It must be well above that point that the aeroplane enters
the danger zone--always presuming that my premonitions are correct. "Aeroplaning has been with us now for more than twenty years, and one
might well ask:  Why should this peril be only revealing itself in our
day? The answer is obvious. In the old days of weak engines, when a
hundred horse-power Gnome or Green was considered ample for every need,
the flights were very restricted. Now that three hundred horse-power
is the rule rather than the exception, visits to the upper layers have
become easier and more common. Some of us can remember how, in our
youth, Garros made a world-wide reputation by attaining nineteen
thousand feet, and it was considered a remarkable achievement to fly
over the Alps. Our standard now has been immeasurably raised, and
there are twenty high flights for one in former years. Many of them
have been undertaken with impunity. The thirty-thousand-foot level has
been reached time after time with no discomfort beyond cold and asthma. What does this prove? A visitor might descend upon this planet a
thousand times and never see a tiger. Yet tigers exist, and if he
chanced to come down into a jungle he might be devoured. There are
jungles of the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers which
inhabit them. I believe in time they will map these jungles accurately
out. Even at the present moment I could name two of them. One of them
lies over the Pau-Biarritz district of France. Another is just over my
head as I write here in my house in Wiltshire. I rather think there is
a third in the Homburg-Wiesbaden district. "It was the disappearance of the airmen that first set me thinking. Of
course, everyone said that they had fallen into the sea, but that did
not satisfy me at all. First, there was Verrier in France; his machine
was found near Bayonne, but they never got his body. There was the
case of Baxter also, who vanished, though his engine and some of the
iron fixings were found in a wood in Leicestershire. In that case, Dr.
Middleton, of Amesbury, who was watching the flight with a telescope,
declares that just before the clouds obscured the view he saw the
machine, which was at an enormous height, suddenly rise perpendicularly
upwards in a succession of jerks in a manner that he would have thought
to be impossible. That was the last seen of Baxter. There was a
correspondence in the papers, but it never led to anything. There were
several other similar cases, and then there was the death of Hay
Connor. What a cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air,
and what columns in the halfpenny papers, and yet how little was ever
done to get to the bottom of the business! He came down in a
tremendous vol-plane from an unknown height. He never got off his
machine and died in his pilot's seat. Died of what? 'Heart disease,'
said the doctors. Rubbish! Hay Connor's heart was as sound as mine
is. What did Venables say? Venables was the only man who was at his
side when he died. He said that he was shivering and looked like a man
who had been badly scared. 'Died of fright,' said Venables, but could
not imagine what he was frightened about. Only said one word to
Venables, which sounded like 'Monstrous.' They could make nothing of
that at the inquest. But I could make something of it. Monsters! That
was the last word of poor Harry Hay Connor. And he DID die of fright,
just as Venables thought. "And then there was Myrtle's head. Do you really believe--does anybody
really believe--that a man's head could be driven clean into his body
by the force of a fall? Well, perhaps it may be possible, but I, for
one, have never believed that it was so with Myrtle. And the grease
upon his clothes--'all slimy with grease,' said somebody at the
inquest. Queer that nobody got thinking after that! I did--but, then,
I had been thinking for a good long time. I've made three ascents--how
Dangerfield used to chaff me about my shot-gun--but I've never been
high enough. Now, with this new, light Paul Veroner machine and its
one hundred and seventy-five Robur, I should easily touch the thirty
thousand tomorrow. I'll have a shot at the record. Maybe I shall have
a shot at something else as well. Of course, it's dangerous. If a
fellow wants to avoid danger he had best keep out of flying altogether
and subside finally into flannel slippers and a dressing-gown. But
I'll visit the air-jungle tomorrow--and if there's anything there I
shall know it. If I return, I'll find myself a bit of a celebrity. If
I don't this note-book may explain what I am trying to do, and how I
lost my life in doing it. But no drivel about accidents or mysteries,
if YOU please. "I chose my Paul Veroner monoplane for the job. There's nothing like a
monoplane when real work is to be done. Beaumont found that out in very
early days. For one thing it doesn't mind damp, and the weather looks
as if we should be in the clouds all the time. It's a bonny little
model and answers my hand like a tender-mouthed horse. The engine is a
ten-cylinder rotary Robur working up to one hundred and seventy-five. It has all the modern improvements--enclosed fuselage, high-curved
landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds, worked
by an alteration of the angle of the planes upon the Venetian-blind
principle. I took a shot-gun with me and a dozen cartridges filled
with buck-shot. You should have seen the face of Perkins, my old
mechanic, when I directed him to put them in. I was dressed like an
Arctic explorer, with two jerseys under my overalls, thick socks inside
my padded boots, a storm-cap with flaps, and my talc goggles. It was
stifling outside the hangars, but I was going for the summit of the
Himalayas, and had to dress for the part. Perkins knew there was
something on and implored me to take him with me. Perhaps I should if
I were using the biplane, but a monoplane is a one-man show--if you
want to get the last foot of life out of it. Of course, I took an
oxygen bag; the man who goes for the altitude record without one will
either be frozen or smothered--or both. "I had a good look at the planes, the rudder-bar, and the elevating
lever before I got in. Everything was in order so far as I could see. Then I switched on my engine and found that she was running sweetly. When they let her go she rose almost at once upon the lowest speed. I
circled my home field once or twice just to warm her up, and then with
a wave to Perkins and the others, I flattened out my planes and put her
on her highest. She skimmed like a swallow down wind for eight or ten
miles until I turned her nose up a little and she began to climb in a
great spiral for the cloud-bank above me. It's all-important to rise
slowly and adapt yourself to the pressure as you go. "It was a close, warm day for an English September, and there was the
hush and heaviness of impending rain.