Beryl Markham, The Messenger, and the Night She Flew the Atlantic the Hard Way, East to West Against the Wind

On the evening of September 4, 1936, Beryl Markham took off from Abingdon, England, in a small wooden monoplane named The Messenger and flew west across the North Atlantic, alone, into the teeth of the prevailing winds. More than 20 hours later she reached Nova Scotia, becoming the first person to cross the Atlantic solo from England to North America - the harder, “wrong way” direction that had killed others before her. She survived engine failures over open water at night and a crash landing in a peat bog, and she lived to write one of the finest books ever set to paper about flight.

Who Was Beryl Markham?

Beryl Markham was born in England but raised on her father’s farm in the Kenyan highlands, in what was then British East Africa. Her mother left when she was young, so she grew up largely among the Nandi and Kipsigis people who lived and worked around the farm. She hunted, ran, and was mauled by a half-tame lion as a child - carrying the scars for the rest of her life.

Before she ever flew, she became a horse trainer, and a celebrated one: the youngest woman ever licensed to train thoroughbreds in Kenya. She had a gift for reading an animal bigger and stronger than herself and coaxing it into doing what she needed. That instinct would later define her flying.

How Did She Learn to Fly?

Aviation reached East Africa in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and a pilot named Tom Campbell Black taught Markham to fly. She treated it not as a hobby but as a calling, earning her commercial license and going to work in some of the most demanding flying imaginable.

She flew the bush alone in an open-cockpit Avro Avian and other light aircraft - carrying mail, passengers, and medicine to people who would have died waiting for supplies to arrive overland. She did it with no radar, no reliable radio, no weather service, and no charts, often landing on rough clearings rather than airfields.

She also worked as an elephant spotter for big-game safari outfits, flying low and slow over the bush to locate the great ivory-bearing bulls and direct hunters on the ground. It was punishing, dangerous work in thin, hot, turbulent air with nowhere to put the airplane down if the engine faltered. Across hundreds of hours, she learned to listen to a machine the way she had learned to listen to a nervous racehorse.

Why Was the East-to-West Atlantic Crossing So Dangerous?

By the mid-1930s, the North Atlantic was aviation’s proving ground and its graveyard. Charles Lindbergh had flown New York to Paris in 1927 - west to east, with the prevailing winds at his back, giving him free groundspeed.

No one had crossed solo in the opposite direction: east to west, England to North America, straight into those same headwinds. Flying into a persistent headwind means burning more fuel to cover less ground, spending more time aloft over the coldest water in the world, at night, with shrinking range and shrinking margins. Several aviators had died attempting it. Markham decided she would be the one to succeed.

The Airplane: The Messenger

Markham’s aircraft was a Percival Vega Gull, a sleek, wooden, low-wing monoplane powered by a de Havilland Gipsy Six - an inline six-cylinder engine of roughly 200 horsepower. Backed by a wealthy friend, she had it stripped down and packed with extra fuel tanks in the cabin and wings, enough to keep it aloft for the better part of a full day.

Painted a deep blue-green with silver trim, the airplane was named The Messenger. The plan was straightforward to state and brutal to execute: depart Abingdon, fly northwest over Ireland and out over open water, and reach Newfoundland if possible - New York if fuel and fortune allowed.

What Happened During the Flight?

The weather was poor, as it often is when a flight can’t wait. On the rainy evening of September 4, 1936, Markham lifted the fuel-heavy Messenger off the field - barely - and turned west over the water in fading gray light.

The cabin reeked of gasoline. The Gipsy engine hammered steadily, the only thing between her and the sea. There was no autopilot; she hand-flew every second, navigating by compass heading and dead reckoning with no beacon to guide her home. Over the black ocean there was no horizon - only the instruments and hours of cold, dark isolation.

Then the engine quit. One of the fuel tanks had run dry, drawn air into the line, and starved the motor. Markham did not panic. She had experienced engine trouble before, low over the African grass with nowhere to land. She switched tanks, worked the problem, and the Gipsy caught again. It happened more than once that night as tanks emptied and ice fouled the system - and each time she nursed the engine back to life, staying ahead of the airplane.

Where Did She Land?

After flying more than 20 hours, Markham reached land at Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia - the first person to cross the Atlantic solo from England to North America against the prevailing winds.

The ending wasn’t graceful. With her last fuel giving out, she came down in a peat bog at Baleine. The Messenger’s wheels dug into the soft muck and flipped the airplane onto its back. Markham climbed out with a cut on her forehead, covered in mud, and asked the fishermen who came running whether she was in the right place. She was. She never reached New York, her original goal, but she had crossed - the hard way, the way that had killed the men before her.

She received a hero’s welcome, including a ticker-tape reception in New York, and for a time was the most famous aviator in the world.

West with the Night: The Book That Almost Vanished

In 1942, Markham wrote a memoir of her life and flying titled West with the Night. Widely regarded as one of the finest books ever written about aviation and Africa, it eventually fell out of print and was nearly lost.

Decades later, a letter surfaced in which Ernest Hemingway praised the book, saying Markham could “write rings” around other writers and calling himself a “bum with a typewriter” by comparison. That endorsement helped return West with the Night to print in the 1980s, introducing her story to a new generation.

Why Beryl Markham Still Matters to Pilots

Markham’s legacy isn’t about a fancy panel or smooth air. It’s about who you are when the engine goes silent and you’re a long way from anywhere. She had learned to read a nervous animal, and she read her airplane the same way - staying calm, working the problem, and bringing it home over the black water. She also did it as a woman in an era that had shut nearly every door to her, flying through the walls where the doors should have been.

Key Takeaways

Beryl Markham was the first person to fly the Atlantic solo east to west, from England to North America, departing September 4, 1936.
She flew a Percival Vega Gull named The Messenger, powered by a de Havilland Gipsy Six engine, for more than 20 hours.
Her engine repeatedly starved as fuel tanks ran dry; her calm tank-switching and problem-solving - honed by years of solo bush flying in Kenya - kept her aloft.
She landed hard in a peat bog at Baleine, Nova Scotia, flipping the aircraft but surviving with only a cut forehead.
Her 1942 memoir West with the Night, championed by Ernest Hemingway, was rescued from obscurity and returned to print in the 1980s.