THE PHANTOM FLIGHT.
I.
To appreciate the work of the flying service, it must be remembered
that the pilot in the machine is only the spearhead of the weapon, and
behind the spearhead must be a stout and reliable haft, so that the
business end can be driven home with full effect.
The helve of the haft consists of the carpenters who true-up, inspect,
and repair the machines; the engineers who clean, test, and keep the
engines in order; the armourers who adjust the bombs and machine-guns;
and the working party who push about the boats and fill the tanks with
petrol.
These men constantly worked against time at night, for long periods
at a stretch, frequently rocking on their feet with fatigue, engaged
on work which had to be done honestly and without mistake, for on it
depended the lives of the crew, the safety of valuable material, and
the success of the operations.
In the popular mind all work done by the flying service seems to
be credited to the pilot, and the work of the men behind him gets
overlooked--work which is hard and exacting, and with little honour
and reward. Owing to the shortage of machines, and the booming out of
patrols in the summer months from three in the morning till ten o'clock
at night, the men were driven at high pressure.
On the afternoon of the last day of April the Engineer Chief reported
that the engines of one of the boats had to come out and be replaced.
It was a job that usually had taken four or five days. The bomb-gears
had to be stripped, the wings unshipped, the petrol piping and water
connections cast adrift, and the engines whipped out. And then the
whole process had to be reversed. But the tom-tom was beaten, a War
Council of the four Chiefs held, and in the grey misty twilight before
dawn next morning the boat was rolled out on the concrete to have her
new engines tested, the men who had shoved the work through in the
fierce stabbing of the blazing yard-arm groups, standing about her,
pallid, drooping, and haggard.
Two hours later she took the air.
'Twas May-day, and the happy pilots, Perham and Tiny, went off in her
to look in the Spider Web. They were out past the North Hinder intently
sweeping the horizon for signs of Fritz, when the engineer passed
forward to them a signal pad, on which was scrawled--
"Sir, a float seaplane on our tail."
Perham popped up through the front cockpit like a Jack-in-the-box, and
looked back. He saw a large and nasty-looking twin-engined machine
right behind, and the smoke of tracer bullets lacing the air. On his
frantic signals, Tiny shoved forward the controls, and dived for the
water at a rate of knots. Just above the surface he made a sharp
right-hand turn.
The Hun dived after them, all guns going, but failed to get a burst
home. He flashed past when the boat changed direction. Having lost the
advantage of surprise, the Hun pilot carried straight on, and quickly
disappeared at high speed towards Zeebrugge, both propellers rotating
briskly.
This Boche, when he got back to his base, must have told tall tales of
the encounter; he was finally interned in Holland, where he was met
by Perham, who unfortunately also became a guest of the same neutral
country some time later. The flying-boats were painted a light grey,
and the enemy pilot was spreading the pleasing report that it was no
use attacking them, as they were made of armoured steel. He knew this,
he said, because he had attacked one at close quarters, and had seen
his bullets bouncing off. As a matter of fact, a careful examination of
the boat failed to bring to light any traces of bullet holes.
Retribution fell upon us on this day for the loss of _8659_, for it
was found that she should have been sent to the seaplane station at
Killingholme, and sundry unjust people, accusing us of performing the
act of hot-stuffing, demanded one of the War Flight's precious boats in
lieu thereof. Two "alien" pilots arrived and picked out our newest and
best, a boat which had just been painted, provided with wireless, and
fitted with all possible conveniences and comforts, and in spite of our
shrieks of protest shoved her down into the water and flew her away.
Seven enemy submarines were sighted and five bombed during the month
of May; the first attempts to convoy the Beef Trip were made, not very
successfully; and the first anti-Zeppelin patrols were carried out.
The Beef Trip, as it was called by the pilots at Felixstowe, or the
Dutch Traffic, as it was known officially, was a convoy of merchant
ships which ran two or three times a month between England and the Hook
of Holland, and was alleged by the aforesaid pilots to carry Dutch beef
to England and English beer to the Dutch.
