‘She just rushed off,’ said Squadron Leader St John who had travelled up from Gravesend with the Percival crew. ‘All the pilots at Gravesend have a very great admiration for her. We are all anxious because she is flying a machine with which she really has had too little time to become accustomed. She had only two short flights in it before setting off.’37
The following morning the Daily Express published on the front page, the letter she had handed to the reporter before her departure.
Sir,
As I am now on the eve of what I believe to be a rather hazardous night I would ask the usual courtesy extended to the condemned to state some of my views. I notice that I have been frequently captioned in the Press as ‘Society Mother,’ ‘Flying Mother,’ ‘Bird Woman,’ etc.
The phrase ‘Society’ is repugnant to me. I have no pretensions, and fail to see what bearing an accident of birth has to do with flying the ocean.
I may be ‘just another blonde’; but as a professional pilot accustomed to working for my living, and as this flight could not even in my wildest dreams be described as pleasure, I look on it as another job of work. When I am asked my reasons for going I give varying explanations every time. As adequate a reason as any other is that, whatever the result of my efforts, I shall not have laboured in vain as it will give a very real friend – no other than the bold, bad Jim Mollison – an excellent excuse for a celebration, or the reverse.
In describing my, as yet unaccomplished, but no doubt amazing exploit, please give me the credit of being an ordinary human being without too many of the conventional virtues. I can laugh, love, hate, and occasionally fall in at the off-licence to hear the views of my fellow-beings. I am neither an innocent girl from the country, nor a city slicker, but an ocean flyer, in embryo. If I can dispense with the last two words I am more than satisfied.
I am etc.
Beryl Markham38
Tom must have heard the news even before he returned from his trip to the north. When he returned home he told Dessie he’d heard from Percival that ‘Beryl had simply gone. Apparently, nothing anyone said could dissuade her.’ Jim Mollison had said to Percival with grim flippancy, ‘Well. That’s the last we’ll see of Beryl.’ All they could do now was wait.39
CHAPTER NINE
1936
It was a long wait for those left behind. There were headlines in the newspapers on the following morning, reporting Beryl’s departure. The stop-press columns carried the news that the aeroplane had been seen off Castletown, Berehaven, County Cork at 10.25 BST. Other than that there was nothing. They could expect nothing. And the day wore slowly on.
The Markham family, literally under siege from the press, rapidly decamped to the country. Speaking on the telephone from his Hurst Green home in Sussex, Mansfield made a statement that he was ‘very anxious. I wish my wife all the luck in the world. Our seven-year old son is with me. I think he is too young to realize what his mother is doing.’ Later he was to add that he had not been able to sleep and had spent the night pacing the floor.1
Just after two o’clock that afternoon a radio message was flashed across the Atlantic. The Radio Corporation of America intercepted the following message from the steamship Spaarndam (at 7 a.m. New York Time – 2 p.m. BST), a Holland-America Line freighter headed towards New York from Rotterdam: ‘AIRPLANE, PROBABLY MRS MARKHAM’S PASSED THE SS SPAARNDAM AT 7 A.M. EST., POSITION 47:54 N., 48:22 W., HEADING FOR.’ This still left her 1500 miles from New York but within a few flying hours of the American coast.2
A further sighting by the SS Kungsholm confirmed her position and reported that she was heading towards the coast.
At 9.35 a.m. EST (19 hours and 40 minutes after take-off) The Messenger, ‘flying high’, was spotted off Newfoundland, where ‘it circled the bay, very likely to fix a position and then headed off to Cape Race, twenty-five miles to the south-west.’ Ten minutes later she was seen by the inhabitants of Cape Race, and shortly afterwards above Drook Point in rain and low cloud.3 Then silence. No word. No sightings. No news.
At Floyd Bennett field where a crowd of 2000 had already gathered to greet Beryl on her expected arrival late that evening, there was an excited flurry of rumours. She had been sighted. She was only five hours away. She’d gone down in the sea off Newfoundland.
