A large black cat, its tail held high in a comical curve, sauntered by the transatlantic machine as we stood by it, early in the morning; and such a cheerful omen made me more than ever anxious to start.

Two other black cats—more intimate if less alive—waited in the Vickers-Vimy. They were Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe, our mascots, destined to be the first air passengers across the Atlantic. Lucky Jim wore an enormous head, an untidy ribbon and a hopeful expression; whereas Twinkletoe was daintily diminutive, and, from the tip of her upright tail to the tip of her stuffed nose, expressed surprise and anxiety. Other gifts that we carried as evidence of our friends' best wishes were bunches of white heather.

"Strong westerly wind. Conditions otherwise fairly favorable."

Such was the brief summary of the weather conditions given us at 4 A. M. by the meteorological officer. We had definitely decided to leave on the fourteenth, if given half a chance; for at all costs we wanted to avoid a long period of hope deferred while awaiting ideal conditions.

At early dawn we were on the aËrodrome, searching the sky for a sign and asking information of Lieutenant Clements, the Royal Air Force weather expert. His reports were fairly favorable; but a hefty cross-wind was blowing from the west in uneven gusts, and everybody opined that we had better wait a few hours, in the expectation that it would die down.

Meanwhile, Alcock ran the engines and found them to be in perfect condition. Neither could any fault be found with the gray-winged machine, inert but fully loaded, and complete to the last split-pin.

It was of the Standard type of Vickers-Vimy bomber; although, of course, bombs and bombing gear were not carried, their weight being usefully replaced by extra storage tanks for gasoline. One of these, shaped like a boat, could be used as a life-saving raft if some accident brought about a descent into the sea. This tank was so placed that it would be the first to be emptied of gasoline. The fittings allowed of its detachment, ready for floating, while the machine lost height in a glide. We hoped for and expected the best; but it was as well to be prepared for the worst.

To make communication and coÖperation more easy, the seats for both pilot and navigator were side by side in what is usually the pilot's cockpit, the observer's cockpit at the fore-end of the fuselage being hidden under a stream-lined covering and occupied by a tank.

The tanks had been filled during the night, so that the Vickers-Vimy contained its full complement of eight hundred and seventy gallons of gasoline and forty gallons of oil. We now packed our personal luggage, which consisted only of toilet kit and food—sandwiches, Caley's chocolate, Horlick's Malted Milk, and two thermos flasks filled with coffee. A small cupboard, fitted into the tail, contained emergency rations. These were for use in case of disaster, as the tail of the aËroplane would remain clear of the waves for a long while after the nose had submerged. Our mascots, also, were in this cupboard.

The mail-bag had been taken on board a day earlier. It contained three hundred private letters, for each of which the postal officials at St. John's had provided a special stamp. For one of these stamps, by the way, eight hundred and seventy-five dollars was offered and refused on the Manchester Exchange within two days of the letter's delivery. They are now sold at about one hundred and twenty-five dollars apiece, I believe.

We breakfasted, and throughout the morning waited for a weakening of the wind. As, however, it remained at about the same strength and showed no signs of better behavior, we made up our minds to leave at mid-day.

We had planned to get away in an easterly direction, for although we should thus be moving with the wind instead of into it, the machine would face down-hill, and owing to the shape of the aËrodrome we should have a better run than if we taxied towards the west. The Vickers-Vimy was therefore placed in position to suit these arrangements.

But soon we found that the gale was too strong for such a plan, and that we should have to "take off" into it. The mechanics dragged the machine to the far end of the aËrodrome, so as to prepare for a westerly run.

This change was responsible for a minor setback. A sudden gust carried a drag-rope round the undercarriage, tightened one of the wheels against a petrol supply pipe, and crushed it. The consequent replacement wasted about an hour.

Still with hopes that the gale would drop during the early afternoon, we sat under the wing-tips at two o'clock and lunched, while conscious of an earnest hope that the next square meal would be eaten in Ireland.

The wind remaining obstinately strong during the early afternoon, we agreed to take things as they were and to lose no more precious time. At about four o'clock we wriggled into our flying-kit, and climbed into the machine. We wore electrically heated clothing, Burberry overalls, and the usual fur gloves and fur-lined helmets.

While Alcock attended to his engines I made certain that my navigation instruments were in place. The sextant was clipped to the dashboard facing the pilot, the course and distance calculator was clasped to the side of the fuselage, the drift-indicator fitted under my seat, and the Baker navigation machine, with my charts inside it, lay on the floor of the cockpit. I also carried an electric torch, and kept within easy reach a Very pistol, with red and white flares, so that if the worst should happen we could attract the attention of passing ships. The battery for heating our electric suits was between the two seats.

