate that had befallen him in the 1908 International Balloon Cup race. Instead, thirty-six-year-old Augustus Post, copilot to Alan Hawley in the balloon America II , pored over a large map of the Great Lakes region, supplied to him the previous week by Major Hersey of the Milwaukee Weather Bureau.
Post was handsome, with black hair and eyes and a goatee that made him look more like a French musketeer than an American balloonist. His personality was just as exotic. He was a poet, raconteur, singer, an entertainer who could imitate the sounds of everything from airplanes to canaries, and an actor who had appeared in theaters across America.
Having graduated from Harvard Law School, Post had returned to his native New York City and bought a Waverley electric car, reputed to be the city’s first horse less carriage. A few years later at the 1900 Paris Exhibition he took to the air for the first time in a balloon, and in 1905 Post became not only one of the founding members of the Aero Club of America, but also its first secretary. Among his friends he counted the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, and that fact alone—his ability to be on good terms with these implacable enemies—was proof of his affability. Everyone liked Augustus Post, except his estranged wife, Emma, who in October 1910 was waiting for their marriage to be annulled in a New York court. To her, Post was nothing but a
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