At this point, someone yelled, “Sooky, take a look at the water. You’ll never see this again. Wind is ninety miles an hour now.” All the crew peered through the windows. The sea was absolutely flat, except for huge streaks, some of which the weather observer estimated to be at least five feet below the surface of the water. The time was 3:45 P.M., according to Fielding, who kept precise notes on everything. Instead of being thrown all over the place as he had expected, the plane was being lifted up and flopped down again in a series of sickening jolts. To stand upright called for an acrobat, not a newspaperman. He found it useless to stand, anyway. It resulted only in a hard crack on the head when the plane dropped. At 3:55 P.M., the navigator screeched over the interphone: “It’s up to one hundred miles an hour, now. Gee, is this some storm!” The rain came in torrents. “Driven by a smashing, battering wind, it hammered on the skin of the plane. The wind joined in the noise, howling and screeching outside and the roar of the engines was drowned out by the mad symphony of nature,” wrote Fielding. The plane bucked and yawed but it was designed for high-altitude flying, with pressurized cabins for use when needed, and no rain came in. They were on the third leg now and it became hotter in the plane. Everybody was sweating profusely. Fielding wrote that the “storm bucked and tossed the heavy bomber through the skies like a leaf in autumn.” At 3:58 P.M., the wind was up to 120 knots. In the midst of all the noise, Fielding heard a voice on the inter-com. “How are you feeling?” came a question. “Not so good,” was the miserable reply. “I wish Sooky would get the plane out of this. That blue cheese I ate in a sandwich for lunch is turning over. All I can taste is that stinking stuff.” Others admitted having fluttering stomachs.