In the dark hours of the chosen morning fifteen or sixteen cargo-boats
would gather in X.I. channel near the Shipwash, and would be picked
up there by destroyers and light cruisers from Harwich. The merchant
ships would get into formation and start across the North Sea. The
keen destroyers, sharp as needles, would zigzag and throw circles
around them, like a group of rat-terriers chasing a cat around a knot
of old ladies. They did this in order to intimidate any submarine
commander out pot-hunting. While the swift light cruisers, stately
and imperturbable, would boil along well out on the dangerous flank,
apparently ignoring the fuss and fury of the show going on near them,
but keeping a good look-out in case a striking force of Hun destroyers
made a snatch at the convoy.
At the Hook of Holland another fleet of cargo-boats would be waiting in
neutral waters to be escorted back, and the whole circus would start
off again for England.
The pilots of the flying-boats patrolled the ever-changing route the
night before, in case a hungry Fritz, bent on sinking the beef and
beer, was lying in wait, and the following day would provide an aerial
escort for the convoy, looking out for submarines, enemy seaplanes,
which might desire to lay explosive eggs on the ships, or Hun surface
craft.
When attacking single ships Fritz endeavoured to close to a range of
from three hundred to six hundred yards before firing a torpedo. But
when attacking a convoy they fired at ranges between five hundred and a
thousand yards, and sometimes longer, in which case they did not pick
out an individual ship, but merely fired into the brown. They waited
in front of a convoy until the ships were sighted, and then submerged,
therefore the pilots in the flying-boats flew in great loops from from
five to ten miles in front of the surface craft.
[Illustration: Destroyers on Beef Trip.]
As the Beef Trip plodded along at eleven knots, taking eleven hours
to cross, the flying-boat pilots were sent out in relays, meeting
the surface craft at various places on the route as requisite, and
remaining with them until relieved. The relays were so arranged that
each set of flying-boats was out for five hours and a half.
This work called for extreme nicety in navigation, in order that the
boats should make contact with the moving ships at the correct time
and position. At first the results were rather ragged, but eventually
it became an evolution. The pilots were later informed, in a letter of
appreciation, that before they took a hand in the game the crews of the
destroyers and light cruisers were kept at action stations throughout
the entire trip, but that, now the flying-boats accompanied them, half
of the men were allowed to stand off.
Zeppelins from the sheds of Wittmundshaven, Nordholz, and Tondern
ran regular daylight patrols outside the Bight and as far south as
Terschelling Bank. They did their navigation by wireless, so their
positions and courses were fixed by the English direction-finding
wireless stations, in the same way as the German submarines were fixed.
The euphonism for this method in the service was to say: "We are told
by the Little Woman in Borkum that Anna is at so and so." Anna being
the first Zeppelin, Bertha the second, Clara the third, and so on. But
they were wily birds and hard to catch, their crews keeping a sharp
look-out around and all about. The boats had to cross the North Sea to
get at them, and they could outclimb a flying-boat heavily laden with
petrol for the return journey. They could only be attacked successfully
by surprise, and at first the boats had no success.
These Zeppelins kept a suspicious eye on what our light naval forces
were doing, and occasionally dropped bombs on the Harwich submarines
doing surface patrol on the Dogger Bank. But fortunately gas-bags roll
too much for good dropping to be done from them, and their bombs had
little effect. Sometimes they would wireless for seaplanes to come
out and bomb our submarines, but as, almost up to the end of the war,
the Huns used bombs which touched off and burst on the surface of the
water, they had little success.
I blew over to Parkeston one day to yarn with a submarine commander
about this. He put me into a big soft arm-chair in the wardroom of the
mother-ship, placed a potent cocktail in my fist, provided me with a
cigarette, and then we communed sweetly together.
"Remember the Fritz your fellows sighted twice last month on the Brown
Ridge?" he asked. "Sent out an E-boat to stalk him. Caught him blown on
the surface. Put a tin fish into him. Thanks."
