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At this point Cinematographer Bonnett doubled up with a severe pain in his stomach. What he should have done, as his companion observer did do, was to pop his head out of the cockpit and take still photographs of the icy summit. Instead he was barely able to stop the leak in his oxygen pipe with his handkerchief as both planes slid down the long descent from their objective. It was later found that neither cinema machine had functioned continuously throughout the flight. Only other mishap reported, when the two planes, having traveled 320 mi., alighted at Purnea exactly three hours after the flight began, was that Lieut. Mclntyre's electrically heated gloves had performed too efficiently, blistering the aviator's hands. All hands were delighted with a rough rag jolly well done.
Sportsman. Like another party of Britons under Explorer Hugh Ruttledge, who were crawling toward the same goal afoot, the Mt. Everest flyers were engaged basically in a sporting proposition. Others had ascended to the stratosphere, descended to the bathysphere, flown all the oceans. The Houston-Mt. Everest group surmounted the last superlative. A famed sportsman was in their midst—Lord Clydesdale. Plump Lady Houston, widow of a shipping tycoon, who underwrote the British Schneider Cup entry in 1931 (TIME, Sept. 14, 1931) gave her name and money to the expedition. Lord Clydesdale gave it éclat. Until last January he was the provisional leader. When Commodore Fellowes took command, Lord Clydesdale became Squadron Leader. He and Commodore Fellowes took turns at the reconnoissance work.
To make the flight, Lord Clydesdale had to get permission from his Scotch constituency. Aged 30, two years ago he won a seat in the Commons. At Oxford (where he did not belong to the Pacifistic Union) few expected Lord Clydesdale to become much of a politico. Everyone, however, knew he could fight. In 1924 he won the Scotch amateur middleweight title. He had gone to Glasgow with his friend, classmate and mentor, Edward Francis ("Eddie") Eagan (Fighting for Fun), to enter the championship bout. The reigning champion, a coal miner, gave His Lordship a terrible drubbing, broke one of his teeth half in two, left another hanging by a thread.
"Douglo," ventured second Eagan, "don't you think we'd better. . . . I mean, we could just announce that. . . ."
"I am a Douglas, a Douglas!" sputtered stout-hearted Douglo, and rose to vanquish his foeman.
The blood of the Black Douglasses in his veins used to cause blond, curly-haired
Lord Clydesdale to drive the 400 twisty-laned miles between Oxford and Dungavel in one day. He first took up flying after his 1924 round-the-world boxing tour with Eddie Eagan.
The Mt. Everest expedition had permission for only one try at the peak. The Maharajah of Nepal, a wily Mongol, above whose small craggy kingdom the flight took place, did not want Britishers taking too many pictures over his head. To his devious mind the proposed air-mapping sounded like preparation for an invasion.