CHAPTER VI Morning

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Sunrise made itself known to us merely as a gradual lightening that showed nothing but clouds, above and below. The sun itself was nowhere visible.

We seemed to be flying in and out of dense patches of cloud; for every now and then we would pass through a white mountain, emerge into a small area of clear atmosphere, and then be confronted with another enormous barrier of nebulousness.

The indefiniteness of dawn disappointed my hopes of taking observations. Already at three o'clock I had scribbled a note to the pilot: "Immediately you see sun rising, point machine straight towards it, and we'll get compass bearings." I had already worked out a table of hours, angles and azimuths of the sun at its rising, to serve as a check upon our position; but, as things happened, I was obliged to resume navigation by means of "dead reckoning."

A remark written in my log at twenty minutes past four was that the Vickers-Vimy had climbed to six thousand five hundred feet, and was above the lower range of clouds. For the rest, the three hours that followed sunrise I remember chiefly as a period of envelopment by clouds, and ever more clouds. Soon, as we continued to climb, the machine was traveling through a mist of uniform thickness that completely shut off from our range of vision everything outside a radius of a few yards from the wing-tips.

And then came a spell of bad weather, beginning with heavy rain, and continuing with snow. The downpour seemed to meet us almost horizontally, owing to the high speed of the machine, as compared with the rate of only a few feet per second at which the rain and snow fell.

The snow gave place to hail, mingled with sleet. The sheltered position of the cockpit, and the stream-lining of the machine, kept us free from the downfall so long as we remained seated; but if we exposed a hand or a face above the windscreen's protection, it would meet scores of tingling stabs from the hailstones.

When we had reached a height of eight thousand eight hundred feet, I discovered that the glass face of the gasoline overflow gauge, which showed whether or not the supply of fuel for the motors was correct, had become obscured by clotted snow. To guard against carburetor trouble, it was essential that the pilot should be able to read the gauge at any moment. It was up to me, therefore, to clear away the snow from the glass.

The gauge was fixed on one of the center section struts. The only way to reach it was by climbing out of the cockpit and kneeling on top of the fuselage, while holding on to a strut for balance. This I did; and the unpleasant change from the comparative warmth of the cockpit to the biting, icy cold outside was very unpleasant. The violent rush of displaced air, which tended to sweep me backward, was another discomfort.

I had no difficulty, however, in reaching upward and rubbing the snow from the face of the gauge. Until the storm ended, a repetition of this performance at fairly frequent intervals continued to be necessary. There was, however, scarcely any danger in kneeling on the fuselage as long as Alcock kept the machine level.

Every now and then we examined the motors; for on them depended whether the next four hours would bring success or failure. Meantime, we were still living for the moment; and although I was intensely glad that four-fifths of the ocean had been crossed, I could afford to spare no time for speculation on what a safe arrival would mean to us. As yet, neither of us was aware of the least sign of weariness, mental or physical.

When I had nothing more urgent on hand, I listened at the wireless receiver but I heard no message for us from beginning to end of the flight. Any kind of communication with ship or shore would have been welcome, as a reminder that we were not altogether out of touch with the world below. The complete absence of such contact made it seem that nobody cared a darn about us.

The entry that I scribbled in my log at 6:20 A. M. was that we had reached a height of nine thousand four hundred feet, and were still in drifting cloud, which was sometimes so thick that it cut off from view parts of the Vickers-Vimy. Snow was still falling, and the top sides of the plane were covered completely by a crusting of frozen sleet.

The sleet imbedded itself in the hinges of the ailerons and jammed them, so that for about an hour the machine had scarcely any lateral control. Fortunately the Vickers-Vimy has plenty of inherent lateral stability; and, as the rudder controls were never clogged by sleet, we were able to carry on with caution.

Alcock continued to climb steadily, so as to get above the seemingly interminable clouds and let me have a clear sky for purposes of navigation. At five o'clock, when we were in the levels round about eleven thousand feet, I caught the sun for a moment—just a pin-point glimmer through a cloud-gap. There was no horizon; but I was able to obtain a reading with the help of my Abney spirit level.

This observation gave us a position close to the Irish coast. Yet I could not be sure of just where we were on the line indicated by it. We therefore remained at eleven thousand feet until, at 7:20 A. M., I had definitely fixed the position line. This accomplished, I scribbled the following message and handed it across to the pilot:

"We had better go lower down, where the air is warmer, and where we might pick up a steamer."