And then, over twenty-two hours after Beryl took off from Abingdon, the news came through on the telephone from the tiny community of Baleine Cove, on the eastern tip of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, that she had crash-landed but was safe. Like Mollison, Beryl had failed to achieve her ultimate goal, But she had safely crossed the Atlantic Ocean from east to west, the first woman to do so. She was also the first person to make a solo non-stop crossing in that direction, from England to America. And she was safe, though tired and suffering lacerations to her forehead.
Now every newspaper in the world wanted Beryl. News of Beryl. Stories of Beryl. Two fishermen had found her struggling through a bog where she had landed the aeroplane, blood streaming from a cut in her forehead. ‘I’m Mrs Markham,’ she told them. ‘I’ve just flown from England.’ They took her to the nearby farmhouse of Mr Alex Burke where she requested a cup of tea and the use of the telephone. Within minutes she was speaking to a startled Edith McGuinness, the telephone operator at the Louisburg exchange. ‘I am Mrs Markham. I have just crash-landed my aeroplane. I would like the airport notified and could you also ask someone to send a taxi for me?’ She was swiftly whisked to Louisburg where a Dr O’Neil stitched and dressed the cut in her forehead and ordered her to bed. The same doctor had treated Jim Mollison when he had landed near Sydney (Cape Breton Island) in August 1932.4
Before she slept, she telephoned Mansfield, Jim Mollison and Harry Bruno, at the expense of an opportunist local reporter, who then contacted his editor with a story which was syndicated around the world. Another speck of human interest emerged, for until then it had not been realized that Beryl and Mansfield were separated. ‘Her Broken Romance is not Mended’ was a typical headline.5
Alert to the potential of his client’s publicity value, Bruno said he’d call her back, and did so with a stenographer at his elbow. Hardly a major newspaper in Europe and America failed to carry news of Beryl’s success on its front page on 6 and 7 September. The version, written for (and paid for) by the Daily Express, was cabled to them by Bruno, and the style owes much to his particular brand of hokum:
It was a great adventure. But I’m so glad it’s over. I really had a terrible time. That’s the only word for it – terrible. I knew I was in for it half an hour after I left. I pulled out my chart of the Atlantic and a gust of wind blew it out of my hand. I saw it floating away down to earth. There was nothing on that chart but water…When I saw that chart whisk away I sat back and waited for trouble. It came in plenty. I had rather a bad time after that. There was a 30 mile head wind, a helluva lot of low cloud and driving rain. I almost wanted to turn back, but of course I couldn’t do that.
I got my first fright at Abingdon when I saw the trees at the far end of the airfield. I never thought I’d get over them with my heavy load. Then the weather simply went to pot when I got over the sea somewhere near Bristol. It blew great guns, worse and worse. It got darker and darker and darker. It meant blind flying and that went on nearly the whole way.
Once I got over the Atlantic I could see nothing but water, and not much of that. Then an electrical storm popped up to make it all gay and happy. But you know I really welcomed that storm; it was a relief to see something besides cloud and water. The clouds were lying about in lumps, absolutely in lumps, and poor old Messenger was so sluggishly heavy. I was flying at about 2000 feet. I wanted to fly lower so that I could keep an eye on the water but bucking winds made that too dangerous. I passed out of the storm, but only into more dirty weather. I’ve found since I got here that you’ve all been reading about my having bright moonlight for the first part of my journey. That makes me laugh. I saw the moon only twice and he was a pretty sorry sight. Once, poor old Messenger took a terrif
ic toss. I didn’t know quite what was happening but she seemed to be behaving in an extraordinary manner. Next time the lightning flashed I took a look out of the window. I was flying upside down. That was a nasty shock…I got so fed up seeing the sea that I said to myself, aloud: ‘If you don’t see something besides water you’ll go crazy.’ I thought about all sorts of things – lots of things about home and Africa, my little boy Gervase and my father in Durban. To help pass the time I made entries in my log book and calculated my position. The Messenger should do about 158 mph cruising speed in still air but I reckoned I was doing about 90. Those nasty old head winds were to blame for that…I couldn’t eat…except some coffee and some nuts…I got so weary of battling against the icy gale all the way over that I was just about ready to give up whenever I let myself think about it. I never completely lost my bearings, but it seemed so impossible to go on, driving the ship against all the odds, knowing that all the time I was using up far more petrol than I ought. I know I got into a spin more than once. I just went on – on – on hoping for the best but not expecting it, bumping and rocking all over the place.