He did not use many words but said a great deal. I asked him if
submarine often stalked submarine.
"Talked to a fellow up from down south. On diving patrol. Saw Fritz
on surface. Torpedo blew Hun commander out of conning-tower. Sole
survivor. Seemed much worried. Finally opened heart. Warned our man to
clear out as four more U-boats were working in immediate area. Said he
could not bear to be sunk twice in one day."
"Please go on," I asked.
"Boat from here stalked Fritz. Fritz heard him--dived. Both went blind
under water dead slow. Our chap felt Fritz scrape past under him.
Opened everything. Made himself as heavy as possible. Drove Fritz down
to bottom. Soft mud. Sat on him for twelve hours. Tide silted them in.
Our boat nearly caught. Just managed to pull himself out."
I asked about bombs.
"Don't think much of bombs. Bombed by Zepps several times. Crockery
smashed. Great enthusiasm, small results. Boats are hard to kill dead."
"Sometimes," I agreed. "But how about that U-C off Ireland?"
"Which?" he asked. "U-C's are mine-layers. Double hull. Only one hatch
to conning-tower. Vulnerable point."
"The one whose commander popped up right beside a trawler, found
himself looking into the skipper's whiskers, didn't like 'em, panicked,
and pressed the diving button. The trawler was armed only with a rifle
for sinking mines found on the surface."
"Right," he cut in. "I remember. Skipper shot commander. Body jammed
hatch open. Boat dived. Fished up two weeks later in fifteen fathoms.
Valuable information."
"And all done," I chuckled, "with an ounce of nickle-coated lead and a
pennyworth of cordite. We carry bombs weighing one hundred pounds, we
are shortly getting bombs weighing two hundred and thirty pounds, and
will soon carry bombs weighing five hundred."
He was very polite but not impressed, until I added: "And we burst 'em
with a delay-action fuse eighty feet down. The bombs dropped on you by
the Huns burst on the surface."
He asked me how we took aim. I told him about the bomb-sight, and that
at eight hundred feet the bomb-dropper should make one hit out of three
on a visible target. And I added that the flying-boats did eighty-two
knots to the Zeppelin's fifty-five, so that a submarine had less chance
to get down.
"That's all different," he said. "Hope the Germans don't do the same.
Life's getting harder and harder."
Later on he told me this yarn.
"Life's hard. Nobody loves us. Ships fire first, inquire afterwards.
Off Terschelling at daybreak. Suddenly saw Harwich flotilla. Didn't
know they were out. Infuriated destroyers coming straight for me.
Dived. Hit sandbank. Conning-tower showing above surface. Broadside on
to flotilla leader. Right on top of me. Reversed one engine, went ahead
on other. Swung round. Destroyer shaved past. Wash lifted me off. Slid
into deep water. Depth charges dropped. Electric lamps and crockery
broken. Much annoyed. Said so when I returned."
I had another yarn with him in 1918. He said:
"On Dogger Bank. Saw Zeppelin. Later saw seaplane. Dived. Hundred and
fifty feet. Bomb exploded eighty feet above me. Shook boat badly. Moved
north eighty miles. Same thing happened. What's to be done?"
II.
Down on the sea boats are not easy to handle with precision. But I once
did a little bit of seamanship of which I am rather proud. It is a
trick I would never try to repeat.
Lofty Martin and myself were out together in two boats on the 5th, when
we sighted a Fritz twenty miles south-east of the North Hinder. Lofty
was nearer and went bald-headed at him. The commander of the submarine
saw him coming and dived, but Lofty let go his four bombs just as Fritz
went under. And then I saw that his boat was in difficulties. He got
into a dangerous bank and into a steep dive, but gradually righted and
landed on the water.
Flopping around above him, my wireless operator, leaning far over the
side, tried to attract his attention with the Aldis signal-lamp, but
without success. The bow of the boat seemed to be down and the tail
up. There was a brisk east wind blowing with a fair sea running, and I
thought he might have damaged the bottom of his boat in getting down.
