Skyward by Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr

Author:Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781442241732
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2015-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

It went against the grain to be severe about such trifles. But we were on the ragged edge of failure and couldn’t spare an ounce of weight. As it was, we had cracked up three times in the snow already. One more smash and it would be all off. We had no more material out of which to makes skis. The last pair had been put together by enormously painstaking efforts of my artisans.

The weather was still perfect. We decided to try to get off as near midnight as possible, when the night cold would make the snow harder and therefore easier to take off from. Finally, at a half hour past midnight Greenwich time, all was in readiness to go. Bennett and I had had almost no sleep for 36 hours, but that did not bother us. Dr. O’Brien and Captain Brennan begged us to get a good sleep before making another attempt. But our opportunity was at hand.

We carefully iced the runway in front of the skis (so that we could make a quick start), while Bennett and Kinkaid made their motor preparations. The crew put the finishing touches on the runway.

Bennett came up for a last talk and we decided to stake all on getting away—to give the Josephine Ford full power and full speed—and get off or crash at the end of the runway in the jagged ice.

A few handclasps from our comrades and we set our faces toward our goal and the midnight sun, which at that moment lay almost due north.

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