The meteorological officer gave me a chart showing the approximate strength and direction of the Atlantic air currents. It indicated that the high westerly wind would drop before we were a hundred miles out to sea, and that the wind velocities for the rest of the journey would not exceed twenty knots, with clear weather over the greater part of the ocean. This was responsible for satisfactory hopes at the time of departure; but later, when we were over mid-Atlantic, the hopes dissolved in disappointment when the promised "clear weather" never happened.

The departure was quiet and undramatic. Apart from the mechanics and a few reporters, few people were present, for the strong wind had persuaded our day-to-day sightseers from St. John's that we must postpone a start. When all was ready I shook hands with Lieutenant Clements, Mr. Maxwell Muller and other friends, accepted their best wishes for success, and composed myself in the rather crowded cockpit.

The customary signal-word "Contact!" exchanged between pilot and mechanics, seemed, perhaps, to have a special momentary significance; but my impatience to take the plunge and be rid of anxiety about the start shut out all other impressions that might have been different from those experienced at the beginning of each of the thousand and one flights I had made before the transatlantic venture.

First one and then the other motors came to life, swelled into a roar when Alcock ran them up and softened into a subdued murmur when he throttled back and warmed them up. Finally, everything being satisfactory, he disconnected the starting magneto and engine switches, to avoid stoppage due to possible short-circuits, and signaled for the chocks to be pulled clear. With throttles open and engines "all out," the Vickers-Vimy advanced into the westerly wind.

The "take off," up a slight gradient, was very difficult. Gusts up to forty-five knots were registered, and there was insufficient room to begin the run dead into the wind. What I feared in particular was that a sudden eddy might lift the planes on one side and cause the machine to heel over. Another danger was the rough surface of the aËrodrome.

Owing to its heavy load, the machine did not leave the ground until it had lurched and lumbered, at an ever-increasing speed, over 300 yards. We were then almost at the end of the ground-tether allowed us.

A line of hills straight ahead was responsible for much "bumpiness" in the atmosphere, and made climbing very difficult. At times the strong wind dropped almost to zero, then rose in eddying blasts. Once or twice our wheels nearly touched the ground again.

Under these conditions we could climb but slowly, allowing for the danger of sudden upward gusts. Several times I held my breath, from fear that our undercarriage would hit a roof or a tree-top.

I am convinced that only Alcock's clever piloting saved us from such an early disaster. When, after a period that seemed far longer than it actually was, we were well above the buildings and trees, I noticed that the perspiration of acute anxiety was running down his face.

We wasted no time and fuel in circling round the aËrodrome while attaining a preliminary height, but headed straight into the wind until we were at about eight hundred feet. Then we turned towards the sea and continued to rise leisurely, with engines throttled down. As we passed our aËrodrome I leaned over the side of the machine and waved farewell to the small groups of mechanics and sightseers.

The Vickers-Vimy, although loaded to the extent of about eleven pounds per square foot, climbed satisfactorily, if slowly. Eight minutes passed before we had reached the thousand feet level.

As we passed over St. John's and Cabot's Hill towards Concepcion Bay the air was very bumpy, and not until we reached the coast and were away from the uneven contours of Newfoundland did it become calmer. The eddying wind, which was blowing behind us from almost due west, with a strength of thirty-five knots, made it harder than ever to keep the machine on a straight course. The twin-engine Vickers-Vimy is not especially sensitive to atmospheric instability; but under the then atmospheric conditions it lurched, swayed, and did its best to deviate, much as if it had been a little single-seater scout.

We crossed the coast at 4:28 P. M. (Greenwich time), our aneroid then registering about twelve hundred feet. Just before we left the land I let out the wireless aËrial, and tapped out on the transmitter key a message to Mount Pearl Naval Station: "All well and started."

My mind merely recorded the fact that we were leaving Newfoundland behind us. Otherwise it was too tense with concentration on the task ahead to find room for any emotions or thoughts on seeing the last of the square-patterned roof-mosaic of St. John's, and of the tangled intricacy of Newfoundland's fields, woods and hills. Behind and below was America, far ahead and below was Europe, between the two were nearly two thousand miles of ocean. But at the time I made no such stirring, if obvious, reflections; for my navigation instruments and charts, as applied to sun, horizon, sea-surface and time of day, demanded close and undivided attention.

Withal, I felt a queer but quite definite confidence in our safe arrival over the Irish coast, based, I suppose, on an assured knowledge that the machine, the motors, the navigating instruments and the pilot were all first-class.

