We tied a message with our position and the word
'Sinking' on each. The first, the blue-barred one, flew straight off and
reached home. But the other, which was white-checked, lit on our machine
and would not budge until Moore threw our navigation clock at him, which
probably upset him so that he failed us.
"Heavy seas smashed our tail-planes, which kept settling. I saw that
they were pulling the machine down by the rear, turning her over. We
tore the tail-fabric to lessen the impact of the waves. It wasn't any
use. The tail-flat was smashed and its box filled with water.
"This increased the downward leverage and raised her perpendicularly in
the air. At 2.30 P.M. we capsized. We climbed up the nose and 'over the
top' to the under-side of the pontoons. Our emergency ration had been in
the observer's seat at the back, but we had been so busy trying to
repair the motor and save ourselves from turning over that we didn't
remember this until too late. When I crawled aft for food Moore saw that
I was only helping the machine to capsize. He yelled to me to come back
and I did, just in time to save myself from being carried down with the
tail and drowned.
"From then on for nearly four days, until picked up by a trawler, we
were continually soaked and lashed by seas, and with nothing to eat or
drink. We had nothing to cling to, and so to keep from being washed
overboard we got upon the same pontoon and hugged our arms about each
other's bodies for the whole time.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169