West with the Night

Some years later, Tom returns to England, and Charles comes back to Kenya from Peru. He lives on Markham’s farm. As her skills and reputation as a pilot grow, Markham has a great deal of business and leases a second airplane so that she can take more passengers.

As the financial reward is considerable, Markham feels intrigued by scouting big game from the air for safaris. There are inherent dangers with this, including the possibility of landing in sansevieria, razor-sharp brush that would destroy her plane. Even though Tom warns against doing so, Markham decides that the danger is worth it. She writes, “The cheques, at the end of each safari, were pleasant narcotics against what disturbing memories I may have brought back, the work was exciting—and life was not dull” (201).

Reflecting on her work scouting herds of elephants from the sky, Markham writes,

I think I am the first person ever to scout elephants by plane, and so it follows that the thousands of elephants I saw time and again from the air had never before been plagued by anything from above their heads more ominous than tick birds (206).

She describes the clever responses of elephant herds to the presence of an airplane, with the elephants working together to conceal and decoy themselves. She also describes the techniques of hunters in seeking out certain types of elephants. One hunter she describes is Baron von Blixen—known as “Blix”—a famous white hunter.

Markham describes one particular safari in which she locates a herd of elephants close to the hunting encampment. While crawling through the brush with Blix to evaluate their targets, they come face-to-face with a huge bull elephant. The elephant could kill them but decides instead to sound an alarm to the other elephants, giving them the opportunity to slip away. Safely back in the camp, Markham asks Blix why he did not shoot the elephant. He replies that he is saving that elephant for Wilson, the hunter paying for the safari.

After this encounter, Markham locates another large elephant by itself in an area near the town of Ithumba, which lies in the vicinity of several rivers. Blix makes a plan to divide the safari in two, sending most bearers on to wait for them while the two hunters and several bearers trek after the elephant. For her part, Markham is to fly to their camp in Ithumba in three days.

After servicing her plane and arriving at the intended destination, she discovers that no one from the safari has arrived. From the air, she determines that the rivers have flooded and guesses that the hunters and bearers are trapped between rivers. Eventually, she finds Blix, Wilson, and some of their bearers on a plateau, where they have hewn a small runway in hopes that she can land. Markham drops a note from the air indicating that the runway looks too short.

As she watches the frantic signaling of the men below, Markham realizes that she must land the plane. When she does, she discovers that they have been marooned for three days without food. They ask her to take them one at a time to Nairobi and bring back food for the bearers, who will remain until the flood is over. The tiny runway proves just long enough for her to land and take off the Avian four times, bringing food and ferrying passengers.

That night, as they sit around a fire at the Nairobi airport, Markham broods about what she wants to do next. On a whim, she asks Blix if he would like to fly with her to England. Without giving it a second thought, he agrees. She finds herself wondering why, with so many things going for her in Kenya, she would think about flying away to a place she doesn’t really know. She decides that it is because she is “incorrigibly, now a wanderer” (241). After visiting her father, she and Blix take off for England.

On the morning they leave, fog blankets the Nairobi airport. They will fly the Leopard Moth. Ruta starts the propeller, and Markham sees him mouth the word kwaheri, which is “farewell” in Swahili. This will be the sixth time the author has flown the route between Nairobi and London. The journey will be 6,500 miles, with the first stop being at the settlement called Juba.

The next day, they will fly between Juba and Wadi Halfa, for which they must get permission from the Royal Air Force since the pilot is a woman. Eventually, they land at the airport in Cairo, where a Muslim fortune teller predicts that Markham will fly over a great body of water to a strange land by herself.

The year is now 1936, and Italian fascists have taken over control of much of Markham’s flight path. They have tightened the rules for travel, and at every stop, they take a long time to give permission for Markham to continue her journey. She writes, “They kept Blix and me at Cairo, day after day, withholding our permits to cross the border into Libya. They had no reason, or gave none” (255).

After six days, the Italians give the flyers permission to leave, with the caveat that they search out three distinct forts from the air along the way and circle them as ways of demonstrating that they are staying on the proper flight path. The forts prove difficult to see from the sky, and after locating the first two, they forget about trying to find the third and fly on to their destination, Benghazi.

Markham observes that Benghazi has been treated roughly by many different invading forces over the centuries, claiming, “[I]n reality it has no function except to provide hostelry for armies on the march” (265). When they land at Benghazi, a taxi driver takes them all around the city as they look for a hotel with available rooms. Markham notes that the driver knew from the beginning that there were no hotel rooms available in Benghazi since there were 50,000 Italian troops there.

At length, he delivers them to a desolate two-story building with no electricity. A woman greets them with a candle and provides two adjoining rooms that have no door between them. Speaking to the woman, Blix discovers that the building is a bordello, or brothel. The Madam relates that she was trafficked as a sex worker when she was a child. From his conversation with her, he reports, “She didn’t even know it was slavery until somebody told her; she just thought life was like that” (269).

The final leg of their journey proves memorable because they are flying above clouds that show no hint of the ground below. When Markham finally descends through the clouds, based on her calculations, she realizes that she is only 10 miles from Cannes, France. The next day, she and Blix meet Tom Black in London.

After reflecting on the importance of flight records, Markham recalls a dinner party in London thrown by the Carberrys. During the dinner, someone suggests that Lord Carberry finance Markham for a record flight of some kind. Carberry points out that the one thing no one has yet done is fly solo from England to America. When he asks Markham if she is interested, she immediately says yes.

Carberry hires Percival Aircraft Works to build a special version of the Vega Gull Messenger for Markham. The Carberrys are not present for her takeoff because they sailed the previous month for New York to await Markham’s arrival.

Markham takes off from Abingdon, England, and within an hour has flown over Ireland. When the first gas tank runs empty, she turns the shuttlecock to begin the flow of the second tank. The engine does not start again until she is only 30 feet above the water.

The first sight she has of North America is Newfoundland. Just when she feels confident that she will make it, the engine begins to sputter, dying and restarting. This continues as she tries to gain more altitude. The engine dies when she is over Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. As the plane lands, it noses over into thick muck. The next day, she arrives at Floyd Bennett Field in New York, where a celebratory crowd greets her.

Markham concludes by describing her voyage by ship across the Indian Ocean to visit her father in South Africa, where he now trains horses. She brings mementos of her record flight. Markham also writes of the tragic death of Tom Black, who died while sitting in his plane while taxiing to take off when another plane struck his.

After her transatlantic flight, she notes, people begin to suggest, “You ought to write about it, you know. You really ought” (293). Hence, she decides to write her memoir, West With the Night.