So I cut my engines and ducked in beside him.
Taxi-ing across his bow, I asked what was the trouble. An aluminium
casting, holding the pulley-wheel through which an aileron control-wire
was led, bad broken. It could not be repaired. The crew had all
gathered in the bow to examine the break. And at that moment his port
engine failed.
We were fifty miles from harbour.
Early in the war two boat pilots down at sea had been captured by a
Fritz, so before we did anything further we taxied ten miles into a
mine-field in case the U-boat had not been damaged and came up to
investigate. Then Lofty shut down his one good engine, put out a
sea-anchor, and hove to.
A sea-anchor is a large canvas bag shaped like a cone. Its mouth is
held open by a stout wooden ring. In the apex of the cone is a small
hole. When the sea-anchor is put overboard at the end of a line, it
offers resistance to the drag of the boat drifting in the wind and so
decreases the rate at which it moves. It also prevents the boat from
yawing--that is, it keeps the bow of the boat to the sea and wind.
Lofty asked for tools; so I taxied behind him and came up alongside,
laying my port wing behind his starboard wing. The boats were rolling
and tossing, and it looked as though the wings would be torn off. With
a loud crackling of spruce my port propeller shattered his starboard
aileron. But a line was passed, and I quickly drifted astern of him and
hung on there. Along this line were sent tools, a spare sea-anchor, and
food.
It was now five o'clock, and we had been down on the water two hours.
The wind had increased to thirty knots, and a considerable sea was
running. Advising Lofty to repair his engine and taxi straight
down-wind, I cast the line off and blew well clear of him. Then I
dropped my bombs safe to lighten the boat, had the engines started,
and got off the water after five tremendous bumps. My wireless aerial
had been carried away on landing. With a makeshift affair, rigged up
with a spool of copper wire from the engineer's tool-kit, the wireless
operator could get no answer.
Once in the air I flew directly down-wind, and almost immediately
fetched up at the Edinburgh light-ship in the Thames estuary, doing
the twenty-five mile journey in fourteen minutes. Here a destroyer
was acting as traffic policeman, so I landed near her. In reply to
an Aldis lamp-signal the commander sent a boat and I went on board,
leaving the flying-boat riding to her sea-anchor. I gave the position
of the disabled boat and the information that Lofty would taxi straight
down-wind.
Back on board the flying-boat again I had the engines started. The sea
over the shoal was high and steep. After a short run in the wake of a
passing paddle mine-sweeper I hit a big wave, before I had got flying
speed, and was thrown into the air. When about fifty feet up I started
to nose-dive towards the water. I felt that I was going to crash, and
crash badly.
Keeping the engines full out and the control-wheel back in my stomach,
I shot down towards the water. The steep angle was increasing my speed
and the engines were pulling like mad. I just touched the crest of a
wave, there was a flicker of white water, and I shot off again into the
air. This time I had sufficient flying speed, and boomed away for home.
I landed at Felixstowe at seven o'clock. The engines stopped through
lack of petrol as I taxied in to the slipway.
Lofty, out in the middle of the mine-field, repaired the engine and
taxied down-wind. He had frequently to stop his engines and fill up the
radiators with salt water, as they were leaking. But he kept on. At
half-past ten o'clock he was taken in tow at the edge of the mine-field
by a waiting patrol boat, and arrived at Felixstowe at one o'clock in
the morning.
The remainder of the month was hectic.
Hodgson and Bath bombed one submarine and sighted another on May 10th.
Ramsden and myself bombed another, and Hallinan and Magor met three
enemy seaplanes, on the 19th. And next day Morish and Boswell did in
a submarine from a height of 200 feet, but, arriving back in harbour
after dark, crashed their boat. Gordon and Hodgson bombed a submarine
on the 22nd, and next day Newton and Webster had a brush with three
enemy seaplanes, shots being exchanged but no damage done.
