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.
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.