The Vickers-Vimy shook itself free from the atmospheric disturbances over the land, and settled into an even stride through the calmer spaces above the ocean. The westerly wind behind us, added to the power developed by the motors, gave us a speed along our course (as opposed to "air-speed") of nearly one hundred and forty knots.

Visibility was fairly good during the first hour of the flight. Above, at a height of something between two and three thousand feet, a wide ceiling of clouds was made jagged at fairly frequent intervals by holes through which the blue sky could be glimpsed. Below, the sea was blue-gray, dull for the most part but bright in occasional patches, where the sunlight streamed on it through some cloud-gap. Icebergs stood out prominently from the surface, in splashes of glaring white.

I was using all my faculties in setting and keeping to the prescribed course. The Baker navigating machine, with the chart, was on my knees. Not knowing what kind of weather was before us, I knelt on my seat and made haste to take observations on the sea, the horizon, and the sun, through intervals in the covering of clouds.

The navigation of aircraft, in its present stage, is distinctly more difficult than the navigation of seacraft. The speed at which they travel and the influence of the wind introduce problems which are not easily solved.

A ship's navigator knows to a small fraction of a mile the set of any ocean current, and from the known speed of his vessel he can keep "dead reckoning" with an accuracy that is nearly absolute. In fact, navigators have taken their craft across the Atlantic without once having seen the sun or stars, and yet, at the end of the journey, been within five miles of the desired destination. But in the air the currents either cannot be, or have not yet been, charted, and his allowance for the drift resulting from them must be obtained by direct observation on the surface of the ocean.

By the same means his actual speed over the ocean may be calculated. He finds the position of his craft by measuring the angle which either the sun or a selected star makes with the horizon, and noting the Greenwich mean time at which the observation is made. If the bearings of two distinct wireless stations can be taken, it is also possible to find his definite position by means of directional wireless telegraphy.

When making my plans for the transatlantic flight I considered very carefully all the possibilities, and decided to rely solely upon observations of the sun and stars and upon "dead reckoning," in preference to using directional wireless, as I was uncertain at that time whether or not the directional wireless system was sufficiently reliable.

My sextant was of the ordinary marine type, but it had a more heavily engraved scale than is usual, so as to make easier the reading of it amid the vibration of the aËroplane. My main chart was on the Mercator projection, and I had a special transparent chart which could be moved above it, and upon which were drawn the Sumner circles for all times of the day. I carried a similar special chart for use at night, giving the Sumner circles for six chosen stars. To measure the drift I had a six-inch Drift-Bearing plate, which also permitted me to measure the ground speed, with the help of a stopwatch. In addition, I had an Appleyard Course and Distance Calculator, and Traverse tables for the calculation of "dead reckoning."

As the horizon is often obscured by clouds or mist, making impossible the measurement of its angle with the heavenly bodies, I had a special type of spirit level, on which the horizon was replaced by a bubble. This, of course, was less reliable than a true horizon since the bubble was affected by variations of speed; but it was at least a safeguard. Taking into account the general obscurity of the atmosphere during most of the flight, it was fortunate that I took such a precaution, for I seldom caught sight of a clearly defined horizon.

I could legitimately congratulate myself on having collected as many early observations as possible while the conditions were good; for soon we ran into an immense bank of fog, which shut off completely the surface of the ocean. The blue of the sea merged into a hazy purple, and then into the dullest kind of gray.

The cloud screen above us, also, grew much thicker, and there were no more gaps in it. The occasional sun-glints on wing-tips and struts no longer appeared.

Thus I could obtain neither observations on the sun, nor calculations of drift from the seas. Assuming that my first observations were satisfactory, I therefore carried on by "dead reckoning," and hoped for the best. From time to time I varied the course slightly, so as to allow for the different variations of the compass.

Meantime, while we flew through the wide layer of air sandwiched between fog and cloud, I began to jot down remarks for the log of the journey. At 5:20 I noted that we were at fifteen hundred feet and still climbing slowly, while the haze was becoming ever thicker and heavier.

I leaned towards the wireless transmitter, and began to send a message; but the small propeller on it snapped, and broke away from the generator. Careful examination, both at the time and after we landed, showed no defect; and I am still unable to account for the fracture. Although I was too occupied with calculations to pay much attention to moods or passing thoughts, I remember feeling that this cutting off of all means of communication with the life below and behind us gave a certain sense of finality to the adventure.

We continued eastward, with the rhythmic drone of the motors unnoted in supreme concentration on the tense hours that were to come.