A boat working up the Dutch coast had one engine fail at the Maas
light-ship, and flew homeward for an hour and a half on one engine,
finally having to land at sea twenty miles north-west of the North
Hinder. It was found and towed in by a destroyer. The Navy people,
meeting the boats at all hours off the Dutch coast, and realising that
we were doing a job of work outside, were now almost affable.
School work was also in full swing, for a boat had been turned over to
the War Flight for this purpose, and the first pilots in their spare
time crashed around instructing the second pilots in the gentle art of
taking off and landing a big boat--an exercise which proved equally
hard on the nerves of the instructors and on the bottom of the machine,
as there was only a single control-wheel fitted and the first pilot had
to give up all control to the pupil.
During this intensive work it was quickly found that the majority of
the pilots could only stand an average of one long patrol in three days
as a steady routine, and that if they went out oftener their work
suffered. It was also found essential that they should be given regular
leave at short intervals.
I was beginning to feel the strain a bit myself. At this time I was my
own intelligence, engineer, carpenter, and slipway officer, looking
after all overhauls and repairs, deciding the suitability of the
weather, as we had no meteorological hut, and putting into the water
and taking out again all machines, excepting when I was myself going
out on patrol. I determined the force and direction of the wind by the
look of the waves in the harbour, the actions of a flag, or the way the
smoke blew off a chimney. There was no telephone in No. 2 shed, and I
had already worn out a pair of thick-soled boots galloping to and fro
between the slipway and the ship's office.
May was brought to a close by a gallant rescue at sea, which is well
worth telling in detail.
III.
Hissed on by the ruthless wind, sea waves possess a malevolent cunning
whereby they search out any weak spot in a structure made by man, and
so finger, suck, hammer, and tear at the members which are flawed in
design, material, or workmanship, that eventually the whole fabric is
shattered.
The innocent wavelets dancing in the sun, pretty and sparkling, and the
huge black rollers, whose crests under the weight of a gale, before
they can curl over and break, explode into spindrift, are propagated by
the wind blowing obliquely on the surface of the water.
When waves are first formed they are short and steep, but if the wind
continues to blow in the same direction across a considerable stretch
of sea, their length and height increases, and their crests, on which
the wind has the greatest effect, tend to drive faster than the main
body of the waves and so break forward in a smother of white foam.
In deep water waves have no motion of translation--that is, the
particles, of water do not move horizontally, but merely up and down
vertically. It is only the waves of force, born of the energy of the
wind, that move across the sea. In shallow water the troughs of the
waves are retarded, with the result that they become steep, the crests
break, and the water rushes forward with great violence.
Water in mass played upon by the wind is not the tractable element it
appears when running through our pipes, contained in shaving-mugs,
or filling baths. Thus, while a land-machine pilot, down safely with
engine failure, has all his worries behind him, the pilot of a seaplane
or flying-boat, down at sea, has all his troubles to come, unless the
weather be fine, help near at hand, or his craft very seaworthy.
Everything seemed to be set fair for a fine day on the 24th of May when
Flight Sub-Lieutenant Morris and his wireless observer went down to
the slipway at Westgate, a seaplane station on the East Coast south of
Felixstowe.
At the top of the slipway, on its wheeled beach trolley, stood their
machine, a float-seaplane with a single engine. It had wings which
folded back along the fuselage, when it was living on shore, in order
to economise shed space. A party of men were swinging the wings into
place and locking them in flying position. The two large flat-bottomed
floats were made of brightly varnished wood. The bombs were slung on
the fore-and-aft centre line beneath the fuselage, above and between
the floats. There was a third small float under the tip of the tail,
and behind this float was a water rudder, a rudder operated with the
air rudder, but which was used for steering the seaplane when it was
down on the water. It looked very ship-shape; a small stock anchor,
with line neatly coiled, which was shackled to one of the floats,
giving the right sea-going touch.
