Imperial 109 [antikvár]

1 By radio: 1310 fcrs LOCAL TIME. FRIDAY 10 MARCH 1939. KISUMU UGANDA TO ALL AIRPORTS: SOUTH AFRICA - ENGLAND - NEW YORK MAIL PLANE, IMPERIAL AIRWAYS FLIGHT 109 G-ADHO CATERINA LEFT HERE FOR MALAKAL -KHARTOUM - CAIRO. ETA MALAKAL 1700 hrs. END. Five thousand feet below the flying boat, the marshes of the Sud stretched out in every direction. From the borders of Uganda, the swamplands run for more than four hundred miles through equatorial Sudan, covering an area greater than England, where the broad Nile all but loses itself in a maze of sluggish channels and creeks. It is a region of neither dry land nor open water but of limitless green papyrus reeds, water hyacinth, stagnant pools, quicksand, and river mud. The fierce equatorial heat, the humidity, and the ever-present risk of disease carried by the millions of swarming insects have combined with the other natural hazards to make the Sud one of the last unexplored areas of Africa. A heavy storm had lain over much of the region, but now the dense clouds rolled away in the direction of Ethiopia, and the flying boat cruised on in brilliant sunshine. With their gleaming white paint, raked prows, and high wings sprouting from the crests of their hulls, the S30C Empire-class boats of Britain's Imperial Airways were some of the most beautiful aircraft ever to fly, carrying passengers in a style and luxury unmatched since the passing of the great air ships of Germany a decade earlier, and never to be seen again. Spanning the immense distances separating the British Dominions around 3