Round the World in Seven Days

by Herbert Strang

When they reached the aeroplane they found Rodier demolishing some of the good things provided by Mrs. Martin, the centre of an admiring crowd of curious white men and wonder-struck natives. Two Papuan constables were patrolling around with comical self-importance. The petrol had arrived. When it was transferred to the aeroplane the Administrator insisted on drinking Smith's health in a glass of Mr. Martin's beer, and then called for three cheers for the airmen. His daughter had brought her kodak and took a snapshot of them as they sat in their places ready to start. The natives scattered with howls of affright when the engine began sparking, the constables being easily first in the stampede, one of them pitching head first into the eucalyptus. The engine started, the men cheered, the women waved handkerchiefs, and as the aeroplane soared up and flew in the direction of the coast the whole crowd set off at a run to gain a position whence they might follow its flight with their eyes.

For some time Smith steered down the coast, intending to cross the Owen Stanley range as soon as he saw a convenient gap. After about twenty miles, however, he ran with startling suddenness into a tropical storm. It was as though he had passed from sunlight into a dark and gloomy cavern. Rain fell in torrents, and he knew by the extraordinary and alarming movements of the aeroplane that the wind was blowing fiercely, and not steadily in one direction, but gustily, and as it seemed, from all points of the compass. For the first time since leaving the Euphrates he was seriously perturbed. It was true that the force of the wind did not appear to be so great as it had been before his meeting with Monsieur de Montausé on the Babylonian plain; but his situation was more perilous than then, for he was passing over hilly country, and the vertical wind-eddies were infinitely more difficult to contend with. To attempt to alight would be to court certain destruction; his only safety was to maintain as high a speed as possible, trusting to weather through. He judged by the compass that the wind was blowing mostly from the south-east, almost dead against him. Fearing lest the enormous air-pressure should break the planes if he strove to fly in the teeth of the wind, he decided to swing round and run before it for a time, in the hope that it would drop by and by. As he performed this operation the aeroplane rocked violently, and he thought every moment that it must be hurled to the ground; but by making a wide circle he got round safely, and keeping the engine at full speed he retraced his course, soon seeing Port Moresby again, far below him to the left. He had no means of exactly determining the rate at which he was now travelling under the joint impulse of the wind and his propellers; but from the way in which the landscape was slipping past him he thought the speed could hardly be less than two hundred and twenty miles an hour.

It occurred to him now to increase his altitude, with the idea of rising above the area of the disturbance. But he found that the mountains on his right hand rose higher than he had supposed. In proportion as he ascended, they seemed to rise with him. He saw their snow-clad tops stretching far away into the distance, and became conscious of a great difference in the temperature. He began to feel dizzy and short of breath, and presently his eyes were affected, and he saw everything as in a mist. When Rodier shouted that he was feeling sick Smith at once checked the ascent.

The aneroid indicated a height of 8000 feet, and it was clear from the greater steadiness of the machine that it had risen out of the stratum of air affected by the storm. But Smith's satisfaction at this was soon dashed by the discovery that there was something wrong with the engine. It missed sparking, recovered itself for a minute or two, then missed again. Smith looked anxiously below him. The nearest ground was about a thousand feet beneath; on his right the mountains still rose hundreds of feet above him, blocking the way to his true course. Hoping that the failure in the sparking was only temporary, Smith swung the aeroplane round, in order to take advantage of this calm region of air and at least fly in the right direction. At the same time he looked out anxiously for a spot to which he might descend if the defect in the engine proved persistent.

In a very few moments it was clear that to continue his flight would be no longer safe, and he prepared to glide. While he was searching for a convenient landing place the sparking ceased altogether. The whole country was rugged; below, almost wholly forest land as far as the eye could reach; above, bare rocks or scrub, and at the greatest altitude, snow. The aeroplane flew on for a little by its own momentum, and Smith wasted a few painful seconds before, despairing of finding level ground, he began to descend in a long spiral.

As he neared the ground, Rodier's quick eye detected a little river cutting its way through the forest, and at one spot a widening of its bed, due, probably, to the action of freshets. Here there was a narrow space of bare earth, the only clear spot in the landscape, and even this was surrounded with dense woodland. He pointed it out to Smith. There was no room for mistake or misjudgment. Smith knew that if he did not strike the exact spot the aeroplane must crash into the forest that lined both banks of the river. Never before had so heavy a demand been made upon his nerve and skill. But the severe training of the Navy develops coolness and judgment in critical situations; his long apprenticeship to aerial navigation enabled him to do the right thing at the right time; and, thanks to the calmness of the air in this lofty region, the machine answered perfectly to his guiding hand, and settled down upon the exact spot he had chosen, the little open stretch on the right bank of the stream, within eight or ten yards of the water.

His hand was trembling like a leaf when he stepped out on to the land. The teeth of both men were chattering.

"Mon Dieu!" cried Rodier. "That was a squeak, mister. Le diable de machine! It seem I do nothing at all but clean, clean, all the way from London, and yet—"

"And yet down we come, 'like glistening Phaethon, wanting the manage of unruly jades,'" quoted Smith. "Still, we're safe, and I've known men killed or lamed for life getting off a horse."

"But with the horse you have the whip, with the machine you have only the rags to clean her with. Ah! coquine, I should like to flog you, to give you beans." He shook his fist at the engine.