I
was busy working on a box of small jobs that I’d been procrastinating. Luckily,
the phone rang allowing me to stall a little longer. The call was from a
customer in Chicago. James is a watch enthusiast who over the years has sent me
watches to restore to their former glory. We kibitzed about what was new; happy
that the winter had finally relented. James told me about a ceremony that was
happening to present a veteran aviator with a Jardur watch. My heart skipped a
beat…bells rang in the far recesses of my brain. I had worked on a Jardur watch
many years ago…
An
older man walked into the shop as I fought with a stubborn Waltham pocket watch.
I asked for a couple of minutes to finish adjusting the balance. “No problem.
Take your time,” the customer responded. I heard him laughing at his pun…he was
giving the watchmaker all the time he
needed.
The
pocket watch was in stable condition so I walked to the front counter. “How can
I help you?” I was handed a chronograph that seemed to have too many hands on
it. The customer told me that it was
very important that I service the watch so that it would once again guide him.
The
name on the chronograph was Jardur, a brand name that I’d never seen
before. This was an impressive work of
engineering. I examined the watch and as I closed the case, I noted the roughly
scratched case and initials on the back.
As
I got up from the bench, the customer nervously asked, “Can you get the watch
to work? The repair charge doesn’t matter. The watch must run. A couple of
watchmakers wouldn’t even look at it.” His voice was enough to tell me that
this was yet another story of a deep bond between a watch and its owner.
I
grabbed the repair tag and jotted down the first two initials and asked for a
last name.
“No!
That isn’t me,” he blurted, “the watch was on the wrist of my co-pilot.”
This
story went beyond the bond between watch and warrior…a painful memory was
carried with this watch.
He
sighed and smiled, “My co-pilot always kidded me that his watch was more
accurate and better than the plane’s clock. Even more accurate than when the
briefer gave us the hack command. I
kept making bets with him so I would win the watch but I never seemed to win.”
He sighed again. “On a long mission near Berlin, our bomber stream was jumped
by a defending squadron of ME 109Es and were shot up pretty badly. The starboard
outer engine was hit and started to burn but we got the fire out. The starboard
inner was hit but kept running. The ME 109E got the starboard waist gunner.”
He paused before continuing on, “It was all I
could do to keep her in the air. I knew we were in trouble. We fell behind. A
couple of Mustangs, with more guts than brains stayed with us and provided us
cover. I was so focused on flying and keeping us in the air, I’m ashamed to
admit I didn’t notice my co-pilot’s voice getting softer and softer. He was
responding to me so I thought it was a couple of shot out windows letting in engine
noise that was drowning out his voice.”
Although, the customer
stood just feet from me I could see he was fifty-odd years into the past.
“We made the coast and
crossed the Channel somehow. We were over England. Just as I was about to tell
my co-pilot to start the landing check, he grabbed my hand on the controls. He
pulled my hand to him and pressed the watched in it. He said, “It’s yours now.”
Softly he kept repeating, “Time…time…time...time.”
I stood perfectly
still, holding my breath. His voice trembled and with eyes misted over as he
continued, “I screamed for someone to check him, but of course, he was gone. I
had to concentrate to keep flying and not dwell on the fact that only three of
us were alive.”
“My co-pilot always
recorded the exact time that the engines were running. He trusted his Jardur
more than the fuel gauges. I remembered him repeating time over and over. I looked at the watch and saw that we’d been in
the air 12 minutes longer than possible. With a prayer, I began to drop
altitude. I reached to put the landing gear down and just as I put my hand on
the lever, the three engines coughed and quit. The gear stayed up. We started
down. Miraculously, a large field was dead ahead. We made the field, and with
the gear still up, the crash landing wasn’t too bad. Being out of gas, the
plane didn’t blow up.”
With unashamed tears he
told me, “I’ve always believed that the Jardur, telling me we should’ve already
been out of gas, prompted me to drop to a better altitude and glide my flying
wreck into a safe crash landing. That’s why the Jardur needs to be repaired.
This watch enabled me to have a wife, home, children, and now blessedly,
grandchildren. Call me when it’s done
and let me know the cost.”
Before
I began work on the Jardur, I did some investigating. Having never had a Jardur
on my bench before, I was unfamiliar with its proud history in the aviation
world. I repaired the Jardur, and it was, to say the least, complicated.
However, being well made and logically designed, the chronograph with almost as
many hands as an octopus went together smoothly.
A
few weeks later, the old aviator returned for his watch. After a little
conversation, he asked for the price of the repair. I pointed to the tag and
said, “It’s paid in full.”
“What
do you mean? Who the hell paid?” he demanded.
“Your
co-pilot.”
Unable
to speak, he shook my hand and left the
Time
for coffee (black, no sugar).
