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."