At a particularly low ebb before dawn, tired, cramped and cold, she reached for her final flask of coffee. A sudden violent lurch tipped the opened flask, spilling the entire contents. She said later that it was the worst moment of her flight and she had been close to tears. Many of the long-distance pilots of the 1930s agreed that the worst part of the flight was the sheer loneliness.6
Then dawn broke through the clouds. The wind changed and I stopped being so silly. I wouldn’t have imagined that there was an expanse of desolation so big in the whole world as the waste of sky and water I saw go past me from the time I left Abingdon…It was fog, rain, sleet for hours on end. If I climbed it was sleet, if I dropped it was rain. If I skimmed the sea it was fog. I couldn’t see anything beyond my wingtips.
She had a moment of near disaster when one of her fuel tanks ran dry and the aeroplane dropped to below 300 feet before the new fuel supply reached the engine. The final fuel tank read ‘This tank is good for eleven hours.’ It was the only one with a fuel gauge. Bitterly she watched the level getting lower and lower. A further moment of anxiety occurred when her engine cut for no apparent reason. This time it was ice in the carburetor – though she did not know that at the time, only heart-stopping fear as she brought the plane in a long shallow glide for a water landing. As she lost height the ice dissolved and the engine started up again.
Her hands had been gripping the control column so hard that they were numb with cramp, but she began to relax again as she watched the few instruments and saw that everything seemed to be working well again: oil pressure 42 pounds, RPM 2000; airspeed 146 mph. Only extreme tiredness and her fuel supply were now causing concern.
That tank, on which I was banking my all, didn’t last eleven hours. It lasted nine hours and five minutes. That’s why I came down in the swamp. I watched that tank getting emptier and emptier and still saw nothing but sea and clouds and mist.
When I could bring myself to do it I had a good look at my watch. I judged I ought to be somewhere near Newfoundland by then. Then I had a good look at my petrol gauge and my spine froze. I was nearly out of fuel and I ought to have had enough for hours yet.
I thought for a while. And then I reached for my flask of brandy. I don’t drink much of that as a rule – only for medicine. But I took two long swigs of that flask…I could see nothing could save me. Good old Messenger was going to stop any moment and I said to myself, ‘If I’m going to go, now is the time to get ready for it.’ The only thing anywhere around was fog, great hefty banks of it. And then I saw the coast. The beautiful coast. I’ve never seen land so beautiful. I kept going, I wanted to make Sydney Airport, come down, get petrol and go on to Halifax. I felt better when I saw land and thought perhaps the notice ‘This is safe for eleven hours’ was right after all. But the engine began to go ‘put, put, put’.
I knew then that I’d have to come down as soon as possible. I watched out for Harbour Grace, the first airfield on my route, but could I see it?
I saw that I had to come down and made for the beach. I couldn’t land there; there was nothing but great big rocks and Messenger and I would have been dashed to pieces. I went inland.
My engine was missing badly now. It was sheer agony to watch my petrol gauge…I peered around for a field to land on. I was still peering when the engine stopped.
Bringing The Messenger into the only field that looked suitable, Beryl executed a perfect forced landing. The plane landed into wind, the speed just right. Unfortunately the ‘field’ was a boulder strewn bog, its green surface covered not in grass but moss. The Messenger ran for 40 feet before her weight caused the left wheel and wing to plough into the water-laden peat and the aeroplane tipped up on her nose. Beryl crashed against the windshield and lost consciousness.
I suppose I crawled out somehow. Well, you know the rest. It’s been a great adventure. Now it’s all over perhaps I’ll try it again one day – who knows? I’d have made New York all right if it hadn’t been for the miscalculation over petrol. When I came down in the bog on Cape Breton Island there wasn’t one drop left in the tanks. I’d been flying only twenty-one hours and I thought I’d enough for twenty-eight. Fifteen seconds more and I believe my aeroplane and I would have gone down on the water and no one would have ever known what became of us.7
It was only later she discovered that if she had been higher she would almost certainly have seen Sydney Airport a few miles away and could have glided in.
