On the evening of 4 September 1936 a turquoise-and-silver monoplane left an airfield in Oxfordshire and set out for the Atlantic.
asserted
monoplane → leave → Atlantic
Darkness lay ahead.
asserted
Darkness → lie → ?
So did thousands of miles of open water, brutal headwinds and the chance that the aircraft would never return.
asserted
aircraft → do → water
Beryl Markham, 33, was at the controls alone in the cockpit, trying for a trip no woman had yet achieved.
asserted
woman → try → trip
She was going to New York.
asserted
She → go → York
Her course was westward across an ocean with prevailing winds that made the crossing particularly unforgiving.
asserted
crossing → prevail → winds
Markham fought the elements for about 20 hours.
asserted
Markham → fight → hours
Then, off the coast of Canada, ice clogged the airplane's fuel-tank vents, starving the engine, a plane crashed in a peat bog on Cape Breton Island, states Afterburner magazine report.
asserted
report → clog → Island
Markham lived, though she was cut across the forehead.
asserted
she → live → forehead
She, too, had made history in aviation.
asserted
She → make → aviation
Wild raised in Kenya
Beryl Markham was born Beryl Clutterbuck in England in 1902, but her landscape was Africa.
asserted
landscape → raise → 1902
At four she moved with her father to colonial Kenya, where he set up a horse-racing farm near the Great Rift Valley.
asserted
he → move → Valley
Markham was raised far from the conventions of Edwardian England.
asserted
Markham → raise → England
She learned to navigate the African wilderness, fell in love with horses at an early age, and hunted with local kids.
asserted
She → learn → kids
By age 17 she was training thoroughbreds for a living.
asserted
she → train → living
But eventually horses would have to share her attention with something even more thrilling: flying.
asserted
horses → have → something
Markham had learned to fly under British pilot Tom Campbell Black.
asserted
Markham → learn → Black
She eventually became a bush pilot flying over the vast and often unforgiving expanses of East Africa.
asserted
She → become → Africa
She flew over the bush looking for elephants and other game, spotting animals from the air and relaying their location on to safaris below.
asserted
She → fly → safaris
The African wilderness taught Markham to operate without roads, landmarks or immediate help.
asserted
wilderness → teach → roads
She learned to trust her own judgment, to keep her cool in the air, all by herself.
asserted
She → learn → herself
That experience would prove invaluable as she looked out over the Atlantic Ocean.
asserted
she → prove → Ocean
Westbound pilots had to fight the prevailing westerlies for most of the way.
asserted
pilots → have → way
Markham chose a Percival Vega Gull, which she named The Messenger, and was to fly from England to Floyd Bennett Field in New York.
asserted
she → choose → York
She left on September 4 into the nite and disappeared.
asserted
She → leave → nite
She flew for hours over the ocean.
asserted
She → fly → ocean
The aircraft fought against fatigue, cold and the relentless Atlantic wind as she carried on through darkness and into the next day.
asserted
she → fight → day
They finally made it to the North American coast after about 20 hours.
asserted
They → make → hours
And then the disaster came, where ice had formed around the vents to the aircraft’s fuel tanks, blocking the engine from getting the fuel it needed.
asserted
it → come → fuel
The engine started to die.
asserted
engine → start → ?
The destination was so close that Markham had no choice but to put the plane down.
asserted
Markham → have → plane
The landing was rough but Markham emerged from the wreckage with a cut on her forehead, and alive.
asserted
Markham → emerge → forehead
Her intended destination was New York, but she had instead landed in Canada.
asserted
she → land → Canada
But the last leg was a failure, and that could not wipe out what she had done.
uncertain
she → wipe → what
Markham was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west and the first person to fly nonstop from England to North America.
asserted
Markham → fly → America
The Book Hemingway could not escape
uncertain
Hemingway → escape → ?
Several years later came Markham's greatest literary venture.
asserted
venture → come → ?
In 1942 West with the Nite was published, a memoir that blended memories of Africa, horses, aviation and the landscapes that had defined her life.
asserted
that → publish → life
But the book attracted little commercial attention at first.
asserted
book → attract → attention
It soon went out of print and for decades Markham's literary achievement was forgotten.
asserted
achievement → go → decades
…and 9 more, not listed.
The Aporia
