With engines partly throttled we begin to glide slowly downwards. I stand up and peer below into the murk in an effort to distinguish the distant coast-line. The night is too thick, however, and I can see nothing.
The long slow glide continues. For a little while no anxiety ruffles the calm of my brain. I look vaguely at the compass, an instrument whose red and blue face has long been unfamiliar to me. I look at the height indicator, at the watch, and then gaze unperturbed below me to the black emptiness of mist. Suddenly I realise we are only four thousand feet above the sea, and are ignorant of our position. At that moment we sink into an enveloping haze, half cloud, half mist. Below, above, to right and left, we can see nothing—no stars, no light, no dim dark line of land. We steer towards the west, and anxiously I watch the height indicator. For ten uneasy minutes we move through this vapoury blackness, and then break through it. Two thousand five hundred feet, says the height indicator.
"I say, Roy, what shall we do? I can't see anything below. I don't know where we are at all!"
"Drop a flare, Paul," he replies very calmly.
I crawl into the back, and, pushing forward a small metal lever fixed to the side of the machine, I hurry forwards to my seat and look below. Suddenly a light bursts into brilliancy beneath us, and I can see a ball of white fire hanging below a frail white parachute. By this quivering illumination is lit up a circle of cold oily water. We are still over the sea.
"Sea, Roy! What shall we do? I can see no lights. I don't know where we are!"
Two thousand feet records the height indicator.
"Drop another flare ... we will be all right, old man!" says the splendid pilot.
Again I crawl into the back and push forward a lever. Again bursts out a light beneath a little parachute. Again I see below a dim circle of cruel, cold, waiting sea. All round us lies the damp empty mist. Far, far away I can see the white beam of a searchlight, but whether it be on land or on a boat I cannot tell. All I know is that it is too far distant to allow us to reach it.
Again, at fifteen hundred feet, I drop a parachute flare. An icy fear is creeping over my body now. Below, in the light of the third flare, still lies the sea. We must glide down helplessly into the water, in the darkness, and die....