MORNING
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.
[Illustration: A SPECIAL KIND OF GASOLINE HAD TO BE USED]
[Illustration: 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:
[Illustration: "_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.