West With the Night

West With the Night (1942) is a memoir by Beryl Markham. Markham writes about her childhood among indigenous Kenyans, who accepted and included the English girl in their traditional customs. The author grew up hunting with a spear and speaking Swahili while also learning about raising and training racehorses from her father, Charles Clutterbuck. The danger and adventure she experienced as a child became the hallmarks of her living experiences as an adult. A chance meeting with a pilot in her late twenties convinced her to take up flying, leading to a career as an aviation pioneer in Africa. Challenged by an English lord, Markham decided to attempt the 3,600-mile solo excursion from Europe to North America, crash-landing in Canada in September 1936. While the book was relatively neglected after its first publication, its reissue in 1982 turned it into a New York Times bestseller for more than 40 weeks.

This guide refers to the 2013 North Point Press paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text reflects some of the colonialist prejudices and assumptions of its time, including in its depictions of African peoples and cultures. There are also brief references to human trafficking, forced sex work, and suicide, as well as descriptions of animal combat, big game hunts, and animal attacks on human beings. This guide touches on all these topics.

Summary

Markham arranges her memoir into four parts. The first specifically concerns her efforts to achieve two rescues. While she searches for Woody, an aviator downed in the Kenyan wilderness, she learns of a medical emergency. A doctor asks her to fly an oxygen tank to the tiny outpost of Nungwe, where a miner is dying. Though hesitant to delay her search, Markham takes the oxygen tank in her Avian plane and flies through the night to the poorly lit field. After she touches down, the man who constructed the makeshift airfield asks her to visit another mine worker dying of a complication of malaria known as blackwater fever.

The next morning, Markham searches along the supposed flight path of Woody. Late in the afternoon, she sees a small body of water that is surprisingly reflective. She realizes that this is the downed Klemm aircraft she has been searching for and manages to land nearby. She discovers that Woody is alive. As she prepares to take off with him, she encounters Bishon Singh, a traveling Sikh merchant who saved her from a lion attack when she was a little girl.

Markham begins Part 2 by describing her father’s 1,500-acre horse farm near Njoro in British East Africa during her childhood. She relates the story of Paddy, the Elkington lion, a mature male who wanders untethered around a neighboring farm. As she runs around the compound one day, Bishon sees her and, on a whim, decides to follow. For the very first time, Paddy gets up and begins to follow Markham as well. When the lion roars and pounces, Bishon calls for help and rescues Markham.

Markham’s father built his farm with the help of indigenous Kenyans until they had 100 horses, which her father trains to race. Markham rises one morning while everyone still sleeps and, along with her dog, Buller, slips out of the compound and meets with two Nandi warriors, Arab Maina and Arab Kosky, to go into the brush for a wild boar hunt. As they walk through the wilderness, they encounter a lion, which only watches them. When they come upon two wild boars, Maina strikes one, which runs away with his spear. The second boar seriously wounds Kosky’s leg, forcing him to return to his home. Since Buller is chasing the boar, Markham follows his trail of blood. When she finds him, both the dog and the boar are seriously injured. The boar attacks her, and she kills it with her spear.

Years later, World War I breaks out in Europe. As Africa is then comprised of colonies administered by the European powers, many indigenous Africans join the fight in Europe. Among them is Maina, who dies while fighting for the British. Markham’s dearest friend is Kibii, Maina’s son. Kibii says that he will find the person who killed his father and get justice.

Markham recalls training her father’s stallion, three-year-old Camciscan. The horse occasionally falls into fits of rage and acts arrogantly. When she tries to train him, he causes her to fall into a tree, gashing her head and sending her to bed for a full week. When she returns, Markham is intent on forcing the horse to obey. Gradually, he accepts her presence and behaves as she intends. On one occasion, she sleeps on the floor of his stall during a storm and the horse stands over her, guarding her throughout the night. There is also an Abyssinian mare named Coquette. Markham assumes responsibility for the horse, which she breeds to a stallion named Referee. Carefully watching the calendar, she prepares for the birth of the first foal, a colt. Markham’s father observes the care she takes with the mare. He decides to give her the foal, which she names Pegasus after the legendary winged horse.

In Part 3, Markham recounts how extreme drought causes Markham’s father to lose his farm. He chooses to move to Peru and raise horses, giving Markham the option to go with him or stay in Africa. Markham elects to stay in Kenya, where she moves first to Molo and becomes a horse trainer. Soon, she is joined by Kibii, who has gone through the Nandi maturity ritual and is now Arab Ruta. He works for her as a syce, or stable boy. Markham moves her training operation to Nairobi when there is a big racehorse meet. She trains the two-year-old filly Wise Child to race against Wrack, the three-year-old colt she previously trained. The horses race in the Saint Leger race, the premier race of the Nairobi meet. Wise Child wins, and she retires the filly from racing.

One night while she is standing nearby, an airplane piloted by the former Royal Air Force pilot Tom Black lands. He carries a hunter seriously wounded by a lion. The incident stirs Markham’s interest in flying. She tells Ruta that they will now focus on flying, which they start doing the next day.

In Part 4, Markham learns to fly. Over 18 months, she gains her B license, which makes her a commercial pilot. Markham befriends the well-known British pilot Denys Finch-Hatton, who asks her to accompany him on a particular trip. Unaccountably, Tom and Ruta both warn her off, and she skips the flight. It ends with Denys’s crash and death.

Markham learns that she can make more money as a pilot if she spots herds of game from the air. Tom warns her against this practice because it implies that she must engage in the dangerous practice of finding a place to land and taking off in the wilderness. Despite this, she stalks elephants with Baron von Blixen—“Blix”—a legendary white hunter. On one occasion, Blix walks with her through the brush to evaluate the worthiness of a targeted bull elephant. When the elephant smells and confronts them, Markham realizes that they might die in the next moment. They escape when the elephant sounds an alarm before charging.

While attempting to rendezvous with Blix and other members of his safari, Markham discovers that flood waters from two rivers have trapped the hunters. They have gone days without food. The hunters create a tiny landing strip, hoping that Markham will land. She ends up landing and taking off four times, bringing food and rescuing several members of the hunting party.

Markham, desiring to catch up with friends in England, asks Blix if he would like to travel with her. The 6,000-mile trip ends up taking two weeks because the Italian fascists, who have assumed control of Egypt and most of the stops along the route, delay the flyers at every stop.

During a conversation with Lord Carberry, a Royal Air Force pilot during World War I, Carberry says he will pay for Markham to attempt a solo flight westward across the Atlantic. She quickly accepts. A plane is specially built for her, and she takes off on September 4, 1936. She crash-lands in Nova Scotia on September 6 when the plane’s carburetor intake ices over. Soon, she begins to receive requests to write her memoir.