It was unlike rainbows seen on the ground, for the delicate colors made a complete circle. Kiwi looked down and there on the uneven surface of a cloud was the distinct shadow of their plane moving toward the rainbow. Then the plane seemed to pass completely through it. Surely a good omen for the success of their flight.
The Skipper felt that there could be no better time than this for a little food. They finally located a package of sandwiches, and he and Jack refreshed themselves from the thermos bottle. The coffee was still piping hot. Kiwi, after eating a sandwich, finished the other orange that Old Bill had given him.
Their spirits rose tremendously. Jack put on his head-phones and put out a call to find some one who would verify their position.
The Malin Head station in Ireland got signals through to Jack much plainer than they had in earlier attempts. After some trying, Jack got the latitude and longitude of Malin Head and their directional bearing. Locating on the map the Malin Head station, and drawing a line on the map on the bearing the station had given him, meant that a similar bearing from a different angle would locate the plane’s position over the Atlantic. He now needed a check-up from another station.
The Aquitania, twelve hours out of Cherbourg, sent its position, and from its directional radio the bearing. It was then the work of but a moment to make the necessary calculations, and Jack placed his pencil point down upon the chart and said, “Well, that’s where we are now.”
About half of their water crossing had been accomplished.
Still Kiwi had no view of the ocean under them. In the hours since they had left the coast of Newfoundland, they had always been in the clouds or had had a heavy layer beneath them. They were flying at about eight thousand feet, and ahead of them now was a huge wall of clouds that seemed to extend upward fully eighteen thousand feet. The light shone on them, lighting up the peaks and valleys of the cloud mountains. They approached the clouds rapidly, and once in them the plane was plunged into a heavy twilight.
The air bumps here were terrific, tossing them about, and the Skipper was obliged to keep his eye constantly on the bank and climb indicator in order to keep the plane on anything resembling an even keel. As they had entered the clouds the wind had been nearly dead astern, and here in the murky darkness they were compelled to trust solely to their instruments for navigation. The wind caught them up in fierce eddies, and swirls of gray clouds sucked up past them. Flashes of lightning darted here and there. The plane seemed to have no more stability than a kite.