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But when she got to Khartum, on the banks of the upper Nile, it was no longer possible to conceal her passion to win the great race Woman v. Woman. For there British officials stopped her. They positively refused to let her fly over the enemy-infested wastes of the Sudan without an escort. She protested she must fly alone. Was not Lady Sophie flying that very day alone? Not so, said they; Lady Sophie, flying north over the Sudan, had also been forced to take an escort from the other side—a young lieutenant, snatched from the bride with whom he was honeymooning in African solitude. Very well, said Lady Mary, but time was never so precious; must she wait until the Lieutenant arrived with Lady Sophie? She must. The lieutenant came, the two ladies exchanged brief words of recognition, and back went the lieutenant over the Sudan, this time flying south with Lady Mary.
Lady Sophie flew solo to Cairo. The race was hers. She had done the hard bit —vast veldt and jungle now lay in wait only for her rival. But, name of a dog, at the Cairo airdrome, where she stopped for supplies, officers padlocked her plane. It was not safe, they said, for a lady to cross the Mediterranean alone.
The race then was Lady Mary's. Zooming went she over the dark green heart of Africa, over the crystal blue of the longest freshwater lake in the world (Tanganyika) . And then, name of a dog, while she spiraled down to land at Tabora (10,000 blackamoors gaping) her motor missed. Suddenly the motor died cold. The Moth crashed to earth, a twisted wreck. She was only slightly injured. Fever loomed.
At last reports, Lady Mary was telegraphing her Sir Abe (2,250 miles south) telling him just where to get another kite. And Lady Sophie was still arguing heatedly with British officials in Cairo, 2,600 miles from her Sir James.
The race, whoever wins, will add two names to the annals of Air and of Empire. But both are already known to fame. Last year they sat side by side above London, the nose of their plane tilted up till it set a new altitude-record for Moths. Lithe Lady Sophie is admittedly the hardier—first woman to loop the loop in England. In a cruel speed-race she zoomed to the finish line a few yards ahead of Lady Mary, who had been leading. But it was the International League of Aviators which threw the apple of discord into the air; it pronounced Lady Mary, Sir Abe's wife, to be the "champion lady aviator of 1927."