When the machine was ready the wireless operator stepped up on the
port float, climbed up a little wire ladder, and settled himself
into his cockpit, where he had his wireless apparatus, bomb-sight,
and machine-gun on a ring. By standing up he could fire forward over
the top plane. Morris climbed up after him into the control cockpit.
He was in front of the wireless observer, for the crew of two in a
float-seaplane sit tandem.
Morris, looking over the side, saw that everybody was clear. He
switched on the magnetos and opened a cock in an air-bottle. A stream
of compressed air hissed into the cylinders of the engine and turned
it over, the pistons sucked in the petrol mixture, a spark fired it,
and the high-speed engine began to run smoothly. He warmed up the oil,
tested the engine full out, and then gave the signal for the chocks
to be knocked away. The working party ran the seaplane down into the
water. It floated clear of the trolley.
When the engine was opened out the tail of the seaplane came up to the
horizontal. It leaped forward, planing along the top of the water on
the two floats. As the pilot pulled back the controls it skipped along
with only the rear edges of the floats touching, taking little jumps
off the surface as it encountered the tiny waves. And then it was in
the air.
After spending some hours over the North Sea, Morris started for home.
He was feeling very hungry, and began thinking about his dinner with
pleasure. In half an hour he would have his legs tucked under the table
in the mess. Suddenly he heard the noise of his engine and knew that
something was wrong, for a pilot is not conscious of the roar of his
engine when it is running properly. It began to miss. The revolutions
dropped. And within a minute it stopped and the machine had been landed
on the water.
They were down thirty miles out to sea in one of our deep mine-fields.
It was a very big mine-field. It started from an east and west line
a short distance south of the North Hinder and continued to a line
running east just above the North Foreland. Of course there were no
ships in sight and no chance of any appearing.
The sun was shining, and little waves playfully slapped the huge hollow
floats. But what wind there was, was off the shore, and blew the
seaplane farther into the mine-field. The two men examined the engine
and found it was impossible to make a repair.
As the day wore on the wind increased, as the wind increased so did the
size of the waves. The seaplane lay head to wind, its long tail acting
as a vane. All through the afternoon it went squattering backwards
farther and farther from shore.
When the waves grew big Morris dropped the bombs safe and opened a
cock in the tanks, which allowed the petrol to run into the sea.
This lightened the labouring seaplane. But about four o'clock in the
afternoon the sea was running so high and the wind was so strong that
the machine was overbalanced backwards and the waves reached up and
began to pound the tail-float. The necessity for a tail-float is the
weak spot in the design of a float-seaplane, and the sea was attacking
the flaw in the design.
Morris climbed out on the nose of one float and the wireless observer
climbed out on the other, in the hope that their weight would balance
the machine and keep the tail clear of the water. But the waves
increasing in length and height, an hour later the tail-float was
crashed and wrenched away, the long tail sank down into the water, and
the machine gradually turned over backwards.
The sea having succeeded by attacking the weak spot, and whipped on by
the wind, now leaped on the helpless machine and tore it to pieces. The
pilot found himself clinging to an undamaged float, and climbing across
it saw the wireless observer in the sea beside him. Seizing an outflung
arm, after a long struggle he pulled his companion across the float.
The float was a long narrow wooden box. It was very strongly made of
three-ply wood. It was smooth on three sides, but on the fourth side,
which was the top, were two indentations to take the fittings by which
the struts that fastened the float to the machine were held. These
indentations, with the remnants of the fittings still attached, gave
the two men a handhold.
The float fortunately was quite water-tight, not having been damaged
in the wreck. But it was very unstable on the water and rolled about a
great deal, threatening to turn over and throw the two men back into
the sea. For this reason they could not climb up on top of it, but lay
across, half in and half out of the water.
Owing to the great buoyancy of the float it rode high, like a cork,
and so passed over the tops of the waves. But every few minutes a wave
steeper than the rest, or which broke at the wrong moment, would drive
over the two men and smother them under a weight of white water.
