Suddenly a fishing vessel came into view, then a fleet of them. The fliers happily noticed that the course of the boats paralleled the course of the Friendship. The gasoline tanks were emptying fast. Amelia guessed that there must be land near, but where? She scanned the horizon, hoping.
Then a nebulous blue shadow appeared through the fog. Was it another mirage of fog, a deceptive cloud formation? Slim Gordon studied the shape, then threw his sandwich out the window and screamed.
“Land!”
Bill Stultz smiled. He had brought the Friendship across the Atlantic. To Ireland or England, he did not know which, but he had found land.
Soon several islands appeared, then a coast line. Bill worked the plane in close and cruised along the coast, looking for a good place to bring the Fokker down. There was not much fuel left. He decided to land. Circling a factory town, he chose a stretch of water beyond it. He landed beautifully, and taxied to a buoy a short distance away.
They had been in the air for twenty fretful hours and forty exciting minutes. Now they safely rode the waves at Burry Port, Wales, looking for a stir of recognition from the earth they had so defiantly left.
8. A Sack of Potatoes
Three thousand miles from home and only a half mile from the Welsh shore, the Friendship lay anchored to a heavy buoy, secure in the swift-moving tide. Amelia stood in the square open doorway of the fuselage, gripped the side, and looked out. She saw three men working on the railroad along the shore; she waved her hand in greeting. The men looked up, walked down the shore, cast an unbelieving glance at the big seaplane, then turned their backs and went back to work. Carmarthenshire of South Wales was unimpressed.
Time passed. The Friendship strained at the rope Lou Gordon had used to fasten the plane to the buoy. It started to rain. Sheets of water hit and spread over the Fokker. Pilot, copilot, and passenger stared out from the doorway, frantically waved their arms, cupped their hands, and hollered in vain. Slim crawled out again onto one of the pontoons, and screamed at the top of his lungs. Gray smoke swirled from the factory stacks of the town, his only answer.
Amelia took out a white towel from the crew’s common duffel bag and waved it at the shore. A man near the railroad took off his coat, playfully waved back, put it on again, and returned to his work.