As the hours went by and darkness came on, the time passed even more slowly for me. I remember I went to the window and stood there waiting for the moon to rise; it was waning, but, despite that, seemed to make the night less terrible. It was very cold, and I wondered whether it was all worth while. I had written down each hour that Harry was to be in the air, and hour by hour crossed them off.
When the papers arrived on the morrow they were full of the start of the Atlantic flight, but gave no news beyond the precise time of the start, as no wireless had been received. No message came for me until about ten o’clock that night, after I had been down to Brooklands expecting his arrival. The message, which was from the Admiralty, told me that Harry had landed in the sea forty miles off the mouth of the Shannon, and until two or three o’clock in the morning the telephone unceasingly rang, bringing congratulations from far and near. My brother, who had obtained special leave, remained up all night and made himself comfortable by the telephone. The beginning of the night found him receiving messages and returning thanks with energy, but by one o’clock his tones lacked their initial gusto, and by two o’clock they were hardly lucid. I went to bed thoroughly happy and at peace, but I was too excited to sleep.
I was the first one down in the morning to get the papers. I opened the Daily Mail first of all, and the headlines I saw nearly blinded me. I have since had to read worse news than I read that morning, but I do not think I have ever felt so frantic and yet so completely hopeless as when I saw the fatal words, “Hawker Missing—False Report of Fall in the Sea.”
I believe at that moment I gave up all hope. Then I thought of almost his last words to me before he left: “If things don’t go quite right, never give up hope”; and as there seemed to be two sides to the question whether he was alive or not, and no definite proof of either, I decided, no matter what happened, to cling firmly to the belief that he was alive.
Mrs. Sopwith, who came to see me about ten o’clock, helped me to keep my resolution during the whole of the ensuing week. My brother obtained leave to stay with me; and then it was a case of waiting. Day after day passed with no news. Each morning, after reading the papers, I went off to the Admiralty for any further news; and every day I saw the papers getting less and less hopeful. Everyone seemed to put a time limit on his, or her, hope. One said, “I will give them three days,” while one more optimistic said, “A week.” When I had waited a week I could almost feel that Harry was near, and on Saturday I was perfectly sure that I had only one more day to wait.
On the 24th I received the following telegram:
“The King, fearing the worst must now be realised regarding the fate of your husband, wishes to express his deep sympathy and that of the Queen in your sudden and tragic sorrow. His Majesty feels that the nation lost one of its most able and daring pilots to sacrifice his life for the fame and honour of British flying.
“Stamfordham.”
But neither this nor Lord Northcliffe’s generous offer to make provision for myself and Pamela changed my conviction that Harry would turn up safe and sound.