All through the night they clung to the float, defeating the efforts of
the hungry seas, which came up and up in an interminable succession and
tried to sweep them from their place of refuge. Just before daybreak a
dark shape passed them, which they thought was a trawler, but the wind
carried away their voices and the ship passed on and vanished.
With the break of day the force of the wind abated and the sea went
down. Morris, feeling in his pockets, found a small glass bottle
containing a few milk tablets. This was the only food they possessed,
and with great prudence he at once decided to dole out the precious
tablets in order to make them last as long as possible.
The first day dragged slowly to its close. On the second day, the 26th,
the wind died away and a thick North Sea fog shut down, cold, clammy,
depressing. Its clinging folds wrapped them about, both body and mind,
for it destroyed their chances of being seen and rescued should any
ships pass. They had no idea where they were. The fog lightened to a
light mist on the 27th, the sun shone through, and they began to suffer
from thirst.
They were now able to lie on top of the float owing to the calm sea.
To ease their thirst they took off their boots and went for a swim.
Getting back on the float, they found that their feet were so swollen
that they could not put on their boots again.
Each minute seemed an hour, each hour a day, and the daylight seemed
worse than the dark.
On the afternoon of the 28th the mist lifted and the sun licked up the
moisture in their bodies, increasing their thirst to torment. Their
swollen feet were painful. In the wreck they had sustained abrasions
and lacerations on their wrists and hands. The salt water had bitten
into these wounds and they were inflamed.
Hope suddenly shot through the heart of the wireless observer.
Low down on the horizon he saw a flight of float seaplanes approaching.
They grew rapidly larger and larger, and nearer and nearer, until they
were right overhead. He pointed them out with great excitement to his
companion, but the latter could not see them. They were a phantom
flight. The observer told the pilot how the machines were circling
around, the pilots waving their hands and promising to send help. Then
they would fly away, but kept on returning at intervals throughout the
day. But no help came. It was heartbreaking. And then the night set in.
Early on the morning of the 29th--that is, after the castaways had
spent five nights on the float--the sun burst through the mist, which
rolled away, letting them see a clear horizon all around them for the
first time. But there were no ships in sight. Also the heat added to
their raging thirst. They were very weak. At noon the fog began to
settle down again, destroying their last chance of being seen.
The two unfortunates began to take sips of sea water.
This was the beginning of the end.
IV.
Felixstowe was shrouded in mist on this day until eleven o'clock, when
it began to lift. It did not look very promising, but I ordered two
flying-boats to be run out and the pilots were warned off to have an
early luncheon.
Leslie Gordon and George Hodgson, the Heavenly Twins, both from
Montreal, Canada, were told off for one of the boats. They had been
boys together, had come to England together, had learned to fly
together, had been on the Nore Flight together, and when they came over
to the War Flight they asked to be allowed to fly in the same boat.
Either was willing to be second pilot to the other.
They flew together for some time, but owing to the scarcity of good
boat pilots--and both men were extremely fine fliers of the first
rank--they were made to separate. At first they resented any attempt to
give them each a boat, but finally saw the necessity, although they had
their names bracketed as Duty Pilots and for leave, and usually managed
to fly their boats in company. Hodgson had been a champion swimmer. He
was a stout fellow, in more ways than one, and built for big boat work.
Gordon was a long-faced, serious lad, not over strong physically, but
with tremendous determination and force, and was a careful flying-boat
husband. Both men were great grumblers, but also great workers.
The boats were put into the water at seventeen minutes after twelve
o'clock and went off to do the Spider Web. As they shoved out into the
North Sea the fog shut down, and one boat, when forty miles from land,
turned back. On receipt of the wireless signal announcing this, Gordon
and Hodgson held a consultation. At first they were going to turn back
too, and swept around in a large circle, but finally decided to push on.
When twenty-three miles past the North Hinder the fog became so thick
that they could not see the water and they decided to return, climbing
to a height of twelve hundred feet, where they were above the fog.
