West with the Night

by Beryl Markham

The Italian idea was based upon the wistful suspicion that no foreigner (certainly no Englishman) could fly over Libya, for instance, and successfully resist the temptation to take candid camera shots of the newly contrived Fascist forts. The Italians, under Mussolini, would have been hurt indeed to know that a pilot existed (and many of them did) who had less curiosity about the Fascist forts than about the exact location of a bar of soap and a tub of hot water. The official reasoning seemed to run about like this: ‘An aviator who shows an interest in our fortresses is guilty of espionage, and one who does not is guilty of disrespect.’ I think the latter crime was, of the two, the more repugnant to the legionnaires of the flowing tunic and the gleaming button.