that he was having great difficulty with his breathing. He
told me feebly that he was sure he had got a hole in his side and that he was bleeding through that hole." There followed a ghastly and nerve-wracking wait before Elliott could be taken to hospital.
The next day Sir Alan went to Shaiba to help the Air Force to identify the spot where the shooting occurred, While there, the telephone from the hospital rang, and the author admits he could not bring himself to listen to the message delivered : so a friend wrote down, " Tell Cobham that his engineer, Elliott, had a sudden relapse and died at 11.15 to-night."
Stunned, helpless, disheartened, he thought of giving up the flight. Yet its abandonment would not have brought his friend to life. Everyone urged him to go on and told him that his task was greater than any personal considerations. .So with a heavy heart he set out with a new mechanic, Sergeant Ward, a Londoner hire himself, towards the thunder clouds of the monsoon.
At Bandar Abbas the gallant Handley-Page nearly met with disaster through the clumsiness of a rowing boat. At Bahawal- pur they ran into a sand storm. At Allababad the seaplane was almost wrecked again by sightseers. At Delhi it is pleasant to read of an Indian non-commissioned officer who helped Sir Alan to get his machine " unstuck " from the tricky waters of the Jumna by a feat which entailed his diving off the machine when it was travelling at 40 miles an hour.
After a very brief rest at Calcutta, Sir Alan and Ward continued through the rainiest sea in all the world, having difficulties which are minimized in the text, but loom large before the inward eye of anyone who reads with sympathy and imagination.. It was not until after leaving Penang that the skies cleared and the waters calmed. They flew on over halycon seas, noting the prosperity of the Dutch East Indies, the charm of the Javanese and the enormous land lizards of Komodo—treacherous dragons, twenty-two feet long, who live chiefly on wild hog, ponies and buck, tearing their prey to pieces with their hands, each finger of which is armed with a terrific talon. " It is quite common for these claw hands to be a foot across, with talons six inches long. I learned from my Dutch friend that when they have dis- membered their victims, they swallow the portions whole " —thus Sir Alan on these strange beasts.
After leaving the island of Timor there was a five hundred mile jump across a waste of waters to Australia. Cobham flew by compass, on a dead reckoning, allowing for drift " by guesswork and from a certain amount of practical experience. . . ." The value of that experience is shown by the fact that after five hours of flying with no visible haven before him, he crossed the desolate North-Australian littoral within five miles of his objective.
No need to tell the story of Sir Alan's triumphs in Australia. His reception at Sydney and the 150,000 people who almost mobbed him at Melbourne, proved the tremendous interest which is being taken in flying in a country which is a natural aerodrome.
On the return as on the outward journey the engine never once faltered or failed, but brought them back in triumph to the city of their birth. To the men and machines who made the flight possible Sir Alan gives unstinted praise, and it should be remembered how greatly aviation is indebted to the generosity of Sir Charles Wakefield, who made the flight possible. He has stood in the background of commercial flying ; history will force him from that modest place.
Perhaps to future ages the names of our flying pioneers will be misty with legend ; we shall read of how Cobham combated Aeolus and contended against the Circe of the monsoon. But to-day his exploit stands proudly in the public mind and he has told his story with the sweet simplicity of a man of action. It should inspire others to scale those towers and battlements we see outlined against the glorious dawn of flying.
F. Y.-B.
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