The photographs of Beryl’s stricken plane are an eloquent testimony to the last sentence in her article. The upended machine came to rest only a hundred yards from the ocean. Clearly it had been a very difficult flight, far more so than she had bargained for. At eighty-three she said that it was probably the only time in her life that she had been really scared. After it she hated flying over water.8
John and June Carberry telephoned from New York where they had been awaiting Beryl’s arrival. She told them about the damage to The Messenger. ‘She’s badly mussed up,’ Carberry told reporters later. ‘The motor is ripped from its mountings, the propeller broken and the landing gear gone.’ To Beryl he had said, ‘Leave it there, don’t worry about it.’9
Tributes poured in:
Mansfield: People might think a woman would be afraid of being alone over the Atlantic. I know my wife’s spirit better…I am extremely proud of her fine achievement. I think it is magnificent and that she is very plucky. I always had great confidence in her as a pilot. She has done some very good work. I should not have done what she has done for a million pounds – I should have been in a complete funk. When I told our son about it he clapped his hands with joy, but I do not think he fully realizes what has happened. At the moment he is more interested in railway engines than in aeroplanes. The whole world now knows that my wife and I are separated, but we are still very good friends. The reason I did not go to see her off at Elstree was that she did not know herself that she was going until very shortly before. I spoke to her by telephone and wished her good luck.10
Jim Mollison: It is a first-rate performance, I am particularly delighted at her success because she went on my advice. I know that Mrs Markham considered this flight as important in her ambition to have a part in the regular transatlantic air service when it starts. On all points, first on navigation, but also on skill in piloting and every other department she has justified her candidature.11
C.B. Clutterbuck: Beryl’s a grand girl. This is the happiest day of my life. I knew she would triumph, but in spite of my faith in her abilities, yesterday was the most anxious day I have known. It’s a devil of a thing for a woman to have done all on her own. All day I have been on tenterhooks and now I shan’t be able to sleep for excitement.12
Tom Campbell Black: Amazing! I thought she’d do it, but the weather, on what is always a tough crossing, seemed appallingly bad.13
Captain Percival: She has shown, in
view of the bad weather, a marvellous piece of course-keeping. It has been a very good piece of flying to get through at all.14
Amelia Earhart: She did a splendid job. I am delighted beyond words that Mrs Markham should have succeeded in her exploit and has conquered the Atlantic. It was a great flight.15
A touching footnote to all the excitement occurred in the offices of the East African Standard in Nairobi.
One of the last people in the world to hear definite news of Mrs Markham’s flight across the Atlantic was her mother Mrs Kirkpatrick. The reason was that Mrs Kirkpatrick had been spending a holiday in the Aberdares, far removed from stations and the telegraph line.
Mrs Kirkpatrick, sister-in-law of Sir Charles Kirkpatrick, was in Nairobi yesterday eager for details of her daughter’s achievement. ‘I think it is a marvellous effort,’ she said, ‘although I never had any doubt that she would do it. My daughter has always been extremely self-confident and full of pluck from the time that she was a tiny tot.’16
All the newspapers made particular mention of the fact that two other transatlantic flyers had delayed their take-off from England due to the inclement weather. Harry Richman, a Broadway singer, and Richard Merrill, a professional pilot, were two Americans who had flown from New York to Britain a few days earlier. Technical problems forced them to land in a meadow near Bristol but they refuelled and flew on to their destination, Croydon, a flight of 221 miles which, due to the strong winds that would have been favourable to Beryl, took them nearly three hours to cover. Much had been made by the papers of the fact that their wings were stuffed with forty thousand table-tennis balls which they hoped would keep the aeroplane afloat should they come down in the ocean. Merrill said they would autograph the table-tennis balls when they got back to the USA and sell them as souvenirs. Now they were waiting for suitable weather for their return trip, but at present were not prepared to risk it. Their aeroplane, the Lady Peace, was a much larger, heavier aircraft than The Messenger, with an engine of 1000 hp compared to Messenger’s 200 hp.
Straight on Till Morning Page 23