After making the North Hinder again they started in for Felixstowe, and
were twelve miles on the homeward stretch when they sighted, through a
break in the fog, something on the water.
Spiralling down to six hundred feet they saw two men on an upturned
float.
Winding in the aerial they came down to fifty feet and flew directly
over the wreckage, and observed, from their attitudes, that the two
men on it were in urgent need of assistance. They also observed that
a strong wind had begun to blow and a heavy sea was running. Climbing
to a thousand feet they let out the aerial and sent in a signal to the
station giving their position, in case anything should happen to them.
Then, in spite of the heavy sea, Gordon landed close beside the float.
With the waves bursting in spray over the bows of the boat she was
taxied up to the wreckage, but the first attempt to take the two men
off was a failure, as the engines being shut off at the very last
moment, the strong wind blew the boat away from the float rapidly. The
engines were started and a second attempt made.
[Illustration: Porte Super Baby taxi-ing on the water.]
This time Gordon taxied right up on top of the float. Two of the crew
stood on the fins, one on each side of the bow, the waves washing up to
their waists. But Morris and his wireless observer were seized, pulled
up on the drift wires which ran from the nose of the boat back to the
wings, and were drawn on board through the front cockpit in an utterly
exhausted condition.
Gordon then attempted to take off. His 700-horse power thrust the boat
across the waves, hammering and pounding, but with the extra weight
on board the boat was too heavy. He tried again. This time the waves
smashed the tail-plane and tore off the wing-tip float on the starboard
side. Also, owing to the pounding, the hull of the boat was leaking
badly. The idea of flying back was abandoned.
The wind was blowing from England. The shore was forty miles away. The
fog was thick. Two things could be done. Turn down-wind and run for
Holland, making sure of a comparatively easy passage, or fighting home
against the sea and wind to England--a hard and difficult task.
Gordon shoved the nose of the boat into the sea and wind and began to
taxi in on the water. The seas swept over the bow. The water seeped
in through the leaks. The bilge pump, kept going constantly, one man's
job, could not keep the rising water under. As the wind-driven petrol
pumps would only work when the machine was in the air, one man had to
keep the petrol hand-pump going to feed the engines.
Seas bursting over the lower planes were whirled up into the propellers
and thrown back over the engines. They were white with the salt; but
they kept running.
The tail was nearly full of water from a big leak, but a bulkhead held
it out of the main body of the boat, although she was getting heavier
and heavier, and was crashing through the seas instead of riding over
the top of them. The sledge-hammer blows shook the whole structure.
Without its float the starboard wing-tip buried itself deep in the
water each time the boat rolled, pulling itself out again with a
shuddering wrench, which each time threatened to pull off the wing.
The two rescued men lay on the slatted deck of the boat and were given
sips of brandy from time to time, and finally a little cocoa from the
thermos flask.
So, gamely, the boat won on towards England.
Four hours after landing outside Gordon passed out of the fog belt and
saw the Shipwash light-vessel, rolling and pitching, three miles north
of him. It was a welcome sight. He was only a mile off his course.
He had travelled on the surface a distance of twenty-two sea miles--a
not inconsiderable feat of seamanship and navigation in a fog, with the
wind that was blowing, the sea that was running, and the condition of
the boat.
Here they were in the shipping channel. They saw vessels. Very's lights
were fired as distress signals, and a cargo-boat, the _Orient_ of
Leith, bound for Yarmouth, saw them, came alongside, passed a line and
took them in tow. Half an hour later they were under the shelter of the
land and two armed drifters came alongside. The tow was transferred to
_H.M.S. Maratina_, and Morris and the wireless observer were taken on
board _H.M.S. White Lilac_, in order to get them ashore quickly for
medical attention.
Gordon stood by his boat, which was now standing up on her tail, and
she was brought safely into harbour, was repaired, and carried out
many more patrols, being used, after she had done thirty-nine patrols
in all, for school work.
Within two months Morris and his wireless observer, unbroken by their
experiences, were again flying.
[Illustration]