Shortly after take-off low clouds formed and sped by beneath the wings but were soon outrun. The waves of sand of the Sind Desert now whipped into little whirlpools; then, driven by a strong wind from the south, they became a sandstorm of unabated fury. Amelia climbed higher in escape.
Ahead there was no storm, and she could see ridges that grew from the ground rising to foothills and then to mountains. They were like “sharks poking their backs through a yellow sea.”
Over Central India aids to contact flying became a surfeit of plenty: well-mapped railroads, rivers, and mountains were easily identified. By such landmarks her way was made easy.
But it was not so in the air. Large black eagles dived out of the sky toward the Electra. They soared and swung and spun about the plane, giving Amelia many moments of fretful anxiety. If they flew into the propellers, they would be chopped into bird-and-feather burger which could choke off the Wasp engines. That she missed them was a miracle of purblind fate and wide-eyed flying.
Below, the mountains had descended into plains. Mosaics in neat squares of brown, green, and gold were laid out as if on a vast floor, the squares joined by silver-and-gold inlay that reflected the sky and the sun.
In the distance the Ganges River sparkled, and beside it the city of Allahabad stood out against the white brightness of the encircling countryside. Beyond the city mountains green with luxuriant growth rose sharply into towering magnificence. Rainstorms engulfed the peaks. Amelia plowed through.
Air currents from off the mountains lifted the Electra an added 1,000 feet into the air. AE jammed the control column forward, trying to hold down the nose of the plane. Sheets of rain smashed down on wings and fuselage and lashed back from the props against the cockpit windows.
Once over the tops, the mountains quickly became plains that would continue for the next hundred miles all the way to Calcutta. Low clouds now scudded by and the weather cleared, revealing a quilted patchwork of gray, green, and tan rice fields.
More towns and an increasing number of railroads indicated that a big city was at hand. AE watched factories and mills and many villages grow thicker as she approached the heart of the city.
Harbor, docks, many intersecting streets, and countless white buildings bright in the sun: these were Calcutta. As she reached Dum Dum airport, another squall line moved in and broke across the Electra just as Amelia began her letdown for a landing. Rolling down the runway the plane sent up sheets of spray. Then as suddenly as it had begun, the rain stopped, and the sun shone as before. It was 4:00 P.M.