Just as we had started to nose downward, the starboard motor began to pop ominously, as if it were backfiring through one of its carburetors. Alcock throttled back while keeping the machine on a slow glide. The popping thereupon ceased.

By eight o'clock we had descended from eleven thousand to one thousand feet, where the machine was still surrounded by cloudy vapor. Here, however, the atmosphere was much warmer, and the ailerons were again operating.

Alcock was feeling his way down gently and alertly, not knowing whether the cloud extended to the ocean, nor at what moment the machine's undercarriage might touch the waves. He had loosened his safety belt, and was ready to abandon ship if we hit the water. I myself felt uncomfortable about the danger of sudden immersion, for it was very possible that a change in barometric conditions could have made the aneroid show a false reading.

A SPECIAL KIND OF GASOLINE HAD TO BE USED

All aboard

ALL ABOARD FOR THE FIRST TRIAL FLIGHT

But once again we were lucky. At a height of five hundred feet the Vickers-Vimy emerged from the pall of cloud, and we saw the ocean—a restless surface of dull gray. Alcock at once opened up the throttles, and both motors responded. Evidently a short rest had been all that the starboard motor needed when it began to pop, for it now gave no further signs of trouble.

I reached for the Drift Bearing Plate, and after observation on the ocean, found that we were moving on a course seventy-five degrees true, at one hundred and ten knots ground speed with a wind of thirty knots from the direction of two hundred and fifteen degrees true. I had been reckoning on a course of seventy-seven degrees true, with calculations based on our midnight position; so that evidently we were north of the prescribed track. Still, we were not so far north as to miss Ireland, which fact was all that mattered to any extent.

In my correction of the compass bearing, I could only guess at the time when the wind had veered from its earlier direction. I made the assumption that the northerly drift had existed ever since my sighting on the Pole Star and Vega during the night, and I reckoned that our position at eight o'clock would consequently be about fifty-four degrees N. latitude, ten degrees thirty min. W. longitude. Taking these figures, and with the help of the navigation machine, which rested on my knees, I calculated that our course to Galway was about one hundred and twenty-five degrees true. Allowing for variation and wind I therefore set a compass course of one hundred and seventy degrees, and indicated to the pilot the necessary change in direction by means of the following note and diagram:

"Make course

"Don't be afraid of going S. We have had too much N. already."

Alcock nodded and ruddered the Vickers-Vimy around gently, until its compass showed a reading of 170 degrees.

My calculations, if correct, proved that we were quite close to Ireland and journey's end. As we flew eastward, just below the lowest clouds and from two hundred to three hundred feet above the sea, we strained our eyes for a break in the monotonous vista of gray waves; but we could find not even a ship.

Although neither of us felt hungry, we decided to breakfast at eight o'clock, partly to kill time and partly to take our minds from the rising excitement induced by the hope that we might sight land at any instant. I placed a sandwich, followed by some chocolate, in Alcock's left hand. His right hand remained always on the control lever and his feet on the rudder bar.

At no time during the past sixteen hours had the pilot's hands and feet left the controls. This was a difficult achievement for such a long period, especially as a rubber device, fitted to ease the strain, proved to be valueless. Elastic, linked to a turnbuckle, had been attached to the control lever and rudder bar; but in the hurry that preceded our departure from St. John's, the elastic was cut too short. All the weight of the controls, therefore, bore directly on the pilot.

The machine now tended to sag downward, being nose-heavy because its incidence had changed, owing to the gradual alteration in the center of gravity as the rear gasoline tanks emptied. Alcock was thus obliged to exert continuous backward pressure on the control lever.

I had screwed on the lids of the thermos flask, and was placing the remains of the food in the tiny cupboard behind my seat, when Alcock grabbed my shoulder, twisted me round, beamed excitedly, and pointed ahead and below. His lips were moving, but whatever he said was inaudible above the roar of the motors.

I followed the direction indicated by his outstretched fore-finger; and, barely visible through the mist, it showed me two tiny specks of—land. This happened at 8:15 A. M. on June 15th.

With a light heart, I put away charts and tables of calculation, and disregarded the compass needle. My work as navigator of the flight was at an end.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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