After much difficulty the boat succeeded in reaching them, and they were taken aboard and the boat was drawn to the Mary by a line. It was impossible for them to salve anything from the aeroplane, and they arrived on board the Mary, which rolled heavily, without boots or caps, and Grieve without a coat. They were exceedingly sorry to have to leave valuable instruments and mail on board the Atlantic.
As the ship’s boat came up to them it banged heavily into the aeroplane and they hopped aboard at once. The Mary slung out a rope with which they were hauled to her. Grieve, being a naval man, was spokesman when they first got on board. He went on the bridge and asked Captain Duhn if he could salve the machine. Captain Duhn regretted he could not, and remarked on their narrow escape. Grieve’s log was washed from his pocket while they were in the water, with the exception of one page of rough notes. The Mary was on a course from the Gulf of Mexico to Pentland Firth, and was crossing the main steamship route, which is only a few miles broad.
The total distance over which they had flown without a stop was approximately 1,050 miles at an average speed of about 80 miles per hour, approximately the distance which Harry covered in stages at a much lower speed in the Round-Britain Seaplane Circuit in 1913.
Altogether, before being picked up, they had been 14½ hours out from Newfoundland, it being 8.30 a.m. on Monday, Greenwich time (9.30 summer time), when they boarded the Mary. There they met Captain Duhn, whose English was good. He told them he had feared they would sink before his boat could pick them up. As they went on the bridge with him, he said, “Another hour and you would have gone down.” He thought Harry and Grieve were Americans, and seemed very nonchalant. As Harry said, “We were struck by the casual manner in which he took the whole business, as if it were an everyday affair to take airmen out of the Atlantic.” Naturally the first enquiries, Harry and Grieve made were as to their bearings and the likelihood of their meeting a ship that day or the next and being in the main route of shipping. The Mary carried no wireless and they were anxious to let friends know of their safety. When they went on board, Captain Duhn considered there were good prospects of seeing a ship with wireless at any moment. But as the day wore on the storm increased in violence and they had to heave to, only making about a knot in a northerly direction. This course took them away from the shipping route and lessened their chances of being able to communicate.
Neither Harry nor Grieve were the slightest bit excited either at the start or when rescued. As Harry put it: “When we started we felt it was a ‘cert’—100 to 1 on.” And Grieve, “We had been waiting so long, we felt callous about the whole thing.” They were pretty well “done up” when they got on board, and feeling seasick, in preference to taking food they had a good sleep. Grieve woke up first and went on the bridge.
Grieve’s seat was not absolutely side-by-side with Harry’s, but was just a little behind, Harry’s left shoulder being in front of his navigator. Grieve was thereby able to move about to the extent of kneeling down to look at the drift indicator, to stand up to take observations, or to move forward a little for working the wireless. This probably accounted to some extent for Harry being in need of sleep, since he had not had such freedom to move about.
Captain Duhn thought they were Americans—in fact Harry jokingly remarked that he rather thought Captain Duhn was a little disappointed that they were not. Harry told the Captain he would like the opportunity of making another attempt, and he pointed out the advantage the Americans had over him in the shorter oversea distances and the assistance of the American warships, although he personally would not have appreciated such assistance, which detracted from the value of the performance. When they had rested and made themselves “at home,” Harry and Grieve passed away much of their time on board reading English books which Captain Duhn had.
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