"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. We suffered from thirst. I had a craving for canned peaches. Twice a drizzle came on, wetting the pontoon. We turned on our stomachs and lapped up the moisture, but the paint came off, with salt, and nauseated us. Our limbs grew numb. From time to time the wreckage from torpedoed ships would pass. Two full biscuit-tins came close enough to swim for, but by then in our weakened state we knew that we would drown if we tried to get them. We did haul in a third tin and broke it open; it was filled with tobacco.
"Every day we saw convoys in the distance and vainly waved our handkerchiefs. We had no signal-lights to use at night. Our watches stopped, and we lost all track of time. We realized how easy it was for a submarine out there to escape being spotted. On Sunday night we spied a masthead light and shouted. The ship heard and began to circle us. We saw her port light. Then when the crew were visible on the deck of the vessel, she suddenly put out her lights and turned away.
"'She thinks we are Huns,' said Moore.
"'I hope she does,' said I. 'Then they'll send patrol-boats out to get us. 'We couldn't be worse off if we were Germans.'
"But no rescue came. The next afternoon a seaplane came from the east. It was flying only 800 feet overhead, aiming down the Channel. It seemed impossible that she could not sight us for the air was perfectly clear. She passed straight above without making any signal, flew two miles beyond, and then came back on her course.
"'Her observer must be sending wireless about us,' I said.
"'Yes, that is why we get no recognition,' said Moore, 'and now she's decided to go back and report.'
"But that plane hadn't even seen us. Our spirits fell. We had been afraid of two things, being picked up by a neutral and interned, or captured by an enemy submarine. Now we even hoped that the enemy—that anything—-would get us, to end it all.
"We sighted a trawler about 6 P.M. on Tuesday. She had been chasing a submarine, and so did not seem to take us very seriously at first. We waved at her half an hour before she changed her course. We were both too weak to stand up and signal. We could only rise on our knees. Moore's hands were too swollen to hold a handkerchief, but I had kept my gloves on and was able to do so. The trawler moved warily around us, but finally threw a life-preserver at the end of a line, I yelled that we were too weak to grasp it. She finally hove to, lowered a boat, and lifted us aboard. Then we collapsed.